Let's talk about the upcoming DRG rework...

[Matheus]

(part2) The real problem, which has happened to other jobs in the past and has been creeping up on DRG for a while now is that DRG kit doesn't work with itself anymore. At some points in the job history more than others, DRG had a few moving parts that worked together for something bigger, optimizing those parts was very fun and even when I messed them up, I would have something to watch out for in the next attempt. Lets just look at the different implementations of the job over time and how those bits that worked together used to be:

-In Heavensward, the 4th hit of our combos were implemented, they were also random (which was painful for people with high ping like me), if you hit those you extended your Blood the Dragon timer, and gierskogul was a spender, which shaved 10 seconds of that timer to cast. You would stay on your toes throughout most of the fight for your positionals and try really hard to fit in as many Gierskogul casts as you could, using Blood of the Dragon to reset the gauge and help you with that.

-In Stormblood, eyes were added and in their first implementation you had to gather 3 eyes (from High Jump, same as always) to enter Life of the Dragon, and you could cast Nastrond in it. 5th hit were implemented and RNG was gone from them, which was good. I believe the timer was still there and the 4th and 5th hit increased it and Gierskogul would put you on Life, and Life would make the timer go down iirc. Your goal was to gather eyes and then enter the Life window with 21+ seconds on it to cast 3 nastronds (you could do 4 if you had really good ping iirc). The management there was a lot easier, but in some fights you cared about when your life cycle would begin, so every now and then you would purposefully delay the cycle or even not gather a eye so things would line up better. At some point in Stormblood they changed it to 2 eyes, which made management a lot simpler, but also a lot more comfortable.

- In Shadowbringers nothing changed other than the adition of Stardiver if I remember it right.You still used 2 eyes to build up to your Life window, the timer for Blood still existed and 4th and 5th hits still increased it, gierskogul entered Life and it started ticking down. No problem there other than you might've wanted a couple of extra seconds so you could stardiver.

[Matheus]

(part 3) Currently Blood isn't real, only its gauge. There is no timer attached to it so our combo hits don't chime into multiple parts of the job like they used to. We still build up eyes to enter Life for our coolest skills, but there is absolutely nothing to manage. In Dawntrail there will be no build up, just a cooldown related to a stance.

There will be no moving parts to manage because the job will be made of a bunch of gears spinning on their own as opposed to smaller parts of something cooler which takes a lot of the fun I had in the job away.

I'm sure DRG will play fine, we still have a ton of oGCDs which is why I play DRG over other melee classes but its just makes me sad that they decided to slowly strip away the job cohesion until there is nothing left. Happened to BRD when their DoTs stopped interacting with the rest of their kit, happened with MCH when Gauss Barrel stopped being a part of the job and ammo was removed, happened to DRK when management stopped being a part of the job overall and there are probably other examples out there.

I wish DRG is looked at later on and then reworked to be a more like MNK is looking to be in the sense that their kit has built-in interactions. I can only hope and until then, for the first time since ARR I'll main something else. Probably PCT or MNK.

I apologize for the long post and any grammar mistakes, this wasn't written in a single sitting, english is not my first language and I'm honestly too lazy to look it over to see if I still make sense, I just wanted to get that out of my chest.

[Aco505]

(part2) The real problem, which has happened to other jobs in the past and has been creeping up on DRG for a while now is that DRG kit doesn't work with itself anymore.

I agree with several of the points you make, and especially this one. I have written my feedback about it before in this post, should you wish to check it.

The job's kit feels more disconnected now that High Jump and Mirage Dive have no interaction with the gauge. The "oGCD combos" that we get are good and thematic for the job but most of the DRG's actions simply deal damage with no build up or consequence with the exception of Geirskogul, Life Surge and Wyrmwind Thrust, as these are the only actions that interact with others in some way.

DRG isn't going to be changed much in DT, which I'm very happy about since I have loved the hectic weaving nature of the job during bursts and the positional awareness in EW. It's in the most fun state it's ever been.

However, the filler period in DT will be quite boring due to the loss of GSK every 30s, as you say. It's just pressing HJ on CD and doing the normal GCD loop, and unlike the other melee jobs, there's no different GCD paths to think about or much gauge building/spending to be done between burst windows.

In order to make the filler period a bit more interesting, I propose two short-term solutions:

1 - Make Mirage Dive give one scale when used. As a consequence, increase the maximum amount of scales we can store from 2 to 3 and reduce WWT's CD to 3-5s. Additionally, WWT's damage could scale depending on the number of scales when used (normal with 2, more with 3).

This change would make each Mirage Dive interact with the gauge and become relevant again and it would make our gauge more interesting and flexible. Having WWT consume all scales can also alleviate issues during burst when they might arise and it'll make pooling for burst more engaging as well.

Finally, the duration of the buffs that allow the use of Mirage Dive, Rise of the Dragon and Starcross should be increased to 30s, since right now they have differing timers (15, 30 and 20 respectively). This increase would greatly benefit MD in particular.

2 - Have Drakesbane be a positional but make either LotD or Battle Litany provide True North status to either all weaponskills or Drakesbane only for the duration.

Making Drakesbane a positional will make the filler more involved (it should probably be a flank one) but it can bring back pressure during burst. To avoid this, it can gain omnidirectional status during burst or BL can make all positionals omnidirectional for its duration.

In any case, if this isn't changed, there will be issues to fit True North in 120s bursts in some cases even with the 5th GCD not being a positional, so something will likely be done in this regard.


There's obviously more problems to be addressed such as our gauge being diminished and mostly useless till level 90, which I hope they revert at some point: eyes should return in some shape or form. This removal also had the consequence of eliminating a lot of flexibility and optimization from the job.

Other gripes I have is how Piercing Talon is completely unchanged, making it the worst ranged option of all melee by far, or how they didn't integrate Dragon Sight's animation into Lance Charge considering the former is way more thematic and fitting for the job.

We'll see if they respond to feedback or what kind of changes they introduce in the so-called expansion of job identity from 7.2 onward.

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