Pandora Saga Dragoon Guide

Pandora Saga Dragoon Guide by dbull620

Strengths and Weaknesses

A dragoon’s greatest strength is it’s ability to act alone. The speed and extra LP a horse gets you ups your survivability, and having access to Lunge, War Cry, and Raging Soul gives you enough buffs to brave the field of battle on your own if need be. That said, you should still try to get other buffs from your allies whenever you can, because while you might not be as dependent on those buffs, they still help a lot.

A dragoon is also a master horseman as well, and is the only class that’s capable of being mounted without suffering penalties to your attack, accuracy, and dodge stats. In addition to being great horsemen, they’re masters with a spear, making them very good at anti-cavalry.

That said, a dragoon isn’t invincible. Since you often find yourself separated from your comrades on foot, you need to be careful that you don’t find yourself engaging multiple opponents. Another weakness is that you can’t rest while mounted, so you’d best bring a very healthy supply of MP restoration potions with you everywhere you go.

Stat Build

As aeda mentioned, the stat build for a dragoon is very similar to a juggernaut’s. My own build is a strength/dex/stamina build, and considering that’s the build I know, it’s the build I will focus on in this guide. In this type of build, you’ll want to go for full strength for sure. How much dex you should put in your build is debatable, but the general consensus is absolutely no less than 30, ideally 40 to 50 to ensure you don’t miss with every other attack. Personally I like to have at least 50 dex in my melee builds. That said, this is my current stat build at level 53 (not including bonuses/penalties from equipment) to serve as a reference:

Job: Myrine
Racial Ability: Acute Senses

32 Sta
99 Str
8 Agi
58 Dex
2 Spi
2 Int

At level 55 I plan to have 60 Dex, 10 Agi (for 3% more atk speed) and 33 Sta, leaving me with 1 extra status point just in case the level cap ever goes up to 60 in the future. Equipment-wise you should look for armor and souls that raise your Str stat, aiming for at least 110 Str ideally.

Ability Points

Now on to ability points. The most important thing for a dragoon to have is 50 Mount proficiency. At 50 Mount proficiency you suffer no penalties to your attack, accuracy, or dodge stats while mounted on your horse. After that, you’re going to most likely want to put everything else into Thrust, because dragoons are more or less forced to use lances or spears as their weapons. A dragoon can only get a maximum of 60 Slash and Cleave, therefore they cannot get enough points into Slash or Cleave to get those practice’s ultimate moves, Dice and Desperate Strike respectively, meaning your skill pool will be limited if you attempt to build a sword or axe wielding dragoon (although if you want to attempt such a build, don’t be afraid to go for it, I just don’t personally recommend it).

The Horse

For a dragoon with 50+ mount proficiency, the horse acts as an extension of your own body as it were. It serves as a vital boost of speed, and a horse with a lot of defense and LP serves another important role in your survivability. Choosing the right horse for you does come down to personal preference though, each type has it’s own strengths and weaknesses, but all around a bay/chestnut/grey horse (i.e. any horse you can buy at the stables) is going to be the weakest. The Dappled horse is a good offensive horse with the highest potential charge stat, and the black and white horses have very well rounded stats with a somewhat defensive tendencies.

Learning the art of mounted combat is something that’s difficult to explain, it’s just something you’ll have to get used to and find a method that works well for you. However I will give a couple of tips to help your mounted game:

1) DON’T RELY TOO MUCH ON YOUR HORSE’S CHARGE! Quite possibly the number one mistake (or at least what I consider a mistake) that mounted players make is depending almost exclusively on their horse’s charge to do all their damage against another player. That might work against Reapers and Wraiths in Muldia, but try that against a player that knows what they’re doing, and you can find that method is a fatal mistake. On more than one occasion I could’ve been killed in PVP/wars if the rider just stopped on top of me after ramming me and unloaded a combo into me before I got back up. However, those that depend too much on their charge can suddenly find themselves dismounted by my Thrust abilities (Dismounting Stab and Horse Assault) and left wide open for a counterattack of my own.

I’m sure my many victims will likely tell you that my method of ramming them then stopping on top of them and unloading a combo while they struggle to get back up is obnoxiously effective.

Another problem with relying on your horse’s charge too much is latency. A short hiccup is all you need to negate any momentum you’ve gathered.

2) You have an opponent that keeps using the terrain to their advantage and you’re having difficulty approaching them to attack. What to do? WALK! A horse that’s walking has the same speed that someone on foot has running. So if your opponent keeps hugging that wall or hiding behind that rock, fence, or what have you, just make your horse start walking. Suddenly you’re not running (or worse charging) all around them, and you have the control you need to catch your slippery target.

Raising Mount Proficiency

First of all, if you haven’t already done so you’ll need to make your horse a war horse by completing the quest offered by an NPC a little ways behind the stables on Northern Soplar Highway as seen in the picture below:

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You’ll also want to level up your horse a little bit before attempting the method I’ll lay out below. I’d suggest getting your horse up to a minimum of 3000 LP before attempting it, otherwise it’ll take a while.

Now then, raising your mount proficiency is one of the first things you’re going to want to do when you become a dragoon. At 0 mount proficiency, a dragoon’s atk/acc/dodge stats will be 50% of what they are unmounted. At 10 mount proficiency, you’ll have 60% of your unmounted stats. At 20 mount proficiency, 70%, at 30, 80%, at 40, 90%, then topping off at 100% with 50 Mount proficiency (so in other words every full point of mount proficiency gained up to 50 will increase your mounted stats by 1%).

So, how does one raise Mount Proficiency? Well, basically any action taken while on your horse will help raise your mount proficiency. My preferred method of raising mount proficiency is to find a group of enemies that don’t hit hard, but have a lot of LP (Larvas work very well for this). Equip a low power lance/spear (may as well raise your thrust proficiency at the same time right?) then gather a group of about 4 or 5 enemies together at once (attack them once to get aggro if they aren’t aggressive) and wail away at them with manual attacks (this will hit all of the enemies at once, while conveniently reducing the amount of damage your attacks do). Be sure to have Lunge activated to increase your attack rate. Once your horse gets low on LP (about 500-600 LP left) run off, lose aggro, then refresh your horse and repeat (if you can find a group of suitable enemies to wail away on near a stable keeper this will make the process much faster).

And that should more or less cover the basics of making a dragoon. If you have any further questions feel free to PM/mail Kalafina in game or ask a question below. Best of luck to you, and maybe some day you’ll something like me.

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1 Response

  1. BalmungOAS says:

    Thank you for the advice i needed to raise my proficiency!!!!!

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