Just got wheeling thrust.... Can someone explain the point of it to me?

[JackFross]

How does it make you pay attention more than you already do...

Before 3.0, in absolutely every content that was in the game, I could essentially AFK dps it. I had my rotation down so well that my tab targets would happen instantly, I was hitting skills exactly when and where I needed to without ever needing to really look at my skill bar. Muscle memory.

Dragoon was literally the only job that had this ability. It was rote and required you to pay absolutely 0 attention to anything other than mechanics - which is why I was always baffled by DRGs dying to mechanics, but that's a story for another time.

FaC and WT add a layer of complexity to an incredibly simple class. Yeah it's shitty that we waste two skills out of five just to add this layer, but I don't really understand the open hostility. It's not lazy design, it's a purposeful choice to make the class slightly more dynamic while maintaining the heart of the job - its relatively rote nature. The addition doesn't drastically change the way you play. That's... exactly the point. It doesn't alter gameplay, it doesn't make the class harder, it makes it different. It makes you actually pay attention to your skills, sometimes, if you want to maximize how much damage you're doing. It's not required to even look at if you just wanna play Dragoon. You can macro the two skills together and hit that one button every time without caring about positionals and you'll do just fine, overall. (Thanks to the buff, since 100 v 290 was stupid)

It adds a layer of complexity between skill floor and skill ceiling for the class. A layer that varies based on what fight you're in. It's incredibly good. People who love the class should adore this change. It helps to separate the good dragoons from the great ones, since there's rarely a situation where you're FORCED to miss positionals in the current raid tier, but there are dozens of situations where it's tricky to make sure you maintain them, what with spinning bosses in A1S or massive mob groups in A2S or the various mechanics in A3S that force you to be in certain places at certain times to not wipe.

It's good because it's not a HUGE DPS loss to miss every positional, but it's enough that you'll notice.


So I dunno. Think what you will, but I would never agree that the decision was lazy or dumb, and there's no skill I'd rather get at 58. Our DPS is high enough. What more do we need that you'd give us in place of WT?

[Hitoseijuro]

Yeah it's shitty that we waste two skills out of five just to add this layer

Thats one of the points people are making , hence some of the comments of it being a "lazy design". Theres probably a lot of ways they could have made this type of mechanic better. So basically you have WT which is a mirror of FnC and the only way to have it in the game is through this randomness mechanic. I mean if they added something more to WT, I feel the design would feel better. Again it just feels like you juggle these 2 abilities....just to juggle them..you can say an interesting mechanic, other people are saying an irrelevant juggle.

but I don't really understand the open hostility.

No hostility on my end, I respect your opinion and I feel you defended your points for it just fine. People were saying that without this mechanic the job would be boring, so if the job was boring before this, why were they playing it... I play the job because I enjoy the job, the lore and the armor, adding this mechanic is not going to change that. It does make me wonder why they didn't implement this mechanic different then they did, WT could have been different in some way from FnC perhaps. Maybe the animations could have been done in a way to reflect a relationship between both abilities, I would have enjoyed that much better.

What more do we need that you'd give us in place of WT?

I dont know to be honesty, Dragoon is fine with whatever could have been there, because its fine now, Dragoon is in a good place right now.

[Seku]

Before 3.0, in absolutely every content that was in the game, I could essentially AFK dps it. I had my rotation down so well that my tab targets would happen instantly, I was hitting skills exactly when and where I needed to without ever needing to really look at my skill bar. Muscle memory.

Dragoon was literally the only job that had this ability. It was rote and required you to pay absolutely 0 attention to anything other than mechanics - which is why I was always baffled by DRGs dying to mechanics, but that's a story for another time.

FaC and WT add a layer of complexity to an incredibly simple class.

If you're afk dpsing means you're using macros which iirc actually kills your DPS despite getting the rotations and positional correctly. The rest of what you're saying is pure opinion. Moving 2 steps isn't complexity to me in the least and there are plenty of ways to move your hot bar around to get a clear visual of which skill is currently up, more so since they highlight. If any class is "complex" it's ninja if you don't macro your mudras. This skill serves no purpose. If you're claiming it's there due to "complexity" I pray you're not a main DRG, MNK, or NIN.

[Hitoseijuro]

If you're claiming it's there due to "complexity" I pray you're not a main DRG, MNK, or NIN.

Thats a bit presumptuous and/or rude. Jack is a great solid dragoon. Hes not saying its complexity is hard in any difficulty, he said its complexity is in difference.

it doesn't make the class harder, it makes it different.

Thats what he said ^

[JackFross]

If you're afk dpsing means you're using macros which iirc actually kills your DPS despite getting the rotations and positional correctly.

Let me define for you what I mean when I say, and I quote:

I could essentially AFK dps it.

The keyword here is "essentially." Back in the height of 2.4-2.5 until HW launch, I was so comfortable with Dragoon that I could do any fight in the game - bar none - only looking at the screen at certain points, without losing any notable amount of dps. (Still gotta know if you should or shouldn't stack for Megaflares in T13!)

Every fight was rote. Memorized by muscles. Boring. I played the class to death and felt like I had nowhere to go. Now, to address your ludicrous jump to conclusions: I do not currently use any macros on Dragoon while raiding. The last time I did was back in like 2.1 when I was a babby dragoon and I thought a Life Surge > Full Thrust macro was cool and hip and not totally idiotic.

And then there's this:

The rest of what you're saying is pure opinion. Moving 2 steps isn't complexity to me in the least and there are plenty of ways to move your hot bar around to get a clear visual of which skill is currently up, more so since they highlight. If any class is "complex" it's ninja if you don't macro your mudras. This skill serves no purpose. If you're claiming it's there due to "complexity" I pray you're not a main DRG, MNK, or NIN.

Which woefully ignores all the points I made in favor of picking out the one sentence I dared to type that you seem to have gotten your panties in a bundle over, reproduced below:

FaC and WT add a layer of complexity to an incredibly simple class.

Since you opted to just hand-wave everything beyond that point as just being, like, my opinion, man, I don't really know what else to tell you.

The important thing to note here is that I call it a layer. I'll explain what I mean here, again.

Classes are like onions. If you leave 'em out in the sun too long, they get all brown and start sprouting little white hairs!

Wait, no... they have layers! Every class has what I like to refer to as the skill floor and the skill ceiling. The skill floor is the bare minimum you need to be doing in order to be playing your class "properly" according to the current meta. For dragoon, this skill floor is actually rather high - it's higher than either other melee class. I'll elaborate if you don't understand how.

This skill floor doesn't include:
- 3 gsk per minute
- hitting positionals
- properly managing other oGCD attacks
- optimal usage of Blood for Blood x Geirskogul
- etc.

See those, there? ^ Right there? Those are what I'm referring to as layers of complexity in a class. Now if we move on in my statement, we'll see that my pompous ass of a self called the layers up there that are NOT the RNG nature of WT/FaC "rote." It's stuff most dragoons learned in 2.x. We don't need to relearn it for 3.0*. The positionals on WT/FaC add complexity in that - if you want to MAXIMIZE your damage on any given fight - you should MINIMIZE how many times you miss those positionals. This isn't as easy as hitting 1-2-3. It's a positional you have to adjust to in 2.4 seconds if you want to get that bonus damage. You can plan out your positioning and rotation in a fight down to the letter on Monk or Ninja. You'll know exactly where you are at every point in every fight, knowing what the boss is doing and how you'll have to adjust 8-10 seconds ahead of time. But on Dragoon? HA. FaC/WT will *always* throw a wrench in your plans and force you to react to a non-optimal situation. That makes it complex.

I don't honestly care if you agree.


*Disclaimer: There are of course new things to learn regarding oGCDs and such in 3.0 - I'm slightly trivializing this point here to make a bigger, more important one. It still took me a solid week or two of running experts and such to really get the new skill rotation down solid, including oGCD management.

the thing I have problems with is maintaining blood of the dragon my best is 30 sec then it poofs cause I am not fast too keep it up then someone complains that I am not a good dragoon I wish blood of the dragon was something that could stay on but I don't think that will happen

What sort of rotation are you using? You shouldn't run into issues like this unless you're spamming Geirskogul too much. I recommend doing the following on a Striking Dummy to practice:

Heavy Thrust
Impulse Drive
Disembowel
[Blood of the Dragon]
Chaos Thrust
Fang And Claw / Wheeling Thrust
Phlebotomize
True Thrust
Vorpal Thrust
Full Thrust
Fang And Claw / Wheeling Thrust

And then repeat that combo over and over again, without re-casting Blood of the Dragon. Don't hit any off-gcd skills, including Geirskogul. Go for as long as you need, as many times as you need until this rotation becomes second nature to you.

Once you feel comfortable with that rotation, you should start to learn the positionals while playing with Geirskogul to see when you can and can't use it to make sure you don't lose your Blood.


If you need more specific information, I've got a couple nice links for you:
How to Train Your Dragoon - a wonderfully organized thread with plenty of information and calculations to explain everything.
Visual Guide to Dragoon - made by yours truly because I'm not personally partial to having lots of text thrown at me, and I know others aren't, either.
(It's still wordy, but more bullet-point than wall-of-text)
(Also yes, I know, there's a typo pls don't point it out thank)