Dragoon's Piercing Talon: Remove or Rework

[Archwizard]

Give Piercing Talon (1) a higher base damage, have it (2) upgrade to a skill which takes advantage of, and/or gives back some amount of, Combo progress, and (3) add it to the list of skills buffed by Lance Mastery II, and voila, it no longer forces itself into obsolescence.

The problem is Step 2, however, which was exactly what I was attempting to highlight. Since Dragoon has no additional resources built by the combo, there's no conventional way to have it "take advantage of or give some amount of Combo progress", at least not in a way that parallels abilities like Throwing Dagger or Enpi. Dragoon's secondary resource is time; your reward for completing the conventional rotation is extending a timer to chain more periods of burst damage.

If we take timers off the table, I can only assume you're trying to imply the best way to affect that would be to have the skill directly substitute for one of the weaponskills in a combo for the purposes of advancing said combo -- for example, using True Thrust -> Piercing Talon -> Full Thrust in place of Vorpal Thrust -- but that carries too many logical faults in itself just in the coding stage that overcomplicate a solution (for instance, how it determines which branching combo it affects, or how many times it may substitute steps when used in sequence, or what specific abilities if any that it is limited to substituting which could be penalized if your rotation timing is off when you're forced out of range).

This is why I'm actually rather keen on the idea of having it extend the duration of Chaos Thrust for a few seconds, or possibly Disembowel (though it's already longer and slightly desynched from CT), or ideally even both if that's not too much of a stretch.
Yes, theoretically it could throw off the timing of your primary rotation or clip a DoT tick, but it could also prevent having to restart the 10-step process for a couple GCDs and allow you to go right back into a Full Thrust combo for maximum output when you can get back in melee. It won't throw it off much more than missing the reapplication entirely due to being pushed away.

[Shurrikhan]

The problem is Step 2, however, which was exactly what I was attempting to highlight. Since Dragoon has no additional resources built by the combo, there's no conventional way to have it "take advantage of or give some amount of Combo progress".

Why does it need to be conventional? You can literally append the effect to an Additional Effect on Piercing Talon / Dragonkiller rather than using a Combo Bonus. (Technically, not even a Combo Bonus on PT would be wholly unprecedented anymore, as multiple combo skills could be sourced by the same opener. The only problem is using multiple source skills, to allow PT to be used at any given time.

Moreover, one could just use an oGCD to convert a standard weaponskill to a thrown version at %reduced direct potency and effect duration. A bit of a grind for a kiting tool, but I'm honestly not that convinced the 5 extra yalm on PT relative to Doom/Sonic/Tempest helps whatsoever for kiting. If we're going to suddenly care about the early leveling experience again, let's care about a whole lot more than just PT.

[Archwizard]

Why does it need to be conventional?

I didn't say it "needs to be" conventional. As I was saying, it's difficult to figure what kind of "additional effect" to pin to it, since Dragoon is a bit of an outlier.

I'm less concerned about kiting during leveling or PotD, and more about instances where we're forced out of melee range for multiple GCDs, thanks to chain knockbacks, jumping/teleporting targets, hazard zones, etc. Considering most of our oGCDs are already ranged skills or buffs that would be unimpeded at a distance, I'd be concerned about having to apply another one between every hit for one of those periods with a reward of performing the exact same rotation.

If you're arguing making the rotation interesting, just doing the same chain of 10 GCDs for the entire fight even when presented with an opportunity to shake it up... isn't that.

Besides, I wouldn't even want to consider how such an oGCD might impact AoE, or how it's coded to interact with Flank/Rear skills (important to keep Raiden Thrust going).

[Shurrikhan]

I didn't say it "needs to be" conventional. As I was saying, it's difficult to figure what kind of "additional effect" to pin to it, since Dragoon is a bit of an outlier.

Not at all. It's just a matter of how finely we want to balance its losses across various GCDs in rotation (effectively allowing it an addition 2-4 GCDs per DRG's 10). We have two options: (1) Additional Effect on Piercing Talon or conditionally upgrading PT to Dragonkiller or (2) conditionally upgrading PT to Dragonkiller AND giving Dragonkiller an Additional Effect.

1A.

Additional Effect: Deals an additional X potency when any combo skill is readied.

1B.

Piercing Talon Mastery: When any combo skill is readied, Piercing Talon is upgraded instead to Dragonkiller.

2.

Additional Effect: Deals an additional X potency when Full Thrust, Chaos Thrust, or Coerthan Tempest are readied.

Note that the extra potency in the Additional Effects can be replaced with providing the combo benefits of True Thrust (and perhaps Doomspike). The rest of the balance can be managed through baseline potency or, again, advancing the combo. Combo advance as the AE is better for varying rotation, as it gives you a separate extended rotation option for syncing CT.

I'm less concerned about kiting during leveling or PotD, and more about instances where we're forced out of melee range for multiple GCDs, thanks to chain knockbacks, jumping/teleporting targets, hazard zones, etc. Considering most of our oGCDs are already ranged skills or buffs that would be unimpeded at a distance, I'd be concerned about having to apply another one between every hit for one of those periods with a reward of performing the exact same rotation.

I've leveled DRG to 50 3 times, to 70 twice, and to 80 once. In all that time I've never needed to spam Piercing Talon. I've only ever needed to use it even just twice in a row if I screwed up. If our concern is simply in making Piercing Talon functional, I'd simply say we ought to give it a bit more range and make it interfere less

If you're arguing making the rotation interesting, just doing the same chain of 10 GCDs for the entire fight even when presented with an opportunity to shake it up... isn't that.

Which is why I wasn't arguing for a Ranged-Mode oGCD, only pointing out that the times in which PT is ever needed are so far and few between that even an oGCD with a 15-30s CD against or alongside which to balance or pair Elusive Jump would be wholly sufficient to make PT a practical skill again, especially if it was given a bit more range.

By all means, I'd prefer that DRG's every opener was chargeable; that it could advance any of its combos into each other; could use its dragon skills, once unlocked, at any time within 10 seconds to allow them more unique effects and flexibility; that its Jump simply launched it skyward as a dodge and then augmented its next weaponskill; that Full Thrust could toss enemies skyward and Fang & Claw did a fine job of juggling them and Wheeling Thrust of smiting them; that BotD simply unlocked gravity manipulation for your movement to make you look and feel like a Dissidia-esque Dragoon and master of aerial juggling; so on and so forth... but this is just about either making PT worthwhile or getting rid of it. So long as Dragoon gets something for forced melee downtime comparable to the other melee, I'm cool with either one, honestly. And that doesn't even have to be a GCD skill. Heck, we could give CT some more surplus duration, turn Geirskogul into a GCD that doesn't break combos, perhaps move Life of the Dragon activation to Blood of the Dragon, and allow BotD's passive effects by default and that would probably be sufficient for DRG's melee downtime.

Besides, I wouldn't even want to consider how such an oGCD might impact AoE, or how it's coded to interact with Flank/Rear skills (important to keep Raiden Thrust going).

You realize that this is the first expansion where any single-use buff has ever affected more than the first hit of an AoE? It's not that hard to simply put the limitation back as it had been for 3 prior iterations for this every Lifesurge/Powersurge/Reassemble/etc skill. For the rest, just keep the positional. It's not like staying behind the enemy 24/7 when physical Ranged wasn't already a thing when Accuracy was still a stat or we suddenly can't Elusive Jump out of a circular AoE in the direction our next attack would come from (in the same way we would when prepping to Dive back).

[Archwizard]

Not at all. It's just a matter of how finely we want to balance its losses across various GCDs in rotation (effectively allowing it an addition 2-4 GCDs per DRG's 10). We have two options: (1) Additional Effect on Piercing Talon or conditionally upgrading PT to Dragonkiller or (2) conditionally upgrading PT to Dragonkiller AND giving Dragonkiller an Additional Effect..

I'm not sure what this Dragonkiller you're mentioning is.

Additional Effect: Deals an additional X potency when Full Thrust, Chaos Thrust, or Coerthan Tempest are readied.

That's exactly my concern, though. If your timing on the combo is off when being pushed out of range -- for instance, you're on literally any other step out of the other 8 -- you lose out on the bonus.
I know I'm nitpicking the exact wording of an example, but as I said before, thanks to the branching combo system alone it complicates coding such an ability, let alone the practicality of multiple steps or having multiple abilities outside of the combo (F&C, WT).

By all means, I'd prefer that DRG's every opener was chargeable; that it could advance any of its combos into each other; could use its dragon skills, once unlocked, at any time within 10 seconds to allow them more unique effects and flexibility; that its Jump simply launched it skyward as a dodge and then augmented its next weaponskill; that Full Thrust could toss enemies skyward and Fang & Claw did a fine job of juggling them and Wheeling Thrust of smiting them; that BotD simply unlocked gravity manipulation for your movement to make you look and feel like a Dissidia-esque Dragoon and master of aerial juggling; so on and so forth... but this is just about either making PT worthwhile or getting rid of it. So long as Dragoon gets something for forced melee downtime comparable to the other melee, I'm cool with either one, honestly. And that doesn't even have to be a GCD skill. Heck, we could give CT some more surplus duration, turn Geirskogul into a GCD that doesn't break combos, perhaps move Life of the Dragon activation to Blood of the Dragon, and allow BotD's passive effects by default and that would probably be sufficient for DRG's melee downtime.

That's uh.

That's a whole rework. Bit high-brow for a thread like this.

But my point is, earlier you asked "Are there any integral effects we can add that would be cool and fun rather than merely intrusive and frustrating?" So far the effects you've suggested are purely adding damage to the skill based on serendipitous timing affected by the main rotation, rather than actually having any impact on the main rotation.

[Shurrikhan]

I'm not sure what this Dragonkiller you're mentioning is.

It's literally in the quote above. It's a potency bonus for any readied combo. Rather than bloating a tooltip with X if A and Y if B, you just use the trait and then use a single Additional Effect. Now you can tune more finely.

That's exactly my concern, though. If your timing on the combo is off when being pushed out of range -- for instance, you're on literally any other step out of the other 8 -- you lose out on the bonus.

Losing F&C+WT has virtually no impact on your ppGCD (especially if you can replace with a spare FT combo or a CT on a new unit), simply because there are few steps left in the combo. Dropping on FT or CT are far, far worse. If we provided a single base bonus for having any combo readied, atop balancing the base potency for level 50 play, dropping before either dragon skill or after True Thrust (2 of 4 GCDs per combo across 58-63 play) would be fine. After gaining Lance Mastery, however, dropping on the 3rd or 5th GCD per combo would each be highly punishing, while the 2nd is made less relatively punishing but still not great. This can be fixed by buffing the effect specifically for the 3rd step and reducing the Lance Mastery bonus onto the second dragon weaponskill slightly (buffing potencies elsewhere). At that point you are punished most on the 2nd and 5th GCDs, less on the 1st, 3rd, and 4th, per combo, but all are within reason. This would leave Dragoon's ranged option as the most flexible and among the most integral, capable of creating different lengths of rotational strings by which to control combo progress at known times of forced melee-downtime.

That's a whole rework. Bit high-brow for a thread like this.

I already mentioned as much.

... but this is just about either making PT worthwhile or getting rid of it.

I said that specifically to point out that while I could certainly throw out ideas for how I think Dragoon's rotation could be more enjoyable, that's not the point of the thread. I gave you a functional Piercing Talon -- hell, one that does allow for a more interesting rotation, coincidentally in giving it pacing control.

If you want a Piercing Talon that somehow suddenly reinvigorates the job in and of itself, despite the thread asking only for a functional one... perhaps you could put forth a suggestion greater than just a chance of free damage or something that desyncs your CDs?