Dragoon Feedback: No dopamine allowed?

I would like to start with a statement: My point here is not to discuss the Dragoon's overall damage output compared to the other DPS jobs. If you'd like to make an argument based on the average damage output of various DPS jobs, please take it elsewhere.

What I do want to talk about is how Dragoon really doesn't have a damage button that feels good to push. What do I mean? What makes an ability feel good to push? I can explain.

• I want the ability to result in a spectacular visual effect.
• I don't mind if the ability takes some work to execute, such as accumulating some kind of resource to use it. This extra work required increases the good feeling of finally pushing it.
• I want the ability to deal a noticeable amount of damage.

So, DRG does deliver on two of those criteria. There certainly is visual spectacle and there definitely are resources you can work with to get to some of your DPS buttons. However, when it comes to noticeable damage? There is nothing.

I am working my ass off to execute Stardiver, which has 500 potency. My 3rd combo hit has 420. Stardiver isn't a massive hit, it's a hit that is about 22% more powerful than a combo button that I get to use very often. When I use Stardiver, the enemies don't take a noticeably bigger chunk of damage than when I use my other abilities.

The biggest sting came from the lvl 90 ability, though. Wyrmwind Thrust. I got an ENTIRELY NEW resource to accumulate, and all of that to execute an attack with 370 potency. Woo-hoo. Less than many of my other abilities. Frankly, it is stupid how little payoff there is to reaching 90 on DRG, especially when you compare it to the other melee DPS.

Every other melee DPS has an ability to deal a 1000 or 1200 potency attack at some point (not all of them come at lvl 90, but the important part is that they have them). Those attacks always deal noticeably more damage than the other actions those jobs have. For some reason Dragoons are stuck at 500.

I really don't like it. I'd prefer if Dragoons were able to execute a massively powerful hit every once in a while too. There certainly are visual effects that create the illusion of delivering massive hits.

Not every job has to play exactly the same. You don't get massive potency because you have many oGCDs and potency to spread out.

Reaper and Monk barely have anything to weave, so it makes sense that they have more impactful GCDs.

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Originally Posted by Throrface

I am working my ass off to execute Stardiver, which has 500 potency. My 3rd combo hit has 420. Stardiver isn't a massive hit, it's a hit that is about 22% more powerful than a combo button that I get to use very often. When I use Stardiver, the enemies don't take a noticeably bigger chunk of damage than when I use my other abilities..

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Are you, are you my soul brother this is the exact reason I have quit DRG maining . I have switched to Reaper because as much I like the Dragoon jump. Working my ass off on top of jump lock to get Stardriver out and seeing that pitiful damage and having RPR out damage me with their 1,2,3 have enraged me. Leveling Repear so I can use my Dragoon gear till they fix our potency.

I love Dragoon animation and lore but my god they have screwed this with this expansion. Will be back to DRG when it become remotely comparable to monk and RPR.

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Originally Posted by rewd

Not every job has to play exactly the same. You don't get massive potency because you have many oGCDs and potency to spread out.

Reaper and Monk barely have anything to weave, so it makes sense that they have more impactful GCDs.

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I'm not suggesting here that every dps job should play the same.

I thought that this was going to be specifically talking about the removal of positional requirements for Raiden's Thrust. It was fun to be rewarded for hitting the positionals.

I somewhat agree with your overall problems though. I played through DRG to 90 as it's always been my "main." In addition to the points that you made, our "burst section" (i.e. Life of the Dragon) is somewhat.... unexciting. It feels like that should be akin to MCH's Hypercharge, or GNB's Gnashing Fang, etc, but instead it's just... "bleh".

Also, your point of Heaven's Thrust being close to our "big" attacks is made even worse when you consider the fact that most Heaven's Thrusts are done under Life Surge so most are guaranteed crits....

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Originally Posted by Throrface

I'm not suggesting here that every dps job should play the same.

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You indirectly are, don't worry. They could very well make Stardiver 1000p or even more, which would lead to other skills being weaker, which then leads to you coming back here complaining that Dragoon feels unrewarding and too much work for its payoff which then ultimately leads to the question "What's the purpose of all these weak OGCDs?" which then leads to...

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Originally Posted by rewd

You indirectly are, don't worry. They could very well make Stardiver 1000p or even more, which would lead to other skills being weaker, which then leads to you coming back here complaining that Dragoon feels unrewarding and too much work for its payoff which then ultimately leads to the question "What's the purpose of all these weak OGCDs?" which then leads to...

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I don't think your incorrect assumptions are a viable counterargument against what I'm saying here, but I see that you disagree, for reasons you won't or can't disclose.

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Originally Posted by Throrface

I don't think your incorrect assumptions are a viable counterargument against what I'm saying here, but I see that you disagree, for reasons you won't or can't disclose.

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You weirdly refuse to address what was said, so I'll pose you a question: why do you think DNC has a 1060p attack and BRD only has a 600p attack as their strongest skill?

I will never understand how people equate individual abilities' potencies with "fun". As long as it all works in relation so the rotation makes sense and the overall damage isn't weirdly off-balance with other jobs it's who cares.

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Originally Posted by rewd

You weirdly refuse to address what was said, so I'll pose you a question: why do you think DNC has a 1060p attack and BRD only has a 600p attack as their strongest skill?

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I don't care why. On both BRD and DNC the abilities you refer to stand out reasonably well from their other actions, so I'm totally fine with them. They feel like good, meaty hits.

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Originally Posted by ThorneDynasty

I will never understand how people equate individual abilities' potencies with "fun". As long as it all works in relation so the rotation makes sense and the overall damage isn't weirdly off-balance with other jobs it's who cares.

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I care, but it's alright if you don't.

I don’t play Dragoon much, but isn’t Stardiver AoE, ranges, and off the GCD? How in the world can you compare that to your third melee combo, which is ST, melee range, and on the GCD?

I can see what you’re asking for, and I agree I find Dragoon a little boring. But that’s the gameplay — you do damage spread out over all your GCD and oGCDs, the latter of which you have MANY. It’s a busy job with a straight forward rotation. You play the class if you like weaving.

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Originally Posted by ThorneDynasty

I will never understand how people equate individual abilities' potencies with "fun". As long as it all works in relation so the rotation makes sense and the overall damage isn't weirdly off-balance with other jobs it's who cares.

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It's not really a big potency = fun thing, it's more of a you've got this ability you can only use once per minute but it's not just a timer, you need to build for it and delay it's premature use so you can sync all your cooldowns(or just LC) so that it lands inside your incredibly busy 20 seconds (15 with litany) damage ups window and on top of all that you can't even single weave next to that ability because the animation is 2 hours long so it's technically much weaker than Heaven's Thrust which can easily accommodate dual weaving during your most crucial part of the rotation that is so busy you can't even get all your oGCDs out if you pool 2 spineshatter dives unless you have extremely low ping and can dual weave jumps.

To compare it with GNB's double down, which I'm still laughing a tank gets such an ability just like that which can be used at the mere cost of 2 cartridges on cd.
Imagine if double down was instead at the end of your Gnashing Fang combo, and once used you were incapable of weaving anything with it because animation reasons, and then on top of that, instead of doing 1200 potency, it did just 600, basically just a tad bit higher than Wicked Talon and on top of that it can only be unlocked after your 2nd Gnashing Fang combo, so it can never be used in the opener, you have to wait 1 minute into the fight to unlock it.

That's stardiver, DRG's amazing ultimate ability.

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Originally Posted by Awarewolf

I don’t play Dragoon much, but isn’t Stardiver AoE, ranges, and off the GCD? How in the world can you compare that to your third melee combo, which is ST, melee range, and on the GCD?

I can see what you’re asking for, and I agree I find Dragoon a little boring. But that’s the gameplay — you do damage spread out over all your GCD and oGCDs, the latter of which you have MANY. It’s a busy job with a straight forward rotation. You play the class if you like weaving.

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I compared Stardiver and Heaven's Trust in terms of how good they feel to push, to me. I also disclosed those parameters in my opening post. Within my set of parameters the abilities are perfectly comparable.

I think you can perfectly preserve the Dragoon gameplay style while also making one of the abilities feel particularly satisfying by just shifting a few numbers around. I am not suggesting any adjustments to gameplay style here.

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Originally Posted by ZiraZ

It's not really a big potency = fun thing, it's more of a you've got this ability you can only use once per minute but it's not just a timer, you need to build for it and delay it's premature use so you can sync all your cooldowns(or just LC) so that it lands inside your incredibly busy 20 seconds (15 with litany) damage ups window and on top of all that you can't even single weave next to that ability because the animation is 2 hours long so it's technically much weaker than Heaven's Thrust which can easily accommodate dual weaving during your most crucial part of the rotation that is so busy you can't even get all your oGCDs out if you pool 2 spineshatter dives unless you have extremely low ping and can dual weave jumps.

To compare it with GNB's double down, which I'm still laughing a tank gets such an ability just like that which can be used at the mere cost of 2 cartridges on cd.
Imagine if double down was instead at the end of your Gnashing Fang combo, and once used you were incapable of weaving anything with it because animation reasons, and then on top of that, instead of doing 1200 potency, it did just 600, basically just a tad bit higher than Wicked Talon and on top of that it can only be unlocked after your 2nd Gnashing Fang combo, so it can never be used in the opener, you have to wait 1 minute into the fight to unlock it.

That's stardiver, DRG's amazing ultimate ability.

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Yeah, I agree.

One argument I have made that I consider quite important is that Dragoon does have abilities that create the illusion of great power, but when compared to their other abilities they really don't have it. When you have an ability that LOOKS like you are a literal nuke dropping from the sky but the ability delivers measly damage, it feels bad, unsatisfying, deceiving. When you had to work to it through a resource system, that feeling is amplified.

God no! We have enough jobs with spikey damage profile where critting or not critting your big button every two minutes defines how well you perform.

And the point of GCD vs oGCD is entirely valid. I invite you to show me oGCDs with potency similar to Stardiver. Comparing it to GCD nukes of other melee jobs that come with opportunity cost of another 300-500 potency GCD is disingenuous at best.

The audio of the sound effect on Wyrmwind Thrust really needs to be increased imo.
I can't even rly hear it unless I am paying attention to it deliberately and am actively trying to hear it.
It makes it feel rly lackluster.

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Originally Posted by Kolsykol

The audio of the sound effect on Wyrmwind Thrust really needs to be increased imo.
I can't even rly hear it unless I am paying attention to it deliberately and am actively trying to hear it.
It makes it feel rly lackluster.

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I totally agree, and also feel like the sfx on heavens thrust is kinda lackluster, especially compared to full thrust's jet engine sound, the animation is much flashier but the actual sounf effect doesnt really match it.
Although yeah wyrmwind thrust sfx is the main thing, i swear it sounds better in the job action trailer.

I actually kinda agree. It's an issue of verisimilitude, and it takes you out of it when damage values or rotation pacing aren't fully in tune with the gameplay.

Funny, you'd think dragoon would be the last job to suffer from this since they've traditionally been burst damage specialists in both job fantasy and past gameplay. They liked stardiver enough to render it in their cinematic trailer, but it certainly doesn't feel the part from a numbers standpoint.

Maybe it's because jobs with stable designs are only iterated on in small increments from expansion to expansion. When you need to integrate successive expansions' worth of new skills without ripping out the baseline, things get smeared out a little. Notice how brand new, or newly revamped jobs rarely suffer from this? It's harder to fall into that trap when you start from scratch and design from first principles.

The matter of burst vs sustained damage isn't just an issue of preference too, it has real ramifications on performance. Assuming the same total damage done over time, it is always better to deliver it in as bursty and irregular a manner as possible. This makes you better at exploiting buff windows, as well as moving your damage around to best suit openings in a fight. And it's just plain fun, it should be a clear win for everyone. It's unfortunate but I'm not sure what you can do except hope they realize this.

Normally I don't have a problem with animation locks, but the shere volume of ogcd's makes it a bit painful with DRG especially since a lot of it can't be double weaved.
I wish the jumps all felt as responsive as High Jump.

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Originally Posted by Kolsykol

Normally I don't have a problem with animation locks, but the shere volume of ogcd's makes it a bit painful with DRG especially since a lot of it can't be double weaved.
I wish the jumps all felt as responsive as High Jump.

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That's actually a bigger problem than what most people think, you can double weave most jumps but you need very low ping and external help so the people capable of doing this can double dip on their advantage of having low ping already and then on double weaving jumps which helps the very busy damage up windows, so they just hurt the average player.
I understand they don't want to make weaving cancel out a jump animation because it would look really bad and dumb but can they really not just give animations hierarchies so a lesser ability can't cancel out an "important" animation like a drg jump?
We already have tons of abilities that look dumb when you're moving like the new Chaotic spring makes you hover in air for like 2 seconds and makes it look like your character is levitating so I doubt removing the jump locks would change much.

I wish they remove dmg from spineshatter dive.

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Originally Posted by ZiraZ

That's actually a bigger problem than what most people think, you can double weave most jumps but you need very low ping and external help so the people capable of doing this can double dip on their advantage of having low ping already and then on double weaving jumps which helps the very busy damage up windows, so they just hurt the average player.
I understand they don't want to make weaving cancel out a jump animation because it would look really bad and dumb but can they really not just give animations hierarchies so a lesser ability can't cancel out an "important" animation like a drg jump?
We already have tons of abilities that look dumb when you're moving like the new Chaotic spring makes you hover in air for like 2 seconds and makes it look like your character is levitating so I doubt removing the jump locks would change much.

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Yeah, DRG is a lot of fun imo but it's a bit sad that the Jumps are what feels clunky since they're the coolest part and the niche.
Dragon Sight is a pain in the ass too especially if you've got party members running all over the place.
Would it really be too much to ask for it to be giant range?

They increased the Earthly Star or whatever it's called on AST and made it massive, why does Dragon Sight have to be 12y?
It's rly annoying when you're trying to pop it but then forces outside of your control ( party members ) move out of range.
I really think DRG needs to get looked on outside of just mere buffs.

Giving Dragon Sight a big range increase and making Jumps more responsive would go a huge way and make DRG feel less clunky.

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Originally Posted by Kahnom

I wish they remove dmg from spineshatter dive.

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This

Put that dmg on stardiver

Or just give a forward Elusive Jump.
RPR got two versions of theirs why can't DRG...?

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Originally Posted by ThorneDynasty

I will never understand how people equate individual abilities' potencies with "fun". As long as it all works in relation so the rotation makes sense and the overall damage isn't weirdly off-balance with other jobs it's who cares.

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But my Hyosho Ranryu crits...

More generally, I'm inclined to think that it's good to have variety along multiple axes including the spikiness of the damage over the course of 1 or 2 minutes. I think it good to have a range between classes that spike hard and classes that have a smoother damage profile, and I think that it's good to have some classes with a single super-high-potency attack and some classes with flatter decent-potency attacks. This sort of variety allows people to find the playstyle that works for them while still making classes balanced.

If DRG isn't your jam because it doesn't have the super-high-potency attack, maybe try classes that do and see if you'd prefer those.

Dragoon's always been a oGCD class with the allure to do multiple attacks per global that all do damage. List them all out and compare to another job and the difference should be apparent.

If you look at the graphs of our damage over just 3 minutes, there is still quite a range between the peak and valleys of bursts and downtime. The peaks of course are achieved with our 3 buffs + the 10 uses dmg oGCDs crammed into a 20 second window. Compare that to the few NIN and SAM gets, makes sense theirs can currently !! for ~40k (GCD) and ours ~20k (oGCD). Cherry on top is that ours is mostly AoE too, which is on par with SMN as top tier AoE damage dealers in dungeons atm.

Ultimately its a tug-o-war between number of buttons versus strength of buttons. I think it would suck too if the nerfed other jumps to buff a specific one. Defeats the purpose of those other buttons being an attacks, instead of a buff on the next attack like SAM.

Simply put, either 8+9+13... or 5 + buff + 25... Leaning one way or the other run the risk of diluting the flavor.

I don't think anyone disagrees with that the last 2 posters said, we're not exactly looking for DRG to become a 1k potency spammer like SAM, but some abilities would benefit from having higher potency and other abilities would benefit from not existing anymore, does mirage dive need to exist? It's a 15 sec duration 200 potency attack you barely notice it exists, did we really need 2 charges of spineshatter dive? is life surge not extremely outdated now?
Maybe some of these less impactful abilities potencies could be merged into stardiver? The job is already extremely busy 1 or 2 less abilities to weave during a damage window won't be missed too much.
Maybe give DRG 2 eyes for the opener?
Maybe allow stardiver to dual weave without breaking it's animation?

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Originally Posted by ZiraZ

I don't think anyone disagrees with that the last 2 posters said, we're not exactly looking for DRG to become a 1k potency spammer like SAM, but some abilities would benefit from having higher potency and other abilities would benefit from not existing anymore, does mirage dive need to exist? It's a 15 sec duration 200 potency attack you barely notice it exists, did we really need 2 charges of spineshatter dive? is life surge not extremely outdated now?
Maybe some of these less impactful abilities potencies could be merged into stardiver? The job is already extremely busy 1 or 2 less abilities to weave during a damage window won't be missed too much.
Maybe give DRG 2 eyes for the opener?
Maybe allow stardiver to dual weave without breaking it's animation?

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I agree that merging one, max two oGCDs wouldn't spoil much. I love the DRG because it's busy. 2x spineshatter (movement/dmg utility) isn't too uncommon, namely tanks, RDM etc.
Life surge could be more interesting sure, but given how long Dragon Sight has existed with its controversy, I'm not sure if it will be priority.

Opener with 2 eyes could be awesome, made a thread about it in fact. Long as it only stays in the opener and doesn't affect rest of the rotation due to LotD having 50% uptime as is.
Automatically fixes the current blueballing of LotD till 2nd lance charge weirdness too.

I think having locks on jumps is important to distinguish from the rest. Gets the animation to work, adds emphasis, generates memes. I don't want to feel like a BRD or most other jobs where everything is weavable and floaty.
Wondered if stardiver could be like RPR's big nuke with short cast, but since DRGs rotation is pretty rigid might throw off our burst window. So it has to exist in this current psudo-oGCD state.

'Course they could get creative, keep the unbreakable animation but let you move/vault off your spear after you jump with an added animation, but we all know that's just wishful thinking =p

Ngl I honestly like the current DRG at lv 90. The Jump Locks make it pretty unique, and honestly I'd say they feel better as they are as a result. The number of oGCDs make it feel really good when you want to continuously stab and hack away at the enemy, and the current system of building up reinforces that concept. After building momentum, you just stay at a higher state which can let you tap into more abilities to continuously overwhelm the enemy, which fits inline with the old DRG's power up state with Blood of the Dragoon going into life of the Dragoon. I figure Mirage Dive is used for the same purpose of building momentum, and Draconian Fire into Firstmind's Focus also uses the same concept.

We might not have a very powerful skill to empty out our attack in one go, but it also makes leveling a lot smoother with access to oGCDs to continuously hit the enemy imo. Plus, it doesn't make DRG that much less fun unless you just have no oGCDs at all.