SE, please buff Dragoon ...

[Cetonis]

Melee balance is probably okay right now. As groups start to optimize we'll see DRG and NIN climb up a bit, and we may also be able to attribute part of SAM's lead to some number of groups feeding their SAM gear. This tier is a bit DRG-unfriendly, but you shouldn't go fussing with job balance because of encounter specifics that are only apt to matter temporarily. That's how 3.4 happened.

[Katie_Kitty]

Dragoon is fine. It needs no buffs whatsoever.

[Axxion]

I'm going to either call that troll or ignorant.

why not both. :P

But all seriousness dragoon is pretty good atm. No buffs are needed

[Polluxx]

What?

Seriously, what? Dragoon is still a powerhouse and by far the most played Melee. In fact, until TEA, Dragoon was the most played job by a country landslide. It has all but dominated Shadowbringers. It should be more or less balanced with Ninja given a lot of Ninja's utilities were stripped away. With all that said, Dragoon's damage has suffered somewhat this tier. That, however, is due to it having zero range options in a tier that seems to despise Melee. Piercing Talon is such a worthless ability, it's better to do absolutely nothing. If anything, that needs to be fixed; preferably through both a damage boost and it no longer breaking your combo.

Simply put, the only reason Ninja has pulled ahead is due to Mudras being on the GCD now. So they lose less disengaging. If you straight up buff Dragoon's overall damage, they'd be far too strong in any fight without downtime.

Class/Job popularity has little to nothing to do with Class/Job technical game design... Ninja still have Trick Attack, wich is a better raid utility than litany (Raid increased damage per minute >>>> Raid increased Critical Rating per 3 minutes), even Monk's Brotherhood is a better raid utility than Litany, and Dragon Sight is more of a personal buff than a group buff.

I completely agree with the lack of range options and Piercing Talon being shit. I'm not asking for a BIG potency buff in every skill, but a better potency balance since Dragoon have the worst raid utility of mDPS jobs, it's easier to achieve that with potency buffs.

[Polluxx]

The worst option for melee utility ? Sorry what ? Litany makes godly openers, even moreso that crit power creep will start again with this tier (with it being best op stat in the final one).

Good DPS also comes from peaking really high in openers and then smoothing and lengthening the drop the most you can. Starting slow is manageable but it doesn't do wonders in the end, and DRG helps a lot avoiding that.

As for personal dmg : this is a tier where melee finally have to struggle for uptime in 5.x so ofc it will feel lackluster to you, especially for the reason Forte explained on NIN desengaging mitigation

As a said for ForteNightshade, Trick Attack is a 15s raid damage 5% increase at every minute, Brotherhood is a 15s raid physical damage 5% increase at every minute and a half ... Battle Litany is a 20s raid critical rating 10% increase ate every 3 minutes ... increased damage + less cooldown >>>> increased critical rating + more cooldown.

[Vendalwind]

"Overshadowed by nin"
Nin deserves rdps just as much if not more than drg. This tier favors having some ranged uptime. These jerks that cant handle their class being the lowest by a small margin like it is piss me off. Melee balance may not be ordered like i personally want it, but all 4 classes are so close that it doesn't matter. If you read my posts you should know I think utility classes should have more rDPS at 90 percentile up than selfish, so i would personally put DRG above SAM and NIN above SAM at that point (MNK debatable because of mild exterior utility) but the gap is so small right now for the most part it barely matters.

Keep in mind graphics on the statistic website are of course skewed to frame things in current dps range.

Excluding the absolute outlier 100th percentile parse: (all looking at savage of course and RDPS)

E5 sees DRG being beaten by 2.7% by SAM in rDPS with the gap decreasing as percentile decreases

E6 Sees NIN in front because of the high movement and high downtime in the fight and a few other key moments for aoe burst. DRG is actually on AVG beating MNK here. Gap gets as big as 2.5% Not close to the NIN loss on E7

E7 NIN sits at the bottom SAM back on top. with a gap of 3.9% between the two Biggest gap so Shouldnt NIN if anything get a buff then eh? This is the biggest gap in the tier between melee of the 4 fights.

E8 DRG sits at the bottom close to NIN with a 3.4% gap to SAM in rDPS.

In Summary DRG is lowest melee in 2 fights. Worst gap is NIN to SAM in E7 where the nin loss is the largest. NIN also wins tho in E6 at higher percentiles. And MNK is the lowest in one. The only outlier I see is SAM might be a bit overtuned.
My point. It barely matters and it fluctuates. all melee are more than viable right now. I personally think BLM and SMN need to be nerfed slightly atm, but I dont mind if they aren't. And BRD and DNC need to be buffed more than anything else. Complaining about DRGs state in the game right now is sad. ...Also im pretty nearly certain SMN has more free movement right now than RDM....

For kicks here is the percentage gap between Top place, Lowest melee or caster relative, Lowest range each tier excluding Max and Minimum parses:

E5 BLM lead over DRG 3.9%, BLM lead DNC 10.1%

E6 SMN lead over MNK 5.6% SMN lead BRD 8.2%

E7 SAM lead over BLM by 2.75%. SAM lead over DNC by 11.1%

E8 BLM lead over DRG 5% BLM lead over BRD 10.2%

My point? DRGs are welcome to complain about other mechanical class issues of theirs. And there are legitimate reasons for ranged being lowest (but they shouldn't be THAT low). SMN has no excuse to be as strong as it is with all its movement options and rez ability in my mind. I love SMN. Its the caster I play (i have one lvled class of each roleset) Its way fun, but it is a bit too strong. Improvements are always nice. But DPS wise DRGs position in the lineup is not a problem spot at all.

DRG and SMN are also both the most played dps classes. With about 50% more parses than any of the others. Least played is currently RDM you are at most 3.7x (looking at savage not trials) more likely to see a SMN or DRG right now than a red mage To me that says non Mains are gravitating more towards these classes (DRG and SMN) and if anything their numbers are thus mildly deflated on average by players that haven't mastered the classes but have flocked too them. (probably less deflation on DRGs part cause its ALWAYS been the most played class)

[Vendalwind]

That might be the case, but what if it wasn't?
BLM would then be absolutely unbalanced, it would have no competition at all. At least now BLM is not a forced choice.

BLM is never a forced choice because it also has the potential to be REALLY crappy because of how it functions. BLM rotation is brain dead. BUT BLM rotation applied optimally in fights with movement and downtime (may) be the hardest thing in the game to perfect. SMN shouldn't contest BLM IMO. if anything contests, it should be melee in general.

[Polluxx]

Keep in mind graphics on the statistic website are of course skewed to frame things in current dps range.

Excluding the absolute outlier 100th percentile parse: (all looking at savage of course and RDPS)

E5 sees DRG being beaten by 2.7% by SAM in rDPS with the gap decreasing as percentile decreases

E6 Sees NIN in front because of the high movement and high downtime in the fight and a few other key moments for aoe burst. DRG is actually on AVG beating MNK here. Gap gets as big as 2.5% Not close to the NIN loss on E7

E7 NIN sits at the bottom SAM back on top. with a gap of 3.9% between the two Biggest gap so Shouldnt NIN if anything get a buff then eh? This is the biggest gap in the tier between melee of the 4 fights.

E8 DRG sits at the bottom close to NIN with a 3.4% gap to SAM in rDPS.

You are just using statistics to make numbers talk what you want them to talk, if you look at the overall percentile, DRGs are the most parsed DPS and yet, the less damaging dealer mDPS. The core question here is the balance between doing damage directly (personal buffs and playskill) and indirectly (raid wide buffs/raid utility), and DRG is in a position completely unfair, since he has little personal DPS and the worst raid utility of mDPS (except for SAM), that said, there is two ways to fix that:

1 - Raid Utility buff

Or

2 - Personal damage buff

Simple as that, and yes, DRG do have mechanical issues that needs to be fixed, but these are harder to make, it involves a lot more effort than adding potencies numbers.

[Lastelli]

You are just using statistics to make numbers talk what you want them to talk, if you look at the overall percentile, DRGs are the most parsed DPS and yet, the less damaging dealer mDPS. The core question here is the balance between doing damage directly (personal buffs and playskill) and indirectly (raid wide buffs/raid utility), and DRG is in a position completely unfair, since he has little personal DPS and the worst raid utility of mDPS (except for SAM), that said, there is two ways to fix that:

1 - Raid Utility buff

Or

2 - Personal damage buff

You do realize that fflogs numbers are rDPS that already account for raid utility buffs, right?

[Vendalwind]

...

Please note that i cited the BIGGEST gap at any point along the percentile ignoring outliers (for some very obvious reasons)
As such you should be able to clearly see dragoon is a position completely fair but perhaps not perfect to your ideals of who should be the best

At the end of the day you have no legitimate reason beyond opinion that DRG should be better rDPS than NIN or MNK or SAM for that matter.

And at the end of the day DRG MNK and NIN are all fairly in line right now with SAM as the outlier. So if you want a change... Hmm where should it maybe be? And what outliers are BIGGER i.e. numerically more important? Those regarding SMN, RDM, and ranged Phys roles.

The numbers talk what I want them to talk because quite frankly.....my statements concerning numbers are about as objective as any argument can get because people have differing opinions about what balanced game design entails, and the numbers are contrary to your opinion in the larger scheme of balance.

You are just using statistics to make numbers talk what you want them to talk, if you look at the overall percentile, DRGs are the most parsed DPS and yet, the less damaging dealer mDPS.

This line is one of the dumber things i have read today. Like you made a statement as if it was some special statement and then just non sequitur talk as if that somehow logically amounts to a conclusion.... that you present as an arbitrary question.