Dragoons feeling left out?

It's true that there is a disparity between Monk and Dragoon, but it's not enough to sway me from playing the job. I play it because I want too rather than how much dps it puts out. I have not received one single complaint to change to another class and our team is working on T13. Just play what you want and be good at it.

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Originally Posted by Katsaria

It's true that there is a disparity between Monk and Dragoon, but it's not enough to sway me from playing the job. I play it because I want too rather than how much dps it puts out. I have not received one single complaint to change to another class and our team is working on T13. Just play what you want and be good at it.

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Are you playing your dragoon in final coil? I would imagine you would be on a different toon, since the one in your profile has a level 34 drg. If so, can I ask what you, on your dragoon, make of tethers in T10, or Wild Charge, and whether you believe that dragoon is no more gimped by/vulnerable to those attacks than other roles?

If not, how are you placed to imply that dragoon is viable for final coil?

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Originally Posted by beowulf81

If not, how are you placed to imply that dragoon is viable for final coil?

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Let me answer this for you:

Dragoon is viable as I have cleared both 10 and 11, and most likely 12(maybe even 13 :P) with my Dragoon. T10 becomes trivial as soon as you get the tether + heat, tether+ charge or charge + heat, down. T11 is somewhat easy as well and only gets hectic during the last phase. It's also gonna need a little getting used to do your positionals when you are tethered but other than that, it's manageable.

beowulf81

I agree with your entire post. I never really looked into the forums much, or into the lack of mdef, until recently. It explains quite a bit to me. It became rather frustrating to simply be knocked out with one magical attack. It became a dodge ball game of let nothing hit you, while other players on different classes were able to at least take the hit.

Sadly, as someone who thoroughly did enjoy playing Dragoon whenever able to, I am leaving the job behind and focusing on Monk & Ninja.
No point in wasting my time, or others...

Yeah, I agree with the above. I'll leave DRG in favor of my MNK or soon to be NIN as melee of choice. DRGs simply doesn't have that much utility in game

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Originally Posted by Amador

beowulf81

I agree with your entire post. I never really looked into the forums much, or into the lack of mdef, until recently. It explains quite a bit to me. It became rather frustrating to simply be knocked out with one magical attack. It became a dodge ball game of let nothing hit you, while other players on different classes were able to at least take the hit.

Sadly, as someone who thoroughly did enjoy playing Dragoon whenever able to, I am leaving the job behind and focusing on Monk & Ninja.
No point in wasting my time, or others...

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I am sorry you feel so swayed by such matters. I maintain the fact that I fundamentally disagree that the class is broken in any way that prevents its effectiveness or participation in endgame events.


Am I opposed to a buff?
No, as such will maintain participation within the class for those who are swayed.

Is having low MDef frustrating?
Absolutely, however it has taught me to be the member of my static LEAST hit by avoidable AoEs.

My experience may differ from the norm. Probably because of the padded ego. I get called 'a beast' on my dragoon among my peers - granted, we play as a casual group and I have a hardcore approach to my execution. However, never have I been put down for my performance on Dragoon, or asked to play anything else. And honestly, I would not oblige it unless I needed to be something aside from a Melee DPS role. (Unless subbing for another Dragoon.)

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Originally Posted by myahele

Yeah, I agree with the above. I'll leave DRG in favor of my MNK or soon to be NIN as melee of choice. DRGs simply doesn't have that much utility in game

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I find this statement to be confusing. By what means are you defining Utility?

We've the only class with 2 Separate Stuns, an on-demand Single target Slow, two 'to target' gap closers (One of which our Stun, another a 2 minute AoE Burst skill with no added cost.) A fully maintainable buff to BRD's DPS. A tool that can serve as a closer, an evasion tool, a hate-dump tool AND force-clears Bind and Weight - all at once.

So it's not a matter of Dragoon not having utility. It's the matter that the utility we have is just being outshined by that of others. I'd love to see feint be changed form slow to flat damage reduction or see another class/job added with Piercing type.

DRAGON slayers that can't take a FIRE BALL...

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Originally Posted by Gardes

DRAGON slayers that can't take a FIRE BALL...

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Cause, you know, the best way to fight a dragon is to take its breath to the face.... *snicker*

Final Fantasy at this point is a game dissected by players. The main points, are that the job is fundamentally weaker and brings less to the party than other jobs of the same role.

This idea is fueled by the new content currently released, and previous content.

Also, the main reason why certain jobs received a buff was because the community was able to see unbiased that there was an issue. When there is separation in opinion regarding the matter due to padded ego, or fear that you'll be viewed weaker based on your chosen class. Then... it causes developers to shrug off the opinion of the few, because what they see is mixed opinions rather than a player outcry of lack of balance or neglect to a specific aspect of the game.

I understand full well that this level of "difficulty" if you will, will make you; can make you a better player. However, the point and intent is not to acknowledge that you yourself are weak, or that your class is inferior but rather that the job could be better, and be applied better as other jobs that are more coveted because of their overall utility, and benefit than simply playing "your favorite class".

I tend to play what will help my group out the most, I typically choose tank or mage class types... in XI however, I was a die-hard-knew-it-sucked-dragoon-pride-4-lyfe know it all; but i still played the jobs that would benefit my linkshell the most given the event.

So all in all...

If you believe the Dragoon job is fine as is, rather than state that your static has conformed to accept that it's your job, (#nodisrespect) and that you're a bad ass at it, with potentially much deserved praise as it maybe. Please provide examples of when your job excelled against another.

Pro's and Con's are always applicable and necessary, but they must be unbiased. Not a ground rule, but it's what would be the most acceptable, not by the player base, but by the developers who are tasked with reviewing the forums for concerns, and note worthy ideas.

I'm sorry, but I'm not going to credit that response, though well worded, with the 'evidence' that is requested of me.

Because doing so betrays the fundamental concept of what makes a video game a valid pastime: enjoyment, which is entirely subjective.



If I was contesting something objective, like Dragoon meets or beats a direct DPS or Utility comparison, you would have grounds to call for a specific, substantive example. However, that is not my argument. My argument is that the anti-dragoon sentiment is not universally pervasive within the game itself, and remains an argument primarily held on the forms in achadamia.

What I call into question is the idea the accusation Dragoon is no longer a viable pick, the Onus is on the players making such accusations to show a pass/fail situation of equal gear in which a Dragoon Fails where a Ninja or Monk does not.

None has been provided. The argument is being made, strictly in academia, that because of higher parses or utilities on these other classes, that Dragoons should abandon their class on virtue of 'not providing the best for the party'. At that point, the human element is neglected in favor of on-paper numbers that may not even be produced by the player in question.

Which is often neglected in such dissemination performance will often not be viable in the long term compared to inter-personal synergy. For the vast majority players: A group that gets along will have far more staying power then a group that forces its players to shift to what the 'group' demands. And interest is most often kept in players who feel content in the classes they are playing. The sentiments of the minority hardcore crowd do not factor in these practicalities of the larger base - partly because matters like these are perceptively where the mainstream and hardcore players differ substantially in opinion and playstyle.

If a player decides, purely on their own volition, to leave Dragoon to play another class they will enjoy more - I applaud them. If they abandon a class purely for performance reasons - I do hope they are not the kind of player who is attached to any one particular class or role, because such matters in an MMO are highly fluid.

Furthermore, a player who attempts to pressure another to divert from their chosen class simply because the others are flavor of the patch should be admonished. There is not a single class in this game that results in a pass/fail purely due to the differences in native performances of the class. It is on those who wish to assert otherwise to prove such, objectively.

There exists a balance issue in the game. In that everything a DRG does a MNK or NIN can do better and have better group utility. It isn't a huge difference and you still can do final coil with drgs, but if you have the option you would before the other 2 melee jobs over DRG. So yes the game does need some balancing.

I don't mean to be rude Hyrist, but what on earth are you babbling about?

Your initial response to amdapor included this line:

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I maintain the fact that I fundamentally disagree that the class is broken in any way that prevents its effectiveness or participation in endgame events.

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That fundamental disagreement must be based upon something objective, since you are speaking of effectiveness in endgame. That would include examples of when your job excelled against another. Which Amdapor requested, and he is well within rights to do so. It is logical to request such evidence when you 'fundamentally disagree with the assertion that the class is broken in such a way that prevents effectiveness or participation in endgame events'.

If you refuse to back that statement up then it is worthless. Why waste your time and ours by posting it?

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Originally Posted by Orlandeu

Let me answer this for you:

Dragoon is viable as I have cleared both 10 and 11, and most likely 12(maybe even 13 :P) with my Dragoon. T10 becomes trivial as soon as you get the tether + heat, tether+ charge or charge + heat, down. T11 is somewhat easy as well and only gets hectic during the last phase. It's also gonna need a little getting used to do your positionals when you are tethered but other than that, it's manageable.

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Thank you for your response Orlandeu, it is very much appreciated. I wish you well in your efforts to take down T13!!

Beowulf81, as a XIV player... I can understand why my name would appear to be Amdapor. That made me chuckle.

Hyrist, I enjoyed reading your post. Very eloquently put, and an appreciated read. I respect your stance on not wanting to provide the requested. Though I am a bit, saddened by it; I understand that a player's skill can be a great influence in judgement in regards to a class. I am by no means intended to bash the job, or dethrone it from whichever throne it resides on.

Human aspect of the game, interaction, and entertainment are indeed important. A game must remain a game after all, however the game is based on equations, time, and patience. Some which few understand, do not have time for, and or lack the patience to accept them. My interest isn't to persuade a player to leave a job, I hope that is not what I am portraying. I am rather interested in aspects at which the job shines in.

Again, not to dethrone it but to better emphasis the use of it given such a situation. I'd like for the job to be more relevant to others, and to me as well. It's a job I have followed for many years, but as many... I am disheartened by it.

"So go play something else", some might say; however I do want to play Dragoon in nearly everything that I can but I'd like to do so in an enjoyable manner, rather than a frustrating, hair yanking, controller throwing fashion. It's a nice feeling to be able to play a job that is both #boss and #op. A job people look up to and think that's a good job! Just like people do so for monk.

While player skill should still definitely take into account, and reward the seasoned adventurer. It should not feel like you're pushing a boulder up hill when you're playing a game to enjoy your pass time.

LOL
apologies for that…. Amador ;)

I'm just going to note that, while skill floor and ceiling is always relevant in discussions like this, when people like me say "The DRG does less DPS than the MNK or NIN by a substantial margin," what I'm speaking of specifically is the theoretical maximum DPS each job can do. That is to say, an imaginary perfect Dragoon clocks in at 15-20% lower DPS than an imaginary perfect Monk in just about any simulation. Furthermore, the real-world imperfect MNK loses less from executional failure than the real-world imperfect DRG with the very rare exception of relevant endgame encounters where the MNK has any serious risk of losing Greased Lightning. (Conversely, a lot of reports note that it is much easier for a DRG to lose heavy thrust and DB in these high-end battles, due to how the dangerous avoidable effects in each one are positioned.)

This is bad because it means no matter how hard you work as a DRG, you're just...always going to clock worse than a MNK of the same skill level, unless the party is doing really specific and cumbersome to maintain compositional set-ups.

DRGs don't have anything substantial to justify both their DPS floor and DPS ceiling being lower than both MNK and NIN.

Ultimately, this doesn't affect the 'average' player, who even at the top of his or her or their skill level mostly runs 4-man dungeons, older iterations of Coil, and 24-mans like ST. But the game should be balanced around what occurs at the top level of play, and this will result in almost nothing but a net improvement for players at the middle- and lower-levels of play.

Edit Addendum: It's worth noting that in the past, DRGs were considered relevant to mid- and high-tier encounters in spite of a higher skill barrier and lower DPS ceiling because raiding included encounters where MNKs were frequently at risk of losing Greased Lightning, such as Extreme Primals like Leviathan, Titan, and Garuda who frequently became untargetable or moved to difficult to hit positions, which justified being a DRG due to a lower 'ramp time' to achieve all their effects needed to hit peak DPS while even the best MNKs fought a constant struggle to maintain 3x GL.

That's not really the case any more, as basically every relevant endgame encounter is a Coil fight, and Coil fights traditionally feature bosses or adds that you can be, and are expected to be, basically always attacking, with very rare exceptions.

Video games indeed are bad...

Why can't everything just be like Sword Art Online?

:(

kirito pls go

I don't think people are complaining too much regarding DRG dps. Just their overall moveset is lacking. MNK stances has: increased movement speed to help dodge aoes. Increased def. Increased damage and atk speed.

NIN has some of that + mug, goad, etc.

I believe NIN specific gear has less physical defense, but that's more or less moot since most end game aoes are magic anyways

Dragoon will be even better once we get Red Mage come 3.0.

Another Piercing attack-type, they'll likely have the Piercing buff too like NIN/WAR share.

Just calm yourself & wait for it.

Also new abilities in 3.0 so... moot.

I'd like to see Dragoons get a Stance that switches their Defense & M.Defense.

I think it would be a more interesting solution than just raising their M.Def to be on par with other classes.

Something really should be done about their low M.Def though; there is no reason for it to be so much lower than other classes imo.

Maybe the answer is to simply let the Dragoon become invincible during jumps...

Then they'd be used for utility, and damage mitigation. They did so in XI... they still drop like flies when everyone else does.

Allow me to Clarify:

Jump & Elusive Jump could be used for that reason... Temporary, but in retrospect... I retract my idea.

That'd be worthless.

Anything in Rage would immediately destroy us after we landed.

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Originally Posted by BigPapaSmurf

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Becoming balanced in a coming expansion doesn't make something balanced in the current state of the game.

At the same ilvl Ninja outdpses DRG after the initial BFB burst, and significantly in the longterm. Ninja will generally barely outdps a Monk of the same ilvl, especially if a warrior is using SE. If positionals become a concern, the lead is increased. Dragoon has no silence, and only one additional gap-closer. Only Ninja has magic damage. Only Ninja can benefit in dps from a tank class. Only Ninja has complete positional freedom. Despite having the shortest melee weapons, Ninja has the highest melee range. Only Dragoon suffers increases damage from raid-wide attacks. Dragoon is the only weapon-type debuffing job who has no effect on the rotations of others in the same job (Chaos Thrust, and resultantly Disembowel, will be used regardless). So on and so forth.

Ninja's general dps will probably have to be trimmed back slightly and Dragoon dps or utility buffed slightly for a true balance across the three melee dps classes.

:: (Personally, I'd like to see DRG develop some manor of speed buff within their rotation, likely via Heavy Thrust -- 15% movement bonus for a short time, 8% attack speed increase, 10% damage bonus; combos can continue without proper positionals, but have none of the initial potency bonus, lose some of the combo potency bonus on the following attack, and have reduced duration (using an attack twice to get correct positionals will still be slightly better than once wrongly, but once wrongly will be better than 2 failed attempts and a success on the 3rd GCD); have the ability to adjust their landing-point mid-jump/dive, immunity to most AoEs not specifically targeting the DRG during jumps/dives; magic defense averaged between their current level and melee-standard such that they have only slightly reduced eHP vs. magic attacks compared to other melee dps, given their increased health pool; and a small dps increase, preferably in the form of some new mechanic or ability modification (e.g. Keen Flurry to allow an ability outside of combo at full bonus, duplicate an ability, or duplicate an ability if it crits, duplicate if you crit within 3 seconds, potentially chaining multiple times with lesser damage each time, etc.).)

I would hope that the above would make DRG both more competitive and more enjoyable, in line with the other two jobs, partly by bringing it a little closer to their action speed, somewhat removing certain irritants, and by making it more opportunistic. Ways to increase skill-gap in the job would also be good.

...as would finally making Skill Speed useful, in general...

A "Balancing Nerf" is never an ideal. It always leaves a bad taste in peoples mouths. If only they could promote individual class worth that benefits the player, and party. Then the idea of only picking and choosing specific classes wouldn't be too much of a "exclude this one because it brings nothing" and more of a "we need this because of x mechanic" it'd allow for more class diversity depending on situation.

Alchemy dammit!

Human kind can not gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain something of equal value must be lost. That is Alchemy's first law of equivalent exchange.

They won't touch Ninja or MNK.

They'll have to do something about DRGs themselves.

I watch Mr.Happy video on his thought of ninja. He made a good suggestion by reducing jump CD's . I think that will help us out a little.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Skqx...aUt-HBBZctO9cg
@ 5:52 if you want to see his ideas for DRG

Since the topic has switched to isolation to improvements...

I think we need to go deeper on the concept of Dragoon than simply jump timers. One thing I would like to see is a sort of DoT or buff in direct relation to our jumps. I've always felt that for the skill's level positioning, Dragoonfire Dive does very little for us. It cannot be buffed by Spirit Surge, damage is low for a 2 minute timer, even if it is AoE.

But in general there feels a lack of synergy for all of the requirements made on Dragoon's rotations. Jumps offer us some positional goodies, but little else. Rather than simply reduce their timers, we could see perhaps a vulnerability debuff, a DoT, or some sort of contextual increase in relation to jumps rather than have them be a flat attack skill. After that point maybe further recast timer adjustments can be considered, but I would like more than a surface level adjustment.

we need another census for which is the most wanted dps class in 4 man LP

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Originally Posted by fireslash

we need another census for which is the most wanted dps class in 4 man LP

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That's a poll, not a Census. We have Class population as far as the Census data for that and it was fairly well distributed. I highly doubt that remains the case with Ninja, out, however.

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Originally Posted by beowulf81

I'm sorry if that comes off as entitled or melodramatic, but it is how i truly feel. I do not think I'm the only one.

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You're definately not alone. I'm a dragoon currently progressing on turn 12 and I can't help feeling like a detriment to my static in most fights. I have a Monk alt whom I've also killed t11 with and pumping out consistently high DPS is such a breeze compared to what we have to go through to keep the numbers up as a Dragoon. I enjoy playing Dragoon immensely but currently the effort/damage ratio is skewed, even the utility provided by disembowel is arguable.

Dragoons need a similar incentive to Greased Lightning where superb play is rewarded with superb numbers. The DPS ceiling for DRG is hit too easily and punishment for failure is much too severe, what we need is some flexibility and flow. Dragoons do not adapt well. Removing positional requirements and making them positional potency boosts would make a world of difference quality of life wise but I am not sure if that would still be quite enough to put Dragoon on level with NIN and MNK. At least we wouldn't be neutered as hardly for fights such as turn 9 or turn 11 where getting the positional requirement is not always an option at all. The buff to Dragonfire Dive and Spineshatter was nice and it certainly gave a noticeable boost but it's not quite enough still. If you aren't going to give us a raw potency boost, at least bless us with some utility that is useful for more than gimmick builds such as bard stacking.

While I'm at it I may as well rant about the meaningless lower magic defense we have compared to other jobs, the increased HP pool does not make up for the increased amount of heals we require to get back said HP.

Suggestions for improving Dragoon
1. Increase the potency of True Thrust and Vorpal Thrust by 10% (New Sustain Damage Potency 165-220-330)
2. Increase The damage on Heavy Thrust to 20% keep the flank requirement.
3. Increase the potency of impuse drive to 200 from 180 keep rear requirement.
4. Take of the dot effect of Chaos Thrust and convert it into raw damage New potency 410 from 200
5. Remove the dot effect of phlebotemize increase the potency to 300 add a 10% increase to attack speed that lasts 18 seconds and make it require the chaos thrust combo
6. reduce the CD of jump to 30 secs