How does Monk and Dragoon compare in difficulty and playstyle ?

[Dunncan]

thank you dunncan, i got the monk to 15 so far and was having an okay time with it , ill try the lancer next

the rotation reborn op post seemed out of date when i went through it and at the end of the mega thread, people discuss Bis gear or use so many abbrevations that I would need a dragoon dictionary to make sense of it.

Actually the OP content is surprisingly still relevant. Just a few things changes from the original rotation AND concepts such as AoE, stats weights, etc, so it's still a "must read" for Dragoons. There's another guide out there, called How to Train Your Dragoon/ wich is a bit more up to date and easy to read, since it splits the basics from the heavy theorycraft.

One thing I love in Dragoon is that the base players are extremely active and even now continues to put new theories and tests to imrpove DPS, gear optimization and gameplay. 500 pages of discussion must mean something :P

As I have said before, I didn't played Pugilist so much, but for Dragoon, I recomend you to play at least until you get Disembowel (Lancer 38), so you'll taste most part of the rotation and the feelings of playing as Dragoon.


@Edit:
@Altijacek - Briliant. I loved that feeling of the Jobs and it pretty much match the gameplay.

[Tex_Mex]

I looked at all the Dragoon OGCD Skills, and they all share 60 to 120 secs cooldowns. (except leg sweep?)

Why is that a challenge to manage, when really, they have such long cooldowns, you could potentially macro alot of them together for when you want to push your burst dps ?

It doesnt sound that hard.


what am i missing here ?

So I don't think you looked at the CD's too well. Your 2 biggest DPS cooldowns (life surge and blood for blood are on 50 and 80 second CD's respectively)

Blood for Blood - 80 seconds
Internal Release - 60 seconds
Jump - 30 seconds
Power Surge - 60 seconds
Leg Sweep - 20 seconds
Life Surge - 50 seconds
Dragonfire Dive - 120 seconds
Spineshatter Dive - 60 seconds

As far as rotations - I will put them below:
MNK Rotation: (18 moves, 2 basic combos, adding in Touch of Death every 30 sec)
Dragon Kick -> Twin Snakes -> Demolish
Boot Shine -> True Strike -> Snap Punch
Dragon Kick -> Twin Snakes -> Snap Punch
Boot Shine -> True Strike -> Demolish
Dragon Kick -> Twin Snakes -> Snap Punch
Boot Shine -> Twin Snakes -> Snap Punch

DRG Rotation: (24 moves, 2 basic combos)
Heavy Thrust -> Impulse Drive -> Disembowel -> Chaos Thrust
Phlebotomize -> True Thrust -> Vorpal Thrust -> Full Thrust
Heavy Thrust -> True Thrust -> Vorpal Thrust -> Full Thrust
Phlebotomize -> Impulse Drive -> Disembowel -> Chaos Thrust
Heavy Thrust -> True Thrust -> Vorpal Thrust -> Full Thrust
Phlebotomize -> True Thrust -> Vorpal Thrust -> Full Thrust

The rotations are both very easy, with the MNK rotation being a little easier.

As far as DPS, MNK has significantly higher ST DPS than DRG. If that is all you care about, then go MNK

[ErzaScarlet77]

Drg are extremely op

[Kuroyasha]

that was an interesting read, thank you.

I suspected that the sheer amount and dependency on these buffs, the monk has, would create this feeling, I was hoping that in place though, the monk would simply fall back to a more level dps, while maintaining higher dps with the buffs, this doesnt seem to be the case, so i can see why there would be a feeling of pressure.

While I am looking for a rewarding class, I am also maining a scholar. With the DPS, I am looking for a more lax approach, with less responsibility and a approach where i am allowed to mroe focus on my own play instead of the needs of the group.

The monk sounds like a stressful job right now.

You answered your own question here. If Mnk and the Drg are the only two youre looking at, the drg is for you based off of the criteria you articulated in this statement. Though if the Lax criteria is weighted the highest for you, i'd say consider a third class: blm

[ErzaScarlet77]

Less responsibility and focus on your own play sounds like mnk to me
ignore mechanics if it means keeping gl3 up.
in fights like t8, im usually told to just wail on the boss 24/7

[ErzaScarlet77]

Less responsibility and focus on your own play sounds like mnk to me
ignore mechanics if it means keeping gl3 up.
in fights like t8, im usually told to just wail on the boss 24/7

[Quyn]

snip[/B]

ah, once you add in the OGCD skills, dragoon seems busier.

[Esperacchius]

ah, once you add in the OGCD skills, dragoon seems busier.

Kinda but not really!

Take note of the skill delay on the weapons here and here.

This means that Monks have nearly a half second quicker GCD than Dragoons before any GL stacks or skill speed is taken into account. The only difficult thing to manage with dragoons is the animation lock on jumps. That shit will get you killed.

Don't listen to people that complain about Monk difficulty because of positional requirements. Once you get used to melee hitting positionals is second nature. You'll never have to think about it. If you're standing in the right spot it's literally one step to the left or right.

[CGMidlander]

Honestly, both feel the same to play for me.
Sometimes the things you have to do to keep GL3 up can be a bit tricky and/or risky though. (Unless you're playing with a static and worked solutions into your strategy)

[TheKingSlayer]

Overall DPS: Adv MNK
Burst DPS: Adv DRG
Required Button Mashing: Slight Adv MNK
Most Interesting Rotation: Slight Adv DRG because of all the OGCooldowns
Utility: Adv MNK
Vanity: Adv DRG
Best Stereotype: Adv LOLDRG
Most Fun: Even