The Current State of Dragoon

Dragoon has gone from the premiere Melee DPS of 3.0 to the bottom of the bucket. LOTD needs to be reworked and can be accomplished in many ways. Overall the current state of DRG is due to both it's utility being diminished and it's personal DPS being lowered. These changes can be viewed below:

What Dragoon Lost in 4.0:

Leg Sweep: A 130 Potency move every 20 seconds that stuns the target.

Power Surge: Next jump is 30% stronger every 60 seconds.

Phlebotomize: 170 potency attack that inflicts a 30 potency dot.

On top of these kit changes it also lost Internal Release and Mercy Stroke from the changes of the Cross Role system.

Utility:

Disembowel: 10% Piercing damage reduced to 5%.

Battle Littany: Crit Rate of the party up 15% for 20 seconds (Unchanged).

Dragon Sight: Increase DPS by 10% of the DRG and 5% of one selected party member within 6 yalms. Every 2 min.

Let's first look at its utility. Battle Littany is a very strong buff and has great synergy with any class in the game, but now SCH has a similar buff. Disembowel's nerf was partly needed because of the double physical range Meta was seen at the end of Heavensward, but not only did it lower the DRG utility it lowers the personal damage of DRG as a whole.

The newest move added to the DRG arsenal is Dragon Sight. It is a good move on paper, but in actual content seems more of an annoyance. Firstly you must target another player to use the move which is extremely tricky without forcing you to use a macro. The distance of the tether is far too short and needs to be extended or removed entirely. If no player is close enough to receive the buff or mechanics force you to separate you as the DRG have lost a 10% buff.

With Disembowel nerfed, Dragon sight has not made up the difference. This can be fixed and ultimately fix dragon sight to feel more like a buff.

Drgaon Sight FIX: Drgaon Sight raises the DRG DPS by 10% and raises all party members by 5% within a 15 yalm radius.

This fixes the issue of selecting teammates between GCD's and raises its overall utility to compensate for its lower DPS.


Life of the Dragon:

This new mechanic that is now the core of the DRG kit is very lackluster. Not only does it have one of the longest build up periods in the game, but the payoff of achieving it is not high enough. To activate LOTD you need to do 4 mirage dives that are only proced by using Jump and Spine Shatter Dive and they do not stack if you use the jumps back to back without using a mirage dive. The other issue is to enter LOTD you must Geirskogul, which is now on a 35 second timer. This move can be fixed multiple ways and will fix how DRG feels and raise its personal DPS.

The two Universal change throughout all of these methods is once the Dragon eye is awakened Geirskogul will automatically reset its timer so that you can enter LOTD ASAP. The other is that Dive ready can now stack multiple Mirage Dives.

These next suggestions should be one or the other NOT BOTH:

1) LOTD requires only 3 eyes. This will allow for you to enter LOTD very quickly at the start and much more often throughout the fight.

2) Dragonfire Dive will be acknowledged as a Jump and be influenced by BOTD and proc Dive ready for every add it hits. This will allow you to enter LOTD quickly in your opener. This will also allow for DRG to enter it quickly in big pulls in dungeons to use Nastrond's to AOE more. LOTD is not achieved realistically in dungeons because you are pulling big groups of enemies and using your aoe is a better choice than maintaining BOTD til you are ready for LOTD.

Overall I think these changes can make DRG feel like a fun class and be a worthwhile addition to any team. Please let me know what you think and what you would like to see changed.

Reserved for Cool Suggestions.

Reserved for cool suggestions.

Reserved for cool suggestions.

Reserved for cool suggestions.

You can bypass the 1000 words limitation in a single post if you use the edit option afterward.

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Originally Posted by Shamox

You can bypass the 1000 words limitation in a single post if you use the edit option afterward.

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They really should let you know this when you submit lol

I agree with most of these changes, though would also accept Blood of the Dragon generating an eye if the buff was already active. I'd also like the UI gauge to be split between Gaze of the First Brood, and Blood/Life of the dragon. This way, aside from death you aren't losing eyes for phase changes. Dragon sight buff would be nice, considering Red Mage gets embolden which is just an aoe damage buff. I personally dislike target buffs like this, or things like Goad in tab target MMO's. goad isnt nearly as bad though, because we rarely have to double weave it, unlike Sight

Have mirage dive, jump, and spineshatter dive give eyes. That would allow for quick activation of Lotd and more frequent uses. Increasing the number of times it can be used (increasing overal dps) and the eye building speed would make fall off less punishing.

Your dragon sight fix is to OP, increasing damage and crit rate for the whole party's opener would make dragoon instant meta and people won't even consider mnks or nins.

As an aside I think mnk and one of the tanks should be dealing piercing damage. To reward different compositions such as mnk/drg/tank and nin/Sam/tank or rdm/blm/tank for magic comps. Instead of trying to make all of them "jack of all trades"

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Originally Posted by Sepher

Drgaon Sight FIX: Drgaon Sight raises the DRG DPS by 10% and raises all party members by 5% within a 15 yalm radius.

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Haven't done much thinking on Dragon Sight as I've been more focused on LOTD and how it functions, but this would be a much welcomed change in my book. Maybe a bit too powerful though? Either way if it is it would be simple to balance, would just have to adjust the numbers a bit.

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Originally Posted by Sepher

LOTD requires only 3 eyes. This will allow for you to enter LOTD very quickly at the start and much more often throughout the fight.

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I think this is a good suggestion and would go a long ways into solving LOTD's problems, but I think they'll be disinclined to go with this approach unfortunately with the 4 eyes being symbolic of the whole 4 original dragons thingy with the lore.

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Originally Posted by Sepher

Dragonfire Dive will be acknowledged as a Jump and be influenced by BOTD and proc Dive ready for every add it hits.

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I originally thought this would be a bad solution due to how congested our opener would become with having to weave Mirage Dive's in and out after every jump. Would be difficult to fit in Life Surge -> Full Thrust for the initial part of our rotation . However, if we could stack Dive Ready's as you've suggested, this wouldn't be as much of an issue and we could simply hold the majority of the Mirage Dive's until after the first Life Surge -> Full Thrust. Good suggestion. Optimally I think this is probably the most realistic and beneficial change the team could make.

That being said, my suggestions are for if they decide for whatever reason they would not wish to have Dive Ready as a stackable buff:

1. The ability to stack up to 2 Eyes of the Brood if BotD is dropped.
The benefits of this are pretty obvious. It would simply make phase transitions a bit less punishing for us and dropping BotD wouldn't be such of a pain. Not a fan of this suggestion though. It wouldn't really solve the issue of LotD just simply feeling underwhelming and infrequent, and it would more than likely be a bit more of a pain to code into the game. There's some other pretty obvious drawbacks as well such as fights like A1s, A5s, and A9s that have mini bosses where you can stack eyes before the actual raid fight.

2. Lowering the CD of Spineshatter Dive to around 40-45 seconds or so.
I can see this being a change the team could make. It's a rather straight forward approach that wouldn't be difficult to add to the game, would allow us to enter LotD more often and would bring up our numbers a bit since we seem to be on the tail end of most jobs atm. Our opener wouldn't change much but CD alignment might be kinda iffy. That's one of the problems I see with this.

Overall, I'm a big fan of the stackable Dive Ready's and Dragonfire dive proc. So far that seems to be the best suggestion that I've seen.

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Originally Posted by Gravton

Your dragon sight fix is to OP, increasing damage and crit rate for the whole party's opener would make dragoon instant meta and people won't even consider mnks or nins.

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I agree with making different comps have different strengths, but I strongly disagree with people not picking NIN. Are you aware that a NIN's Trick Attack is 10% damage up for the party every 60 seconds, they have agro control tools that tanks can utilize to deal more damage, and they currently are on par if not better than DRG in terms of personal DPS. NIN is a must pick currently. MNK on the other hand is once again a bad pick as brotherhood has not changed them to make them competitive. And just to cover the last Melee SAM raw dps output out weighs what DRG brings.

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Originally Posted by MordynE

Haven't done much thinking on Dragon Sight as I've been more focused on LOTD and how it functions, but this would be a much welcomed change in my book. Maybe a bit too powerful though? Not sure.



I think this is a good suggestion and would go a long ways into solving LOTD's problems, but I think they'll be disinclined to go with this approach unfortuntely with the 4 eyes being symbolic of the whole 4 original dragons thingy with the lore.




in progress**

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I agree the number of eyes can't change. Per the lore the 4 remaining dragons are Vrtra, Azdaja, Hraevalgr, and Tiamat. This can't be reduced unless one of them dies

I hate Dragon Sight. It's stupid when you look at MNK's Brotherhood or RDM EMbolden, both having a 15y effect vs DS being 6y. For a class that needs to bounce, weave and jump around having a tether ability is beyond retarded.

My idea, turn Dragon sight into a trait. Lowers Battle Litany CD to 160 sec and gives 5% damage to everyone. This let's it line up with every other BFB and lets our main raid utility be used more often. Increase the crit/damage if needed if it's under preforming.

LotD ideas:
1) Make Dive ready into a stack you consume. So Jump generates 1 stack, Spineshatter generates 2. This makes spine actually equal to jump since 30s vs 60s cd. Helsp if you SSD during LotD meaning you get back in faster
2)Massively buff the potency of Gerk and Nastrod. If it's going to takes us 80-90s to get into LotD then it should hit like truck powered by a jet engine. Make Gerk like 400 and Nastrod 700+ Values can be tweaked but since pvp skills are now seperate we can make the big burst phase real burst in pve.
3)Let us stay in LotD long as we follow the rotation. So Wheeling and F&C both extend LotD like they do BotD. Give Mirage Dive a potency boost while in LotD. Still has the same horrible problems of falling off during big phase changes (primal ultimates) but it shoudl feel more like a high power mode we maintain then rather then barely any burst.

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Originally Posted by Vincent_Mateus

I agree the number of eyes can't change. Per the lore the 4 remaining dragons are Vrtra, Azdaja, Hraevalgr, and Tiamat. This can't be reduced unless one of them dies

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I personally don't really care if the lore matches the abilities and whatnot, but yea I'm sure the dev team will be more strict on that unfortunately.

Dragoon didn't really lose Power Surge, the total damage was just Folded into Jump so you don't have to hit 3 buttons to attack twice every minute, and Spineshatter was just buffed in general. You're also ignoring the flat potency buffs to most of the Combo actions overall. But overall I do agree that LOTD needs some tweaking so you don't get completely screwed by phase transitions. I imagine Dragon Eyes not being lost with BOTD would go a long way toward fixing this.

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Originally Posted by SpeckledBurd

Dragoon didn't really lose Power Surge, the total damage was just Folded into Jump so you don't have to hit 3 buttons to attack twice every minute, and Spineshatter was just buffed in general. You're also ignoring the flat potency buffs to most of the Combo actions overall.

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I'm not ignoring the potency buffs they are just insufficient. They are in place to make up for the Disembowel nerf which was a flat 5% nerf to all DRG moves as well as utility. Losing Leg sweep is a 130 potency attack every 20 seconds and it shouldn't have been removed since both MNK and NIN did not lose their equivalent moves. They only lost the stun/silence effect. With Power Surge taken away the potency loss from these are not made up with the increased potentiates.

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Originally Posted by Vincent_Mateus

I agree the number of eyes can't change. Per the lore the 4 remaining dragons are Vrtra, Azdaja, Hraevalgr, and Tiamat. This can't be reduced unless one of them dies

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Couldn't the BotD or LotD itself be considered as the "Gaze of the <First/Fourth> Brood"?

That said, the gameplay differences between LotD per 3 Eyes and LotD per 4 and Dive Ready on DFD come down simply to whether or not you want greater frequency or greater dynamics, assuming output is balanced accordingly. With the latter, you get the same speed of first entry (2nd Jump at 30s), but a much more varied interval thereafter, whereas LotD per 3 Eyes would be entered every 60 seconds on the dot after the first at 30s.

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Originally Posted by Vincent_Mateus

I agree the number of eyes can't change. Per the lore the 4 remaining dragons are Vrtra, Azdaja, Hraevalgr, and Tiamat. This can't be reduced unless one of them dies

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But which should we kill first?

I posted a suggestion in the other DRG trait but i'll repost it here because its more relevant here.

-Reduce the amount of eyes needed to activate LoTD by 1 so we only need 3 eyes. making downtime bit less of a problem.
-Reduce cooldown of our Jump & SSD by 50% while in LoTD
-Change nastrond into a single target nuke (500-800potency) that ends LoTD & puts us back into BoTD.

This would make LoTD about building up eyes asap to then build eyes up faster while LoTD is active with decreased cooldown of our jumps. Then finish LoTD with Nastrond.

The point of LoTD would be to be able to use Nastrond as frequent as possible. (30-45 sec)

We would lose potency of Nastrond during 1 LoTD duration but we would gain more Jumps, Mirage Dives & a much more frequent LoTD.
Geirskogul should be used whenever our LoTD goes down.

Numbers on cooldown reduction & general potencies will need tweaking for balance purposes.

Once again, I doubt SE will do anything too crazy. This is just an idea.

I don't know about any sweeping changes to how LoTD/eyes work but Nastrond needs to be brought up in potency. I think everyone can agree it's underwhelming for the amount of time you have to ramp.

DRG main here. I like our new rotation / gameplay, but I agree that we're quite undertuned. Despite our high potency weaponskills, we lack GCD reduction mechanics like NIN, MNK, and SAM does. Also, I'm fine with LOTD requires 4 eyes (which also relates to Lore), but the problem is that LOTD doesn't give anything other than changing GK into Nastrond. Same with the Eyes - it doesn't do anything other than being a counter compared to other Jobs where their stacks do something, no matter how simple (e.g. Aetherflow / Lilies).

IMO we'll be in a great spot if Disembowel is back to 10%, Dragon Sight gives 15% and 10%, respectively (along with a range buff), and finally it'll be awesome if the Eyes / LOTD does something like +5% per eyes / +25% dmg in LOTD. That way our LOTD phases would be our "SUPER MODE" where we have to aim for the max duration and going full ham everytime we enter LOTD.

It's too late for them to start completely reworking the mechanics of the job at this point. That is better served as overhaul changes pre expansion drop. Things like reworking the functionality of Nastrond is extremely unlikely.

What is likely to change at this point?

-Potencies
-Eyes not being removed when BotD falls off
-Dragon Sight being made easier to use
-Mirage Dive having the animation lock removed/reduced

Other than that, I can't see anything else happening. And if those changes did happen I would honestly be satisfied with that. Also keep in mind that if you start reducing jump cd's and adding dive ready to more and more stuff, you will be having to pop mirage dive like a machine gun and LotD will no longer line up with BfB.

I'm more interested in them adding an eye per additional BotD use, as long as the buff is up.

If Blood of the dragon is already up and being sustained, using it again at 30 seconds should give an extra eye, on top of refreshing the timer to 15 seconds.

- Don't let eyes fall off.
- Let Dragonfire Dive proc Mirage Dive.
- Lower Dragonfire Dive's recast to 60sec. That means it lines up perfectly with 2x Jumps + spineshatter + dragonfire = 4 eyes in 1 min. It would also make Dragonfire Dive more relevant in our AoE rotation (dives being a dragoons signature ability!) instead of something that shows up one in a blue moon like it is now.

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Originally Posted by HaiHai

It's too late for them to start completely reworking the mechanics of the job at this point. That is better served as overhaul changes pre expansion drop. Things like reworking the functionality of Nastrond is extremely unlikely.

What is likely to change at this point?

-Potencies
-Eyes not being removed when BotD falls off
-Dragon Sight being made easier to use
-Mirage Dive having the animation lock removed/reduced

Other than that, I can't see anything else happening. And if those changes did happen I would honestly be satisfied with that. Also keep in mind that if you start reducing jump cd's and adding dive ready to more and more stuff, you will be having to pop mirage dive like a machine gun and LotD will no longer line up with BfB.

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I think you are completely right, and with those changes I think I'd be satisfied as well, though I would personally also like to see the max amount of eyes increased so we have a little flexibility.

At this rate i'd rather them just drop BotD altogether. It's near impossible to let it drop off unless long transition periods force you too.

Some of these other suggestions are obviously way better solutions but BotD right now just seems silly when considering how the risk/reward for entering LotD is booty.

I would start with letting Dragonfire Dive proc Dive ready and greatly increasing the potency of Nastrond. I'd also make LotD give a flat out damage buff since it's supposed to be the big dick Kaioken mode

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Originally Posted by Vincent_Mateus

I'm more interested in them adding an eye per additional BotD use, as long as the buff is up.

If Blood of the dragon is already up and being sustained, using it again at 30 seconds should give an extra eye, on top of refreshing the timer to 15 seconds.

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LoTD should also give some sort of buff, maybe to make up for Disembowel without touching BRD/MCH potencies. It honestly seems to function a lot like BLM, except there is much more risk involved and fights are currently built to mess it up. Heck, they can remove Sonic Thrust (since they love nerfing AoEs lately) and give us something more useful like "Tiamat-senpai noticed you, +1 eye every 45s"

Overall, I'm not sure what SE was thinking. While DRG does bring some utility, it is overall less than NIN so it is weird that we consistently do much less damage (200 DPS average roughly) currently and got an incredibly clunky mechanic to boot. They always seemed to balance around what classes brought toolkit wise, but this expansion tossed it out the window given MCH/DRG.

Let us keep eyes when BotD runs out. Chakras, Aetherflow, Oath Gauge, Ammo, Lollies, none of these vanish but remain until used.


Also to OP, though we lost a lot of abilities, our potencies were hugely boosted. FT for example got 80 potency, every WS got 20-60 potency boost to make up for loss of Phlebotomize and Leg Sweep.

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Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

Also to OP, though we lost a lot of abilities, our potencies were hugely boosted. FT for example got 80 potency, every WS got 20-60 potency boost to make up for loss of Phlebotomize and Leg Sweep.

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I agree with eyes being separate from BOTD. However I do not agree that the potency increases we received were close to what were needed. There is substantial evidence showing DRG being roughly 200 DPS behind NIN(the next lowest Melee) and having less party damage utility than it's Trick Attack every 60 seconds. Phlebotomize is a bigger loss than most. That dot allowed for better sustained DPS through out a fight when you were forced to disengage. An example this patch is Susano's Lightning mechanic when you are forced to switch sides or are stunned in place. Phlebotomize would give DRG better sustainability and it wouldn't mess with the rotation in anyway since there is no BOTD Time management.

Losing Phleb is allright in my book, otherwise we'd either need to pump our sks to make everything fit into HT, or risk HT not buffing the last combo action now that we have 5 actions per combo.
Or we'd need a tweak in HT duration.

What I agree on is LotD being extrmely underwhelming and unrewarding. Kenki Gauge is "free" to be used whenever as long as you build it, GL gives a buff (plus all the self-buffs monk has in its rotation).
I do understand why Disembowel was nerfed. I just don't agree with the decision when giving BRD and MCH a new shiny tool with the same effect, or adding it to an old skill, would've solved a lot of problems without axing DRG (because, let us all remember, MNK, SAM, WAR, NIN, they all still have a 10%, which contributes to the disparity. Or hey, why not axing every buff to 5%?)

Buffing B4B might be one of the solutions, but we still need a fix for the eyes issue.

Sight is a pain as well. I have a macro with /ac Dragon Sight <2>, with 2 always being a melee or a tank, but more than once I've had to shout at my static to come frigging closer you oaf, because they were a step away from 6y and the buff wouldn't activate > here's the first dps loss.

As a plus, Susanoo decided I was up for gaols at least once in every kill I've done the first day. I've lost BotD every time. Bye eyes, it was a pleasure meeting you and almost having a use out of you.