my complaint about dragoons

[juniglee]

Ricard and Kain Highwind from, their respective games, were the only Dragoons in the franchise from what I can gather (unless I'm forgetting someone). And both were Dragon Knights who literally rode dragons into battle.

Everyone else you named are Dragoon-like, not Dragoons, and none, from what I can recall, were Dragon Slayers--just lancers with the ability to Jump as a nod to previous games. Mechanically, Jump is the trademark of Dragoons. Lore wise, Dragoons are mostly "Dragon Tamers" as you put it. FF14 is the first, from what I've gathered, where Dragoons are exclusively Dragon Slayers. We could have seen FF11's wyvern pet as simply a manageable way to follow up on years of lore. I did write this out a page ago.

Could be wrong, but if I'm not, then the more you know.

Yes, they were the only two given the title of Dragoon in their respective games. Everyone else were not given any official titles of Dragoons - for example, Freya is a Burmecian Dragon Knight. My memory for the games are pretty fuzzy, but Ricard's group of Dragoons were mentioned to be dragon tamers, and you had to save the dragon egg of the last surviving dragon in FF2. I have not really seen anything about Kain and working with Dragons from what I remember of FF4. But one thing that does stand is that they all use spears, and they can all use Jump (except Ricard I believe).

Freya is an example of another Dragon Slayer - she learns the skill Dragon Killer, and her strongest usable skill, Dragon's Crest, scales in power with the amount of dragons killed throughout the game. In general, there's usually spears that also do additional damage to Dragon-type monsters.

I think giving Dragoons a class-specific Wyvern mount, would be much better than them having a usable pet in battle. Much like White Mages getting the Unicorn mount.

[Sabaoth]

snip

Apparently, in Kain Highwind's case, it was the history of his company of dragoons--they became obsolete with the invention of the airships, and the Red Wings became the dominant force for Baron. The Dragoons apparently learned to Jump as a tribute to the days of old.

I've never been a big fan of FF9, honestly, so I had forgotten about Freya's game mechanics. From what you've said, and as the Burmecians are the only Dragon Knights (and Dragon Knights and Dragoons can mostly be used interchangeably), it would be fair to say that Freya was a Dragon-slaying Dragoon. Even though it may not be touched upon heavily in lore, her skill set alone is enough to imply it. In the traditional games, however, Freya is probably the only one who was primarily a dragon-slaying dragoon/dragon knight--not to say that the others did not or could not slay dragons.

As for the weapons, I'm almost certain that could be said of most weapon types in final fantasy--though I understand you mean spears seem to have a priority on having a anti-dragon trait. Kain Highwind can equip axes and swords, but could only Jump if he was using a spear--implying that the spear is simply just the more efficient weapon for executing Jump (though that is debatable), but also, and perhaps more importantly, spears are arguably the best weapon for mounted infantry. That reason, perhaps, is why eventually Lances became the trademark weapon for Dragoons.

I agree though, a wyvern mount would be a good middle ground. But I'm sure some people would consider that too much, or too little. I'm just glad this is a sensible conversation.