Dragoon Subjobs

[Tricia McGyver]

Hello. I am currently a lvl 14 WAR and am trying to get to dragoon at lvl 30. I was wondering what would be the best dragoon subjob combinations. I am thinking either white mage, black mage, or samurai.

[Feday]

The most common subs are thief/war/sam ...most dont use samurai until dragoon is 60 because thats when you get meditate.

[lun4tic]

Warrior does best with damage, thief would obviously have more agility to dodge more, and monk has it's share of vitality which is useless for a dragoon.

Warrior will have beserk when it's subbed at 15, which would be excellent for PTs. With thief you'd get steal and sneak attack, which would also be good for PTs. Counter with monk isn't all that good when you PT, and nither is evade. You tend not to be a tank.

All those combinations would give the wyvern an elemental breath attack as a WS. Subbing a mage would have it heal you during the fight and have a healing breath for a WS. If you sub dark knight or paladin it would give a little bit of both.

[Koyasha]

Samurai works to some degree from 20 on up. I don't believe Black Mage would work well. Attack magic would be too low level to do much, and probably be resisted a lot at half your main job's level, you would have a small mana pool. White Mage may be similar, but healing is often useful, so this combination may work to some degree. If you're looking for min/max optimized combination, it's got to be Drg/War or Drg/Sam. Otherwise, there are some combinations that just completely do not work, but most combos will have some merit in them.

[lun4tic]

I think thief would be nice mainly for sneak attack, secondly for steal. Everybody likes steal and I've seen thiefs steal and steal and continue being successful in stealing monster after monster.

But I think warrior makes the best sub for attack power, unless you wanna sub dark knight and buy -mp +hp rings to get rid of the very low mp.

[Anaki]

im going dragoon/thief so if i ever get to level 70 i can use jump with sneak and trick attack together doing alot of damage

[Methos1226]

I'm a drg/drk because i wanted the attack breath and the attack bonus. however, i have not been able to get my wyvern to use healing breath when i use magic and someone in my PT is under 25% hp. Does it have to be a certain spell, or am i doing this wrong?

I'm trying to decide if i want to switch back to rdm as sub once i get drg higher, would like some enfeeble spells. Hopefully will go sam once i hit lvl 60drg

but right now, i'm loving drg/drk. The attack breath is great and i do lots of damage.

[pug]

Originally posted by Anaki
im going dragoon/thief so if i ever get to level 70 i can use jump with sneak and trick attack together doing alot of damage

hate to burst your bubble, but...

i've only heard this, don't know if it's true, but when you sub thf, the word is your sneak/trick attack don't stack anymore. dunno if it's true or not, but i saw it somewhere...

anyone know for sure so we can verify?

[sonova]

they still stack

[Tokitoki]

DRG/RDM is actually one of the more common subs believe it or not.

DRG/SAM is best at lvl 60 for meditate, DRG/THF is best for lvl 30, and DRG/WAR is better for the lower levels. DRG/RDM is good as i am told but ive never tried it.

[sonova]

i have no idea how ppl can say subbing rdm as anything but a pure caster is a good idea

yes it might be feasible but its mostly feasible based on the strength of the main job not because the redmage imparts any great advantage

lets look at it objectively

subbing red mage at lvl 70 you gain:-
some mana regen
150ish mana (which is = 15 casts of cure / 6-7 casts of cure 2 / 3 casts of cure 3 tops)
cures 1- 3 (maybe not sure on the lvl req for cure 3 on Rdms)
faster casting
raise
some debuffs and buffs
banish / banishga
the odd Blm nukes

that is all. you gain none of the defining Rdm abilities
wow


bear in mind that casting does not gain you TP so its completely useless to that aspect of the dragoon.

the only possible justification is to gain the wyverns healing breath ability. which i am convinced is highly overrated and in most cases of highly dubious utility.

if you wanted to be a back up healer you should have subbed whitemage as it would give you more mana , divine seal etc etc


if you wanted to nuke/debuff you should have gone BLM which would have gained you alot more mana as well as a better selection of nukes

the fact is that Rdm itself is a hybrid class and subbing hydrid classes is generally a recipe for sub optimal performance


the melee templates are just so much more effective, with DRG/thf probably leading the pack in sheer DPS.

DRG/war would be a decent panic tank. DRG/Sam would probably be just slightly behind DRG/thf in dps and later on might even exceed thf.

the least effective DRG melee template would probably be DRG/mnk but maybe the dex boost and chakra would tip the scales over the DRG/hybrid mix

[Niexist]

Originally posted by sonova

the only possible justification is to gain the wyverns healing breath ability. which i am convinced is highly overrated and in most cases of highly dubious utility.

if you wanted to be a back up healer you should have subbed whitemage as it would give you more mana , divine seal etc etc

The healing dragon has one purpose that I've found, the ability to let a dragoon solo, and it basically acts as a personal healer. It isn't meant as a "back-up" healer, so don't sub whm while you're pt'ed, find a melee class to sub.

Oh, and for anyone going PURELY for the healing wyrven's solo'ing aspect, your best bet is blm since you get spells that cost 5 mp, while with whm your cheapest spell is 8 mp

[sonova]

she asked for the best. since the game is primarily designed to be played by parties of 6, it is implied that she wanted to know the best for the group situation.

honestly i cannot really imagine soloing past lvl 15 even with healing breath

[Niexist]

I personally haven't levelled whm/blm/rdm so I can only say what I have seen others doing. I watched a friend at lvl 45 solo toughs for about 30 minutes once with the healing wyrven's breath III, and I have to say the tactic is pretty amazing, and makes dragoon a fairly competent solo'er.

Let's say you have 100 mana, well that is 20 shots of dia which I believe is 5 mp. 20 shots of healing breath 3 at 150 per(without AF armor) is roughly 3000 hp healed, not bad at all, and very good when you can't find a pt for 4 hours.

Out of curiousity Sonova, did you become a dragoon recently? I am wondering when you became such an authority on what does/doesn't work for high level dragoons.

[Niexist]

Oh, and you are definetely right about melee classes, thief before lvl 60 pretty much destroys warrior. I hit for the same damage on average as a drg/war actually, a bit more since I equip myself decently (I pt with a few of them)

The difference between war sub, and thf sub comes in when you are doing weaponskills however.

On average at my level, a warrior sub will use double thrust for 60-80 damage. Then the wyrven will hit for 30-40.

When I as a thief sub do a weaponskill I will hit for 150-200, and my wyrven will hit from 50-90. If you figure in crawler's nest I perform 1 (2 or more if the pt isn't great on dmg as a whole) per battle, that really stacks up.