Returning player, looking to try Melee DPS

[RylaBee]

Just to give some statistical data (not huge sample but still hundreds parses)

Omega story mode (bosses mostly behave like dummy):
https://www.fflogs.com/statistics/16

Omega Savage:
https://www.fflogs.com/statistics/17

While Dragoons seem ok when fighting "dummy" in Story, they suddenly go 3 notches down for Savage.
Now - if the Dragoon rotation is "easy", why are they so impacted by going from Story to Savage?

SAM is unmoved by more mobile fights, and funny enough - MNK (who allegedly says "Hi" on positionals) actually SWAPS places with DRG when fights become more complicated.

The only class that suffers the same nosedive as DRG is NIN - I'm assuming, that has to do with the latency Wintersandman mentioned. It is in fact hitting DRG as well, because many oGCD have very long animations (Blood for Blood and Life Surge always felt particulary time-consuming to me and double-weaving oGCDs is simply a bitch).

PS: please note that I'm not complaining that SAM and MNK haver better damage - as I understand, they are not providing much utility to others, being envisioned as primary dps dealers.
I'm putting the parsers forward to show, how DRG is impacted by fights becoming very mobile and with hard to predict dps uptime.

[RylaBee]

To not just show data, but also offer some thoughts on DRG troubles from someone who is new to the job
and seen it come together recently from lvl 1 to 70 mainly through dungeons fights.

in no particular order:

x) Heavy Thrust buff
On paper (and dummy) the 30-sec buff should last you whole 2x 5-GCD combos with couple seconds in reserve.
In harsh reality, I often find myself with HT buff falling off with 2-3 last (and heaviest hitting) GCD moves left on combo.
There are two things you can do (and both wrong): you interupt the combo to refresh HT, or you use your hardes hitting moves without HT.
The least harmful(but still harmful) option is to clip the HT duration, and refresh it early - that is if you can predict what will happen.
Current HT mechanic is stuffy, bad, not fitting to such long combos.

x) oGCD double-weaving
There is one too many oGCDs, some of which you would want to double-weave - question is: can you? Will the latency allow that?
In theory, I would love to trigger at the same time: Blood for Blood + Dragon Sight + Litany
Obviously that is not gonna happen.
Other oGCDs that will call your attention:
Jump, Spineshatter (both with Mirage in tow), DragonDive, Geir/Nastrond, Life Surge

x) Positionals
In my opinion, DRG is VERY dependent on positionals. I do not have MNK, but I would not be suprised if we were tied in this dependency.
5 out of 11 moves (44%) of GCDs are positionals. The more chaotic the fight goes, the more chance you will not land them.

x) The whole LoTD thing:
Its not "hard" per-se, but its another sandbag on the pile, not to mention it takes looong to happen.


Fixing many of these at once would make DRG trivial. What it needs - IMO - is picking 1-2 and apply soft touch.

[Wintersandman]

snip.

All this is relevant if the player actually does savage. Otherwise it boils down to a simple rotation and preference. Savage is the end game for some but not everyone.

[Selova]

snip.

Like i've mentioned a myriad of times already, your "issues" with the job are fixed with experience. If you are letting your HT buff fall off, this is a you issue, not a flaw with the job itself. Dragoon has a total of 3 Ogcd's, I'd hardly call that "one too many". I'm not counting lifesurge since using LS should be second nature to you by max level and always used with FT. You are making something complicated when it isn't. All you are doing is weaving in your 2 jumps and MD in between your CT and FT combos, you should never be double weaving ogcd's (ie. using MD right after jump/SSD) because it's a loss of damage. Example: True thrust>vorpal Thrust>SSD>Full Thrust, Impulse Drive>Disembowel>MD>CT. You should never, ever be using multiple ogcd's back to back.



Also, DRG only has 4 positionals, not 5, which is laughable when you compare it to the monks 6 positionals. LotD is also fine, they reduced the amount of eyes required, which means less time to build up to nastrond. It's not really adding anything, it just changes your geirskogul to nastrond and is treated the same way it's always been, a ogcd, which you were already using pre-70 anyway. The only thing they did was increase gierskoguls damage, change it's name and lower it's cd, that's it.

I get it, you are new to the job. You just need some practice at how it plays at max level, which is why i recommend getting it to 70 and looking up some guides (momo's is a really good one on youtube). You just need to understand the difference between being new to a job and not understanding how everything flows together vs mechanical issues with the job itself, none of which dragoon has since it's currently one of the strongest and most sought after dps in stormblood.


Just please educate yourself and practice with dragoon before writing it off as "complex" or "frustrating", It's far and away one of the easiest dps to play. Cheers.

[Wintersandman]

snip.

and missing the positionals it is less impacting than missing them on MNK. In ARR the positionals were incredibly demanding which it is not now.

[Selova]

and missing the positionals it is less impacting than missing them on MNK. In ARR the positionals were incredibly demanding which it is not now.

^This. They even buffed the positionals on wheeling thrust and fang and claw so that you wouldn't be losing that much damage on parts of encounters where you can't hit your positionals.

[RylaBee]

Dragoon has a total of 3 Ogcd's, I'd hardly call that "one too many". I'm not counting lifesurge since using LS should be second nature

Amazing how truth can be re-adjusted, lets go:
Jump, Spineshatter, Dragonfire,Life Surge, Mirage, Geirskogul, Blood for Blood, Dragon Sight

lets discount BoTD and True North since you mostly pre-cast them before pull.
lets also omit Litany because of rly long CD
I'm still counting 8 oGCDs, not 3 and not 4.

Also, DRG only has 4 positionals, not 5

I was counting how many positionals you do within standard GCD rotation - but forgot Chaos.
Heavy Thrust, Chaos, 2xWheeling, 2x Fang.
Hmm, 6 out of of 11 GCD, lets make it 66% positionals of you GCD rotation then.
You still sure MNK will lose much more if you both miss all?

[LeeraSorlan]

Amazing how truth can be re-adjusted, lets go:
Jump, Spineshatter, Dragonfire,Life Surge, Mirage, Geirskogul, Blood for Blood, Dragon Sight

lets discount BoTD and True North since you mostly pre-cast them before pull.
lets also omit Litany because of rly long CD
I'm still counting 8 oGCDs, not 3 and not 4.


I was counting how many positionals you do within standard GCD rotation - but forgot Chaos.
Heavy Thrust, Chaos, 2xWheeling, 2x Fang.
Hmm, 6 out of of 11 GCD, lets make it 66% positionals of you GCD rotation then.
You still sure MNK will lose much more if you both miss all?

i think theres more things you can pin on drg for being clunky at besides its positionals, cmon now. DRG postional loss vs monk positional loss isnt comparable. if you miss every drg positional in a 10 minute fight, compared to missing every monk positional in a 10 minute fight, monk will be harshly punished by a very large amount over drg.

[RylaBee]

Certainly possible. Thou you would have to do the math to see, what the difference would really be.

[LeeraSorlan]

Certainly possible. Thou you would have to do the math to see, what the difference would really be.

i can gaurentee you that monk will be behind in dps by a good margin compared to drg.