Dragoon Updates!

[Ophannus]

Beating Camate to the punch because he's chilling on vacation, so I'm takin' his jerb:

Changes to Wyvern:
Addition of Healing Breath IV (Lv80~)
Remove Breath will heal new status effects based on level-
Curse (Lv60~)
Virus/Plague (Lv80~)
Petra (Lv99~)

Ability Changes:
Jump
-recast lowered from 90s to 60s.
High Jump
-recast lowered from 180s to 120s
-increased usage distance
-reduces enmity of closest member behind Dragoon
Super Jump
-increased usage distance
-reduces enmity of closest member behind Dragoon
Spirit Jump
-recast lowered from 90s to 60s.
Soul Jump
-recast lowered from 180s to 120s

In accordance with this, the merits Dragoon may place for reducing the recast times for Jump and High Jump have been lowered in effectiveness:
Jump 3 => 2
High Jump 6 => 4

Spirit Surge
-Duration increased from 60s to 90s.

Overall pretty decent, I'm excited for Healing Breath IV's broken-ness considering HBIII does like 800ish now and costs 0-5mp with ZERO enmity. Yet they won't let poor RDM's have Cure V. DRG healer anyone? Kind of neat that our 2hr lasts longer although it would be nice if Spirit Jump and Soul Jump could have the crticial hit property during Spirit Surge, otherwise we actually gain LESS TP during Spirit Surge since Spirit and Soul Jump do not receive the bonus TP and the Defense Down from Jump does not stack with Angon as well as the Haste boost doesn't help much if we have March/Hastes on.

Requests for Spirit Surge:
-Duration was fine as is at 60 seconds.
-Soul and Spirit Jump do not crit nor give bonus TP under Spirit Surge; TP gain under Spirit Surge is lower than without the 2hr on, thus the DRG's damage overall decreases if they use Spirit Surge.
-The attack speed boost counts as "Magic-based-haste" instead of "Job Ability Haste" like Haste Samba and Desperate Blows. This makes Spirit Surge less powerful when we have Haste or March on.
-The Defense Down attribute on 'Jump' does not stack nor override 'Angon', further making Spirit Surge less appealing to use.

Even with these changes, the only use most Dragoons have for using Spirit Surge is to Spirit Jump>Soul Jump>Weapon Skill>Spirit Surge>CANCEL SPIRIT SURGE>Call Wyvern>Spirit Jump>Soul Jump>WS.

As you can see, developers, Dragoons currently rather NOT have the effect of Spirit Surge on because:
1) Our most powerful TP gaining tools do not work under its effect i.e Spirit Jump and Soul Jump. Compared to other 2hrs, Spirit Surge actually reduces a Dragoon's abilities in the respect of weakening Spirit and Soul Jump's TP and Damage.
2) The haste bonus is rendered useless with Haste and March on.
3) No DRG uses "Jump" during Spirit Surge because the defense down is equal to that of "Angon" and "Angon" effect is consistent in its duration. Additionally, Dragoons can strengthen Angon to reduce a target's defense by 25% with the new augmented relic Wyrm Finger Gauntlets +2, exceeding the potency of "Jump" under Spirit Surge.

Most Dragoons simply use the 2hr to reset Jump timers so they can cancel the effect, call their wyvern back and use Spirit and Soul Jump again. Spirit Surge is a very broad and complex 2hr to use compared to "Mighty Strikes, Chainspell, Hundred Fists, Invincible" etc... The effects are very wide in that it transfers Wyvern TP to us(hard to use since the wyvern loses its TP every time we use a WS which is often), heals us by the Wyvern's HP(decent when Restoring Breath is down), increases STR by a hefty amount(again decent, but the way the damage formula works, the +20 strength boost is very, VERY subtle, maybe if it also boosted Attack% as well. C

Please examine this well.

[noodles355]

It's awesome and all, but all I can focus on is Petrify Breath, and not being able to use it if I'm petrified lol.

[Ophannus]

White Mages can't cast Stona on themselves if they're petrified either. Don't forget "Remove Breaths" work on others in your party! Though I'd trade "Remove Virus" for "Remove Silence". I don't get Plagued much when I'm sub Mage.

[Meldity]

It's pretty upsetting when I join a pick up VW shout and during the fight we all had to 2hr because it was in a dire moment. Someone says "MEL 2HR THIS SHIT" and then I ask myself "Why?". Sadly even with the increased duration to spirit surge the 2hr doesn't even do anything for us.. in fact it makes us less useful for about 90 seconds..

and THEEENNN I have to explain why I didn't do it while everyone is pointing fingers at me.

I didn't think about being able to cancel spirit surge, funny as it sounds, that's actually a pretty good idea.

Dev's I hope you're reading this post -.-

[Aarahs]

Sadly I haven't seriously touched dragoon since Abyssea came out. Is our two-hour really that bad even with say sukkanoki (sp?) and meditate from subbing samurai? Even with angon I would think jump and high jump would still be useful in that situation for tp at least. I think I was able to easily push out 2-3 weapon skills at 75 under spirit surge.

That said, I think full effect of of the two newer jumps under spirit surge would make sense, just trying to look at it from the other side.

[Ophannus]

Jump and High Jump are indeed useful under Spirit Surge effect HOWEVER it is the case that Spirit Jump and Soul Jump with the Wyvern alive are MORE useful than simply a "Defense Down effect" that we can apply with Angon. We're talking 40 TP(Combined Jump and High Jump) vs 105 TP(Combined Spirit Jump and Soul Jump...multiply these values by 2 if you account for DA or Occasionally Attacks Twice Magian Lance)

To make Spirit Surge useful I submit the following suggestions which make all the Jumps useful under 2hr.
Jump: Under Spirit Surge, applies a 30% Defense Down effect(increased from 20% from previous).
Reasoning: Angon's Defense Down can surpass Jump's Defense Down by 5%, this effect is 100% and will not miss unlike Jump and its duration is static according to merits and is not variable.

High Jump: Reducing the TP of the target is fine the way it is, it's actually quite potent as I recall testing the effect in Ballista. A 150 or 180 damage High Jump was sufficient enough to reduce a target's TP from 300% to 0% oddly enough. Although this ability is powerful, its application is very difficult to use in a real fight mainly because most high level HNMs and Voidwatch NMs have a vast TP regain below 50% or 25% HP and it's difficult to gauge when this ability should be used as we cannot see the target's TP.

Spirit Jump&Soul Jump: Allow it to receive the benefit of the Wyvern since technically the Wyvern has been "absorbed" and the description of Spirit Surge in the help menu says "Adds the wyvern's strength to your own". That being said, Spirit Jump and Soul Jump should not be rendered obsolete during our 2hr by weaker Jumps with weaker effects.

[Meldity]

The proper way to actually utilize the 2hour requires your wyvern to have 300% tp. And pay attention cause this order i'm about to explain is so fucked up and sensitive.

>Angon
>After wyvern gets 300% tp you stay disengaged
>get in front of the mob,
>engage, then WS before your character is able to swing at it(this prevents the wyvern from going into attack mode + auto breath mode when you WS).
>spirit link for 150% tp
>WS again before your character is able to swing at it (yes this is possible to do)
>do jumps for the hell of it
>sekka
>spirit surge
>ws for the rest of the duration.

Normally if i can't do that all, using 2 hour is pretty much worthless on it's own since I need my wyvern just to proc VWNM's anyway.

in a normal zerg your going to have capped haste, however in VW you'll have corsairs using tacticians and misers roll anyway, that is if your in a group that knows what they're doing. but another problem is that you should be using coercion and discipline atmacites which pretty much guarantee's you enough TP just a second after you WS.

My point is the 2hr isn't useful in either an actual zerg or a vw fight because not only is angon more potent than the jumps 2hr def down, but you'll only notice maybe a 1% in damage increase from using 2hour and no gain whatsoever from the haste bonus. Even if you did 2hr in vw chances are you'll be yelled at because the next HQ proc is apparently wyvern earth breath which you somehow "killed" to make yourself "stronger". Sounds absolutely stupid I know.

[Ophannus]

I've done that before on weaker mobs or solo/lowman things but in VW where you have a full alliance it makes disengaging and reingaging and using a WS before the wyvern hits to prevent breaths very difficult with lag and AoE etc. I was hoping for a pet command called like Refrain or something that increases wyvern attack speed/accuracy but disables automatic breaths on WS or magic but still allows restoring or smiting breath. This would allow the DRG to keep the Wyvern's TP stored to make better use of Spirit Link for that sweet 150% TP transfer every few minutes. They added the ability for Spirit Link to transfer TP but it's too difficult to use.

[Coldbrand]

It's a good thing we'll have an alternate 2 hour to choose soon enough then.

[noodles355]

Tbh in a normal zerg, Drg has enough damn JA delay already without using Spirit Surge. Not like War who buffs to high-hell before engaging then just melees, WSs and uses Mediate and Warrior's Charge once each. Start adding more JA delay through spirit surge and call wyvern and you might even slow down your melee attack rounds so much that you actually lose damage. I'm assuming capped magic/gear haste zergs of course.