SE, please buff Dragoon ...

[Renkei]

a minute adjustment and the conflict is gone. So why not just make the adjustment rather than throwing our hands up in condemnation of anything that dares reduce RNG dependence via an auto-Crit or auto-DHit?

It is a tiny fix, but yes Warrior MCHs, and DRG's Auto Critical just Converts the next attack into what ever your critical damage bonus wasthese abilities existed prior to direct-hit existing, the only way to truly rid it of RNG is to make those abilities Auto-Crit/DH, or Give it a flat damage bonus, But it's also more complex then that, Warrior Benefits from skill-speed but lacks a dot for some strange reason, Dragoon its a detriment to have skill-speed except at very certain integers that round with jumps animation lock.

Yes jobs are free and open to adjust gear in order to adjust to compositions but DRG doesn't benefit from Skill-speed the same way, Currently with the way that the gear is designed they don't offer enough freedom of choice or sub-stats to warrant all types of play styles and preferences, every one of these jobs will be stacking Critical, Warrior ignores as much tenacity as it can but needs around 1500 SKS, They honestly are mostly plagued with the same issue, But My biggest issue with DRG is the fact it doesn't share any left side gear pieces with any classes, neither does NIN, while jobs like Samurai allow you to play MNK, and MCH allows you to play DNC, and BRD. All the jobs that share gear with others are the ones dominating currently, Warriors require a Re-meld in order to be optimal with another job.

I have long adjusted to it but the game designers haven't. some of these jobs to line up properly with the rest of jobs in a meaningful way, Most of the changes are removals of abilities that they felt were "bloat" while they decided to keep clunkier abilities, i think with the current design direction it is clear that they have less time to spend on this game and balance it then ever before They have mentioned in the past that jobs with raise shouldn't be outputting more damage then any other job, but now we have the current state of summoner, they gave it a tiny Nerf because its their intention to keep it actually over powered and the state of them saying they wouldn't release the balance adjustment notes until the patch to later find out there was hardly any balance adjustments.


for Empirical evidence let me post a skill Ceiling list that shows the min and max damage differences across all percentiles.


SMN 15,613.84 -18,277.44 = -2,663.6‬ N=25,678
SAM 15,493.26 -18,238.72 = -2,745.46‬ N=22,991
BLM 15,533.46 -18,232.88 = -2699.42 N=13,234
MNK 15,198.62 -17,758.58 = -2,559.96‬ N=12,881
DRG 15,054.07 -17,588.03 = -2,533.96‬ N=27,996
NIN 15,157.65 -17,527.45 = -2,369.8‬ N=17,170
RDM 15,027.03 -17,464.81 = -2,437.78‬ N=14,067
MCH 14,875.23 -16,622.81 = -1,747.58‬ N=17,821
DNC 14,237.44 -16,573.73 = -2,336.29‬ N=16,270
BRD 14,303.41 -16,188.50 = -1,885.09‬ N=15,770

[Shurrikhan]

It is a tiny fix, but yes Warrior MCHs, and DRG's Auto Critical just Converts the next attack into what ever your critical damage bonus wasthese abilities existed prior to direct-hit existing, the only way to truly rid it of RNG is to make those abilities Auto-Crit/DH, or Give it a flat damage bonus, But it's also more complex then that, Warrior Benefits from skill-speed but lacks a dot for some strange reason, Dragoon its a detriment to have skill-speed except at very certain integers that round with jumps animation lock.

And what part of any of these entirely separate issues contradicts the benefits that fix converting excess chance into addition effectiveness would provide? "Skill-gap" in the form of having found a party that doesn't waste rDPS on you? Sure, Skill Speed and Maiming gear have likewise been a hot mess since ARR, but that doesn't somehow make the other hot messes any less so nor make it worthless to attempt to fix any of them.

This is like someone suggesting that we should the option to apply Salted Earth directly to target without losing the ability to queue it only to be met with "But skill-ceiling!... and here's some equally irrelevant math!"

I have a separate DRG main alt and have flexed everywhere from minimum viable SkS to rotation-changing speeds; I'm quite familiar with the issues SkS faces on Dragoon, just as with virtually all other melee. I've suggested fixes to it before, but that doesn't change the fact that the problem you just pointed out prior to extending the list can be wholly fixed by a minute adjustment without precluding any future necessary adjustments to fix the many other problems melee, stats, and Dragoon in particular may have in this game.

[Renkei]

This is like someone suggesting that we should the option to apply Salted Earth directly to target without losing the ability to queue it only to be met with "But skill-ceiling!... and here's some equally irrelevant math!"

I have a separate DRG main alt and have flexed everywhere from minimum viable SkS to rotation-changing speeds; I'm quite familiar with the issues SkS faces on Dragoon, just as with virtually all other melee. I've suggested fixes to it before, but that doesn't change the fact that the problem you just pointed out prior to extending the list can be wholly fixed by a minute adjustment without precluding any future necessary adjustments to fix the many other problems melee, stats, and Dragoon in particular may have in this game.

My Interest is to post different opinions on potential options that the Dev team could explore - I find the the majority of issues around game design for DPS in this game revolves around Skill-Speed de-syncing OGCDs, but this is a problem that persists to most classes, i do agree that this is an issue that could be fixed in a short period of time, and that it's not the only issue that is plaguing this game in terms of usability, Firstly i would Convert all oGCD Abilities into Skill-Speed Scaling Abilities, Firstly Getting rid of Speed all together and replacing it with a universal "haste" which in term would fix paladins issues, rdm issues, and casting issues, this would fix all issues with GCD weaving breaking completely, though the math involved would be to proportionally scale longer cool downs properly so they do not receive double speed increases over say 30 second abilities or 60 second abilities, i doubt anything will get completely redesigned towards the end of this expansion, though i wouldn't be surprised if that was what they planned on doing considering the introduction of oGCDs that scale with Speed.

Unfortunately i am unable to fix any of the problems or issues that remain in the game, but i do acknowledge the issues other jobs are currently having as well.

Clearly the issues that would Arise from changing it into a flat damage ability is the maximum damage cap of full thrust could potentially increase by 0%-50%+ (Depending on Critical Rating, And Direct Hit Rating and the "New" bonus provided to Life Surge, Life Surge Bonus + Critical + DH VS Life Surge + DH), It would increase the damage cap for one attack and potentially make it more RNG Dependent, with a potential 500+ additional DPS done additional, or the same damage.
There are plenty of other options to explore though of course that i have mentioned, Like Dragon-Sight, Or Litany changes to flat damage bonus, or even Life Surge changing into a Direct Critical.

[Shurrikhan]

Firstly i would Convert all oGCD Abilities into Skill-Speed Scaling Abilities, Firstly Getting rid of Speed all together and replacing it with a universal "haste" which in term would fix paladins issues, rdm issues, and casting issues, this would fix all issues with GCD weaving breaking completely, though the math involved would be to proportionally scale longer cool downs properly so they do not receive double speed increases over say 30 second abilities or 60 second abilities, i doubt anything will get completely redesigned towards the end of this expansion, though i wouldn't be surprised if that was what they planned on doing considering the introduction of oGCDs that scale with Speed.

Solid changes. Sadly, they've also been suggested since ARR, to no effect. But, I'm glad to see others trying.

Clearly the issues that would Arise from changing it into a flat damage ability is the maximum damage cap of full thrust could potentially increase by 0%-50%+ (Depending on Critical Rating, And Direct Hit Rating and the "New" bonus provided to Life Surge, Life Surge Bonus + Critical + DH VS Life Surge + DH), It would increase the damage cap for one attack and potentially make it more RNG Dependent, with a potential 500+ additional DPS done additional, or the same damage.
There are plenty of other options to explore though of course that i have mentioned, Like Dragon-Sight, Or Litany changes to flat damage bonus, or even Life Surge changing into a Direct Critical.

Again, though, I'm just not sure why you'd bother when it's simpler to provide a general fix at this point (since 5 jobs have auto-Crits, and 2 have auto-DHits), fixing the problem that arises from +Crit and +DHit buffs, or skills which guarantee either, rather than forcing any and all raid buffs into just +%Damage (which, Dragon Sight already is, btw).

SkS can be "fixed", even if in not the most interesting way, by merging SkS and SpS and having it affect periodic, auto-attack, and ability damage equally. (The more difficult fix is to give each job their own level-specific stat contribution curve*, a la WoW, so that the choice remains distinct but can be balanced.) *Technically, WoW uses a simple scalar, not a curve, which causes it to become impossible to truly balance once Haste gives access to new rotations, not that WoW particularly cares as it typically prefers for specs to have noticeably favored and disfavored stats.

Even more easily, auto-Crit/DHit abilities can be fixed by just converting excess chance to extra effectiveness. Done.

[Renkei]

Solid changes. Sadly, they've also been suggested since ARR, to no effect. But, I'm glad to see others trying.


Again, though, I'm just not sure why you'd bother when it's simpler to provide a general fix at this point (since 5 jobs have auto-Crits, and 2 have auto-DHits), fixing the problem that arises from +Crit and +DHit buffs, or skills which guarantee either, rather than forcing any and all raid buffs into just +%Damage (which, Dragon Sight already is, btw).

SkS can be "fixed", even if in not the most interesting way, by merging SkS and SpS and having it affect periodic, auto-attack, and ability damage equally. (The more difficult fix is to give each job their own level-specific stat contribution curve*, a la WoW, so that the choice remains distinct but can be balanced.) *Technically, WoW uses a simple scalar, not a curve, which causes it to become impossible to truly balance once Haste gives access to new rotations, not that WoW particularly cares as it typically prefers for specs to have noticeably favored and disfavored stats.

Even more easily, auto-Crit/DHit abilities can be fixed by just converting excess chance to extra effectiveness. Done.

Yeah they have been suggested since ARR.

There is a simple general fix for the Auto-Crit/Auto-DH Issue. I am just spitballing solutions honestly.

That would have to lead to an entire reprogramming of Each ability (with Auto-Crit/DH) and an introduction of a new calculation for these skills, I am not entirely against that idea, Though Direct-hit''s percentage rating is a lot higher, but Critical passes it if you combine the damage bonus and frequency which isn't that bad of an idea.
Ultimately i would opt just to make every ability that is Auto-Crit or Auto Direct-hit Both instead of the later, since it would allow you to use existing code even if it forces a requirement (Full Thrust From Flank) as for the Auto-Direct hit i do not see any reason to force a requirement as the jobs currently with Auto Direct-hits aren't in the best spots.