DRG's feeling screwed? do something about it!

[imac2much]

Originally posted by JexIntrepid
I was going to head rdm route until i heard by lvl 41 you're a refresh-slave, at which point melee is not even a consideration. /sigh well i realized alot of times bards will be doing melee fighting, and singing and they'll actually join in renkei quite often, so i'm hoping that's also a possibility as well.

IMO RDM's time to shine is between 41 and 55. Refresh and Dispel are really great at those levels, and they can still do decent damage with melee and nukes. It's after 60+ really that they'll rarely ever hit (no +acc equipment, B rating weapon, no +acc at all really unless you have a BRD.. in which case, why do you have a RDM? :p). Their nukes kinda suck as well except in MB's, and even then it doesn't do substantial damage. S-E just didn't do a good job of keeping the job the same regardless of level... with most other jobs, you know what your role is forever: tank, support, damage dealing, nuking, etc. RDM on the other hand starts as a decent melee with good nukes and heals and turns into horrible melee with subpar nukes and only really useful for Refresh and Dispel. Easy to fix... just give more RDM-only high level enfeebles that can make as much of an impact in battles as Madrigals, Threnodies, Minuets, Hunter's Preludes, Etudes, Carnage Elegies, etc. But I doubt we'll see that anytime soon.

And BRD's meleeing? Eh, it's a possibility I guess, but again, nothing that will make a substantial impact. They hardly ever join in renkei, since their best WS will be some crap like Cyclone :sweat: At least WHM can join in lvl 3 renkeis with Hexa Strike... I don't think anyone will EVER ask a BRD to join in a lvl 3 renkei in an xp pt O_o

[vulcan4d]

Wow what a depressing post =). Seriously I was overfilled with joy when I got my Drg yesterday, thinking that this may finally be the job I can lvl to max but looking at what you guys said has totally killed my hope for this job :dead:.

[FrozenChrono]

I'm just curious if the reason Drg's are so undesirable after level 60 is because many/most exp partys are fighting bone at that point? If that's the case and there are alternant (although possibly less desirable) exping area's my hopes might be raised a bit. Thx.

[Akanei]

Originally posted by Weezingpipes
I gained 12% tp per jump (equal to a standard lance amount of tp on a successful hit) 100% of the time every time a Jump landed. I've looked for double attack jumps, in the last 18 levels I've had double attack, and there have been 0. I have a hard time believing I am that unlucky.

Then you're unlucky because I get 24% quite a bit with my jumps. :sweat:

[Carbon]

Are you sure it's not a jump and a regular attack coinciding simultaneously? I've seen that happen a lot.

[Cammus]

Past lvl 60 we are undesired because our WS is much weaker compared to many others.

Past lvl 71 the best exp spots are fighting undead skeletons, which anyone that has tried a polearm against skeleton knows our damage is halved to the point your wyvern will outdamage you.

Sure there are alternate locations but unless you make the party and they are your friends they wont want to lvl at alternate and slower xp spots.


They should at least up the exp for alternate locations, or give us another real choice of weapon for fighting bones.

Everyone has a big advantage over some type of mob, we have none and a SEVERE penalty against bones...

Yeah Yeah we are good against dragons... how many of them have you fought?

[Carbon]

Polearms are good against flying mobs - bats, flies, etc.

But how often do you fight against flyers in a leveling party? The PLD will have fun eating Jet Streams with one-hit-kill potential, and the entire party will enjoy AOE Cursed Spheres.

[FrozenChrono]

So theoretically when the next expansion is released, more areas for leveling will be available, and a there will be a decent possibility of having the level cap increased which means more WS post 75.

If that happened WS's would still hurt Drg's usefulness for sevaral levels, but they'd be able to get in partys to hunt none bones (in the new areas) til you could level up to better WS's.

Well that gives me a little hope, anyone know when the next expansion is expected to be released?

[imac2much]

Actually you fight Darters (like valkurm flies) in Boyahda tree around level 67-68 :p So polearm's (and RNG's) time to shine...

Currently no plans to raise the cap above 75. They say they plan to bring it as high as 255, but who knows when. Don't expect any new WS's and such any time soon.

I apologize if this information is deterring up and coming DRG's, but the truth needs to be said. I would have been incredibly peeved if I started as a DRG (after leveling WAR to 30, as was my original plan), only to find out how relatively useless we are at high levels. It's still a fun class, especially up to around 60, so if you don't plan to play til the high levels, you won't have too much of a problem. Most DRG (I'd say 90% of the DRG I know) change to another job after around 60-65ish. That's the beauty of the game; you don't have to be pinned to one role... if you don't like DRG at later levels, you can change to another job until S-E fixes it... if ever.

[JexIntrepid]

In the same way that it's the "beauty" of the game, it's also the sh!t of the game. No one should be forced pretty much to wait until S-E makes arrangements to continue a certain job. They shouldn't have to be forced to start new jobs. That's weak. And a sorry excuse for S-E not making enough alternate areas to fight with, one where each dmg dealer is more useful. So far, i can't stand to hear that samurai get the crap end of dmg. We hardly ever face demons anyways, and i hear that other dmg dealers do just as fine as we do against them. And as far as I can tell, drg, and sam have the most problems post 65. lack of creating both lvl 3 renkei won't get you anywhere at those levels.

So just because i spent nearly 2 months playing a certain job to lvl 65, at some point, i should just realize that i'm worthless, that i can't even try a secondary weapon at which i'd be at least A- at, to attempt a certain mob and just give up until S-E "hopefully" changes things?

THAT's plain BULL$H!T!!!!!

:mad:

[imac2much]

It's actually worse for SAM between level 65 and 70 (when they get their final lv 250 WS Tachi: hanaguruma).

Remember the only real draw of a SAM is the ability to create 2 renkei per battle with meditate. That's really useless when you only have 1 lvl3-renkei capable WS until 70. However, I hear after 70 they are useful again, since they now have a Distortion and Fusion WS (able to create both light and dark renkei). Their lv 225 WS is pretty useless when you have it, since it is Distortion, which only renkeis with Gravitation... and only tanks have Gravitation WS (swift blade, etc), and generally there are stronger Distortion WS's like Cross Reaper. But after 70, they can do Swift Blade -> Tachi: Gekko, then Tachi: Hanaguruma -> Spinning Slash. However, I find it strange that some final WS's have two lvl 2 elements associated with them (GS Ground Strike is both Fragmentation and Distortion element), yet GK, the supposed pinnacle of renkei weapons, only has no more than 1 lvl 2 element associated with their WS. Oh well.

Jex, I was just trying to put it in a slightly less depressing light. All your points are valid, but at this point what's there to do? Just play as another job if you care that much about high level gameplay.

[Weezingpipes]

Most all MMO's had some class balance problem at one time or another. It isn't anything new imo. The more jobs/classes you have, the harder it is to keep them relatively the same amount of usefulness. If one gets too good, the other x complain, and so on.

I expect the problems with DRG and SAM will be fixed eventually, as to when, I really don't know. It will be important for the long term health of the game though. Discussion is healthy though, as much as some people think it is bitching, in all these games, almost all developers read SOME forums regularly and are usually aware of concerns players have and it does result in change at one point or another.

I still have fun playing my DRG though. I'm aware of the problems but I like the playstyle. Most people won't be content being second or third rate, so presently this isn't the job for most people. I do recommend if people do want to keep playing their DRG, be aware of the problems and try to compensate them the best you can. It isn't an easy road, but if you want something easy, there are plenty of other jobs that are fine at all levels and have no real issues to speak of.

[imac2much]

Hm.. I somewhat disagree Weezing. I think we've had this conversation before ingame but...

There is a DEFINITE difference between FFXI and other MMOs. How often do you see GMs or Devs talk and interact with the playerbase in this game? Um.. none? In my 6 months of playing, I've never seen anyone interact with a GM or Dev, except the rare "go to jail" cards.

In other MMO's, the playerbase has more say. FFXI doesn't really care about the playerbase's opinions. This may sound harsh, but hear me out: it's not particularly a bad thing. This way the GMs and Devs aren't so easily swayed by the current opinions and "flavors" of the month.

On the other hand, when there is such an outright disadvantage such as these problems, they won't be addressed quickly, if ever. Think about it, DRG's have had this problem ever since the level cap was raised to 75, and more so when certain WS's were pumped up (the GS and Scythe 225 WS to be specific, although a few others as well). In all my playtime since NA launch, only 1 major and 2 minor job-balance change had been made... the nerf of yokodama (balanced however with the addition of Flash spell) and the enhancement of said WS's + tweaking of a few weapon ratings for some jobs.

I understand that before NA launch there were a few other tweaks and stuff, mostly to make certain powerful abilities/spells of a main job less powerful as a subjob. But in other MMO's, it's not surprising to see job balance get changed EVERY month. How often does this happen in FFXI? Almost never.

For these reasons, I find it highly unlikely S-E will do anything to the DRG job anytime soon, if ever. DRG and RDM have been underpowered at high levels for quite some time, but S-E has yet to do ANYTHING about it. Hmm...

Anyways like Weezing said, it's not that DRG is totally "omg sux0r" at high levels... they can still do their role nicely in a party. The sad part is that FFXI has another idiotic gameplay aspect: very few "good" leveling spots per said level range. Because of this, PT leaders are pretty picky when choosing jobs, and it may be hard to get invited to random parties... so you better become good at forming your own parties or become good friends with a PLD and BRD.

[greysenn]

The major difference being that most of the times you need to see admin/gm/whatever with other MMO's, is because they are BROKE in some form or another, and you need to get something fixed, refunded, or maybe told that your 20 hours of camping something is wasted due to a bug.

Fortunately, this isn't normally the issue with FFXI. I've encountered a few bugs, but really the main problems are relatively minor (in comparison with other mmo's) class balance issues.

Heh, screw seeing admin, I'd rather not see them around.

[imac2much]

I disagree. In AO, GMs, Devs, etc were everywhere, many of them role playing and creating new quests and missions on the spot for people of certain level ranges, etc.

There also was an official forum, instead of tons of fanbased forums like this game, where the GM and Devs participated significantly. In fact, they made several topics and discussions themselves, appointed certain 'renowned' people of each job as a representative of sorts, and they would bring up issues about their job to the GMs and Devs. Not necessarily "broken issues" but things they would like to see (not always particular to their own job).

This showed the GMs what people wanted and hated, it changed the XP loss system, etc (and you can't delevel in that game)... there was tons of discussion and feedback, and subsequent changes. I *DEFINITELY* prefer this style of interaction instead of S-E's "hands-off" approach. Then again, I guess that's one reason I quit, so to each his own.