FFXIV: Why I Like Dragoon and Job Identity 

How do you do, fellow Viper Mains?

I feel so priveliged to be a Black Mage main rn. No one's questioning my job identity, and it isnt ever changing.

You talking about weave economy made me realise that's why I keep coming back to dragoon. It's the only job whose reopener I feel like I have to be really careful about because of how important it is to properly sequence your OGCDs in the short window you have, and I find that exciting compared to "busy" jobs like DRK whose bursts are mindlessly spammy, or GNB/NIN whose burst tools don't interact or overlap enough for it to take much effort with sequencing And to add, the part at the beginning about archiving old job states is extremely appreciated. As someone who loves digging into old resources to find out how jobs used to play to better inform myself on the game's history, your videos are bar none the best place to go for ShB, because you show the skills in motion, contextualize them within the job's kit and explain how they work in practice. It goes beyond just a basic tutorial and I really appreciate that.

Yes, new, interesting video! Thanks. Bard since ARR. Job identity: keep moving and keep dots/songs up (plus stylish hats).

I think this video helped me figuring out why people say Paladin lost its identity, the loss of the second combo finisher was probably as if you removed Chaotic Spring/Chaos Thrust and turned it into a high damage GCD without DoT and a 60s cooldown that doesn't really interact with anything else anymore. There might also be something about Fight or Flight and Requiescat not interacting with each other (FoF being entirely physical and Req being purely magical) making it so that Paladin had two burst phases, one ranged and one melee (which you could also string together into one really long burst).

Thank you for a digestible breakdown of a fairly complex topic. DRG is my secondary main behind DRK, and I could never articulate what it was about it's gameplay-feel that I found so appealing. My worry with the upcoming rework is that, it feels like some of the job changes lately have been made to address complaints put forward by people who aren't dedicated fans of the jobs in question. DRG's busyness is certainly offputting for some players, but I don't want to see it become a lower APM job to satisfy the complainers so that they can try it for 2 weeks and go "yeah that's neat" and then go back to viper. Here's hoping the rework is led by someone who loves the job as much as you do. Excellent stuff as always and I can't wait to hear your thoughts after the broadcast!

Weave economy is always the reason I recoil whenever I hear the common "just make jumps GCD" take. That... runs counter to the entire goal of the job. Constant weaving is not a PROBLEM.

Love love love Dragoon. ❤ Still trying to learn it. Thank you for this video Wesk!

As a DNC, assuming a more or less competent party, I can release my second tech step in Euphrosyne right at the same time as the first "fairest goddess wandering the night" hits and GOD that feels good when thinking about what DNC job identity means to me.

This is very interesting to learn. I didn't start playing until I think SHB already being out. My main was SMN. Then the SMN got that rework in EW and I just...didn't click with it. I mean it was fine, but it just didn't feel as fun anymore. Given, I heard the previous version was very complicated to learn. I struggled more with other jobs more so I couldn't relate to that specifically. I thought i was very attached to the SMN job and it lost what made it SMN - but only to me. Looking at it in hindsight, it's doing what I think it was always doing: summoning. and that hasn't changed at all in the rework. If anything, it improved it.

I have come to think of "Job identity"as the answer to the following question: "Stripped down to its most basic functions, what does this class do?" Looking at some of the jobs in FF14, I think that we can kind of see it like this: Dragoon alternates between two combo strings in order to upkeep buffs/debuffs while maximizing damage within those buff/debuff windows, while weaving a variety of off-global buffs and jump attacks. Due to various timing reasons, the class is basically always single-weaving, so DRG's proper "feel" is of a continuous attack flow with a lengthy number of weaves to keep in check giving it a nice extra pressure. With each expansions' iteration, DRG effectively maintained this by allowing the combo strings to lead into each other more naturally, and by adding more off global attacks. Basically, just lengthening the time the pressure is on, but smoothing out the main combo without really altering it. No matter how the class alters, the "feel" to how DRG plays always holds. By contrast, Monk is another class that likes its continuous flow combo, but is a lot more flexible. The class most definitely demands that you go through the whole loop properly in order to get the most of your attacks, but there are skills like Form Shift that allow you to recover should you falter a button press. The class doesn't necessarily care about a totally static combo string, just that you complete the loops, both before and after greased lightning was removed. The way that the class built on this was basically to crit farm, and gaining a series of skills that either boost the critical hit rate, or gain more benefits as the number of critical hits pile up. The only exception to this would be Perfect Balance and Masterful Blitz, but I also think that these fed very well into the MNK fighting style, as they allowed you to basically go with whatever combo you wanted. You could either go for your crit combo, buff combo, or mix and match to quickly recover and get ahead, and only demands that you are familiar with the same six punches and kicks you've been throwing since the Praetorium. The definition of beauty in simplicity. Summoner is most definitely the class that has been hit the hardest in the recent times. Originally a DoT oriented class with a pet for some extra hits, it was defined by a very wobbly rotation that was known for being either super complex or super chaotic due to how misaligned everything was leading to a lot of on the spot decision making. More importantly, it was a class that was very interested in maintaining resources, as those DoTs were imperative to empowering other attacks, or spreading to other enemies to maximize crowd control output. EW changed this ENTIRELY by making the class more of a mode-switch caster, alternating between fast-but-weak spells, and slow-but-heavy ones. Decision making is more so now based around how you handle mobility, as casting Ifrit will force you to stop to cast your spells, while Garuda's best damage requires that the enemy by kept still instead. It most definitely feels like a different class, because you are focusing on completely different things, as literally half of the original playstyle has entirely vanished. Black mage. Be blasting. Be skating. Be late to cast and lose stacks. Be frustrated. Be cast Blizzard and back to spamming fire. Good times. You could also argue whether or not you think an "identity" is well defined or not - such as how I think that Ninki is vestigial to Ninja, and should instead encourage more bonus effects through jutsu, while having a more lukewarm take on Samurai's very similar Kenki gauge. It might actually be something good that came out of the Job homogenization, as making the classes function so similarly really helped us see what set them apart from one another (though I do agree that we would all like them differentiated some more, please). Also, I think we all just want to see the final form of RDM fire off a 2 minute linear finisher combo XD So, to conclude, I think that when discussing about "job/class identity," the important thing to think about is what the core behavior of the class is. What is it that the class was built on, and how do subsequent ability sets build onto that, if they do at all. A job's abilities can change from moment to moment, but the ones with a strong sense of self will always fight like they always have. P.S. Please give BRD a plaguespreader arrow. I don't care if it has to have a 30 second cooldown, I am suffering from withdrawals, and this is all I can hope for after losing bane!

I think I remember MrHappy mentioning that YoshiP said that the DRG changes will be similar to the changes made to NIN early on in ShB, where their mudras were put onto the GCD. If I were to guess, if this is true, jumps might be getting moved to the GCD, which would be far less weaves, unfortunately.

I'm playing catch up since I just started in March but it is cool to hear these job specific opinions. Gives me something to think on when I do decide to level up the job.

For me something I find extremely unique to dragoons identity is it’s 30 second cycles and it’s interactions between high jump, geir, mirage dive and life of the dragoon. In normal content this isn’t much of a big deal but as someone who does ultimates frequently on dragoon, you start to realise that most uptime segments are in divisibles of 30 - 31 seconds (e.g. top p5 post delta uptime, tea post inception uptime, dsr p2 opener before strength), this translates into you gaining additional uses of your 30 second ogcds if you use them first thing in an uptime segment and possibly leading to you gaining you a life window. This easily makes dragoon one of the most fun jobs for reclears and optimisation in almost all the ultimate encounters second to blackmage IMO. I find this 30 second optimisation of dragoon to be extremely fun, trying to squeeze as many life windows and usages of your 30 second ogcds into a fight as possible, separating an amateur of the job to a veteran dragoon.

As someone who is not a Dragoon main (Reaper is my primary Maiming job), I personally only find Dragon Sight a bit awkward to use out of the current skills.

I'm going to watch the whole thing and really just enjoy it without making a comment. But one thing that got me to stop eating my sandwich during lunch while watching is "you couldn't get straight answers about why kaiten's removal changed the job identity". As a Tank main that considers SAM their "DPS Main"... I just liked Kaiten. That's it. I'm not gonna pretend it's job identity related. I just liked the whoosh. Monkey brain likey. And I think more people should be honest about that instead of trying to justify it as something deeper. Gonna enjoy the rest of the video now :D

as a former Summoner who only started playing the game for the pet DPS gameplay, I pray your job still exists come Dawntrail. At least I get to be a Beastmaster main come its release (sobs)

Regarding SAM I felt like a big part of his Job Identity was that he had a resource to manage. (For context, I started playing in Shadowbringers, so I cannot comment on the SB iteration of SAM) And yes, the resource management wasn't too difficult but I found it quite satisfying. You had your 25 Kenki Dump, a 50 Kenki Spender every 2 min, Seigan was more Kenki efficient per potency but you could only use it after third eye, Hagakure to make your rotation flow smoothly, Ikishouten giving you 50 Kenki every min, your gap closer and gap maker And of course Kaiten In EW they made Senei and Guren cost only 25 Kenki, removed Seigan wich trivialized your resource management already significantly. And After they removed Kaiten it lost all semblence of managent. You have 25 Kenki, you press Shinten. Save it up a bit if your 2 min window is coming up, but not more then 50, so you don't overcap with Ikishouten. It just wasn't satisfying to me anymore. In ShB I palyed SAM quite often but I just didn't feel it anyomre in EW. And the removal of Kaiten was the last straw for me that made me drop the job almost entirely. I don't know if many other people found this to be an essential part of SAMs Job Identity but I personally did. To me SAM feels... kinda empty now.

Same bro...my first class/job is lancer/dragoon

I'm a dragoon main too! I love it because the burst is intense with all the double weaving and then I get a nice long break until I get to do it again.

I personally agree mostly with you about Dragoon's Job Identity, It is by far my favorite DPS to play. I mained it during the 2nd Tier this Expansion and the only thing I didn't like was how Dragonsight worked. I eventually figured it out how to double weave it but it took some getting used to :'D The Thing I personally don't agree with is that you need to Change DRG just because it's a new expansion. Upgrade a few existing skills by giving them some fancy new animations and call it a day. I would be perfectly happy with that.

I feel the same way. I started this game as Lancer/Dragoon back before EW came out. I've always love the flow/weave it has already. Even if I now have everything at 90, Dragoon is my canon job for my WoL. Weaving skills comes easy to me from my days of other MMOs like TERA and AION. I'm all for a re-work if only to bring more people to the job, so long as that identity you pointed out is there, weaving skills better than an omicrafter can weave a new glam set.

I hope they don’t make Dragon Sight into dance partner. It sounds like a change for the incompetent. We lose the freedom of choice and agency to adapt to dynamic situations (e.g. the highest DPS player dying and getting a 25% reduction). Take 5 minutes to learn how to apply it manually and smoothly and you’ll be fine. I would hate to wipe to a 0.1% boss enrage because I have to apply dragon sight to a samurai that just died instead of another perfectly fine DPS just because I’m “partnered” with them.

Interesting vid. I absolutely love the look and lore of drg. Blm comes a bit more naturally for me and i feel more comfy in the caster arena but if i were melee id play maiming no question

I started actually playing with Endwalker so I really enjoyed this breakdown of the class through each expansion. I would very much like to see more for the others. The progression of the class and its identity as the game progressed. Starting in Endwalker I obviously play through all 90 levels but each level set is just a precursor to whatever the current expansion is so my lvl 1-50 was not the same as people who played during ARR 1-50.

Sassy Dragoon here, Thank you for this video! it was very interesting to learn ^^

I have played Final Fantasy 14 for around 1500 Hours now and have played all jobs till atleast 60 but although i think dragoon is one of the coolest jobs i just can't play it cause of my hotbar and whenever i try to change it i just can't get used to it. Nonetheless great video!

as someone who's also been a dragoon main since i started playing in 2019, i resonate with literally everything you said in this video. but i'm also mentally preparing for the worst case scenario and deciding on backup mains just in case lmao

"If we want Dawntrail dragoon to feel like something new exciting" I DON'T. I want the same job we just spent however many expansions with, I don't mind :'(

I started initially in Stormblood but didn't get into the game until late Shadowbringers. I love Dragoon, because it scales up and down very easily. I also love the 5 hit combo. I love your train analogy, because it feels accurate. And I love all our current abilities and I don't wanna lose it :( Not only do I love all the jumps, but our lvl 90 double dragon ability maybe my favorite level 90 ability. Even more than the PLD Knight Sword combo.

I mostly agree with this, gunbreaker also has a similar feeling of like, they can change exactly how the burst works, but the core identity is in continuation and no mercy making a busy tank with downtime in between, I preferred shb gnb but you could argue ew gnb leans more into this by spending all the downtime aside from your 30s gnashing fang on reloading. The main reason I was sad to see kaiten go was it was one of the last buttons in the game that used the job gague for anything more complex than "single target spender vs aoe spender" ensuring you were cashing out with shintens approriately, especially when trick was a raid buff, was much more fun and interesting when you still had to be wary to save some for kaiten, it felt like I was actually managing a resource and not just "wait for the buff to appear then mash the spender button".

Wonderful idea for a video

Nailed it. Love that dragoon is the controlled chaos of jobs. we have the long gcd standard combos. but have to make micro adjustments as mechanics happen or mistakes happen with ogcd's. Hate how bad drift effects us but that's a skill issue, hate how dying sets us back on life of a dragon but also a skill issue. would love if we got a god ogcd that sets us either to 3 eyes or just directly into life of a dragon at lvl 100. The possibilities with this rework are endless, and like you said "I don't know if there's drg mains on the design team, but they've never let me down" full heatedly agree. Lets keep our busy ogcd life cause thats the fun of drg!

I have a funny history with DRG. My first 2 characters, back in 2017 and 2018 respectively (tried the game on and off, didn't get very far) were both MNKs. When i decided to get into the game for real (2020) with my current character Harrow, I wanted to try another DPS and so i went with DRG. my goal however was to unlock dark knight, and indeed it became my main job. my switch from dragoon to DRK even got baked into my character's story. I quite liked shadowbringers dragoon with the self-sustaining Blood timer, and since it was my starting class it was the melee I was most comfortable with, but i never really took it to high-end content (i was still a baby raider by the end of 5.x). when they announced Reaper, i thought it was going to become my new favourite melee due to aesthetics, but I failed to really grasp how to play it at high-end, and to be honest that applies to all DPS. i feel that since i spent more time playing each job in 5.x, i got to learn them more than i currently do in endwalker. now, I'm a one-trick-tank. but when i got the opportunity to reprog Dragonsong's Reprise as DPS, my choice was my first job: dragoon. i had never done an Ultimate as anything other than tank, so it was a very different experience, but i really enjoyed it. there's something about each of the other melees that eludes me: MNK with different combo proportions and the new perfect balance mechanic; NIN with its ninjutsu and TCJ and bunshin; RPR being gauge-based gives me trouble translating into a neat time-based loop; and SAM with its many gauges and filler and weirdly looping rotation. but revisiting my old friend DRG, sure i had to learn special openers and bursts to accomodate for downtime, but it like just made sense in my head. it quickly became so comfy, so predictable and satisfying. as a DRK main, the busy burst really tickles my brain. i enjoyed playing it in DSR a lot and i'd love to keep playing it, so hopefully the rework will keep it as fun as comfy as it is now. thanks for the video!

I used to enjoy Dragoon back in Heavensward. The feeling of being able to pump out Geirskoguls back to back without dropping your Blood of the Dragon was a high I haven't experienced with any job before or since then. When they changed Dragoon to be as mindless as it was in Stormblood with a really annoying to manage tether and a special stance inside your special stance (Yo dawg, I heard you like special stances, so we put a special stance inside your special stance, so you can activate your special stance when you've activated your special stance) was when I absolutely fell out of love with the job. I hope DRG gets even a hint of what it used to have back in HW back, but with how the current job design has been I really doubt it.

I play a bit of everything on a casual level but I always enjoy Dragoon. It's one of a handful of jobs I tend to level early on in an expansion and I started the game as one in 2.0. I agree that there's not a lot of room for the job to grow from where it is right now but it also doesn't need to change drastically. From what I understand this rework isn't going to be a complete shift like what Summoner got so there's hope that the feel of the job will come out intact. I'm sure they'll at least start hinting at their plans for it soon whenever the media tour comes into full swing.

I remember back when i first started playing, I was disappointed that Jump skills didn't function like the RPGs -- that is to say, you didn't physically leave the arena before dropping like a bomb. I still came to love the job over time. It's as you say, they're busy but consistent. I especially love the animations and sound/visual effects. It's overly very satisfying, and I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with it in DT.

Honestly have always loved dragoon i did set it aside for the xpac for reaper because i like how reaper plays but ended up playing it this savage tier and fell in love with it again i have only played the shadowbringers and endwalker versions but it is always nice to hear how the job has evolved over the course of xpacs and has me hopeful that the job identity doesnt disappear going forward into dawntrail especially when i might be trying to play it more than reaper starting next xpac

I was always on the fence back in the day about playing Dragoon because of all the lingo being thrown but once I started playing it, it became one of my fav jobs. The only thing I think is completely hideous in terms of use right now is Dragon Sight. Having to stop midway to apply a buff to urself and another person is something that needs to be automatic or just more straightforward. Something I see as being useful but I wouldn't exactly consider it a need would be to reduce the number of buttons but only at the end of the Dragoon rotation. I get it is part of the identity of the job but it gets so awkward to place those last skills, specially when they are so crucial to your rotation and the other skills do not really add anything to the rotation or are straight up unusable. Great video overall 👍

Dragoon is a job I have never gotten into on any of my jobs. (Only melee DPS I played is Monk originally and then Reaper.) I am interested in seeing what the general job changes overall come up with Dawntrail with them putting combo buttons in PVP and some solo duties I wouldn't be surprised if they combine some skills going forward I am expecting some of it to be talked about in the next live letter as well as talk about the new jobs more. On my job Identity - I was Monk main until I started Shadowbringers and the change happened - I think then they removed some positionals from the combo I found it less fun and switched then to Dancer main the head empty dancer jokes are basically how I play, concentrating on positioning myself and using my support at the right time when flinging off feathers as soon as they proc.

Im pretty late to thr ff14 party, joined late EW. I started as a dragoon snd still play it, i just love the flow of the job. Even now im still learning to weave properly and maintaining the gcd train under pressure, i still mess up alot, but i never ever felt frustrated or annoyed with the job. On another topic, how do you rest your hand(s) on the keyboard? I came from maple story so i got both my hands on it and sorta have a similar bar as urs but even with all the muscle memory i have i still mess up stuff, do u have an tips on that matter?

My spitball prediction for the Dragoon rework, just from an armchair dev perspective: Some kind of adjustment to use your full two-minute burst in the 0-minute opener, and possibly and I mean *possibly* giving Power Surge the Warrior treatment where it can stack past the base duration up to a point The former is obvious to me and would make its opener burst more consistent with the rest of the fight, and the latter would break the train GCD vibe you mentioned but make it more variable on which combo to use, as opposed to the infinite ten-button GCD loop it has now (Side note: Monk also needs this treatment for Twin Snakes) Other than that, though I may not like the class due to being a resource builder/spender fanatic myself, it's very solid in what it does and I wouldn't think to change anything else Edit: As far as my own chops, I've been a Warrior main since ARR, though I didn't delve too much into the game until ShB These days the job identity of the class for me is just gigantic heals and sustain, and it's always hilarious to cast four self-Benedictions in a row during trash pulls The GCD and burst and all of the class are fairly simple even compared to other tanks, but personally I like that, as I'm usually the shot caller for my group so I'm constantly looking around at everything else and calling out what's happening for everyone in voice The simple rotation, along with a ton of sustain if things go south, fit perfectly for the party lead vibe I try to emulate

The only thing I'm scared of, as a dragoon main who just picked up AST and loves it: both the classes getting reworks are also the only classes with targeted buffs that are always integral to their usefulness. It makes me worried that they'll remove that aspect without benefit (lol see what I did there) to the class identities. Part of dragoon's weave economy anxiety comes directly from double weaving that buff while targeting your eye partner. On the other hand, both classes literally couldn't fit much more weaving in at all, certainly not 10 levels' worth of new skills, so I remain faithful. I'm hoping for a rework more like monk than like summoner. I actually find monk easier to play than dragoon: given that I set all my hotbars up as similar between classes as possible, it became really obvious to me that monk is an incredibly similar class, though ironically I find it easier to play in a lot of situations because it's more flexible. Disciplined fist running out? No worries, you can reapply it next combo no matter where you're at, since most of your GCDs have similar potency anway, or just use perfect balance and charge your solar nadi. Power surge running out as DRG during downtime and you're nowhere near disembowel in your rotation? Gotta think on the fly whether it's worth spending two GCDs to reapply it first--is your burst coming up? Do you have to delay your burst now, or is it a 2 min burst? Should you throw out litany and dragon sight at a weird point in your combo to keep the entire party's damage up while you hope you make the right call on whether to restart your combo and lose a focus stack, or get out a buffed 5th hit and heaven's thrust with life surges but no power surge up? The fact that dragoon always wants to throw its buffs out to cover its oGCD bursts AND the fact that it takes an entire burst window just to complete 3/4 of its rotation makes it the most difficult melee class for me when actually fighting a boss and not a dummy, even though it's my favourite class and the one I started with. There's no ambiguity as to when you want to throw out riddle of fire and brotherhood as a monk since you have so much flexibility and large potency GCD burst hits. There's no confusion about using mug and trick attack to buff your mudras and raijus as ninja. With your strongest raw potency hit only being 620 (half of the other melee classes'!) and your overall potency coming from consistently smart buff timing and oGCD economy, dragoon is deceptively difficult to play effectively, and that's why I love it so much.

Why I like Dragoon? I had some training with a poleaxe when I was younger so it feels right playing the job even with all the jumping.

YOU GET IT

Personally I think merging 1 pair of buffs and 1 pair of jumps wouldn’t destroy the feeling especially with new skills. But my highest hope is a bit cleaner positionals : Imo Fang and Claw Ready “buff” should make F&C and WT both side positionals, and vice versa. So you do a side combo then a back combo etc. Positionals weren’t even mentioned in the video so I think simplifying them wouldn’t hurt the main identity and let you focus on weaving the right things.

I love Dragoon in PVP, my assumption was that they would take a little bit of inspiration from that to simplify DRG and make room for a new endgame rotation. Are we seeing the rework on 7.0 or after?

I'm not gonna lie at all, I main Dragoon for two main reasons: I adore the general job fantasy of Final Fantasy dragoons and always have. FF4 with Kain was my first FF game, and I love Aranea from FF15, and the enemy dragoons from FF16. I adore their armor, and more than that, I go crazy for the idea of their super high jumps on top of how they can chain them mid-air, as displayed in the Shadowbringers cinematic. I love how they play, plain and simple. No reduced GCD that makes Monk really hard for me to play both in terms of pure play style and literally hurting my thumb with my MMO mouse.

"Whether it's Rush E or Chopsticks, you're still playing a piano." Someone I raided with said that in 2.0 and I still quote it constantly. Job identity is *heavily* tied to button press patterns for me. An example of this is the fact that Edge of Shadow is rebranded Dark Arts (the skill, not the effect) for DRK. It's a weave you use to add potency in certain windows. The flavour is different, but the function is the same; press button, get damage numbers. It even feels almost exactly the same; in certain windows, at full MP, use it on *every* weave basically. There are probably a LOT of examples of this, skills either being rebranded or removed and replaced, without actually changing the job. Which, to me at least, feels like - I'm still playing chopsticks, but now I'm an octave lower/higher. Which is not a bad thing, if what you want to play is chopsticks, but gets confusing to people who mistake specific notes for their place in a melody. Even the devs aren't immune to that mistake.

I pretty much think that you can't feasibly just add more ogcds onto what it has now, and with most of its ogcd kit centered around life of the dragon, so there's not much you can actually remove. Maybe get rid of life surge, combine some of its buffs into one thing, maybe. Which at best you'd just be pushing back the need for a rework back by one expansion So, a job rework is necessary. I do think they'll keep its identity of timing jumps well at least. Weave economy might take a hit depending on how much gets pruned. Particularly if they do something like turn stardiver into a gcd, which I hear a lot of folks talk about. They have made jumps easier to weave, but only to make it easier to double weave things, which doing so has become increasingly mandatory, even if it causes you to clip your next gcd

Job identity is huge. All the complaints about Dragoon I hear come from people who DON'T play DRG because of its differences. The people like me who loved Dragoon's unique charm, the balance of finding when was safe to use your jumps, the incredible flow of your static main rotation mixed with having an OGCD between almost every GCD... I don't know, man, it just feels GOOD to play. I changed over to PLD in 6.4 because my static needed a tank, and I've largely not played DRG since, but my goodness DRG was my home and ShB/6.0 EW DRG felt like the most complete job kit IMO. You actually use every one of your abilities regularly, which is more than can be said about most jobs. I get that that creates a perception of "button bloat" and there is a legitimate question in my mind of how anyone plays it with a controller, so it's not like I don't understand the issues it has, but it feels so very different from other melees and I love it so much. RPR is boring, NIN is overwhelming, MNK I don't even know how to think about, but DRG is all about that OGCD weave and it felt great.

As a fellow dragoon main, I agree with most of this and I'm kinda dreading the changes. Dragoon just feels very complete at level 90! The one thing I would change is maybe finding a how to make drifting a little bit more forgiving, DRG is a very difficult job in that regard because it basically has no drift forgiveness. Once you're off -track, it justs gets worse from there. But then again, it's what makes the job rewarding when you just line up everything perfectly.

gooners rise up

When I played the original Realm Reborn I was a summoner main, and you would not believe the shock I had when I booted up the free trial last year and saw how the job played. Not a single DOT in the kit! I will say the job is MUCH better now, even if it is simplified and easy to play it's still a lot of fun, and I like how free flowing the stances can be so your rotation can be (somewhat) mixed up on the fly. Losing the 'pet control' aspect is disappointing, but I think the changes were ultimately for the best.

Dragoon is what got me into playing FFXIV in shadowbringers. Everything down to the aesthetic to the gameplay was super fun and I loved it to bits. Endwalker drg I still love I just hate how uniform the cooldowns are. On that note, I wish we got a dragon pet to fight alongside us. It would just be a cool buddy to have but it won’t happen because the rework is only on the levels of the NIN mudra rework.

Haven't watched the video yet because of work but maybe this will help me feel less frustrated and hopeful maybe with the new jobs due to my struggle for a long time already to find another class to reinvigorate the fun of doing content. I've tried almost (not all) jobs and either I have to accept that I'm just not good at some to play at least decent or they are just not for me due to how they work. If I'm having to memorize a rotation after carefully studying it and practicing 99% of the times it means I won't be able to play as good as I want that job because memorizing just for the sake of it it's not my thing, I need to feel like I flow with the job like for example with Dancer it doesn't matter how many months pass without me playing I can come back to it and my muscle memory will just do the rotation as if I never left, sure there might be some mistakes but the core of it is still intact, make me try that with... any other DPS and I'm a complete mess. But I'm not someone that "mains" a job, I'm someone that needs to keep trying new stuff and expanding my horizons, other class I play decently is Sage which is fun yeah but that's it, I need other options to have fun with and I feel stuck. I'm trying DRK right now and I'm just lvl 60 and I'm already having to memorize the rotation and don't feel like "flowing" with it but I'm giving it a chance once it's fully leveled to see if it gets better and if not... well... the reworks and new classes better do it for me cause I'm really bored with this situation and there's nothing I can do :/

Great vid! But the image of a Dragoon train won't leave my head now. Though I liked when Hi jump and Mirage Dive shared a button just for keeping my hot bar looking perfect. This does remind me why I felt Stormblood Machinst was my fav. The heat gauge as a resource you didn't want to cap was fun to balance. Stay at 50 don't over heat till the time was right. It gave me the feeling of a sniper waiting for the perfect shot and an engineer keeping their equipment working even under pressure. Wild Fire has always been a key part of the job but a lot of people dislike it and I can see why. But people hated 4.0 machinist and that makes me sad. Don't get me wrong Shadowbringers and Endwalker giving us more fancy gadgets plays up the MACHINE part perfectly but Stormblood at launch had the gun play where I want it. I don't miss being a gun mage or the ammo randomness which is weird as I like the randomness of fans with Dancer.

Is the shortage of aoe weaves part of the job identity too? (I’m teasing but seriously wyrmwind thrust seems like a pittance compared to reaper, I love dragoon but sometimes it feels the game wants me to only use it for trials and raids only)

My greatest fear is that Yoshi messes with WAR. Leave our big dumb angry asses alone.

So are you dreading the drg rework then?

Oh hey that ninja in the top party is me neat. I personally think the two minute meta kinda made jobs feel the samey to me. Being a resident NIN player... Ninjas identity I cant call it having a clustered burst when every melee kinda has it. I mean it probably has the highest apm burst but i consider having the ability to hit from range and instantly go back to melee never missing downtime its identity. If old trick existed then yeah I would consider it part of its identity too since that was exclusive for nin im pretty sure (dont quote me i started in ew). I just find it hard to pin an identity on some jobs maybe its just because i dont consider the job guages its identity but its gcds and actions itself.

In the end of your vid you mention "even the removal of 1 ogcd will make the feeling different" but at the beginning you can't relate that many sam player lost the same feeling with the removal of Kaiten? Very nice vid overall and i really like your leveling guide series!

The Kaiten thing - Samurai were doing the right thing if the iaijutsu they were building up to had a flourish before it. It created one specific but long animation. So visually, it'd be like if dragoon no longer went up when it jumped, but just forward towards the enemy.

My hope for Dragoon as a Dragoon main is improving on Dragon Sight, making it more akin to Dance Partner and giving Dragoon more buffs to share with the party. I'd actually kinda love for it to kinda be the Dancer to Samurai's Machinist and Ninja's Bard.

Lance classes are and always will be my favorite, Dragoon in FF is the best iteration of that, with only Dragon's Dogma 2's Mystic Spearhand getting close to it.

Dragoon is my favorite DPS. My favorite part is the super long GCD combo train. I know its a key aspect of the "Dragoon" archetype but I really dont give a damn about the jumps. The only "improvement" I think it needs is to stop focusing on the jumps so much and especially starshatter being so long. One of the biggest things I want for the rework is a very simple one and its the AOE GCDs, not getting the first till 40 is garbage and it takes too long to get the second part as well. I love that Dragoon has a 3 part AOE GCD combo, the long GCD combos are my favorite part of dragoon. As long as they dont ruin the GCD train I wont be too upset. I think a cool idea for the lvl100 capstone ability can be a passive that summons a Dragoon ghost to do all your jump skills for you so they dont interrupt you at all anymore.

I love videos like this, but they also make me realize I don't really have a true passion for any particular job. I have my favorites, but I've also lost any passion I've had for some jobs, like WHM, due to changes over the years.

Any word on what exactly DT is going to change?

I completely agree with this video. Dragoon has a clear solid identiy. I really hope the rework is good. Given they compared it to Ninja which I heard was well loved I am excited and worried at the same time. As for what I hope to play in Dawntrail... I am so torn on what I want to play through Dawntrail as... On one hand I completely agree I love dragoon and hope it continues to be the class I love but... They're introducing Viper which while the class fantasy is kinda whatever to me. The WEAPON fantasy on the other hand? My number 1 weapon type in any game. I LOVE dual wielding and the Double Sword is probably my favortie weapon of all time.

As a person who started in endwalker leveling all jobs to 90 atm (didn't level any of them to 90 yet) I'll give my 2 cents about leveling. In paper you unlock the skills bit by bit and it gets busier as you level up. But due to how leveling is structured in ff14 that is not how it plays out. You need to do roulette to gain any meaningful xp and most of those roulettes drop you to a level 50 or below dungeons. Leveling roulette usually drops you to sub 50, main scenario drops you to 50, alliance raid drops you to 50 most of the time. Hell even if you que for 50/60/70/80 dungeon you will most likely get level 50 dungeons. It is hard to get used to the job when the game doesn't let you practice in roulette ques. This of course happens to all other melee dps but I felt it impacted dragoon much muuch more compared to others. I feels like all other melee dps have a certain level where they have their core skills set up and dragoon gets there so so much later then every other dps (other than reaper) and sometimes that can feel frustrating. Other than that it felt great to play it after I got used to it in level 84, I'm sure it feels even better at 90 and hope it will still feel good in Dawntrail since its also my second favorite in terms of aesthetics in ff14. Thank you for making videos as always its always enjoyable to hear your thoughts about the game.

As a person that DISlikes busy Jobs - I agree. I think what is good about having multiple classes/Jobs in a game is for them to feel different, but things need to maintain over time (Jobs shouldn't change out from under people), and there should be lots of playstyles (Jobs shouldn't play like an already existing other Job because what's the point of having two at that point?) Not every Job needs to be BLM, and it would be terrible if they all were. Jobs like SMN or WHM or WAR existing are great. Jobs like DRG or GNB or NIN existing is also great. I don't agree with the people that think "everything is braindead", "BLM is the perfect Job", "everything needs to be more like BLM". I like new SMN existing...but I don't think it should have replaced existing SMN and its playstyle from the people who liked it. Again, Jobs being changed out from under people is bad. "WHM is too easy!" WHM was ALWAYS this easy. Juggling a second DoT wasn't some galaxy brain design and the modern Lily system is FAR better than SB (the worst iteration of WHM in FFXIV's history, imo). RDM has played MOSTLY the same since it came out in SB (if anything, it's a bit more technically complex now since you can get up to three burst combos at once...) I think it would be good for more diversity between Jobs, but Jobs being distinct, having their own style that's different from others in their role, and being consistent with that across expansions; that's the ideal goal to me. And I like that there are kind of tiers of what level people want to engage in. Other than Melee, each role has a really straightforward Job with a low APM to pick up and play that "just works" (WAR, WHM, DNC, SMN), and other than DNC, they're all consistent (DNC is still pretty straightforward but does have procs to play with). Each role also has a high end Job with a lot to manage and going on for it. Half the Melees, GNB, AST, BRD, and...RDM (it DOES have a higher APM than BLM. ;) And, of course, Jobs in-between those endpoints. And several roles have some pretty strong diversity, like the Magical (Ranged) DPS where SMN, RDM, and BLM...say what you want about the three Jobs individually, they don't play ALIKE at all. I think it's good to have diversity of both complexity and style. My one constraint is that a Job, once established, should stick to a core playstyle through expansions instead of pulling the rug out from under people. ...though I DO think (controller player here, 29 buttons is about the max + Sprint, LB, Potion/mount in the field makes 32, which is two full crossbar sets AND...let's be honest, 32 buttons is a lot of buttons!) that button bloat is starting to be a problem. But as I prize diversity of Jobs, I don't think it's bad for SOME Jobs to have more. I do think it's bad if EVERY Job has more.

Leg Sweep used to do damage? That's disgusting Also, I hope you managed to get your achievo, senpai I am very sad I couldn't help you get your last clear ;w;

A lot of what made dragoon so interesting to level for me was its associated job quests, ala the dragoons of ishgard comparing your use of a lance to theirs, seeing as they trained solely to kill dragons/protect ishgard and you trained with the guild in gridania for grounded combat Yet you are still both dragoons at the end of the day, and you even “invent” battle litany at 52 by comparing your techniques once you enter ishgard proper in HW Addendum: I have no idea what they plan to do with it in DT, but I do feel that there’s nowhere it can currently go with its current toolkit, so I’m curious but also very concerned

I also play DRG a lot the last months and i like the flow of the job, DRG is for me kinda the "The DRK under the DPS" the GCD Rotation is kinda simple the real deep comes from the oGCD The only thing i really dont like is Dragoneye.. sure its kinda cool but im honest _i hate to play with macros_ when they rework salted earth in EW i was really thankfull because double weave with macros is always.. mehh.. My only wish: Make Dragoneye to something like Dancepartner from Dancer that you dont need a macro anymore, like when you use Lance Charge you also buff your Dragoneye Partner or.. you and your eye partner get a dps buff when you enter "Life of the dragoon" But yeah this "to busy" is stupid i mean you play DRG with 2.5 most of the time.. whats about Ninja or Monk? And i _enjoy_ busy jobs thats also the reason why i play DRK/GNB as Tank

The only things I would change about Dragoon are: A. Make jump's animation slower again. B. Rework Dragon Sight so we don't have to untarget the boss, target a player, use it, then retarget the boss while double weaving all of that with something else. Maybe add a new action similar to dance partner that allows us to designate a Dragon Sight recipient pre-pull, which causes each subsequent use of Dragon Sight to be given to that player automatically. C. (maybe) Merge Lance Charge and Battle Litany into one action, with Lance Charge upgrading into Battle Litany at level 52. I've only been playing since just before EW so maybe older players will disagree, but personally I think the job would be more fun this way.

For me Kaiten being removed did nothing in term of “identity” , not taking into account the removed stuff you’re playing for the same goal , maintain dot and do big pp midare I still like SAM it just that it lost a little bit of satisfactory moment , you know like the final prep before unleash your big pp ultimate move (granted I started in ShB so can’t really comment on SB SAM) But i can see why it’s being the first thing they removed for bloat cuz there’re no situation where you wouldn’t Kaiten before every Iaijutsu cast so might as well baked it into Iaijutsu itself

Oh, but as a non-DRG...I miss danger noodle. I always thought it was hilarious when DRGs used it on someone then did jumps and you see one end of the noodle shoot into the air and back. It as also nice to see (when you were the recipient) how close you needed to be to the DRG.

When I got Dragoon to 90 it felt reeeeeaaally good. And then I heard that they would change Dragoon in DT and I got sad :/

I find DRG to easily suffer from misalignment if there's 30s of downtime and Nastrond (plus Stardiver at higher levels) gets pushed out of burst phase.

I feel like a more subtle part of the job identity (gameplay-wise) is copying Nidhogg's attacks. Life phase, Geirskogul and Nastrond and combining them into Wyrmwind, Final Chorus and Stardiver, Fang and Claw in name at least, Ala Morn and Chaotic Spring, Drachenlance and Wheeling Thrust. We're missing Hot Wings/Tail, Akh Morn, splitting into clones, Revenge of the Horde, and Touchdown lol

For me, kaiten wasn’t really about gauge management or anything like that. One of the things that drew me to samurai in the first place was the idea of pressing a ogcd to make an already strong gcd stronger. There’s not a lot of it in the game currently; I can only think of barrage, reassemble, and life surge. And even then, the one with the shortest cd is life surge with 40, as opposed to kaiten that was pressed multiple times in burst, and about every 20 during filler. My point is, there’s not much in the game that scratches that itch for me anymore, of pressing an ogcd to strengthen a gcd. I kind of hope dark arts is put back into the game in some form for dark knight, because I don’t really like that job and that would make it my favorite tank.(though I started a few months before Endwalker, so I don’t know how bad of a change that would be)

I'm totally fine with the dragoon gameplay, my two biggest wishes for it in DT are to please give us a job-specific defensive... like please. And to maybe rework its resources so that its not so punishing when we die and are rezzed. Reaper feels like nothing changed after being rezzed while with drg I'd rather hang it up. Also being down one more defensive doesn't do much to escape the floor tank trope.

It feels to me that you're saying that we are running into the LoL problem whenever top percentage players want one thing and beginners and casuals want a different thing from the same character/job I do however agree with you whenever I think of dragoon "I only started late shadowbringers so I don't have your insight" I think of a job that can jump a lot and Everytime I look at it or look at my hotbar there is something to be pressed and done So yeah I think I will agree on that one though I really want less buttons...same busy less buttons

Dawntrail dragoon. You get to jump everytime you spend 50 meter on a gauge.

Cries in ex summoner main

"It being as busy as it is up to 90 is fine even for new players..." I'm new to your channel and your guide for dragoon rotation has helped a lot but I don't think this is a fair statement. it's fine for you, someone who has played since 2.0 and someone who is obviously good at the game but for a new player like me? At 60 the job feels extremely busy and clunky. I don't know if it just "clicks" at 90 or with more practice, but the number of different buttons I need to remember to string together is frustrating.

1:30 an identity… since arr…. Floor tank? Ok, back to the video

I know they both stem from Arcanist but I kinda hope they finally give more unique identities to ScH and SMN. The way they are right now feels a little … lazy?

I'm more nervous about the Astrologian rework. Coming from someone who literally had to switch to a different healer because astro just has too many things to do as someone learning how to play the role in the hard content, and just how demanding it is to actually do well on AST, i really hope it gets a rework that makes it more managable rather than another rework that keeps the job complicated to placate longtime AST mains who can already play the job flawlessly who don't want the identity messed with. I just feel in AST's case? Something HAS to give, the job cannot remain in the state that it's in. Not that AST is bad, it's completely alienating to anyone who isn't already a very high skill level healer. For all the warning SGE gets about "don't make this your first healer", those warnings would apply much harder to current AST given just by how overwhelming it can be to use all of your tools, do all the weaving properly, always play cards on time on the right people, without your malefic and dot uptime plummeting. IT also doesn't help that AST is also very specific in it's substat needs to the point that you either commit to AST, or play other healers, and i hope something is done about this spell speed reliance as well, as well as how lightspeed has to be used in openers and never for movement which just feels really really bad that you have to save lightspeed for 2 minute meta reasons and not ever consider using it to make your life easier for mechanics, because of how much importance is on double weaving for cards

I am terrified of the changes to DRG, ngl- The job is near perfection as of now and I would hate to see it receive the SMN or PLD treatment, just to make "new" people feel like it's easier to master. Those "new" people wouldn't even be that new after reaching lvl 100, so I hope the devs can find a way to keep DRG true to itself with this rework to keep us mains happy

I just want life of the the dragon to feel stronger. Enshroud which is similar in concept makes your character feel like they're at their strongest.

Hey Yoshi. You know how you guys just made an event that gave players an oGCD that lets them dodge area damage? I'm just saying that if you stuck that on a jump it'd be extremely goated.

OTP Sam Main - While the identity of " Generating Resources for big Finishers " is unchanged? it's enjoyment for plenty... has been negatively impacted by how easy it is to execute. Coupled with Auto-Crit implementation not being tied to Kaiten, and Kaiten removal making us cast Shinten 2x more then we ever casted Kaiten? ruined a lot about how fun Samurai was, vs how unaltered its identity is

A skill tree would help for everyones playstyle imo the fact of getting to level cap gets boring and to repetitive unless you like farming for end game gear and once acquired the class is done

As someone who hates DRG exactly because it's very busy - I sincerely hope DRG forever stays a busy class. There's enough 'simple' classes for people like me. Sincerely, a WAR main.

All except the lvl 40 aoe

Having finally gotten dragoon to 90 on two characters.... I don't really want dragoon to change. I want bard to change. Though dragoon could use less buttons because it's kind of hard to fit stuff efficiently on controller. I went from dragoon to bard and then coming back to dragoon it feels fine in comparison. But things like the AOE rotation at low levels... just needs to exist in the first place.

As a former Summoner Main I truly hope you don't get displaced as we did. To this day I haven't found a new main, and with the main story over I might just drop the game after my class became so brain dead 3 year olds can parse with it.

Its funny, cos Ive been bitching about Dragoon being easily nullified in PVP by simply running away, not sprinting, just regular running speed. Id like them to add Piercing talon to the DRG Kit for PVP, just 4 to 5 k GCD so you can kill enemies running away and you can hit them because you skill are on cooldown, so they run and get a potion and youre just left thinking "if only there was a way l could fill that 10 to 15 seconds of cooldown". Not exacty on topic, but thats where my brain is, DRG being more along the lines of a party and AOE DPS in PVP really urks me when l see ninja, SAM and MNK just zipping around and killing people 1V1, "Well then stay with the party and play to your strengths" No fuck off lol If l wanna chase people l will! Even its limit break is easily nullified with out team stuns by running away.......idk. I know this is about PVE and its great, I think DRG is in a good place, but along with, and this is just my opinion, DRG along PLD needs a visual rework as well as a Kit rework, some of the skills look old, really old, I just think a re-imagined streamline of the visuals would help aswell. This also ties in to my opinion that the recent level 80-90 skills that ar technically the same just got a visual change, these visual changes need to bve applied from the initial lower skill, they want to avoid skill bloat, this also applies to traits aswell. Im referreing to Quick kknock and the SAM AOE opener, and MCH Scatter gun for reference. If they want to change the styles, dont just tack it on, make the skills look fresh as early as possible.

I liked the original jump animation. I really hate that it’s this teleport move in 2024.