On the topic of DRG being busy and button bloat.

[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.