Husband is again attempting to play DRG. I'm thinking of leveling it just to help him out. I've never played it but I'll likely get a grip on it before he does.
He's a terrible player. Has no concept of a rotation, hits buttons randomly, and really doesn't care to get it perfect. He's also got spacial awareness issues but I can work with that,btoo lol.
I just want to know what he's getting into. There isn't a class with less buttons available right now either. I peeked at the opener and it makes even my head hurt. I'm not great but I know the concept of a rotation and can for the most part follow one.
Help appreciated. He's dead set on this job. :(
Exactly how hard is Dragoon?
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05-31-2021, 05:49 AMImoraExactly how hard is Dragoon?
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05-31-2021, 06:25 AMMikey_R
I would suggest not looking at a level 80 rotation if you are just getting started. Dragoon is a relatively simple job to level as everything just builds on what you already know, so it just comes down to incorporating the new things.
The main thing to get down is the GCD rotation. For level 50, you have 2 combos, True Thrust > Disembowel > Chaos Thrust and True Thrust > Vorpal Thrust > Full Thrust. The idea is you want to have Disembowel up all the time, but you don't want to clip your Chaos Thrust early. You fill the gap with the Full Thrust combo. So, you have Chaos > Fullx3 repeat.
This changes once you hit 56/58. You need to have 'Blood of the Dragon' up to have access to Fang and Claw and Wheeling Thrust which combo off of Chaos Thrust and Full Thrust respectively. You combo then changed to only having 2 Full Thrust combos between each Chaos Thrust Combo.
The last change is at 64, where you can use Fangd and Claw after Wheeling Thrust and vice versa. At this point, you alternate the combos, so your full GCD rotation will be:
True Thrust > Disembowel > Chaos Thrust > Wheeling Thrust > Fang and Claw > True Thrust > Vorpal Thrust > Full Thrust > Fang and Claw > Wheeling Thrust repeat
For oGCDs for the most part, just use them when they come off of cooldown. I would recommend saving Life Surge for Full Thrust, try and get Chaos Thrust into Lance Charge and, when you hit 70, only use Gierskogul to activate Life of the Dragon to have access to Nastrod, which you can get 3 on a LotD timer and remember to use Stardiver.
AoE combo is really simple, Doom Spike > Sonic Thrust > Coerthan Torment repeat. You can still build up and use LotD as well as it is very strong in AoE situations.
Since, by the sound of it, you are not going for harder content, I would not stress over doing the perfect rotation or using your oGCDs perfectly. The main thing to get right is your GCD combo as that is where the majority of your damage is going to come from. It is also worth noting that there is a benefit to hitting the positional for Wheeling Thrust / Fang and Claw at the end of your combos once you hit level 76 as it will give you access to Raiden Thrust, which just replaces True Thrust. If you get it, good, if you don't, then don't worry too much. Just continue as normal. -
06-01-2021, 05:37 AMImora
Excellent. Thank you.
I don't plan on investing heavy in endgame at the moment and my husband certainly won't. I just want to be able to help him out when he has troubles and guide him to better DPS. He doesn't read guides. :( -
06-01-2021, 08:35 AMNafreyu
Truthfully? I say this as a player of both games, but get him to play Necromancer in GW2. Full pet build. He could literally auto attack something to death.
I understand we all have strengths, weaknesses or limitations. But I would ask, for the sake of doing something together that's supposed to be a special bonding thing, to not go down the path of frustration where it's plain to see from your post while you love him, you're genuinely not looking forward to it.
He may be the greatest baker, for all I know. So not speaking negatively as a whole. But I would whole heartedly encourage him to try something else instead.
.... Or.... actually... maybe Bard. Why I like it, it's proc based. So long as he hits the glowing button, he'll do an approximation of damage. There are 3 buffs to maintain, that have a 30 second uptime each, but that's a future Imora problem. Don't even worry about it. -
06-01-2021, 11:18 AMEquitable_RemedyNothing is hard if you don't care.Quote:
Originally Posted by Imora
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06-01-2021, 11:26 AMColetergeist
Warn him about jumping and locked animations.
Though I'm sure he's probably already aware of those issues DRG faces.
Even level 80; I had to rezz a dragoon 6x for one boss fight because of locked animations (jumps for the most part).
It's playing a 'timing game' when you play DRG, I think. I don't main that job, so I'm not the most helpful here. I just know as a healer main that they die often to that because I watch them like a hawk. -
06-01-2021, 10:29 PMDracian
DRG at 80 was easier than I expected. At first, it was a bit daunting because I paid for a level boost to check it out at higher levels, so I pretty much missed everything from 20-70. But once I got into Bozja and set up my crossbars it was surprisingly straightforward. The main combos are 5 abilities long, which is longer than most, but the benefit is that each button lights up so you know what is next, which makes it simple for newer players to follow along. The only part that actually requires some management is High Jump + Mirage Dive and Geirskogal to go into Life of the Dragon, but even then it's a very simple thing to keep track of. You basically need to use Mirage Dive 2x and then use Geirskogal to go into Life. If you use Geirskogal before Mirage dive you'll delay going into Life, which is actually preferable sometimes (but not required for casual content).
The good part of the job is that once you memorize the rotation, it stays pretty static throughout. There's almost no variation other than some downtime in a fight. But if someone can memorize the rotation they can just keep repeating it over and over without too many issues. -
06-02-2021, 04:20 AMImora
He won't play bard. Doesn't like ranged, thought DRG looks cool.
He wants to play the story but he's terrible at video games and has a self esteem issue preventing him from getting better at it, so I'm trying to do the footwork and figure it out so i can show him. He'll never be perfect at it, but if i can get him through the story i consider it a success. He also does *every* quest, so he's like 21 and has to do Sastasha still...
And it's not like i dislike playing with him, it's that I know someone is gonna rail into him for standing in stuff. He won't handle that well.
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06-02-2021, 05:20 AMty_taurus
I recommend suggesting he swap to Samurai once reaching level 50. I'm not much of a melee player, but as I've been leveling all jobs and as I finish up melee, I find that Samurai is incredibly forgiving despite how powerful it is, not to mention it's also very easy to follow even when first unlocking the job and having to sort through all your abilities from 1-50 at once. It barely needs to worry about positionals at all and doesn't even have them until you unlock the kenki gauge. Things get a little busier once you get into the 60s and 70s.
On the flipside, Dragoon's combos are fairly straightforward, but they get a pretty large list of buffs and off global abilities that have all different durations that can very easily desych. Some refresh every 30 seconds, 45 seconds, 60 seconds, 90 seconds, and 120 seconds. It's a much steeper learning curve in my opinion. -
06-02-2021, 03:58 PMImoraThis is my concern, even for my own learning.Quote:
Originally Posted by ty_taurus
I don't even think it's possible here, but in other games if there's something that doesn't trigger the GCD, I'd macro it to another ability to auto fire it on CD. That's how much I dislike having to deal with them. I can't reach anything past 6 on my keyboard easily, and I can't use an MMO mouse. So I'm limited to about 12 hotkeys unless I figure something out. -
06-02-2021, 04:13 PMElkanahHave you considered playing with a controller (either an Xbox or playstation controller) on your PC? The Xbox controllers (or mostly all controllers of various brands) tend to be useable on PC. A lot of players (myself included) play on PC with controller, as well as Keyboard and Mouse (depending on whether I feel like being lazy or not-- but still want to do the best optimal dps at the time on said configuration).Quote:
Originally Posted by Imora
If either of you aren't comfortable with KBM setups (and have played a lot of games with a controller on a console), this might be the way to go to play jobs in ffxiv. Especially starting out!
On a typical layout for a controller:
Your actions of skills used will be on the D-pad (directional pad located on left side of controller)
And the other set will be on your right side (4 buttons on the controller)
Your movement will be the left thumbstick/joystick (on a keyboard, this is usually WASD)
Your camera movement (up, down, left, right) will be on your right thumbstick/joystick
Left bumper (above the left trigger on controller) will be your shift button to allow you to shift through various hotbars (depending on how you want to set things up, or how many tab bars you want at one time)
And right bumper (above your right trigger on the controller) will be your auto run button (you can press RB once again to cancel the auto run feature), or move your joystick different directions to stop your character movement as well -
06-02-2021, 04:30 PMNaoki34
Dragoon is easy to play, it consists of holding a buff and linking two long combos.
It's boring to me. -
06-02-2021, 04:51 PMAlien_Gamer
Has he considered being a tank? In many ways tanks are the most forgiving jobs to play; if you mess up a mechanic or eat an aoe you have a high defense and HP pool to not die and healers are usually watching your health closely just in case. WAR and PLD both have good DPS, things won't die as fast as a real dps but you're not slow either. Plus your rotations are usually more simple than a DPS job rotation; outside of dungeons this can be mitigated with a chocobo.
The big down side is you're the focus of everyone in group play and that can be intimidating for some. -
06-02-2021, 04:58 PMNaoki34
Personally, I like to make people run 3 to 23 people far behind me.
But you have to stop encouraging anyone to be a tank, there are so many incompetent ones despite the fact that the aggro system has been more than casualised. -
06-02-2021, 05:30 PMTlamila
Ok so. If the concern is about him standing in stuff, that won't be helped by whatever class he plays.
Not following rotations is fine imho, unless you get into serious endgame which you said you're not going to. Especially for story you don't need to master a class. As long as he can understand how the class works and uses all the tools. I, for example, like to level classes slowly through all content and learn how they work by myself, and then come up with my own way of playing them, rather than just read up a rotation, get a headache and understand none of it, and then hit a dummy until I go by memory rather than by reason. It does work. Surely the classes I do harder content with I try to perfection and go more into rotations, but I don't think it's any way needed for normal content. Again, as long as you understand the class and use all the tools. I've seen lvl 80 dragoons not even use the party buff for example (I forgot the name, I never remember skill names).
About DRG itself, it's not an hard class, but it's also not one of the easiest, I'd say it's halfway? Surely if he likes to stand in bad, melee range and animation locks won't help. Although it does prevent him staying in Narnia compared to healers. I'd suggest dancer since it's braindead, but you said he doesn't like ranged. As others said, samurai is also super duper easy. But idk, I feel DRG still works even if freestyle, for normal content, as long as he does the combos, keeps the buffs up, doesn't forget blood of the dragon and all that. It's not one of those classes like say BLM or high lvl PLD where if you don't follow the rotation you might as well stop.
Does he at least do positionals? -
06-02-2021, 05:36 PMTlamilaThis. Just because they have simpler rotations, doesn't mean they're easier. There's a lot of things a tank needs to get right in a fight that a dps won't even notice them being there as mechanics at all, especially in normal content where dps have 0 responsabilities apart from doing damage. I really wouldn't wanna see someone who's terrible at playing the game tank for me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Naoki34
Plus a dps can die and whatever, a tank's death has another weight though. -
06-04-2021, 04:05 AMImoraI do actually have a controller (PS4 controller) that i picked up because monster hunter world sucks nuts with KB/M. I've debated giving it a go.Quote:
Originally Posted by Elkanah
Just need to find it. It's in my desk somewhere. Lol. -
06-04-2021, 04:15 AMSilpherTbh he might have a better time doing a ranged class like sum or blm. Compared to melee their combos are less effected by positioning etc and ranged as a whole in almost all games is easier to learn then melee.Quote:
Originally Posted by Imora
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06-04-2021, 08:21 PMStriderShinryu
Yeah, others have pretty much covered it, but I'd put DRG on the more difficult end of melee personally. Not because it's hard, per se, but more because it feels particularly punishing if you do mess up for whatever reason. The basic combo chain is so long that if you make a mistake you have to basically start it all over from the beginning, and that's before you even consider being animation locked for some of the OGCDs and having to use your share skills on others. Keeping your own personal buff up, though, is actually fairly easy once you get high enough in level as just doing the basic combo functions to keep it active pretty much all of the time (provided you don't mess up the combo along the way).
If he's determined to be a melee I would put both Monk and Sam as easier than DRG simply because if you do make a mistake in their rotation it's not as punishing to just pick back up and start again. Sure your buffs and whatnot will be misaligned but that sounds like a concern that's probably out of the range of concern for him at his current interest/skill level. I agree with the others, though, and would say that if he's actually open to any class then maybe one ranged classes would be better. I would actually suggest Machinist. It can be a little buttonsy in certain moments but you're free to move whenever and whereever. No cast bars to deal with and a pretty simple combo chain. Your buffs also general line up very well normally so it can almost be a "just hit buttons when they're off cooldown" style class. -
06-04-2021, 10:44 PMImora
Therein lies the problem. It *has* to be this job, because this is what he wants to play. Mostly because he finds jumping around fun.
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06-05-2021, 07:26 AMShurrikhanHow are you with mod keys? I know someone who can barely stretch their left hand and has little to no right thumb movement (thus no use for an MMO mouse, as he's right-handed) who nonetheless manages BLM fine just by using Ctrl, Alt, Shift and combinations of those with his palm-heel and pinky. I think he only uses 12345QERT as base keys. Due to the lack of stretch, moreover, 5 and t are Alt-only while 1, Q, and maybe 2 do not use Alt or use it only via a rebound Caps Lock key, but he still has all the buttons he needs easily at hand.Quote:
Originally Posted by Imora
Alternatively, have you tried thumb-keys, like CVBN? -
06-05-2021, 09:52 PMImora
I can't use alt, that's set as my PTT for Discord. Mostly *because* I can reach it easily.
Q and E are easy enought but contorting my short thumb to hit that third row likely won't happen. I've taken to tanking my hand off the mouse.
Probably give controller a try this weekend, though I'm absolutely terrible with them. Got nothing else to do, i hit a brick wall for MSQ(not enough item level) and i can't rerun trusts to do it, so either i dit in df or figure out the controller. Haha.