Dragoons got squarewed

[NewMorning]

I will need to heal my pet to full Once every hour or so

I don't believe that...

once every hour? cmon now... i assume your high level from the tone of your post and you cant tell me those high level mobs dont have insane area attacks.. i cant see resting once every hour as being truth.

but of course i never been really high so maybe your dragon becoms extremely strong and can take tons of damage.. but judging from early experiences i cant imagine that being the case.

[Weezingpipes]

Do you even have a job higher than Lvl 30? Please, no one in their right mind would choose a Samurai. They are completely useless in the high end. The worst expansion class by far. Lack of melee passive abilities, and a plethora of other jobs can do it better. A drg, drk, mnk, thf, etc. will be chosen over a Sam any time. They also lack a viable multi hit WS that many other the jobs listed above have. And please....don't even say Penta Thrust, no Sam in their right mind will continue to use a Spear 60+ since the polearms they do have access to are utter garbage and have a low base dmg.

Actually I'd replace myself in many parties with a Samurai, simply for more skillchains. Even if the Samurai and whoever can only do 1 skillchain, a good Samurai can generate their own skillchain for a needed burst if necessary - the WS are generally versatile enough to create a needed chain. Stupid people pick certain other jobs over Samurai, a well played samurai (ie not a Penta spamming dipshit) is great for a party. Also about multiple hit WS..do you know multi hit WS charges monsters TP faster for special abilities? This was glaringly obvious when I was doing Garlaige Weapons for Coffer keys for some friends, and I was doing Penta Thrust -> Vorpal Scythe with the DRK. Given the lack of a BLM, this wasn't entirely the best, but Penta Thrust did decent damage because they were only VT (usually around 300-500). More to the point, every time I did Penta Thrust the weapons did Whirl of Rage or Smite of Rage, more often whirl than Smite. What this resulted in is the DRK being unable to Vorpal and do a chain with me because he would be stunned within a second or so of me Penta Thrusting, and we didn't have room to run out away from the stun (even if we did, still a missed chain), and in the cases it did Smite, it just did more damage to the PLD causing a greater need for heals. Basically it resulted in more damage to the party (at least 2-3 more specials per fight than usual). Same thing happened when I was killing wasps in Ifrit's for a coffer key - almost every time I Penta Thrusted, the wasp did its self heal ability. There is no way its unrelated to my volume of hits causing this when it happens constantly. Multiple hit WS's DO have a downside. I'd honestly prefer more Double Thrust clones that had better damage output 9/10 times over Penta Thrust or any high volume multi hit WS. The fact Samurai lacks multi hit WS is hardly a downside. Also for the uninformed, in the case of Penta Thrust, the damage per hit is generally lower than a standard melee swing (guesstimate around 80% of a standard swing), which makes many misses all the more penalizing.

If I am fighting AE mobs, I will need to heal my pet to full Once every hour or so. I don't see how that "gimps" myself as a melee by spending 5 mins every hour. Most PT are fine with the fact you heal your wyvern especially after an exp chain #5 and MP is low. And yes my wyvern lives hell of a lot more time than lower lvls. My wyvern rarely dies except for AF3's and HNM.

Sorry, wrong. I summoned my wyvern in Boyahda fighting Robber crabs just to see if they could live long at all. The crabs AE Bubble shower is probably one of the weakest AE attacks any monster has. It died 3 fights later, 8 total bubble showers. Maybe you're just fighting high level beetles or something (not that I've seen any since CN) because those rule for having a wyvern, even if their damage is still unimpressive. Even if you heal your wyvern for 5 minutes, thats a big time hose. Most parties I've been in never get close to that amount of downtime, and considering wyvern melee damage output isn't much, the only viable bonus is wyvern breaths, which do a lot less damage when they aren't full hp.

I kind of like Sanguine's idea of making Jumps more so a fighting style than an extra attack similar to the old FF games, but I think jumps as they are now are functional and don't necessarily need changes beyond better accuracy and maybe the AF boots providing a more consistant damage output boost. I do see the wyvern as a gimmick, but if they are going to give us a gimmick, at least make it good. I would just rather Dragoons were just better melee fighters, but that is my opinion, being a burst damage fighter is sort of what Thief is now, consistant output should matter but I suppose with proper tunings, this could make a Dragoon viable in a different way. Also I agree at higher levels if undead is the primary thing you fight, Dragoons are hugely penalized using spears, and staves aren't a viable enough weapon to use to compensate this because of lower skill and poor itemization, and generally weak WS (not entirely a bad thing, but not like any polearm WS are overly great either). Better staves and skill at them would go a long way to not being complete crap vs monsters which are strong against polearms.

[fuz]

Originally posted by Potsnu
Do you even have a job higher than Lvl 30? Please, no one in their right mind would choose a Samurai. They are completely useless in the high end. The worst expansion class by far. Lack of melee passive abilities, and a plethora of other jobs can do it better. A drg, drk, mnk, thf, etc. will be chosen over a Sam any time. They also lack a viable multi hit WS that many other the jobs listed above have. And please....don't even say Penta Thrust, no Sam in their right mind will continue to use a Spear 60+ since the polearms they do have access to are utter garbage and have a low base dmg.

Yep, I have almost half the jobs in the game over lvl 30, with my drk finishing genkai quest over 2 weeks ago. :p I never said samurai was to be used high end, i said it was meant to BE SUBBED at high end for damage. Read it again. And maybe you haven't realized, but samurai's usefulness stems from creating lots of skillchains to MB on, and not by creating lots of damage by himself. Meele is mage support, not the other way around. Melee's usefullness is to contribute to the damage dealing as a whole and it is stupid to look at a class purely by itself. In this regard, sam is very well paired with a blm--any damage the sam lacks can be made up for the sheer number MBs that can be achived per battle. Since sam has some very chainable skills with his weapons, he can still be useful later on in the game. While there are better classes for the same purpose, I would hardly say sam is useless, again--it makes a good sub in certain situations which is it's primary usefulness as I said to begin with.

Again, useless in the high end. I have group exclusively with friends that came into this game as a Ninja so I know exactly how they fair. Ninjas will not be able to hold agro w/o a Thf in the high end, where as Pld can still hold their own. Ninjas "fan" the mob up until lvl 50 when they actually do some "decent" dmg to the mob and able to hold "some" agro. This is also assuming they're rich enough and constantly stacking hate with Debuffs. Even than, the other melees have to play "conservative" just to have the mob stay on the Nin.

Once again, I never said anything about high level use. (You're just looking for anything--even if it's a stretch to argue on to make yourself look good :p) Nin is a very heal efficient tank at lower levels. Obviously they can't hold hate as much of the time with only provoke and ninjitsu, which is why I don't PT with them anymore at my drk's lvl where loss of aggro means lots of damage taken. But they do make a good sub, adding many abilities and good stat bonuses for thief and ranger. Subbed at lvl 75, you obtain both shihei abilities, and the full range of elemental weakening abilites and more, all which require no mp which is nice for long fights, or just a constant string of exp fighting. Double attack, paired with thief's tripple attack just spams eveyrone's chat window. On the other hand, using a ninja to lvl 75 is hardly recomended since their lack of job focus hurts PTs where everyone is given a specific job.

My biggest concern for Drg in the high end is mainly Undead. Viable exp spots pushing 4-5k exp an hour is very limited, especially 70+ This is where it becomes very slim for us Drg's. We'll be fighting a lot of Undead, were we will be doing very crap damage. At this point, Mnks are the power dmg dealing class. With Asuran fist, and their dmg output with Undead, I don't see Drg getting too many PT's unless they make their own.

Dragoon is the odd lot--not at all useful subbed, and even as main, nothing spectacular with absolutly no reason to choose a drg over another class. Drk with it's good base dmg output, lots of magic, and many sub possibilities make it an unusually flexible class. Samurai is the opposite, intensely focused on using WS and making chains, it is quite good at doing it. Monk is good at low levels, lacking in mid-levels, and from what I hear, totatly owns at high levels. Though not given much to work with, the things that a monk has are very useful. Ranger quite frankly smacks them all around in damage output. This is because rangers are there less to support a blm, rather than as a replacement for one. There are a good number of them at the high end of the game too...

I think my friend said it best when he joked that dragoons are excellent damage dealers that do lots of damage to low level mobs.

[sonova]

you knew the drawbacks before you did the quest

and yet you still chose to be a dragoon.

so cry me a river.....

[NewMorning]

Uhhhh no i didnt ass....

how do you know what i knew?

[sonova]

cause theres only like 10 million posts on the topic?

even if you didnt know it would only take you like 5 minutes playing the class to figure out that

1) the wyvern is fragile
2) you cannot heal it
3) that sucks?

and yet you still took the time to lvl to 11?

anyway what the fuck are you crying about you re only lvl 11
what about us chumps who have gone 50 or even 60+ =P

[Dredge]

If DRGs are so underpowered then why do they even get picked in a PT when there are usually at least twice as many DRKs of the same level that are also seeking? The answer is that they aren't underpowered.

"I wanna be able to do Sneak Attack like a THF and I want my jumps to be way more powerful than they already are and I want my Wyvern to be invincible and I want to be able to participate in every possible skillchain and..."

Stop whining. I hope this game doesn't turn into EQ where Square constantly has to bring out the nerf bat because one class gets virtual penis envy and whines about being under-powered when they are, in fact, not.

[NewMorning]

even if you didnt know it would only take you like 5 minutes playing the class to figure out that

You sure don't know what you are talking about... the first 10 levels of dragoon is awesome.. because these levels you solo.

you pick the mobs you fight carefully from a bunch of different mobs and you rest as much as you want... this is a far different way of playing the game and experience then partying.

i know dragoons from a third person point of view from partying with a bunch of them... but i never experienced it from my own eyes.

[sonova]

You sure don't know what you are talking about... the first 10 levels of dragoon is awesome.. because these levels you solo.

you pick the mobs you fight carefully from a bunch of different mobs and you rest as much as you want... this is a far different way of playing the game and experience then partying.

i know dragoons from a third person point of view from partying with a bunch of them... but i never experienced it from my own eyes.

hi i was refering to the wyvern.

I have no idea what sort of point you are trying to make. From 1-10 just about any class can be awesome with the right gear and knowledge. Also basicly from lvl 1 - 11 you just smacked easy mobs that do not have any bearing on the end game at all. AND you admit that your knowledge is limited. AND DRG is not your highest job atm? GG

so heres my question to you. Why did you feel like it was your civic duty to beat a dead horse? cause really anyone who has a clue already knows all of this shit so you arent really bringing up anything new.

Also you do realize that its highly unlikely that they are going to change the class all that much in the near future and even if they did it is unlikely that you are the one who will be cause of such an action,

the "OMG DRGS IS TEH SUX?!~" topics have been done to death in previous discussions and its not like this forum purges old posts or that theres any form of restriction on the information.

so really, if you ever were serious about making DRG your main class you would have come to these forums and gotten at least some feel for what the class is going to be like at the end. Or were you just one of the many many sheep who thought that having a dragon as a pet was the way to cheap thrills and victory?

well consider yourself enlightened then.

kk thx drive thru...


PS translation for the lamer who complained about my grammar and took the time to make a new account just to flame me:

GRATS NUBI FOR BRINGING UP A TOPIC THAT WAS OLD 3 MONTHS AGO LOLZ!

[elias]

I'm not really sure about this, but i thought i heard someone mention being able to heal ur dragon in a fight. All you needed to do was go into engage, and then, when ur weapon is out, type /heal, and only ur dragon will heal. I am not sure if this is right because i don't have the drg class unlocked.

[Ayako2]

Well, since I lost my cookie, and this POS forums' password retrieval doesn't like to send emails, we revert to this account for now.

Every job is what you make of it. The "renkei versatility" thing someone mentioned earlier is total BS. Spear WS can finish kakunetsu, Penta can finish the lvl 2 dark, Double/Skewer can start incurve, Daisharin is light, Impulse is dark. What other renkeis do your parties use? If it's any other, your party is shit to begin with.
I can make a renkei with any job i party with, be it DRK, PLD, MNK, THF. or WAR. Dai > Spin or Impulse > Cross/Spiral are the ones of choice, anyway.

Does DRG get shafted? Hell yes. Wyverns have low HP and can't be cured. We get the worst equipment, including cursed equipment (why the fuck do we need all that MP?) Our high end weapons come from difficult NMs that pop sparingly, and of course our intrinsic abilities don't come to use until ridiculously high levels. (great, ancient circle vs. an HNM for one minute, hey it might work once! of course we shouldnt be in the PT with the tank, so it won't work anyway). The bones thing is a big problem. I went to Ranperres' the other night and did 5 damage without food eaten. It's ridiculous. I would have just used a sword if I didn't need to start the renkei. There are alternative leveling spots, but no one will really want to go there. 73+ is gonna be Ro Maeve, and all weapons, so no wyvern there

Ninja tanks rock if they know how to keep hate.
Samurai......sucks unless they sub RNG and have good accuracy with bows.
Dragoon...look like a mecha batman.

Every job is flawed except Bard. Just a matter of whether you enjoy playing it.

[NewMorning]

so heres my question to you. Why did you feel like it was your civic duty to beat a dead horse? cause really anyone who has a clue already knows all of this shit so you arent really bringing up anything new.

Maybe because this is a forum... and forums are generally where people come to express their feelings and thoughts with likemined people.

the "OMG DRGS IS TEH SUX?!~" topics have been done to death in previous discussions and its not like this forum purges old posts or that theres any form of restriction on the information.

I didn't say "dragoons sucked" if you read my first post i said "i like dragoons overall the job,etc" i just feel that it was made so the dragon dies.. and i have not seen many posts talking about this.. sorry if you seem to already know this... question is if you already know all of this and read it all the time why even take the time to post in this topic... you could read the topic and know what it was about "dragoons got squarewed" what did you think was going to be in this post? why not just ignore it.

[Potsnu]

Sorry, wrong. I summoned my wyvern in Boyahda fighting Robber crabs just to see if they could live long at all. The crabs AE Bubble shower is probably one of the weakest AE attacks any monster has. It died 3 fights later, 8 total bubble showers. Maybe you're just fighting high level beetles or something

Sorry, you are wrong. I was still in Boyahda when I got my BP before heading to Cape Terrigan and still fighting crabs. My BP's regen outpaces the Crabs AE dmg. Do you even have a BP yet? How do you know I'm wrong? Yes at Cape Terrigan, doing #5 chains on Crabs, required me to heal roughly Once every hour to full health. This takes roughly 5 mins. The crabs died so fast it does AE once every fight or so. Half the time its using Defensive skills instead, such as Metallic Body and Scissor Guard. And no, 5 mins is not a long time, nor does it mean i'm in a crappy group. Its called chaining a IT+++ to finish the exp chain, resting, and repeating again. This is what you call making good exp....and making use of exp chains. I dont know any groups that dont have downtime after chaining a mob for 260 exp.

Also about multiple hit WS..do you know multi hit WS charges monsters TP faster for special abilities?

Ummm yes I am well aware of this, this is why we don't use even Skewer on HNM's. However, when you're farming BCNM60 for cash, Multi WS are kinda nice to have? On most exp mobs, using multi hits are fine. Its called finding out what WS the mobs use, and adjusting playstyle accordingly. For instance, when fighting Spiders, you dont want multi hit due to Sickle Slash or Peryton b/c of Triple Attack. On the other hand, when fighting Toramas, Crabs, Raptors, Crawlers its absolutely fine to use Multi Hits?

And maybe you haven't realized, but samurai's usefulness stems from creating lots of skillchains to MB on, and not by creating lots of damage by himself.

Maybe this is so in the early parts of the game. This is only true for Lvl 1 WS.....anyone that has seen the high end knows that the REAL source of dmg 65+ is through Lvl 3 Renkeis. Who cares if Sam can make a plethora of useless and obsolete Lvl 1 WS. The game changes yet again from 65+ (Weapon A rating). In fact, the actual elemental dmg does 3-4 times more than the actual WS you'll be doing in the high end. Yes Sam's are versatile, verastile at making soon to be obsolete Renkeis. All it takes is 1 Lv3 Renkei to kill a mob from Full to 0. I kid you not, and by no means am I exaggerating. For those that still doubt me, read what Ayako said. Perhaps the only poster in this thread that has a clue what's going on. Drg's biggest problem is fighting Undead, when it becomes the only viable and worthwhile exp 73+. This is a huge hit, considering our lack of choice in weapons. Fortunately for me, I have no desire to take Drg 70+ due the horrific exp grind. So I can go back to Boyahda and hit 70 there instead, and not deal with the Undead BS.

Nin is a very heal efficient tank at lower levels.

Sadly, this could be said for nearly every single melee. Classes don't branch out till about Lvl 30. Even Drg's can tank up till than and still be heal efficient at lower lvls.

Double attack, paired with thief's tripple attack just spams eveyrone's chat window.

You're right about 1 thing. It spams everyone's chat window with misses. Granted, a Rich Ninja can tank and hold reasonable agro. Sadly, I don't get the chance to group with Rank9 ninjas with Ochude Kote's too often ; ; I know you weren't talking about High lvl use, but what's the point of discussing anything if you don't? Every single melee are more or less the same at the low end of the game. Of course things seem "balanced". You have to look at things from the high end, when classes actually start becoming different....

[Weezingpipes]

So basically at 65 DRG start getting bearable? Good to know. Because prior to that DRG are fairly sad, just how it is. Maybe you people don't remember when Penta Thrust was doing pathetic damage to IT's while everyone outclasses you in single and double hit WS, or when you don't have that option of level 3 renkais, only the lesser shit, and DRG is crap at that so yea, until you get those WS, it does matter.

And yea, I have the AF bp. Mighty unimpressive. At least it was easy to get and let me sell crap.

[Ayako2]

Originally posted by Potsnu


For instance, when fighting Spiders, you dont want multi hit due to Sickle Slash or Peryton b/c of Triple Attack. On the other hand, when fighting Toramas, Crabs, Raptors, Crawlers its absolutely fine to use Multi Hits?

Sickle Slash (if for some reason you decide to level off spiders) is a counter, not a WS, so using Penta won't charge it, just an FYI. Basically it can come out at any time (usually the wrong one, I've been on shotted enough)