Dragoon sub job

[Darkages]

....man i quit the game.....
and i want to rejoin and play some more but for some certain reasons i cant play......
and i miss my dragoon......
ooo yea about the topic i want to no what is the best subjob ive always used thf and i way outdamaged alot of people espt monk sometime bc think i used trick attack and i do around 300 dmg or so and im level 33.and i do some times Ta hit and thne jump and then my dragon(i like dragon not wyvern) does a breath attack and it does alot of dmg.so what do yall think should be the Sub job i heard some ppl like sam or something along those lines but i like thf for treasure hunter and ta


(im bak let all teh flaming begun!!!111!111!!!!!!one!!!!)

[DrivenTooFar]

You can start here and just read through the rest of this forum if you need any info.

http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/dragoon/13645-dragoon-guide-faq.html

http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/dragoon/30372-party-vs-all-other-sub-discussion.html

[Yeargdribble]

/WAR will put out a more solid DoT than /THF. However, I find myself prefering /THF at lower levels simply because the hate is in a single large spike rather than a broad spike (Berserk). It's much easier for the tank to get hate back after a SA+WS than a constantly line of Berserked hits, Jumps and WSs.

[Caspian]

Yearg is right, /WAR gives by far the best DoT at your level.
/SAM isn't really effective until 60, when you get Meditate.

[Karinya]

I disagree, I found /SAM excellent in the 50s. Berserk was so much of a hate magnet I couldn't use it at all in some parties, but Hasso can be activated before the fight, lasts the whole fight and doesn't pull nearly the same amount of hate. +10 acc and 10% haste is great. You can stay with meat when others are forced to switch to sushi, maintaining higher attack than they have even when they berserk. They may gain a little acc on you (even though 50+ DRG/SAM has +20 acc naked), but with Store TP and Jumps you'll still be ahead in TP even compared to a sushi user - while hitting much harder.

DRG/THF is not very useful IMO. You give up a lot of damage and don't gain much. DRG doesn't have huge WS like DRK, it's more about the constant stream of hits and jumps, which /THF doesn't do much for. (SA+Jump does work, but doesn't add that much to your overall damage.)

[Yeargdribble]

I only used /THF for the 30-37ish range heavily, because tanks tend to suck at those levels and I end up tanking with /WAR. At least with /THF all the damage is in a single spike which a Provke+HJ can fix. I agree that /THF DoT is pretty crap though. SA really doesn't help enough with damage even if it does offer more impressive WS numbers. What you lose in DoT doesn't make it worth it.

While /SAM probably wasn't a viable pre-60 sub before Hasso came along, it sounds to me like /SAM is very likely the superior sub at 50 when Hasso becomes available. I'm a pretty hardcore Acc whore. I've found from experience (and parsing) that higher acc with so-so damage is better than whiffing half the time with uber damage. Your DoT will be much better and you'll end up with far more of the Damage%/mob. Sound to me like /SAM would really improve on this over /WAR, especially if it allows you to eat meats.

[Vyuru]

Berserk was so much of a hate magnet I couldn't use it at all in some parties,

I don't think I ever found this to be the case at that level, but I will also say that I had a static party from about level 49/50-57ish, and both the paladin and thief who were in it are among the best, if not the best, players of their respective jobs, so it would have been hard for me to take hate from them anyway.

That being said though, I also wonder if /sam might be better. You might have enough +acc with Hasso and standard exp gear to eat meat dishes. Since Berserk is on a what, 5 minute timer, up for 3 minutes down for 2 minutes, depending on what you eat you might actually benefit more from a +att food rather than having Berserk.

While I love Double Attack, having a bit of automatic +Haste and +Str is enough to start edging Double Attack out.

At that level I was the first provoker to setup SATA+WS at the start of a fight, our thf was always very fast to get it off, so I normally only got hit once, maybe twice. If the thf is fast in getting off SATA, then I would say that Third Eye would be better than Defender, if you are getting hit 5+ times before SATA goes off, I'd take Defender over Third Eye.

/thf, my gut reaction is to not touch it with a ten foot pole unless it's for a HNM/special event, but that is partly a general disliking of the thf sub with a job that doesn't have a way to boost their attack like drk or war does, and I'm not tossing out the number of SA+WS that a sam does either, so I see little value in a thf sub, especially with the number of gear swap macroes you'd need to really make it work.

[Omni]

what about trying the 5 stickies on the front page of the dragoon forum? >.>

[Karinya]

I don't think I ever found this to be the case at that level, but I will also say that I had a static party from about level 49/50-57ish, and both the paladin and thief who were in it are among the best, if not the best, players of their respective jobs, so it would have been hard for me to take hate from them anyway.
Most of my parties have not had a thf at all. I agree that it would change a lot of things, including SJ selection (for example, DRG/SAM can't be a first provoker at all, not having provoke).
While I love Double Attack, having a bit of automatic +Haste and +Str is enough to start edging Double Attack out.
And Zanshin. Granted, it only works when you miss, but when you miss is when you most need it (despite the niceness of those 300 damage jumps). Spiky damage causes more hate problems than consistent damage, and consistent TP gain is definitely preferable to unreliable TP gain. When I subbed WAR I would sometimes turn the monster just with an early berserk crit (with berserk activated before the fight started) - a berserk DA or crit+DA would be even worse.
At that level I was the first provoker to setup SATA+WS at the start of a fight, our thf was always very fast to get it off, so I normally only got hit once, maybe twice. If the thf is fast in getting off SATA, then I would say that Third Eye would be better than Defender, if you are getting hit 5+ times before SATA goes off, I'd take Defender over Third Eye.
In my case it was more a matter of getting hit before HJ/SJ goes off, which is usually only one round unless I'm particularly laggy. I do think /WAR has its advantages with a THF in party (and its main disadvantage, higher and spikier hate gain, is less important), and may sometimes be better; thanks for pointing that out. But you can't have Third Eye and be a first provoker unless you're SAM/WAR or WAR/SAM (a combo that has sadly failed to make much of a comeback; it's so rare I can't even judge its effectiveness because I haven't seen it in action enough).

[Vyuru]

But you can't have Third Eye and be a first provoker unless you're SAM/WAR or WAR/SAM

Heh, I missed that =^.^;= thanks for pointing that out. Although you could perform the same function if you used High jump > Jump > Hasso > WS, Hasso has a noticable hate spike with it, it seems less than Provoke but higher than Boost. However your hate control at that point would be VERY shaky and I probably would recommend you forget about being the SATA partner if you were a drg/sam.

[Darkages]

Mehhh but i got a big problem with warrior....its level 5 and that only from getting drk....sooo all i have leveled in fighting area is Ninja 18 Thf 22 Drg 33ish i think and everything else is low level

[eticket109]

DRG/THF is fine if you want to use it. I was always a big proponent of it when levelling but I think in the long run DRG/WAR is really your best option. At some point, you'll really want to level WAR and a mage job (RDM, WHM, BLU) as a sub. I'd say go WAR/MNK or WAR/THF til about 24 then go WAR/NIN if you'd like. It will be worth it in the long run to get it capped though.

You'll find in later levels that you really need multiple subjobs. /WAR, /THF, /RDM, /WHM, /NIN and /SAM all have uses. It's even becoming common to see /BLU and /BRD for certain things. You'll be more valuable overall with the more you have available.

[Viral Id0l]

so is /Drk just a horrible sub...?

[eticket109]

so is /Drk just a horrible sub...?

it has very occasional uses, but whatever you're using it for, there is probably a sub that does it better.

[Darkages]

yes.