Dragoon, jump locks and "job identity"

[WantlessYoYo]

To give some context of myself i started to play and main DRG on i think was 6.1, shortly after the locks on all their jumps got removed, so i don't have context gameplay wise before it, hence the post

With this new LL has been said that DRG jump and high jump will no longer be stopped when binded, wich i saw this as, hey, cool, but interestingly enough saw as well a lot of, complaints?

Had already seen some pov from a very few content creators on how the removal of jump lock animations took the "fun" out of Dragoon, how knowing when to use your jumps was what made it "challenging" and how this change and now even more the binded one keeps "ruining it"
As i said before, i lack the context of DRG gameplay pre jump lock removal, so i would like to know either from more experienced players what's the thought on this and to try to comprehend this point of view, since to me these are but QOL changes that just improves the experience but again, never got to play locked animation DRG.

Have understood a similar change was made for NIN at the beginning of EW where Ryujin was as well locked when binding so they got another version of it to compensate

[Aco505]

This new change to High Jump is mostly to avoid situations in fights like the first EW trial or Mount Ordeals where you are forced to be bound for several seconds. In such cases, you cannot use any of your jumps and usually we can work around that but you cannot use HJ either and that's the ability we need to be pressing on CD so that we can keep the LotD windows going.

People in the JP forums were complaining about this when Mount Ordeals was released and is a common topic any time a long bind shows up. It's a good change because we won't be affected so negatively by that specific condition. Other jobs don't suffer that much from that as we do.

As for the animation lock reduction, it was a needed change because DRG is a job with a lot of double weaves with several of them being jumps that have a longer animation lock. People with very low ping could already weave a jump oGCD with a normal one before the reduction so the change made the playing field even.

Now, some believe that jumps feel "less heavy" that way, but the design of EW DRG requires machine-gunning double weaves for like 8 GCDs in a row during 120s bursts (which personally I think is one of the reasons that it's the best it's ever been), with the exception of Stardiver. And speaking of STD, I'd rather it didn't have its animation lock reduced but got a potency boost to compensate for it always being a single weave.

[Ransu]

Its a good change that content creators are making a pointless stink about for the clickbait.

[Valence]

This is an unavoidable change since the changes they're adding server side necessitate the locks from bind to be nullified. Since the jumps will not move the position of the character anymore (just only visually), then a bind will technically not apply or prevent anything since for the server there is nothing moving. Obviously, they could also adjust the bind effect so that it disables certain abilities no matter what, but they're not doing it. That's for the technical aspect.

Personally I get both sides of the argument anyway. Maybe it's not fun to not be able to execute jumps when something binds you, but was it also fun or unfun when a mechanic asked you to disconnect from the boss as a melee on older hitboxes? Was it fun or unfun when a boss got away mid burst and you had to adjust the rotation? Because in essence it always boils down to this: some people don't find it fun to adjust around boss mechanics for certain things, while others think it's skill play.

( but ultimately i'm always weary of such arguments in favor of making things easier, because it's what has lead the game so far to make gigantic hitboxes, to remove party resource support, to remove enmity control, to remove kaiten, to remove... a lot of things, all in the sake of "it's annoying" )

[Aco505]

Maybe it's not fun to not be able to execute jumps when something binds you, but was it also fun or unfun when a mechanic asked you to disconnect from the boss as a melee on older hitboxes? Was it fun or unfun when a boss got away mid burst and you had to adjust the rotation? Because in essence it always boils down to this: some people don't find it fun to adjust around boss mechanics for certain things, while others think it's skill play.

( but ultimately i'm always weary of such arguments in favor of making things easier, because it's what has lead the game so far to make gigantic hitboxes, to remove party resource support, to remove enmity control, to remove kaiten, to remove... a lot of things, all in the sake of "it's annoying" )

I don't believe this is similar to the hitbox size or the melee uptime situation. No other job is crippled as much as DRG when bound for so long. Our main gauge generator and five of our oGCD presses are stopped completely.

Imagine if a certain mechanic arbitrarily silenced the entire raid for several seconds, thus forcing casters to do nothing; or if a boss silenced tanks, Paladins would then be affected just because they are the only ones actively using spells in their single target rotations.

In the fights where binds happened, we could adapt but sometimes you cannot adjust everything. In Mount Ordeals, even if you played perfectly your HJ couldn't be used for several seconds because of the specific moments when you were bound, whereas you could keep the rest of the rotation aligned.

It's a situation in which you had no control even if you tried your best to adapt to it. Binds will still prevent you from using the other four jumps, it's mostly so that the gauge generation is not interrupted.

That said, I'm a bit wary about it. I still want my character to do the HJ and not some kind of projection or shade and I still want it to be able to cancel knockbacks (something that you can use on purpose like once every 100 duties but hey). Basically, I hope everything's exactly the same but that the position of the character is not moved for the server. We'll see but I fear I will be disappointed.

[Valence]

No other job is crippled as much as BLM/RDM on ultra mobile fights like Barbariccia. No other job is crippled as much as a lot of melees when you get bad patterns on Red Girl (almost always) and you have to stay disconnected for eons. I don't even remember why in P5S I had to delay my 2min burst because some jobs couldn't handle the disconnect there so I had to overcap gauge to make them happy... The list goes on and on. It's what makes the spice of adjusting to fights and not just have dummy fights (don't get me wrong I love uninterrupted dummy fights as well, they're chill).

What you're unhappy about is not the job toolkit, it's the encounter design not taking this into account. Several seconds is nothing. I am not sure if it is the more modern players that feel like this or more of a general thing, but I can't say I can relate with that concern. This is exactly what has lead the game into stuff like 2min burst patterns because some jobs were screwed with burst alignment for certain fights, while some other jobs had problems with other fights.

Several seconds is nothing.

Now though, as I said I can see both sides of such arguments even though I don't agree with this specific one on DRG uptime, and if you remove something specific for a job for a valid reason, I expect to add something else in counterpart. And that's what worries me because every time SE removes something and deletes it from the face of earth, we get nothing new or as intricate in return.

[Aco505]

No other job is crippled as much as BLM/RDM on ultra mobile fights like Barbariccia.

Those jobs are not prevented from attacking or using their kit, they just have to learn how to handle their resources for the specific encounter.

You misunderstand me if you think I only want full uptime dummy fights, I don't. I personally prefer fights with downtime and funny timers like E11S, P3S, P5S, P8-2S or ultimates.

However, one obvious thing is that the devs don't have a record of testing fights as DRG, and it shows. The biggest offender was E6S and even then we could adjust to it without trouble. I posted several things the job could get in another thread and allowing HJ to be used while bound was not one of them.

I personally don't care that much but I welcome the change since we have to use HJ on hard CD because that's how the job works: everything must be used on strict cooldown. If a mechanic forces a delay, then this delay cannot affect GSK and HJ: you still press them and enter LotD but you try buffing the 2nd and 3rd NAS instead, that is, you buff later in the window. In fact, in a fight like P5S we even have to do an unbuffed LotD window unless buffs are delayed in the opener and all of it is done just so that GSK and HJ are kept on cooldown.

Several seconds is nothing. I am not sure if it is the more modern players that feel like this or more of a general thing, but I can't say I can relate with that concern. This is exactly what has lead the game into stuff like 2min burst patterns because some jobs were screwed with burst alignment for certain fights, while some other jobs had problems with other fights.

Several seconds can mean the difference to get an extra eye for DRG or not, which in turn can mean an extra LotD window. That's 1700 oGCD potency so "nothing" is not a word I'd use for this case in particular. Ultimates are filled with 31-32s duration uptime phases and getting that second HJ + MD there is huge for us.

Also, complaints about the 2-min meta make no sense to me. Which jobs were the strongest in ShB? Precisely those whose burst happened every 120s: DNC, NIN, SAM... So the solution was either to remove most buffs or have them be on the same timer. At some point in the future, we'll get the former I'm sure.

[Valence]

Those jobs are not prevented from attacking or using their kit, they just have to learn how to handle their resources for the specific encounter. However, one obvious thing is that the devs don't have a record of testing fights as DRG, and it shows. The biggest offender was E6S and even then we could adjust to it without trouble. I posted several things the job could get in another thread and allowing HJ to be used while bound was not one of them.

Fair enough, that was probably not a great example. But the point was that if a fight asks you more mobility than you have resources for it, you're essentially unable to perform, whether you say that "but you can still press the button" or not. But that's what I meant with the encounter design problem above: devs tend to design encounters to make sure everybody can uptime (especially those days... a little much). If a fight doesn't in some places (for example 3rd boss of Puppet's Bunker with the towers, there is at best 2 of them at melee range out of what, 8?), then it falls into that category. If the bind here is such a problem, then it's a design problem before a rotational problem imo.

I personally don't care that much but I welcome the change since we have to use HJ on hard CD because that's how the job works: everything must be used on strict cooldown. If a mechanic forces a delay, then this delay cannot affect GSK and HJ: you still press them and enter LotD but you try buffing the 2nd and 3rd NAS instead, that is, you buff later in the window. In fact, in a fight like P5S we even have to do an unbuffed LotD window unless buffs are delayed in the opener and all of it is done just so that GSK and HJ are kept on cooldown.

Several seconds can mean the difference to get an extra eye for DRG or not, which in turn can mean an extra LotD window. That's 1700 oGCD potency so "nothing" is not a word I'd use for this case in particular. Ultimates are filled with 31-32s duration uptime phases and getting that second HJ + MD there is huge for us.

I don't understand that reasoning. DRG is not the only job having to face that kind of clockwork problem when something gets delayed. I'm not gonna enumerate every job falling into this, but MCH for instance, if you drift a tool, especially Anchor, you're misaligning everything. You're losing potency by potentially missing a cast of said tool before the end (much more likely than a LotD window due to the frequency of the tool), and you potentially will have to drift it further or have to delay or lower your burst potency.

This is just an example.

This is why I don't understand the reasoning. Job rotations all have constraints that players have to play around. Sometimes a fight encounter messes up with those, and that's fine in my view. It generates skill play and team coordination. It becomes a problem in my opinion when a job is way too rigid for its own sanity, which has happened in the past with SB MCH for instance, but I guess I was one of the weirdos that loved the clockwork you have to keep up else the whole house of cards tumbled down. And I really do not think that DRG is not flexible with LotD windows, there is some tech and wiggle room to play around. Does this specific fight messes too much with it? Maybe, I haven't played DRG on it. But that's on encounter design.

Now as I said I see both sides of the argument, and having it tied to bound conditions is a little... weird or quirky in terms of how does this make sense design wise. That I could totally see it being debated. I'm definitely not going to die over that hill because that's... literally... one fight.

Also, complaints about the 2-min meta make no sense to me. Which jobs were the strongest in ShB? Precisely those whose burst happened every 120s: DNC, NIN, SAM... So the solution was either to remove most buffs or have them be on the same timer. At some point in the future, we'll get the former I'm sure.

I'm neutral on those. As long as I have team coordination of sorts for DPS jobs to be had I'm fine, and even then it's not my main concern about it. It's more about the loss of 60s internal rotation bursts that really annoys me, especially on jobs that have been made resident sleepers to play already on top of it.

Also I do believe that if 2min raid buff jobs are too powerful in the meta, then it only makes sense to buff the buffs of the others to balance it out. There is plenty of solutions instead of the lazy "delete everything without bringing new things in counterpart.

[Aco505]

I don't understand that reasoning. DRG is not the only job having to face that kind of clockwork problem when something gets delayed. I'm not gonna enumerate every job falling into this, but MCH for instance, if you drift a tool, especially Anchor, you're misaligning everything.

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.

This situation is less annoying for, let's say Primal Rend, because you can choose to use it earlier or later after pressing IR, but you can still press the latter without issue.

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.

It's like at the beginning of EW when NIN raijus were all gap closers that had to be used one after the other, NINs could do literally nothing during the binds of EX1. That was frustrating and bad design, even if (I guess) delaying in this case could have fixed it.

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.

[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.