Practicality of DRG AF

[Kaylik]

I dont know if something like this has been posted and , and i also know its kind of a "late" post considering the DRG update was a while ago, but here is is:

In the beginging DRG AF was pretty useful in the fact that it would give your wyvern better surviveability, what with the Wyvern HP boost and refresh effect, and then the "Spirit Link" ability came out, helping those in earlier lvls to keep their wyvern alive while thay can't equip AF. But the whole reason we tried so hard to keep our Wyvern alive, besides the fact no one likes to see their flying blue buddy die, but also cause it was a bitch to have to wait 2hrs to recast (unless recast was already up before they died). Now that DRGs got the update for their lil buddys to be recalled everyt 20 min, keeping them alive isnt AS important as it was before. So here is my question, now that we have spirit link for those little emergencies and we can recall our wyvern every 20 min, their surviveability isnt quite as important before thus making our a AF somewhat not as usefull. Understandably there is better armor out there and our AF or full AF wasnt worn in EXP parties (except for maybe our AF and Relic Helms XD), but i cant help but think that our AF could/should have better/different stats. Understandably have a lil more hp or a refresh on wyvern isnt bad, but maybr they could be switched out for more defensive/damaging traits, like a blazespike effect or the ability to do both blunt and piercing dmg or can add dmg to your jumps or has an En- spell cast on it. These are just thoughts that randomly popped in my mind while playing FFXI, and i figured i'd post them. If you have any input i'd love to hear it, but pls no flames, this is not a "Ways to improve DRG" thread, i love DRG and have never thought we needed a change (except for 1 or more traits past 30, >.<), so again input and "constructive" criticism is welcome.

[SelfdestButton]

Re: Practicality of DRG AF

The DRG AF is just as useless/useful now as it was before. The wyvern regen was never more than very minimal upkeep not even able to keep up with crab AoE, wyvern HP never more than a healing breath boost. Wyvern surviveability is not a feature of the AF in any way.

[DakAttack]

Re: Practicality of DRG AF

AF is best for soloing.

[Brayden]

Re: Practicality of DRG AF

What Impaction said is mostly true, the armor seems to be geared mainly for soloing. The boots are often used even in higher lvls for "enhancing jump" effect. Currently I have a macro to swap in the body armor along with my other DEF boot gear when I am on first provoke for SATA to a Nin or if a situation arises where I need to "tank" for a bit, the +4 vit is nice.

[Bahamut Kaiser]

Re: Practicality of DRG AF

The helmet is good for soloing, the body armor is near worthless now. The added wyvern HP powers up some of the wyvern breath attacks, but the overall stats added to the wyvern arn't very impressive put together compared to additions on other AFs, and the stat bonuses to Drg AF are horendous. Drg doesn't need mind, if hes using mage subs then hes using it for healing breath, and 7 more MP is more important then +4 mind, why Drg has crappy plus stats wile Whm has +4 Str on his AF..... retardation. The stats on Drg af are ment to boost his solo and mage sub abilities more then his fighting, a speck of dex, added jump damage and added acc on the wyvern add up to much less then other DD AF bonuses. Besides that, Drg AF has BS defense, Blm and Whm have more defensive AF.

The Drg AF needs a few universal additions to it, added str instead of a usless stat on some of the AF and the headgear needs to increase the effectiveness of offensive breaths as well as healing breath.

As a side note, all AF and relic should have some sort of complete set bonus stat which activates when the whole set is equipted, Honestly, "Great" gear should be available to those who wish to quest for it instead of serve the economy, with such outragious pollution in the economy completely alternate means of getting great gear should be available, and such gear should be AF, and the AF should be pretty close or par with anything available that lvl. And as hard as relic armor is to get they should be absolutely superior to all other armors for that job in every way, "absolutely".

[Taggerung]

Re: Practicality of DRG AF

The AF is mostly geared towards solo. Gloves have +10 parrying skill, body has +4vit, and the +5 mnd on the helm increases the amount of dmg stoneskin can eat.

I think the wyvern regen needs to be quite a bit better, and some +str would be nice.

The helm makes offensive breaths the element the mob is weak to, so instead of a 5 dmg hydro breath on a crab you get a 150 dmg Thunder Breath.

[Karinya]

Re: Practicality of DRG AF

There are much harder armors to get than relic, I don't see why you think it should be superior to everything else. (Especially DRG relic. There are so few DRG at high levels, the lack of competition makes their relic really easy to get. Comparatively speaking, of course - it may still take several months, particularly for the northlands pieces.) In fact, it's probably the easiest to get of all the high-level rare/ex armors... even uncursed is harder, unless it's from a lesser god (and most sets have a couple of the best pieces that are only from Kirin, or worse, KB/Nid/Aspid). It's certainly easier to get than Homam and Nashira.

Furthermore, if quested/dropped gear were unquestionably better than crafted gear, what would be the point of having crafts other than cooking and alchemy? Items that are both hard to get, tradeable, and highly useful are going to be expensive for obvious reasons. Crafted gear pretty much has to be tradeable, and if you make the best gear easy to get there will be no variety in equipment between players (for most mages most of the time, the only thing better than an elemental staff of the correct element is an HQ elemental staff of the correct element; this is why you hardly ever see any mage using anything else).

Pretty much everyone of the appopriate level has AF. It's the baseline that higher level people *start* from - if you're going to allow characters to improve through gear at all, it pretty much has to be the bottom rung (you can make things that are even worse, but why would anyone bother to wear them?)

[Bahamut Kaiser]

Re: Practicality of DRG AF

The economy is ridiculously haywire, because players want to wear their halmark gear and still be in prestine fighting order, and because the economy is grossly broken, relic should be the strongest. Perhaps maybe not the exsisting relics, but improved versions, or a quest to combine the stats of your af and relic into one. Being the best of best isn't neccessary, I was exagerating, but all the stats should be useful, or at least each piece of relic should have a significant improving property. Having something like "X" useless stat or most likely useless trait on wyvern is just broken. As for there not being as much competition for drg relics, thats just a player population fortune. I wouldn't mind if there were several job specific Dragoon, or whatever job looking armors, some being better, but having your halmark gear passed by for even stronger gear, kind of lame. Hell if I could choose how my character looked no matter what I equipted I wouldn't care, but that pointy hat will never fly with me.