SURPRISINGLY effective DRAGOON

[Silverquick]

Yeah you saw the title, now hear me out.

Of late I have gotten the opportunity to work with a Drg that actually made them a very worthwhile team member in an EXP group.

Drgs can dish out damage, we all know that, not ranger level damage, but damage nonetheless... something that was surprisingly effective not just in normal EXP groups but also even large raids.

Combo... Drg/Whm

This combo is incredibly effective in a group when fighting AE mobs.... AKA Darters in Boyadha, or Hobgoblins in Bibiki.

Dia is a low cost Whm spell costing 2 MP. However when any group member reaches half hit points, casting this 2 MP spell results in the Wyvern doing in essense a Curega II or III for the party. I know its right around 200 hps for each group member.

Its incredibly mana efficient and keeps your Whm from having to gain hate and saves a ton of MP. Plus surprisingly the Drg has enough Mana to cast a plain old Curega II as well.

I know what you're thinking... this means dead Drg right? Nope, their Super High Jump gets them out of trouble in no time flat.

I was shocked to have witnessed this be so effective.

It was actually worth spending a Refresh on that Drg because they were literally that effective at keeping the group alive.

And this doesn't even include the additional melee dmg from the Drg. Its one class combo that is worth inviting to your party in those situations.

I wonder has anyone else been able to see this in action besides me?

[Tokitoki]

Dia is 7 MP last time i checked >.>

Still MP efficient though

[GSDragoon]

Drgs can dish out damage, we all know that, not ranger level damage, but damage nonetheless... something that was surprisingly effective not just in normal EXP groups but also even large raids.

Ok, first of all, I play DRG/WHM quite a bit. I'm hoping to get a dark staff and erase because It's that much fun. You are severly gimped dmg wise with WHM sub. You do less per hit, plus you lose berserk and double attack.

Dia is a low cost Whm spell costing 2 MP. However when any group member reaches half hit points, casting this 2 MP spell results in the Wyvern doing in essense a Curega II or III for the party. I know its right around 200 hps for each group member.

As someone pointed out, Dia is 7 MP. Healing Breath III does not do curega (curing whole party). For me, it cures about 187-232 HP to a single person. It does not work in other parties in an alliance.

Its incredibly mana efficient and keeps your Whm from having to gain hate and saves a ton of MP. Plus surprisingly the Drg has enough Mana to cast a plain old Curega II as well.

In an EXP party. your going to be even more gimped if you have +MP gear. Electrum Rings over Sniper's while EXP'ing, NO THANKS. Also, for this to work you NEED The AF helm. lv70+ without the Optical Hat, another nono.

I know what you're thinking... this means dead Drg right? Nope, their Super High Jump gets them out of trouble in no time flat.
This combo is incredibly effective in a group when fighting AE mobs.... AKA Darters in Boyadha, or Hobgoblins in Bibiki.

This is where I STRONGLY dissagree. Sure the DRG can stay alive, but can the wyvern? DRG/mage with no wyvern is absolutely crap.

1 gob alone killed my wyvern at over 90% HP:
http://gsdragoon.flaretech.net/wyverndeath.jpg

Darters in Boyad Tree SPAM thier AE for 250+ dmg to me. Wyvern has no chance. Another problem is healing away TP for MP, that's just stupid.


DRG/mage is mainly for solo. Though in the last skillup party I was in, I subbed WHM. I was fine with the AF helm and RSE pants, still keeping my sniper's for ACC. We had 2 BLM for curing so my extra cures came in handy, especially when the RDM convered right as a Quadav poped on him. Healing away TP then was perfectly fine.

[TheMidg]

This might actually worse than DRG/RDM (http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=19618).

[Silverquick]

No,

You miss the point here...

I actually saw it done, this isn't a what if scenario... it lasted and was effective. The Wyvern didn't die. until much later, but by that time the 2h had recycled and they summoned it again.

See that chain #4 in the pic you presented? I saw those even a few chain 5s.

The Wyvern did take damage, but it lasted nearly 2 hours through that kind of combat.

And the party itself kept on going with little lasting damage. While I am sure the Drg wasn't dishing out the damage possible with a Warrior sub... he did in fact save the party a lot of problems.

[GSDragoon]

I find it REALLY hard to believe the wyvern survived more than a few battles. Gobs sometimes like to pop a bomb at the begining of the battle and dish out HUGE dmg to everyone. My static tried Bibiki Bay at lv63, but our PLD tank was getting killed by the bombs. They would do over 850 dmg to him. I would summon my wyvern and he would be dead a few fights later. Spirit Link is every 3 minutes, not every 30 seconds. Our AF auto-regen so slow, it wouldn't make a difference either.

And the party itself kept on going with little lasting damage. While I am sure the Drg wasn't dishing out the damage possible with a Warrior sub... he did in fact save the party a lot of problems.

So... basicly your saying your mages wern't that good? We have a WHM, RDM and BLM and they could do their job just fine with the AE.


No doubt DRG/WHM is a fun and effective combo, but if you ask most DRG's, it's NOT for EXP parties. If you do a search, you'll find that out.

[Rogan]

Originally posted by GSDragoon


No doubt DRG/WHM is a fun and effective combo, but if you ask most DRG's, it's NOT for EXP parties. If you do a search, you'll find that out.

I would agree with that

[TheMidg]

Originally posted by GSDragoon
No doubt DRG/WHM is a fun and effective combo, but if you ask most DRG's, it's NOT for EXP parties. If you do a search, you'll find that out.

Well put.

[modnar]

Originally posted by GSDragoon


In an EXP party. your going to be even more gimped if you have +MP gear. Electrum Rings over Sniper's while EXP'ing, NO THANKS. Also, for this to work you NEED The AF helm. lv70+ without the Optical Hat, another nono.




Just wanted to point out that the original poster made no mention of having +MP gear instead of melee gear...

Mage sub does not mean any change to main job equipment.

Other than that, I do not wish to comment because I actualy don't know enough to open my mouth. :sweat:

[Rainsford]

As a drg/whm you can spam dia as long as you have refresh and pretty much you won't run out of MP if your sub is leveled, so you wouldent need to wear electrum rings or anything, but yea loseing optical hat sucks.. not saying its good for exp pts, but soloing modertly tough NMs, drg/whm and rdm/blm or brd/whm is pretty effective.

[Silverquick]

Originally posted by GSDragoon
So... basicly your saying your mages wern't that good? We have a WHM, RDM and BLM and they could do their job just fine with the AE.


Lol, ok thats enough putting words in my mouth, you may not like what I saw... but what I saw... was what I saw.

And no there was no "failure" of the mages. The Drg was just able to save the rest of them a ton of mana ...

...just like I said in the very beginning... that you must not have read or skipped over for some reason.

Now... this was supposed to be a discussion, not an insult fest.
Just because you don't like what I saw, doesn't mean it didn't happen.

If this was just some fluke then thats one thing, but your tone is not necessary.

[GSDragoon]

Originally posted by Silverquick
Lol, ok thats enough putting words in my mouth, you may not like what I saw... but what I saw... was what I saw.

And no there was no "failure" of the mages. The Drg was just able to save the rest of them a ton of mana ...

...just like I said in the very beginning... that you must not have read or skipped over for some reason.

Now... this was supposed to be a discussion, not an insult fest.
Just because you don't like what I saw, doesn't mean it didn't happen.

If this was just some fluke then thats one thing, but your tone is not necessary.

What I'm saying is that your mages shouldn't need help. If you want the best EXP possible, you have to kill fast. DRG/WHM will kill slower that DRG/WAR. Was the DRG/WHM replacing a WHM or what? What was your party setup?

Oh, and this is a discussion, just that I don't agree with you, that's all.

[Silverquick]

Are you saying... that someone who takes pressure off of me as a caster and frees me up to do other things with that mana... say... haste more people comfortably... and perhaps an extra nuke...

... is a bad idea and doesn't help at all?

I'm afraid I seriously disagree with that line or thinking.

[GSDragoon]

Originally posted by Silverquick
Are you saying... that someone who takes pressure off of me as a caster and frees me up to do other things with that mana... say... haste more people comfortably... and perhaps an extra nuke...

... is a bad idea and doesn't help at all?

I'm afraid I seriously disagree with that line or thinking.

Mages in my static have no problem keeping the meele hasted, cured, ect. Our RDM has me and the THF hasted at all times during fights, enfeebles, MB's , refreshes and nukes without a problem. I'm still wondering what your party setup was.

[csBahamut]

The idea is to kill fast. Sometimes the best defense is a good offense. The faster the mob dies, the less damage the tank takes. Sure, DRG/WHM allows the mages to spend less MP in one sense, but they're going to be spending just as much due to needing to refresh the DRG/WHM, and heal the melee from AoE or attacks, all because the DRG is dealing less damage. Now, let's evaluate this. Pro: Party survivability and safety goes up due to additional healing. Con: Party takes more damage due to lower damage output from the DRG. Con: Slower killing speed means slower exp gain. Just because you see 250+ exp from every mob doesn't always mean you're getting fast exp. Sure, you might be able to hit a chain #4 or #5, but right after that, everyone with MP will probably be out of MP and need to rest up to full, or at least long enough to negate the larger exp per mob(note: there are exceptions, like multi-RNG parties with NIN tanks, but that's just abusing the system).

Now, if you have a crappy party, or just mages with bad MP management, or whatever else that requires you to need better survivability, the DRG/WHM might work. Just stay away from AoE mobs. The wyvern just has no chance, unless you want to sacrifise TP and EXP/hr. If you have good players, then you want to go with DRG/WAR. No other sub will allow DRG to kill faster than WAR sub. Sure, SAM sub allows you to do more WS, but at the cost of double attack, berserk, and better damage overall. The extra damage from WS most likely won't beat the damage output from a DRG/WAR. Same goes for DRK and THF subs. Sure, they can both make some big single hits, but not all damage is done in single hits. Regular attacks add up.

Your choice, do you need a crutch(WHM sub) or do you know what your doing(WAR sub)?

Note: This is all reference for exp parties only!

[CarbonFibre]

Yeah WHM sub is a really nice thing when you're doing things like skill up parties and such.

On a side note, what's the story on Wyvern magic bursts? Would DRG need to be closing a skillchain for this to even work? How often does DRG even close skilchain anyway? And you have to get lucky and have him use the correct element or does the thing know?

[CarbonFibre]

Yeah WHM sub is a really nice thing when you're doing things like skill up parties and such.

On a side note, what's the story on Wyvern magic bursts? Would DRG need to be closing a skillchain for this to even work? How often does DRG even close skilchain anyway? And you have to get lucky and have him use the correct element or does the thing know?

[Kailea]

you know what...the whole dealing less damge, I really think that some more research needs to be done on it. because the subjob really does not change the states by a really heavy margin. I might do some hardcore research and post my results later....but it will take me a bit and alot of writeing :p

yes I know there has been "research" on it alrealy but I dont think they tried very hard.

[Irinicus]

I can solve this right now, get a DRK, they much better. :biggrin: :biggrin: :p

[Redlimit]

Having WAR as a subjob for any melee job provides a phenominal boost to your damage output. Having Double Attack alone raises your damage by a lot, but you also get Berserk and an Attack Up trait to boot.

Supplement that with good growth in STR and DEX, and no other sub even comes close to comparing with WAR for pure damage output.

The power of Double Attack can not be overstated enough. When I first hit 50 MNK/WAR my damage output almost doubled immediately. On top of that, I also got Kick Attack at 51, which again provided a large boost to overall damage.

More attacks (of any kind, Doubles or Kicks or whatever) = more damage. Double Attack with slow delay weapons (scythe, greatsword, spear) means even more, as you can gain a lot of TP quickly, and your individual hits rack up some big numbers. Toss on the ability to use Berserk every 5 minutes and you get consistently high damage through big attacks, and lots of them.

[Silverquick]

Originally posted by csBahamut
The idea is to kill fast. Sometimes the best defense is a good offense. The faster the mob dies, the less damage the tank takes.

Now, if you have a crappy party, or just mages with bad MP management, or whatever else that requires you to need better survivability, the DRG/WHM might work. Just stay away from AoE mobs. The wyvern just has no chance, unless you want to sacrifise TP and EXP/hr. If you have good players, then you want to go with DRG/WAR. No other sub will allow DRG to kill faster than WAR sub. .

Your choice, do you need a crutch(WHM sub) or do you know what your doing(WAR sub)?


So then you're saying the Chain 4s and Chain 5s I saw were all in my imagination and we just had crappy mages and I sucked... and this Drg/Whm we had made up for it?

Wait... that means the Drg/Whm was actually pretty darn good idea...

But wait... didn't someone, and even you, say it was a crappy Idea and low powered?

And if this Drg/Whm was such a crappy Idea then...

Then... in your way of looking at things.. how did he single handedly take over for us... "crappy bad management mages" and the entire party... while we were doing chain 4s and a couple chain 5s?

Which we... in your opinion couldn't have been doing because there wouldn't be enough damage....

Or was it the Mages extra MP.... covering fo the crappy Drg/whm choice... errr ... which is it?

Obviously something was right here... and worked pretty darn good.

Because... no... Crappy MP mages... and a Crappy Drg/Whm choice togather do no Equal a 4-5 chain EXP group.

I have a better theory... maybe we both were pretty good and it worked out better than we thought.

And maybe, just maybe... I was as shocked as you are right now when I saw what I thought was... not possible.

EDIT:
I will say one thing though to your credit, The party configuration was not standard. There was no Whm, it was 2 Rdm/Blms handling healing and a Blm/Whm was the other mage. The Drg freed us up to Nuke and with Ice Staves we were nuking for about 250-280 twice outside MB, then MBing FireII on Light chains. The Damage output more than made up for Any lack of Warrior sub. Things dropped fast with all of us nuking. There was no Curega outside the Drg's Wyvern and spells... and the Blm didn't have to do it so had more mana for Nuking. That Drg/whm literally freed us all up to kill things very fast.

And converting Rdms helped I suppose since if anyone in the group is below half he just casts a minor spell and the Wyvern heals everyone again.

[GSDragoon]

Originally posted by CarbonFibre
Yeah WHM sub is a really nice thing when you're doing things like skill up parties and such.

On a side note, what's the story on Wyvern magic bursts? Would DRG need to be closing a skillchain for this to even work? How often does DRG even close skilchain anyway? And you have to get lucky and have him use the correct element or does the thing know?

Only got to try this once since the patch. We were fighting the 3 Skeletons for Sandy 6-2. Sice they were undead, I used staff to close a Fusion SC. With the AF helm your wyvern will use the breath the mobs are weak against. So, my wyvern MB'ed Flame Breath. It will actually say "Magic Burst: ..."

[csBahamut]

The party configuration was not standard.

Yeah, that's probably why it worked somewhat. Though, how long did you have to rest after those chain #4 and #5? The mages still had to spend the same MP, but they just got to use it towards damage rather than healing or support. Though, the BLM and RDM in my static *rarely* has to heal me, so they still get to nuke. If there was no AoE, our WHM would be nuking as well. In fact, he was MB'ing Holy on almost all the Light SC's when we leveled tonight. Having our DRG(Kainhighwind) sub WHM to heal would have been a waste. He would have gained TP slower, which would mean no SC on almost every mob(80-90% of what we exp on get's SC'ed). With him gaining slower TP and not being able to SC, then the mob would die slower. Thus requiring more healing from AoE and me being beat on. Your way seemed to have worked. That's good. Just pick your fights and party members right, or basically, design the party around DRG/WHM, and it should work decently. Stay away from AoE. The Wyvern will not survive. When the mob can deal 300-800 damage AoE's to it because it can't have a bar-spell, it will die. Pick mobs that are lower level. Since you'll need gear to make your Wyvern better, and have enough MP, you'll have to sacrifice some damage dealing gear. This could mean no +acc rings or other +acc equip. If you can't hit or deal more damage than the tank, then you're just a gimped WHM.

I should have been more clear about referring to standard exp parties. Not many players are willing to try non-standard parties, so it's best to go with standard subs and equipment. If you know people that don't mind trying something different, then go ahead. There's a way to get 6-7K exp/hr with an 8 player alliance. It's just not used because people are afraid to do something different.

[TheMidg]

Silverquick, your arrogance is ammusing :rolleyes: To simply put it: A Dragoon is meant to put out damage and that is what it is best at doing.

[Silverquick]

Originally posted by TheMidg
Silverquick, your arrogance is ammusing :rolleyes: To simply put it: A Dragoon is meant to put out damage and that is what it is best at doing.

What are you even flapping lip about?

Your whopping contribution to this thread is about two words long, and worth only half as much.

At least I can respect the others somewhat, because after the insults cool down and they start getting rational... at least they have an opinion worth hearing...

You're just a wannabe.

[TheMidg]

Originally posted by Silverquick
Your whopping contribution to this thread is about two words long, and worth only half as much.
I counted 26 :spin:

Originally posted by Silverquick
At least I can respect the others somewhat, because after the insults cool down and they start getting rational... at least they have an opinion worth hearing...
Please give me your respect. You are hurting my feelings :(

[GSDragoon]

Originally posted by Silverquick
At least I can respect the others somewhat, because after the insults cool down and they start getting rational... at least they have an opinion worth hearing...

My first post was almost entirely facts...

[Silverquick]

Originally posted by GSDragoon
My first post was almost entirely facts...

And my first response to you was also straight forward was it not?

Oh, by the way, to answer your question which I did not know the answer to before, I did eventually ask that Drg how he kept his Wyvern alive. According to him, he was dismissing it prior to the goblin bombs, and then would bring it back out.

While I don't doubt this must have been a huge gamble considering the circumstances as he explained to me, and the delicate conditions this could be done in. At least now I know how he made it last that long.

EDIT: Also, I do understand now especially after speaking with him again, that even though this was very successful in the group I was in, the average joe blow is just not going to be sharp enough to pull this combo off this good. I can definitely say it must have taken a lot of skill to do this right.

But I did learn how effective this really could be in the right hands and in the right circumstances.

[Stormos]

using ur af3 to make ur wyvern cure at 50% life does not mean u wont have optical hat when u are meleeing. Just put a equip macro with the dia macro. As long as you equip the AF3 before ur magic is cast, ur wyvern will still heal the ppl that's below 50% life.

There is also a effective way to use ur wyvern to heal. Just call it before you heal and dismiss right after or call it when the tank is having trouble and then do spirit link then dismiss after the mob is dead. ;x

This post doesnt mean that i would pick /whm over /war tho ;x. In exp situations /war is the only way to go. I havent touched DRG after they upped wheeling dmg so i dont know how good a /thf is but if the wheeling dmg is 400-500+ /thf might not be a bad option.

[Cali]

Yay finally someone not playing the 'by the book' combo!! I wish that DRG/WHM is on my server, if he/she is a nice person, I might even ask him/her to join :biggrin:

Not being sarcastic there, I have always been wondering what's the best combo for DRG, everyone know from day 1 that wyvern is divided into 3 types depended on subjobs... but no one would sub a mage or something not WAR or THF to DRG unless the invisible "rulebook" said so... then what's the defensive dragon for? O.o; I have yet to see a good dragoon on my server, and I haven't been playing for a while add to that... when I used to play, chat filter blocks everything pet/wyvern/avatars do, so I am never sure if the attack breath actually does damage(not that I can see from the monster's hp bar)... however, my friend did tell me once that she saw a DRG/mage, and the cure breath is actually quite helpful...

Anyway, this symbolize the revival of the Dragoon~

[Pounce]

There is one DRG on Titan who went 1-60 purely as DRG/WHM. Alas, I do believe he has given up on DRG, like many DRGs seem to do.

There is another who went 1-50ish as a DRG/WHM, but I believe he has since switched to DRG/WAR, then put DRG on hiatus while switching to BRD.

Playing DRG is hell. Next time you see your local DRG, give him an invite. Sometimes it's easy to forget there is an angry, frustrated, sad person behind those pixels. Who knows, maybe you'll save someone from quitting the game.

[CarbonFibre]

Sometimes I get random party invites late at night, so the last one I got that I didn't want I recommended a DRG friend of mine that was just a level lower (still worked fine for party). Remember, every time you don't invite a Dragoon, Satan spawns a Domokun. (bad joke) :sweat:

[poweryoga]

woamg domokun.

<3 domokun. :D

[Ungerpurr]

Never even thought about dismissing wyvern pre-bomb (you can dismiss wyvern and call it immediately again if it was at full health when you dismissed, right...?). Should be plenty of time since a goblin bomb takes about three seconds to charge up. Wouldn't work vs. some AEs (like flies), since they take effect instantly, but...

Hmm...interesting. Still, in general most PTs have the healing solidly under control, almost to the point of boredom for the whm. In those cases, drg/war would be more effective.

[Drogen_Shomuro]

I've tried keeping my wyvern alive in Bibiki Bay, using Dismiss and Super Jump together only works if you're lucky with the bombs.

Dismiss has a cooldown of 5 mins, same with Super Jump. Secondly, dismiss can only be used (with the intention of calling back your wyvern) if your wyvern is at full HP. One of the goblins (Alaster, I think?) can put blaze spikes up, and one hit from your wyvern will knock it's HP down from full. With Spirit Link though, I probably could've kept my wyvern alive the entire time, but we were having hate problems and I felt that Spirit Linking would've put the whm in more danger.

Still though, I'd like to see this drg/whm combo tried out more in an exp party. I think the combo might work well in PT fighting crabs or something similar that doesn't have any nasty aoes or deadly special attacks. Since crabs have high melee def anyway, perhaps something like pld, rdm, blm, blm, drg/whm, thf would work well.

Double the nuking power, with a thf to help keep hate on the pld.
2x Freeze MB on Boyahda crabs... *drool*