Punished by the game for being a Dragoon. (Magic defense and 2.4)

[SongJoohee]

We recently got a Dragoon to replace a player who left our group, we haven't had the chance to take him into T10/T11 yet so I can't comment on them but on Whitefires in T12, we never even noticed a potential problem. The only time it became hard for the Dragoon to survive a Whitefire is when it became hard for everyone to survive a Whitefire, when someone made a Blackfire burst and give the vulnerability debuffs.

I'll see how T10/T11 goes on Tuesday with him.

I'm gonna bold this as people seem to think it's Blood for Blood causing the death, it isn't. It's their party composition (and the Tank LB being late, but their argument still stands, as everyone else lives).

With T11s Nerve Cloud, since the attack is a 100% critical hit, the effect of any lower defense will be amplified (80damage x 1.5 = 120, 100 x 1.5 = 150, from 20, to 30 difference for example), and since you lack a white mage to give the proper version of Protect that will be amplified even further (IIRC Protect is +20% MDef, +20% Mdef DOES NOT equal 20% damage reduced), so I can see where the issue could potentially come from, but as I said in T12 we haven't noticed any issues with him being unable to survive Whitefire hits, even with a vulnerability stack the highest we saw it hit was 5.5k.

Frankly I'm not sure where the blame should be, you guys run an irregular set up with 2 SCH so you lack Magic Protect, with this in mind you also take a DRG which lacks in magical defence to other classes, it should be no big surprise that he's taking a lot more damage than others.

Which moves the argument on to, should Coil be beatable with any 2/2/4 party set up? It's become very standard at this point to take PLD, WAR, WHM, SCH, BRD, MNK, SMN/BLM + 1 other (usually a second monk in hc progression), as it's the most optimal, giving you a good range of utility and mitigation across the board, access too all limit breaks and since atleast 7/8 jobs are different, good speed LB building. I would say yes, it should be possible with any 2/2/4 but any challenges that come up because of it is on your head, for knowingly taking a party which is not optimal, not SE.

That said I am interested to see what the Dragoon buffs end up being. If they buff it's Mdef the Pdef will have to be lowered to be on par with other jobs. Funnily enough BLM/SMN are actually on the opposite end of this spectrum, our PDef SUCKS but our MDef is great, but since raid-wide attacks tend to be magical, people don't notice that much.

[Edenholt]

Frankly I'm not sure where the blame should be, you guys run an irregular set up with 2 SCH so you lack Magic Protect, with this in mind you also take a DRG which lacks in magical defence to other classes, it should be no big surprise that he's taking a lot more damage than others.

It' sad because we did the entire SCoB with two SCH and never had bigger issues, although it was always annoying have to give special care to the DRG. But so far having a skilled player playing DRG made up for the lack of stats but in a fight like T11 things get really visible. We're already past that boss, we always use Tank Lb, the DRG is not stupid to put up BfB when he knows big dmg is coming and we make sure to get everybody topped.On the video OP posted we had a problem with the OT and he didn't use tank LB in time, so I had to do it, which caused it to tick a bit tooo late. Everybody survived, proving we shouldn't even need the tank LB to begin with, and the DRG dies.

We have two amazing healers to the point we even solo tank and solo heal T9 and it's disheartening to think we will have to either force any of them to play a class they don't like or make our DRG change his class because of poor design. We don't want Dragoons to be immortal killing machine, but you have to admit that everybody WOULD have died without the pertinent buffs during Cloud... the DRG is the only guaranteed death without either tank LB or extra care.

[kyuven]

any challenges that come up because of it is on your head, for knowingly taking a party which is not optimal, not SE.

Personally I would put this on SE's shoulders as far as blame, since we're SUPPOSED to be able to do most or all content as long as we're 2/2/4 and everyone is capable of doing their job.
There should be challenges, of course, but on the flip side no single job should be mechanically barred from doing content or be forced to have considerably more skill than another member of the party in order to succeed. Moreover, the rest of the party shouldn't be forced to compensate for mechanical weaknesses in a party member to that degree.
This question should NEVER exist: "Why bring a DRG when we can bring something else?"

[Atomnium]

They can claim the Dragoon didn't have blood for blood, but unless they are actually certain he didn't then none of this matters. I don't know about you, but I don't think highly enough of humanity as to tell the truth when it doesn't suit their desires. I would just like more definitive proof of whether or not the Dragoon did have blood for blood or not.

Like other people have said was blood for blood up? I never seen anyone get hit for that much then again we stoneskin everyone. There isn't enough before the video to see if he used it or not.

We made another video to prove that "blood for blood" wasn't used. (when our dragoon got raised, he used it right away to continue dps, which prove what we told you ) :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbDqGo4mmQs

[kaynide]

Just to add my 2 cents to the pile:

Balance in an MMO is very critical to its success...

Class choice should feel like playing a fighting game, like Street Fighter. Same end results if you play the class well, but different feel and move sets. None should be better or worse than the others. I have always felt giving DRG a temporary super-high def buff while jumping would be a huge asset. A full out invulnerability when using the elusive jump would be a very excellent counter to close range dodging that goes on.

[DeadRiser]

I'm gonna bold this as people seem to think it's Blood for Blood causing the death, it isn't. It's their party composition (and the Tank LB being late, but their argument still stands, as everyone else.....

This. If you choose to stack two scholars, you would know that you won't have the increased magic defense. If you had at least one white mage in the party, that would be different circumstances. To me that's like having two bards and two blackmages in a party. You are sacrificing a single target limit break so you can have all ranged. So you are sacrificing increased magic defense because both healers like to play scholar. My other raid healer and I both enjoy playing scholar, but I choose to play white mage because I know that it's better for my raid crew than me not wanting to play what you guys think as "boring".

Also, if you did have a white mage, that stoneskin would extend to 18% which would be about 1000 damage absorbed, on top of adloquium and the increased magic defense from enhanced protect.

I'm not saying your raid is bad, because that's awesome that you guys are in final coil! But just like having all ranged dps, having two scholars comes with its positives and negatives. Dragoons have always had low magic defense, it was never a problem until recently. I only remember one other thread during Garuda Extreme, that's about it :/

[Atomnium]

I'm not saying your raid is bad, because that's awesome that you guys are in final coil! But just like having all ranged dps, having two scholars comes with its positives and negatives. Dragoons have always had low magic defense, it was never a problem until recently. I only remember one other thread during Garuda Extreme, that's about it :/

No offenses but I really wish people could go further than the typical blame game playing double scholar shouldn't have any impact on the dragoon, it's a simple matter of critical job balance, our team is actually respecting the trinity system "2 tanks, 2 healers, 4 dps".

Not only garuda ex btw, Nael in t9 was a serious issue for dragoons with mega-flare (it was only one single attack for the whole coil but was still a worrying problem).

As a terrible exemple, if the next healer in 3.0 doesn't have any "equal" sort of magic defense buffs like the whm have right now... I leave to your imagination what recruitments for endgame communities will look like if dragoon doesn't get an emergency fix on their magic defenses :/
Something like : "heavensward-endgame-content-fc looking for a melee dps (no loldragoons!)"

[Warlyx]

ehm....scholar have a buff for MAG DEF

is called

Eos - Fey Covenant
Increases magic defense of self and nearby party members by 20% for 20s.

(dont forget the healing boost from eos too + succor/adloquium)

p.d i agree that DRG need a Mdef boost , but that means less hp/pdef tho...

[Ryel]

No offenses but I really wish people could go further than the typical blame game playing double scholar shouldn't have any impact on the dragoon, it's a simple matter of critical job balance, our team is actually respecting the trinity system "2 tanks, 2 healers, 4 dps".

As a terrible exemple, if the next healer in 3.0 doesn't have any "equal" sort of magic defense buffs like the whm have right now... I leave to your imagination what recruitments for endgame communities will look like if dragoon doesn't get an emergency fix on their magic defenses :/
Something like : "heavensward-endgame-content-fc looking for a melee dps (no loldragoons!)"

Essentially this ^

No single job should require an "optimal" party setup to survive on their own merit, whether the party contains 2 SCH, 2 WHM, or a solitary healer should have ZERO effect on the Dragoon's native survivability especially considering this is NOT the case for any other job.

Add to this the fact that there are only 2 Healing jobs available in the game currently, it's not even that uncommon to see groups running 2 SCH or 2 WHM if for no other reason than the lack of an available alternative.

Dragoon should not be penalized for a party attempting to be flexible in it's composition.

As the example given, if the next healer released doesn't have a form of Magic Damage mitigation is Dragoon only going to be viable in parties that specifically have a White Mage as a healer? That condition alone would be enough to bar them from almost all endgame content in favor of another DPS (remember no other DPS has this problem currently) if a party cannot meet that criteria.

Lets not act like this isn't an issue.

[RyuDragnier]

No offenses but I really wish people could go further than the typical blame game playing double scholar shouldn't have any impact on the dragoon, it's a simple matter of critical job balance, our team is actually respecting the trinity system "2 tanks, 2 healers, 4 dps".

I wish it were that simple, but unfortunately a WHM's Protect is far better htan a SCH's due to the 20% Mag Def boost, which would have knocked down the damage the DRG took significantly. Add the stronger Stoneskin in, and unfortunately you need a WHM or that DRG will not be surviving Final Coil. Sadly as we've all learned, we need BOTH kinds of tank and healer classes in any raid party for the increased damage mitigation tools, and I don't think that will be changing in the near future.