Dragoon is a pretty complete Job. What could productively change in 6.20 (or beyond)?

[Eorzean_username]

How could those various minor issues be addressed without disrupting what's currently enjoyable about Dragoon?

Dragon Sight

Lots of different suggestions have been made all over the various FFXIV discussion sites, and these forums, including:

• Make <mo> macros in FFXIV not-terrible by allowing <mo> macros to use the Action Queue and respond like normal actions.
• Make Dragon Sight a "Dance Partner"-type effect where you choose who it will affect beforehand.
• Fold Dragon Sight into a different action, such as "Lance Charge" or "Battle Litany".
• Make Dragon Sight an untargeted partywide effect ("Dragon Gaze"?).
• Just delete Dragon Sight completely.

Blood for Blood / "Lance Charge" / Blood of the Dragon

A trait called "Blood for Blood" could upgrade "Lance Charge" to "Blood of the Dragon" at level 50+. This would feel like a nice "Graduation Day" for Dragoons reaching the end of ARR / beginning of HW.

Something like:

• Level 30 — Lance Charge — Increases damage dealt by 5% for 15 seconds.
• Level 54 — Trait: Blood for Blood — Upgrades Lance Charge to Blood of the Dragon.
• Level 54 — Blood of the Dragon — Increases damage dealt by 10% for 20 seconds and makes you look cool.

And so Dragoon regains the "swirly blue dragon" aura — specifically, during its burst windows. It's a minor thing, but I'd like this a lot!

Movement

I personally do not want to see Elusive Jump edited or removed. I think that Elusive Jump is cool, it's responsive, it feels good, I like it. I don't think that Elusive Jump itself should be changed.

Instead, just give Dragoon a "Reverse Elusive Jump" — you know, "Unelusive Jump", or whatever. It works the same as Elusive Jump, except it sends you forwards.

I personally think that is all Dragoon would really "need" to feel good or "on-par", mobility-wise.

Life Surge

As with other actions, lots of different suggestions have been made all over the various FFXIV discussion sites, and these forums, including:

• Life Surge can only be consumed by Heavens' Thrust
• Life Surge sets the next Weaponskill to a flat potency value (ie, all Weaponskills have equal potency under Life Surge)
• Life Surge sets the potency of 5th Combo hits to be equal to Heavens' Thrust
• Life Surge no longer causes a Critical Hit, but instead, simply increases the Potency of the next action by a flat amount (like the old Stormblood version of Dark Knight "Dark Arts")
• Life Surge is removed entirely

Most of those possibilities seem to suck away a lot of the flavor and satisfaction from using Life Surge correctly... but at the same time, the action is a legitimately awkward in its current state. However, I really don't have a strong personal opinion about any specific option, myself.

Spineshatter and Dragonfire Dives

I feel like, at this point, Spineshatter and Dragonfire can be thought of as basically 2 actions that serve the same basic function: "an extra cooldown Jump animation to weave in during burst windows".

But Spineshatter's the less-impressive visual, and it feels like a forgettable rotational hangnail. Like, "Oh, yeah. That action exists. Well, I guess it has finished its cooldown, so I might as well press it..." Especially on AOE pulls, where Spineshatter is relegated to the role of pointless filler.

So I would personally prefer something like:

• Trait: Dive Mastery I
• Level 50
• Upgrades Spineshatter Dive to Dragonfire Dive.

Dragon Gauge / Life of the Dragon

This is the most drastic change that I'd advocate for: cleaning up the dated Life system. The boundaries on this for me are:

• Try to preserve the current general gameplay feel of Dragoon.
• Try to modernize the Dragon Gauge / Life system to feel more cleanly-presented and more elegant to design with.
• Try to give the Dragon Gauge / Life system more space to grow in the future.
• Try to remove some of the dated-feeling clunk / jank / awkwardness from Geirskogul / Nastrond.
• Try to retain Dragoon's ability to somewhat-manipulate when it enters its burst window.

Here's an example of a change that might fit these criteria:

Dragon Scales / Wyrmwind Thrust

No changes are made to the function of Wyrmwind Thrust and Dragon Scales.

Dragon Gauge / High Jump / Mirage Dive

• Dragon Gauge becomes a Quantity, rather than a timer, starting at "0" in new instances.
• The Dragoon can have a maximum of 100 Dragon Gauge.
• Dragon Gauge quantity has no duration and remains indefinitely.

Blood of the Dragon ("Lance Charge")

• Blood of the Dragon (ie, "Lance Charge") generates 50 Dragon Gauge when activated.
• Blood of the Dragon (ie, "Lance Charge") still has a 60 second cooldown.

High Jump / Mirage Dive

• Jump / High Jump generates 25 Dragon Gauge when it strikes a target.
• Mirage Dive becomes a Trait.

  • Mirage Dive triggers automatically after High Jump strikes a target.
  • The "Mirage" strike lands with an ~1 second delay, so that the visual effect isn't lost, and so that it keeps the sense of a Dragoon "afterimage" striking the target.
  • Mirage Dive generates 25 Dragon Gauge when it strikes a target.

• Combined, generates 50 Dragon Gauge per High Jump.
• Jump / High Jump still has a fixed 30 second cooldown. It still does not use "charges".
  

Geirskogul / Dragon Eyes

• Geirskogul cooldown is set to 1.0 seconds.
• Geirskogul requires and consumes 50 Dragon Gauge per use.
• Geirskogul generates 1 Dragon Eye when it strikes a target.
• The Dragoon can have a maximum of 2 Dragon Eyes.
• Dragon Eyes have no duration and remain indefinitely.

Life of the Dragon / Nastrond / Dragon Fangs

• Trait — Life of the Dragon: Generating a 2nd Dragon Eye automatically consumes both Eyes and generates 3 Dragon Fangs.
• While the Dragoon has at least 1 Dragon Fang remaining, Geirskogul is changed to Nastrond.
• Nastrond has a 1.0 second cooldown.
• Nastrond does not require or consume Dragon Gauge.
• Each use of Nastrond requires and consumes 1 Dragon Fang.
• Both Dragon Gauge and Dragon Eyes can still be generated while the Dragoon has Dragon Fangs.
• The Dragoon can only have a maximum of 3 Dragon Fangs. Triggering Life again with unspent Dragon Fangs will overwrite any unspent Fangs.

Other interactions with Life of the Dragon / Dragon Fangs

Dragonfire Dive

• Cooldown remains 120 seconds.
• Dragonfire Dive potency increases by 50% for each unspent Dragon Fang that the Dragoon has when Dragonfire Dive is activated, to a maximum of 150% increased potency.
• Dragonfire Dive does not require or consume Dragon Fangs.

Stardiver

• Stardiver cooldown is set to 1.0 seconds.
• Stardiver activation requires at least 1 Dragon Fang.
• Stardiver activation consumes all unspent Dragon Fangs.
• Stardiver potency is static — it is not modified by the number of Fangs consumed.
• Stardiver base potency is increased significantly, to compensate for it now replacing a Nastrond.

It might be hard to get an idea of the rotational flow from those text lists, so here's a mock-up graphic to roughly show how it would work (in a simplified case):