Just for fun: Imagining the Dragoon re-rework

[Reldhir]

Totally just for fun what if take on the Dragoon rework/changes in Dawntrail!

The philosophy with this imagined rework is just to reuse most of the stuff we already have or had in the past as much as possible!

Also, I thought about adjusting the potencies to match some of the changes but ultimately decided it was too boring to math the balance out on an imaginary for-fun rework! Please, just squint a little and pretend some math genius is gonna come through and math up the numbers so they make sense!

So, without further ado,

Getting rid of two buffs that do the same thing at the same time.

• Merge the buffs from Geirskogul and Lance Charge into a New(old) ability! Blood of the Dragon!
  Our personal buff would gain upgrades as we level up!
  
  
• Blood/Life of the Dragon also grants nullification of directional requirements on weapon skills over its duration. This will allow Dragoon burst phases to keep its signature oGCD button mash without having to worry about leaving room for true north. More on positionals later.
  
  
  
• With Geirskogul stripped of its buffs, it gets relegated to an earlier version of the current Nastrond! Basically, Geirskogul is the level 60-79 version of Nastrond!
  
  

We're bringing sexy(eyes) back

• Bring back the eyes! With Life of the Dragon being all red and Nidhogg themed, I thought it would be nice to have Hraesvelgr themed stuff since we also come into contact with his eye in the ff14 lore!
  
  The way eyes would come back is through... Mirage dive! (again)
  
  
• High Jump is reduced to a 20s cd and grants access to Mirage dive as normal. However, each use of mirage dive now grants 1 stack of "Light Wyrm's Gaze" (I forget what Hraesvelgr's title is, so I just went with Light Wyrm) Gaining 3 stacks grants access to Starcross! The Jump looks more light-y so I thought it would be nice to attribute it to the light-wyrm! Yay eyes are back!
  
  This also means untethering Starcross from Stardiver! They still get used in the same window, but this arrangement just brings back a little more meaning to High jump and Mirage dive as currently they seem a bit floaty and almost vestigial.
  
  
• Also, we are getting rid of that silly 3 yalm nonsense on Starcross and making it a fully-fledged Jump ability, gap-closer and all. It's basically another Stardiver(Including only being able to single-weave it), only its Hraesvelgr-y.
  
  

Putting the Nidhogg-y things together

• Stardiver gets a replacement follow up skill in the form of Rise of the Dragon!
  
  I and everyone else who watched the trailers thought Rise of the Dragon was a follow up to Stardiver, it fits thematically so I'm doing it here! Sorry Dragonfire dive! You're back to being a loner~
  Dive from the sky with nidhoggygoodness before the great wyrm himself erupts from the ground. Good stuff.
  
  

Positionals!

• We're bringing the positional requirement on the 5th GCD back!
  
  
• We will have 2 versions of the new ender Drakesbane and... Drakesruin! They will function the same way as the buffed Wheeling Thrust/Fang and Claw did previously but now rather than a potency gain, it will grant 1 charge of Firstminds' Focus for correctly landing the positional!
  
  
• That means double the rate of Wyrmwinds Thrust and just having to use it within 10 seconds to prevent overcapping.
  
  
  
  Reintroducing positional requirements on the 5th GCD as well as the increased rate of High Jump, Mirage Dive and Wyrmwind's Thrust should keep the non-burst portion of the rotation sufficiently busy while not being overwhelming. In addition to the nullification of positional requirements during the burst windows, these changes are intended to pull some of the stress away from the burst and back into the current lulls in the rotation!

In summary, we should have 1 more button to push during our 1min burst and 1 less button to press during our 2min (I think). We'll have a few more buttons to push and positionals to manage outside of burst but that should keep things interesting and since we wont need to use True north during bursts, we can use them when we're forced away from a positional to maintain Firstminds' Focus uptime! I just tried to take what we currently have and rearrange it a little so there's a little more cohesion

The concept of Nidhogg and Hraesvelgr is something that could be expanded on in the future maybe at 110 we could go into full on Firstbrood mode and we get access to ala morns and ahk afars and get to give the DSR treatment to random foes but thats for another time

[Reldhir]

Okay so I think that first part was pretty conservative! But here's expanded stuff "for another time"

So, I've been playing dragoon since the beginning of this game, I've played every iteration of dragoon that this game has put out. Through it all a few themes have really stuck out to me as really "Dragoon"

Jumps
Positionals
oGCD faceroll
Ramping damage
Self-inflicted murder

What if we had a burst phase that celebrates all these things!?

Imagine, We use Stardiver, granting us a fragment of Nidhogs wrath. We use Starcross, granting us a fragment of Hraevelgr's Grace. We begin to recite our Battle Litany... Nay we are not knights of Ishgard doing battle against dragonkind! We are suffused with the power of two great Wyrms! We cry out! A Final Chorus!

Final Chorus (upgrade to litany):

Increases crit rate of self and nearby party members by 10%
Duration: 20s

Enters state of Resentment inflicting bleed to self and channeling Ahk Afah
Duration: 10s

Ahk Afah: Deals an attack to target and all enemies nearby it for a potency of 500.

While in Resentment,
Grants access to Dive from Grace and Morn Afah

Any charges of Nastrond Ready are converted into Solemn Vow

Morn Afah (Ability): Deals an attack to target and all enemies nearby it for a potency of 360 for the first enemy and 50% less for remaining enemies.
Additional Effect: Recovers own HP. Cure potency: 200
Can only be executed with Solemn Vow

Dive from Grace(Weaponskill): Delivers a jumping attack with a potency of 440
Additional effect: Grants Power Surge

A unique UI element in the form of a shifting target cone will appear around an enemy targeted while using Final Chorus. This target cone will reposition itself after each use of Dive from Grace. Landing Dive from Grace while in this target cone grants 1 stack of Mortal Vow. Additionally absorbs a portion of the damage dealt as HP.

Mortal Vow: Increases Ahk Afah by 200 potency.



Once the 10s is up, Mortal vow is tallied and Akh Afah is dealt, we then return to our life of the dragon state, with the remaining 10 or so seconds and whatever oGCDs we still haven't spent to use up.

[BabyYoda]

I would love to add invisibility frames on jumps while in Blood of the Dragon

I would love to see that 5 GCD combo buttons to be reduced from 5 buttons to 3 buttons

other than that I feel like your rework isn't adding much new things but it add a quality of life merging 2 buffs and Positionals

[Reldhir]

other than that I feel like your rework isn't adding much new things but it add a quality of life merging 2 buffs and Positionals

Yeah it's not a huge departure from what we currently have but I think it cleans up some of the thematic inconsistencies in our kit and also creates a little breathing room in the burst phase without reducing the dopamine hit of facerolling every button we have. Its also giving us a little more minigame type things to do during our non burst windows.

Keeping uptime on jump is important again since its every 20s and it feeds starcross. Unlike in the past where it feeds a window that lasts whopping 30s. Its only feeding a single jump so drift is much more lenient here and shouldnt bring about the same levels of feelsbad for drifting eyes.

Likewise bringing back the rear to flank or flank to rear end of the gcd rotation means reintroducing a little more thinking back into the non burst portion of the rotation. To compensate the players it was originally removed for, burst windows now have a built in postional null.

Because the feed back for landing your positional is now a token you can collect to feed wyrmwind as opposed to an invisible potency increase. It should reward that "have a cookie" part of our brains for playing well. Should feel nicer.

Overall it should be close enough to what we currently have that players with a more casual approach to playing dragoon shouldnt find it to be more difficult or punishing than the job currently is all while subtly reorganising pressure points and reintroducing tiny reward structures for players who like to get a little more involved with their rotation and its execution~

I would love to add invisibility frames on jumps while in Blood of the Dragon

I would love to see that 5 GCD combo buttons to be reduced from 5 buttons to 3 buttons

I would also personally love i-frames, it would be so fun to cheese the heck out of fights xD but it would really be abused by the player base :P I think given how far into the game we've gotten, how fights are designed. Having i-frames would break the game. I can already picture several fights where I would cheese this mechanic. Anything that requires you to bait an attack at close range id just do it as a dragoon then jump out of the damage xD there are several tank busters that behave this way. Enmity based tank busters? Just shirk the dragoon and have them jump the damage away. Don't get me wrong, I'd absolutely love this as a dragoon main, but I cant deny how incredibly OP this would be. We would be the premier off tank in all fights that dont require a tank swap for autos. It would be hillarious xD

As for reducing the gcd count from "5" to 3 we would actually be tanks at this point xD

Still, a fun thought perhaps :P

[BabyYoda]

I would also personally love i-frames, it would be so fun to cheese the heck out of fights xD but it would really be abused by the player base :P I think given how far into the game we've gotten, how fights are designed. Having i-frames would break the game. I can already picture several fights where I would cheese this mechanic. Anything that requires you to bait an attack at close range id just do it as a dragoon then jump out of the damage xD there are several tank busters that behave this way. Enmity based tank busters? Just shirk the dragoon and have them jump the damage away. Don't get me wrong, I'd absolutely love this as a dragoon main, but I cant deny how incredibly OP this would be. We would be the premier off tank in all fights that dont require a tank swap for autos. It would be hillarious xD

As for reducing the gcd count from "5" to 3 we would actually be tanks at this point xD

Still, a fun thought perhaps :P

tanks have 3 skills 3 buttons but what I mean is DRG would keep their 5GCD combo but reduce the buttons need to press it.. like for example instead of pressing: 1 2 3 4 5 or 1 6 7 8 9 reduce it to 3 buttons with same actions like: 1 2 3 2 3 or 1 3 2 3 2.. sorry If I didn't clear my point correctly.

I-frame would be fun to see but will it break the game? I see warriors solo content already.. dancer have 3 dashes.. but it could really break the game if we think about it, it is cool to see as a fantasy standpoint xD.

"Yeah it's not a huge departure from what we currently have but I think it cleans up some of the thematic inconsistencies in our kit and also creates a little breathing room in the burst phase without reducing the dopamine hit of facerolling every button we have. Its also giving us a little more minigame type things to do during our non burst windows.

Keeping uptime on jump is important again since its every 20s and it feeds starcross. Unlike in the past where it feeds a window that lasts whopping 30s. Its only feeding a single jump so drift is much more lenient here and shouldnt bring about the same levels of feelsbad for drifting eyes.

Likewise bringing back the rear to flank or flank to rear end of the gcd rotation means reintroducing a little more thinking back into the non burst portion of the rotation. To compensate the players it was originally removed for, burst windows now have a built in postional null.

Because the feed back for landing your positional is now a token you can collect to feed wyrmwind as opposed to an invisible potency increase. It should reward that "have a cookie" part of our brains for playing well. Should feel nicer.

Overall it should be close enough to what we currently have that players with a more casual approach to playing dragoon shouldnt find it to be more difficult or punishing than the job currently is all while subtly reorganising pressure points and reintroducing tiny reward structures for players who like to get a little more involved with their rotation and its execution~
"

also DRG gauge is also non existing at this point I remember when we care about Mirage Dive to keep Eye of the dragon up all time, I know now it is simple but I prefer more job knowing knowledge than simplifying it

I remember in ShB we positional was so important to the job potency + animation.. it could be also better to see that animation as a cookie not only potency..

I also hate the point where we HAVE 2 min burst button blowing.. I believe they did this because keeping bursts easier to other jobs and align DRG with these burst jobs.. I hate it honestly I wish we had that burst windows more variant.

[Carighan]

There's one part I don't get: Why Drakesbane + Drakesruin? Isn't that mechanically just the same as before, when WT and F&C succeeded one another?

Because I agree, that was better, but there's no need to have two extra abilities instead of just returning to that if we want those rear->flank and flank->rear switches in the combo. I remember in the first take you even only got the Raiden's Thrust proc (and hence Firstmind's Focus) if you hit the positionals? That was quickly changed but I do roughly remember that?

If we want fancier animations, I'd rather have the buff show in some way:

* You hit WT (or F&C). The button advances to the opposite ability (please also bring in autocombos Square, just make people able to opt out if they don't like it, button bloat is so real nowadays...).
* You gain a buff that visually shows a single of the Wyrmwind Thrust dragons circling you. The direction of the button alternation determines which color.
* On correctly hitting the positional of the subsequent ability (so F&C if the first was WT and vice versa), the dragon flies forward through the enemy, dealing extra damage and granting the effect that modifies True Thrust to Raiden's Thrust.
* On executing Raiden's Thrust +1 Firstminds' Focus is gained, as now.

This way we get fancier animations, but have no need for even more ability buttons, and also have immediate positional-hit feedback, while keeping the existing scription mechanics for Wyrmwind Thrust charges.

[Reldhir]

Yeah you're right about the fang and claw wheeling thing. I was on the fence about reverting it but then decided mmm its an imaginary rework, may as well throw in all the sprinkles and make it a new skill xD

Also yosh, once upon a time the raiden thrust proc was dependant on getting the 5th gcd positional. But that was hugely punshing because you lost the raiden buff to true thrust as well as the potency bonus from fang and claw/wheeling thrust. I thought about reintroducing it to that extent but ultimately went with a static potency and raiden proc, with only the firstmind focus being positional dependant

...though now that you raise the point, also making raiden proc based on the successful positional might make for a better contrast between burst and non burst windows hmmmmmm

Also also, I personally like seperate buttons for gcds but honestly wouldnt mind if peeps who wanted it were given the option like it being a toggleable option. ( I feel like they've already kinda done it with viper though. Maybe testing the waters?)

Lastly, yeah im all for animation based indicators for progression of abilities xD anything to take our eyes away from the hotbar when doing our rotations

[Aco505]

Positionals cannot be punishing without tools to deal with them, especially on a job like DRG who has zero besides TN. Every other melee can introduce non-positional GCDs, particularly in burst, to delay or control them but not DRG.

Missing a RT would mean losing a huge amount of potency from a lost scale, too, so in a situation in which DRG can hit them all, will it mean the job will be rewarded or will the damage be the same as any other melee?

Positionals being a bigger loss (e. g. from 40 to 80 for DRG) is definitely a point to consider but RT cannot go back to the way it worked in ShB if it's going to give scales because that would be like returning to ARR levels of punishment for something that you do all the time.

[Carighan]

Positionals cannot be punishing without tools to deal with them, especially on a job like DRG who has zero besides TN.

But they're not. In fact, a giant issue with current melee job design is that positionals have largely lost all mechanical and design value. On top of having double-charge TN to trivialize whatever else remains. What you're saying just implies that the reworks should really not stop at Dragoon.

You are supposed to hit your positionals. That's the deal as melee DPS. Don't want to bother with them, don't play melee. Or we could even go a step further and play with it: Some jobs could be more positional-focused (and get other leeway, say we could give Dragoon a passive longer melee reach given the polearm, hence keeping uptime is easier?), some could be less so or have some other quirky interaction (I'd love a melee job that has face positonals).

[Aco505]

But they're not. In fact, a giant issue with current melee job design is that positionals have largely lost all mechanical and design value. On top of having double-charge TN to trivialize whatever else remains. What you're saying just implies that the reworks should really not stop at Dragoon.

I've been playing DRG in high end content for several years now and I consistently hit the vast majority if not all of my positionals in every single duty I do, because I like positionals and playing for perfection.

Saying that the existence of TN trivializes positionals is the same old song that many non-melee mains use to justify the removal of positionals. It's as silly as saying that cast times are irrelevant because Swiftcast exists.

A DRG missing a RT because of a missed positional, like in ShB, would lose 350+ potency from a failed 5th hit, which happens once every 12.5 seconds at 2.5. That is almost as much of a loss as the average potency of a DRG's GCD (~400 to be precise).

No other job would be punished this much and so often without some tools to deal with them. Especially a job like DRG that doesn't get strong cooldown-based ranged attacks compared to literally every other melee. This shouldn't be taken as a call for homogenization, however, but we have to be clear with what we have.

If you actually played DRG in EW (or now but the frequency is lower in DT), you would know that you cannot control them because your GCD combo string happens all the time without interruption. So such a punishment would have to come with some leeway, as otherwise you would easily miss some unless your party was helping you hit those TN couldn't cover.

And while this issue wouldn't affect me much, it would those who play on PF or DF where, for instance, the tanks swap TBs on different positions around the boss, often rotating them for 45º degrees or more in the former or both having the stance on and thus having the boss facing back and forth in the latter.

If the loss of missing positionals was 10% or even more instead of the 2-3% that it is now, that'd be fine by me, but having it affect your resource generation for such high losses and punishment, as detailed above, would not be a good move.