(screenshots to come!)
I’ve been fearing for this Job’s rework, long(ish) time ago. After the Live Letter, my hopes went up significantly. And now that I brought it to LV100 and tried it out more, I can safely say: “Thank gods”.
Dragoon really didn’t change much since Endwalker: it only got upgrades and great quality of life changes.
The fifth combo Weaponskill now gets replaced by Drakesbane, a positional-less attack, effectively cutting positionals requirement from an horrendous 50% to a much more affordable 30%.
Heavens’ Thrust also got its Potency tuned down to be the same as Drakesbane, granting greater flexibility to Life Surge’s usage, especially in bursts, which is very welcome.
The clunky Dragon Sight is no more, and Battle Litany’s duration has been increased to 20 seconds in order to follow DT’s trend.
They got rid of Spineshatter Dive too and implemented Winged Glide, a non-damaging gapcloser. While this “exchange” may look disappointing or whatever at first glance, it actually comes with some side thoughts on what having two less Jumps and an additional gapcloser means to DRG.
The fact Winged Glide is a gapcloser that only works on enemies, and not on allies as well, is weird in itself, but can be overlooked. Dragoon was pretty much fine when it came to disengagement, in the past, having Elusive Jump as an extremely useful movement tool and Spineshatter Dive itself serving as an emergency gapcloser if needed, since it was a dual charge, 60 seconds cooldown, meaning it’d be up for every burst and filler alike. There were two major issues with such design, though: Elusive Jump is a clunky Ability that lets you jump backward, which means the way your character is facing dictates where you’re moving… And that often led to meme suicides or wipes; the second point being the fact Spineshatter Dive, as a damaging Ability, was supposed to be hoarded and used for the even minutes’ bursts, leaving quite a dilemma of losing DPS for greater safety. With Winged Glide, one of these issues is no more.
People are probably gonna ask: «So now that they got rid of SSD, the burst, too, will be a little less busy, right?». Wrong! While we did lose SSD, we gained two follow-ups in its stead, namely Rise of the Dragon and Starcross, respectively Dragonfire Dive’s and Stardiver’s. «What about Dragon Sight’s weave, then?», you’ll probably ask: it got replaced with 1/2 extra Nastrond(s). So if anything, DRG actually got busier, if not the same.
«What do you mean “extra Nastronds”? They’re 10 seconds cooldown, we can’t physically fit more than 2 at best in bursts!» yeah, about that… They actually reworked Life of the Dragon and its associated Actions.
Mirage Dive (and, consequently, High Jump) is now a simple oGCD without any other means but damage. Instead, Geirskogul became a 60 seconds cooldown that, when used, automatically activates LotD and grants 3 stacks of Nastrond Ready, which allows the use of Nastrond whenever… The which got its cooldown reduced to 2 seconds.
So yeah, now we have a shitton of follow-ups and much stronger bursts, alongside a tiny bit more of flexibility, all while maintaining the undisputed title of king of oGCDs and avoiding choking scenarios given by delaying Geirskogul or not (like having Stardiver being the very last oGCD available before the timer runs out), now having a perfectly aligned and always the same burst sequence.
Overall, I’m quite satisfied with the changes they implemented: Dragoon’s technicalities changed a lot, but the rotation remained pretty much the same, a bit more flexible even. I gotta say, being Enesha’s number 1 melee to date, I gotta use it more often than the other melees, but I can’t complain: it’s still enjoyable if anything.
