Just got wheeling thrust.... Can someone explain the point of it to me?

[Hitoseijuro]

If you're claiming it's there due to "complexity" I pray you're not a main DRG, MNK, or NIN.

Thats a bit presumptuous and/or rude. Jack is a great solid dragoon. Hes not saying its complexity is hard in any difficulty, he said its complexity is in difference.

it doesn't make the class harder, it makes it different.

Thats what he said ^

[whiskeybravo]

I think that was more along the lines of hostility he was talking about lol

Everyone has there own opinion and that's fine. Anything that can be improved should be, for sure. But, like Jack, I'm at a loss to find something we are missing with the current set of skills. If FC/WT had different effects it would disrupt the flow of the mechanic, being RNG there's times when you'll get stuck with multiple FCs or multiple WTs in a row, you wouldn't want to be in a situation where your stuck with one or the other if they each have different effects. For example, if one was a DoT and one was normal. The impact potency of the DoT attack is going to be less, as they tend to be, so if you got stuck over and over on the DoT attack you have a significant drop in damage for something you can't control. If they were different, like maybe one was a magic damage down and the other was physical (I know there are plenty of these, just using as example) then you'd ideally want these to have balanced uptime, you don't want to get stuck on one over and over. (the solution to these is obviously to get rid of the RNG element)

At least with them being the same attack, you don't have to worry about situations like that. So really, the complaint of them being the same is misguided (I believe, at least), you want them to be the same with the RNG element involved. If they were not tied to the RNG system and were still the same exact attack - this is when we'd all be complaining.

[chibaby]

the thing I have problems with is maintaining blood of the dragon my best is 30 sec then it poofs cause I am not fast too keep it up then someone complains that I am not a good dragoon I wish blood of the dragon was something that could stay on but I don't think that will happen

[JackFross]

If you're afk dpsing means you're using macros which iirc actually kills your DPS despite getting the rotations and positional correctly.

Let me define for you what I mean when I say, and I quote:

I could essentially AFK dps it.

The keyword here is "essentially." Back in the height of 2.4-2.5 until HW launch, I was so comfortable with Dragoon that I could do any fight in the game - bar none - only looking at the screen at certain points, without losing any notable amount of dps. (Still gotta know if you should or shouldn't stack for Megaflares in T13!)

Every fight was rote. Memorized by muscles. Boring. I played the class to death and felt like I had nowhere to go. Now, to address your ludicrous jump to conclusions: I do not currently use any macros on Dragoon while raiding. The last time I did was back in like 2.1 when I was a babby dragoon and I thought a Life Surge > Full Thrust macro was cool and hip and not totally idiotic.

And then there's this:

The rest of what you're saying is pure opinion. Moving 2 steps isn't complexity to me in the least and there are plenty of ways to move your hot bar around to get a clear visual of which skill is currently up, more so since they highlight. If any class is "complex" it's ninja if you don't macro your mudras. This skill serves no purpose. If you're claiming it's there due to "complexity" I pray you're not a main DRG, MNK, or NIN.

Which woefully ignores all the points I made in favor of picking out the one sentence I dared to type that you seem to have gotten your panties in a bundle over, reproduced below:

FaC and WT add a layer of complexity to an incredibly simple class.

Since you opted to just hand-wave everything beyond that point as just being, like, my opinion, man, I don't really know what else to tell you.

The important thing to note here is that I call it a layer. I'll explain what I mean here, again.

Classes are like onions. If you leave 'em out in the sun too long, they get all brown and start sprouting little white hairs!

Wait, no... they have layers! Every class has what I like to refer to as the skill floor and the skill ceiling. The skill floor is the bare minimum you need to be doing in order to be playing your class "properly" according to the current meta. For dragoon, this skill floor is actually rather high - it's higher than either other melee class. I'll elaborate if you don't understand how.

This skill floor doesn't include:
- 3 gsk per minute
- hitting positionals
- properly managing other oGCD attacks
- optimal usage of Blood for Blood x Geirskogul
- etc.

See those, there? ^ Right there? Those are what I'm referring to as layers of complexity in a class. Now if we move on in my statement, we'll see that my pompous ass of a self called the layers up there that are NOT the RNG nature of WT/FaC "rote." It's stuff most dragoons learned in 2.x. We don't need to relearn it for 3.0*. The positionals on WT/FaC add complexity in that - if you want to MAXIMIZE your damage on any given fight - you should MINIMIZE how many times you miss those positionals. This isn't as easy as hitting 1-2-3. It's a positional you have to adjust to in 2.4 seconds if you want to get that bonus damage. You can plan out your positioning and rotation in a fight down to the letter on Monk or Ninja. You'll know exactly where you are at every point in every fight, knowing what the boss is doing and how you'll have to adjust 8-10 seconds ahead of time. But on Dragoon? HA. FaC/WT will *always* throw a wrench in your plans and force you to react to a non-optimal situation. That makes it complex.

I don't honestly care if you agree.


*Disclaimer: There are of course new things to learn regarding oGCDs and such in 3.0 - I'm slightly trivializing this point here to make a bigger, more important one. It still took me a solid week or two of running experts and such to really get the new skill rotation down solid, including oGCD management.

the thing I have problems with is maintaining blood of the dragon my best is 30 sec then it poofs cause I am not fast too keep it up then someone complains that I am not a good dragoon I wish blood of the dragon was something that could stay on but I don't think that will happen

What sort of rotation are you using? You shouldn't run into issues like this unless you're spamming Geirskogul too much. I recommend doing the following on a Striking Dummy to practice:

Heavy Thrust
Impulse Drive
Disembowel
[Blood of the Dragon]
Chaos Thrust
Fang And Claw / Wheeling Thrust
Phlebotomize
True Thrust
Vorpal Thrust
Full Thrust
Fang And Claw / Wheeling Thrust

And then repeat that combo over and over again, without re-casting Blood of the Dragon. Don't hit any off-gcd skills, including Geirskogul. Go for as long as you need, as many times as you need until this rotation becomes second nature to you.

Once you feel comfortable with that rotation, you should start to learn the positionals while playing with Geirskogul to see when you can and can't use it to make sure you don't lose your Blood.


If you need more specific information, I've got a couple nice links for you:
How to Train Your Dragoon - a wonderfully organized thread with plenty of information and calculations to explain everything.
Visual Guide to Dragoon - made by yours truly because I'm not personally partial to having lots of text thrown at me, and I know others aren't, either.
(It's still wordy, but more bullet-point than wall-of-text)
(Also yes, I know, there's a typo pls don't point it out thank)

[Dante_V]

I have to agree one hundred percent with jack. I sometimes wonder if there is a sheer lack of comprehension here sometimes as it seems people just take things completely out of context or purposely fail to recognize a point so they can create a straw man to beat in order to keep their pride. It is rather amusing watching them chase their own tales.

Regardless the point of the rng proc is most definitely a layer of complexity and it's purpose is fairly obvious.

[LunaHoshino]

I too agree 100% with Jack. 2.4-2.55 DRG was so simple that it was honestly a bit boring at points, as much as I loved the class. I had more fun with the class before they took away the positional requirements, because at least that required me to be paying attention to the fight and reacting quickly or else I got hit with a major DPS loss. I feel like a lot of people forget that before 2.4 or so, if you didn't hit Heavy Thrust from the flank or Impulse Drive from the rear, the effects of those moves would not go off. You could completely screw over your rotation by missing a single positional.

But after they nerfed it? All you got was a potency loss, and honestly, it wasn't enough of one to make missing a positional hugely damaging to your DPS. I could put on Netflix while farming things and still pull top or near-top DPS because I was totally on autopilot. I loved the class, but there was no challenge or mental involvement in playing it.

Now it has that element of challenge back, and I'm loving it all over again because I can't just zone out while playing and still do well. I have to pay attention to what I'm doing, which I don't think is a bad thing at all.

[Hitoseijuro]

And, yeah. I was hoping it'd be TTT>FaC and IDC>WT, with each of the two skills being +15s on BotD along with special secondary effects depending which one it was. But once it was implemented the way it is, I prefer that to what I just explained. What secondary effects would we be hoping for, really, that we'd even want or need without it making Dragoon even MORE useful than it already is? Battle Litany + second-best standstill dps + 10% buff to BRD/MCH put us right at the top of the DPS totem pole as a class which is almost necessary in any raid group. What added effects could FaC and WT seriously have that would do anything other than propel us to the point where that "almost" fades away?

And that's the issue, which is why I prefer how it is~

Yea and that is the issue that I'm put against when I want WT to be different or the FnC/WT to show differences, that Dragoon is a spot where you really cant add anymore to it because its already strong, perhaps this is the same position that the Devs were also in when they made this mechanic.What can you do to make these different but not over powering the job due to its already strong core.

The only small things that I could have thought of, were probably a slight higher potency on WT(310). Perhaps like I mentioned before, the animation of the two, relate them in some way, or have FNC have an animation and when you use WT it does the same animation but finishes it, like 2 pieces of a whole, something along those lines. The other one that I had thought of is maybe auras, while they are up, they buff (5-10%) a jump. One buffs jump, the other buffs the other jump, the randomness would also make it that theres a probability of your jumps not always getting the buff at the time you use it. At first I thought maybe just have 5% for jump and 10% for jump but the buffs jump gets already could pose that to be a bit much.

So, I thought maybe fnc(5%) and wt(10%) could have buffed Geirskogul. This would also make it feel like whenever your proc landed on WT, you felt rewarded(yes, alright WT!) or hey just have WT give the bonus, like 5%. This would keep its core still relevant to the whole core of fnc/wt with BoTD and Geirskogul. This would make Geir 210-220 potency. Sure a bit of a boost to it, but at that time one we probably wouldn't have known because wed still be saying "Drags very power right now", so nothing changes. I also wonder how this would have changed the dynamic of using Geir as well since its like "oh, WT proc, should I use geir more or keep it like I have it in my rotation" etc etc.


Like I said, I understand your points I can honestly agree with them since you defended them properly. I would have preferred WT be something better over FnC, but in order to say that one must also bring ideas to the table. So I hope with those ideas, I dont sound hypocritical in saying "well WT is does nothing fnc cant already do" and then be like "okay, so how do you change WT to be different" and respond with "I dont know....".

[RapBreon]

Here's a trend I've noticed. Most higher tier and raiding Dragoon's seem to like it. Those that are leveling or dabble/don't main Dragoon don't. Take it with a grain of salt.

[JackFross]

Yea and that is the issue that I'm put against when I want WT to be different or the FnC/WT to show differences, that Dragoon is a spot where you really cant add anymore to it because its already strong, perhaps this is the same position that the Devs were also in when they made this mechanic.What can you do to make these different but not over powering the job due to its already strong core.

Potency differences wouldn't bode well. It would make the class more of a slave to RNG than pre-3.0 BLM, whose only dps came from procs. I like the ideas, just don't think they'd work very well unless they were rigorously playtested - "in a situation where you get nothing but FaC for 2 minutes, how much would you lose/gain from not seeing any WTs?" is one important situation that comes to mind immediately.

Here's a trend I've noticed. Most higher tier and raiding Dragoon's seem to like it. Those that are leveling or dabble/don't main Dragoon don't. Take it with a grain of salt.

Yeah. It's because of what I said - it adds a level of complexity. One extra thing to master to reach the class' ceiling. People who play casually think it's dumb and pointless while those who play the class seriously quite enjoy it. Makes sense. Both sides of the argument DO have merit.

[RapBreon]

Yeah. It's because of what I said - it adds a level of complexity. One extra thing to master to reach the class' ceiling. People who play casually think it's dumb and pointless while those who play the class seriously quite enjoy it. Makes sense. Both sides of the argument DO have merit.

Without getting into the specifics; I find the position of those against less than compelling. If we're to assume both options are mutually exclusive (based on SE's need to fulfill a pattern it appears to be so), I find long-term class depth (being a bit generous there) trumps 'how I feel when I hit 58, oops forgot about it hit 60, time to level something else/do a DRex!'. Their argument is fine - WC and FaC isn't great - it has merit, but their merit certainly isn't equal to ours; in my view. The position from which they argue is...dissuading because of their glaring lack of experience with the class. Not to mention how many people here are apparently professional game designers.