this is silly but here I go...

[Shadowneko]

I keep tripping over one stupid question: Why do you Dragoons get dissed? To me it just makes no real sense...sure you can't be a dark or a Samuari but you can still do good in your own way ^^

I just don't get it....

[neighbortaru]

The benifits and handicaps of Drg.
some insight in that thread

[Murphie]

The reason that Dragoon gets a lot of flack is because later on in the game they have a harder time stacking up damage-wise to other Damage Dealing classes. That's not to say that it's not a great job (I personally really like it), but once people start saying that a job isn't very good, you get a lot of other people jumping on the bandwagon.

[Taodyn]

Much of it stems from the original TP nerf.

Before the nerf occurred, Dragoons could fire off Pentathrust and, if all five hits connected, get back enough TP to be ready to use Penta again very quickly.

It quickly got to the point where people were spamming Penta and doing some excellent damage.

Then they changed the way TP is accumulated through multi-hit weaponskills. Now, Penta returned only a small fraction of the TP and could not be readily spammed.

This was seen as a devastating change to the Dragoon class.

Since then, there has been an on-going debate about the viability of the Dragoon class with people showing parser data for both sides of the argument.

Honestly, I think it's more nonsense than fact, but it is a stigma we Dragoons have to bear.

[Murphie]

I forgot to mention the TP nerf. That's definitely one of the other reasons. Funny thing is, of course, that DRGs weren't even really the target of that change, but as Taodyn said, they still were affected by it.

[raidenn]

Those were the days.... I remember getting Penta at that time, jumping a couple of times and ready for another Penta.. So much fun.

It was during that time there were some haters from other DD jobs. THen of course the nerf happened.

[Skoal]

I was a little ole war using sword and shield back when the "nerf" happened. I have a question though. Where you guys fighting IT's or VT's when using penta? This was way before sushi and all the acc gear that is available now. Its very rare for me to use penta in an exp party unless its some type of burn. I think I would help do more damage if I use skewer or double thrust to open distortion and having a blm mb than I would if I fired off two pentas. Did penta damage get nerfed too? How many times did all 5 hits land? Please inform me since I wasn't a drg back then.

[Greylynx]

I think this attitude is starting to change however. I am currently soloing as DRG36/BLU18. I enjoy soloing and am NEVER lfp. However, I get 3-5 unsolicited party invites a week.

Maybe it will get worse when I get higher (lvl 40+), but for now DRG seems to be acceptable for XP parties.

[DakAttack]

Dragoons are always struggling with gear as well, it always seems like we lack access to the bigger ticket items. Dragoons are the only people that you'll see still wearing a level thirteen glove in their sixties because there's really nothing better for that particular slot.

Not to mention ArsClicky blasting off his retarded BS at every given chance on Allak. That guy probably did more harm for the job that anything SE ever did.

[LilithAngel]

<3 Battle Gloves... (I only wish Spiked Finger Gauntlets existed when I was leveling through the 50s)

Anyways, the old stigma of Dragoons definately seems to be falling out of favor (Puppetmasters seem to be the new leper of FFXI these days, anyways ), and anyone still holding onto those grudges are either doing so in jest with people they know, or have been under a rock, blindfolded and had plugs in thier ears, for the past year. SE has done quite a bit to help Dragoon get on equal and/or better footing in most cases.

New sets and pieces of armors and a slew of new lances (mostly in the 70+ range, with a few notables in the lower levels), BC/KS/ISNMs that are reletively Dragoon-friendly, the advent of Spirit Link, the retooling of the 2 Hour and Call Wyvern (which personally was my biggest complaint with the job in the first place), and meritable abilities that not only helped make up for our wyvern's biggest failings, but also finally gave us a clear-cut, defined role in missions/raids/endgame/etc. The job is *much* improved over the version I played a year ago.

Hell, it's taken the introduction of the other two of my top three favorite FF jobs to get me to finally level something past 37 other than Dragoon.

[raidenn]

Yeah there was that time when people would go to the DRG thread in Alla and spread the word how bad it was to be DRG. There were times where you have to wait in Jeuno for hours and hours and even days just to get a party. At level 60, either you wear your AF or Scorp Harness, thats basically it, no Jaridah or sushi.

[DakAttack]

I still think Dragoon is far from being on par, but that's just this Dragoon's opinion. We're still pigeon-holed into armor that almost anybody can wear, and we still have so few pieces to choose from. We have little to no Dragoon only JSE, and the JSE we do have we share with other jobs.

Lmnop once remarked that Dragoon was the only job he could see doing well without wearing any armor, while still retaining the weapon. This is because the Dragoon might as well be naked. Our choices are to wear a hodge-podge of old equipment, sometimes old Conquest regional control equipment, and newer NQ armor that offers nothing in the way of bonuses or defense.

The Dragoon is pretty much the only light armored job that still must rely on heavier armor, rather than cloth or jerkins. SE hasn't really explored many light armor possibilities.

[Vyuru]

Well, as others have said it was the big TP nerf that supposedly killed us, but I was under the impression that it was both the TP nerf and the nerf of Meditate when used by a samurai sub job that was kinda the final blow. Given the fact that most of our armor is light armor and is shared by red mages, people don't think we can do as much damage.

I don't mind the fact that we can only wear light armor, but if we can only wear light armor, why can't we wear the sam/nin/mnk gear? Isn't that light armor as well?

Ugh, I didn't realise Bahamut Kaiser posted that thread, he's always been a bit aggressive in his posting IMO.

Something I would like to point out:

This is because they all have better spike damage and skills to draw hate allowing the Thief to put the hate where it is needed, on the tank, many of them have better defense, dodge moves, and other assets which will reduce the damage taken by the same or better, compared to a Drg.

I've always had a problem with that. All of the jobs that people list as being able to pull hate better for SATAing onto the tank, are jobs that typically can rip hate from the tank. There is no real benefit for one person to grab 400 damage worth of hate to turn the mob, just so that the thf can plant 500 damage worth of hate onto the tank. Now both the tank and the SATA partner have very close to the same amount of hate, I've never seen the point of this to be honest. I'd rather have a dragoon SATA'd onto by a thf, then the dragoon super jumps the hate away, boom, gone.

People also point out we have weak closing WS, like Wheeling thrust, while true, I'd point out that Wheeling Thrust can either open or close a light SC, and since I have a thf in 99.99% of all of my parties, I'm more than happy being a SC opener.



Personally, I think dragoon is the strongest class in the game, our gear is nowhere near on par with like, a warrior or dark knight, just look at all the wonderful stats the lvl 55 royal knight's set gives, or a hauby, yet we can still give those jobs that can wear that gear a darn good run for their money in terms of DD, all while wearing gear that I would consider red mage gear, which I must say is perfectly decent gear.

No, having decent gear won't truely make or break any job, but if you have super nice gear like the royal knight's gear, then that does help tip the scales to your side.

What it comes down to IMO, is that alot of the melee jobs play very similarly to each other, you want to buff up on +str gear for most of the game, and if you are a war or drk, you get att+ abilities. Monk doesn't really care about that, +str works more for their H2H, I don't know exactly where samurai stand, but I'd assume they want +str gear for WS spammage, I don't think that dragoon plays the same as other jobs, and so the same gear setups that work for most other DD jobs don't nessacerily work as well for dragoons.


Interesting to read all of that thread, thanks for posting it.

[Oogami]

Although my Dragoon is in storage right now, it is still my favorite job. I am currently leveling other jobs for LS events and stuff, and I take Dragoon out for a 1-hour solo XP's whenever it looks like I am not going to have enough time to party.

We do have less options in gear selection and might have slightly worse WS compared to other 2-handed weapons, but I am ok with it so far. Things like Jaridah Peti have helped. Now what remains is just other player's perspective. Dragoon is a versatile job. For example, after lv 60 (with AF helmet), a DRG/WHM can be a superb DD/Backup healer in a party that's fighting mobs with little AOE attack and no one-shot attacks like sickle slash. (I have heard about one who did MAIN healing in Boyahda). But not many people would be willing to try out this kind of unconventional things.

SE have recently added some stuff, like the latest Hydra Set that mainly gives +Acc and +Eva, but those are of much higher level (72) compared to say Haubergeon (58). I am not sure about difficulty in getting the ingredients to make it, but currently it should be much rarer as only 1 NM dops it.

[Celeal]

I am not a DRG. In my option, DRG is a very well round job in terms of DD (at least on paper). Look at DRG's Job Traits, for example: Attack Bonus at lvl 10, Accuracy Bonus at lvl 30. It is like having the +acc/+atk bonus of a Haubergeon at lvl 30 without +str +dex +vit -agi -eva.

Since the OP mentioned SAM....
When you look a SAM base attack and base accuracy, for example, it pretty much need to have a Haubergeon in order to get "even" with a DRG. For TP gain, DRG has jumps while SAM has Mediate. DRG has a pet, thus more DoT (or for curing if the DRG/mage), while SAM has more SC option and can use archery for pulling, wear decent armor for taking damage. Each job has they value ^^'

When you compare DRG's DoT and TP gain with other jobs, DRG has a pet + Jumps, WAR has double attack, THF has triple attack, MNK has kick and martial art trait... In my opinion, they are pretty much even.