Newish Dragoon - Should I Even Bother?

[Katsugankz]

So the day before the big maint. before 2.4, I capped my Dragoon and spent all night doing hunts to gear out in i90. Right now I'm sitting at i92 and I've been doing my best to cap poetics every week. I'm getting a sizable amount of soldiery and poetics now, but I've noticed that the majority of people dislike dragoon as opposed to monk/ninja. I currently have NIN at 40, MNK at 32. My question is....should I even bother using my poetics and sol on DRG, or should I cut my losses and get my NIN/MNK up to 50 and main that instead?

My interests include doing level 50 instances, and I have a keen interest in eventually doing coils and other such hardcore content, so that's a major concern of mine.

[Mibhas]

I've personally never encountered people outright disliking Dragoon. Most raid groups don't mind too much and just want a good DPS who can hit hard and deal with mechanics.

[ChaozK]

I never encountered the lol drg meme in game. Seems to be a thing only forum virgins do.

[Steady]

Dragoon is fine. All roles are fine. Just play the one you want. If your around someone who guffs over you being a certain role, just prove them wrong.

As a lifelong War, whose class used to be frowned upon, all I can say is f*them

Dragoon is Synergistic with Bard. (Disembowel)
Bard is Synergistic with BLM/Ninja (Foes Req)
War is Synergistic with Ninja/Paladin (Storm's)
Ninja is Synergistic with Warrior/Paladin (Dancing Edge)

Some could even argue that Dragoon can be a desirable class to have in party. You also have multiple ways to Stun, which is nice in some scenarios. War's can't spam stun like PLD, so Dragoons are nice for that (Solo tanking Turn 5, for example). They also tend to be a bit more durable and can psuedo tank in small doses.

They have two means to leaping to mobs, (Dragonfire Dive/Spineshatter Drive)

They really have alot of tools in their toolchest.

[Darkkos]

Play what you want to play :-) imo Drg are usefull lIke every job out there , if you do your job well it will be fine

[Steady]

On the flip side... here's some downsides to other DPS classes.

Monk - More positional, much less forgiving Less AOE, less of the versatility described abovve.
Ninja - It's the flavor of the month. More rotations, less forgiving.
Bard - Any buff aside from Foe's decreases our damage out. Generally less damage out.
Black Mage - Unforgiving in terms of movement. You take a DPS loss to move and attack (Scathe)
Summoner -Less forgiving, Less mobility (though much better than BLM) And pets are ugly. :P

[Maero]

I second that you should play the class you want. Obviously you like drg and have it @ 50 so i would say gear that one up.
Other things to know as well is that NIN shares gear with Monk so if you have monk leveled you can use that gear and also NIN uses Bard accesories.
Drg can often be used in coil so i dont think you need to worry.
It is mainly those that exagerate on how much more damage a Monk does that may steer players away from dragoon really. The gap is there but not THAT large, lol.
Steady has summed it up nicely

[Kamil]

I recommend DRG... why?... Lock armor in that video. I should post the link for it later.

[myahele]

I'd probably save those tomes until you can tryout what a lv 50 NIN can do in endgame dungeons. You just might like the play style.

Overall, NIN utility just make them alot more desirable than a DRG, though DRGs are perfectly viable in the New content

[dday3six]

I recommend playing what you want. However I also suggest to try several classes/jobs to see which you like the most.

There are people who are content for whatever reason to whatever job. They play with a group of friends and playing with them is more important so they role whatever they're group needs for example. Then there are those who are happier playing specific jobs. Neither is wrong.