Dragoons - I don't see too many of them in the high end content

I don't see too many of them in coils, or primal sale groups and was wondering why. There seems to be a bunch of lower and mid range level DRG. Are the 'fake pro' ones just all in hiding? :cool:

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Originally Posted by Simurgi

I don't see too many of them in coils, or primal sale groups and was wondering why. There seems to be a bunch of lower and mid range level DRG. Are the 'fake pro' ones just all in hiding? :cool:

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I think it is a combination of factors, but I have my own anecdotal theory. I think there is a strong attraction to certain jobs in the game, Dragoon most definitely being towards the top. However, while the visuals/flavor of the game make Dragoons attractive, the actual design of the game is horrifically punishing to melee dps. What happens is you get a large percentage of players attracted to a specific job, while at the same time being one of the hardest to play optimally. This creates the false impression that most Dragoons are terrible due to the double hit of high percentage of players and therefore higher total number of bad players, and higher percentage of difficulty making it a harder job in general to perform well on.

So instead of 50% of the player base with the capability to be a passable Bard (by passable I mean one that can maintain enough of their primary function to avoid being singled out as a bad player), you have 25% of the population with the capability to be a passable Dragoon, spread over a much larger percentage of the player population.

This leads to an overall disinclination to bring Dragoons into content due to the (partially correct based on percentage of players) idea that they are not particularly good at anything.

Melee in this game get pretty shafted. With that said, a well played melee of either job can most definitely equal or outperform other dps jobs on the majority of game content.

Bad DRG making Good DRG look bad.

My static has 2 DRG, so we're not non-existent, and I keep seeing PFs looking specifically for DRG more and more (and they don't have MNK in the group either, so its a very good possibility the average MNK population on my server has taken a worse turn than our average Derpoons...and our Derpoons are pretty bad...)

Our Coil group uses DRG, MNK, BRD, and BLM. Our damage is normally extremely high. There is literally no reason to NOT bring a DRG, I'm normally top damage and I buff the BRD whoa already does a lot of damage.

5/5 BCOB
3/3 Ex Prims

It's amazing how many threads people conjure up from personal anecdotes.

Sadly there is basically a stigma against any DPS that are melee on Coeurl.. Every PF/shouting coil group refuses to bring any melee at all for some reason. Lazy healers? Maybe. Really can't explain it, because my DRG was my first 50 and I still adore it very much.

I cant say the amount of DRGs at high endgame is low, seems pretty healthy overall. However the quality is usually a lot better.
Same goes for MNK, when you see one in like T5 they are usually pretty damn good.

I guess it also has to do with reputation. Bard had the image of being op in 2.0. so everyone leveled one which leads to an increased rate of bards in current content. DRG had the image of being weak so i guess some people abandoned ship or the incentive to level one was lower.

I think it just needs a bit of time till the community gets used to the 2.1. changes and people realize how strong the job is.

I think a lot of the best players simply don't leave their static/FC very often. I don't think it's coincidence that a lot of the time I get in a 7/8 FC party through PF, it kicks ass.

It's just easier to run RDPS in Garuda EX/Ifrit EX/a lot of crap, despite the potential lack in DPS. My main is DRG, but I play BLM about 70% of the time in PF parties to make everyone's lives easier.

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Originally Posted by BlackThought

It's amazing how many threads people conjure up from personal anecdotes.

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I was going to say this.It's sad and funny and the same time.

This seems a little unnecessary guys. o.o This is how conversations start xD the OP didn't say anything negative. What is it OK to talk about?

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Originally Posted by Truefaith87

Sadly there is basically a stigma against any DPS that are melee on Coeurl..

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Same thing on Hyperion. Look at PF for Primal X, most of them will states Range Method or Range Only. People are just simply too lazy to teach new player or player doesn't accept a suggestion as good will instead of taking it negatively.

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Originally Posted by Foullacy

Our Coil group uses DRG, MNK, BRD, and BLM. Our damage is normally extremely high. There is literally no reason to NOT bring a DRG, I'm normally top damage and I buff the BRD whoa already does a lot of damage.

5/5 BCOB
3/3 Ex Prims

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This, there is no reason to not bring a drg. Our group uses this same setup and gets the same results, 5/5 on coil and 3/3 for ex primals

Might be a location kind of thing.

On Odin they are 2 tons of them. Can't see a party without a drag in the pf and they are like 16 - 25 groups rotatin all the time, every single evening.

Tho they aren't a lot of "above average" dragoons.

Maybe Malboro is just home to exceptional dragoons, 'cause I've met several.

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Originally Posted by Simurgi

I don't see too many of them in coils, or primal sale groups and was wondering why. There seems to be a bunch of lower and mid range level DRG. Are the 'fake pro' ones just all in hiding? :cool:

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Odd. Our EX sell group has 2 DRGs.

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Originally Posted by WiseWolfHolo

This, there is no reason to not bring a drg. Our group uses this same setup and gets the same results, 5/5 on coil and 3/3 for ex primals

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My raid grp is similar just that we don't use a BLM but a SMN.

The DPS was so high at times, there was once in conflag phase, the neruolink dropped and changed to Phase 3 Divebombs while 2 of our DPS are trapped in the 3rd conflag lol. We were like WTF and none of us were using allagan weapons that time lol.

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Originally Posted by BlackThought

It's amazing how many threads people conjure up from personal anecdotes.

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Welcome to life.

Dragoon is for people who want beast burst dps while looking cool doing it.
9/10 t5 clears here, no problems. All classes have their role for endgame.
We make bards look cool too with disembowel.

Due to the melee is a disadvantage stigma most good ones get picked up by a fc quick and when running outside fc use a ranged class. You will never know how many good ones there are because they are a little anti social.

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Originally Posted by Andevom

Welcome to life.

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Thanks for the tip, but pointing out personal experience as if it's more than that is, well, dumb.

Most I have realized don't bother to research or figure out the class. So many drgs who don't use heavy thrust. The general opinion on my server is that most drgs don't do their rotation so they are garbage 9 out of 10. Our coil static has a very good drg and I know a few other end game coil groups that have very very good drgs. They are just hard to find. Not taking a melee end game is a cripple and a loss for one's group anyhow. The amount of dps a "good" monk and drg can do is amazing (our drg does 250-260 monk is closer to 300s). If your server isn't taking melee to titan extreme they are bunch of silly nuggets. That is defiantly a huge melee easy burn fight. Makes it easier to sell having that one person dead the entire way.

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Originally Posted by Lollie

Due to the melee is a disadvantage stigma most good ones get picked up by a fc quick and when running outside fc use a ranged class. You will never know how many good ones there are because they are a little anti social.

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This is also very true.

When I'm not playing with people I know (with a few exceptions where melee have an advantage, like Titan), you'll almost always see me running as a WAR or WHM (and recently BLM) instead of DRG. I know other DRG who do this too.

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Originally Posted by AunaYuuki

If your server isn't taking melee to titan extreme they are bunch of silly nuggets. That is defiantly a huge melee easy burn fight. Makes it easier to sell having that one person dead the entire way.

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This. I go as mnk in titan extreme. Had a party last night with another good mnk, a good drg, and a good bard. Our dps was so high we push heart phase as soon as he was through putting 2 people in gaol. So we had to break gaol, wait for his jump to finish then hurry and break last gaol lol. Thats 3 melee and one range.

In garuda extreme, we were gonna do the strat where OT pull spiny first in tornado so he could have it up by time chi is dead in order to pull sup across...but we killed chi too fast so he couldnt have it up. So we changed classes to two mnks and 2 bards to actually slow down the dps a little.

Simple answer: Dragoon is hard to play relative to other jobs.

Long answer: In order to maintain the same high dps that other jobs output, they have to follow a crazy-sauce long rotation. That rotation heavily relies on positioning or it breaks. Even Monks who rely on positioning for dps don't lose much dps if they miss a positional attack, since they just lose the extra damage on that one missed attack. A dragoon's combo gets halted and that combo has to be restarted if they miss it. This throws not only that whole combo off, but their DoTs and damage buffs as well since they're added effects from combos and reliant on those combos being chained in certain orders to maintain them 100% of the time without clipping. Managing those positional attacks while having to dodge stuff can be a challenge. On top of that, a lot of their added off-GCD attacks which are key contributors to high dps also come with animation-lock, so it makes dodging AoEs a bit more challenging without careful consideration of when you can use those safely, yet still as often as possible.

Summary: Dragoon can output very high dps, it's just not as easy to do as other jobs so less people play them.

I main a DRG, and all i can say is that a DRG can match and beat a MNK 9 times out of 10 at i90.
That being said there are very few DRG's that i see doing this, and very few MNK's that are able to be compared to.
It's just really really hard to play either class at such a high level, and most aren't willing to practice that hard for it.
On Twintania as DRG I'm always #1 DPS.
You just gotta know what ur doing and be willing to work for it

Thank you all for the constructive input. I play a MNK and PLD currently and considered DRG as a new challenge. Judging by the responses here, it looks like this class may be it. My only concern is the rotation length. Yes, I understand it is harder to be consistent. But, is having that much of a longer rotation actually fun?

It depends how you perceive it. The 'rotation' when sliced into priority chunks is only 4 attacks long. Summarizing further, the chunks are only 2 decisions in complexity: (a) which 1-gcd filler, (b) which 3-gcd combo.

It's fairly simple but 24-step rotation sounds impressive.

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Originally Posted by PArcher

This is also very true.

When I'm not playing with people I know (with a few exceptions where melee have an advantage, like Titan), you'll almost always see me running as a WAR or WHM (and recently BLM) instead of DRG. I know other DRG who do this too.

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Pretty much this. Seems these days I only play my DRG once a week, for coil. Already have all the melee dps primal accessories so no need to run with DRG outside of coil when trying to gear alts. Plus a lot of parties on PF only reserve 1 slot for a melee dps (except for titan) and they usually fill up quickly.

I wouldn't say I'm always #1 in DPS on T5 but usually 1 or 2, always depends on who gets conflags, liquid hell, or dreads on them. Same with Titan, usually 1 or 2, depending on who gets gaoled, etc.

Two words:

Ranged Only.

(For the record, I love playing Monk, but nearly every PF group for things above Ultima Hard are Ranged Only on Hyperion. I gave up and went back to Warrior, as none of the ranged classes appeal to me.)

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Originally Posted by CHunterX

Two words:

Ranged Only.

(For the record, I love playing Monk, but nearly every PF group for things above Ultima Hard are Ranged Only on Hyperion. I gave up and went back to Warrior, as none of the ranged classes appeal to me.)

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Just for joke, do this then

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...PRO-Ranged-DPS

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Originally Posted by CHunterX

Two words:

Ranged Only.

(For the record, I love playing Monk, but nearly every PF group for things above Ultima Hard are Ranged Only on Hyperion. I gave up and went back to Warrior, as none of the ranged classes appeal to me.)

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Funny, usually this is what I notice on Hyperion too. But last night, 2-3 parties were looking specifically for dragoons (all for Coil I think), something I rarely, if ever see.

Ranged doesn't appeal to me either. The only one I was considering was BLM, but we suddenly have lots of them in my FC.

Hey Guys.. I guess it just depends on the region.. we, in Asia, playing on Japanese servers.. we get to see very few PF where the requirements are "Ranged Only".. what we see most is "JP Only" hahahaha.... but when we do see "Ranged Only" it is usually when English speaking players make a PF for Garuda EM.. they use the same strategy you guys use in your servers.. Japanese players got their own strategy.. [melee friendly in Garuda XM].. I've never seen any Japanese group using the 2-way Strategy.

Though.. At High end Content, the only fights that I find not melee friendly are only Ifrit XM.. and Garuda XM using the 2-way strategy.. and on my server [Tonberry].. it is usually Ifrit XM that melees would have trouble to find a pre made party to clear it.. since they only want 1 for their LB on the Final Nail.. tho We still got a lot of Dragoons in our server.. more than monks i believe..

But very very few are having troubles to clear high end contents with their melee classes... we DF everything.. I weekly clear all EM primals using DF.. i haven't tried with pre-made groups.. but I just like playing with the Japanese players.. even though I don't speak any Japanese.. they seem to be more tolerant.. patient.. helpful.. persistent.. with very few exceptions..

Note: I have had experience with English DF.. and aaarrghh.. mostly bad experiences.. - rage quit - insults - blames - rude - inconsiderate - .. theres always someone writing "..." "wtf" .. etc... that rarely happens with JP players [got a friend who can read Japanese]

Eh would rather take my monk. I can only assume, from experiences I've had, that most dragoons I play with have no idea what they're doing.

Most players have no idea what they're doing.

Not sure if this has been mentioned or not yet, but was fiddling around and may of found a reason why people don't like DRG in their party formats, depending on fight. Take a quick peek at your magic defense, then compare it to even mnk/brd. It's usually about 1/3 less of the value. Doesn't sound like much, right? Now imagine that fact in fights that involve taking heavy magical damage, as opposed to more physical strikes. Let's use fights like garuda for example. She does TONS and TONS of wind based damage. DRG have lower defense in that case? DRG take more dmg, which means less heals the tanks need going onto said DRG. Perhaps this factor has something to do with the stigma on DRG, over other melee classes?

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Originally Posted by Truefaith87

SNIP

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Its a dodging issue, not a defense issue

A good DRG will only get hit by unavoidables in any fight...which means they only get healed when everyone needs to be healed.

Taking Garuda EX...a DRG isn't going to be hit by Friction at all, and only will be hit by WW if they can't dodge. What else would they get hit by? The Unavoidable...which doesn't really matter in terms of healing.

Similar things in all fights.

When I see a 'range only' group (which is pretty well slim to none on Behemoth) I just laugh because you know someone that obnoxious is unlikely to form and lead a group to success.

It pissed me off when my first 50 was a Dragoon and some people didn't want me for groups. Then I became a healer and realized why. Melee players tend to have issues moving out of AOEs in time. If you're melee and awesome at it, good for you, but in my experience, I've had to worry about throwing extra heals at the DRG or MNK way more than any of the range DPS.

lol ive only seen a handfull of good melee anyway so u may have a point but for me i love my drg and its very exciting

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Originally Posted by BlackThought

Thanks for the tip, but pointing out personal experience as if it's more than that is, well, dumb.

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I'm not justifying it. It's just hardly a surprise anymore.