Is DRG that strong?

Hey guys, noob question here. I took a peek at the metrics for the top endgame stuff just curious about what kinds of classes those guys are running and I saw that every single group had a DRG in it. Are they really that good that everyone feels the need to have one in their party?

We drgs are a noble profession. We should be loved and cherished by all. #drglivesmatter

It's because DRG have several party buffs that increase everyone else's dps. People like that because a) it means a mediocre drg can still make a contribution (unlike a bad Samurai who is just a detriment) and b) it makes their numbers look better to stroke their epeen. Also makes burst phases burstier.

Yes. Dragoon has historically been the strongest melee DPS in the game, from 2.45 when it had some major problems fixed until 5.0 because it provided the piercing resistance debuff which basically cemented it as the strongest job. But without that it's still really good, even if a good Samurai arguably is the strongest at the moment. Dragoon does good damage over the course of the fight, it has strong burst damage, it has good party buffs so even if the player themselves isn't great they can still contribute a great deal (and indeed if the entire party is good they can really capitalize on those buffs) while MNK/SAM can be stronger that's a result of the individual playing more than anything, it has good mobility, the rotation is satisfying and not lacking in visual flare, and so on.

You sometimes see it get memed on for being a Floor Tank, but that really hasn't been true for like 8 years after they toned down the animation lock on jumps and raised its magic defense to a point that didn't require it to be babied.

Yes. Drg isn't always the strongest melee, but I don't really recall them being in a bad spot ever. Their personal damage is quite high, and their buffs line up with about every party comp, and their buffs are strong. They aren't so strong that its a detriment to the party to not have one, but most people prefer to have one. Especially if the comp has high burst jobs for the dragon tether, or other jobs that scale high with crit.

Another contributor to Dragoon's sheer dominance this expansion beyond what SpeckledBurd mentioned is it's arguably the best designed job, especially in the melee category. It had no issues at launch compared to Ninja and Monk while being only slightly behind Samurai in overall damage. A LOT of people abandoned Ninja for Dragoon in 5.0 due to how poorly received the former's initial gameplay was. It also helps Dragoon is among the easiest jobs to pick up and play since it follows a very rigid rotation that almost never changes.

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Originally Posted by Ryaz

It's because DRG have several party buffs that increase everyone else's dps. People like that because a) it means a mediocre drg can still make a contribution (unlike a bad Samurai who is just a detriment) and b) it makes their numbers look better to stroke their epeen. Also makes burst phases burstier.

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Your numbers comment isn't as relevant anymore as they rank off of rdps not adps, so the buffs drg gives is added onto the drgs dps

The melee are generally pretty well-balanced; it turns out that in this tier the fight timings (for fast kills) are overall friendly to DRG, whereas other melee have their good and bad fights.

DRG's flexibility with Life of the Dragon timings and their balanced array of a 90s, 2m and 3m buff make it harder for it to get wrecked by different break locations and fight lengths, whereas other melee might really prefer full-uptime encounters or to have breaks in between their bursts, or in NIN's case they're better at making use of those points in i.e. E1S where you must be far from the boss.

So in short, fight design has a lot to do with melee job balance, but DRG has thus far been pretty steadily one of the top two options or close enough to roll with. When in doubt, speed groups will also prefer jobs that buff the party more / can use stacked party buffs better, so whenever it's close you'll see them gravitate to NIN and DRG.

Though also, I don't know if the speed running scene is all that competitive right now, it might be a matter of relatively few groups being willing to tell people to switch jobs or mix and match members for different fights etc.

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Originally Posted by ReiMakoto

Your numbers comment isn't as relevant anymore as they rank off of rdps not adps, so the buffs drg gives is added onto the drgs dps

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True. I forgot the site that cannot be named does that now.

One thing I don't get about drg is why it's aoe skills don't extend disembowels damage boost at all like it does for sam's shifu and jinpu. Having two aoe skill that extend Blood of the Dragon is really overkill. Drg aoe rotation is not that long.

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Originally Posted by Ryaz

One thing I don't get about drg is why it's aoe skills don't extend disembowels damage boost at all like it does for sam's shifu and jinpu. Having two aoe skill that extend Blood of the Dragon is really overkill. Drg aoe rotation is not that long.

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The answer is probably that Dragoon's AOE skills were all added into the leveling chain in Stormblood/Shadowbringers instead of natively at low levels (Samurai), or added back to low levels/Buffed so they were actually worth using (Ninja/Monk).

Even without being able to have 100% Disembowel uptime, Dragoon is still one of the strongest Melee when it comes to AOE. It's basic AOE combo has more raw potency on every move than the other melee AOE combos, and it has tons of additional sources of AOE potency besides that from Geirskogul (300 every 30 seconds), Nastrond (400 x 3 every Life of the Dragon so 1200 a minute), Dragon Fire Dive (380 every two minutes), and Star Diver (600 potency on first target, 420 on every additional target, every Life of the Dragon so once every minute). Even without the additional 10% or a haste like the other Melee, that's a lot of raw potency.