Quote Originally Posted by Jeeqbit View Post
I don't agree about Heavy Thrust. I struggled with it as well and just couldn't play DRG. I don't like standalone GCDs and especially ones that can disrupt a combo.

What made it differ from Reaper's is that it couldn't increase the duration to 60s, so you had to hit it at the exact right time in your rotation or it either wasn't optimal or expired causing you to disrupt your combo, whereas Reaper has more flexibility on when to refresh it. Reaper's doesn't disrupt the combo.
As a former Dragoon main, everything you said here is basically a you problem. There was nothing complicated about Heavy Thrust nor was it difficult to maintain once you were accustomed to the job. It essentially functioned as your starter and gave Dragoon additional weave space. This, alongside, Phlebotomize, added a degree of upkeep on the job that no longer exists. Nowadays, Dragoon remains both rigid and relatively thoughtless. You spam a five string combo and never think about much else. Not to say I dislike the changes given some have made the job flow better. Nevertheless, maintaining Heavy Thrust was not hard for anyone who bothered to put any time into the job. And it's removal is directly in response to people who simply wouldn't.

As for Reaper. You don't want to double up on Shadow of Death. It's a DPS loss as you're using a weaker GCD within raid buff, thus pushing your higher potency attacks out of raid buffs. Not to mention, this sort of change is something they could have easily implemented on Dragoon years ago. In terms of functionality though, they're essentially the same thing. Players who struggled with Heavy Thrust, or straight up forgot to apply it, will likely have the same issue with Shadow of Death.

What made it worse was not sharing the first GCD for both combos, because all other melee classes did except MNK and MNK could still continue the other combo instead. If you put each melee combo on a different hotbar like I do and switch hotbars for each combo, this could be a problem when the first button is pressed right before switching. DRG has been perfect to me since Shadowbringers.
How you allocate your hotbars has nothing to do with job design. If I opt for a strange layout on Dark Knight, that isn't the devs fault. This is essentially the same as people complaining they have no hotbar space despite stuffing minions and mounts on two of them.

When I heal I'm usually busy (spamming broil or dosis). I play AST if I don't want to be bored on a healer.
Which is the precise problem many Healer mains have. Although, I suspect you're well aware of this. Spamming a single key endless is neither riveting nor good job design. No encounter, regardless of its majesty, will ever hold up long enough to make that sort of "gameplay" interesting. Alas, it's all healers have—even at an Ultimate level.