From Final Fantasy Wiki

See also: Dragoon.

Dragoons appear in Final Fantasy XI as a job class. Dragoon is one of the advanced jobs, so it must be quested for. The quest to become a Dragoon rather suitably involves slaying a Dragon in Ghelsba Outpost. After beating this dragon, the player earns the right to change job into a Dragoon.

In Final Fantasy XI, Dragoons are entrusted with a young dragon, called a wyvern, which they can summon. The wyvern fights along side the dragoon and will take on different characteristics determined by the dragoon's subjob. For the most part, the wyvren will focus on physical attacks and do a breath attack when the Dragoon uses a weapon skill. The one substantial difference to this rule is in the case of a Dragoon having a mage subjob. When that Dragoon casts a spell, the wyvern's breath attack will do no damage, but instead heal a member of the party.

Dragoons in Final Fantasy get three versions of the trademark jump ability; a normal Jump, High Jump, and Super Jump, which does no damage, but removes the Dragoon from the battlefield just long enough for an enemy to forget about the Dragoon and focus its attacks on other party members. They also get an accuracy bonus, which means they theoretically hit slightly more often than other classes, and Dragon Killer, which gives them increased effectiveness when fighting one of the few Dragon- or Wyvern-type enemies in the game.

Becoming a Dragoon

Dragoon Abilities

Combat Skill Ratings

Dragoons in Final Fantasy XI

Strengths

• Is one of the few jobs that has Piercing Damage in their main weapon.
• Dragoon is naturally the job with the highest accuracy of any melee type between the two levels of accuracy bonus and the September 2007 version update to two handed weapon combat.
• Dragoons can summon a pet wyvern which can add to the damage dealt and can also use curative abilities with the right subjob.

Weaknesses

• Dragoons get a poor selection of equipment compared to most damage-based jobs.

Subjobs

Warrior

Warrior is a popular subjob for Dragoon because of both passive and active job abilities. Berserk helps improve a Dragoon's damage over time and improves again at high levels (50+) when they gain the Double Attack and War Cry abilities.

Thief

Thief offers the Sneak Attack and Trick Attack abilities to Dragoons, allowing for greater weapon skill damage, and a thief's Evasion Bonus can help avoid attacks in some situations.

Samurai

Samurai is occcassionally used by Dragoons because of the Hasso and Seigan abilities. And the Meditate and Store TP are useful as well, allowing them to deal incredible amount of damage with multi-hit weaponskills.

White Mage

Dragoons use White Mage as a subjob primarily for soloing. In this combination, the Dragoon's wyvern will use Healing Breath when the Dragoon casts a spell, provided the proper HP conditions are met. Under normal conditions, the Wyvern will use Healing Breath when the Dragoon or another party member's HP is at 33% or less. However, with the Drachen Armet equipped, the Wyvern will use Healing Breath when the Dragoon casts a spell with HP at 50% or less. As the Dragoon gains levels, more powerful versions of Healing Breath are gained. Should multiple party members be low enough on HP to trigger Healing Breath, the wyvern will always heal the Dragoon first.

Rather than using an elemental breath attack when the Dragoon uses a Weapon Skill, the Wyvern will instead attempt to cure any status ailments that may be present.

• It can, very rarely, be used in merit parties with the unlikely combination of many Dragoons with similar subjobs. In this way, there would be no need for a healer, but it would be quite risky.

Red Mage

A Dragoon would choose this subjob for the same reason that he would choose White Mage. White Mage is theoretically more useful for most circumstances, but Red Mage would offer some utility in its better physical characteristics and the existence of bio.

Blue Mage

Blue Mage is a great support job for the solo Dragoon. Like the White Mage, it gives the wyvern defensive capabilities, allowing the Dragoon to harness low-cost, quickly executed spells such as Power Attack or Head Butt to activate Healing Breath when low on HP. Combined with Cocoon that boosts defense by 50%, as well as the available Job Traits and stat bonuses Blue Magic offers, the DRG/BLU is an excellent solo job combination.

Trivia

• Until just recently, the Dragoon was considered one of the more unpopular damage dealing classes of Final Fantasy XI due to their original two-hour ability being Call Wyvern. This effectly made Dragoons very hard to play because if they were to lose their Wyvern partner they would be weakened until they could use their ability again 2 hours later, as well as leaving them without a real emergency ability as the other classes have. This was fixed in the update, reducing the recast time of Call Wyvern to 20 minutes, and giving Dragoon the new two-hour ability, Spirit Surge.