Are Dragoons Good?

[TidusMaster]

I have heard that Dragoons never get picked to join partys and im wondering.....why? Is it just because people dont like them or what?

[Flying Mullet]

Dragoons have a tendency to run into walls and they always end up wearing the same outfit as someone else in the group. Very embarassing.

[TidusMaster]

Run into walls.....more info please.

[Lionx]

There has been a wrongly put judgment on Dragoons for some wierd reason. Mainly it has been boiled down to this imo:

1.) Low damage weapon skills
2.) TP Adjustment for multi-hit weapon skills.

Before every hit of a weapon skill would give you full TP back as in if all 5 hits of your PentaThrust WS hit, you would get TP back as if you hit 5 times. This allowwed the DRG to spam alot of PentaThrusts along with other jobs, who spammed Raging Fists, Rampage, or any multi-hit weapon skill. Since that adjustment, this was no longer so, and you only get full TP back for the first hit and every subsequent hit will be 1%TP only. Therefore people for some reason thought DRG were "nerfed" when it was actually there to remedy MNKs with Asuran Fists getting back 100TP back every single time with 999Delay on the thing.

However when parsed post that TP adjustment, DRGs tend to outdamage other melee, but ONLY with their wyvern. When you count the DRG you need to count the Wyvern as well, and added together it became a very strong damage dealer.

There are other small problems with DRGs though, like limited equipment(virtually no great sky gear) and limited end-game uses. However all in all, it is a great class that had undeserved hate to it by the community for some stupid reason. The versitility of its Subjob use with the wyvern is very useful.

[Yeargdribble]

Well I'm gonna say something that might upset some people but I feel that it's the truth.

One reason DRG is so unpopular (and also the reason DRK is unpopular) is because such a large amount of the young, immature playerbase seems attracted to this job. These players who are attracted to the job 1) play it horribly with lack of skill 2) play with bad gear 3) can't form complete sentences without using phrases like, "i hav 2 hav u beet the draygon 4 me."

I know I sound like and ass but I'm really not trying to. People who have played this game for a long time can probably attest to the fact that people very often come to forums like this (and others) and ask about either DRK or DRG. While everything Lionx said is true I don't think that this nerf alone perpetuates the dislike for DRG.

I've gone through the dunes (low level area that is notorious for being horrible to level through because of noobs) 16 times now. Constantly I run into people who are obviously younger and definitely less mature who are using gimp gear and a polearm on their WAR because they want to take it to 30 (without getting their sub first) to become either a DRG or DRK. Something just draws that demographic to these jobs.

[Lionx]

Its somewhat true but i am trying to avoid that, as that is not necessarily the job's fault....but more that people of young age like to be the BIG BAD DAMAGE DEALER and do UBER l33t DMG..>_>; Reminds me of the old DRG vs DRK debates...when they work better together.

While it might be true that the majority of the players who play these jobs suck or are immature, most of the time all i hear is that DRGs are nerfed and that stuck with them more often than what i hear of bad players...thats just me though.

[Garland]

On the plus side, dragoons and darkknights become rare as you increase in level. When there are only 20 Dragoons or Dark Knights on at any one time, people will get to know you by name, and it makes reputation invites easier if you're well equipped. On the other hand, jobs like warrior, monk, ninja and black mage leave you as just a raindrop in the ocean. When there are one to two hundred of your job on at any one time, it's hard to make a name for yourself. Low level dragoons and dark knights are the bane of many's existance, but high level dragoons and dark knights tend to be a blessing to any party. After all, they're the total opposite of a free ride to 75. At high levels, it's your primadonna jobs that turn from blessings to banes, and all those overnight 75 brds and rdms replace drgs and drks as the attitude problems.

[Yeargdribble]

Reputation being the important thing it is I'll definitely agree with Garland. There are a handful of DRGs on my server that are extremely well known for being awesome. If you are really good at it then you will stick out that much more amongst the masses of crappy DRGs. The job isn't a bad job but it is definitely marred by bad players.

Also Lion is correct in saying that most people whine about the DRG nerf while I think inherently the problem is actually that most people have never seen a really good DRG and thus they assume that all of the DRGs, having been nerfed, suck.

[Markus. D]

find mass groups of Dragoons, I was once in a Valkrum party (quite awhile ago) and there were about 4 dragoons.... cute Wyverns <3

I dont hate them at all.

[TidusMaster]

ok, can you guys give me some tips on being a...
1)Dragoon
2)Dark Knight

[Garland]

Buy good equipment (good =/= perfect). I won't say there's no skill in XI, but there's little that skill can do if you don't have the equipment to carry it out. IE: skill arguably means you never miss a skillchain, but equipment means you'll actually have tp and your weaponskill will actually deal damage. Never missing a skillchain is great- never having TP and producing crappy damage is bad. Part of skill is knowing what gear you need to do your job.

Use search comments. People who read search comments tend to make better parties than people who don't. You'll be increasing your odds of being invited to a party with a knowledgable leader this way. Leaders who read search comments often check zones for overcrowdedness and pick the right jobs for the task as well.

Carry silent oil and prism powder. Noone likes the reject who can't even get to camp safely w/o help. Often, a mage will save everyone some gil by doing a free first casting of sneak and invis on entering a zone, but after that you'll be on your own. Dying enroute to camp is a no-no.

Keep your /party macros to a minimum. Roleplaying is cool, but a macroed tagline on your commonly used abilities will irritate people. Dark Knights are especially prone to this. Noone cares how dark and brooding you are - just report your TP like a good melee and make the SC.

[Lionx]

General:

-Know what food to use, try looking at sompage for advice.
-As Garland said, know your camps and get at least 6+Silent Oil/Prism Powders(even i do it as whm).
-Know your macros, make them only showing whats needed or if theres roleplay NOT SO MANY <calls>
-Know your abilities, which one draws hate the most and etc...gauge hate, its not only the tank's responsibility.

DRG:

-Some basic things i learnt to know is while playing on my brother's DRG, is to NOT Jump when you have over 100TP. Jump is a good way to gain TP, getting more TP over 100 is usually not that useful...its always a race with your skillchain partner to 100.

-At lvl 30 you get Acc Bonus which is +10(one lifebelt). So keep that in mind and dont to TOO crazy on Accuracy, you have something backing you so focus on ATK too. Pure Acc build DRGs dont do that well from my experience.

DRK:

-Contary to the above, a pure Acc build DRK is not as bad as a build Acc build for DRG. Because DRK gets 3 bonuses to ATK, hence +30 ATK. That doesnt mean neglect ATK, but you get bonuses to it so its less of an issue.

-Dont neglect your magic, Dark skill with Stun will go up on its own, however i highly sugguest you lvl up your Enfeebling too, for Sleep and other stuff, it might not be that useful in Exp, but in many situations where it might count, you will be glad. Dont slack in spells if you can.

-Dont use Absorb TP recklessly and learn how monsters get TP and use them.

-Level both Great Sword and Scythe, dont skimp. However dont use these weapons as a WAR(use GAxe/Axe...preferably GAxe).

[Garland]

Just a little drk trick I picked up from hearsay. When you get the spell absorb TP it'll be a huge boost to your effectiveness, but only if the mob has TP when you use it. You can't absorb stats that aren't there, so you don't want the mob to use its tp during your casting. A handy way to ensure the mob has full 100% tp or more is to stun the mob's TP attack right before casting absorb TP. For example:

Goblin Taru-Eater readies Bomb Toss.
Whatwouldfreudsayaboutthatbigsword casts Stun.
Whatwouldfreudsayaboutthatbigsword casts Absorb TP.
89 TP absorbed from Goblin Taru-Eater.
Goblin Taru-Eater would've readied Bomb Toss but has 0 TP.
Whatwouldfreudsayaboutthatbigsword >> TP: 100%. Lemme know when you're ready to SC, Samurai.

[Khaotic]

If you enjoy the job, level it, don't worry about what other people think.

[Nakor TheBlue Rider]

i was lucky back in the day when i lvled WAR, it was perfectly acceptable for me to use a Great Sword.

Which worked out well since i went DRK as soon as i hit 30.

Anyways, if your going DRK, Deffinatly learn to use Stun, Absorb spells, and really dont be cheap when it comes to gear and food.

unfortunatly DRK is one of the Rare Jobs where Gear really really makes the diffrence. a Drk with bad gear is quite usless, where as a BLM or WHM with bad gear is only a hinderance but still usefull.

that being said, while gear is important for everyone to play at thier jobs most effective, it really is just a game and the "elitism" gets really really old.

[Del Murder]

Younger gamers are probably attracted to the Draggon for the Wyvern, and also its history in the FF series. And to their credit they do look pretty cool. Hell, even I want a pet dragon!

[Darius]

Sorry if this is a dumb idea but im still new at this game. Only had it less than a month so far. Anyways, I wanted to be a DRG but I also like being a tank. Since DRGs arent good tanks but I like the Wyverns, is it possible to be a PLD as the main and DRG secondary and still use the Wyvern?

Or what about a DRG/RDM? With the support spells the RDM has, wouldnt the DRG be a decent option?

Im currently just a 14 WAR :(

Any help would be fine since I actually wanted to use the warrior as my secondary since I like his passive skills. I also wanted to be a DRG but all the neg feedback is killing it for me.

I thought about a DRG/WAR but someone mentioned that that was what noobs do. Im just looking at the damage output and the double attack and critical strikes for 30 seconds would be nice with the damage output a DRG seems capable of doing...

[Garland]

Dragoons are the only pet based job that can't use its pet when subbed. I don't see why - all other pet jobs get pets equivellent to their subjob level but the wyvern is banned altogether. People say subbing a wyvern would make the dragoon lose its uniqueness but then what of sub summoner and avatars and sub pup and automatons? Seems like shortsightedness on SE's part.

EDIT Actually, it's probably because for some reason using the Wyvern was a dragoon's old two hour and no job gets its sub's 2hour ability, but SE fortunately gave Drg another two hour so now it makes 0 sense not being subbable.

EDIT2 Dragoon/Warrior - What noobs do? Nay, Dragoon/Warrior is what Dragoons worth their polearm do. There are a handful of melee subs. Subbing ninja gives you utsusemi and dualweild. Utsusemi helps on long pulls and for jobs who pull hate. Dualweild lets you weild two 1h weapons. However, You don't pull hate because your damage is DoT divided between you and your wyvern. Polearms are two handed weapons and you can't dualweild them. Save ninja sub as a last resort sub for parties when you're puller and you know you can't survive w/o it - long pulls in Cape Terrigan (if people aren't in ToAU by then), for example. Ninja isn't a dragoon's default sub.

Subbing thief gives you Sneak Attack and Trick Attack. It lets you do a critical hit weaponskill and put the resulting hate on the tank. The thing is, a dragoon isn't about spike damage. They don't benefit from planting their less than spectacular WS damage on the tank. In fact, with hate removing Jump skills, they're best at playing the 1st voke to set up SATA for another melee like Drk who has WS worth talking about. Not much benefit from thief sub. Focus on DoT, not mediocre spike damage.

Subbing warrior gives you berzerk, double attack, and a slew of other useful melee skills/traits. If you don't need a specific tool from one of the other subs, sub warrior.

[Lionx]

Its probably not subbable because if you look at it, wyvern damage is free damage, and is what seperates the damage of DRG over those of other jobs. 1200+500 > 1400 of DRK dmg average of battles. That and i wonder how the wyvern abilities work with DRG sj...

[chionos]

I thought for certain that subbing drg would allow the wyvern to be summoned after the drg 2hr fix. SE wants people to be more versatile and creative when choosing subjobs, but make only a handful worthwhile. Sub drg should definately get to summon the wyvern.
Drg/Rdm and Drg/Whm are incredible at soloing starting at around lvl60. There's a Pimp Drg on my server who can outsolo most other jobs. I think he uses both /whm and /rdm in different situations, but I don't know his exact reasons. Jumps allow a Drg to avoid large spike damage from tp skills and and high end magic.

Drk is definately a contender endgame with absorb-tp and the new merits for it. There are 3 main reasons that Drk's have been ignored(for the most part) endgame. One is that spike damage incurs too much hate and with their low def/vit they're an mp-sink for whms. The other reason is that other jobs hate to sc with drk because they're slow gaining tp, but now that's not so much of a problem. The third reason is that mainly ignorant noobs played drk in the past and ruined its reputation. No absorb spell and no amount of merits will ever fix the third problem, so drks will always be trying to prove themselves against that old stigma, but at least now the intelligent drks out there have less to fight against. With drk though, be ready for the first 30 lvls or so to be pretty annoying. Unless you're going to use sushi, your acc is going to be horrible and you're not going to see the major damage that you see at later levels.

Also, if you start to get frustrated, take a break but don't give up on your main job. Constantly changing jobs will keep you from getting into the funnest and most rewarding parts of the game.

[Lionx]

I dunno about you guys, but i prefer /DRG if you are DD 20-30(Jump+ATK Bonus), and /DRG is pretty good at least in Midgard, people are dishing out millions for the +5% Haste Earring when subbing DRG.

[Yeargdribble]

As a taru I personally have done /DRG from 20-30 on melee jobs for the reasons Lion mentioned above. Jump+Atk Bonus pretty much outweight all other subbable things to 30. At 30 you get Berserk from WAR and SA from THF etc. but before that no job really offers as much as /DRG.

[Nakor TheBlue Rider]

heh yep i was a DRK/DRG for about 4 lvls, from 26-30 lol

once i hit 30 though there was really no reason to sub DRG ever again.

if /DRG could use Wyvern then DRK/DRG would be very very powerful im guessing and would make DRG look like trash. the only reason DRG can hold its own against the DMG that DRK do is because you count the Wyvern DMG. if a DRK could get the Wyvern then really a DRG would lose much of its value in my opinion.