SE and the Dragoons

[Balodoth]

A really simple pet command I would like would be to call your wyvern to you. I hated leveling in the jungle because somehow the tank would end up right where the wyvern was, so my wyvern was getting countered by those stupid mandies.

It could also help with people's complaints about the wyvern getting in their way when positioning. And there's no reason to put a timer on it, or at least anything longer than 10 seconds. You'll be losing attack time from your wyvern while it moves.

[DakAttack]

Originally posted by Gekoman
Or just beef up their defense against AoE :sweat:

It doesn't really need beefing, if Wyverns could be targeted by helpful AEs as well as Harmful AEs we'd be fine. It never made any sense to me why it didn't work that way in the first place. It would just make 100% sense if it would work that way.

Could it be that SE doesn't give Drg much RSE at all is because they're aren't played all that much? If you look at 50-75 you'll see all sorts of simple JSE and muli-job JSE and Dragoon is included in Barone and that's about it. Samurai got Hachiman which they didn't need at all. It all puts Drg at a continuous disadvantage when we're ignored like this.

I'd like to see more WAR/DRG JSE armor because those two jobs could use it.

[Balodoth]

Too many timers

I'd have to say that one of my issues with the job is how many timed abilities we have. It has its advantages as far as what you do when, but overall the current setup is ineffective.

Sure you have two different jumps, but what good is it if you can't guarantee a hit. Compare that with MNK's counter, and there is an obvious potential lacking. Compare it with THF's Sneak Attack. Every minute they get a guaranteed hit. And not just a hit, a critical hit with damage proportionate to DEX added that can stack with many weapon skills. Of course, in THF's defense, using a dagger limits the damage output at any other time. To be honest, I'd rather have one Jump command that I can count on, and a passive one that just gives me a pretty animation and occasional extra critical hit.

As far as passive traits go, DRG has good ones. The only problem is there are so few of them compared to a lot of other jobs. Even something as simple as giving an attack bonus under a different name, allowing it to stack, would be an amazing addition in itself. If DRG is supposed to accomodate the subjob to some degree, then not having duplicate abilities is important.

[fuz]

A job with a probelm with timed abilities is rdm, not drg. Drg has... a whopping 3 jumps, 2 of which are used regularly, and spirit link. Plus the usual stuff from the subjob, but everyone has that.

I'm very sure the reason jumps are not more powerful is because the wyvern already adds so much damage, it is unecessary--same for the passives. Drg's current damage capacity on exp mobs is about as high as SE is going to allow; It's highly unlikely that we will see anything that boosts drg in that capacity. If there is an area that needs fixing, it's the high dependency on the wyvern--yet it's difficult to keep alive in certain (sometimes important) circumstances, aside from the long recall timer which makes it worse.

Also the requisite mention of HNM fights and other specific situations where drg is on a whole other level of uselessness. Drg's best performance is pretty high, but it's penalty in other places is the lowest in the game. We just need to up the minimums and keep the rest the same.

Sam I'd say, did need the hachiman set. It gives sam's ranged ability a boost, and provides an good niche existance for sam/rng. Sam normal damage output is low if anyone's noticed.

[Mitsurugi]

How about Square-Enix giving job-specific mounts. Let the Dragoon be able to mount a Dragon (perhaps the one you kill for the job in the first place) and be able to fly around and attack with it, or at least run faster in a greater distance. Now, wouldn't that be interesting to implement into the game?

Ever since seeing the trailer for Lost Odyssey (game on Xbox 360 from Mistwalker, the music done by Nobuo Uematsu), I was really considering being a Dragoon. However, after seeing what a bed rep the job is, not to mention the numerous problems going on, it's either I wait until the problem they're having is fixed, or start working on it right now so that I'll be a part of it when they get that boost from a patch in the future. Perhaps I'll just level it on the side when I come to that point.

EDIT: Just to elaborate on the mount idea, here's ideas for the other jobs:

RDM, BLM & WHM - Broomstick
MNK - Chi Flight
DRK - Dark Demon Chocobo
WAR & PLD - Equippable Chocobo
Ranger - Large Eagle
Summoner - Fenrir ()
Samurai - No Idea :confused:
Thief & Ninja - Flash Powder (Warps him in distances across the map)
Beast Tamer - Any lesser monster (under NM)
Bard - Wave of music notes

Must be level 75 to use any of the mounts, to make them a sign of true power. Man, that took plenty of brain power to come up with something for every job! lol

[DakAttack]

A Dragoon's problems mostly arise during their end-game. I leveled Dragoon to 40 in two weeks, no problems at all.

[Macht]

Originally posted by Sepukku
Here's a real simple and easy one:
When a DRG /sit's, his Wyvern /heal's and regains HP as if the DRG was /heal'ing. This way, a DRG can have his Wyvern regain HP without losing TP himself, which is a large factor in why DRGs dont /heal in a PT to heal his Wyvern.

What you state here is the reason Spirit Link came to exist. Before there was a glitch were the DRG can remain standing and not lose TP while his wyvern would be healing. SE closed that glitch and at the same time introduced Spirit Link. Aside from flat out saying "We don't want you to heal wyvern that easily without penalty" I don't know how else they could've made that so obvious.

The thing that seems to be the killer for the wyvern is that it's ability to survive a hit seems worse then a Taru, if that was adjusted so it's at least a little better to that of a Tarutaru then that should ease the difficulty on the DRG players keeping it alive. At the same time maybe making it more functional that a DRG would have to use spirit link to help it survive.

[Rico]

Originally posted by Balodoth
I hated leveling in the jungle

I found this funny x3 You guys should love it since Dragoons own mandies.

I nice feature they should add (Don't know if it's possible since I barely know about Dragoons) Is if you call your Wyvern and you somehow get aggro that you Wyvern will automaticly attack the mob that attacks you. Like Summoners.

Another cool thing Dragoons should have is maybe improve Dragoons Jumping Ability. Make it AGI based so the more AGI you have, the more damage you can deal. They can maybe also have status effect Jumps.

Bind Jump - Binds Mob. - (INT based)
Poison Jump - Poisons Mob. - (INT based)
Blind Jump - Blinds Mob. - (INT based)

[fuz]

Currently a drg rarely wants his wyvern getting hate, since keeping it healed and status free to prevent a lenghty recall is annoying. Smn can just recast an avatar in moments.

Perhaps they should make the wyvern breaths a manual attack, so it's easier to MB with the correct time and element. If my drk can MB, I don't see the problem a drg would have; kind of fun actually. Could even script it into a macro to auto-burst X seconds after a WS if you're lazy. It's not really significant added damage, but it's something for those who want some more control.

I guess healing/status cure breath could remain automatic.

[Rico]

Now that would be cool timing the dragons breath when it gets his own tp.

[Lmnop]

I'll attempt to keep focus....

aren't we supposed to be talking about drg's strengths/ weaknesses or have I already forgotten since page 2 was so long ago...?

Drgs are excellent SC openers which is so wonderfully contradicted by the wyvern's ability to MB (MB doesn't increase damage, btw. just breath accuracy).
Wyverns have to be flimsy because S-E doesn't want the goons to have a 2nd hp tank to rely on while soloing. though didn't super climb or whatever change this? I know nothing about how super jump works so fill me in on that. I don't think Drg needs a whole lot to fix them. they're plenty powerful. but here's what I think WOULD whip them into shape:

ability to activate breaths. maybe the same menu that has bloodpacts (alt + b on keyboard I think?) would hold their "Weapon Skills" with all their breaths for you to choose from. or maybe just "Elemental Breath" and the little guy still chooses randomly unless with AF helm yada yada. Can only use when wyvern has 100%tp+ as normal for all chars (makes them feel more like another player).

what they need more than that is what was mentioned before about reducing call timer based on hp. something as simply as "Add 30 seconds per 10 hp lost on wyvern" would work.

but what they need the most, and this is the real kicker:
update them in some small, trivial way, it doesn't matter. but S-E needs to release a statement with it talking up the Dragoons awesomeness. how using <useless new update> means that in a party, they now have the versatility to <do things they use to do anyway> and still deal awesome damage. whether or not you agree with me on the condition of the drg, we can all say one thing: the greatest weakness of the dragoon is that everyone else is fucking sheep that listens to what they're told.

[Balodoth]

Since we're talking about breaths, what about when your party wants to EXP on bones? One thing S-E could do to make DRG more interesting, and give the player more to do would be to allow Heal Breath to be used on Undead. Just like using it normally, there would be requirements. For instance, when the DRG casts a spell and someone is below 33% life, the wyvern heals them first. If that isn't the case, but the monster is below 50% life and is undead, the wyvern uses his Heal breath on it.

I mean, wouldn't that be cool to get a /tell asking if you can sub WHM? Then they say they have a couple MNK's and ask if you can sub BRD to give them a tiny ACC boost in addition to your Heal Breath killing goodness.

Not only would it help with one of DRG's low points, but it would make things more interesting; open people's minds up to new job combinations. And from there S-E could expand it so that /NIN is the standard sub for a certain situation where /BLM is standard for another situation or mission and /THF is great for. . . HNM maybe. It would promote that "jack of all trades" perception but enforce the "not all at once" idea.

[Arcanastar]

Originally posted by Drogen_Shomuro
To me, I don't think dragoons need all that much tweaking.

Then your a complete moron. DRGs have been left out in just about if not all of the updates and we havent gotten anything since but a name change to Super Climb. And it is because of that we cant get parties. Or, as some people say we can't...

[Drogen_Shomuro]

Goodness, such hatred towards someone simply stating his opinion.

Getting nothing new in an update hardly means Dragoons are broken. Hypothetically, if I was a game developer, I would update things that need fixing, and leave the good stuff alone.

Whether or not Dragoons need fixing is open to discussion though, thus the ridiculously long threads. I happen to be on the side that claims Dragoons are pretty good as they are.

[Anaki]

id just love to try to be a drg/mage healer in xp :O problem is not much parties like the idea of a tank getting to 50% hp >.< and also in terms of showing that a drg/mage could work maybye have a bit of drg only gear give us some mp?