Dragoons got squarewed

[NewMorning]

Job is pretty cool overall... like the dragon,etc but square must hate dragons because the design makes it to kill the dragon.

most monsters you fight has area effects or some kind of poisons... and you can only call you dragon every 2 hours?? wtf??

whats the point of being a dragoon if you cant have your dragon because it dies all the time and there is nothing you can do about it.

what are you gonna do disengage from the battle and leave your party to rest so your dragon can heal up? if its poisoned its doomed you cant cure it.

sigh... imo dragoons really got the shaft.

[CoalChamber]

I know it sucks :0( I love DRG and this just kinda adds to it a bit. If you think about it, it is more fun, even though we all complain about it. Because it makes us know our limits and think more strategically then most other jobs. We actually have to make plans before hand on what we will hunt and stuff. Kinda fun.

[fuz]

There's a lot of posts here about feelings of inferiority. While many are exaggerated for just smack talk, it is unfortuantly partly true on most accounts.

Most of it just stems from the wyvern dying too fast. If they'd just make it heal-able, i'm pretty sure it would fix the class.

Well actually I'd to be able to equip some kind of ranged weapon. I mean, not even pebbles can be thrown. Even mages can use them. :confused: Makes it a little hard to pull stuff as jump doesn't have the range you want, and berserk just adds too much hate. I guess those elvaan that created the class in Vana'diel are so uppity about being a stand-up-front melee fighter that they snobbed off the idea of ranged attacks... :mad:

[NewMorning]

Most of it just stems from the wyvern dying too fast. If they'd just make it heal-able, i'm pretty sure it would fix the class.

I just dont get it.. even a beastmaster can heal his beast with pet food but a dragoon cant heal his precious dragon? im baffled.

not to mention it should not be a 2 hour ability... people can try and defend this but that was a mistake... the 2 hour ability should make the dragon stronger like the beastmasters 2hour makes his beast stronger... and "call wyvern" should be like a 2minute cooldown.

there should definitely be a way to cure your dragon... it is insane to have no cure... about choosing the monsters and being strategic... you cant really.. you get into a group and there is only a few mobs you can fight and fights last a long time... with no way to cure your dragon it is basically doomed right from the start.

now i know why most of the dragoons i partied with as a warrior never had their dragon because it was always dead thats why,

It would be awesome if dragoons could command their dragons more... you could tell it not to attack you could tell it to stay and not have it fight this battle because you know this monster has a mean area attack.. how about plants that cure poison that the dragon could eat... i mean how much time was put into the dragoon.. one lunchbreak of ideas?

[Potsnu]

This is "only" an issue during the low lvls. As you progress in the game, your Wyvern will live for a long time. In the event that your Wyvern does die, your 2hr will be up and ready to be used again. This is assuming you were competent enough to Pre-summon a Wyvern before you logged, and not using chocobo to your exp destination. With AF BP, your wyvern heals double its normal rate when you Heal and its Natural regen will outpace any AE that your wyvern will incur.

However, I do agree that Drg's suffer with AF's. Our AF is a complete joke to get, but for the most part, nearly all pieces are useless and situational. There is NO other job in this game that has their AF dependent on their 2hr. What happens when your wyvern does die? 4 of the 5 pieces are completely useless.

[Weezingpipes]

I've seen the downside to lack of foresight in other games, and this is what I see Dragoon as. Truth be told, because of the wyvern at low levels it does make Dragoons fairly powerful then. Of course as monster power increases with player power, wyvern power stays relatively low, which translates into poor accuracy, damage output, and low survivability. The fact that breath attacks are random is pretty dumb when most of the time the wyvern uses the breath the monster is strongest against. Also AF armor, while it does improve the wyvern, it has 2 problems. 1) Dependance on the armor for your wyvern to be "ok" which creates itemization issues ie how do you improve on equipment with staple effects 2) it doesn't increase wyvern power substantially enough...but I suppose considering these 2, I don't really value my AF much anymore really. I can see items I would upgrade to easily if I could afford them, simply because the stats of AF armor aren't overly beneficial to the Dragoons' fighting ability. About the only piece I found which doesn't have a great comparison is the boots due to the increased jump damage, but considering that additional damage is INCREDIBLY random and due to the generally poor accuracy of jumps, I'd take anything with better stats to be honest.

What I saw is when they added the expansion, they added new jobs, gave em some neato abilities and just said go. I have to wonder if Ninja was intended to use gil as a method of tanking really, if that was the vision of the designers. Its just not Ninja like, but I guess Ninja have their own niche in the FF world. Dragoon get the wyvern which is fine and dandy, and useful melee utility such as high jump and super jump which remain consistantly useful, but the poor accuracy of jump and high jump makes their damage contribution mostly negligable, if anything jump is a way of occasionally get a free bit of TP. Samurai seems to be the only expansion job which is pretty ok across the board. Their lack of melee power is made up for in skillchain versatility and ability to start skillchains without delay if played properly. I know they have some problems (accuracy of Great Katanas seems mentioned a lot) but I haven't played a high level samurai to really know the problems. The lack of overall abilities/traits is a downside of course.

But back to the topic, Dragoons probably looked great on paper, just not so much in practice. Far too many penalties to be a 3rd rate damage dealer with terrible skillchain versatility. I think there is hope however, as with most games of this type there is almost always a weak job/class which will get tuned eventually so I expect when the disparity of the job is noticed by the developers, they may be improved upon. My own thoughts on how to improve Dragoons :

1) Make jumps 100% accurate. Given their low damage, there is no reason for them to have around a 40% miss rate and deal roughly the damage of a standard melee hit.

2) Improve lances SLIGHTLY. They are still worse than Scythes or Great Axes, basically on par with Great Swords which isn't so hot for a job overly dependant on 1 weapon type period.

3) Give wyvern the resists of the player - this was used in EQ for the Magician class in order to improve the survivability of their pets. I think this could help the wyverns survivability slightly, at least enough so they don't die after 2-4 fights. It is mostly worthless fighting 80% of monsters and all..

4) Give wyverns auto 3 hp regen at level 50, 4 at 60, 5 at 70. The bp isn't enough, period. Alternatively, let players be able to cast cure spells on wyverns, this would solve so many problems.

5) Remove wyvern as a 2 hour ability and make it 30 minute cycle time, or maybe slightly longer. I do think players should have to play sort of well with their wyverns in order to reap the benefits of them, but 2 hours is a bit excessive. Players should be expected to know how to position their wyverns from breath attacks which is reasonable. However, there isn't much you can do about Bubble Showers, Bombs, etc which take down a wyvern pretty fast. Replace it with a good 2 hour - whatever really, something that can be used situationally as a way of short duration burst damage. Doesn't have to be anything amazing or anything, just something that is situationally useful.

6) Make staves a more viable weapon, perhaps a A- ranking instead of B-. This is one large penalty Dragoons have is being only really good at 1 weapon, which translates into terrible skillchain versatility. Considering Staves have decent versatility in skillchains (basically they can compensate the chains Polearms simply cannot do) they should be a viable alternative. Also the damage penalty on Polearms vs undead is super harsh, drops you from being a 3rd rate damage dealer to dealing worse than Paladin damage vs undead. Its just dumb. By having a better ranking, staves could be used for more than just undead. Of course Staves in general aren't overly damaging so I'm unsure how a change like this would help much if staves weren't made better. If I recall the level 75 Staff is 57 damage - thats pathetic for a 2 hander considering its only slightly slower than the standard spear delay and standard spears are tons better by that level. It is kind of interesting, Dragoons are similar to rangers in their skillchain weakness and only being proficient with 1 weapon type, just a good Ranger surpasses Dragoon damage output by a massive margin - they aren't exactly paying much for their incredible damage output. While I think Rangers are perfectly balanced in their damage output considering no defensive ability to speak of, only good with bows/marksmanship, and high quality ammunition is very costly which otherwise their damage is nothing amazing without it, it doesn't strike me as fair Dragoons have very similar penalties with not even close to the output (not that expecting Dragoons to be as close to as damaging as rangers is reasonable either).

7) In the end, Dragoons should be outdamaging Dark Knights really. Dark Knights don't pay hardly any penalties, are proficient with a few different weapons which means good skillchain versatility, have good utility spells and a good spell line up in general, and have access to much better defensive equipment. While I'll grant you Dark Knights have no natural hate mitigation ability to speak of, there are ways to counter this without sacrificing much in terms of damage output, and a well played Dark Knight WILL outclass a Dragoon significantly. Given our lack of utility and weapon versatility, this is also fairly unbalanced. Even if you fight things that don't kill your wyvern fast with AE's, a good Dark Knight is still more damaging. Simply put the best played Dragoon won't touch the best played Dark Knight in damage output. I used to believe the hate removal of a Dragoon would make the difference on the whole, but it honestly doesn't if your tank is good enough.

I don't think Dragoons should be the absolute top damage dealer possible to be honest, but honestly in most parties I'm in, I find myself wishing I was a Dark Knight or even a Monk if only to add more. And to those who might say "well hell just play something else", I do enjoy the job. I do enjoy the style of play and I don't mind large penalties to a job, as long as they add something in their own right. I also think just resigning to playing another job doesn't send a message that there is a problem - it just allows the problem to perpetuate itself and be ignored.

[Weezingpipes]

This is "only" an issue during the low lvls. As you progress in the game, your Wyvern will live for a long time. In the event that your Wyvern does die, your 2hr will be up and ready to be used again. This is assuming you were competent enough to Pre-summon a Wyvern before you logged, and not using chocobo to your exp destination. With AF BP, your wyvern heals double its normal rate when you Heal and its Natural regen will outpace any AE that your wyvern will incur.

Untrue, sorry but it is. If anything wyvern survivability is a lot better at low levels than higher levels - they can actually take a round of combat and not lose half their hp basically. In addition most AE effects are pretty weak, and few monsters AE in comparison to high levels. Given the wyvern breath damage is tied to how high its HP is, as you get high levels, that matters a lot more in terms of how much a breath attack does. The AF bp also does not double the rate at which it regens, it basically gives it the effect of having the spell Regen on it, which means you don't need to heal to restore hp. Base regeneration is still the same, just gets the extra hp as though it had regen spell on it. By the time you get around leel 40 you learn what monsters aren't worth having a wyvern up for. Pre summoning it is pointless because it seriously will die within 2-4 fights at higher levels. Finally if you are healing it via healing yourself, you are only gimping yourself as a melee by depleting your tp, and considering it takes around 5 minutes for my wyvern to go from 20% hp to 100%, that isn't viable to an exp party.

[Potsnu]

I don't think ANY of the expansion classes were thoroughly thought out. Just be fortunate we're not nearly as bad as Sam's and Nin's.

[Klumps]

If I were playing DRG, I would cry in the group I was in tonight. Gustav tunnel - Goblins and flies were our targets...both of which tend to AE several times a fight (well, not the goblins so much once we got our stuns / foe lullabies / weapon bash / shield bash down). Our highest damage AE we took was where we made the goblin drop the bomb on his very first WS...381 damage. Wouldn't that essentially one-hit the wyvern? I mean, seriously, how is that poor thing supposed to survive?

[Sanguine]

You shouldn't be complaining about our AF. Go have a look at Bard's AF and see how god damn awful theirs is.

I agree on the Jumps however. The primary source of a DRG's damage should be the jumps, not just as an added TP source because that's not what this job *should* theoretically be about.

Masters of AIR. How much of my time do I spend in the air and doing damage from the air? About 0.01%. At lower levels, jumps were actually significant in their damage output. Too bad it didn't scale exponentially with the amount of HP a mob has nor did the hit rate improve. What a joke.

In regards to wyvern breath, even with AF3 helm, the breath attack can be partially resisted. Many times I have had it do only 80 damage out of 160 with max HP. Staple damage? I think not.

Here's what I propose with Jump and High Jump:
1.) Make Jump take 5 seconds to land from the time the Jump was initiated. Give Jump the modifier of a Sneak Attack that a Thief would have (slightly adjusted in line with Lance damage) and allow it to hit 100% of the time just like Sneak Attack. Also give it the same amount of hate that a Sneak Attack would normally generate. While in the air you are invulnerable to all attacks. Also give a set amount of TP back from this, such as 20% TP or 25% TP.

2.) Make High Jump the same except that it takes 10 seconds to land from the time it was initiated. Damage would be less than that of a Jump and perhaps would have some special random property such as Lower Defense or Blindness. Leave the partial hate removal as it is.

3.) Super Jump should take you away from battle for longer than it does now, probably about 5-10 seconds. It should not do any damage.

So you say, since you're in the air so much, you're not going to be able to get much TP at all. Well, to give added value to your wyvern, every hit the wyvern gets should be added your TP around the same amount as a dagger hit. Of course, such heavy reliance on your wyvern could mean trouble if it happens to fall. As with many other posters, I think it would be beneficial to allow Call Wyvern to be an ability rather than a 2 hour ability. And for the 2 hour ability, I don't think that making the wyvern super buffed up for 30 seconds would be too imbalancing. Insert any fancy graphic changes and also an astral flow type power attack and it will be extremely favorable.

So what would this all mean? You'd be a burst damage dealer. Half the fight you'll be in the air, but when you land, you'll have enough TP to throw out a Penta, Renkei or whatever but your primary source of damage would be your Jump.

Not sure just how well this could work out but it would rework the whole of the Dragoon fight system from "Pleh another Melee" to something unique.

[Carbon]

I see nothing wrong with the wyvern.

So far I've only had real problems with two mob types as far as keeping the wyvern alive is concerned: goblin (bombs) and undead (black cloud).

I agree it sucks how dragoon damage output gets reduced to that of a paladin, if not worse, against skeletons. Especially since I keep hearing undead are the prime leveling mob at 65+.

I also agree with the jumps. The normal jump is pretty much just an extra attack, and while the high jump is useful for shedding hate, I kinda wish either of them was more "unique".

After all, AFAIK, jumps (not the wyvern) is the signature move of dragoons in past FFs.

[fuz]

imo i think the expansion jobs are all fine, except dragoon.

Samurai is just another decent meleer, who is mostly meant to be subbed when damage is a top priority at high levels. Still can be a force all its own as a main class.

Ninja seems wierd to a lot of people, but really, there is an excess of damage dealing classes already so s-e probably looked at ninja to see what else they could do with it. Now instead of being the dual wielding assasins of death, they are basically a replacement tank and part rdm for those that have the gil to be one. (Keep in mind these jobs are for the people that have been playing already for more than a year) Makes a great sub for thf and ranger.

Summoner is the epitome of 'already got a high-lvl job and lots of time to do whatever' class. While weak in damage output, they are very useful as support, once again as a subjob, but get plenty of extras to be useful as main--particuarly with the natural aoe spells that avatars cast.

Dragoon is the odd lot. Most likely in-game for just the nostalgia of previous FFs. Unlike the other jobs, drg is extremely inflexible. Worthess as a sub, and even as main it is very limited. I don't see why some of you say that it should be better class than drk though. Game balance is a tricky issue that way. What i think needs to happen is that dragoon must be made to be more adaptable.

All classes have their focus with strengths and weaknesses. It's just that the focus for drg is very small--sort of the way that there are only a small number of thier chosen prey, dragons, that exist in-game.

[NewMorning]

I think there is hope however, as with most games of this type there is almost always a weak job/class which will get tuned eventually so I expect when the disparity of the job is noticed by the developers, they may be improved upon. My own thoughts on how to improve Dragoons

One can only hope.

[Shuketsu]

I'm experiencing the same feelings myself.. Dragoon pretty much at the bottom of the melee bin now. Let's take a look at what 99.9% of your renkeis will be... Double>Viper then Skewer>Dancing. Dragoons are like counterparts to thieves, you will almost never have a different (good) PT until the later levels... you know how boring it gets being fuidama'ed from 30 onwards?

Not to mention, WS damage is pretty much crap. Penta thrust rarely breaks the high 300s, Skewer is pretty much the same, Wheeling Thrust is what, 200 damage? And then Impulse Drive, the uber leet awesome final WS does 400-500. A dark knight can come along and bust up any of those damages with Guillo, Cross Reaper, Spin slash, and Spiral hell. Samurai do about the same as a drg, maybe a little less in the WS compartment, but they can fill a gap in pretty much every renkei.

I really love the Dragoon class, but it sucks being so gimped in comparison to what's already out there. Will I level through 71 at least and get impulse? Most likely. But after that.. I'll probably go do Sam quests and Dragoon quests, since that's about the extent of my usefulness right now.

[Potsnu]

Finally if you are healing it via healing yourself, you are only gimping yourself as a melee by depleting your tp, and considering it takes around 5 minutes for my wyvern to go from 20% hp to 100%, that isn't viable to an exp party.

If I am fighting AE mobs, I will need to heal my pet to full Once every hour or so. I don't see how that "gimps" myself as a melee by spending 5 mins every hour. Most PT are fine with the fact you heal your wyvern especially after an exp chain #5 and MP is low. And yes my wyvern lives hell of a lot more time than lower lvls. My wyvern rarely dies except for AF3's and HNM.

imo i think the expansion jobs are all fine, except dragoon. Samurai is just another decent meleer, who is mostly meant to be subbed when damage is a top priority at high levels. Still can be a force all its own as a main class.

Do you even have a job higher than Lvl 30? Please, no one in their right mind would choose a Samurai. They are completely useless in the high end. The worst expansion class by far. Lack of melee passive abilities, and a plethora of other jobs can do it better. A drg, drk, mnk, thf, etc. will be chosen over a Sam any time. They also lack a viable multi hit WS that many other the jobs listed above have. And please....don't even say Penta Thrust, no Sam in their right mind will continue to use a Spear 60+ since the polearms they do have access to are utter garbage and have a low base dmg.

Ninja seems wierd to a lot of people, but really, there is an excess of damage dealing classes already so s-e probably looked at ninja to see what else they could do with it. Now instead of being the dual wielding assasins of death, they are basically a replacement tank and part rdm for those that have the gil to be one.

Again, useless in the high end. I have group exclusively with friends that came into this game as a Ninja so I know exactly how they fair. Ninjas will not be able to hold agro w/o a Thf in the high end, where as Pld can still hold their own. Ninjas "fan" the mob up until lvl 50 when they actually do some "decent" dmg to the mob and able to hold "some" agro. This is also assuming they're rich enough and constantly stacking hate with Debuffs. Even than, the other melees have to play "conservative" just to have the mob stay on the Nin.

My biggest concern for Drg in the high end is mainly Undead. Viable exp spots pushing 4-5k exp an hour is very limited, especially 70+ This is where it becomes very slim for us Drg's. We'll be fighting a lot of Undead, were we will be doing very crap damage. At this point, Mnks are the power dmg dealing class. With Asuran fist, and their dmg output with Undead, I don't see Drg getting too many PT's unless they make their own.