Dragoon stances

[OMEGA_HACK]

Just some ideas that popped into my head today while I was fooling around, most jobs have some kind of stance that alters their play style, so why not give something similar to DRG?

Ability Name: Spirit Scout (Stance 1):
Flavor Text: Sends your Wyvern high into the sky to keep a watch out for the Dragoon.
Effects: While under this stance the Wyvern disappears from combat, not being able to be attacked from any damage nor can it attack any target. Dragoon gains the ability of Wide Scan III, gains an increase to defensive stats: Vitality+10, Agility+5, Defense+45, Magical Defense+15, Enemy Critical Hit Rate-15%, Parry+15 and Evasion+15. CANNOT use Breath Commands while under this stance.
Duration: 2 hours
Recast: 3 minutes

Ability Name:Spirit Bond (Stance 2)
Flavor Text: The Wyvern and Dragoon share their strengths and weaknesses.
Effects: Grants the Dragoon an increase to offensive stats: Strength+10, Dexterity+5, Attack+25, Accuracy+25, Critical Hit Damage+10% while decreasing their defensive stats: Vitality-10, Agility-10, Defense-25, Magical Defense-15, Enemy Critical Hit Damage+10%. Grants the Wyvern an increase to offensive stats: Attack+30, Accuracy+30, Critical Hit Rate+10%, Haste+15%.
Duration: 2 hours
Recast: 3 minutes

Ability Name: Spirit Breath (Stance 3)
Flavor Text: The Dragoon focuses his strengths within the Wyvern to increase survivability.
Effects: Grants the Wyvern with various beneficial stat increases: Wyvern HP+500, Healing Breath Potency+5%, Wyvern Defense+30, Wyvern Magical Defense+30, Elemental Breath Potency+10%, Wyvern Damage Taken-30, Breath Recast-10. Grants the Dragoon with various stat alterations: HP-250, Defense-15, Magical Defense-15, Attack Speed-5%, Vitality-15.
Duration: 2 hours
Recast: 3 minutes

Of course only one of them can be active at a time newer applications overriding previous stances. While under all these stances the Two Hour ability "Spirit Surge" will still be available since the Wyvern is still technically "called out". Also just to restate, while under the first stance the Wyvern will NOT be able to use Breaths of any kind.

[OMEGA_HACK]

So any fellow dragoons have any thoughts on this? Getting a number of views with no responses D:>

[Dfoley]

Your stances seem fine with the exception of the durations. More typical would be 3 min duration with 1 min recast, or 5 min duration with 5 min recast.

As far as balance goes, if drg got these, every other DD would want something similar, and drg arent exactly hard up for DD, for survivability, maybe.

[Kensagaku]

All I can say is that, while this is creative... no. Just no. DRG doesn't need "stances".

As a DD it is certainly very capable, both inside and outside of Abyssea, of doing prime damage. It may not be that WAR's Ukko's Fury, but it certainly rates up there in Abyssea (RR/VV/Apoc says hi 4k Drakesbanes with an average set) and out (any DRG worth his lance should be high up in the parses).

In terms of survivability, particularly while solo, in terms of all of the "DD" jobs I would put it second to only Ninja (with their insane evasion, DoT, and crit rate) and Beastmaster (who can charm, use pet jugs, etc) due to the use of Healing Breath both with triggers while /mage as well as having Restoring Breath, something we were already surviving without previously.

In short, I feel this is unnecessary. It's not that it wasn't well thought out or it wasn't creative and unique for the DRG role, but it's just unnecessary.

[Coldbrand]

I find stances to be boring, I've got my fill with Samurai already. Give me something more active and interesting than seeing a graphic then math changing.

[Mirage]

I think these stances are mostly bad ideas. They all have big boosts at the expense of very few drawbacks. The Dragoon job is already a very strong job, and certainly not the one in need of such stances.

The only thing I think would be neat and not too much would be a command that made wyverns stop meleeing and pull back to a safe distance (in teh skiez?) where they *might* still be able to use healing/remove/elemental breaths at reduced potency. This reduced potency could perhaps just be an effect of them no longer building TP from attacking, which IIRC affects breath potency.

Even that might not really be necessary. Sure, there are some enemies, (particularly NMs) that can crush wyverns in a matter of seconds, disabling your healing breath. However, DRG isn't a job that is supposed to be able to get guaranteed unlimited healing from an invincible wyvern against every mob in the game. DRG can solo many things other DDs can't, and they should be content with that.

[OMEGA_HACK]

Having leveled many jobs prior to the lolbysea introduction, I would just like to say that while DRG can solo, saying that other jobs cannot solo just as well as DRG is a laughable statement.

I would list all these jobs able to solo at the same difficulty or easier to DRG:
PLD
COR
NIN
THF
DNC
RDM
BLM
SCH
BST
SMN
BLU
PUP
WHM
SAM

All those jobs are able to solo at the same potency as a DRG (of course like all jobs including the DRG they need to be properly geared). To say that a DRG with their Mythic Weaponskill is already broken is a little silly especially since that is considered a "special" weaponskill not just one that is obtained with a certain amount of skill in a weapon type.

To Coldbrand:
The idea of this was to pull DRG away from the obvious /SAM choice, and open use up to /THF /WAR or something else, even full timing a /mage.