Why DRG needs rework

[Helionus]

I believe that the dragoon needs this rework for two reasons:

1.Too many buttons
I think it's clear that it's about ease of use and gameplay. The drg has three(!) combos that need to be kept on the panel. It's absolutely inconvenient. They need to simplify the first two combos on single target, making the debuff a bonus for a regular three-button combo, and make the 2nd combo aoe damage with two or three buttons. This will greatly simplify unnecessary management and make the gameplay much more convenient.
Those buttons that are pressed after a certain combo must be combined into one, changing depending on the applied standard combo.
The Life Surge is also unnecessary management. It must be used at the end of the combo, otherwise it will be practically useless. I constantly forget about it, sometimes on purpose, simply because it's inconvenient. The damage boost is negligible on the big picture. And this thing with "use [skillname] to make [skillname] work and then [skillname] will change to [skillname]" in the 80-90 lvls? Again, unnecessary management.
Also I would make it so that more abilities require a gauge to work.

I would single out "unnecessary management" as a separate reason, that's how big the problem is.

2.Unimpressive effects
No, this is not a quibble nor bias, this is a fact based on comparison. All classes, without exception, you can feel the might from abilities their use, take anyone - the paladin puts up walls and crap with hefty swords from heaven, healers shine brighter with each level, casters and even other melee look more advantageous. Not to mention the SMN or the DRK. Everyone has something that makes them stand out and it feels like these abilities are high-level abilities. Yes, at lvl 90 there is little variety, like red mage has a nuke in one direction. But what a nuke! So bright and powerful. Or the machinist with, yes, it's just a saw, but this is along with a damn robot with, like, ten abilities running around.
All this looks more advantageous than a poor dragoon: lvl 70 - Geirskogul 2 with an eye. 74 lvl - jump, but blue. 90 lvl - two little heads which are barely noticeable. Out of all, the stardiver looks like a winning one, but in my opinion he is the only one like that. And it's a Dragoon, the one with the power of dragons. How can this be so un-climactic?

I think these are the main reasons why this class deserves a rework. I mained it from level 1 to level 70, I liked it, but only until I returned to it recently and realized to myself "and THAT I have been maining for HOW LONG?"

I understand that I could hurt feelings of those who love the drg for what he is, but I strongly believe that his current condition can be improved. Yes, I played as an AST, I didn't like it, but only due to the fact that healers are simply not my thing.
I know how players can feel. I love to play DRK, this is my second main and I would rebel if they decided to change it.

[Quor]

snip

I'm not sure if this is a careful attempt at trolling or legitimate feedback, but what I do know is that your DRG is not 90 yet. Hell, it's not even 80; according to the Lodestone profile it's still 75:

https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...767/class_job/

I doubt this feedback is legitimate, as what you're saying is the equivalent of judging a three-act play when you're 3/4 of the way through act two. Suffice it to say no one is going to listen to your opinion, and for good reason. Yeah, it's your opinion, everyone is entitled to one, but if you haven't even got the job to level cap with a decent bit of end-game content under your belt, then your observations and feelings on the job amount to nothing. You don't have access to the full kit, you don't know how the job plays in level 90 content and your experience is lacking as a result. So there's no point in listening; it's literally the same as a sub-50 BLM making the claim that BLM has a boring rotation and drastic changes need to be made to the jobs kit at 90 to account for how boring things are at <50. It makes no sense.

Get DRG to 90, put a few dozen hours into 8-man raids and EX fights, then come back and tells us how you feel. And I say this as a guy who also does not have DRG at 90, because this sentiment is rightly shared across every job.

[Reimmi]

I'd argue drg has the perfect amount of buttons actually
It needs no more and no less
Unimpressive effects can be fixed by animation updates

[TabrisOmbrelame]

Like Quor said, you don't have DRG at 90, so why complain ?

I have a DRG 90 and even played it for quite a while into High-level Content, so here's my opinion on a rework.

First of all, the DRG is a class that feel great to take in hands. Even if it has a slow GCD (Usually 2.5) the amount of oGCD you have make the class quite fast instead and compensate that slowness. Overall, it feels great.

If we were to look into the short terms, DRG don't need a rework at all, the class feels perfect at this point.

But in the long term, it's a whole different story...

When you approach a certain point in the developpment of a class, you may encounter a "Wall". That wall indicate that you no longer have space to improve the class, and thus, for various reason : Too many oGCD, Gameplay centered on one skill, etc....

The first reason Square Enix wants to make a rework maybe because of all those oGCD. The DRG got so much of them, it will become harder to fit everything into the burst window if this goes on.

The second reason, the DRG doesn't have a ressource to manage. Except for the two scale you have to launch that double dragon up to the face of your opponent (which is kinda a button you press when up) that's not something you "Manage" in the proper term. Kinda like the Samourai now who barely manage anything with Kenki (Since the lost of Kaiten). Maybe they will add a ressource that will replace the old timer DRG had earlier

The third reason, the DRG seems to have quite a long 10 hit combo, taking up to 7 button in total just for that. Even samourai only got 6 through 3 different combo.
I think Square Enix may reduce that number by cutting the number of spell (Using skill upgrade to reduce that number to 5 maybe ? that's only speculation of course, don't take my word too seriously). Doing so may allow them to work around this new combo and offer new possibility.

That's pretty much everything I see this far. I may be completely wrong, and that's just my personnal opinion.

[Flashy]

Pretty much what Quor said, but I'll add some things as well

I can't imagine DRG having a boring 1-2-3 combo that auto applies/refreshes your dot and damage buff, removing the singular braincell stimulation of which combo you should be starting when you are going through your rotation.

They will probably do something with 'Fang and Claw' and 'Wheeling Thrust' such as combining them as one button and/or only requiring the use of one or the other before looping back to the start of your combo, versus using both

Life surge is definitely going to be removed in the rework, but correct me if i'm wrong here since I'm just throwing a rough number out there, but you just use it once every 3rd combo before heaven's thrust? And you can't even be bothered to do that, even choosing to forget using it due to it being an inconvenience.

This feels like pure laziness and that you're not even going to make an attempt to use a job full's kit, but will suggest that a job needs a rework. Definitely get it to 90, learn the opener and rotation and play some 8 man content before and see how you feel about the job then. You make some fair points about some things and I can't knock people for wanting to consolidate buttons, I play with a 12 button mouse so I don't know what the jobs feel like on controller, or a standard kb+m setup

This game's combat is generally slow GCD with weaving of oGCDs that makes it interesting, you play DRK so you should know what that's like. Life surge isn't even that busy, it's a 45 second cooldown. And DRG at 90 is about weaving oGCDs, kinda why I think it's fun as a former SAM player

Can't really comment on your subjective feel about DRG abilities, I personally think Stardiver and Dragonfire Dive feel good to use, and Nastrond is really cool

[Jirah]

Is it me or am I the only one that never really was bothered by DRG buttons? SAM had too many buttons but DRG? Personally nah

Abit miffed as SE are very very bad at reworking jobs so you’ll end up with some basic boring loop of 1-2-3 and some gauge skill, and removal of Dragon sight, Battle Litany, or something controversial

[RylaBee]

Is it me or am I the only one that never really was bothered by DRG buttons? SAM had too many buttons but DRG? Personally nah

Abit miffed as SE are very very bad at reworking jobs so you’ll end up with some basic boring loop of 1-2-3 and some gauge skill, and removal of Dragon sight, Battle Litany, or something controversial

SAM and DRG seem similar button wise, but DRG has it more crammed into OGCD, leading to double-weave relatively often, which is the real pain of the job.
The "button bloat" is not in standard rotation, but in the number of jumps, accompanied by Life sure, Sight, MD, Lance Charge etc..

I especially feel like "Lance Charge" is the one I would send to chopping block without hesitation.
The burst buff is Litany + Sight, do we realy need Lance Charge, which is just flat potency, that coul be worked into actual GCD skills?

SE made mistake by trying to fix the button bloat by merging MD into jumps, which created another problems.
Where they should have "cut" was Lance Charge or possibly Life Surge (tho that is more skill involved / interesting, not to mention little self-heal)

[Ilisidi]

DRG feels good and the very long combo loop helps with that versus the combo jumping the other jobs do. And I actually enjoy the current animations. They look nice with my character.

[Aco505]

1.Too many buttons
I think it's clear that it's about ease of use and gameplay. The drg has three(!) combos that need to be kept on the panel. It's absolutely inconvenient.
I would single out "unnecessary management" as a separate reason, that's how big the problem is.

Three combos just like MNK and SAM. DRG is one of the jobs that needs to bind the least amount of actions in the hotbar.

Reducing what you call "unnecessary management" will make the job even more simple than it already is. DRG's management lies in the oGCDs, not the GCDs. This is why it's different from the other melees.

2.Unimpressive effects
No, this is not a quibble nor bias, this is a fact based on comparison.

I love to play DRK, this is my second main and I would rebel if they decided to change it.

This is opinion. You could increase STD's potency to 700 or 800, sure, but then we start getting into the territory of "my STD didn't crit so my damage went down" that happens to other jobs with big hits. It's good if there's a job that has many attacks with medium potency, but I won't go against the idea of making STD or DFD a bit stronger to match their aesthetic feel.

You mention you love playing DRK, but you want DRG to be reworked? They have many similarities due to the fact that they're oGCD centered, even if they also have their differences, of course, so your post is a bit contradictory.

If we were to look into the short terms, DRG don't need a rework at all, the class feels perfect at this point.

But in the long term, it's a whole different story...

Most, if not all, jobs are in this situation in the long term, even SMN: its rotation is quite strict between demis so adding stuff that is not oGCD based would inevitably mean changing how it works.

DRG doesn't have a ressource to manage

Life of the Dragon windows, scales as you mention, and cooldown alignment. The fact that some of these are not in gauge form doesn't mean they're not managed. Knowing how to be good on DRG lies precisely in making sure everything is well aligned.

DRG seems to have quite a long 10 hit combo, taking up to 7 button in total just for that. Even samourai only got 6 through 3 different combo.

You say "only" for SAM, but it's literally a difference of one button. DRG hardly has issues with its melee combo button count when it's just one more key to be bound compared to SAM or MNK, especially when DRG has the least amount of actions to be bound in the hotbars.

DRG has it more crammed into OGCD, leading to double-weave relatively often, which is the real pain of the job.

Some jobs are oGCD-centered and can be hectic in their burst (DRG, DRK, GNB, etc.), and there's also plenty of jobs that don't work like this, which is good because it means there's variety.

Double-weaving often is just a characteristic of DRG and it's the only melee that works this way, so the statement of "it's a pain" can be dangerous because anyone could say that shuffling BLM's resources is a pain, yet it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the job. This kind of thing can lead to even more homogenization than what we already have.



There's often a confusion between button and action bloat. Button bloat is the amount of individual keybinds for each action, action bloat is related to actions per minute (apm).

What SE wants to do is reduce the apm during 2-min burst. Combining buttons in the hotbar doesn't address this or fix anything when the job doesn't have issues in this department.

I find all this recent talk that DRG needs to be reworked quite "interesting". It only came up after SE said that they wanted to do it. DRG never needed a rework, and less so now.

If the devs want to change/repurpose parts of the job in 7.0 as per the usual expansion thing, that's fine since if they take something, they'll (hopefully) give something else.

I'm not particularly happy about such a rework because the job's issues are not going to be solved by pressing less buttons every 2 minutes, which would just mean changing such bursts from hectic to skeletal (or as simple as 1-min ones).

Asking or saying that Life Surge should be removed is also curious when LS (and WWT) are the only abilities in the DRG's arsenal that are not to be used on hard cooldown. They're the only ones that require some thought behind their use.

Yes, in the end you can just plan it and it's going to be the same, but they have some deal of GCD/oGCD interaction that is interesting to have. Removing Life Surge would mean having to give something that'd have a similar role, such as a weaponskill with an individual cooldown like Sonic Break or Soul Slice.

Making Dragon Sight an upgrade to Lance Charge with a 15-20% damage increase on a 60s cooldown to remove an extra buffing button to use is fine. In fact, if they did that and turned Battle Litany into a 20s buff, DRG would be way comfier during 2-min bursts.

On the GCD department, they could make the 5th positional hit be upgraded to new versions in 7.0. They could also provide a resource depending on which one you use similar to MNK Nadi. Giving us the ability to choose which 4th and 5th GCD hit to use would also make positional management more flexible. Making LotD windows change GCDs in some way would make GCD/oGCD interaction more involved.

There's plenty of things to be said about DRG, but that it needs a huge rework or that it's bloated is not one of them, because you can literally say that for most, if not all, jobs.

[Darkpaw]

The only reason i can see why SE is even considering reworking dragoon for is that… they don’t know what else to do with it.

Playing it at 90 it feels the most “complete” of basically every other job. It doesn’t feel too bloated or busy but it is also at a point where adding more skills onto what already exists just doesnt feel good.

Aside from Black Mage, Dragoon has been the most stable job throughout the games history. It’s core rotation hasn’t ever really significantly been changed just added onto.

There’s only so much addition you can do before it just becomes… too much, and i think that’s where they are now. They know if they add more to dragoon from here it just crashes down and it will feel way too bloated and forced.

I wouldn’t be surprised to hear of a black mage rework before long either.

Personally i half expect no new jobs in 7.0 and just reworks of all the other jobs except sage and reaper, and maybe dancer and gnb.