Dragoon Changes

[Hittokiri]

Allow me to re-phrase my statement about EJ, and before the rage continues, these are my opinions to help the class, not to complain. I do agree "USELESS" is to strong of a term, broken fits better, and all of your post further my argument. Every post states that they use EJ as a gap closer....... As far a EJ is concerned, this is the farthest thing from what it was designed for. A movement designed to get away from danger, reduce agro and remove you from the fight is consistently, and primarily being used to jump into the fight and gain agro quicker.... I am not saying that you should not be using all techniques to their fullest potential but this is the exact opposite of what it is designed for. It would be like constantly using spineshatter to jump out of an AOE. It makes no sense... yes you can if you need to, but you would never use that as it's primary purpose. I am looking for it to be reworked to function for both purposes, at least allow me to jump forward, turning around to backflip into a fight with an agro reducing tech I what I am looking to eliminate. The cool down timer too... 180 is far to long.

[whiskeybravo]

Allow me to re-phrase my statement about EJ, and before the rage continues, these are my opinions to help the class, not to complain. I do agree "USELESS" is to strong of a term, broken fits better, and all of your post further my argument. Every post states that they use EJ as a gap closer....... As far a EJ is concerned, this is the farthest thing from what it was designed for. A movement designed to get away from danger, reduce agro and remove you from the fight is consistently, and primarily being used to jump into the fight and gain agro quicker....

I don't know any DRG that uses EJ to "jump into the fight and gain aggro quicker".. Read again what others have said. It's used primarily to escape AoE or re-position for an add or other mechanic. It sounds like you just want another ability to cause damage instead of give some utility (DRG already has piss for utility so you want to neuter it further? Lol)

Heavy Thrust to 20%, Phlebotomize cost reduced to 70 TP (original: freaking 90 TP), Jump cooldown reduced to 30s, Power Surge appliable to Dragonfire Dive, Feint being given a new purpose and trait, Elusive Jump cooldown reduced to 2m or less. Just a couple of things I wouldn't mind.

They really need to re-consider DRG TP cost overall I think, and bard while they're at it. Traited Invigorate does not really make up for the difference.

[Sleigh]

They really need to re-consider DRG TP cost overall I think, and bard while they're at it. Traited Invigorate does not really make up for the difference.

Eh, DRG's better off than BRD/MNK in the TP department so it's a non-issue (you'll get Army's before you're dry). Any buff to TP management would put DRG on the level of self-sustaining with any breaks in most fights.

[SoundMatch]

WHAT? There are LOTS of times where I needed to use EJ to get the hell out of stick situation. E.g. The Adjudicator boss battle when he spawns the AoE Sands attack. There have been times where he marked me with the sand sphere and I EJed the hell away from my group and Spine shattered right back to the boss. I'm sorry I understand that you believe it's your opinion but the fact is there are a multitude of situation that EJ can be USED PROPERLY (Titan Ex when I'm marked with the granite goal, Garuda Ex, Labyrinth Phelngeton boss or something, when he starts to charge his astral flare). Even if there weren't these examples to show that EJ can be useful in normal situation why should the way an ability be designed for limit it's potential? It doesn't matter if I've only been playing for 2 months. Its not about how an ability is supposed to be used, its more of how you can use it to do your job better. I'd rather dodge and live to deal out DPS than die. Cause a DEAD DPS is no DPS.

[SoundMatch]

I also think they should buff the recast timers to less than a second, therefore we can just pump out more damage (DPS) at the cost of TP (which they should nerf). Obviously that would be too broken, but the way to balance that would be to negate any damage that could hurt an enemy after cancelling. For example I go into True Thrust> Voral (2 hit) and cancel the 2nd hit early with Life Surge into Full thrust. In that example a Life Surge cancel on Vorpal thrust was mis executed which results in a loss of damage. While this is a small thing, over time if the DRG isn't careful they will lose more DPS. With this approach I believe a new layer of gameplay can be enjoyed by DRGs. Our positioning isn't as mentally demanding as Monks from the people I've played with. So I believe the gameplay skill cap for DRGs should rise along with the ability to deal even MORE damage. Albeit a fair trade. What do you all think?

After all I'm kind of a Noob.

[Mibhas]

I've used Elusive Jump to help me/the raid and know other Dragoons who have too - it's a useful skill to have, and not particularly broken; I personally don't have to use it often enough to make the cooldown an issue at all. It's a nice tool to have alongside Spineshatter and Dragonfire Dive.

[siverstorm]

All that being said if they changed elusive to work like Shukuchi I would be so happy.

[Shurrikhan]

All that being said if they changed elusive to work like Shukuchi I would be so happy.

I would outright hate that, tbh. The biggest advantage for me is that it requires no second click. Just run, jump, spin the camera, EJ the rest of the way.

For those that hate spinning their cameras though, it wouldn't be too bad if the /camerareverse function were able to be put into a EJ macro, as to basically make it forward by default (or as one of two options on your bar, original and macro'ed boom-forward-leap).

As for buff ideas... (my few cents... in some strange sort of currency)
- Keen Flurry (1.0 style) as a free combo move w/o combo setup per 30 seconds (60 or 90 xclass) - an extra nuke or long-DoT every half-min.
- OR Keen Flurry as a short speed buff, much larger advantage for DRG than for other classes; enough to fit another Thrust combo into a 30s window if paired with Fey Light and some Skill Speed; aids perfect DoT upkeep despite long-Mudra use for Nin and helps with rush a single rush rotation per minute for Monk; fits in an extra Heavy Shot for Bard -- plateaued dps increase, a bit less important than IR to most)
- Give Heavy Thrust an attack speed component (worth about .15 off the GCD, a little less than half of the Mnk/Nin bonus), partly to support Keen Flurry??
- Change Power Surge to something more than just a Jump buff... 40-second CD. Have it grant AP based on damage dealt over the next 4 seconds which lasts for 75 seconds. Using the ability with Power Surge's AP buff already up will consume the long-term buff but will double its effects over the next 4 seconds. If used ideally, will gradually increase damage dealt (de-exponentially) over the fight. I.e. first burst, roughly 5% more AP from Life-Full-Jump-Phle or whatnot under BFB. Next, without BFB but with bonus AP, about the same. Bonus AP + BFB, further increase. So on and so forth. [If possible, Chaos Thrust probably ought to continue trickling in dmg-to-AP returns over its duration if dealt during the 4 seconds, making it a viable but not necessarily best choice]
- Increase Jump potency to 220. If Power Surge gets changed as above, make it a variable cooldown, increasing damage for another 20 seconds after refresh to a maximum of 330 potency (50% at 1 min, as per Power Surge use).
- Increased critical strike bonus on certain moves??? E.g. Disembowel and Chaos Thrust direct damage? Or maybe tie this into Disembowel, perhaps effecting DRGs only? Bigger LS-FT crits.
- Invulnerable to (auto-dodge) cleaves and ground effects while mid-jump/dive. Can change landing location of Jump about the origin while in flight. Becomes an advantage, rather than disadvantage, of the DRG arsenal.

Edit: ?? Can advance one combo-move further, use a combo move of equal combo position without breaking current combo, or a combo move of one greater position from another combo, after any GCD critical strike. (Heavy/Phlebotomize-->Disembowel; True-->Full; Disembowel-->Vorpal-->Chaos Thrust; Disembowel-->Full Thrust) <Limitations mean to normalize proc rates to a predicable outcome within, say, 15 or at maximum 30 seconds.>


The above Power Surge change is a pretty weak attempt to add some ramping dps to DRG. I'd still like to see more opportunism in its regular rotations, something that gives it some rotational risk rather than solely carrying the fear of a single misclick in going about an absolute rotation. I'd like to involve procs as well, but I don't like the idea of randomness affecting CD-usage (only between CDs instead, all things shorter than 30-seconds). Being able to consume lingering Chaos Thrust duration for burst or having reason to use Disembowel without Chaos would be nice, for instance, or having each combo string (Drive/Chaos vs. Thrust/Full) being able to affect each other or cross under certain circumstances.

[ColdestHeaven]

Heavy Thrust to 20%, Phlebotomize cost reduced to 70 TP (original: freaking 90 TP), Jump cooldown reduced to 30s, Power Surge appliable to Dragonfire Dive, Feint being given a new purpose and trait, Elusive Jump cooldown reduced to 2m or less. Just a couple of things I wouldn't mind.

[Daweism]

Heavy Thrust to 20%, Phlebotomize cost reduced to 70 TP (original: freaking 90 TP), Jump cooldown reduced to 30s, Power Surge appliable to Dragonfire Dive, Feint being given a new purpose and trait, Elusive Jump cooldown reduced to 2m or less. Just a couple of things I wouldn't mind.

I like this, and instead of needing positionals, it should be a potency / crit bonus for landing positionals as Monks have.