Fellow dragoons...

[Kain99]

I remember trying Drg/Drk when I couldn't decide between the two when I was abuot lvl 15, althought it was low lvl I noticed a problem with the stats just as I was told by others. My STR and ATK were lower with Drk sub then War sub.

Last Resort is just a gimped Berserk. Berserk lasts longer AND adds alot more to ATK so therefore it is much more useful. Soul Eater I doubt would help Drg that much, if you use it with Penta Thrust thats a total of 60% of your health drained if it's 5% health drain per hit. Believe me, alot of times at my level I will get hate right after using penta, so I would only be at 40% health IF I was at full health to begin with and the mob would just tear right through the dragoons poor defense and more then likely kill you before you had the chance to do much.

Drg/War gets
Atk Bonus
Def Bonus
Provoke
Double Attack
Defender
Warcry

Drg/Drk gets
2 Atk bonus
Last resort
Soul Eater
extremely low MP(You don't even get the useful spells)

Just looking at that comparison Drg/War makes a much more viable and useful sub. You do not get the bonuses from subbing the adv. jobs that you would think so it really doesn't make sense to sub Drk or Pld in that case.

[FrozenChrono]

The first attack bonuses don't stack so that gets crossed off for War, and you only get one for Drk. Also as an attacker, while defensive skills are handy since your primary abilitys let you shed hate after a spam or over time, you should rarely need them, and provoke. They are useful as a trick buddy though. Finaly you don't get Warcry til level 70. I'd say the best case for Drg/Drk could be made from 60-69, before warcry but after attack bonus 2 and soul eater. Before that War gets more, and better skills for the most part, after that warcry may not be much of a factor if you party with others who have War subbed, or main. (unless it stacks of corse, but I doubt it does)

[Ayako2]

Be happy we aren't Samurais.

Anyway.
DRG/DRK won't work, aside from all the above reasons, also Darkness/Soul Eater/Whatever you call it is gimped on sub jobs. I'm not sure of the exact formula, but it's more HP loss for less damage addition. Also, Last Resort sucks because it adds hate, whereas Berzerk doesn't. The heal breath activates at 25-33% HP when the Helm is on, which is just ridiculous, there should be no situation where HP is that low, and you can go long enough to spit a Heal Breath out. With the Wyvern healing ability addition, I can MAYBE see some viability in subbing a mage in certain situations where you couldn't before, but eh....
The 3 situational sub jobs (war, thf, sam) still tower over the others. To the person who mentioned it before, btw, the JSE earring gives Double Attack regardless of sub job, WAR isn't required.
DRK at the end of the game is good for one thing and one thing only, Stun. RDM/DRK > anything ><. Otherwise, they sit on the bench with the rest of us. DRK > DRG = THF > SAM
As for the TP thing...I really have never wished I was wrong more. T-minus 14 hours ;(

[Weezingpipes]

Berserk adds hate, just a rediculously small amount. There have been times I started a fight and double attack goes off and I get 2 crits when the tank has only provoked and hit Berserk right after, it turns...and goes right back to the tank when they hit ;p Not often or anything does that situation occur but I've seen it.

Not sure the good reason why Last Resort is a large hate addition, seems pretty stupid considering how much worse it is duration wise compared to berserk.

[FrozenChrono]

yea you'd think it would at least make you do more damage while it's active to even it out a bit.

[Zihn]

Ayako do you know what the activation requirement for the JSE earring's are

[Weezingpipes]

yea you'd think it would at least make you do more damage while it's active to even it out a bit.

...Last Resort does increase ATK, which does make you deal more damage while its active. Just a 30 second ability doesn't compare in usefulness to a 3 minute one.

[tam]

drg/drk

sure it seems drg/drk may look good on paper cause of LR SE atk bonus and stuff like that

but having Provoke is something that is very important

normally in my parties with thieves... i provide the first provoke to keep the hate on me while the tank goes behind it and the thf tricks/sneaks onto the tank for good hate control.

if i didnt have provoke... and something happens... like thf lagging or .. angle wrong just to name a few bad incidences.... you are still taking damage... whm heals u... and the mob zooms off to the mage.... thats a bad thing when u get higher in lvls and stuff hits ... pretty hard...and that lost hp needs to be healed = more mp used = more downtime

plus .... provoke can save ur party from being annihilated.. like tank dying to an uber ws (sickleslash etc.) and no one else can tank.. basically except u slap on defender take off berserk and tank the mob ... yes we're bad at it but it can save a pt from dying altogether

souleater is nerfed as a sub much like now sneak attack is only 2x damage only

Double Attack is often over looked but it being able to trigger during a multihit ws helps ur tp return and ur damage quite a bit.
plus DA helps u gain tp much faster. especially if the tp nerf does happen... u'd want to gain tp faster

defender ... use only to save ur pt from dying ... i've personally have tanked some monsters cause of freak accidents and saved party from getting screwed over..

berserk > last resort in almost all ways... no hate from berserk while mobs turn towards drks who use last resort all the time. damage from berserk is higher than damage from last resort ... and i think it minuses the same def (not sure) berserk lasts wayyy longer than last resort and ... i think berserk jus looks better when u use it >.>



i had an idea for drg after seeing someone post about jumps stunning mobs...

Lower damage of jumps a bit but make them stun .. and make our job a stun job... random thought that popped in my mind haha... anyways >.>

patch almost here ...... lets jus hope we're not gonna sink further down the list of viable jobs out there that parties want

[FrozenChrono]

...Last Resort does increase ATK, which does make you deal more damage while its active. Just a 30 second ability doesn't compare in usefulness to a 3 minute one.

Yea I know it increases attack, what I meant to say wasyou'd think it would increase your damage more then berserk (since it's only a 30 second ability vs 3 minute). Wow you musta thought I was pretty dumb saying that LR should increase damage huh?

Anyway tam, everyone who has played Drg/Drk has said that they do more damage with normal attacks then Drg/War, and Berserk evens out the damage. I'm not sure why that would be seeing as there stats are virtually identical, and they haven't gotten the second attack bonus (and according to every reliable source I've looked at the level 1 attack bonus doesn't stack.) In any case Warcry affects your party, so if you have 2 other wars or war subbed in your party it'd be kinda pointless to have unless it stacks while it's on. Also you don't get it til level 70. At level 60 Drk sub gets attack bonus 2 and soul eater. Seems like that plus LR would at least make it an arguable sub from 60-70 vs. double attack and berserk.

I don't have time to finish this post and talk about trick buddies and whatnot. Cause I got to go.

[JexIntrepid]

I agree that if and only if you are lvl 60+ should drg/drk be seem a viable combo.

I've talked with a few ppl that actually have tried it. They say that their dmg is on par or higher than other drg/war with berserk. And on top of that, they can use Soul Eater without much worry about hate, Health is ok, 5% x 5 hits of penta is 25% of your HP. Should you do more, u can easily have your wyvern heal breath your HP right back. So you don't become a HP sponge.
Provoke? wow, for anyone to even argue that provoke for a dmg dealer is really useful at those later lvls makes me wonder whether they're playing as full dmg dealers. Anyways, should there be a real bad situation where you need to save your teammates, i'm pretty sure that Last Resort + Soul Eater + Jump, will easily draw hate back unto you.

At levels higher than 70, /war seems obviously better because of Warcry, but thnk about how many plds already have warcry, or your nin/war, or your war/nin, or your mnk/war, or etc...get my drift? Enough ppl have war subbed, so it's pointless.

And no, Drg/Drk isn't better than drg/war. it's just another alternative. So don't get your hopes up in trying to flame this post....ya bastards

I know, it'll be harder to get in a group, blah blah, any dmg dealer already has problem finding a group, so its the same thing in the end.

[Weezingpipes]

Provoke? wow, for anyone to even argue that provoke for a dmg dealer is really useful at those later lvls makes me wonder whether they're playing as full dmg dealers

Its called Fuidama, and unless DRG has some sort of high agro ability that allows them to pull it off properly that I've never heard of, provoke is the only option. Its also why you don't sub SAM grouping with THF or DRK/THF at higher levels, or any other sub, just warrior. War Cry isn't exactly "important" to a DRG due to the 5 minute reuse time. Basically if you are doing Fuidama properly, War Cry is great to have..but you really can't rely on it given the reuse time. When doing fuidama was only a handful of times I had to use War Cry in additon to WS + provoke, but if I don't have to use it for agro, its a small bit of free atk for chain 5 at best.

DRG/DRK isn't the next coming of jesus you might hope it will be, period. Its a gimped sub easily replaced by 3 other notably better subs, and doesn't fill any of a DRG's roles in a party better than THF SAM or WAR would. Even WHM sub has higher value to a party than DRK sub.