Dragoon class series

The Dragoon class series is a tri-elemental class series available to the Venus Adepts, the Mars Adepts, and to a lesser extent, the Mercury Adepts. Mercury and Mars Djinn are required for the Venus Adepts, whereas Mercury and Venus Djinn are required for the Mars Adepts. The ability to access this class by Mercury Adepts is a vastly overlooked quirk post-The Lost Age, and requires Venus and Mars Djinn.

This class series's Djinn cadence is similar in structure to the Ninja, Medium, and Ranger class series. In terms of Psynergy, it combines most of the abilities of both the Venus and Mars Cavaliers, sacrificing Break, Revive, and the Guard series in favor of being able to use attack Psynergy of all three component elements.

The class series, when at its highest stage of Paladin and compared to the other series at their highest respective stages, has the single best Defense rating in the game and excellent HP (tying only with the Master and Chaos Lord and surpassed only by the Ronin), and has very high attack (tying with the Ronin and surpassed only by the Master and Chaos Lord) and is the only class with an entirely "average" PP rating, but it ties with the Admiral in having low Agility. The series ties with the Angel and Pure Mage for having the highest Luck rating. Noteworthy Psynergy from an endgame perspective includes Plume Edge, Pure Wish, Pure Ply, Cure Poison, Break, and Avoid, and the heaviest area-of-effect Psynergy it has is Nettle. Average stats from an endgame perspective are 155% (160% if you do not factor in Luck).

Notes on Class Names

 * Hover your cursor over class names for alt-text of series' Japanese names.

Analysis
The Dragoon is basically a combination of the Venus-based Crusader class series and the Mars-based Swordsman class series. The Paladin stage in The Lost Age resulted in a class that is one of the sturdiest and well-rounded classes around, statistically speaking. On its own, the Dragoon class may not seem appealing, due to the low Agility, average PP pool and the weak offensive Psynergies. Where the class really shines, however, is in its ability to support faster healers, such as the Hermit or White Mage classes. The lousy agility stat usually ensures that the Dragoon in question will be taking his/her turn towards the bottom of the barrel, usually after certain painful bosses have made a couple of their moves, allowing the player greater flexibility on when to patch up the battling Adepts. Thus, the player can perform multiple summons with their faster Adepts without having to worry about leaving the party vulnerable to an unlucky string of attacks.

In addition, the Dragoon series outshines other healing classes in terms of Attack, Defense and HP. This means that the Dragoon class can endure hits that would otherwise down the more fragile healers. When not healing, the Dragoon can take advantage of their higher Attack for casting Plume Edge or weapon Unleashes, instead of relying on Power-based Psynergy. Because of the slow and sturdy nature of the class, Dragoons are a good choice for reviving Adepts using Waters of Life. The late movement will increase the chance of the recently revived adept surviving to the next turn, and the inherent toughness of the class ensures that the Dragoon in question will survive as well.

As a Partial Class
The Dragoon class is available to Mercury adepts Mia, Piers, Rief, and Amiti in the later parts of The Lost Age and Dark Dawn for a massive 6 Earth or Fire Djinn and 3 Fire or Earth Djinn.

In contrast to other partial classes, the Dragoon class offers few advantages to Mercury Adepts. All of the Mercury Adepts can obtain equal or higher statistics in their other classes for a much less demanding Djinn setup. The low PP pool and agility impede the classes ability as a healer, while the weak Psynergy lineup does little favors. Should the player still want a class with three elements worth of Psynergy, the Ranger class series provides a much better option. For healing classes, the Hermit and Pure Mage classes provide healing with larger PP pools and higher agility.