A warrior who may make soaring Jump attacks even in full armor, the dragoon is also a master spearman.
Description
The dragoon, also known as lancer, is a job from Final Fantasy Tactics. A physically-based job, dragoons fear no heights since their Jump command lets them reach nearly anywhere on the map, depending on their Horizontal Jump learned.
Dragoon is unlocked by the thief job, and unlocks dancer (for female units) and dark knight (in The War of the Lions).
Gameplay[]
Overview[]
Jump.
The dragoon is a hybrid melee and ranged class that deals physical damage. Unlike the knight, the dragoon's magick and MP attributes are pitiful, with its magick attack being the lowest in the game. This is not an issue, however, since the dragoon focuses on dealing as much damage as possible with Jump or a physical attack up to two panels; two panel range usually avoids Counter and First Strike.
The dragoon's gameplay revolves around the Jump command, an ability that is powerful offensively and defensively when used properly, but that can be difficult to aim. Jump targets a tile and causes the user to leap into the air for a duration before landing to deal damage. It thus renders the user unable to be targeted for the jump duration, and can deal great damage on landing, unless the target in the tile moves before the user has landed. There are ways to mitigate this (such as dealing negative status ailments to prevent or slow the target from moving while Jump is targeting them), and the ability, if used well, can make dragoons both very durable and strong, but it requires timing and sometimes luck. Improving the dragoon's speed stat through abilities (such as Tailwind, from Ramza's squire/gallant knight and Luso's game hunter) or equipment (such as Hermes Shoes) makes it descend sooner; the Haste status effect, however, will not affect Jump.
The dragoons' Dragonheart reaction ability activates if the dragoon survives an attack, and then reacts to cast Reraise on themselves to automatically revive themselves from KO on their next turn. The player can get a Game Over if their last unit was defeated even with Reraise, and a successful revival will not work a second time, as their HP would be too low to survive to recast it. The time mage's Critical: Quick or the archer's Speed Surge, with a means to reliably heal, will give a dragoon more turns.
Dragoons also have access to the 700 JP Ignore Elevation ability, which allows them to move to any tile within their range regardless of elevation, and is similar to Fly provided by the bard or dancer. This can also be achieved by mounting a chocobo (requiring a chocobo to be brought with the party), and a time mage has Teleport, which ignores height/obstacles and increases movement range (but tends to fail if going well past the unit's movement range).
Unlocking[]
The player must first have a character at job level 3 for the thief class in the original PS1 version. The War of the Lions versions increases the requirement to job level 4.
Additionally, the dragoon's job levels are required to unlock several jobs:
- Leveling the dragoon to level 2 along with a level 4 knight and level 5 monk unlocks samurai.
- Leveling the dragoon up to level 5 along with separate level requirements for squire, chemist, geomancer, summoner, and orator unlocks mime.
- Leveling up the dragoon to level 5 with the geomancer unlocks dancer for female units.
- Mastering both knight and black mage with level 8 requirements for the dragoon along with geomancer, knight, black mage, samurai, and ninja, as well as having 20 kills with the party (the defeated units must turn into crystals or chests to count as kills, listed in Chronicles), will unlock dark knight (exclusive to the War of the Lions version).
Stats and equipment[]
Dragoons have high base Physical Attack and HP, and a respectable Physical Evasion rate at 15%, but very low Magick Attack and MP stats. Their Movement and Jump rates, at 3 and 4 respectively, along with a high Speed, making them quite mobile.
Dragoons are unique in their ability to equip polearms, a rare weapon type. They can also equip heavy armor and shields, making them very durable units.
Dragoon is one of the jobs that greatly benefits from the samurai's Doublehand support ability, allowing it to wield polearms with both hands to boost its attack power. Although the user cannot equip a shield when two-handed, the dragoon can easily deal maximum damage with normal attacks with the Gungnir or Javelin "II" equipped while using Doublehand. The dragoon is the perfect candidate for Doublehand because only one support ability can be used (making Equip Polearms weaker on any other class and polearms cannot be used with Dual Wield) and the samurai will be using Iaido most of the time. Doublehand does not affect Jump's damage, however, Jump being already boosted when the jumper equips a polearm.
Abilities[]
It costs 7,060 JP to master Dragoon in the original version, and 9,150 JP in the War of the Lions version.
Jump[]
| Name | Range | Effect | Speed | JP Needed | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Horizontal Jump 2 | 2 | 1 | — | 150 | Jump 2 tiles horizontally. |
| Horizontal Jump 3 | 3 | 1 | — | 300 (original) 350 (subsequent releases) |
Jump 3 tiles horizontally. |
| Horizontal Jump 4 | 4 | 1 | — | 450 (original) 550 (subsequent releases) |
Jump 4 tiles horizontally. |
| Horizontal Jump 5 | 5 | 1 | — | 600 (original) 800 (subsequent releases) |
Jump 5 tiles horizontally. |
| Horizontal Jump 8 | 8 | 1 | — | 900 (original) 1100 (subsequent releases) |
Jump 8 tiles horizontally. |
| Vertical Jump 2 | 0 | 1 | — | 100 | Jump 2 tiles vertically. |
| Vertical Jump 3 | 0 | 1 | — | 200 (original) 250 (subsequent releases) |
Jump 3 tiles vertically. |
| Vertical Jump 4 | 0 | 1 | — | 300 (original) 400 (subsequent releases) |
Jump 4 tiles vertically. |
| Vertical Jump 5 | 0 | 1 | — | 400 (original) 550 (subsequent releases) |
Jump 5 tiles vertically. |
| Vertical Jump 6 | 0 | 1 | — | 500 (original) 700 (subsequent releases) |
Jump 6 tiles vertically. |
| Vertical Jump 7 | 0 | 1 | — | 600 (original) 1000 (subsequent releases) |
Jump 7 tiles vertically. |
| Vertical Jump 8 | 0 | 1 | — | 900 (original) 1500 (subsequent releases) |
Jump 8 tiles vertically. |
Reaction abilities[]
| Name | Description | Trigger | JP Needed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dragonheart (Dragon Spirit) |
Recover from KO status. Effect: Reraise. |
Physical Attack | 560/600 |
Support abilities[]
| Name | Description | JP Needed |
|---|---|---|
| Equip Polearms (Equip Spears) |
Equip polearms, regardless of job. | 400 |
Movement abilities[]
Ignore Elevation is like bard/dancer's Fly ability, except it offers no protection from traps and will still be hindered by water/sand.
| Name | Description | JP Needed |
|---|---|---|
| Ignore Elevation (Ignore Height) |
Move to tiles of any height, regardless of Jump attribute. | 700 |
Other appearances[]
Final Fantasy Record Keeper[]
This section about an enemy in Final Fantasy Record Keeper is empty or needs to be expanded. You can help the Final Fantasy Wiki by expanding it.Final Fantasy Trading Card Game[]
Dragoons appears in Final Fantasy Trading Card Game as Lightning-elemental forward cards.
![Dragoon [1-122C] Chapter series card.](/wiki/File:DragoonMale_TCG.png "DragoonMale TCG.png (403 KB)")
![Dragoon [1-123C] Chapter series card.](/wiki/File:DragoonFemale_TCG.png "DragoonFemale TCG.png (394 KB)")
![Dragoon [1-147C] Opus series card.](/wiki/File:Dragoon_1-147C_from_FFTCG_Opus.jpg "Dragoon 1-147C from FFTCG Opus.jpg (87 KB)")
![Dragoon [1-148C] Opus series card.](/wiki/File:Dragoon_1-148C_from_FFTCG_Opus.jpg "Dragoon 1-148C from FFTCG Opus.jpg (89 KB)")
Non-Final Fantasy guest appearances[]
Knights of the Crystals[]
Dragoon appears as a card in the Ivalice Special Arena has a limited-time special arena with eighteen floors.
Gallery[]
Etymology[]
"Dragoon" is the traditional name for a special soldier type in classical European warfare. Unlike in Final Fantasy, the original dragoons did not fight with lances, that being the job of "lancers"—a different soldier class. Dragoons were infantry that rode on horseback, but fought on foot. Originally they fought with a hand-held blunderbuss called the "dragon", giving them the name. The dragoons' arsenal expanded to include guns, sabres, and axes. During the Napoleonic Wars they became medium cavalry and reached the height of their popularity.
After the Napoleonic Wars, to make better use of the number of men the European military had, the dragoons were trained to use lances and lancers became obsolete. Thanks to the advances of modern warfare, dragoons lost their niche and modern dragoon units exist only for ceremonial purposes.
Notes[]
- ↑ English name given in the Japanese Final Fantasy Tactics Encyclopedia guidebook.
Citations[]
- ↑ Final Fantasy Tactics Encyclopedia, p.67