Dragoon = Monkgoon

Ever since LV 60 and getting geirskogul, I've seen dragoons are like monks were in 2.0, except worse. In order to do max DPS you're only allowed a second of leeway in any fight, which just isn't feasible. At least GL had a 12s duration which can be reused before the timer runs out. Monks are limited by the duration of GL. Dragoons are limited by ways to sacrifice the buff to do more damage. In essence, to make you more likely to lose it. For monks, if GL falls off you can just restart the combo. For dragoons, you're forced to wait 60 seconds. Without a target, there is nothing to maintain your buff on. I'm ILV 180 and have been trying out some end game, and am sorely disappointed. I used to rank high in DPS, now I'm rarely top DPS. And NOT ONLY THAT, but all these new bosses are already suited for casters. Look at Ravana; long burn phases, reflection that only bothers melee, etc. Bismarck isn't much better. Just try it at 60 and see. I know some of this is just getting used to it, and my DPS on a single target if I don't mess up IS quite insane, but the whole mechanic just seems pretty poor. I'm not complaining about damage potential, rather, the method to get it.

I would wait until Alexander before saying Dragoons mechanics isn't good in the current Heavensward content. I know doing Ravana EX as a DRG feels extremely awkward especially when avoiding mistakes, but it is manageable. Ever since I got to lvl 60 DRG it became a much more stressful class, but at the same time, the feeling you get when you know that you pulled off all you moves, oGCDs, and rotation perfectly for the entire duration of a boss fight is extremely satisfying

Maybe you're not supposed to be able to keep perfect rotations going all the time.

Note that even with the 10 sec take off you should still have more than enough time to get it back on. By the time you would need to recast Blood of the Dragon because it fell off for any number of reasons, it should already be back up because it isn't really that hard to keep on.

I've done Ravana and Bismarck Ex, and they're not really that bad. Sure, it sucks losing positionals due to shield and BoTD due to downtime, but it's all manageable. Just the satisfaction in using a Geiskrksidhdul is good enough for me!

Black Mages = Black Monks, except we have two Greased timers to watch out for.

Gotta agree with Whymes here. It´s really frustrating when you lose the buff due to factors you can´t help.

You lose a buff because you don't pre-plan your Geirskogul usage. You don't need to pop it all the time. You can hold it. As long as you're getting in your 3 Gks a minute, it's more than good enough.

Even in Ravana EX, any time I've lost my BotD is because of a mistake on my behalf, not the bosses. It's hard, I know, but it's doable. Very doable. It just requires a lot of thought process.

Eh.. Well I'm kind of glad dragoon got harder because honestly the old rotation gets pretty boring after a while. And yeah, other classes got some pretty hard rotations in the expansions now too. I can just say this though, that anyone who invites a dragoon into a fight who doesn't know it very well, is probably better off adding a monk or ninja because a dragoon's damage on a fight they don't know well is probably going to be pretty bad until they learn when to use the skills. True for all classes but even worse for dragoon.

It's not just using geirskogul though. Sometimes I lose it even without, and to make matters worse as you all know, it randomly chooses a finisher as well as having insane positional requirements. All these things just make it really hard to do max DPS. The funniest thing that tops it all off is that all the new bosses have just the mechanics to make this difficult. What a coincidence.

I really like the changes on Dragoon. It's much more challenging now but it's very rewarding if played well.