Dragoon (Final Fantasy XIV)

The Lancer is a Disciple of War in Final Fantasy XIV, introduced in the original release. It can be upgraded to the Dragoon by equipping a Soul Crystal obtained via the quest "Eye of the Dragon", unlocked after levelling Lancer to level 30.

Lancer
Lancers attack with spears and are regarded as Damage Dealing classes. They specialize on dealing heavy spike damage to single targets by attacking them from their flanks or backs or damaging multiple enemies at once when they are surrounded or packed tightly in line formations.

Lancers have the most weaponskills of any Discipline of War, and have plenty of combination attacks as well. Although they do not possess many standard abilities, the abilities they do have focus on restoring their own HP and TP supply.

Dragoon


Dragoon focuses on increasing raw attack power while adding jumping and AoE attack abilities.

Equipment
The Lancer class is defined by wielding a spear.

In terms of late game armor, Lancers and Dragoons wear "Maiming"/"Slaying" gear sets. Their armor is heavier than other DPS classes, though not as heavy as tanks. Up until Patch 2.45, most of the armor for Lancers and Dragoons typically traded off magic defense for higher defense. This caused major balance issues with later endgame content (which often had party-wide magical attacks) that made Dragoons undesirable in parties, and as such the magic defense was increased to match other DPS classes.

Job Gauge
The Job Gauge was introduced to players in the 4.0 patch (Stormblood). The Dragoon uses the Dragon Gauge.

The Gauge indicates the remaining amount of time for the Blood of the Dragon. The Blood of the Dragon action is a timed effect that has the potential to strengthen the potency of Jump and Spineshatter Dive. An icon on the top left side of the gauge will change if the weaponskill Mirage Dive is used during the Blood of the Dragon effect. The icon indicates the strength of the effect, up to a total of four points. If Geirskogul is executed while the icon is full, the Blood Gauge will turn to red and the weaponskill Nastrond becomes available for a devastating attack.

Role Actions
Role actions are abilities common to classes and jobs with the same role. Jobs can select and use up to five role actions, while classes can select and use up to ten.

Additional PvP Actions
These actions are common to all jobs, and can only be used in PvP areas. The number of additional actions that can be set is limited to two.

PvP Traits
These traits are common to all jobs, and only take effect when in PvP areas. The number of PvP traits that can be set is limited to three.

Limit Break
Dragoons' Limit Breaks focus on dealing powerful damage to enemies in a circular area of effect. Dragoons have the same Level 1 and Level 2 limit breaks as other Melee DPS.

Final Fantasy Trading Card Game
Dragoon and Lancer appear in Final Fantasy Trading Card Game with Lightning-elemental cards.

Trivia

 * Unlike previous uses of the term "Lancer" as an alternate localization for the Dragoon job class, here it is a literal translation of a separate class (though it does "upgrade" into it).
 * Despite the official in-game description of the Lancer stating it can out-range opponents, the range of spears are no different than that of swords and axes used by the other melee classes.
 * Square Enix's Eorzea Cafe serves a dish called "Dragoon's pasta ~Sakura style~" with a description that translates to: A plate of pasta inspired by the flashes of pink in fields of green left by the "Dragoon's" Cherry Blossom ability. A Dragoon's spear has been thrust into this mix of fresh spinach pasta, cherry blossoms, and sakura shrimp!

Pikenier Maître d'Hast