On the topic of DRG being busy and button bloat.

[Cybylt]

To me Dragoon's sat in a similar space as Black Mage where they hit their core flow in Heavensward/Stormblood and have gotten QoL and downtime fillers to make that flow easier or shore up weak points. Their remark on Black Mage was "Job's basically perfect, no changes," so why's Dragoon being looked at? I've never seen it as a contested job in the ways many others are and it was especially odd to hear it mentioned alongside AST which is maybe the most contested.

I don't think DRG requires any fundamental design changes and can stay its course of refining the current build it has, that it is and has been in a comfortable place for a long time and it's concerning that they think it requires a rework without notable feedback urging one.

[Iustitia-sama]

My only question is why are you going into a double life phase, in EW dragoon no longer needs to do that, just delay every time.

[Aco505]

To me Dragoon's sat in a similar space as Black Mage where they hit their core flow in Heavensward/Stormblood and have gotten QoL and downtime fillers to make that flow easier or shore up weak points. Their remark on Black Mage was "Job's basically perfect, no changes," so why's Dragoon being looked at? I've never seen it as a contested job in the ways many others are and it was especially odd to hear it mentioned alongside AST which is maybe the most contested.

I don't think DRG requires any fundamental design changes and can stay its course of refining the current build it has, that it is and has been in a comfortable place for a long time and it's concerning that they think it requires a rework without notable feedback urging one.

Yes, DRG is a very smooth job that only requires quality of life improvements and some tuning. These huge changes for 6.2 are concerning because they can easily break the job's identity, and a rework should be more suited for 7.0 than in the middle of the expansion.

DRG is all about oGCDs mechanically and jumps and dragon abilities (GSK, NAS, MD, WWT...) thematically. Removing or "streamlining" what a well-rounded job such as this one has to offer will likely strip it of its uniqueness.

My only question is why are you going into a double life phase, in EW dragoon no longer needs to do that, just delay every time.

While double life phases are less common, they are a tool available in our kit that can be used in some scenarios. If the boss will die before the next burst comes or if it phases out but we are able to get an extra eye before this happens, then we need to do a double life.

This is also why Mirage Dive cannot be removed, as it provides us with the flexibility to delay or enter life at will, even if in full uptime dummy fights we always delay life, this won't be the case in plenty of other encounters or scenarios.

We can find an example in P2S, where it is customary to switch the order of HJ and GSK after the first arrows in order to enter life just before Kampeos and put the two NAS at the end of the life window under buffs, to then keep delaying life by using MD after GSK.

Or in dungeons, where it's preferrable to use HJ first and as soon as possible to get as many eyes (and MD out) as possible before a pack of mobs dies.

[Kolsykol]

Jumps feel way more smooth to use now, especially the Dragonfire one.

[Imragarn]

The only thing DRG need, IMO, is to give us the capacity to stock 3 Firstminds' Focus and keep the cost of 2 for Wyrmwind Thrust.

For me this will be perfect !

And the speed up we got today feel really nice, double weave with jump is truly nice !

[LeonKeyh]

I imagine some of the things (based off other changes) that could possibly coming would be:

1. Removal of Life Surge (Less likely to be the case because it's not used nearly as much, but it's fairly similar to Kaiten at a base level)
2. Have Fang and Claw replace Heavens' Thrust
3. Have Wheeling Thrust replace Chaos Thrust
4. Remove Dragonfire Dive, Give Spineshatter dive +1 charge, buff potency a little, change Spineshatter Dive to an AE attack (current potency + fall off)

I really can't think of anything else that wouldn't largely change the way that it plays. I'm scared.

[Aco505]

I imagine some of the things (based off other changes) that could possibly coming would be:

1. Removal of Life Surge (Less likely to be the case because it's not used nearly as much, but it's fairly similar to Kaiten at a base level)
2. Have Fang and Claw replace Heavens' Thrust
3. Have Wheeling Thrust replace Chaos Thrust
4. Remove Dragonfire Dive, Give Spineshatter dive +1 charge, buff potency a little, change Spineshatter Dive to an AE attack (current potency + fall off)

I really can't think of anything else that wouldn't largely change the way that it plays. I'm scared.

I don't think they'll remove Life Surge for the time being because they just added another charge of it in EW. What they could do is adjust it so that it interacts more with our kit and doesn't conflict with crit buffs.

I don't believe they'll make the positionals replace the two big weaponskills or viceversa either, even though it is how it works in PvP for Heavens' Thrust now. Still, what they could do (even if I personally dislike it) is to merge Wheeling Thrust and Fang and Claw into one button, as you can never use one when the other is available (so basically like Gnashing Fang for GNB).

Spineshatter Dive may be turned into a non-damage gapcloser, but that'd be quite silly due to the name.

I'm just hoping that Dragonfire Dive doesn't get deleted or turned into the AoE jump, because that'd start a trend of giving us oGCDs exclusively for AoE, taking a unique aspect from us (our oGCDs are used in all situations) and starting a dangerous button bloat issue (see SAM and other jobs) that will come back to bite us when new actions are added in future expansions.

What they can do to add stuff to the job in the future is to make actions substitute others, either permanently like Full Thrust into Heavens' Thrust or temporarily like Bunshin and Phantom Kamaitachi, and making these new actions have new, interesting or engaging interactions with the kit.

Simplifying a job that is smooth, well-rounded, and that flows so well is not the correct path, imho.


On another note, the animation lock reduction of jumps has been great, as expected. We can probably do funny things with Elusive Jump now, too. Perhaps the final part of EJ's animation should be reworked a bit, because we "fall" too suddenly.

However, the HJ into MD change has proven to be kinda awful, since the actions change so fast that you often accidentally double weave them. To be honest, it should just be reverted now.

[Ralt21]

I mean you guys are forgetting the most imported thing. If cones are to difficult to aim then so will line aoes.

[Aco505]

I mean you guys are forgetting the most imported thing. If cones are to difficult to aim then so will line aoes.

Line AoEs are a defining factor of DRG in AoE and 2-target scenarios, so removing them would be bad for the game. If people complain about these, are all AoEs going to become circles then?

There's nothing more satisfying that pulling off GSK/NAS/WWT cleaves on 2 targets.

[DPZ2]

So, after all the hue and cry, what did SE actually do with regard to Dragoon?

Reduced the animation time for all jumps.

That's it.

The end.