Dawntrail Dragoon Feedback

[Aco505]

Burst Phase & Removing Dragon Eyes

I think this is the main culprit behind how unsatisfying the job is now.

Definitely. The loss of eyes without any further fix has meant several things: lacking filler, no burst buildup, an illogical change due to both lore and game play reasons, and removal of control over resources and LotD (double, early or delayed Life windows).

Everything is automatic. The filler is comprised of 40/80 seconds of just pressing the GCD combo string and avoiding overcapping scales. Even drifting HJ is largely irrelevant due to the flexibility of burst; a positive outcome but not redeeming in the current context. Life Surge is also kept for bursts, which worsens the filler compared to before although it does have some positive implications as one of the last bastions of optimization left.

If they wanted to remove eyes, they should've expanded the scales (even though doing so means the job only starts to actually be playable at 90) by allowing us to get more through, for instance, Mirage Dive. Making WWT into more of a machine gun action would've at least made it better.

That, or having kept Geirskogul's CD at 30s and allowing us to be in LotD often for a flatter damage profile, an oGCD BLM or even MNK, so to speak. Perhaps not too complex but still busy. Removing Dragon Sight instead of turning into some kind of gauge or free LotD generator for overall more LotD over time was a loss opportunity, as well, or even as an upgrade to LC while keeping the same properties just for flavor. Instead, we got a watered version of EW with none of the nuance.

Mirage Dive could've also followed on the mechanics that existed in PvP before the changes in 6.x, in which one could store up to two charges of it after using HJ and then use them at any time as long as they didn't overcap. A system of this kind would've been fitting to fix MD's role.

Despite it all, it was a positive move to lean into a 1-minute burst profile (although it was mostly that already anyway) rather than a 2-minute one. Starcross being a 120s cooldown activated after using BL would've been terrible.

"To reduce the number of inputs during burst damage phases, certain actions will be removed or adjusted."

Why is it a bad thing if the job has a lot of inputs during its burst phase? There are 20+ job in the game now. If someone doesn't like busy jobs they have a multitude of other options to choose from. Furthermore, they didn't even accomplish that goal because it's just as busy as it's always been if not more so, except all the parts of the job that formerly worked together are all disconnected now so it feels horrible to play.

We cannot understand their logic unless they decide to elaborate on it. The JP have certainly been wondering about this change of focus from the devs because the explanation they gave was a bit lacking and contradictory. My guess is that they were going to go further with the changes but decided to just hastily "fix" what they had and leave it for 8.0, which would explain some of the QoL problems like SC's range.

The number of buttons remained the same or even higher and fitting True North in 120s bursts is still complicated. But I agree: the job should be allowed to keep its hectic machine gun burst. If VPR can have a fast burst of clicking the same buttons over and over, why can't we have one with different presses? Streamlining specific aspects of a job is fine as long as the core is kept.

New abilities should add to the job in fun and interesting ways. Wyrmwind Thrust and the Dragon Scale meter is a great example of this. I understand it was done as a reaction to people complaining about button bloat but there is not much fun and interesting about "press stardiver/dragonfire dive... again!" especially when their follow up animations leave a lot to be desired as outlined below.

It was a good idea to implement the action follow up system, because it gives you more room to expand jobs without bloating the hotbars. The first issue though is that DRG didn't suffer from button bloat because we didn't have any AoE duplicates unlike other jobs like RPR or VPR. The second is that using the system just to include another random big hit with no build up or interaction is underwhelming.

I do believe that DRG having oGCD combos fits the job well and wish they had expanded on that better.

Another thing they should do to make hotbars easier to manage for keyboard users is to implement something similar to what controller players have by allowing us to swap one group of hotbars into another, so that we could dedicate one for single target and the other one for AoE. While this is already possible by using macros, the system is too finicky and they should simply streamline it instead of relying on weird UI stuff like using the hotbars of basic classes.

III. Animation Issues

I personally like Spiral Blow a lot and Lance Barrage is fine. Vorpal is quite mid so I'll take any improvement.

I agree that Rise of the Dragon shouldn't just be summoning a random dragon head and, if anything, it should've been a Hraesvelgr themed ability.

Starcross is meant to be a second Stardiver and we're supposed to create that beam of light by diving at high speeds on the target.

The issue is that the vfx and sfx are not striking enough to make RotD and SC feel powerful. And it's not even limited to DRG, as several new actions across jobs in DT are as underwhelming, too.


On the subject of Drakesbane and positionals, it is curious how your GIF shows DB to be a three-hit attack but when adding the vfx and sfx it looks and sounds like a five-hit attack. Imho, DB was a missed opportunity to include an upgrade to FnC and WT, but only on the 5th position, as well as the ability to use them in any order after CS and HT to either give more freedom to positionals or manage some kind of gauge.

Life Surge could also be turned into a GCD with like 20s charges that would help delay positionals when needed (or make BL give TN effect, as simple as that is), which would also open up the possibility of timing such GCD for bursts and to have even more oGCDs available for us due to LS freeing the slots.

However, the need to fit everything into 20s buffs is something they really have to look into. I'd be happier being able to machine gun oGCDs in a more consistent basis than just in burst, even though I'd still prefer to keep some semblance of hectic burst anyway.


To conclude, I think this is a great post and agree with most of it. The changes to DRG in DT have felt half-hearted with no intention of improving the job much. The range of SC, the cooldown and animation of Winged Glide, the disconnection within the kit, Stardiver's potency being lower than SC despite being a single weave, Piercing Talon being unchanged and as terrible as always, going from managing resources to nothing...

I hope we get some fixes in 7.x and actual improvements on 8.x, as they keep promising, but I won't give them the benefit of the doubt until I see it.