A Dragoon's doubts.

When I first started playing Dragoon, I loved it. The fast action-paced style of the moves, the constant jumping about, it was just lots of fun. Yet, soon after getting my +1 relic, I started to get really frustrated by the class. The positional requirements specifically have been infuriating. Sometimes you'll get those parties where the Healer and the Tank just have a bad time of it and are bouncing the mobs between eachother, and it makes it practically impossible to land a correctly placed Heavy Strike+Impulse Drive.

Every time I miss one of these positional moves, I get this slight pang of regret. I'm starting to think it might just be better to swap to Black Mage so I can do just as much damage without worrying about what might happen if the tank randomly runs forward before I hit a key.

Is there anything you guys can tell me to assuage this doubt, and maybe help me get my confidence in this class back?

But.............. You only need to adjust position once every 20s (HT) and 30s (ID - Dis - CT combo). http://i.imgur.com/JZ6F11a.gif

The problem isn't how often I have to use positioning moves, its the act of using them in the first place. With the Dragoon rotation, one slip up between Heavy Thrust and Impulse Drive causes a big mix up in the way that our moves flow together, and results in a significant lowering of dps. If the mobs were stationary, it wouldn't be much of an issue, but thats not the case. We're dealing with latency, random aggro drops, and battle mechanics that require boss movement on top of all of this, and the result is that it can get pretty frustrating just trying to get things to go through correctly.

If you'd rather be as lazy as possible, by all means, go play blm. This all stinks of you just not wanting to put forth effort to be awesome.

You have two options.

If you like melee, you could go MNK, where missing a flank/rear doesnt affect your rotation (buffs/debuffs/dots get applied despite missing, combo still progresses normally)
or if you want to stick to DRG you could go for 1-2-3/phlebotomize/fracture in those situations where properly landing a positional attack isnt possible. DRG has a non positional combo for a reason me thinks.

Don't play monk then. If you miss a position requirement sure the debuff/buff/DoT applies but it butchers your potency. And you have to do rear /flank requirements for the majority of the attacks, so yeah.. blm is fun but if you want to go full lazy go bard because your spells might get interrupted by movement and stuff. Bard can run and shoot while running the other way and be awesome %100 of the time lol.

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Originally Posted by megaman

Don't play monk then. If you miss a position requirement sure the debuff/buff/DoT applies but it butchers your potency.

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I am going to assume you are not aware that the potency loss on a missed DRG position is roughly twice as high as on a MNK position (70-80 pot vs 40-50 pot) in addition to not applying your buffs and not progressing your combo.

I think the strong point that DRG has over MNK is that he has his basic 1-2-3 combo which has no positional requirement at all, where a MNK has to suck it and accept the lower potency on his attacks because he has position checks on almost all of them. The key is to anticipate such messy situations and quickly resorting to your non positional attacks instead of missing your heavy thrust/ID over and over again for a massive dps loss.

Chill out, relax. I know DRG can get high strung over rotations, DoT clipping and numbers but end of the day, you're only making yourself feel bad.
If MNKs can suck it up with potency loss, so can DRGs (with less QQ to boot).

if you have ads bouncing around, stun it. You have 2 of them. if you cant stun it, start doing something else but i really doubt NOTHING is standing still for you to combo on. remember impulse drive is the only part of that combo which has a position requirement so hopping from one mob to the other to get you combos right isn't silly or hard.

BASICALLY if you thought melee dps was gonna be easy you thought wrong cuz it isn't easy. If you don't like it then just leave the pros at their work and you go roll a bard.

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Originally Posted by megaman

Don't play monk then. If you miss a position requirement sure the debuff/buff/DoT applies but it butchers your potency. And you have to do rear /flank requirements for the majority of the attacks, so yeah.. blm is fun but if you want to go full lazy go bard because your spells might get interrupted by movement and stuff. Bard can run and shoot while running the other way and be awesome %100 of the time lol.

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As someone who actually plays all DPS, post-relic, I agree with 100% of this ^

If positionals stress you, and you're attached to melee, stick with DRG. You don't need to get them off often, and if you're in a fight where you cant get them off at all for whatever reason, or just a short fight, you can do fine without them, especially with the basic frontal combo getting a buff this patch.

If you dont want to worry about melee, go BLM, and if you dont want to worry about anything, go BRD.

I'd love to see a proc-based melee class in this game though. Something like BLM or BRD, but melee.

Probably OP is too attached with the 27 button rotation.

Melee are not supposed to be easy in FFXIV... I thought that was clear by this point...

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Originally Posted by Thorauku

Probably OP is too attached with the 27 button rotation.

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http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62...ps42e9e074.jpg

Getting it down right is quite stressful.

First off, some of the silly and unjustified elitism that is showing in this thread is just purely unecessary and showing an extreme level of immaturity amongst a great number of you. All I've said is that its frustrating landing a positional move on a target who's bouncing around, and quite a number of you suddenly started throwing accusations. That displays nothing but projections of your own insecurities, so do us all a favor and keep such silly and foolish comments to yourselves. Why don't we try to keep this community from becoming similar to the cesspit of the World of Warcraft forums?

To those of you who actually contributed something worthwhile to the conversation, thank you. For some reason I got so attached to the debuffs that I hadn't even thought about just doing a true thrust combo and applying dots until the mobs finally stood still enough to apply HT+ID. Thanks for the help.

See!

You're not alone TS, I myself was like that during my first week of playing Dragoon, I feel so frustrated if I don't get a chance to connect the full rotation of dragoon. http://i.imgur.com/BvrsudO.gif

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Originally Posted by CitizenKing

stuff

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It was not elitism, nor unjustified for the most part. Your plan is basically to stand around and do lower damage until conditions are just right; that is no plan.

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Originally Posted by Peptaru

It was not elitism, nor unjustified for the most part. Your plan is basically to stand around and do lower damage until conditions are just right; that is no plan.

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If you can't get the position within a GCD, you are losing dps no matter what. Sometimes you have to make a hard decision.

I know all about the pains of losing position, I play drg more often than any other job. He came here looking for support to change jobs, then support to be lazy without changing jobs. Now he'll feel justified in not trying until things are just right. Even if crap is moving all over the place you can pull off drg positional requirements because it only takes ~.2 seconds of being lined up. Anyone should be able to do that because you don't have to be facing your target to use the move.

If we're talking about shoulds, however, there is no reason things -should- be moving all over the place. I'm sure you know that.

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Originally Posted by Peptaru

I know all about the pains of losing position, I play drg more often than any other job. He came here looking for support to change jobs, then support to be lazy without changing jobs. Now he'll feel justified in not trying until things are just right. Even if crap is moving all over the place you can pull off drg positional requirements because it only takes ~.2 seconds of being lined up. Anyone should be able to do that because you don't have to be facing your target to use the move.

If we're talking about shoulds, however, there is no reason things -should- be moving all over the place. I'm sure you know that.

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I don't disagree with you or anything, but I just don't think it's worth judging him as a person by reading into his words.
I agree the OP came across a little whiny with "positional requirements are troublesome, maybe I should just BLM", but I got the impression he's talking about bad dungeon groups or mess ups in progression. He then admitted, he never considered adapting his rotation if he couldn't get a positional which meant he stood there trying to get a combo off with no success.

During progression, things happen and you have to adapt. This is the most important time to work and feel comfortable with your class, cause who really cares when the content is on farm? I rather he admit that he can work with his current class mechanics during that time than join the group of people who jump ship and criticize melee or try to get the whole job changed cause they're can't be bothered to master their class.
In that light, his plan isn't that bad.

I'm also giving him the benefit of the doubt that he's trying to the best of his ability to get his positionals when he can. I've certainly come across situations where I have to adapt. I'm sure you won't deny that knowing how to adapt to a situation and judge your own abilities is a better way to optimize your dps than blindly following a set rotation.
Note: Of course, you should know those rotations for the sake of understanding the maximum output of your class and try to hit that ideal as closely as possible. Not critiquing set rotations themselves.

Is the only reason you think it's bad because he said it and you've already judged him? I don't think that's fair when his response wasn't to change the class to be easier or complain about melee/range imbalance. Instead, he took advice to work with what he's got. I've got to defend that.

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Originally Posted by CitizenKing

Every time I miss one of these positional moves, I get this slight pang of regret. I'm starting to think it might just be better to swap to Black Mage so I can do just as much damage without worrying about what might happen if the tank randomly runs forward before I hit a key.

Is there anything you guys can tell me to assuage this doubt, and maybe help me get my confidence in this class back?

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Originally Posted by CitizenKing

All I've said is that its frustrating landing a positional move on a target who's bouncing around, and quite a number of you suddenly started throwing accusations.

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This is a large part of why I judged him. He got a harsher response than expected and tried to play the victim. If he no longer has love for dragoon, no skill to play it, and no desire to get better, then he needs to go be a lazy blm as he originally requested support for.

I understand the frustrations of missing positionals in fights, but if I miss one, I can usually see why and anticipate the position I need to be in within the GCD to fire it off correctly. I think the only mob that moves around that much for me to miss more than one positional are the Spinner-Rooks of T4 (tanks dodging pox), but you can land one when they stop for spells. Most mobs stop at some point to attack/spell/skill and you can catch them that way.

My personal frustration is Garuda...she loves to use her ranged-AoE at the worst times for me. And then the WHM BINDS her after she uses that and is stuck in one of the tornado feathers with both flanks and back in the AoE...guess its time to TTT spam again since Phlem is still going...

That being said, most of the time a good DRG can anticipate attacks and movement and compensate for it. Fracture, for me, is pretty much only used in these situations, or, if I must, I'll throw in one more TTT and let CT/Dis fall off. It really does depend on the enemy and what is happening; you have to be on your toes and have an idea on how to compensate for what is going on.

Something to keep in mind drg has the advantage of a slightly larger melee radius you can use to your advantage your directional attacks are reverse cone that slightly overlap (think overpower from mobs ak for example). If you stand further back you might go out of auto attack range, but you greatly increase your area for said directional attacks. Assuming the mob is not doing a 180 you trade maybe 1-2 auto attacks to do this.

I say what I always say to people: Play which class you prefer most. End of story :) In the end you will play best with a class you feel comfortable with.

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Originally Posted by Peptaru

This is a large part of why I judged him. He got a harsher response than expected and tried to play the victim. If he no longer has love for dragoon, no skill to play it, and no desire to get better, then he needs to go be a lazy blm as he originally requested support for.

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Fun fact: Calling out somebody for being childish and immature isn't playing the part of the victim.

You're free to judge me for whatever inane reasons you've cooked up in your head. I'm also free to judge you for verbally harassing somebody who was asking for help. Enjoy your strange and pathetic little world, and all the insecurities that come with it.

To everyone who actually decided to act like adults, thank you. Thanks to your encouragement I stuck to the class and have been getting pretty good at landing those moves that once frustrated me. I have a +1 relic and I've nearly got my full set of darklight, so I look forward to moving onward with my Dragoon.

Don't play MNK...there's a reason your AF armor is spiky and kinda cool looking...it's to grab all the mouth breathing DPS. Shit...I've seen DRG pass on better Allagan gear than they have just so they can keep their wyrm gear...ugh

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Originally Posted by CitizenKing

blah

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Your entire post was made of childish whining, and you call the people who call you out on that fact childish. . . Another name for my ignore list. I hope you'll ignore me, too. Btw, needing encouragement for stick-to-it-tiveness in a video is something an 5 y/o would need.

Future reference, THAT was childish. Side note: cg on your shinies.

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Originally Posted by Peptaru

Your entire post was made of childish whining, and you call the people who call you out on that fact childish. . . Another name for my ignore list. I hope you'll ignore me, too. Btw, needing encouragement for stick-to-it-tiveness in a video is something an 5 y/o would need.

Future reference, THAT was childish. Side note: cg on your shinies.

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Peptaru, you come off as very rude. I don't think anyone would want to befriend someone who judges so harshly and easily. Instead of bashing him, why not just be friendly dude? Lmfao.

Its all about tanking positionning and anticipatin. The thing is that you can't just think about the move you re about to do, you have to anticipate everything that can happen.

The most stressfull boss as a dragoon imho is that goddamn first boss in Amdapor Keep especially in pug if you got players spreaded in all kinds of direction, then yeah it suck big time (you know when he face all of a sudden X or X player to put disease on, and then there's your crazy tank goin next to you when you re about to do impulse drive, trololol)

On the other hand, the class is so hard hitting on static bosses imho you can't really complain.

Best example is attack nodes on Turn 2. As a drag you can literally don't give a damn about eating the repelling cannons in the face. Go for it even. Will warm your inner fire ! Same for caduceus, you can have pretty stupid amount of dps there.

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Originally Posted by Peptaru

Your entire post was made of childish whining, and you call the people who call you out on that fact childish. . . Another name for my ignore list. I hope you'll ignore me, too. Btw, needing encouragement for stick-to-it-tiveness in a video is something an 5 y/o would need.

Future reference, THAT was childish. Side note: cg on your shinies.

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1) The fact that you decided somebody asking for help to stifle their doubt about issues they're having with something as "childish whining" really depicts a huge fault in you as a person.

2) Thanks for proving my point for me.

ITT:

http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...IagEAhCdrr75dw


Some will comfort OP. Some will tell you to suck it up. How they delivered it is likely what would happen in real world. Some kindly. Some harshly.

Can't control the Internet, if you don't want everyone's opinion then don't offer up yours.

But on topic, play want you want. I'm lvling DRG right now (PLD is my main) and I'm loving it. There's not as much positional moves as with MNK but the few that are there I'm finding easy to get off though I might miss 1 or 2. Even with out doing my positional buffs I can still keep pace with similarly geared dps.

some things to help get positional combos going:
1, place yourself relative to the tank, not the mob.
2, if the mob is likely to turn while you attack it forget about HT you will miss 80% unless the mob turns very slowly
3, if the mob is susceptible to stun you can use that to your advantage.
4, for heavily scripted bosses you can always anticipate (i.e. landslides).
5, look at the positional indicator (the two circles).
6, use other mobs to activate positional effect. a drg is sufficiently tanky and you can handle one trash attacking you before the tank picks it up.
7, don't activate b4b and then try to land ht, do it in reverse.
8, if all else fails, just do a rotation without HT, it will be much better than trying again and again to land HT/ID.

Speaking as a lvl 50 Dragoon the only time I get a bit frustrated at the positional aspect is when I get one of those crazy spinning-top tanks (some still do make it to 50 without learning not to grief us melee like that), and even then after a short polite word with the tank they usually sort that out.

As for tank having aggro troubles / healer/ranged dps overdoing it at start of pull, however I enjoy these anyway as if a healer has gone over the top I've got np ssd onto the mob and offtanking / pulling mob back to tank for a bit; we are tanky-dps enough to do this - not really any scary trash out there just yet.

And yeh, as others have said, you can use stun or ssd before a positional skill or anticipate a bit. Sometimes you're just SOL, deal with it and pick up the pieces of your rotation for the next cycle.