DRG is unbalanced and desperately needs a buff.

[matic]

closest i got was 1095 crit FT last night with mostly myth/allagan stuff, some DL, +1

hate to agree with you OP, but I kinda do. its pretty annoying that drg feels like the lol job all over again, just like XI

[Arkista]

LOL op. My wife is a +1DRG and she doesn't do the best that she should do and still does a pretty high parse in her CoB group. Don't focus to much on the 27hit rotation? IDK what the problem is but DRGS are pretty pimp.

[silentwindfr]

the trouble arkista is this: why bring a dragoon, if you have a good monk available? what will he bring to the group that will make him interesting to take instead of a monk?

[Gilthas]

the trouble arkista is this: why bring a dragoon, if you have a good monk available? what will he bring to the group that will make him interesting to take instead of a monk?

The solution is obviously for Dragoons to group up with Warriors. The playerbase just needs to decide which of the healers is crap and we'll be able to have first rate and third rate parties.

[MagoArcano]

Dragoons get the best looking armor and that's why so many ppl play it. What if the dragoons armor had bad design? the way it is right now.. noone would play it because the rest of the classes either bring more dmg, utility or both.


Warriors are also in bad shape.. when everyone rather pick paladins over warriors for the endgame dungeon.


Dragoon and Warrior ended being the worst classes in ARR.

[Moxas]

Altena, can you do something for me? go to a training dummy and go all out on it for about 4 mins, parse it then tell me how much dmg you did to it please (not trolling)

Edited**

[Clair]

I think Dragoon is in a pretty bad place. Even if a DRG could consistently match the maximum damage output of a MNK (it can't), what bothers me is that MNK objectively has more utility than a DRG has. You cannot have a class that has more utility and can deal far more damage than another, that isn't balanced.

Monk skills that provide utility to the group:

Arm of the Destroyer (AoE silence) / Mantra (+20% healing) / One Ilm Punch (dispel) / Dragon Kick (-10% INT) / Haymaker (occasional slow 20%)

Monk can sub Feint from DRG for 20% slow at 10 seconds duration.


Dragoon skills that provide utility to the group:

Feint (slow 20%) / Disembowel (helps BRDs)

Dragoon can sub Mantra from MNK for 5% healing at 15 seconds duration.

A number of posters have pointed out that One Ilm Punch has limited use currently where it can't remove buffs from a lot of bosses. Slow also has the same problem, which is why I can't remember the last time I have used Feint seriously. To the first point about One Ilm Punch, I would caution against calling it worthless right away when this game hasn't had a single major patch yet. Who is to say Crystal Tower in patch 2.1 won't have bosses that can be dispelled? Just how desired will Monks be then being the only job out of eight that can dispel? I'm going to assume that if SE added in a move that dispels enemy buffs, even if currently there are no bosses that can be dispelled, eventually they will create content where using dispel will be advantageous. The same luxury won't present itself to DRGs. If SE adds in a boss that can be slowed and slowing said boss becomes part of the strategy, there are still other jobs that can also inflict slow (MNK, BLM, SMN, SCH).

There are two ways to balance DRG:

1) Leave the amount of utility skills it has alone. DRG will continue having the least amount of utility skills out of all DPS jobs in the game. In exchange it will deal the most damage. This is the same principle behind BRD having the most utility out of all DPS jobs, but should deal the lowest amount of damage. You can't have both utility and damage.

2) Add more utility to Dragoon. That way MNK can stay the highest melee DPS but it will have lower utility than a DRG.

As long as DRG has less utility and damage than a MNK, it is unbalanced and needs to be buffed. There is no reason to bring a DRG over a MNK equally geared and skilled. A blanket buff to melee DPS won't cut it. Lowering the animation lock on Jumps won't cut it. Dragoon needs many changes, either to the power output from skills or adding/changing skills to give it more utility.

[Alexander_Dragonfang]

Solution to improve DRG is to improve the Jump skills and create an AoE combo with existing skills.

Jump Skills.
-Immunity Frame for Jump and Elusive Jump just for ground-based attack (best example, landslide.) excluding obviusly things like ultimate, things that explode and magic itself.
-Reduce the CD from Jump and Spineshatter Dive.
-Increase Dragonfire Dive potency. Add an AoE DoT area to the end of it that last 12 seconds, 1 hit each 2 seconds.

AoE Combo.
-Reduce the TP requirement of Doom Spike and Ring of Thornes.
-Increase Potency of Doom Spike.
-Give us this combo: Impulse Drive -> Doom Spike (+50% potency) -> Ring of Thornes (+100% potency)

---

Besides this, SE already notice how Warriors and Dragoons are underperforming/have issues. For Dragoons the upcoming changes are an increased skill animation for jump skills since they are barely a DPS increase that uses too much of our uptime. But that is not enough.

[Ruethryl]

Solution to improve DRG is to improve the Jump skills and create an AoE combo with existing skills.

Jump Skills.
-Increase Dragonfire Dive potency. Add an AoE DoT area to the end of it that last 12 seconds, 1 hit each 2 seconds.

---

Besides this, SE already notice how Warriors and Dragoons are underperforming/have issues. For Dragoons the upcoming changes are an increased skill animation for jump skills since they are barely a DPS increase that uses too much of our uptime. But that is not enough.

SE Hasn't said how they're going to buff DRG just yet.. other than to say that there will be some re-balancing for 2.1.. amusingly enough, the NPC version of Dragonfire blows our version away (Has DoT effect + hurts a lot more).

[silentwindfr]

no immunity frame for jump, already stated in the last live letter, if i'm right...
plus i doubt add more dot to the dragoon will help... the two we have get soo far have pitifull damage (20+20)
but the idea to reduce the cd can be a way...

on other point i totally agree with clair, actually the trouble of the dragoon is the fact it's a burst dps as cac... not even the best since black mage do far better. when he do use the out gcd skill it's simply waiting before the next burst.

another idea, maybe put the out gcd skill in the combo... i means if you do a particular order of skill you can get bonus for jump.