Dragoons... how do you feel post 4.0?

[Shamox]

You want to be able to double weave it, to use it with another cooldown such as geirskogul between two skill, that's the point of reducing the animation time.

[Avatre]

You could always use Leg Sweep to negate the animation(I know it works with Jump as I tend to use Jump followed by Leg Sweep)

[Shamox]

That is not how the game works.

[Ralen]

Played since 2.1, even enjoyed final coil guaranteed insta-kills on phase changes without the slightest gripe, but as the class stands now I hate it.

There are some obvious fixes, one of any of: don't let eyes drop, let DFD give an eye, or even give jumps a chance to reset the CD on GSK. Hell with LotD being almost useless outside of raid/large party-content (clarification to follow) I don't -really- see why it can't just be sustained through WT and F&C once obtained, making the class a bit more unique as a slow wind-up to doing dps link MNK rather than almost everything being based around initial burst.

Here's a list of casual/single-player content that LotD will NEVER be up for unless you're braindead.

-Both 4.0 Treasure maps
-Pre 4.0 Treasure maps
-All hunts outside of S
-ALL pre-4.0 hunts
-Aquapolis
-95% of single-player instanced quests
-all single player non-instanced quests
-Most unsync pre-4.0 content. (1 LotD up before 7-man A9S, 2 if you're careful on 10-12).

[Ralen]

With the above in mind, who on earth is this mechanic actually FOR if the reasoning behind the combat overhaul is to raise the skill floor and not the ceiling?

[Jeal]

I think Nastrond should be activated after 2 jumps.
Currently, it is at or near the bottom of my abilities even in prolonged st fights. It does way too little for the amount of time, and ability to keep soul up needed to activate.
Two jumps would allow it to be used on an ae rotation. This isn't currently feasible without a huge loss in dps. Just my 2...

[ZeoulGrimtosh]

I'm not very pleased, I think based on a lot of people's comments I'm going to end up being in an echo chamber. Nastrod takes way too long to use, 3 jumps is ridiculous, and it's worthless in any content I've done so far, because I'll get it like once on the bosses of each of the 4 man content, now I haven't tried it in extremes yet, but I have a feeling i'll see it a few more times. That being said, as it's the central ability to our "new" rotation, that's kinda lame. Lance Mastery is honestly the biggest thing they did with DRG imo, and it wasn't even new, just a rehash, so idk but I don't think Dragoon is going to be a good spot unless they address something about the jumps, or something about Nastrod, it needs to be more usable in more content.

[kyrios91]

The devs intended so Nastrond is our primary DPS mechanic and I like the gameplay of 4.0 DRG (Weaving the Mirage Dives are more fun than pairing Power Surge with Jump, for example). However, IMO what we're facing now is the example of "looks good on paper / concept, but poor in execution". What made us different than the other 3 Melee DPS is the Dragon Gauge. Our primary mechanic, Life of the Dragon / Nastrond, is locked behind 4 Mirage Dives to activate, which roughly translates to a 60-second build-up (2x Jump + 2x Spineshatter Dive cooldowns), and we would want to use Geirskogul when it's up UNLESS it's around 15 seconds left on cooldown when the Dragon Eye is "open" - leaving to a total of around 70~75 seconds to enter Life of the Dragon (might be more longer if BOTD is less than 25 seconds left).

MNK, NIN, and SAM each have a GCD reduction ability which can be refreshed with almost no effort at all, and immediately takes effect once you use it with minimal / very short build-up. (GL3 requires 3 GCDs with Perfect Balance or 7 GCDs with Form Shift; Huton is a press of the Ninjutsu button; and Shifu is a GCD away from Hakaze).

The other 3 Jobs makes up the medium potency of their skills by having a faster GCD - churning more DPS as the fight progresses. In SAM's case, they have massive potencies coupled with having a GL / Huton effect. DRG doesn't have this. Our primary mechanic, Life of the Dragon, does not do anything else outside of transforming Geirskogul into Nastrond - which in it's most optimal usage, is a 320*3 = 960 potency bonus damage over 30 seconds with a wait time of approx. 70~75 seconds given there are no mechanics that hinders it. In 75 seconds, MNK / NIN /SAM already churn out more than 960 total potency since their primary mechanic unlocks so fast that they can reach their optimum effectiveness very early into the fight without the said mechanic being gated by any kind of condition at all. Although most of DRG's weaponskills have higher potencies than MNK / NIN / most SAM weaponskills, it is not enough to compensate our slower GCD compared to those Jobs. From individual DPS alone, this is what made DRG on the bottom of the list.

Now in regards of utility, I would not take too long to discuss about it. Some of the "arguments" regarding DRG's lower DPS is that we have the most raid utility of the Melee DPS Jobs. Let's list each of the Melee DPS Job skills that contributes to the Party:

Dragoon
- Battle Litany (Increases critical hit rate of self and nearby party members by 15%). Helps the entire Party.
- Disembowel (Reduces target's piercing resistance by 5%). Helps other DRGs, BRD, MCH, and RDM melee skills.
- Dragon Sight (Increasing your damage dealt by 10% and the target party member's damage dealt by 5%, as long as target remains within 6 yalms). A total of 15% damage increase - preferably tether to a fellow Melee DPS or the Off-Tank for damage maximization.

Samurai
None

Monk
- Mantra (Increases HP recovery via healing magic by 20% for self and nearby party members). Not a damage utility but it helps a lot when dealing with AOE damage.
- Brotherhood. (Increases physical damage dealt by nearby party members by 5%). More of a personal utility with a group utility added.

Ninja
- Trick Attack (Increases target's damage taken by 10%). This why NINs are loved.
- Smoke Screen (Creates a wall of smoke, reducing enmity generation of a single party member). Helps your Main Tank to hold aggro better.
- Shadewalker (Grants target party member the effect of Silhouette, diverting to target 80% of all enmity generated by caster. No effect when target is under the effect of Shadewalker). Helps your Main Tank to hold aggro even better.
- Shadow Fang (Reduces target's slashing resistance by 10%). Helps your PLD, WAR, DRK, other NINs, and SAM. By default this will always be useful since you will always have a Tank(s) in normal party compositions.

In terms of raid utility skills, NIN has 4, DRG has 3, MNK has 2, and none for SAM. Let's look through the terms of how much damage contribution these utility skills give:

*Assuming a "standard" Party of: 2 Tanks, 2 Melee DPS, 1 Caster DPS, 1 Ranged DPS, and 2 Healers in which there are no repeat Melee DPS Jobs.

Dragoon
- Battle Litany: +15% Critical Hit rate. Which, through Dervy's blog, translates to a +8% damage buff (Calculating the crit chance increase and multiplying it by crit damage multiplier).
- Disembowel: +5% Piercing Debuff. More of a personal buff than true raid utility since it only helps you without any other DRG / MCH / BRD.
- Dragon Sight: +10% to self; +5% to the tether target.

So in total, DRGs increase the overall party DPS by (8% + (5%*(2/8)) + (15%*(2/8)) = 13%. Assuming every member gets hit by Battle Litany, and Dragon Sight tethers for its entire duration.

Monk
- Brotherhood: +5% party physical damage.

So in total, MNKs increase the overall party DPS by (5%*(5/8)) = 3% (2 Healers and 1 Caster DPS doesn't benefit from Brotherhood)

Ninja
- Trick Attack: 10%
- Shadow Fang: 10% to PLD, WAR, DRK, NIN, and SAM.

So in total, NINs increase the overall party DPS by (10% + 10%*(3/8)) = 14%

Conclusion
Dragoon: 13%
Monk: 3%
Ninja: 14%

Note that DRG's can be slightly higher than NIN's if the Crit Procs from Battle Litany is high since I translated the Crit Procs into a flat damage % buff. My point here is, NIN contributes approximately a higher-to-equal damage boost to the party as DRGs do. And when compared to the "numbers" I see regarding DPS rankings in this forum and Reddit, DRGs deals (on average) 250 DPS below NIN. Outside of damage utility, NIN also has other raid utilities that deals with aggro management. Even with DRG with all of its party buff skills specialized for damage, it still lose to NIN in terms of numbers. To make the Job balanced, DRGs at least have to be able to deal equal or close to the average DPS as NINs do, or have their raid utility giving a higher contribution to the party to make-up for the lower DPS. In conclusion, if the average DPS of Melee DPS is 4000 and DRG's average DPS is 3500, its raid utility has to be able to contribute the rest of the 500 DPS through buffing the rest of the party - in which through this long word salad we know that NINs can do better DPS than DRGs but still contribute equal raid damage utility to DRGs. Though please understand that I'm not flaming Ninja is ZOMG better than Dragoon. I just found that Ninja is a good comparison because it's the Melee DPS with raid utility. MNK and SAM, by nature, has to be up there in numbers because they trade it off with the lack of raid utility.

Final Conclusion
- The lower DPS numbers is largely contributed to DRG skill potencies being somewhat undertuned, and the Nastrond mechanic having too long of a build-up and having low damage as a reward - in which most of the time gets hindered by fight mechanics. Bosses, unlike, dummies, do something when you fight them.
- In order to support the "DRGs have raid utility" argument, DRGs have to bring substantial utility in order to make their lower DPS worth it. When you think logically and rationally, why would you take DRG when NIN can contribute almost the same as they do but also deal a higher personal DPS? Not that it matters in most comps and fights but in the long run it will affect the meta and it will be the "DRG in Final Coil" issue all over again (I had to main a MNK before the DRG buff for T10 and T11 just because we need that additional DPS which DRG can't bring at that time).
- Note that most of my numbers use simple factors and variables and not exact, precise calculations using detailed and specific factors and variables. Using numbers is a good way to help readers understand the scale of what the issue is.

THANK YOU

[Shamox]

You can edit your first post to break through the word limit.

[Berilein]

Short answer is I enjoy everything about the job, names of abilities, animations, amour, lore and so on. But not the ramp up time for nostrond, and the feeling of failing to get there due to issues out of my control, like something dying or phase change. I'm playing and enjoying summoner right now instead.