Dragoon - Good first advance job?

[Nandito]

I'm finally going to join FFXI in a few days, and in the mean time I'm trying to find out as much as I can from jobs. Dragoon's are probably my favorite from the old days. Kain and Freya were the ones I could always enjoy myself with.

Of course, I get kinda discouraged with the whole beef on them. It seems if I start the game with a BLM and later WHM, the invite ratio will make a big change once I get Dragoon. (Then again, one reason I'm evening starting with Mages is when I can't get a party and force myself to solo.)

But still. Would you consider Dragoon a good first? Will the cost of things be difficult for a new player, or the fact I'm only taking WHM to 37 be very hard due to the fact it'll be hard to do quests, farm, even get advance jobs in the first place?

Your opinion would be most helpful. Any advice/suggestions are very much welcome.

[Icemage]

Re: Dragoon - Good first advance job?

WHM is actually one of the best starting jobs to work with if you're looking to start from the beginning and get advanced jobs.

On top of the excellent invite rates, you also get a lot of time to observe what people are doing in a party since you're not going to be busy looking for your own damage numbers (or at least, I certainly hope not!).

Cost-wise, Dragoon is probably one of the least expensive melee jobs (relatively speaking). You don't have to spring for a lot of the ridiculously expensive gear ... because Dragoons can't wear a lot of it.

Invite-wise, Dragoons struggle just like any other melee. Regardless of which melee job you play, understand that you're up against a lot of competition for party slots.

Even so, DRG is a powerhouse melee in the 1-30 range, and holds its own for another 30 levels or so. At level 60 is where DRG start to fall off a bit, as they don't get the ridiculously good weaponskills that other melee jobs enjoy (they get new ones, but they're not much stronger than lower level skills). Fortunately, the wyvern still keeps them abreast of the other damage jobs in terms of overall damage; they just can't deal damage in a hurry quite the way other jobs can.


Icemage

[Armando]

Re: Dragoon - Good first advance job?

Disclaimer: I'm not a Dragoon (well, ok, mine is Lv.10, but that hardly counts.) I've been around for a while, though, and I've partied with my fair share of them.

Yeah, it's probably true that Dragoons don't get that many invites later on. Don't get discouraged, it's something that happens to every DD. DRG did have a bad rep, but it was unmerited (DRG was a powerful DD since the beginning.) Even so, S-E has thrown the job a few bones over the years, and in my opinion general perception of the job has improved quite a bit.

Would I consider Dragoon a good first? Sure. It's not particularly expensive, nor is it particularly hard to play, but it still has plenty of potential for "advanced gameplay" due to the uniqueness of the wyvern (DRG/mage has a very different soloing style from other solo jobs.) Everything should be fairly affordable as long as you're not stupid in the way you spend your gil. When you start out, always remember to have Signet, sort your inventory frequently so you don't lose items from lack of space, sell your crystals at the AH (Auction House) and check out which farmable items sell best. Also remember to save lots of Beastmen Seals, and to look into HELM (Harvesting/Excavating/Logging/Mining) as you work your way out of the teen levels. Finally, always remember that you can usually get low level stuff from NPCs for far cheaper than you can get it at the AH. I use Somepage.com to look up items (and who sells them) quickly.

You'll be alright. Just read around, there's plenty of good info. The search feature is your friend, and knowledge is power.

[Nandito]

Re: Dragoon - Good first advance job?

Glee! That sure helps alot. I have been enlightened. Thank you both, now that those gaps are filled - I will continue to research as much as I can before I start.

Thanks again~!

[Karinya]

Re: Dragoon - Good first advance job?

The other nice thing about DRG is that since there are so few, lances are *cheap*. For example, Behourd Lance, a BCNM drop that is the best in the game at it level, is under 5k. You won't need a weapon that costs over 100k until post-AF levels.

Some of their other gear is not quite so cheap since it is shared with other jobs, but a job that's great at soloing is also great at soloing for valuable drops and beastman seals. You may want to take your WHM the rest of the way to 40 to use it in BCNM fights.

[eticket109]

Re: Dragoon - Good first advance job?

If you're just starting out and looking at doing dragoon later then I would levelling both whm and war. Both are viable subs for drg depending on the situation and will give you a better idea what you want to do.

Dragoons are starting to get a lot more respect after the last few changes and can be a very viable DD at any level. End game invites can lag, but like Icemage said, that's mainly because there is such an abundance of DD jobs.

Before the addition of Spirit Surge as the 2 hour, it was tough to be a DRG for BC fights such as the CoP missions. The defense down effect from a SS+Jump though can make a significant difference now and makes a dragoon a worthwhile addition.

Plus, if you plan to take it to 75, we have one of the easiest Maat fights. ^^

[Gwynn]

Re: Dragoon - Good first advance job?

DRG enjoys a few advantages (if you want to call them that) over other melee jobs.

First of all, it is relatively cheaper than the other jobs because it can't equip most of the really expensive gear... but on the flipside, a lot of the DRG alternatives aren't as good (although this isn't all-encompassing).

DRG may get invites less than other melees, but from what I've heard from my DRG friends it isn't that bad anymore, and while those DRK, THF, MNK, etc. have no choice but to flag up and wait for a party, as a DRG you can solo quite effectively.

Spirit Surge is one of the more unique 2 hour abilities, and could make DRG more desirable for some BCNM and CoP fights over jobs with mediocre two hours like THF and DRK (although, again, this isn't all-encompassing... I've been in fights that have been saved by Perfect Dodge before).

Your wyvern can help buffer your damage against mobs that are strong against your damage type, so that you can deal at least respectable damage in most given situations.

[Mouser]

Re: Dragoon - Good first advance job?

DRG is good for it's versatility. Unfortunately, it pays for that marginally by not being quite as awesome as the dedicated damage dealing jobs like MNK or DRK. Still, I love it. With a switch of a sub job you can go from all out DD (/WAR, /SAM, /THF), to support healer/solo fighter (/WHM, /RDM, /BLU), to more exotic things like /NIN (for self-preservation in fights with nasty area attacks) or /BRD (minor healing and support in special fights). Heck, I'm considering leveling COR just to have the XP boosting roll in Merit parties (since things die so fast the loss of DD potential isn't that important).

Just to give an example of DRG's versatility: in my last Dynamis run, we were short on healers, so I went DRG/BLU for Healing Breath from my wyvern and Healing Breeze to help keep my party alive, and Head Butt to have a small chance of stunning those nasty MNK 100 Fists. By using a staff instead of a lance, I could use Spirit Taker to keep my MP full.

[Vyuru]

Re: Dragoon - Good first advance job?

Instead of leveling whm as your first main job I would suggest red mage instead, lotsa argument over which is the better /mage sub for dragoon, and while I would say that it is highly situational, 90% of the time you will want /rdm for healing. Red mage invite rates should be fairly even with the other mage's invite rates.

IMO dragoon is a good choice for a first advanced job, heck it was mine! But keep in mind that I deeply love the dragoon job, and I do have the opinion that there is only dragoon, the other jobs are just subjobs, so my opinion is a little biased

Gear wise it shouldn't be too expensive. The only real problem is that few people play dragoon, so few of our weapons are up on the AH. But most of our lances are easily obtainable, and for the first 20 levels you can buy everything from NPCs(non player charactres), and I think you can get the lvl 36 lance from a NPC too.

Specialty weapons like the Platoon lance, and Grand Knight's Lance can be in short supply, so if you are within say, 3 levels of using them, and one is up for a decent price, I'd go ahead and grab it. The Platoon lance is obtained from a BCNM (burning circle notorious monster fight), while the Grand Knight's Lance is obtained through conquest points, and Sand'Oria has to be in first place to get it.

The Behourd lance is very good, but our AF lance that is obtained 2 levels later is just as good, so don't fret too much if you can't get a Behourd lance.

As Armando said, read around, but keep in mind that some of these may have been written awhile ago and might be out of date, or they might be written with old impressions of the jobs, so that is just something to keep in mind.


The cost of things shouldn't be that bad. I would splurge on the +1 version of the lvl 14 rings that you will want to buy, I think it is a worthwhile investment that shouldn't be that expensive, or at least on my server they aren't too expensive. The biggest things that you will buy for quite some time will be:

Lvl 43: Valkyrie's Mask/Walkure mask
Lvl 40: +acc rings
Lvl 60: Grand Knight's lance

These are pretty consistently over 300k. Walkure mask is normally cheaper than a valkyrie's mask, but I think the stats on the valkyrie's mask are better.

You don't need +acc rings at lvl 40 because you will get a +acc trait at lvl 35 I think, and you can eat sushi now to help with your accuracy. On the flip side, on my server woodsman rings have taken a real plummet in price, they went from 800k to about 300k, so if prices hold they should be very affordable for a new player, assuming you can find a nice little niche in the market to make cash from.

The Grand Knight's Lance isn't that hard to save up for, it's mostly about getting it when one is on the AH.

300,000 gil for an item is alot of money to gather, so I would recommend that you spend a little extra time farming as you level and save up the gil to buy these. Even if you can't use them yet go ahead and buy them if they are at a good price, maybe the prices will fall after you buy, or maybe they will increase. But the way I see it is you will have the item no matter what happens, and at the time you would have thought the price was good anyway, so no real harm done IMO.


Now then, dragoons invite wise, I would recommend that you just make your own parties. That way you don't have to worry about getting an invite, and you get to pick where the party goes. This gives you a time to put your foot down and refuse to go to some overcrowded place with supposedly great exp when there is another location almost as good with no other exp parties there. You also get to have a better handle on what jobs are invited to your parties, which can be nice. It'll take a little bit to learn how to be a good party leader though, so just experiment and observe and by the time you get out of Qufim you should be well set to make great exp parties.


I can't really comment on if the other jobs would be better jobs to level, partly because i haven't taken them high enough, and partly because I enjoy certain aspects about jobs, and you might not like that. I myself am drawn to the jobs that primarily use two handed weapons, I might enjoy jobs like thief, bard, and red mage, but I find them a little too stressful when parties don't want to work with me, so it's a little hard to say there.

[Version2.32]

Re: Dragoon - Good first advance job?

to OP: Well, as known servers-wide dragoon is the most leveling up troubles finding job. since most people don't know the real power of dragoon... especially NA people(no offence) i am not letting you down but in the end it's your choice ^^
at high level you can farm fairly easily with /rdm or /whm sub having ur wyvern heals you at 33% or 50% hp (with or without AF gear).
good luck!

[Malacite]

Re: Dragoon - Good first advance job?

You might want to give RNG a try too, at least for the 1st 15 levels because @ lv 10 (20 when subbing it) you'll get a passive +10 boost to accuracy. DRG gets this same bonus @ lv 30, at which point you'll want to sub WAR for the majority of your career (barring soloing or other occasions where subs like WHM or RDM will be very helpful)

I also strongly recommend leveling WAR to 37 first, since that way you'll be set for your entire DRG career and won't have to ever stop to lv your sub up to what it should be. WAR is probably the best starting job to get used to melee fighting and you can use it to skill up your polearm skill in advance! (Don't do this too much in EXP though, if you're gonna go WAR to 37 use Great Axe :3)