Dragoon Changes

[Aletta_Serpentia]

never had a problem with positional rotations before. how is this a DRG upgrade to players that know how to play?

[Klingsan]

No, heavy thrust and impulse drive do maximum damage from any position similar to Ninja.

Alright then (I guess that make sense otherwise they would have mentioned the "other" potency in the notes)

[Parodine]

Blood For Bloods cooldown is 80s, which means back when Life Surge was on a 60s cd you essentially had to skip a TTT segment of your rotation and not use Life Surge until the next TTT when BFB was up. Now instead of waiting 20s you have to wait 30s. It might be worth exploring using LF outside BFB but before 2.45 I would rather my Full Thrusts crit for 1900-2000 instead of 1300-1400.

I'll be interested to see how people explore alternatives to the past rotations, for sure.
Hmmmm, we'll see what people come up with.

[mosaicex]

No, heavy thrust and impulse drive do maximum damage from any position similar to Ninja.

Impulse Drive, yes.

Heavy thrust, no.

[Klingsan]

never had a problem with positional rotations before. how is this a DRG upgrade to players that know how to play?

Free Potency out of nowhere?

[Katsaria]

No, heavy thrust and impulse drive do maximum damage from any position similar to Ninja.

I disagree with this assessment for Heavy Thrust. Here's why:

Pre 2.45 Heavy Thrust:

Delivers an attack with a potency of 100.
170 when executed from a target's flank.
Flank Bonus: Increases damage dealt by 15%
Duration: 20s

Here's what they state in the patch notes:

Weapon skill direction requirements for the additional effect have been abolished.

No changes were made in any other regard except that the damage "flank" bonus (15%) will always activate from any direction. Now let's compare to the weapon skill they did abolish the positional for which was Impulse Drive.

Pre 2.45:

Delivers an attack with a potency of 100.
180 when executed from behind target.

Here's what they state in the patch notes:

Weaponskill direction requirements have been abolished, allowing combo bonuses when attacking from any position.
Potency has been set at 180. (Completely removed the 100)

If Heavy Thrust were to do maximum damage from any position they would have kept the same wording and put in Potency has been set to 170, which they did not.

[Whiston]

Impulse Drive, yes.

Heavy thrust, no.

Exactly this.
They removed the positional requirement from impulse drive and changed its potency to 180. Previously it's potency was 100. 180 when used from the rear.

Had they ignored the damage buff from correct positional for heavy thrust, the notes would have stated "potency set at 170".

[DragonSlayer45]

I love the changes. It makes Dragoon feel balanced with the other melee jobs while not making it seem overpowered in comparison to them. You still get your damage boost if you use it from the required position, but you aren't penalized for failing because a large majority of the bosses in this game are a spinning top. (Looking at you Melusine.)

Once I'm done gearing up my Ninja, I'm jumping (no pun intended) back to Dragoon. SE's given me all I wanted for my Dragoon and it makes me happy.

[Danbo05]

never had a problem with positional rotations before. how is this a DRG upgrade to players that know how to play?

Dragoon players that knew how to play still would occasionally not be able to hit their flank or back attack, due to the boss moving for either an attack, or the tank moving it because they have to, resulting in a substantial DPS loss.

[Anarnee]

I don't really care about the MDEF boost either as the only difference it would make is slightly better survival in final coil and people were just complaining over the logic and pretty numbers than the actual experience. Without the pos reqs, it just seems like you're playing a rogue.

I do agree that the pos reqs were important, but I know of me there is a lot more to it. Without having to worry about pos reqs AND the CD change, the pace of our job is probably going to be a lot quicker. The MDEF boost is also not slight at all! At least not to me~ The amount of DMG that we take from unavoidable magical attacks was HUGE especially if you paired it with BfB.