Taken From: http://www.ffxivinfo.com/guides/dragoon.php

Dragoon is a melee damage dealing job which branches from the Lancer class. The class will deal damage using powerful abilities designed to be comboed with one another to increase their effectiveness. This guide will talk about how to play the job at level 50 and it should be noted that it may not be the only way to play it. Others may disagree, but see it as a starting point and build on it from there.


Attributes

Dragoon GuideAs a Dragoon your main attribute is going to be Strength (STR) as this increases physical attack damage. You should be placing all of your attribute points into this stat because the benefits from the others will not be very useful for DRG. Vitality is in fact the only other attribute from the main six that you would gain any benefit from, and as a Dragoon you should not be getting hit so you should not need to be stacking this stat.

With equipment however you could focus on more stats than just STR. Stats such as Attack Power, Determination, Critical Hit Rate and Skill Speed should also be considered as they will all boost your damage. Determination will boost the amount of damage dealt by all attacks and the amount of HP recovered when healed, and the rest of the stats are self explanatory. It is not yet known whether Determination is better than attack power for increasing your damage. For now I recommend a mix.


Skill Rotation

For a full explanation of skills see our Dragoon and Lancer pages.

As mentioned earlier, the Dragoon uses combos to deal heavy damage to their targets. These combos need to be planned and used alongside other buffs in order to maximise their damage. Before we get into the skill rotations it is worth listing what these combos are.

1) True Thrust > Vorpal Thrust
2) Vorpal Thrust > Full Thrust
3) Impulse Drive > Disembowel
4) Heavy Thrust > Ring of Thorns
5) Disembowel > Chaos Thrust


6) True Thrust > Vorpal Thrust > Full Thrust
7) Impulse Drive > Disembowel > Chaos Thrust

For maximum DPS it is generally best to use the three stage combos. So we end up with the ideal DRG rotation being something along the lines of this:

Fracture
Phlebotomize
Feint
Impulse Drive (from behind)
Disembowel
Chaos Thrust
Heavy Thrust (from flank)
Blood for Blood
True Thrust
Vorpal Thrust
Life Surge
Full Thrust
True Thrust
Vorpal Thrust
Full Thrust
Repeat

I begin with Feint because it is instant cast and adds Slow effect to the monster. This will benefit the tank and the healer as the monster will spit out less damage.

Combo #7 is next because of the combo effects. You will reduce the target's piercing resistance by 10% which helps your BRD. The second part of the combo will apply a damage over time effect to the target.

Next, we start buffing up for our main damage dealing combo by using Heavy Thrust (+10% damage) and Blood for Blood (+20% damage). Then we execute combo #7. However before we use Full Thrust we use Life Surge to ensure that it will be a critical attack. We then execute combo #7 once more while our damage buffs are still active.

Now we can repeat the rotation.

The Dragoon abilities are not part of the rotation because they all have long recasts. However you should aim to slot them inbetween your combos. Spineshatter Dive is especially useful for interrupting a monster's special attacks via the Stun effect. You can also use Leg Sweep from your Lancer for stunning.

Invigorate should be used whenever it is available to ensure you gain maximum TP back over the fight. Other Lancer skills should be used when needed.

If you are fighting multiple monsters at once then combo #4 is very useful along with the Doom Spike ability.


Cross Class Abilities

DRG can take cross class skills from the PGL and MRD classes and at level 50 you can equip up to 5.

From MRD you should take Mercy Stroke (powerful attack when the monster is under 20% HP), Bloodbath (Converts 25% of your next skill's damage to HP restored) and Fracture (DoT skill).

From PGL you should take Second Wind (for HP recovery), Internal Release (damage buff).

Only thing I do is differently in the rotation is that I pop internal release right after blood for blood. And I tend to reserve Life Surge for when I actually need to heal myself a bit. Other than that this sounds good.



For stats put everything into STR.