Dragoons - I don't see too many of them in the high end content

[AunaYuuki]

Most I have realized don't bother to research or figure out the class. So many drgs who don't use heavy thrust. The general opinion on my server is that most drgs don't do their rotation so they are garbage 9 out of 10. Our coil static has a very good drg and I know a few other end game coil groups that have very very good drgs. They are just hard to find. Not taking a melee end game is a cripple and a loss for one's group anyhow. The amount of dps a "good" monk and drg can do is amazing (our drg does 250-260 monk is closer to 300s). If your server isn't taking melee to titan extreme they are bunch of silly nuggets. That is defiantly a huge melee easy burn fight. Makes it easier to sell having that one person dead the entire way.

[PArcher]

Due to the melee is a disadvantage stigma most good ones get picked up by a fc quick and when running outside fc use a ranged class. You will never know how many good ones there are because they are a little anti social.

This is also very true.

When I'm not playing with people I know (with a few exceptions where melee have an advantage, like Titan), you'll almost always see me running as a WAR or WHM (and recently BLM) instead of DRG. I know other DRG who do this too.

[Kuroyasha]

If your server isn't taking melee to titan extreme they are bunch of silly nuggets. That is defiantly a huge melee easy burn fight. Makes it easier to sell having that one person dead the entire way.

This. I go as mnk in titan extreme. Had a party last night with another good mnk, a good drg, and a good bard. Our dps was so high we push heart phase as soon as he was through putting 2 people in gaol. So we had to break gaol, wait for his jump to finish then hurry and break last gaol lol. Thats 3 melee and one range.

In garuda extreme, we were gonna do the strat where OT pull spiny first in tornado so he could have it up by time chi is dead in order to pull sup across...but we killed chi too fast so he couldnt have it up. So we changed classes to two mnks and 2 bards to actually slow down the dps a little.

[Mhaeric]

Simple answer: Dragoon is hard to play relative to other jobs.

Long answer: In order to maintain the same high dps that other jobs output, they have to follow a crazy-sauce long rotation. That rotation heavily relies on positioning or it breaks. Even Monks who rely on positioning for dps don't lose much dps if they miss a positional attack, since they just lose the extra damage on that one missed attack. A dragoon's combo gets halted and that combo has to be restarted if they miss it. This throws not only that whole combo off, but their DoTs and damage buffs as well since they're added effects from combos and reliant on those combos being chained in certain orders to maintain them 100% of the time without clipping. Managing those positional attacks while having to dodge stuff can be a challenge. On top of that, a lot of their added off-GCD attacks which are key contributors to high dps also come with animation-lock, so it makes dodging AoEs a bit more challenging without careful consideration of when you can use those safely, yet still as often as possible.

Summary: Dragoon can output very high dps, it's just not as easy to do as other jobs so less people play them.

[Warrlordd]

I main a DRG, and all i can say is that a DRG can match and beat a MNK 9 times out of 10 at i90.
That being said there are very few DRG's that i see doing this, and very few MNK's that are able to be compared to.
It's just really really hard to play either class at such a high level, and most aren't willing to practice that hard for it.
On Twintania as DRG I'm always #1 DPS.
You just gotta know what ur doing and be willing to work for it

[Simurgi]

Thank you all for the constructive input. I play a MNK and PLD currently and considered DRG as a new challenge. Judging by the responses here, it looks like this class may be it. My only concern is the rotation length. Yes, I understand it is harder to be consistent. But, is having that much of a longer rotation actually fun?

[EasymodeX]

It depends how you perceive it. The 'rotation' when sliced into priority chunks is only 4 attacks long. Summarizing further, the chunks are only 2 decisions in complexity: (a) which 1-gcd filler, (b) which 3-gcd combo.

It's fairly simple but 24-step rotation sounds impressive.

[Renma]

This is also very true.

When I'm not playing with people I know (with a few exceptions where melee have an advantage, like Titan), you'll almost always see me running as a WAR or WHM (and recently BLM) instead of DRG. I know other DRG who do this too.

Pretty much this. Seems these days I only play my DRG once a week, for coil. Already have all the melee dps primal accessories so no need to run with DRG outside of coil when trying to gear alts. Plus a lot of parties on PF only reserve 1 slot for a melee dps (except for titan) and they usually fill up quickly.

I wouldn't say I'm always #1 in DPS on T5 but usually 1 or 2, always depends on who gets conflags, liquid hell, or dreads on them. Same with Titan, usually 1 or 2, depending on who gets gaoled, etc.

[CHunterX]

Two words:

Ranged Only.

(For the record, I love playing Monk, but nearly every PF group for things above Ultima Hard are Ranged Only on Hyperion. I gave up and went back to Warrior, as none of the ranged classes appeal to me.)

[Ooshima]

Two words:

Ranged Only.

(For the record, I love playing Monk, but nearly every PF group for things above Ultima Hard are Ranged Only on Hyperion. I gave up and went back to Warrior, as none of the ranged classes appeal to me.)

Just for joke, do this then

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...PRO-Ranged-DPS