Thread: Dragoon is a pretty complete Job. What could productively change in 6.20 (or beyond)?

Thorough post as usual, Eorzean. Thank you for laying everything out so nicely.

Regarding the suggested changes:

• Euthanize Dragon Sight or rework it to be actually interesting. At minimum, even with <mo> fixes, that'd require putting on a different CD from Battle Litany.
  
  
• Yes to swirly blue on Lance Charge -> Blood of the Dragon, though I'd prefer it not be quite so large/opaque as the original form.
  
  
• Yes to the Geirskogul change towards a gauge spender. It'd allow us to give it, in effect, a second charge without both charges being spent instantly into the opener, since High Jump would remain unbankable. However, perhaps just give Jump the full 50 gauge, allowing us to bank/play around with Mirage Dive a bit more.
  
  
• Personally, I wouldn't mind getting rid of High Jump as a basic animation-locked ranged attack and replacing it with, say, an oGCD that simply launches you seemingly up (off the field) and greatly increases movement speed before either blink-striking to an enemy via a targeted GCD attack (upgraded into a dive variant) or hitting Jump again to descend for AoE damage (when hitting enemies, else a brief bonus Movement and Attack Speed if hitting nothing). Complete with i-frames against melee attacks, of course. That'd provide actual mobility rather than an awkward "let me take ALL the AoEs" pogo-stick ranged attack.
  
  
• Don't make Mirage Dive automatic. Instead, give us reason to desire to leverage the 15 seconds' control on it. Do spruce up its animation, though. The DRG's screaming-backache animation isn't terribly appealing.
  
  
• I'd recommend against the Dragon Fangs design, as it can make Nostrand feel spammy (all three unloaded within the first GCD).

Personally, I'd rather keep the timer and turn Life of the Dragon towards HW-era Blood of the Dragon, but centered around Nostrand instead of Geirskogul. You'd have a new, separate Life of the Dragon key which converts into Stardiver. Jump skills' damage, including Stardiver's, increased while within LotD. Each Gierskogul used prior gives you, say, 14 seconds' duration of LotD, while each Dragon skill (WT/F&C) used within generates, say, 5 seconds' duration, to a max of 40 seconds, and each Nostrand consumes... 10 seconds. (Spitballing here.)

Entering per minute, you'd typically have just enough to pop, say, 2 Nostrand immediately without dropping Life of the Dragon so long as you enter just before Dragon skills. You'd generally then have the option of trying to get a Nostrand off of 1 seconds duration (it consumes, but does not require, 10s, after all) or riding LotD all the way to your next Jump, then dropping it via Nostrand so you can begin again building up (the next) LotD's duration. Stardiver would stay for up to a minute of activating LotD, even if LotD itself fades.

Hell, go ahead and give it some fun further advantage, like increased movement speed and movement range, while we're at it.

Originally Posted by TabrisOmbrelame

I think Battle Littany need a reworks. Buffing crit isn't a bad thing, but this buff isn't really interessting for Samourai now because of their 100% Midare/Namikiri Crit. Dancer suffer from the same problem when choosing a Samourai as a partner over any other class and their lvl 90 skill got the exact same 100% crit.

This is why direct hit and crit buffs have to give flat % damage bonuses to attacks with 100% chance to direct hit/crit and behave normally in any other case, because if it's not implemented this way I can just foresee the devs turning all buffs into flat damage bonuses, at which point you wonder about the point of party buffs existing.

Personally a lot of what I feel they could do would be to fix some animations (looking at you mirage dive, fang and claw), but also just make life of the dragon much more exciting to build to and use. To me, it's just projectile vomiting red 3 times every minute or so with a very exciting dive during it. Though they could also prune out some abilities (again, looking at you mirage dive, fang and claw), and retain the 10 GCD full structure with a not as awful looking and (potentially) better finisher by giving drg penta thrust. But that's just the FFXI player in me missing that ability.

Oh, and make life of the dragon more exciting than just a super-cool-amazing-and-powerful dive followed by 3 rounds of projectile vomiting because you twirled so much in the air that you can't hold it in anymore. Just my thoughts.

Just give me my damn wyvern back!

Originally Posted by Helacious

Just give me my damn wyvern back!

This isn't FFXI. A wyvern for a dragoon wouldn't make any sense lore wise, especially pre-heavensward for new players.

@OP
Those are definitely some interesting idea's. DRG for the most part is nearly perfect how it is right now imo. The only thing I'd really change is make it so delaying going into life of the dragon isn't optimal. It takes too long to go into the coolest part of the rotation only for their big hitter within that phase to mostly hit like a wet noodle. It would be nice to enter life of the dragon more often.

Originally Posted by Ransu

This isn't FFXI. A wyvern for a dragoon wouldn't make any sense lore wise, especially pre-heavensward for new players.

And you don't want a pet.

If DRG gets a pet, it will be a glorified dot like Living Shadow or Automaton Queen. I assure you, you don't want a pet.

Well many have pointed it out that your inspiration seemingly draw from various jobs (Nin, Rpr).

This is not inherently bad however a few points.

Bunshin jumps and mug?: Interesting, but I lose fexibility when one could just increase the mirage timer. I think it's important to leave the "don't overcap but try to ride the line optimization. The Mug "blood of the dragon" 50 guage change, not sure if this is necessary but with your change it probably became necessary.

Reaper et al build and dump guage design. I see the merits and I like your system but I feel we have alot of this already. Drg feels unique amongst it's peers. There is a difference between a healthy amount of pressure (timers) and nearly zero elements to track. Although you are correct in this increasing accessability. I personally feel your revision would simplify the job gameplay. This would be designed well, but easier for me to play (aka like reaper).

***Enshroud has more time than necessary providing flexibility and ends the transformation with the finisher. I often have at least ~15s left. If we increase all Drg timers for the sake of accessability than we fix ....the problem(s)? If Reaper has this and no one complains to streamline the timer for skill ceiling purposes why can't Drg receive this. (However perhaps this timer is there for future expansion enshroud skills...I have no clue)

Fang system: Reduces life of the dragon abilities to 3 nodstrod variants and an ender (finisher like reapers). As oppose to what we currently have with timers. I personally think this idea is interesting but the trade offs I'm not a fan of due to the fact that overall I get less for the sake of accessability and a more I guess intuitive rotation. The dragon fire dive is interesting but one could as others mentioned, just make the skill more interesting in it's current function (ogcd dmg). I also believe that not every job needs to be for everyone ie busy jobs exist but less busy jobs also exist for players.

Modernize design: ??? Via build and dump revision for the sake of future growth; which likely gives us basically our current level of gameplay in a future expansion??(streamline current expansion Drg and delay the completion of the job to lv 100). Don't get me wrong I like Rpr too but I think Drg can stand to be different as is.

Good ideas nevertheless. And removing timers would not make me blink at this rate. I do appreciate that you anticipated some of these critiques ahead of time. It shows you put a good amount of thought into the ideas while advocating for a certain direction.

Conversations this discussion has raised: The future problems and limits of job design after this expansion. Skill transformations vs new skills, Design via traits/ tool tips, when does it end with a complete job system, and change for the sake of change.

(Example)

Future expansion Drg: Dragonfire system
As of 7.0 dragonfire activates (your fang system) but changes vaporal thrust and disembowel into .....or changes gierskogul in a new melee variant of a new lore important (hyrasvalgur: nidhoggs brother)<- don't spell check me, dragon lol. I'm being silly ^_^

See and nothing else changes.

Oh oh and the two ice (hyrasvalgur) and fire (nidhoggs) systems would not stack so you couldn't activate life of the dragon while under dragonfire's (legacy of the dragon) dives effect. However it's an entirely new ogcd rotation like nodstrod/gierskogul. And eyes are permeant anyway so holding the activation of nidhoggs abilities wouldn't be a problem given the new dragon blood would be equivalent or higher in potency of course. Because reasons I guess.