Question of Merit skills for Drg

[Lentium]

i have recently achieved 75Drg and was looking for advice on what should i merit for the job, to make the DRG more deadly and or useful than it already is

[Royal]

viewforum.php?f=31

[Khrno]

KI is that way >

[evilpaul]

http://bluegartr.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=31

what he said

[Tsukasaz]

Joined: Sat May 31, 2008 11:56 pm
Posts: 3

Obviously he doesn't know yet, lol.

[Jaybar]

Going to be nice and not just say "Use Search". Here is the gist of it (in order of importance):

8/8 Polearm asap.

Any of the category 1 Job Specific merits (Jump, High Jump). It doesn't really matter which you pick. Generally it's nice to cap Jump and High Jump (More jumps in a period of time = increased damage over time).

Can work on increasing critical hit percentage if you'd like. This is nice and obviously works for other jobs as well. This and category one merits are just as important, just depends on which you feel would help you more. Honestly, there really is no clear decision on which to merit first.

Category two merits you can look into. They are all great in their own perspective. Angon is awesome if you like fighting big monsters (more endgame). Deep Breathing is excellent for those epeen moments with your wyvern. Strafe will probably be better with the upcoming version update, but not currently. Empathy is ... it's ok, kinda awkward since you can't pick and choose what buffs you want your wyvern to gain (and is only really good if you put in multiple merits).

STR. Finish this last, because it takes the longest to complete. You can put in a merit or two, but other categories are more important that this.

[Lentium]

oops my bad didn't even see the search bar >.< would prolly help thanks for the link aswell

[Secksi]

Finish your subs then work on merits.

[onigami]

i have recently achieved 75Drg and was looking for advice on what should i merit for the job, to make the DRG more deadly and or useful than it already is
5Drg / 39Pld / 35War / 33Sam XD

get sam to 37, and then whm, rdm, or blu to 37. dont matter which. just one of them.

then in order of importance:

polearm to lvl 8
crit to 4
angon to 3
high jump to 5
HP to 8
STR to 5
super jump to 5
deep breathing 1
strafe 2

dont be a one dimensional drg. with the update to wyverns and the new helm u can get off AH for breath enhancement, there's no reason u cant come out /mage to heal.

[orson]

Angon isn't just good for endgame it's damn good in most situations unless you're fighting mobs that have little to no defense at all. Not only that it increases damage dealt to the monster so you're probably increasing 2+ DDs damage when you use it so for damage increases it's probably one for the most effective taking into account the extra damage those others are going to be dealing.

[Clyne]

Not sure if people are just not using common sense, or overlooking the obvious, but the very first thing you should do is unlock Angon. I don't know a single endgame LS that gives a shit if you don't have polearm merits, but if you show up to events w/o Angon at least unlocked...you'll be spending even more time on the sidelines than you normally would.

And not sure what race you are, but given the usefulness of /mage, I'm more partial to MP merits than HP (Elvaan curse though).

edit: I lied, first thing you should do is finish your sj's...then unlock Angon.

[[Cookies]]

What is a Dragoon?

[Jaybar]

I'll assume he's not in an endgame LS - Hence the order in which I put. I also forgot to mention HP/MP, but that's not entirely important unless you sub mage where it gets much more important. For that, it really depends on your race, but usually go 4/4 HP-MP. Might want to alter that if you are elvaan/galka or taru/mithra.

If you are just a casual player, you really only need one merit in angon, 2 is ideal. Capped Angon for a casual DRG would mostly be used for tough fights that you solo (aka something that would take nearly a minute or more to kill, not a colibri or mamool).

Angon is over-rated for the casual Dragoons, seriously. It's awesome, yes, but it offers no advantage to casual dragoons except for rare instances.

EDIT: This is a thread about merits, not sub jobs. I would hope it was common sense for him to realize his subs need to be leveled.

[Lentium]

thanks alot for the advice, i will take it into consideration as i merit my drg, duh about the subjob.... i'll prolly never level any mage, but thanks for the tip

my character is a Elvaan DRG Lentium

would the attribute modifying like vit and str aide my character more fight survivablility aside from the agnon which wears off

[Kkel]

Meritting VIT will do nothing for you. Stick with STR and DEX. If you're getting whaled on after throwing an Angon, the only thing that's going to save you in the short run is maybe Seigan and 3rd Eye, in the long run it's only going to be /Mage, though you might be able to squeak by with /PLD.

You're doing yourself a huge disservice by not at least getting WHM to 37 as a subjob for DRG.

[onigami]

. i'll prolly never level any mage, but thanks for the tip

why dont these ppl lvl sam instead of drg =/

[Jaybar]

Because not every dragoon strives to solo?

[Kkel]

Then why the concern over survivability? Clearly, meriting VIT is a much better answer.

By this point in the game, really, there's no reason for a 75 DRG to not have, or be working on, a mage class subjob. It's not just about solo'ing exp or merits, it's about being self-sufficient in any instance where it's required or at the least, helpful. It's about not having to rely on someone else to cover your ass for you. DRG/Mage is one of the few job combos that can pull that off very well, it's asinine to just discount it.

[Dreampainter]

why dont these ppl lvl sam instead of drg =/

yeah I wish i knew. I'm not saying the following to be a jerk, this is just advice that i think is absolutely crucial for being successful as a drg in all aspects of the game:

- Its not only about soloing, its about being able to do other things with a small group.

-Its also about being able to do things in a group with other dragoons, particularly meriting.

-No matter how good the gear may be, a dragoon is instantly discredited by those experienced in playing the job if he/she/it does not have a mage sub available when needed.

-You always hear about 4war +rdm +brd parties or whatever getting lots of merits per hour, but if you are a drg without a mage sub you will be missing out on the meriting godsend of drg merit parties which are insanely fast and extremely easy to set up with minimal hassle. (5drg/mage+1brd(cor)) or (4drg/mage+2brd(cor)) nyzul isle greater colibri.


I can easily say that more than 70% of my merits were gained through these types of parties. There is no looking for a healer or damage mitigation because in that case the drg becomes a 3 in 1 party member. You can very well max out your storable merits within 4-5 hours of meriting (which i did everyday for 2 weeks).


There is a guy on my server who shall remain nameless who is without a mage sub on his drg (and he's been playing it for a year longer than i have). Whenever drg burn parties are made for merits he is never invited, even when he is seeking because most who play drg scoff at main (career) drg's who don't have a mage sub leveled. And truthfully in some situations you can end up being dead weight without having a mage sub. And in terms of HNM you can always rack up some points for yourself going to solo diorites off statues when you reach that point.


Anyway now that the rant is over (really though please consider it. won't take that long to bring whm,rdm,blm, or blu to 37 and its definitely worth having as an optional sub).




Others: In this category you want to go ahead and cap your critical hit rate as this will help your drg and help any melee job that you level up because this category works on all jobs

Combat skills: of course polearm is definitely what you want to cap to increase your accuracy and attack. And if you ever decide to level sam and use sam/drg with a spear or something this category works across all jobs as well

Category1 : Definitely cap your jumps out to lower their timers which will increase your damage over time. You can merit super jump if you feel you really need it, but absolutely merit at least one offensive jump to cap.

Category2: What you do in this category is primarily up to you, but out of every merit here angon is the only must have. I suggest that when you get to this point you put 1 merit in to at least unlock angon. Merit angon to cap if you plan on playing drg a lot in hnm related activities. Deep breathing is also very good for damage breaths because it greatly increases the accuracy and doubles the damage. Even with less than full wyvern hp you can pull out a 400+ dmg breath on kirin. It remains to be seen what happens to this category after the update with the possible upgrades being increased, but you can merit deep breathing all the way to lower the timer. Empathy is good for transferring not only defensive buffs to your wyvern to survival, but also for transferring things like brd songs and cor rolls.


That's the route i went anyway. I focused on meriting my drg's melee ability so that i could merit faster through my increased damage, then i went for meriting the things that had more to do with utility (although catgory II was released after i had my drg merits done, so you might want to take a detour from this plan and merit angon right after you finish polearm skill, then do cat.1) I suggest meriting str last btw, just for the sheer number of merits it takes to cap.

Goodluck with your meriting, but seriously... don't be "that guy". You know what i'm talking about "Oh he's that guy that doesn't have a mage sub.right?" Not having one can be misunderstood as being a sign of one who has not mastered playing the job.

[Lentium]

ok i have been toying with 10 whm, 10 blm and 10 smn, but... i guess i will be going redmage which is at 18 now prolly cause i'm not always on the side lines back-up healing. i get to do some front-lining,

aside not my sam is 33 and i will be leveling it to 37 shortly, agnon sound like a great ability but i guess i won't know till i get it unlocked i really appreciate everyone sharing your insight on the topic,

for the critical hit rate does that go into effect for all jobs at 75 or for jobs anylevel?

no i am not in any endgame ls's i am just on to have a good time and help ppl out from time to time. aswell as go thru the story as i can