Dragoon's Piercing Talon: Remove or Rework

[Shurrikhan]

What if Piercing Talon reduced the CD of High Jump by, say, 1.5sec? Or had maybe a 10% chance to give Dive Ready? Or extended Chaos Thrust's duration by 3 sec?

Some low boon so it doesn't replace the main combo but still is better than idling.

Any of those, given sufficient tuning, could push it into being useful for maybe a second GCD out of 10, but consider -- what benefit over simple increased potency is there to, say, desyncing your High Jump or rolling the dice on RNG or making CT likely guarantee that a DoT tick will now be clipped, etc? Are there any integral effects we can add that would be cool and fun rather than merely intrusive and frustrating?

[Archwizard]

Any of those, given sufficient tuning, could push it into being useful for maybe a second GCD out of 10, but consider -- what benefit over simple increased potency is there to, say, desyncing your High Jump or rolling the dice on RNG or making CT likely guarantee that a DoT tick will now be clipped, etc? Are there any integral effects we can add that would be cool and fun rather than merely intrusive and frustrating?

Well, Dragoon has only one secondary resource to worry about, the Dragon Gauge. It doesn't use MP or Ninki, Kenki, Mana, or any other type of %-based Gauge to allow for a more gradual increase. If it affected the Dragon Gauge directly in a reliable way, it would quickly become part of the main combo, which would affect the balance of the entire job.

So your options to make it more engaging while still being a secondary skill purely for distance are all going to either affect timers -- Blood/Life of the Dragon, Chaos Thrust, cooldowns -- or require a complete rework of the job. Considering Blood of the Dragon lasts for as long as its cooldown now, affecting that timer further would be largely redundant. Affecting any timer that would require you to be in melee to receive mileage would, I feel, also defeat the purpose of attaching it to a ranged skill.

Now, while I could think of ways to add on to the job in future expansions, that would still leave Piercing Talon in the same position until then.

[Shurrikhan]

Well, Dragoon has only one secondary resource to worry about, the Dragon Gauge. It doesn't use MP or Ninki, Kenki, Mana, or any other type of %-based Gauge to allow for a more gradual increase. If it affected the Dragon Gauge directly in a reliable way, it would quickly become part of the main combo, which would affect the balance of the entire job.

So your options to make it more engaging while still being a secondary skill purely for distance are all going to either affect timers -- Blood/Life of the Dragon, Chaos Thrust, cooldowns -- or require a complete rework of the job. Considering Blood of the Dragon lasts for as long as its cooldown now, affecting that timer further would be largely redundant. Affecting any timer that would require you to be in melee to receive mileage would, I feel, also defeat the purpose of attaching it to a ranged skill.

Now, while I could think of ways to add on to the job in future expansions, that would still leave Piercing Talon in the same position until then.

My point was merely that you don't have to do something so integral with distant systems like Jump to make it engaging, let alone functional. It just has to have a greater range of GCDs across DRG's 10-step rotation under which it using it comes out ahead of not using it. You take the potency lost from restarting the combo (and from delayed or clipped CT ticks in the adjusted rotation) and try to give that 2-4 extra GCDs per 10 in which that cost is minimal (in the range of SAM's 20 to 65ish, assuming an unlucky lost CT tick).

Give Piercing Talon (1) a higher base damage, have it (2) upgrade to a skill which takes advantage of, and/or gives back some amount of, Combo progress, and (3) add it to the list of skills buffed by Lance Mastery II, and voila, it no longer forces itself into obsolescence.

[Archwizard]

Give Piercing Talon (1) a higher base damage, have it (2) upgrade to a skill which takes advantage of, and/or gives back some amount of, Combo progress, and (3) add it to the list of skills buffed by Lance Mastery II, and voila, it no longer forces itself into obsolescence.

The problem is Step 2, however, which was exactly what I was attempting to highlight. Since Dragoon has no additional resources built by the combo, there's no conventional way to have it "take advantage of or give some amount of Combo progress", at least not in a way that parallels abilities like Throwing Dagger or Enpi. Dragoon's secondary resource is time; your reward for completing the conventional rotation is extending a timer to chain more periods of burst damage.

If we take timers off the table, I can only assume you're trying to imply the best way to affect that would be to have the skill directly substitute for one of the weaponskills in a combo for the purposes of advancing said combo -- for example, using True Thrust -> Piercing Talon -> Full Thrust in place of Vorpal Thrust -- but that carries too many logical faults in itself just in the coding stage that overcomplicate a solution (for instance, how it determines which branching combo it affects, or how many times it may substitute steps when used in sequence, or what specific abilities if any that it is limited to substituting which could be penalized if your rotation timing is off when you're forced out of range).

This is why I'm actually rather keen on the idea of having it extend the duration of Chaos Thrust for a few seconds, or possibly Disembowel (though it's already longer and slightly desynched from CT), or ideally even both if that's not too much of a stretch.
Yes, theoretically it could throw off the timing of your primary rotation or clip a DoT tick, but it could also prevent having to restart the 10-step process for a couple GCDs and allow you to go right back into a Full Thrust combo for maximum output when you can get back in melee. It won't throw it off much more than missing the reapplication entirely due to being pushed away.

[Shurrikhan]

The problem is Step 2, however, which was exactly what I was attempting to highlight. Since Dragoon has no additional resources built by the combo, there's no conventional way to have it "take advantage of or give some amount of Combo progress".

Why does it need to be conventional? You can literally append the effect to an Additional Effect on Piercing Talon / Dragonkiller rather than using a Combo Bonus. (Technically, not even a Combo Bonus on PT would be wholly unprecedented anymore, as multiple combo skills could be sourced by the same opener. The only problem is using multiple source skills, to allow PT to be used at any given time.

Moreover, one could just use an oGCD to convert a standard weaponskill to a thrown version at %reduced direct potency and effect duration. A bit of a grind for a kiting tool, but I'm honestly not that convinced the 5 extra yalm on PT relative to Doom/Sonic/Tempest helps whatsoever for kiting. If we're going to suddenly care about the early leveling experience again, let's care about a whole lot more than just PT.

[Archwizard]

Why does it need to be conventional?

I didn't say it "needs to be" conventional. As I was saying, it's difficult to figure what kind of "additional effect" to pin to it, since Dragoon is a bit of an outlier.

I'm less concerned about kiting during leveling or PotD, and more about instances where we're forced out of melee range for multiple GCDs, thanks to chain knockbacks, jumping/teleporting targets, hazard zones, etc. Considering most of our oGCDs are already ranged skills or buffs that would be unimpeded at a distance, I'd be concerned about having to apply another one between every hit for one of those periods with a reward of performing the exact same rotation.

If you're arguing making the rotation interesting, just doing the same chain of 10 GCDs for the entire fight even when presented with an opportunity to shake it up... isn't that.

Besides, I wouldn't even want to consider how such an oGCD might impact AoE, or how it's coded to interact with Flank/Rear skills (important to keep Raiden Thrust going).

[Shurrikhan]

I didn't say it "needs to be" conventional. As I was saying, it's difficult to figure what kind of "additional effect" to pin to it, since Dragoon is a bit of an outlier.

Not at all. It's just a matter of how finely we want to balance its losses across various GCDs in rotation (effectively allowing it an addition 2-4 GCDs per DRG's 10). We have two options: (1) Additional Effect on Piercing Talon or conditionally upgrading PT to Dragonkiller or (2) conditionally upgrading PT to Dragonkiller AND giving Dragonkiller an Additional Effect.

1A.

Additional Effect: Deals an additional X potency when any combo skill is readied.

1B.

Piercing Talon Mastery: When any combo skill is readied, Piercing Talon is upgraded instead to Dragonkiller.

2.

Additional Effect: Deals an additional X potency when Full Thrust, Chaos Thrust, or Coerthan Tempest are readied.

Note that the extra potency in the Additional Effects can be replaced with providing the combo benefits of True Thrust (and perhaps Doomspike). The rest of the balance can be managed through baseline potency or, again, advancing the combo. Combo advance as the AE is better for varying rotation, as it gives you a separate extended rotation option for syncing CT.

I'm less concerned about kiting during leveling or PotD, and more about instances where we're forced out of melee range for multiple GCDs, thanks to chain knockbacks, jumping/teleporting targets, hazard zones, etc. Considering most of our oGCDs are already ranged skills or buffs that would be unimpeded at a distance, I'd be concerned about having to apply another one between every hit for one of those periods with a reward of performing the exact same rotation.

I've leveled DRG to 50 3 times, to 70 twice, and to 80 once. In all that time I've never needed to spam Piercing Talon. I've only ever needed to use it even just twice in a row if I screwed up. If our concern is simply in making Piercing Talon functional, I'd simply say we ought to give it a bit more range and make it interfere less

If you're arguing making the rotation interesting, just doing the same chain of 10 GCDs for the entire fight even when presented with an opportunity to shake it up... isn't that.

Which is why I wasn't arguing for a Ranged-Mode oGCD, only pointing out that the times in which PT is ever needed are so far and few between that even an oGCD with a 15-30s CD against or alongside which to balance or pair Elusive Jump would be wholly sufficient to make PT a practical skill again, especially if it was given a bit more range.

By all means, I'd prefer that DRG's every opener was chargeable; that it could advance any of its combos into each other; could use its dragon skills, once unlocked, at any time within 10 seconds to allow them more unique effects and flexibility; that its Jump simply launched it skyward as a dodge and then augmented its next weaponskill; that Full Thrust could toss enemies skyward and Fang & Claw did a fine job of juggling them and Wheeling Thrust of smiting them; that BotD simply unlocked gravity manipulation for your movement to make you look and feel like a Dissidia-esque Dragoon and master of aerial juggling; so on and so forth... but this is just about either making PT worthwhile or getting rid of it. So long as Dragoon gets something for forced melee downtime comparable to the other melee, I'm cool with either one, honestly. And that doesn't even have to be a GCD skill. Heck, we could give CT some more surplus duration, turn Geirskogul into a GCD that doesn't break combos, perhaps move Life of the Dragon activation to Blood of the Dragon, and allow BotD's passive effects by default and that would probably be sufficient for DRG's melee downtime.

Besides, I wouldn't even want to consider how such an oGCD might impact AoE, or how it's coded to interact with Flank/Rear skills (important to keep Raiden Thrust going).

You realize that this is the first expansion where any single-use buff has ever affected more than the first hit of an AoE? It's not that hard to simply put the limitation back as it had been for 3 prior iterations for this every Lifesurge/Powersurge/Reassemble/etc skill. For the rest, just keep the positional. It's not like staying behind the enemy 24/7 when physical Ranged wasn't already a thing when Accuracy was still a stat or we suddenly can't Elusive Jump out of a circular AoE in the direction our next attack would come from (in the same way we would when prepping to Dive back).