Dragoon, jump locks and "job identity"

[Valence]

The difference is that Air Anchor can be used as long as the boss is targetable, HJ cannot if you're bound. No other action in the game has the combination of being a gap closer and generating a crucial gauge like an eye, which only happens once every 30s.

If the drift lasts for 10s, but you couldn't physically get another HJ in anyway before the boss leaves, then the delay might be irrelevant. If the 10s drift causes you to lose a use, then it's a problem.

I'm talking about when the boss just goes away, which happens a lot more regularly than a boss that just binds you (it's such a unicorn...). DRG is a lot more flexible in that regard, but also suffers from it to various degrees. Battery is as much as a crucial gauge that is a total loss of potency not put under raid buffs when this happens, and it happens a lot when bosses are away. I'm comparing it to it because it boils down to the exact same thing: an encounter prevents you to use your stuff on cooldown, and it throws your rotation and potency under buffs in shambles.

There is no difference to my eyes in the end result, and this was just an example among many.

If the drift is due to player error, that's on the player. If the drift is because only this ability and this job are forced to drift it, then it's different.

Those drifts happen all the time when the fight is segmented enough and your anchor or whatever comes off cd right in the middle of the interruption. I'll definitely agree that jumps are especially obvious "in your face" because they're the base resource for the main mechanic of the job. Doesn't mean that other cases are less egregious on the end result though.

Like I do think one thing that feels a lot more important in my eyes for DRG is its inability to directly go into LotD for any kind of opener, which would negate a lot the harm from extended downtime. But again, that's a specificity of the job, so is it really bad, or good for skillplay? A lot of other jobs are also screwed pretty hard by downtime, and most of the time it's the rigid ones (long in-compressible recasts with no charges) with heavy gauge reliance.

tbh maybe what DRG would have needed is just 2 charges on HJ, but what do I know...

I suppose their logic is that it will be easier for them to create encounters with specific mechanics (binds, people being quite far from each other) without affecting specific jobs (DRG for the bind) or burst windows (buff range increase). I hope it lets them be more creative but only time will tell.

But I do agree that it was a bad move to change NIN's debuff from 60 to 120s for the sake of ... balance? AST is the last line of defense for 60s bursts, although I wonder for how long.

AST and tanks, and some melees kinda in between...

But yes I hope it allows them to do better encounters. The true reason this rubs me off the wrong way is because they keep demolishing jobs in favor of encounter design. I couldn't care less about encounter design, they're already good enough in my book. But on the other hand, job rotations and toolkits are something you use literally in every type of content all the time, and I care a lot more about those.



Edit: also, I want to reiterate that I'm sorry since I'm playing devil's advocate since the beginning. I don't feel strongly one way or another for this specific change, which is mega unicorn in my eyes.