Quote Originally Posted by Hasrat View Post
I think one thing being overlooked for DRG gear here is also the defense stats. I wasn't really paying attention through HW, so correct me if I'm wrong, but DRGs tend to have higher defense stats on their gear than other melee. Whether that's thematic or intentional or whatever, Idunno. But, given that, and how much of their gear through ARR was actually shared by tanks, I tend to look to DRGs as tank stand-ins if ever a tank decides to bail on a roulette or something.

But, as a mage, I guess I view all of you melee types as tank stand-ins in that situation. Just, y'know, gimme a couple seconds and try not to die while I incinerate.
Fun fact: The devs in ARR conceptualized dragoon as a melee class with higher-than-normal physical defense and lower-than-normal magic defense, in order to maintain a sense of "balance".

Then they introduced the first set of raids, with area-wide high potency magic attacks as part of the boss rotations. Attacks that, due to lower magic defense, would instantly vaporize any dragoon from full health that didn't have direct special protections like Adloquium or Keen Flurry applied before the damage hit.

You can imagine this got changed pretty quickly.