Ways to make Piercing Talon useful

[Jonnycbad]

-Make Piercing Talon a 400 potency GCD that doesn't interrupt combos.
Similar to Monk's Six Sided Star for Monk, Dragoons can use it when out of range to keep up damage without worrying about their combo being interrupted.

-Make it a low level oGCD that later gets upgraded to Geirskogul at level 60
Lancers lost their Lv10 oGCD "Leg Sweep" (130 potency+stun) in 4.0 thus have no oGCD options until level 30 DRG when they can use Jump. By making Piercing Talon a ranged oGCD attack, low level Lancers have a damage button to weave between combos. This skill would be replaced by Geiskogul at level 60 with a trait (and then conditionally upgraded to Nastrond with the level 70 trait as usual).

-Remove it all together.
-Jobs have a limited number of actions and since Piercing Talon is an action that gets very little if any use in content, it's prime candidate for removal and replacement with a new ability in 6.0

[SpeckledBurd]

The Six Sided Star comparison isn’t really the best because Six Sided Star can't be spammed due to it costing 2 GCDs (making it functionally 200 potency a GCD) and also requiring melee Range. You get one Six Sided Star on the disengage, you could get several Piercing Talons depending on the duration.

Just making it not break a combo would be an acceptable improvement, possibly giving it bonus potency after using Elusive Jump as well. I’d also like to see not breaking the combo as a change to Enpi and Throwing Dagger as well.

[Kabooa]

Piercing Talon
Weaponskill
15y range
10 Second Cast
2.5 Second Recast
Effect: Ready a ranged attack with a potency of 100. Each second spent readying this attack increases potency by 50. Canceling the cast, moving, or using another weaponskill fires Piercing Talon at the target.

[ForteNightshade]

Simply making it not break our combo would be enough though I'd up the potency to 250-300. I also like the idea of Elusive giving it extra damage.

[Shurrikhan]

Increase Piercing Talon potency to 210.

At level 64, grant Piercing Talon Mastery, upgrading Piercing Talon to Dragonkiller whenever a combo skill has been readied. (Triggers Raiden Thrust.)

Dragonkiller "delivers a ranged attack with a potency of 330 and extends Blood of the Dragon by 10 seconds. Requires that a combo skill has been readied. Deals an additional 100 potency if Full Thrust, Chaos Thrust, Fang and Claw or Wheeling Thrust are readied."

Since DRG deals 411 weaponskill potency per GCD over time, Piercing Talon thus costs 201 potency when replacing True Thrust, while Dragonkiller costs 202 when replacing a Vorpal Thrust, and at least 163 (+ lost CT ticks or lost Disembowel bonus potency) when replacing a Full Thrust, but only 14 potency if used on the first Dragon skill (apart from whatever CT ticks or Disembowel bonus potency are lost) or 36 potency (loss increased 76 after gaining Raiden Thrust) if replacing the second Dragon skill (again, + wasted ticks or duration). This therefore not only mitigates downtime for DRG in most GCD spaces, but leaves an alternate rotational option when needing to quickly drop one's combo (especially upon the first Dragon skill) to swap to a different target or more quickly refresh Chaos Thrust. When any other skill is readied, Piercing Talon will cost half a GCD of potency, but when about to use a Dragon skill, one can choose to rush the rotation at very little potency cost. Thus the throwing skill remains something worth situationally waiting against, but is no longer so often or hugely a potency trap, and does have interesting interactions with the rotation across certain GCD spaces.

Personally, I like that melee-downtime carries with it significant risk, so long as melee have a way to alter their rotation in preparation for it. I like that, if you screw up, there are times where it's better to do nothing for half to a whole of a GCD rather than break combo. (To that end, I've likely overbuffed Dragonkiller here, even outside of the rotation-altering niche I wanted to make for it here.)

In the case of MNK, I'd scale Meditation's GCD-infliction with Attack Speed (to 50% of a GCD) and allow it to mock-crit for an additional chance at a Chakra -- or something to similar effect, ideally with fewer overcapping issues (such as by allowing TFC before reaching max stacks, at potency-per-stack effect). NIN would probably get a rotation-interwoven use of Throwing Daggers as provided by Fuma Shuriken to allow for its maintained relevance. SAM already has the strongest skill at 100 potency + 128 or more potency of Kenki, but Meditate's ppgcd should become consistent (ticking per GCD, instead of per server tick), and more consequential while having fewer issues with overcapping.

[Ryaz]

They could make it work similar to Samurai's enhanced Enpi. You use Elusive Jump, Piercing Talon gets a combo damage buff.

[Shurrikhan]

They could make it work similar to Samurai's enhanced Enpi. You use Elusive Jump, Piercing Talon gets a combo damage buff.

Samurai at least has up to a couple GCDs of flexiblity by which to potentially time Yaten-Enpi to between combos, albeit at high demand to planning. DRG has no such capability. Without avoiding combo breaks, even if EJ-PT were to individually exceed DRG's level 80 standard ppgcd, it might still not be worth using in any single GCD of downtime due to future sync issues, yet the bonus from EJ would also only last that single GCD.

It will likely need a less singularly sourced solution.

[Ryaz]

Samurai at least has up to a couple GCDs of flexiblity by which to potentially time Yaten-Enpi to between combos, albeit at high demand to planning. DRG has no such capability. Without avoiding combo breaks, even if EJ-PT were to individually exceed DRG's level 80 standard ppgcd, it might still not be worth using in any single GCD of downtime due to future sync issues, yet the bonus from EJ would also only last that single GCD.

It will likely need a less singularly sourced solution.

True, though I think most Samurai use a Yukikaze combo instead, especially now that Hagakure has been buffed. I use Yaten more to avoid point blank AoEs than anything else, though it sucks that Enpi breaks combos. I think all melee ranged attacks should be off the standard GCD, like MCH Drill, so it doesn't interrupt combos.

[Shurrikhan]

True, though I think most Samurai use a Yukikaze combo instead, especially now that Hagakure has been buffed. I use Yaten more to avoid point blank AoEs than anything else, though it sucks that Enpi breaks combos. I think all melee ranged attacks should be off the standard GCD, like MCH Drill, so it doesn't interrupt combos.

I'm not sure what you mean by the underlined part...

Hagakure is still a potency trap, to be avoided (and minimized in Sen lost) except as absolutely necessary to keep TG and Higan within raid buffs and maximize their uses per fight. The same change that directly buffed it also indirectly nerfed it by adding an effective 133.3 potency to every Iaijutsu, which Hagakure of course detracts from by reducing Iaijutsu uses over time.

A similar point can be made for Yaten-Enpi, for while combos were each reduced by 20 potency, reducing Gekko/Kasha combos by 6.66 ppgcd and Yukikaze by 10, and thus nominally pushing standard ppgcd down below its near-equivalence with Yaten-Enpi (at 420 vs. 428), the addition of Shoha added 16.66 ppgcd to each combo skill, ultimately putting Yaten-Enpi in a faintly worse state than before even when ignoring sync issues.

Using a Yukikaze where you might have otherwise preferred to use Gekko or Kasha (e.g. where it really doesn't matter which you use because MKSS isn't about to come up, in which case... your only priority is melee-downtime alignment anyways) is prerequisite to using Yaten-Enpi, and made useful only through Yaten-Enpi. They're not mutually exclusive.

MCH Drill is on the standard GCD. GCD skills don't invariably break combos (see original Shield Bash, which had no extended cooldown beyond the regular GCD, was a weaponskill, was impeded by and inflicted the GCD just as any other normal weaponskill, and did not break combos). Whether a skill will or won't break combos is seemingly defined by a separate, arbitrary rule unique to that skill, or at least there are exceptions enough that we needn't place Piercing Talon on a longer secondary recast time just to allow for it not to interrupt combos.

[Ryaz]

I'm not sure what you mean by the underlined part...

Hagakure is still a potency trap, to be avoided (and minimized in Sen lost) except as absolutely necessary to keep TG and Higan within raid buffs and maximize their uses per fight. The same change that directly buffed it also indirectly nerfed it by adding an effective 133.3 potency to every Iaijutsu, which Hagakure of course detracts from by reducing Iaijutsu uses over time.

A similar point can be made for Yaten-Enpi, for while combos were each reduced by 20 potency, reducing Gekko/Kasha combos by 6.66 ppgcd and Yukikaze by 10, and thus nominally pushing standard ppgcd down below its near-equivalence with Yaten-Enpi (at 420 vs. 428), the addition of Shoha added 16.66 ppgcd to each combo skill, ultimately putting Yaten-Enpi in a faintly worse state than before even when ignoring sync issues.

Using a Yukikaze where you might have otherwise preferred to use Gekko or Kasha (e.g. where it really doesn't matter which you use because MKSS isn't about to come up, in which case... your only priority is melee-downtime alignment anyways) is prerequisite to using Yaten-Enpi, and made useful only through Yaten-Enpi. They're not mutually exclusive.

MCH Drill is on the standard GCD. GCD skills don't invariably break combos (see original Shield Bash, which had no extended cooldown beyond the regular GCD, was a weaponskill, was impeded by and inflicted the GCD just as any other normal weaponskill, and did not break combos). Whether a skill will or won't break combos is seemingly defined by a separate, arbitrary rule unique to that skill, or at least there are exceptions enough that we needn't place Piercing Talon on a longer secondary recast time just to allow for it not to interrupt combos.

I meant Yukikure (ie, Yukikaze combo eaten with Hagakure), which is used to keep you aligned with buffs, yes. I know some people were using Yaten-Enpi as a filler combo, but using Yukikaze/Hagakure or Gekko/Hagakaure depending on your sks tier is the norm.