What DRG still needs.

[Ophannus]

The last round of updates have greatly, GREATLY enhanced Wyvern survivability and utility. Let's review:

-Spirit Link is now a 90 second recast and grants a potent Regen effect that lasts until Spirit Link is ready for reuse.
-Steady Wing grants a massive Stoneskin which is more potent the more HP is missing from the Wyvern.
-Empathy levels up the Wyvern, enhancing its Attack/Defense/Resistence and Breath Potency(Which adds a few hundred HP to Healing Breath IV!)
-Wyverns have an innate Damage Taken-40% trait now.

With this in mind, Wyverns are now truly durable and rarely die.

Now on to current problems and unaddressed issues.

1) Although the Wyvern is now extremely durable, the Dragoon is not. I frequently find in some events like Voidwatch or Legion that I am sometimes killed by a very strong AoE or hit by a very powerful attack that my Wyvern survives(it's HP isn't reduced to 0) but mine is thus resetting my Call Wyvern timer. I'm not saying make us invincible, the HP/Evade/Parry boost was a start, but DRG could really benefit from some kind of defensive stance or JA. Something along the lines of a Wyvern "Cover" or a 'Steady Wing' 'transfer' or a Fan-Dance like effect.

2) Our weaponskills and attack power are comparatively weak compared to SAM,DRK,WAR,RNG,MNK,PUP. A well geared DRG suffers on most endgame enemies not because Stardiver is a weak WS but because DRG has no native Attack Boosting job abilities or spells at it's disposal. The other 3 jobs that utilize a 2handed weapon (SAM/WAR/DRK) all either a)Are a SAM and thus can sub WAR. b) have an attack boosting ability such that they don't need /WAR and can sub /SAM. All 2handed jobs need /SAM sub due to Hasso/Third Eye and StoreTP/Sekkanoki/Meditate. SAM has these naturally so they can sub WAR. WAR and DRK have Berserk or Last Resort so they benefit highly from /SAM. DRG on the other hand must choose between all of /SAM's abilities or /WAR's Berserk.
I understand you do not want to overpower DRG since it has a Wyvern and DRK/SAM/WAR do not but consider the following. Against very strong NMs, the Wyvern is basically worthless. All it does is allow DRG to get heightened TP every few minutes from Jumps(which can still miss and only do 200-300 damage). Wyverns contribute almost no damage to any fight(Dealing 10-30 damage per hit and doing maybe 60-100 damage Breaths). Breath damage is extremely weak mostly due to the Wyvern rarely having Full HP(Breaths are HP based) and their accuracy. (Strafe is a joke and a waste of merits, nobody would spend merit points to have a small increased chance of their breaths doing full damage(like 200ish) against hard NMs.
So against hard NMs, Wyverns are pointless except for Spirit/Soul Jump. With that said, DRGs rely on their weapon skills against these foes and since we have such low attack compared to jobs like WAR and DRK our weapon skill damage suffers greatly. SAM needs less Attack than other 2handed jobs as well since their weapon skills naturally ignore defense or have attack modifiers(which aren't based on TP but are intrinsic special properties to some of Great Katana weapon skills). DRG is simply incapable of 'big damage' against these targets. On weak enemies like in Nyzul Isle where targets range from Decent Challenge and higher, DRG fares well because the enemies have low defense. But it's on these tough targets in Legion/VoidWatch that we lose out and can't contribute much.

Suggestions:

1) Eliminate the policy of having -Attack% penalties on Polearm Weapon Skills. Penta Thrust and Drakesbane need their Attack Penalties removed entirely. Since DRG has such low attack power, -20% attack on Drakesbane is abysmally detrimental. Victory Smite has no Attack Penalty and neither does Stringing Pummel nor Raging Rush. The critical hit chance on Drakesbane is also very, very low compared to the former mentioned weapon skills(only 5% vs 15-30% on those other WS).

2) Spirit Link absorbs half of the TP from the Wyvern but whenever we WS the Wyvern's TP is reset to 0 and it makes this attribute of Spirit Link difficult to use in almost all situations unless we disengage after each WS.

2) When you guys have finally finished adding a way to expand the number of job abilities for each job past the cap of 12, add in some of these job abilities.

a) (Pet Command) - "Refrain"
Description: "Restricts breaths but increases attack speed and accuracy"
Note: This would disallow Wyverns to use any breaths when the Dragoon uses a spell/weapon skill or breath command. It would increase the Wyvern's attack speed and accuracy thus optimizing it's TP gain. For hard NM fights this would be more useful than having the wyvern use breaths as it would mean more TP gain for the DRG.

b) (Job Ability) "Fervor"
Description: "Increases Attack power while reducing Evasion." Attack power gradually decreases with each hit dealt."
Notes: This would be similar to Fan Dance in functionality. Upon using this ability, Attack would be boosted 50% for the first hit(or weapon skill) then fall by 5% each hit(or weapon skill) down to a floor of +15% attack where it will remain for the duration of the ability. Duration 3 minutes. The defense penalty of this ability would be set similar to Counterstance for balance.

c) (Job Ability) "Valiance"
Description: "Attacks are directed at your wyvern."
Note: Would function identically to "Cover" but would be for the Wyvern and only functions for the Dragoon. This would be good for situations where the Dragoon needs to 'tank' for a short duration during a crisis and can't mitigate damage(Super Jump would lower the DRG's enmity and thus would be unable to tank as the target's hate would shift towards other members). With Spirit Link/Steady Wing and various pieces of Damage Taken-% gear, the Wyvern could tank for 10-15 seconds while a tank is raised or if he is fighting a different target than the tank. Duration should be rather short or the recast should be rather long to compensate. I simply figured since SAM,MNK,WAR,DNC,DRK have received abilities to help the mitigate damage taken, DRG ought to as well. Healing Breath is nice for recovery but not for reducing damage, as a powerful spell or TP move can still kill a Dragoon from very high HP.

d) (2hour ability) Velocious Thrusts
Description: "Attacks ignore target's defense".
Note: For 30 seconds the Dragoon's attack value will not matter and will ignore 100% of the target's defense. This would allow dragoon to do massive damage(although most likely just comparable to a MNK using Hundred Fists or a Warrior with Ukonvasura using Mighty Strikes. This would fit with Dragoon's 'theme' of piercing defense (angon/Jump during spirit surge)/Gungnir/wheeling thrust/camlann's torment). This would also allow us to do considerable damage in an emergency like DRK with Souleater+Blood weapon or Mighty Strikes/Meikyo Sisui or Last Resort. Spirit Surge's haste is decent but the duration is too short, Last Resort has the SAME haste value as Spirit Surge but it lasts far longer and has a tremendously shorter recast compared to Spirit Surge.
Alternatively, another version of this Job Ability could be something like "Angon" where the Dragoon throws his main weapon instead of an Angon(only works with a polearm though). The effect of the job ability is a 30-60 second super version of Angon where defense is lowered by 50-75% which would help EVERYONE's damage rather than just the DRG.

[Satisiun]

a) (Pet Command) - "Refrain"
Description: "Restricts breaths but increases attack speed and accuracy"
Note: This would disallow Wyverns to use any breaths when the Dragoon uses a spell/weapon skill or breath command. It would increase the Wyvern's attack speed and accuracy thus optimizing it's TP gain. For hard NM fights this would be more useful than having the wyvern use breaths as it would mean more TP gain for the DRG.

Hmm.

From the perspective of a developer or game programmar (which I am not), I think I would find this overpowering. As it stands right now, not many Dragoons even like their wyvern's breath attacks since, barring Deep Breathing being used in tandem with it, they are oftentimes weak, and a waste of the wyvern's stored TP that most Dragoons would prefer to use for themselves via Spirit Link.

What I am basically saying is that while I see what you are trying to do, a "trade-off" sort of deal, I think this ability in itself is a little on the overpowered side of things. It's not really a trade-off when breath attacks are always disliked, and the amount of extra damage you'll be able to do from self-chaining thanks to Spirit Link TP would blow breath attack damage out of the water.

That and I also think it is nice that such Store Wyvern TP abilities are reserved for the DRG/Mages out there. It gives us a way to keep up, sometimes even outdo, the damage a DRG/DD sub can do, so long as we're not self-healing or got caught using a breath to cure a status ailment. :P


Edit:

I do, however, want to throw out a new idea that might actually work to a certain degree that would allow non-DRG/Mages to get in on the fun of a wyvern that stores TP and all to be Spirit Linked.

So we all know Strafe sucks, right? Horrible, horrid, wretched merit trait. It has almost no reasons at all to be merited, especially since the breath accuracy doesn't affect healing breath.

Well, the whole focus of Strafe is efficiency and accuracy of elemental breath. But how about instead of boosting the magical accuracy of breath attacks, it instead conserved a percentage of a wyvern's currently stored TP?

For example, each Strafe merit, starting from the first one, would give the wyvern 10-20% of its TP back that was expended from a breath attack. So just for a simple example, if it had 200% TP at the time, it would get back 20-40% TP, depending on what people felt was balanced.

Each merit after the first raises the return TP, or TP conserved, until at a full 5 merits in to Strafe your wyvern is conserving anywhere from 50-100% of the TP it had prior to the breath attack.

Were it me, I'd split the difference to balance this idea and go with 15% per merit. Anyway, just a thought. Strafe needs a reason to be useful, and Dragoons want a way to use Spirit Link to get TP without having to sub mage jobs all the time.

[SpankWustler]

From the perspective of a developer or game programmer (which I am not), I think I would find this overpowering. As it stands right now, not many Dragoons even like their wyvern's breath attacks since, barring Deep Breathing being used in tandem with it, they are oftentimes weak, and a waste of the wyvern's stored TP that most Dragoons would prefer to use for themselves via Spirit Link.

From the perspective of a FFXI Development Bro, trousers have been cast aside. The tie, once a symbol of being at work and wearing pants, is now worn as a fundoshi that symbolizes being really weird. The cubicle has been escaped and now it is time to stand, free at last, atop a large pile of promotional materials for the coming Vanafest.

There are footsteps in the distance. Someone from another department who went out to buy red bean buns and drinks for a group lunch.

Now is the time to strike. A groin is struck with a foot and a dozen sugary drinks fly through the air. Victory attained, there are red beans and high-fructose corn syrup and red dye #46 and yellow dye #18 and natural flavors and artificial flavors dribbling down the chin. Life is a constant miracle, filled with horror.

Er, anyway...Most buff abilities worth using follow the outline of "trade something useless or barely-useful for something super useful". Berserk, Last Resort, Counterstance, Hasso, etc. Maybe not that ability exactly, but having an offensive ability that involved trading off something generally unwanted for more thing-stabbing-prowess would go a long way for Dragoon.

[Ophannus]

The way I see it the TP spirit link thing has so much potential but it's really, REALLY difficult to use. The only time I've ever had it is when I refrain from healing or using a WS for like 1-2 fights so the Wyvern gets 200% TP+(this lowers my overall DPS because I'm not expending TP by the way) then on the next mob I have to hit a macro which contains

/attack <t>
/wait 3
/ws [Insert WS here}

this allows me to engage a mob and WS IMMEDIATELY(read:before i autoattack once) which allows me to WS without the wyvern using a breath. This doesn't always work by the way due to lag or the enemy moving. Engaging without the wyvern hitting allows the wyvern to retain its TP, thus allowing me to Spirit Link TP back to myself and WS again. It takes a fight or two to set this up and in the end might not even be worth it since I'm refraining from using a WS or two while my wyvern builds adequate TP. In other words, the usefulness of this WS is obfuscated by the mechanics of the Wyvern which make it a difficult property to benefit from. They might as well have never implemented it due to it rarely being beneficial. I know they want Spirit Link to mainly be used to heal or level up the wyvern or give it buffs with Empathy instead of a DD option with the TP transfer, but at least give us the option to make it used for the TP transfer with a pet command that restricts breaths.

[DaBackpack]

Thank you for bringing up the Attack penalty issue. An adjustment to this would make DRGs much more attractive. Having a native Attack boosting ability would help as well.

The recent updates have been great; even the Spirit Link merit update is a nice touch (for the reasons described, but also because the "leveling up" of the wyvern is calculated before the wyvern's HP is considered, meaning that a lot of the time you have a 'free Healing Salve' every couple minutes).

[Silkavenger]

Hmmm. Just playing devil's advocate and looking for clarification/expansion on a few points.

1) Re: drg survivability. I have noticed as you stated my wyvern often times out-survives me in VW. I ahve not noticed, however, that I am being out-survived by other heavy DD jobs in the same environment. How much -PDT/-MDT% are you wearing during these events?

2) Re: Attack peanalty on WS. As this is a common trait on all mythic WS, i don't think this should be revised for drg or any other job for the sake of preserving the power of the mythic weapons themselves. I do like the idea of a native atk trait/JA that boosts our atk through ignoring defense or something of that nature. Should focus on that.

3) Re: (Job Ability) Valiance. How in practice is this any different than Super Jump? In a solo situation, they seem exactly the same. If we are talking about the wyvern eating AoE for us during VW, I refer back to my first point: How much already available -PDT/-MDT% are you wearing before a fundamental change to the game is implemented?

[SpankWustler]

As this is a common trait on all mythic WS, i don't think this should be revised for drg or any other job for the sake of preserving the power of the mythic weapons themselves.

Do you mean a literal Attack penalty, a penalty to the statistic "Attack" that resides next to a useless weirdo known as Mr. Defense in the magical land of status screen? Do you mean something much more vague such as "does mediocre damage" when referring to this property that Mythic weaponskills have?

Assuming you're being literal and referring to Mr. Defense's much more pleasant neighbor and, then no, that's not the case. Ascetic's Fury and possibly the first hit of Stringing Pummel actually receive an attack bonus.

Anyway, an Attack penalty definitely is not a universal trait of Mythic weaponskills.

[Silkavenger]

Derp! Not sure why I thought that for so long. Thanks.

I've got some other thoughts about damage output on high tier mobs but it'll have to wait til I can get a break here.

[Silkavenger]

Right. Not really ideas about atk, but questions i suppose.

I'm pretty sure the OP used the 99OAT Chauve? This is a really powerfull weapon, and one of the strongest of the OAT series. But it's still got a base damage of 110. Assuming most other DDs participating in VW have at least 90 empyrean weapons (if not 95-99) or 95 relics (if not 99).

When comparing the 99OAT spear with even the 90ukon that's a difference of 21 base damage. That just seems like a big deal to me. 22 between 99OAT and 90Rhongomiant. 29 between 99OAT and 95ryunohige. This to me seems like a huge huge difference. Shouldn't it be the case that a weapon with lower damage puts out lower numbers?

Ukon90 benefits not only from having a crit hit WS, but also maintaining ODD and just generally being a beast of a weapon. Would wars be better off with a mythic Gaxe? I'm inclined to think not, or at least not universally. At the very least the margin is small enough that it's not worth going to the trouble of making a mythic, because the empyrean is so strong.

MNK are in the same boat as drg, relying on /sub for heavy damage boosting abilities. However, like war, they have a weapon that combines: ODD+high base damage+powerful WS.

DRGs don't have this option in our empyrean, but we do have it in our mythic. It may not be fair that our best best weapon is more difficult to obtain, but it is there. I saw a SS of a ryunohige putting up multiple 5000+ drakes on Pil. It seems to me that is the comparison that needs to be made when lining drg up against ragna drks and ukon wars or w/e in an endgame setting. I say this because I think SE (mistakenly) believes all relic/mythic/empyrean are intended to be equal in theory, even if they are not in practice.

tl;dr: seems like comparing OAT drg to empy/relic non-drg is like comparing OAT non-drg to mythic drg. Maybe not a good basis for comparison?