Dragoon 6.2 Civil discussion thread

[Rika007]

I do think it should be noted that they are not changing Dragoon because it needs changes, nor did they change Summoner or Samurai for that reason. The wording they used was something to the effect of that they were running out of space on what they could do with the job. Dragoon to me yes is in a near perfect scenario. Samurai coming into Endwalker felt much the same way. Summoner didn't feel perfect but its mechanics felt full to absolute bursting. Monk while not given that same reason also felt like it literally was at a deadlock where no additions or changes to the current style felt like it would solve any issues.

They are at a space where adding anything new to these jobs really just feels like it's gonna screw something up. Consider Black Mage. The only things they added to that job were all animation changes and abilities that grant more of what they already do well. Now we can discuss why not try that with Dragoon here instead, but that does feel like kicking the can down the road. I think players will only be happy with superficial changes for so long, even if the job already feels perfect. I know I play Black Mage less then I did last expansion even if though technically it's just a better version of what it was.

Now I'm not debating some of this they have screwed up. I actually enjoy current Summoner but not even I would say it's a satisfactory job. It's a full reset that feels as bare as Stormblood Red Mage, and I don't like that I'm probably gonna have to wait another expansion or 2 to get the feeling of a complete job back. I personally feel Monk was insanely successful and love it's rework. Samurai's changes to me is one of the worst flops ever, I would mush rather go back to Samurai right before even if I felt EW 6.0 SAM was a step back from 5.5 SAM.

I just do think it is important that one thing we need to recognize is that the dev team are not looking at this from just a stand point of RIGHT NOW. They are looking at the next 4-5 expansions of development. Yoshi-P stated they expect another 10 more years of this game. We can reasonably expect 3-5 new iterations of these jobs. DRG may feel perfect now, but will it when they add new stuff to it's rotation next expac? And more the expac after that? I don't think so, and I don't think players will be satisfied with just superficial animation changes for a decade.

[Reese_Clairdale]

I just do think it is important that one thing we need to recognize is that the dev team are not looking at this from just a stand point of RIGHT NOW. They are looking at the next 4-5 expansions of development. Yoshi-P stated they expect another 10 more years of this game. We can reasonably expect 3-5 new iterations of these jobs. DRG may feel perfect now, but will it when they add new stuff to it's rotation next expac? And more the expac after that? I don't think so, and I don't think players will be satisfied with just superficial animation changes for a decade.

Well this is fine from a developer standpoint, the problem is we're not developers, we're players. We're subscribing with the faith that we'll receive new content and logical, thoroughly tested updates. We're not being paid to debug their development process and supply innovative ideas. Unless there is some glaringly obvious gameplay flaws and / or uproar from the core audience, a job's design should be set in stone for the duration of the expansion. Any further changes made should be to enhance the current iteration, not modify the iteration to some half-baked alpha test version of the next expansion's iteration. Telling players to endure random mutations of design philosophies every 4 months until 2032 isn't going to be a sustainable business model.

[Aco505]

That too would be fixed by the aforementioned suggestion. By having the lead LotD-entering Geirskogul convert to a LotD-entering Nostrand that, via LotD, allows up to 2 more uses of Nostrand in the next 30 seconds (10s ICD retained), you'd drop out of LotD upon using the second (previously third) Nostrand, rather than only after 30 seconds, which then again allows you to queue Geirskogul that 30s after entering LotD, since it wouldn't be locked behind an unusable Nostrand key.

Having LotD end right after the last NAS is literally Enshroud. We don't want to be RPR 2.0 with oGCDs, and doing so would make LotD less relevant since the ideal situation would be to make LotD interact more with other parts of our kit like our GCDs.

That has more to do with Sprints and gathers (having not enough mobs in range of GSK for it to be worthwhile) than LotD windows. The LotD windows are determined by Mirage Dive, not HJ itself, and shuffling either among HJ and GSK by 0.6 seconds isn't going to give you more 60-second windows.

No, it doesn't have to do with mobs being gathered. It has to do with the fact that it is HJ (and MD) the abilities that generate eyes, not GSK. It is very common for a pull to be almost dead by the time your HJ comes back on CD and getting an extra eye in this situation will likely guarantee extra LotD windows. This is why in content like dungeons you want to go this route, to ensure the maximum amount of Life windows possible, and this is also why it's done in DSR in order to squeeze more eyes and thus more Life windows or in P3S before adds for the exact same reason.

There is, even there, no reason to hit a third Mirage Dive before entering LotD

You don't use MD with 2 eyes up, you use LotD and then MD. Making HJ give the eye directly means that GSK must always come before HJ or we overcap eyes. If we, once again, take DSR into account, you come back from a mechanic and now you have 32s to deal damage... you want HJ to be your first attack to ensure you get that extra eye at the end of this phase. If GSK had to be used before, you'd lose one eye that you could've had. Thus making HJ give the eye directly and always force DRG to use GSK before HJ is removing job flexibility, even if full uptime scenarios can perfectly go GSK > HJ, but the game is not always composed of full uptime scenarios. Removing MD would be a huge mistake.

Jump and MD, meanwhile, contribute more than double GSK's ST potency, so if you're going to maintain an alignment at cost of a skill not falling under raid buffs that weren't pushed back raid-wide, it will generally be GSK. Buffer death aside, that shouldn't happen regardless, but the way the skills work incentivize the most straightforward, repetitive, unnuanced option possible in virtually every case.

Except very special cases (some DSR phases for example), they do not fall out of raid buffs, they're just used in different order.

We can argue whether that's better overall, for the purpose of smoothness over depth, but DRG is rather unvaried and uncompromising now compared to, say, Stormblood.

Forcing GSK > HJ all the time is removing variability from the job, and I know several people in the JP DRG forum asking them not to touch it because they prefer going HJ > GSK all the time regardless.

Currently you get your first Wyrmwind after the 11th GCD, and then every 10 GCDs thereafter, overcapping per 5.

With the given suggestion, you'd get your first Wyrmwind after the 6th GCD, and then every 10 GCDs thereafter, overcapping only per 10 GCDs.

I don't think you have understood my suggestion: RT/DF do not give a scale on their own, they can only give a scale under the effect of Draconian Fire, just like Leaden Fist. Bootshine only crits with the Leaden Fist buff on. Nothing changes at all. It's the exact same thing but instead of having an initial TT with 230 potency, you have a RT with 280 potency. Nothing else changes. It's purely an aesthetic change because having a random single TT (or 2-3 if there's long downtime) over the course of a fight makes no sense.

It should be a permanent upgrade. Which other job uses a weaponskill only once and never again in their rotation? I guess RPR's Harvest Moon, but that's a special attack reserved for specific moments, not a required thing. Blood Stalk does fall in the TT category I guess, but it doesn't look awful like TT.

The opener would be:

1. RT > 2. DE (LC + DS) > 3. CS (BL) > 4. WT (GSK + LS) > 5. FnC (HJ) - Draconian Fire granted here as usual - > 6. RT (DFD + MD) - one scale granted here - > 7. VT (SSD + LS) > 8. HT (SSD) > 9. FnC > 10. WT - Buffs fall off right after this GCD is performed, Draconian Fire granted here - > 11. RT (WWT) - second scale granted here.

Scale generation is completely unchanged.

I just do think it is important that one thing we need to recognize is that the dev team are not looking at this from just a stand point of RIGHT NOW. They are looking at the next 4-5 expansions of development. Yoshi-P stated they expect another 10 more years of this game. We can reasonably expect 3-5 new iterations of these jobs. DRG may feel perfect now, but will it when they add new stuff to it's rotation next expac? And more the expac after that? I don't think so, and I don't think players will be satisfied with just superficial animation changes for a decade.

But no one is saying that they can't change the job. What the playerbase is suggesting is for them to ask for feedback before implementing the changes. For them to be open about it and to take our opinion and thoughts into account. And most importantly, for these changes to happen at the end or beginning of an expansion, not in the middle of one after having given us a new version of the job. Unless a job is broken and needs help, extensive changes should not happen when we've barely had a year to enjoy the new tools given to us in EW.

[Shurrikhan]

It has to do with the fact that it is HJ (and MD) the abilities that generate eyes, not GSK.

I just noted the latter just a few sentences away from what you've quoted.

And generating an extra Eye in those situations can do as much harm as good, as now your LotD would be desynced from Lance Charge (which you'd not have popped with that "pull almost dead").

You don't use MD with 2 eyes up, you use LotD and then MD.

What part of "there is no reason to hit MD before [entering an already-prepared] LotD" suggested otherwise? That was my point; HJ's timing vs. Geirskogul is inconsequential outside of the rarest of rare situations because you have 15s in which to dump HJpart2 (MD). MD therefore ends up just making the job that much easier, rather than actually giving any further opportunities for skill expression. It's a jiob built to hit things on CD, with core components now functioning only to make things easier to hit on CD.

That wasn't quite the case before, and I therefore prefer that earlier form of the job. It wasn't a huge difference, but it was still, imo, a favorable one.

I don't think you have understood my suggestion: RT/DF do not give a scale on their own

Ahh, okay then.

Sorry, got confused by the "just have Draconian Fire give us a scale when these weaponskills [antecedent: RT/DF] are used," followed by "it's probably better for scales to be granted by RT/DF." Describing what you intended as the "Leaden Fist treatment" was kind of confusing in that Leaden Fist is a simply "+100 potency on next <Weaponskill A>" procced by a separate weaponskill used at the same point in combo as the benefiting weaponskill, which is more like TT/RT, rather than WT>RT or FnC>RT.

Except very special cases (some DSR phases for example), they do not fall out of raid buffs...

Which, again, now requires no management. There's no value in holding MD unless your Geirskogul was already forcibly desynced, etc., etc. That seems to me comparatively lackluster compared to the likes of Stormblood DRG and its noticeably more, and more varied, damage windows. Again, not a huge difference; I merely brought it up as we'd been discussing what we liked before, like from now, and would like in future.

_______________________

But no one is saying that they can't change the job. What the playerbase is suggesting is for them to ask for feedback before implementing the changes. For them to be open about it and to take our opinion and thoughts into account. And most importantly, for these changes to happen at the end or beginning of an expansion, not in the middle of one after having given us a new version of the job. Unless a job is broken and needs help, extensive changes should not happen when we've barely had a year to enjoy the new tools given to us in EW.

100% agreed.

[Aco505]

And generating an extra Eye in those situations can do as much harm as good, as now your LotD would be desynced from Lance Charge (which you'd not have popped with that "pull almost dead").

You can, most of the time, adjust to have at least one NAS and the STD under buffs and any kind of downtime should fix this anyway (for example between packs in a dungeon or after a boss is killed, since the cooldowns keep rolling). This kind of flexibility is only allowed by having MD, as otherwise it'd result in lost eyes.

And in any case, in this game what matters the most is getting more uses out of attacks (except in Save the Queen areas with stacked damage increasing actions and Eureka with stuff like Double Edge), so getting additional LotD windows will almost always be better than putting it under buffs.

A LotD under LC gives 134 extra potency from the two NAS and the STD (not counting Power Surge here, which would give an extra 1% due to multiplicative buff stuff). An extra LotD in an encounter is 1700 potency.

What part of "there is no reason to hit MD before [entering an already-prepared] LotD" suggested otherwise? That was my point; HJ's timing vs. Geirskogul is inconsequential outside of the rarest of rare situations because you have 15s in which to dump HJpart2 (MD). MD therefore ends up just making the job that much easier, rather than actually giving any further opportunities for skill expression. It's a jiob built to hit things on CD, with core components now functioning only to make things easier to hit on CD.

I think we're talking about different things here. I am not talking about pooling MD into buffs, holding it for long (side note, MD could last 20s for the rare occasions you might wanna do this) or something of the sort. I am talking about the fact that doing HJ > GSK can, in many cases, be the absolute difference between getting an extra eye and LotD window or not. It can be as small as 2 seconds of difference. In P3S, you have a tight window to execute this double life, or you lose the 2nd STD on the boss.

Therefore, if they change HJ to make it give the eye directly (my initial worry), then they'd remove the flexibility that MD gives (so lower ceiling for nothing): it allows us to use HJ before GSK with two eyes already stored, which can easily result in more eyes throughout an encounter and thus more LotD.

A poignant example is DSR, which I've mentioned already: due to the HJ and MD merge, we literally have to use HJ as our first action (before any GCD!), for example at the beginning of phase 2 with Thordan, to make sure we get two eyes before he goes away. Same thing happens if we reach such a phase with two eyes: we still want to use HJ first, but if HJ gave the eye, we'd overcap and wouldn't be able to get a 2nd eye at the end of this phase.

Getting extra eyes by playing around encounter timings and downtime is one of the things that can increase DRG's damage by quite a lot. The job benefits greatly from this kind of optimization in a very similar way to NIN (mudras keep rolling while nothing's happening), because we can get extra eyes that will then fall under more buffs.

Sorry, got confused by the "just have Draconian Fire give us a scale when these weaponskills [antecedent: RT/DF] are used," followed by "it's probably better for scales to be granted by RT/DF." Describing what you intended as the "Leaden Fist treatment" was kind of confusing in that Leaden Fist is a simply "+100 potency on next <Weaponskill A>" procced by a separate weaponskill used at the same point in combo as the benefiting weaponskill, which is more like TT/RT, rather than WT>RT or FnC>RT.

The "followed by" was a different suggestion of me pondering, in a different post as a response to what you said to my initial one, a different situation in which the scales were directly granted by the 5th positional GCD if we had a maximum of three.

In my initial message, I think it's clear that what I mean is for the weaponskills to be direct upgrades. The 2nd part of what I said that you quoted now ("followed by") happened after you had already misunderstood what I initially said in the first post.

However, I did get mixed up with Leaden's Fist's effect: in my head it was what grants Bootshine the autocrit, but this doesn't really change the point. Leaden Fist's effect is only consumed by Bootshine, thus Draconian Fire should give an effect to be consumed only by RT/DF and in this way we can get rid of TT and DoS when their upgrades are learned, since they're barely used afterwards.