Why DRG needs rework

[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.