Dawntrail Dragoon Feedback

[HikariKurosawa]

It lost 2 charges of spineshatter for a skill no dragoon would be caught dead using.
It also lost elusive jump early in the fight because now spear toss is part of the opener.

If you don't want to use an ability just because of how it looks that's fine, stick to casual content where you belong.

Enhanced piercing talon lasts 15 seconds, elusive jump has a 30 second cooldown. You're not going to be using elusive jump in the first 20 seconds of a boss fight, so it's a redundant complaint, just like the idea of you using the "meta" piercing talon opener.

[Reldhir]

Hey so, since we're getting the mobile version off FF14. Can we go back to a more intricate nuanced design philosophy on the main version? Casual peeps can go play the mobile version for story and single button mash :P (making a bunch of assumptions here, sorrynotsorry xD)

[AngelMercury]

It lost 2 charges of spineshatter for a skill no dragoon would be caught dead using.
It also lost elusive jump early in the fight because now spear toss is part of the opener.

That's what the 16 second countdown is for. Dragoons and Dancers together in extra long prepull nonsense these days x.x

[VerySadDRG]

Just saw job trailer of mobile version and what a surprise, it has good old Dragon Gauge up there. Isn't it lovely? We're a the point of time when MOBILE version has more job mechanics than the BASE game. Is everything alright in your job design team, Square? Because all those decisions look like they completely lost their sanity.

[CidHeiral]

I was about to the post the same thing. Here is the trailer for anyone curious.

The mobile version of DRG still has the Dragon Eye mechanic, Dragon Sight, and Spineshatter Dive.

I'd laugh if it wasn't so depressing. What a sad state of affairs for DRG in the main game.

[Carighan]

Hey so, since we're getting the mobile version off FF14. Can we go back to a more intricate nuanced design philosophy on the main version? Casual peeps can go play the mobile version for story and single button mash :P (making a bunch of assumptions here, sorrynotsorry xD)

I mean, they can always single-button-mash for the story in here, too?

[mallleable]

Some random thoughts of what I would like from a DRG rework/kinda restoration. First, put jumps on the GCD, but make them slightly faster than normal GCDs, like a 2 second recast. That way, They can interact with skill speed potentially. Three things happen after executing a jump attack. The first thing that Heaven's Thrust becomes a standalone GCD that becomes available after executing a jump attack -- like how it works in PVP. The second thing is that jumps proc Mirage Dive which is an oGCD version of the jump that was just executed which do not displace your character like normal jumps. The third thing is to bring back the Gaze mechanic, but but now any Mirage Dive from any jump strengthens the gaze. Stardiver is no longer part of Life of the Dragon, but can now be executed when the gaze is at full strength, has its own Mirage Dive however does not feed back into the gauge, and its Heaven's Thrust follow up is Ala Morn. Whenever Heaven's Thrust or Ala Morn is used under Life of The Dragon, it procs Nastrond.

[Kabooa]

I was about to the post the same thing. Here is the trailer for anyone curious.

The mobile version of DRG still has the Dragon Eye mechanic, Dragon Sight, and Spineshatter Dive.

I'd laugh if it wasn't so depressing. What a sad state of affairs for DRG in the main game.

Me watching the Dragoon use battle litany that has a 3 second GCD: Ew.

[Aco505]

Since there's a post on the ffxivdiscussion subreddit on DRG, I'll take this opportunity to drop the comment I made over there on the matter of the DT and 7.1 changes and the hopes for 8.0:

I think that DRG has two distinct identity themes: aesthetic and functional.

Aesthetic themes:
1a. Jumps
1b. Dragon powers
1c. Flashy spear animations

Funcional themes:
2a. Weaving oGCDs and animation locks
2b. Long looping GCD string
2c. Line attacks
2d. Gauge management
2e. Positionals

Most of the points above have been eroded in DT and 7.1 compared to EW, with the two main issues being the mind-numbing filler and having basically no gauge.

Spineshatter Dive was turned into a non-damaging gap closer, which the job needed, but is a dash instead of, let's say, a horizontal jump. Additionally, its cooldown remains at 60s as a carryover from SSD instead of being reduced to, at least, 40-45s.

Eye management to control the flow of Life of the Dragon windows has been removed, thus eliminating both an aesthetic and mechanical element: DRGs owe their existence to dragon eyes in the first place and gauge management is essentially non-existent now. Every burst window is automatic and there's no punishment or friction of any kind. A death will not really affect the burst besides the Weakness debuff unless it happens during the burst itself. Geirskogul has become a version of Inner Release.

The remaining gauge element, the scales, has not been expanded as a result either. They had the perfect opportunity of doing so in 7.1 by making Mirage Dive give one scale per use but instead chose to raise its potency. The job has gone from one that gained a ton from managing and stacking gauge to a job that barely gets anything from it.

Additionally, the DRG's overall kit feels too disconnected since most actions just deal damage directly and only Wyrmwind Thrust, Life Surge and GSK interact with other actions in any way.

The reduction of positional frequency from 50% to 30% and the changes to GSK's CD and LotD have made the job's filler quite hollow now. If GSK's CD had remained at 30s with a 20s LotD, things would've been way different in this regard. Instead, the job has been ninjafied and all that matters are the bursts, with the key difference being that DRG has mostly become a 1-minute job, which is a positive trait in a vacuum since we need more varied damage profiles and not just 2-minute-focused ones.

However, with 7.1 came a reduction of oGCDs by eliminating 2 Nastrond charges. While it's true that fitting actions such as True North in 2-minute bursts was difficult, they could've simply chosen to provide a True North effect during Battle Litany. My preferred choice would have been turning Life Surge into a GCD weaponskill with two charges and a similar functionality of guaranteed (direct) crit with heal return and perhaps providing a scale for some interaction. Ideally, such a GCD would have something like a 20s CD so that it's not solely saved for bursts. This might've helped with positionals, too, by introducing a floating non-positional GCD, as well as freeing two oGCD slots in the process.

The NAS change has several additional negative effects. 1-minute bursts and any burst below level 100 become too empty, especially at 70. You will be done with your oGCDs in 10s or less and then simply use normal GCDs for the rest of the duration. NAS having only one charge also hurts DRG's AoE and cleaving capabilities because they did not think of removing or reducing its falloff as compensation. Moreover, raising the potency of NAS and Starcross so much makes the job much more crit-reliant, and moves away from its historical profile of dealing damage through multiple lower potency actions. As an aside, I still don't understand why they don't switch the potencies of STC and Stardiver considering the latter is a single weave.

Drakesbane was also a missed opportunity. They could've made Fang and Claw and Wheeling Thrust each change to a different new GCD only on 5th position. By allowing the use of them in either order after Chaotic Spring/Heavens' Thrust, they could've introduced some kind of gauge that required a specific use (in perhaps a specific order) of those two new positional GCDs, as well as helping with positional freedom.

Finally, there's other aesthetic concerns that I have. Lance Charge's vfx and sfx should be replaced by Dragon Sight's for better thematic flavor; the latter could simply become an upgrade at higher levels. The blue Blood of the Dragon aura is returned in DT but only from levels 60 to 69 and so it'd be great to have it at max level in some shape or form. Rise of the Dragon being a Nidhogg head summon is a bit random and yet another action inspired by him. More actions should reference the other great wyrms we've met, particularly Hraesvelgr.

I could keep going on and on about DRG but I don't want this post to be longer than it already is. My hope for 8.0 is that they preserve and improve on what makes DRG, DRG, and to try and fix other issues such as the way SkS scales with the job by, for instance, making it affect the CD of some oGCDs such as High Jump or have it increase oGCD damage in a similar way to DoTs. Ideally, we'll get more jumps, more weaving, a better filler and, most importantly, actual gauge management and proper interaction within the job's kit.

[Carighan]

Hrm, I'll be honest Aco, I feel "this job has complex oGCD weaving" is a kinda of "fake difficulty". oGCD weaving is a symptom of an underlying battle system issue (namely the inability to provide a fast or at least complex GCD-based combat system due to server and tick limitations), and should be resolved at that level.

Just "stuffing" jobs with oGCDs to squeeze in just pretends for something as simply as press-left-combo-5-times-press-right-combo-5-times (which Dragoon IS) is more than that. And since oGCDs are a wash for a DPS job (they deal damage), their usage is entirely automated and "rote", to the point where the only check is whether you as a player can mechanically, physically do this specific sequence for 8-14 minutes without drifting from it and - usually much tougher with melee DPS jobs - without falling asleep.

Now of course, fixing this without being able to touch the underlying server/tick issue is... tricky. But at the very least variable CDs, procs and non-linear sequencing can be brought in to break up the staticky nature of combat flow, which in turn would enable many tools in many jobs kits to actually be situationally relevant as you cannot know before the fight even starts when to press which gapcloser and when not to.

With DRG in particular, I'd retool the job around jumping and extremely high potency attacks that fire slowly and with significant airtime that makes you immune while you're airborne (even from friendly effects!). Drop virtually all oGCDs, instead have a proc-based interdependence where jumps disable certain GCDs, so you need to go through jumps in a sequence to use all fillers in between, but each filler gives semi-random CD reductions to the CD-based jumps. Can't plan out a battle sequence, need to react to what you got available for the "next set" between jumps.

Keeps a reactive style (as when fighting a huge enemy like a dragon), strong jump focus, for bonus lore enable two stackable dragon eyes that you can spend to highlight whihc buttons will enable next jump on your hotbar for pre-plannability. Eyes are gained from... unsure about that yet.

In any case I don't think I'd rework the current implementation, I see very little worth salvaging in it.