6.2 Dragoon potential changes/assessment of current (6.11)

[Ilisidi]

As for what I want, nothing really. The job is fun as is, because it's fast and hectic.

It's interesting to read that. To me Dragoon is fun because to me feels unhectic. It's great because it has no randoms, you can mostly do your rotation in peace while watching it for the mechanics. It has at long nice figure eight that moves like a song with the gcds on the white keys of a piano and the ogcd on the black keys. For me it plays smoother than any other job. An endless beautiful melody at level 90 that just moves from one action to another. It entrancing to play.

And, yeah, I either want to have my tether back or me not to have to target people anymore during the fight. That's only part that doesn't feel smooth to me.

[YukiB]

It's interesting to read that. To me Dragoon is fun because to me feels unhectic. It's great because it has no randoms, you can mostly do your rotation in peace while watching it for the mechanics. It has at long nice figure eight that moves like a song with the gcds on the white keys of a piano and the ogcd on the black keys. For me it plays smoother than any other job. An endless beautiful melody at level 90 that just moves from one action to another. It entrancing to play.

And, yeah, I either want to have my tether back or me not to have to target people anymore during the fight. That's only part that doesn't feel smooth to me.

I don't play it much, so it's hectic for me. I can certainly see how it will smooth out with more muscle memory and proper cooldown alignment. Which is a good thing, because it means the skill ceiling is still above water.

[ZiraZ]

I would rather see sight removed than turned into some unfun dance partner style ability, the ability is already almost dead anyways.
I would also like to be able to burst higher than a tank on the opener, I don't see what could go wrong with having life at the start of a fight like Monk's Meditation ability allows them and also spineshatter turned into a 0 potency mobility ability would be great.
Other than that, I would prefer if it gets very few changes, it already feels good enough.

Hopefully SE destroying SMN and SAM is good timing for us and all the drama it caused will make them scrap whatever bad changes they had in store for DRG and AST.

[RArchet]

I would rather see sight removed than turned into some unfun dance partner style ability, the ability is already almost dead anyways.
I would also like to be able to burst higher than a tank on the opener, I don't see what could go wrong with having life at the start of a fight like Monk's Meditation ability allows them and also spineshatter turned into a 0 potency mobility ability would be great.
Other than that, I would prefer if it gets very few changes, it already feels good enough.

Hopefully SE destroying SMN and SAM is good timing for us and all the drama it caused will make them scrap whatever bad changes they had in store for DRG and AST.

Spineshatter becoming a simple gapcloser would probably be more like Corps-a-Corps or Hissatsu: Gyoten than a 0 pot gap closer in that case.

[TabrisOmbrelame]

Square Enix willing to change Classes could only be done at two point.

Either, the gameplay of the class in not conveniant at all, Like MCH was at Stormblood for exemple, Or the classes, while being loved by everyone, is reaching it's potential limit.

It seems that Dragoon is reaching it's limit. With 3 buff + 1 for the next attack, 4 Jump oGCD, 3 Line AoE oGCD (for a total of 7). Although being the "Slowest" DPS in GCD, it's well designed by having many oGCD, that's why the jobs feels a lot faster when reaching higher level.

To be honest, Dragoon may be at his peak right now, but sadly, their is little room for improving the class. The burst phase of the DRG is extremely busy, just look at all of his abilities (Even more true in the opener cause you have 2 Spineshatter to place)

Reducing the animation lock on jump was a pretty good move. This allow the Dragoon to be more flexible somehow. But the problem remains the same for future update : "What can we add or change from lvl 92 to 100 ?".

Please name 4-5 skill addition/change you'll make to the DRG. Honestly it's really hard to do on a well designed job.

[ThorneDynasty]

Some kind of downtime ability. Having a jump attack the behaves like the PvP LB, but with mandatory airtime could work. Maybe giving DPS on invuln type skill would break something in PvE, I don't know, but it would be fun to actually have the classic Dragoon jump behavior.

The transition to LotD could be more exciting than just pressing a line AoE, have an Estinien style dynamic entry into your red aura with Stardiver. Replace Stardiver during LotD with resource build up to a proper finisher move. Doesn't need to fundamentally change how the rotation works, just add more fanfare to LotD.

[Aco505]

I would also like to be able to burst higher than a tank on the opener, I don't see what could go wrong with having life at the start of a fight like Monk's Meditation ability allows them and also spineshatter turned into a 0 potency mobility ability would be great.
Other than that, I would prefer if it gets very few changes, it already feels good enough.

I don't personally dislike not having all resources in the opener because if we did have them, we'd have to be nerfed as DRG would be too strong otherwise. MNKs cannot use Phantom Rush in the opener and they're designed to not be able to use it in even minute bursts so in that sense we're kinda similar. I'd love to be able to unleash everything in the opener just like in P3S after adds though because it's just too fun.

I like Spineshatter Dive as a damage oGCD (it should probably hit a tiny bit harder actually). It allows us to use 5 jumps in even-minute bursts. Other jobs also have oGCD on charges stacked during buffs. Perhaps it's not the most engaging thing ever, but it's part of the satisfying feel of funneling all the oGCDs in proper order in a burst. If anything, they could change how SPD functions in the future so it has more depth in its use.

The change to Elusive Jump's animation makes it really good now, but if they ended up deciding to change SPD into a pure gap closer like Thunderclap, then I hope they'd give us more jumps, because we'd be down to 3 and that'd be quite sad imho.

It seems that Dragoon is reaching it's limit. With 3 buff + 1 for the next attack, 4 Jump oGCD, 3 Line AoE oGCD (for a total of 7). Although being the "Slowest" DPS in GCD, it's well designed by having many oGCD, that's why the jobs feels a lot faster when reaching higher level.

To be honest, Dragoon may be at his peak right now, but sadly, their is little room for improving the class. The burst phase of the DRG is extremely busy, just look at all of his abilities (Even more true in the opener cause you have 2 Spineshatter to place)

Reducing the animation lock on jump was a pretty good move. This allow the Dragoon to be more flexible somehow. But the problem remains the same for future update : "What can we add or change from lvl 92 to 100 ?".

Please name 4-5 skill addition/change you'll make to the DRG. Honestly it's really hard to do on a well designed job.

I agree that DS could just become an upgrade to LC as a personal buff with LC's animation having the swirling dragon from DS as otherwise it'd look weird to point at the boss as it does now... That'd reduce the buffs to two, so pretty standard. Then increase Litany's duration (for the DRG at least) and radius to 20 and the job would be more flexible in the bursts.

Now, as for the other oGCDs and how busy it is, it is not busier than many other jobs. What about NIN, DRK, GNB, MNK, SAM, MCH, DNC? Are these not busy during bursts too? There's a job for each playstyle and there's nothing wrong if DRG is oGCD heavy like DRK or GNB.

The question of "what can we add to the job in 7.0" could be asked for any other job. What did BLM get in EW? Mainly Paradox and one extra Xeno every 120s, plus an extra charge of Triple Cast and Sharpcast. Did this fundamentally change the way the job works? Not really.

What could we add to NIN, to DRK? I find that there's other jobs with more problems than DRG. What can you add to RPR without bloating the hotbars?

In the case of DRG, what could be added is new ways for oGCDs to combo between themselves or to complement the GCDs. DFD could improve the power of the next STD or vice versa. Life could change the way our GCDs work so that they're stronger, we could have the ability to store more eyes or scales (this one should exist already - we should be able to store three scales for a cost of two). Vorpal Thrust and Piercing Talon could get new, improved versions, etc. In fact, Vorpal Thrust is the only GCD in our arsenal without a defined role, so it could also get one.

What we definitely don't need is more buttons used exclusively for AoE. If there's one thing that defines DRG is that everything except the GCDs works in every single scenario.

[Cybylt]

Square Enix willing to change Classes could only be done at two point.

Either, the gameplay of the class in not conveniant at all, Like MCH was at Stormblood for exemple, Or the classes, while being loved by everyone, is reaching it's potential limit.

It seems that Dragoon is reaching it's limit. With 3 buff + 1 for the next attack, 4 Jump oGCD, 3 Line AoE oGCD (for a total of 7). Although being the "Slowest" DPS in GCD, it's well designed by having many oGCD, that's why the jobs feels a lot faster when reaching higher level.

To be honest, Dragoon may be at his peak right now, but sadly, their is little room for improving the class. The burst phase of the DRG is extremely busy, just look at all of his abilities (Even more true in the opener cause you have 2 Spineshatter to place)

Reducing the animation lock on jump was a pretty good move. This allow the Dragoon to be more flexible somehow. But the problem remains the same for future update : "What can we add or change from lvl 92 to 100 ?".

Please name 4-5 skill addition/change you'll make to the DRG. Honestly it's really hard to do on a well designed job.

Having a well designed and fun to play job that needs little to no changes expac to expac is not a problem to be solved. It's fine to keep it going as-is with only aesthetic updates and potency adjustments a la Heavensthrust and Chaotic Spring.

Have Vorpal Thrust and Disembowel become new skills when coming off of Raiden Thrust, give Dragonfire Dive and Spineshatter their own High Jump equivalents. Have the fifth combo hit become something different than it would be as fourth combo hit.

[ElariaIlostia]

New player (sprout) here, currently doing Stormblood lvl70 instances before moving onto Shadowbringers. When I first setup my account I picked DRG because I thought it sounded cool, leaping all about the battlefield with a huge spear. I am so glad I did. I have been having an absolute blast. I honestly can't imagine how any of the other jobs could be more enjoyable than this. If you break it down it's really just a series of fixed rotations that you just rinse and repeat, but a lot of the component skills are positional-based, which adds a really cool element to it. It's not a static role - there's so much moving around all the time to make the most out of your abilities, and it's just so much fun. Plus things like doing Evasive Dive to leap out of a glowing red circle, Jump to get back to the boss afterwards. It's just great. That whole gaze of the brood mechanic you get at lvl70 is interesting as well, where different abilities get stronger when it's active. It's a great concept. I only have one ability that uses it at the moment, but am looking forward to getting more later on. Around the end of Heavensward I did start to struggle a bit with the sheer number of abilities but once I grouped my hotbars more logically everything just clicked into place much better.

People say when you get to 90 you should switch to another class but I can't really see myself doing that at all. DRG is just so much fun. It does seem to be relatively rare though, compared to some other DPS classes. The Achievements say I've done 84 instances so far, and I think I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I've met another DRG in one. On the rare occasions where there is a fellow DRG in the group I always make sure they're the one who benefits from my Left Eye 5% damage buff whenever I use it.

[TabrisOmbrelame]

Now, as for the other oGCDs and how busy it is, it is not busier than many other jobs. What about NIN, DRK, GNB, MNK, SAM, MCH, DNC? Are these not busy during bursts too? There's a job for each playstyle and there's nothing wrong if DRG is oGCD heavy like DRK or GNB.

I didn't mean to compare the DRG with other classes, because we were focusing on the DRG itself.

On the other hand, the DRG got a busy burst, that's a fact. I didn't say anything about that being bad either, for now at least. The only problem will be for the dev. Having a job already busy like all those you mentionned will cause the developper either to focus on unneeded point or completely/Partially rework them.

I say that, but for some classes their is still room to work with. DRG is an amazing class right now, but like I said, maybe the dev are facing a wall in his progression.

What can be done for the DRG may be a slight alteration to some of his oGCD, maybe an upgraded Spineshatter dive (More potency), or a Single target variation for the Big Red Jump (With shared cooldown), maybe reworking one or two of his buff (Saving some button bloat by the same occasion).

All those are idea, But I agree on the fact that DRG isn't the class that need a rework right now. Samourai is in a more precarious situation, and I think that should be a priority.

Having a well designed and fun to play job that needs little to no changes expac to expac is not a problem to be solved. It's fine to keep it going as-is with only aesthetic updates and potency adjustments a la Heavensthrust and Chaotic Spring.

Have Vorpal Thrust and Disembowel become new skills when coming off of Raiden Thrust, give Dragonfire Dive and Spineshatter their own High Jump equivalents. Have the fifth combo hit become something different than it would be as fourth combo hit.

I agree with you, but their is some point i need to clarify too.

Having a class who got aesthetic + potency upgrade is a well known mechanics every expansion for healers, for exemple. In fact, it's not as bad as it could be. What's more interesting is too add something more behind that. As we can see, DRG got that double dragon head after making two Raiden thrust, added at EW. The mecanics behind that, while being extremely simple to do, is still interesting. As for now, the DRG as little to manage ressource-wise, but still got Buff, and many oGCD to use. I fear that adding more could make the job too busy. I can only suggest that some skill will switch for new one, allowing the DRG to become a whole new class without touching to the core of what it actually is. At least, I hope so.