DRG has been broken for far too long. Fix it SE

[Dragoonite]

They can't figure out what to do with Dragoon because there isn't a clear idea as to what kind of gameplay style they're even aiming for with Lancer and Dragoon.

The core Lancer abilities themselves are just a mishmash of archaic mechanics from 1.0 that they -tried- to translate into 2.0 and on. It wasn't bad in the beginning but it shows its age more now that the game has become a lot more active in terms of combat.

The problem is that Lancer and Dragoon are already established. Any change they make to -any- of the job's mechanics will go under heavy scrutiny from both development teams and the player base. There are people who like the core mechanics and do not want to see it changed drastically and vice versa. All the while worrying about balance issues, party compatibility, etc.

The first thing they need to do is figure out what they want the job to do in the first place. "Do combos and jump a bit" is not something they should base the job's tool set on.

[Gardes]

The first thing they need to do is figure out what they want the job to do in the first place. "Do combos and jump a bit" is not something they should base the job's tool set on.

Non gameplay balance wise, I feel like dragoons aren't dragoon-ish enough. Iirc game lore wise, they're dragon slayers who hunt dragons using stolen dragon powers. What they got as dragoons are all jump related, so I guess that's what it takes to kill dragons: jumping on their backs mario style. But is that really all? Copying flying dragons makes you jump higher? Apparently stealing an eagle's eye gives you penguin powers. What about fire breathing? Not sure if dfd counts. I really have to wonder what dragoons will get on level cap increase. More jumps or other dragon powers?

Back to balance issue: I'm not a career dragoon but it is among my most used DPS outside of blm flare spam in dungeons. Having disembowel positional requirement be unlocked would really be helpful to me but would that even be enough for career dragoons at the highest level of progression? Would potency buffs and relaxed positional reqs be an overkill? I feel like the standard dragoon rotation is perfect in a rigid way (lines up so perfectly). Messing with buffs and debuffs timers in anyway (timer resets or extensions) sounds like it can get convoluted to me.

[pompey_dan]

Jump cooldown reduced from 40 sec to 30 sec. ~ 4-5 dps increase. (Also makes better use of power surge cooldown time)
Heavy thrust damage buff increased from 15% to 20% ~ 22.5 dps increase. (Assuming 450 dps sustained on the more difficult fights)

There we go DRG fixed.
Jump animation lock is fine as l2p etc.
MDEF could use a slight buff (I'm currently at 6800 hp on turn 13 to be comfortable with incoming AOE's whilst other dps are at ~6200hp)

[Sleigh]

My list:

MDEF buff must come. Barring that, some skill-based mitigation, something like Manaward that rewards foreknowledge of a magical attack. DRG really shouldn't be the first and only member to die to unavoidable AoE in progression, it's really dumb. You have to take extra precautions to keep DRG alive without any actual balance reasoning behind it. The fact they can Keen Flurry certain mechanics and be near tank levels of survivability is no excuse as those are rare (BLM can Manawall and completely negate two physical attacks, while having good MDEF and additional mitigation with Manaward and no one calls it OP).

Sustained buff so DRG + MNK/NIN is roughly equal to MNK + MNK or MNK + NIN. Basically, DRG should not noticeably be below another melee in a 2 melee comp, and more or less they should be interchangeable. As it is right now, this has to be done or at the end of the day people will flock to MNK + MNK while undergeared and while overgeared, especially in a situation like right now where we're mostly riding off of max iLVL from last patch to clear content and gearing differences aren't an issue.

Less positional punishment. The potency loss is enough, doing almost half damage in one attack is already painful enough ... currently if you miss a positional you have to A. just keep going while forgoing the huge HT damage bonus or forgoing the strongest, most vital combo, Chaos Thrust combo or B. retry that positional. Not too terribly rarely, if you missed a positional, you may miss it again due to the boss turning further, or having to catch up to the enemy, and heaven help you if you miss your positionals twice or more in a row. You've effectively become terrible, and sometimes mechanics just force this to happen.

I'm actually relatively fine with the survivability issues you can control like B4B and Jump locking, the fights are scripted enough you can usually know at any time when a deadly AoE is about to happen and plan accordingly given enough practice. I will say I don't think getting hit by unavoidable stuff while under B4B should spell instant death though, which currently it can in i110 gear. Maybe tone down B4B's damage taken effect enough that you're discouraged from using it during mechanics for your healers' sakes but not so forbidden that you have to effectively throttle it for a particularly long time or cut it drastically short before big damage, as it is right now.

[Seoki]

Can we get some kind of response from someone involved?

Is this a discussion on the Japanese forums as well?

We deserve some kind of insight into this matter because enough is enough.

[silentwindfr]

maybe wait to see what they plan for the 3.0... i means what you ask a lot of you is to be equal to the ninja and monk in terms of dps... when, let's be honest outside the fact that the rotation of skill is quite long, the class by itself is quite simple in comparaison of the other.
miss a ninjutsu it's 20 second lost, loose the GL it's about 18 second of dps lost.
i admit that dragoon can need love, but i think most of the trouble is into the gameplay of the one using dragoon. other point, you forget the +10% of damage for the bard, that not something that must be overlook.

[Seoki]

...

I believe you're missing the fundamental problem of the class, although it might "simpler" in your eyes because of less button presses then those are needed for MNK or NIN.
MNK and NIN are not punished for missing a mechanic or screwing up they continue soar with DPS and maybe only lose out on 5-10 overall DPS for a mistake.
They simply do not need to play perfect and continue to breeze by with amazing DPS

DRGs need to play absolutely perfect to do their DPS and even during a perfection execution of the rotation it comes no where CLOSE to MNK or NIN.

How is it fair that regardless of how well you do, mathematically you'll never reach the other classes? Is that fun? No it's not.

NINs get their ninjustsu every 30 seconds and that is their class defining actions.

Why are DRGs' jumps on a 90s? 120? 180?

How is that fair?

I could continue but just read the topic over; there are fantastic points brought up by others that really delve deep into the problem of the DRG class.

And that is it's simply not up to par of other DPS.

Remember WAR was inferior to PLD in 2.0
Buffed

BLM was "worthless and irrelevant" in SCOB in 2.2
Buffed.

DRG is "worthless and irrelevant" in FCOB in 2.4
???

[silentwindfr]

*sighs* i like people talking of jobs that they have try really...
Ninja ninjutsu have 20 second of CD, one of them are simply a huge lost of dps if you mess up, it's huton. when you miss the trick attack it's a 60 second cd lost... if you mess up a ninjutsu exept when you you burn kassastu for cover up, but 180 second CD.

now let's talk of the monk, if you mess up the position you loose dps, if you move too far from the boss and loose GL you will simply have a dps inferior at anybody for 18+ second.

DRG have 2 positional skill... impluse drive that need to be done from back and heavy thrust that needed to be done from side. some skill have already did receive a boost of potency like full thrust that now have 330 potency instead of the 300 from the 2.0.

i want to add something, every melee dps, for get the best dps possible... ask to play perfectly! not only the dragoon. other point, dragoon up the damage of the bard (you always have a bard in the team). my only grips with dragoon is he mdef and the lack of... badass from him skill.... jump is clearly not enough for define the whole jobs. from what i have heard you can expect some change about this in the 3.0...

ps: DRG is not worthless and irrelevant... it's the player that make it look like this, i doubt they had the ninja without double check the other dps, the game balance is not as bad as people are saying it.

[HulveinBlitz]

maybe wait to see what they plan for the 3.0.

I hope we dont have to wait that long.. for a response.

[Exstal]

Remember WAR was inferior to PLD in 2.0
Buffed

When it was, "oh goddamn a Warrior" in every single dungeon, trial, and raid, there was a problem. Rightfully so.

BLM was "worthless and irrelevant" in SCOB in 2.2
Buffed.

Remember how it was worthless and irrelevant for anything beside BCoB:T4 and Bray speed runs? Rightfully so.

DRG is "worthless and irrelevant" in FCOB in 2.4
???

DRG is having a hard(er) time now that bosses like to randomly turn around but this isn't a new thing. It happened in SCoB as well, Turns 2, and 4, in particular. I think it would be silly to say DRG won't get some kind of helping hand but I don't really believe they'll simply remove positionals. Rather they'll make the ones they have now stronger. Which will probably have the same effect as BLM being bottom of the barrel to BLM being king of all saiyans.