Dragoon "Jump": Ranged or Melee?

[Skies]

The big thing it's that it's a 200 Potency attack on 40s GCD with a +50% damage bonus exclusive to it (making it 300% potency a third of the time, so average 230 potency). Sure it takes a while to return to start but you can trigger it right after an attack while you're busy with GCD anyway.

Your gap closer is Spineshatter Dive, which also stuns and has a longer cooldown, similar to how the monk's Shoulder Tackle works.

Jump is basically a big damage hit off of the GCD

[Zenmaku]

Jump isn't on the GCD. You can use it to cancel the animation of Full Thrust and you do the damage of both Full Thrust and Jump while losing very little time (about 0.5 seconds at level 50). This increases our DPS Tremendously.

Yes, it screws us over if we use it poorly, but if we use it in situations where there is not going to be an AOE attack or we are safe during it (such as during enemy AOEs that are not aiming at us) then it can greatly keep us #2 on the Aggro board.

For every Dragoon GCD move, there is an equivalent ability or attack you can use in between. Internal Release, Blood for Blood, Life Break, Power Surge, Leg Sweep, Any Jump, use your abilities in between your GCD attacks and you will maximize your DPS potential.

Note: The best attacks to use Jump after for the animation cancelling effect I've noticed to be Full thrust, and actually even better -> Chaos Thrust .