On the topic of DRG being busy and button bloat.

[paraplu]

I like the current iteration of DRG a lot and doesn't feel it is bloated because, as mentioned, every button fills a purpose in every situation.

While I'm totally cool with jump/mirage dive being the same button, similar to NIN's bunshin, as well as making Dragon Sight closer to Dance Partner to reduce macros/manual targeting, I don't see a strict need to change stuff. I'm not even mad about the animation locks like most DRG are because the single weave jumps, despite their clunkiness, feel unique and powerful.

If burst windows are to be less tight, Life Surge is the least interesting ability to press. Coincidentally, DRG is currently the only melee without a personal defensive utility button. Make the healing from it double as a shield for 10 seconds. You won't need to press it every burst window, but if the shield gets eaten, putting it on HT/5th is still the best option to shoot for. Just adjust potencies somewhere else to make up for the auto-crit.

Dragonfire Dive should not turn into the "AoE jump" for the aforementioned reasons: we use all of our oGCDs in every scenario and changing this will make the ability irrelevant outside of dungeons. It would also break the iconic moment of a DRG jumping several times in a row during bursts that has been there since ARR.

As most SAM mad about kaiten right now will tell you, ST and AoE versions of a skill sharing a cooldown is bad design. The only thing you consider is if there are 3 or more enemies or which animation you find prettier. It sort of works for RPR because they have basically no buttons to press anyway, but even there it feels more like a way to add buttons to make it feel like you have more tools and choices, without actually giving you said tools and choices. DRG having multihitting oGCD's and NIN's mudras, on the contrary, are elegant solutions.

I don't agree with every proposed change by OP, but that's not really point. The point is that what makes DRG fun is managing your 30s oGCDs alongside your 60s and 120s burst windows and putting as much stuff into your buffs as possible. Similar to the very weird WAR change mid SB where the job went from building a resource to "wait for IR to come off CD" (going from 5 to 3 FCs is the best WAR change in EW by a long shot) I don't want DRG to change because... Well it is my baby and I really like it as it is. I'm not a top player, speedkiller or competent enough to clear an ultimate. I make mistakes with drifting my CDs. I make weaving mistakes. I may or may not have jumped in front of the tank during Coherence. But these are things that I can work on and get better at the job with. I don't want SQEX to do it for me.