Exactly how hard is Dragoon?

[Elkanah]

This is my concern, even for my own learning.

I don't even think it's possible here, but in other games if there's something that doesn't trigger the GCD, I'd macro it to another ability to auto fire it on CD. That's how much I dislike having to deal with them. I can't reach anything past 6 on my keyboard easily, and I can't use an MMO mouse. So I'm limited to about 12 hotkeys unless I figure something out.

Have you considered playing with a controller (either an Xbox or playstation controller) on your PC? The Xbox controllers (or mostly all controllers of various brands) tend to be useable on PC. A lot of players (myself included) play on PC with controller, as well as Keyboard and Mouse (depending on whether I feel like being lazy or not-- but still want to do the best optimal dps at the time on said configuration).

If either of you aren't comfortable with KBM setups (and have played a lot of games with a controller on a console), this might be the way to go to play jobs in ffxiv. Especially starting out!

On a typical layout for a controller:

Your actions of skills used will be on the D-pad (directional pad located on left side of controller)
And the other set will be on your right side (4 buttons on the controller)

Your movement will be the left thumbstick/joystick (on a keyboard, this is usually WASD)
Your camera movement (up, down, left, right) will be on your right thumbstick/joystick

Left bumper (above the left trigger on controller) will be your shift button to allow you to shift through various hotbars (depending on how you want to set things up, or how many tab bars you want at one time)

And right bumper (above your right trigger on the controller) will be your auto run button (you can press RB once again to cancel the auto run feature), or move your joystick different directions to stop your character movement as well

[Naoki34]

Dragoon is easy to play, it consists of holding a buff and linking two long combos.

It's boring to me.

[Alien_Gamer]

Has he considered being a tank? In many ways tanks are the most forgiving jobs to play; if you mess up a mechanic or eat an aoe you have a high defense and HP pool to not die and healers are usually watching your health closely just in case. WAR and PLD both have good DPS, things won't die as fast as a real dps but you're not slow either. Plus your rotations are usually more simple than a DPS job rotation; outside of dungeons this can be mitigated with a chocobo.

The big down side is you're the focus of everyone in group play and that can be intimidating for some.

[Naoki34]

Personally, I like to make people run 3 to 23 people far behind me.

But you have to stop encouraging anyone to be a tank, there are so many incompetent ones despite the fact that the aggro system has been more than casualised.

[Tlamila]

Ok so. If the concern is about him standing in stuff, that won't be helped by whatever class he plays.
Not following rotations is fine imho, unless you get into serious endgame which you said you're not going to. Especially for story you don't need to master a class. As long as he can understand how the class works and uses all the tools. I, for example, like to level classes slowly through all content and learn how they work by myself, and then come up with my own way of playing them, rather than just read up a rotation, get a headache and understand none of it, and then hit a dummy until I go by memory rather than by reason. It does work. Surely the classes I do harder content with I try to perfection and go more into rotations, but I don't think it's any way needed for normal content. Again, as long as you understand the class and use all the tools. I've seen lvl 80 dragoons not even use the party buff for example (I forgot the name, I never remember skill names).

About DRG itself, it's not an hard class, but it's also not one of the easiest, I'd say it's halfway? Surely if he likes to stand in bad, melee range and animation locks won't help. Although it does prevent him staying in Narnia compared to healers. I'd suggest dancer since it's braindead, but you said he doesn't like ranged. As others said, samurai is also super duper easy. But idk, I feel DRG still works even if freestyle, for normal content, as long as he does the combos, keeps the buffs up, doesn't forget blood of the dragon and all that. It's not one of those classes like say BLM or high lvl PLD where if you don't follow the rotation you might as well stop.
Does he at least do positionals?

[Tlamila]

But you have to stop encouraging anyone to be a tank, there are so many incompetent ones despite the fact that the aggro system has been more than casualised.

This. Just because they have simpler rotations, doesn't mean they're easier. There's a lot of things a tank needs to get right in a fight that a dps won't even notice them being there as mechanics at all, especially in normal content where dps have 0 responsabilities apart from doing damage. I really wouldn't wanna see someone who's terrible at playing the game tank for me.

Plus a dps can die and whatever, a tank's death has another weight though.

[Imora]

Have you considered playing with a controller (either an Xbox or playstation controller) on your PC? The Xbox controllers (or mostly all controllers of various brands) tend to be useable on PC. A lot of players (myself included) play on PC with controller, as well as Keyboard and Mouse (depending on whether I feel like being lazy or not-- but still want to do the best optimal dps at the time on said configuration).

If either of you aren't comfortable with KBM setups (and have played a lot of games with a controller on a console), this might be the way to go to play jobs in ffxiv. Especially starting out!

On a typical layout for a controller:

Your actions of skills used will be on the D-pad (directional pad located on left side of controller)
And the other set will be on your right side (4 buttons on the controller)

Your movement will be the left thumbstick/joystick (on a keyboard, this is usually WASD)
Your camera movement (up, down, left, right) will be on your right thumbstick/joystick

Left bumper (above the left trigger on controller) will be your shift button to allow you to shift through various hotbars (depending on how you want to set things up, or how many tab bars you want at one time)

And right bumper (above your right trigger on the controller) will be your auto run button (you can press RB once again to cancel the auto run feature), or move your joystick different directions to stop your character movement as well

I do actually have a controller (PS4 controller) that i picked up because monster hunter world sucks nuts with KB/M. I've debated giving it a go.

Just need to find it. It's in my desk somewhere. Lol.

[Silpher]

Excellent. Thank you.

I don't plan on investing heavy in endgame at the moment and my husband certainly won't. I just want to be able to help him out when he has troubles and guide him to better DPS. He doesn't read guides.

Tbh he might have a better time doing a ranged class like sum or blm. Compared to melee their combos are less effected by positioning etc and ranged as a whole in almost all games is easier to learn then melee.

[StriderShinryu]

Yeah, others have pretty much covered it, but I'd put DRG on the more difficult end of melee personally. Not because it's hard, per se, but more because it feels particularly punishing if you do mess up for whatever reason. The basic combo chain is so long that if you make a mistake you have to basically start it all over from the beginning, and that's before you even consider being animation locked for some of the OGCDs and having to use your share skills on others. Keeping your own personal buff up, though, is actually fairly easy once you get high enough in level as just doing the basic combo functions to keep it active pretty much all of the time (provided you don't mess up the combo along the way).

If he's determined to be a melee I would put both Monk and Sam as easier than DRG simply because if you do make a mistake in their rotation it's not as punishing to just pick back up and start again. Sure your buffs and whatnot will be misaligned but that sounds like a concern that's probably out of the range of concern for him at his current interest/skill level. I agree with the others, though, and would say that if he's actually open to any class then maybe one ranged classes would be better. I would actually suggest Machinist. It can be a little buttonsy in certain moments but you're free to move whenever and whereever. No cast bars to deal with and a pretty simple combo chain. Your buffs also general line up very well normally so it can almost be a "just hit buttons when they're off cooldown" style class.

[Imora]

Therein lies the problem. It *has* to be this job, because this is what he wants to play. Mostly because he finds jumping around fun.

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