Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers Hands-On with Dragoon

29 May 2019
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A couple of weeks ago we had the chance to sit down with an early build of Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers at the media tour. During our time with the upcoming expansion, we had a chance to check out all of the Job changes.

You can find our master post about the media tour, and a list of links to each job here.

This article is based on play of an in-development build of FINAL FANTASY XIV: Shadowbringers, and content in the final version is subject to change.

Melee Role Actions

Role Actions in Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers will no longer be selectable. Once players obtain the level of the Role Action, it will be automatically unlocked. Depending on the Role, players will have a different number of actions available to them.

Dragoon will have the following Role Actions.

Dragoon

Dragoons have gotten a nice spread of adjustments coming in Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers. While Yoshida-san himself said that Dragoon didn’t receive any drastic updates, the changes that are here feel good.

Impulse Drive has been removed and has instead been replaced with a branching option off of True Thrust. Additionally, a new weaponskill, Raiden Thrust becomes available at level 76 after learning the Lance Mastery II trait, so make sure that you’re hitting your directionals in order to activate it!

Heavy Thrust has been replaced with the new Lance Charge ability. Since it’s not a weaponskill, you won’t have to worry about running up and hitting your enemy’s flank in order to boost your damage. However, this means it has a 90 second cooldown. It does however, boost your damage by 15% instead of Heavy Thrust’s 10%.

My favorite new weaponskill name, Coerthan Torment acts as the third step in our line combo. Just like Sonic Thrust, Coerthan Torment also extends the Blood of the Dragon duration by 10 seconds.

One of my personal favorite changes to Dragoon with the upcoming expansion is the change to Dragon Sight. The ability itself is largely unchanged, except with the benefit now of being able to cast the ability even if there is no one in range. You can cast Dragon Sight on yourself to buff your damage without anyone being around.

At level 74, Jump turns into High Jump, giving it a boost in potency. The biggest change to lookout for however with jumps is that Spineshatter Drive will no longer give the Dive Ready status needed for Mirage Dive. However, Dragoon only needs two eyes on their gauge now to activate Life of the Dragon and start unleashing Nastrond. This means that you can go from blue to red in just over 30 seconds.

What makes this stance transition even better is that at 78 we now have the Blood of the Dragon Mastery, which will fill your Blood of the Dragon, and Life of the Dragon gauges to 30 when you activate them. This means as soon as you pop your Geirskogul to go red, your current timer for the stance is irrelevant. Lastly, we have Stardiver, a new jump that can be used once during Life of the Dragon.

Overall, Dragoon has received a nice simplification of some of its abilities while also eliminating annoyances (I’m looking at you Light Party Bards that are never in range for Dragon Sight). Coerthan Torment gives us a cool sounding, and cool looking new toy for line attacks, and it’s hard to say no to High Jump and Stardiver.