On the topic of DRG being busy and button bloat.

[Merrnryn]

DRG is fine the way it is! It does not need to become less busy! Jumps just need to be streamlined with the adjustment to animation lock. However The job is fine otherwise. SE removed the Animation lock on the jumps before and added them back. Lessen the animation lock but leave it as it is. The weaving is busy and it makes the job fun! I don't play a game to press as few buttons as I can. I play a job because it's busy and it keeps me engaged in the game and in fights. Not braindead mindless clicking I will fall asleep with. I'll take clunky animation lock jumps over simplifying this job any day.

[ZiraZ]

+1 DRG is fine, does not need any big changes and it should not be simplified more than it already is.
If anything it could use more buttons, like a defensive... or a real gap closer

[Aco505]

While they could potentially be interesting for optimisation, that is not the lens the dev team is communicating to look through, which is (whether we like it or not) to make jobs more accessible.

DRG is probably the most accessible melee job alongside RPR, but if the devs want to take a step further with it, deleting buttons of a job that is not bloated is not really a solution. There are plenty that have been pointed out already, such as the following:

1. Reduce non-STD jump animation lock so that double-weaving is possible.

They are doing this in 6.1.

2. Merge Lance Charge and Dragon Sight together, turning the latter into a 15-20% 60s cooldown personal buff.

This frees up an oGCD slot during burst and gets rid of Dragon Sight's clunkiness.

3. Increase Battle Litany radius to 20 yalms, make it last 5 more seconds on the DRG or, alternatively, make Battle Litany give an extra effect to the DRG that increases personal damage/grants a personal effect.

Battle Litany lasting 20s for us makes it more forgiving to fit our oGCDs into it. Additionally, some of the percentage damage from the removal of Lance Charge could be moved into Battle Litany for the DRG only if so wished.

Finally, address the anti-synergy issues with guaranteed crits as proposed in other threads.

4. Increase the maximum number of scales to 3 while keeping the same Wyrmwind Thrust cost of 2.

This makes it harder to overcap and makes the ability easier to manage.

5. Have the High Jump action turn into Mirage Dive after use.

This frees up a button in our bars. Mirage Dive cannot be removed because it's what gives us the flexibility to enter a Life window or not. In order to remove it, the way Life of the Dragon works would have to be modified.

Other options for it could be increasing the window in which you can use it to 20s, or make it a charge-based system like in PvP that just gives one charge every time High Jump is used, allowing for free use of Mirage Dive when wanted.

6. Allow free use of Fang and Claw and Wheeling Thrust after Chaotic Spring and Heavens' Thrust.

This can help with positional flexibility. You will still have to use one after the other, but you decide which comes out first.

7. Give DRG a true non-damage gapcloser with a 20-30s cooldown.

Additionally, improve the cooldown and functionality of Elusive Jump.

8. Adjust Life Surge.

Let it interact with crit buffs, and allow it to be used on more weaponskills for flexibility.

9. Give DRGs a defensive.

Make it a passive 5% less-damage-taken trait that perhaps has an active component or an extra defensive/healing boost that activates at low health. Think of a "hardened dragon scales" concept.

I don't agree with all these suggestions and I'm sure that there are more interesting examples or ideas, but these would help the job become more accessible. One oGCD is removed, two buttons are freed, burst windows become a bit more lenient due to a higher Battle Litany duration and Wyrmwind Thrust flexibility, and we get a true gap-closer and a defensive.

Making Dragonfire Dive become the AoE jump by sharing a cooldown with Spineshatter Dive or High Jump would only exacerbate button bloat down the line, break the job fantasy of jumping several times in a row, and relegate one of the original jumps since ARR to be used only in dungeons. There's plenty of jobs that have too many buttons precisely because they are used exclusively in AoE (a poignant example being SAM, as seen in the threads about it for 6.1). DRG is unique in that regard because all of our oGCDs are effective in all situations.

It's already worrying seeing unique aspects of other jobs like NIN on the verge of disappearing, so hopefully the devs will take notice and avoid excessive homogenization.

[grinkdaboy]

i sure won't miss the animation lock, i think it'll alleviate most of my issues with lv90 drg where you need to resort to xivalexander or noclippy in order to not clip gcds

[LauraAdalena]

Given the choice Dragoon is the melee I’d play. But I’m currently playing Reaper. Why is that? Because it has the same gear, a lot looser of a rotation allowing positionals to be more loosely done and planned. It takes a lot less effort to do the same or more damage, and on top of that it also currently doesn’t have as many animation locks to work around with.

The problem isn’t “does it feel good to play or not” it’s “is the effort I’m putting in worth it?” And right now the answer, at least for me, is no. And unless they want dragoon to become the top DPS I highly doubt the current number of buttons will be it for a lot of people. Now if it gave more damage than reaper, but not as much as Samurai, then for me that would be worth the effort. However, on the topic of button bloat, the biggest problem isn’t “do we need the ability in our rotation currently” it’s “is this redundant?” And DRG right now has several redundant abilities in my eyes. Like I know you can hold Wyrmwind thrust for buffs but if it procs off Raiden Thrust why have a separate button?

I actually disagree with the Mirage Dive thing I’ve been seeing people parrot actually. Because in order for that to work they’d need to change it to a single dive activating Life of the Dragon. Otherwise Dragoon’s bursts become weird and stuff. If anything Nastrond should be buffed like 50 potency or something and you shouldn’t have to hit Geiskogul first to reduce the redundancies.

And in terms of redundancies, yes I think Spineshatter should be replaced by Dragonfire Dive at higher levels. I think these skills are redundant in that one doesn’t feel very strong for its animation and the other now locks us in place twice. I know that they’re reducing jump animation lock but regardless it would be nice to just have DFD be the one to reduce the number of buttons pressed to increase flexibility of the burst window and weaves for skills like Feint. Which, might I remind everyone, that’s one of the big reasons that you should actually be for reducing the amount of weaves Dragoon does right now. Dragoon needs more space to weave stuff like Feint to help the party and not just for DPS simplification.

[deadman1204]

I've never laughed soo hard reading all the self contradicting posts in this thread.

Everyone says Drg is perfect the way it is, don't change "execpt for this and this and that". "Its fine and not bloated, it just needs streamlining".

Seriously, do people even think before they post lol.

[Aco505]

However, on the topic of button bloat, the biggest problem isn’t “do we need the ability in our rotation currently” it’s “is this redundant?” And DRG right now has several redundant abilities in my eyes.

And in terms of redundancies, yes I think Spineshatter should be replaced by Dragonfire Dive at higher levels. I think these skills are redundant in that one doesn’t feel very strong for its animation and the other now locks us in place twice.

We have to be careful when we say that actions are redundant because we can fall down a very slippery slope quite easily. We're seeing this with SAM and NIN to a certain extent, where some specific abilities are removed or changed when the issues lie elsewhere. By this rule of thumb, many abilities can be considered redundant. What about Bow Shock, Carve and Spit, current Mug...? An argument could be made that actions like these are not needed and could be removed but then jobs become skeletal versions of themselves. While it'd be ideal that every action has a clear role and purpose, sometimes just dealing damage can be an alright role to have.

DRG does not suffer from the bloat that many other jobs, such as SAM, have where they get a lot of buttons just for AoE that are relegated to dungeons only. All of our oGCDs are used in every scenario. If we start removing oGCDs, then the even minute burst windows will go from feeling busy to feeling dead. The main difference between odd and even minute windows, besides the buffs we use, is the number of Spineshatter Dive charges that we can use (1 or 2) and Dragonfire Dive. That's literally 2-3 more damage buttons. Life Surge isn't even used in some even minute windows and you normally only weave one Wyrmwind Thrust as opposed to odd windows, where the rule is normally two.

If we understand Spineshatter Dive having a role similar to Shadowbringer for DRK, then it's just a question of the devs deciding how to improve Dragonfire Dive to be a bit more impactful, even if it ends up just being a potency boost, because it's kind of "meh" for a 120s ability. It should hit harder if anything.

DRG is the only oGCD-focused melee, with NIN being similar in a way but having way more GCD interactions and nuances due to mudras, raijus and Phantom Kamaitachi. If we remove oGCDs from DRG but the job stays the same, then we're just simplifying it for no reason. It would require a more general rework or overhaul, and it'd be sad to simplify the abilities of the only oGCD-focused melee job, as it would lose its uniqueness.

This does not mean that there are not things that cannot be polished, perfected or even reworked, but they cannot be done in a vacuum, as otherwise we'll end up with a job stripped of its identity.

I've never laughed soo hard reading all the self contradicting posts in this thread.

Everyone says Drg is perfect the way it is, don't change "execpt for this and this and that". "Its fine and not bloated, it just needs streamlining".

People have different opinions and therefore it's normal for contradictions to happen. Unless you believe someone in particular is contradicting themselves?

Still, DRG is a well-rounded job, but this does not change the fact that it could be better, more polished or have quality of life improvements to specific aspects of its kit.

[Duskane]

personally i just want mirage jump change
either it gets tacked onto high jump or high jump turns into mirage dive for a bit

[ZiraZ]

I've never laughed soo hard reading all the self contradicting posts in this thread.

Everyone says Drg is perfect the way it is, don't change "execpt for this and this and that". "Its fine and not bloated, it just needs streamlining".

Seriously, do people even think before they post lol.

Just because something is fine doesn't mean it can't be improved, but at the same time people are paranoid and would rather SE not touch anything since they have been doing such a horrible job as of late.
Yeah maybe there is some minor bloat here and there, but what if they go overboard and turn my favorite job into summoner? Too scary. I would rather aim safe and say it's fine and be left alone.

[LauraAdalena]

This does not mean that there are not things that cannot be polished, perfected or even reworked, but they cannot be done in a vacuum, as otherwise we'll end up with a job stripped of its identity.

I am being very careful with which abilities I recommend change. And no, the skills I am suggesting change are not just “it does damage”. If that were the case I’d ask for Mirage Dive to be removed which I’m not. Yes it provides filling the gauge for life of the dragon, but I say when it comes to that to not because of the way players currently use it to hold and get 2 LOTD in certain windows. I am actually one of those saying to be very careful when touching mirage dive. Wyrmwind Thrust specifically has very little interaction with other abilities other than Raiden Thrust so why not make it a buffed Raiden Thrust? And Dragonfire Dive is basically an AOE version of Spineshatter with one less charge, and do you know what other skill is that? Stardiver.

No, I am not making my suggestions in a bubble. Im doing it from experience of raiding on both of the maiming jobs and of having a similar issue with two casters last expansion around the same time. Last expansion Summoner was extremely over bloated, had too many weaves and nowhere to put Addle, and didn’t do as much damage as Red Mage compared to amount of effort done back at around the same time as now. It’s not exactly the same, but it’s very similar in its issues. Reaper is doing far more damage with far less effort, it allows you to weave feint a lot easier which is something necessary for a raid scenario, and had less issues with certain mechanics (which if they reduce the animation lock significantly and not just minorly will actually be fixed in the upcoming patch.)

I am not asking for changes in a bubble, I am not trying to remove the identity of the job and being very careful about which I ask for, and all of this is from experience from a previous expansion and what happened then and what is likely happening now in terms of people swapping off to the easier job because it’s just easier to get good damage on. Do I want a significant change to happen? No.. just a few tiny changes here or there to free up weave windows. And hell, that’s not even my biggest problem with Dragoon. My biggest problem is how Chaotic Spring doesn’t carry to the next one without serious SKS which causes far more weaving issues and that’s annoying. I don’t like watching my dot drop for long periods without re-applying but that’s me.