Should I keep staying with Dragoon or swap to another melee?

[Renryuu]

Heya, so a few weeks ago I decided that I wanted to swap to maining a melee class in Heavensward instead of staying with magic so as to continue the trend of me playing melee in games. I went Dragoon cause I asked on another forum and it was the most recommended job to go.

I've been trying my best at doing well at it and I came here to look at a guide on improving and came across the A Rotation Reborn topic for Dragoons and... well it has me stressing and worried over this choice. I've dabbled with melee in other games such as World of Warcraft and I've never had one that had such a long rotation. I know I won't be able to memorize it as I make mistakes just trying to do the most basic of Dragoon stuff.

It really makes me wonder if I should swap to Monk or Ninja or even just go back to being a Blm/Smn, but at the same time I want to keep being melee so as to break my "addiction" to magic based classes in MMOs. So I come to ask you guys for advice.

[Dervy]

Don't think of it as a rotation. It's a Priority system.

Ninja and Monk have even longer Priorities.

[CGMidlander]

I've had a pretty fun time switching it up with MNK and BLM recently, but I'm still a DRG player at the core.

There's no harm in checking out the other classes to see if you like them or not. You can always go back to DRG if you don't.

[Renryuu]

Don't think of it as a rotation. It's a Priority system.

Ninja and Monk have even longer Priorities.

Really, but I remember over the months since 2.0 from various forums and dragoons in dungeons saying that dragoon was the most complicated of the jobs to play. If I treat it like a priority system, similar to Smn, it becomes simpler while still being competitive?

I've had a pretty fun time switching it up with MNK and BLM recently, but I'm still a DRG player at the core.

There's no harm in checking out the other classes to see if you like them or not. You can always go back to DRG if you don't.

Under normal conditions I would do that, but to do so currently means I have to level up Monk and Ninja and at the moment my Monk is level 39 and Rogue is 22 and I've yet to get more than one dungeon a day with them, so I usually give out since the remaining options for leveling them tend to feel very boring to me.

[Dervy]

Really, but I remember over the months since 2.0 from various forums and dragoons in dungeons saying that dragoon was the most complicated of the jobs to play. If I treat it like a priority system, similar to Smn, it becomes simpler while still being competitive?

It is a priority system. Think about how the job plays out. You maintain Heavy Thrust at all times. Juggle your DoTs, then throw in Full Thrust Combo as a filler. That's the definition of a Priority. That's all there is to the Dragoon.

[Renryuu]

It is a priority system. Think about how the job plays out. You maintain Heavy Thrust at all times. Juggle your DoTs, then throw in Full Thrust Combo as a filler. That's the definition of a Priority. That's all there is to the Dragoon.

Oh, well in that case, maybe this isn't as hard as I was thinking. I'm use to priority systems since that's how most classes in WoW play so I can do that.

[Zamii]

i wouldnt say its strictly a priority, i'de probably say its closer to a half rotation half priority, when you think about the combo chains its really not that bad though, you simply alternate between using a combo chain and then use either heavy thrust or phlebotomise, depending on which is about to fall.

that being said im no main dragoon by any means, if your struggling with the "rotation" so much that you feel like a change in class though, i would say as far as what skill you have to use next, monk is probably the easiest of the 3 melles, the constant swapping of flank/rear can be a problem for some people though, so theres still a bit to practice, to me though monk probably comes under the same catagory as blm, (easy to learn, hard to master) as you will need to be changing something in almost every fight to ensure stacks arnt lost.
ninja is kind of its own beast, the times on buffs/debuffs dont really align cleanly like the other 2 melles do, but its similar to dragoon in terms of just being a giant priority system.

[Renryuu]

Well before when I was going off a video guide for Dragoon I was doing fine as far as I could tell. Aside from small delays on using skills (mostly Spineshatter Dive and the other stun move since I worry about the stun resist) I was going through the 2 sets of combos and keeping up my debuffs and buffs with only missing a second or two of uptime on rare occasions. Overall I'm loving Dragoon and it feels right up my ally in terms of melee, it was just when I started reading that A Rotation Reborn topic that I began to have second thoughts and worry since it shows such long chains as a rotation and I was thinking I had been playing wrong and had to learn what the rotation they were listing in the topic.

[Dervy]

The longer changes in that thread are all just examples really which shows how the priority loops. That's why we use this format for our "rotation":

H IDC P TTT
H TTT P IDC
H TTT P TTT

When you put it like that, it's still "long", but it's a loop and you can observe how simplistic the Dragoon is. It's odd, because many people still have trouble with it. As for the delays when using your oCDs, the timing just comes with a lot of practice. I just do everything without thinking as it's now muscle memory, takes time.

If I were to be honest, one of the best places to learn to practice your Dragoons Priority is on Titan EX. It teaches you how to time/delay jumps, the interaction between your DoTs and TTT, learn to spread out your abilities throughout multiple targets for overall raid optimisation and min/max DPS, whilst avoiding "complex" mechanics and AOE's. Hands down best fight to learn your job.

[Renryuu]

Ah, well if that is the case with the skills, I've been doing that consistently with only a rare flub up when I'm forced away from the boss or swapping to adds. As for practicing on Titan EX, as much as I'd like to, that's not much of an option on my server and I have tried doing it via DF since it was first added since I didn't find groups that could get very far into the fight, but I could give it another go.

Though one thing I'm wondering is aoe. Currently I've been using HT > RoT > Doomspike until less than 500 TP > Invigorate > RoT until 500 Tp, then normal attacks. I'm sure this probably isn't right, but I've no idea. x_x