Fewer jumps, still soft as butter – The Dragoon lives, but will I stick with it?
I was at the playtest event for MeinMMO and had about 9 hours to try the classes. Besides the two newcomers, I was also interested in the announced adjustments to the already implemented classes.
In fact, there will be larger changes for five well-known jobs in Dawntrail:
- Astrologian
- Dragoon
- Monk
- Ninja
- Black Mage
I have unlocked and tried out most of the playable classes, but I still feel most comfortable with my main: the Dragoon. Accordingly, I wanted to see how it would play in Dawntrail.
The Dragoon? It has survived the update OP
A revision of the job from A Realm Reborn was announced several months ago. In fact, this has turned out to be not as radical as some had feared beforehand:
Some of the commands now have new names, but still the same icons and effects. The basic rotation remains unchanged by the changes. However, the Dragoon now has only one jump instead of the last three:
The Spinebreaker, a gap closer, and the area attack jump Wyrmodem are gone. Only the High Jump remains.
New is a dedicated gap closer with two uses off-cooldown. Vulture’s Spear can now be used at the beginning of the fight, and the two charges of Illusion Jump are used for an attack with Twin Wyvern.
Of course, it’s unfortunate that the Dragoon has lost two of its three jumps. However, the feeling of gameplay is still clearly the old one. Although we played a build of the game from early May 2024, if the changes are largely implemented, the job will continue to play smoothly as butter.
Soon my new main? An initial conclusion
I am actually very happy that the Dragoon still has the same gameplay flavor
as before. However, it could very well happen that the Viper will become my new main starting with Dawntrail:
As Naoki Yoshida also said: The class is extremely stylish. Playing it is incredibly fun. The playtest event was time-limited, of course. Probably because of this, I was a bit overwhelmed with the many bright commands (and the automatically adapting command buttons).
With a bit more adjustment time? Easy.
At the same time, I am a bit disappointed with the Pictomancer. The job is simply too slow for me as a continual melee DPS player. Like with other mages, I can’t stand still and let spells execute – I have to keep moving.
I had also hoped that the brought-to-life images would be cooler. After the CGI trailer, I thought more of something like the summoning of Bahamut by the Scholars – creatures made of color that fight beside me or even follow me like Carbuncle. The really short one-time effects simply don’t meet my expectations.
Now, however, it’s your turn: Are you already excited for Dawntrail and the new jobs? Or are you currently worried about your favorite class? Let us know in the comments.
Finally, Final Fantasy XIV has had to struggle with quite a bit: Alongside a protracted DDoS attack, discontent in the community arose because the graphics update announced for Dawntrail made many characters look bad in the benchmark. Now there is good news – at least for the benchmark: Benchmark update, DDoS attacks, Dawntrail – all info from Producer’s Letter Part 81
