Dragoon
Dragoon might not be an obvious choice from the start to be a rather effective soloing job, because it is set up much like all the other melee jobs (who can’t solo). Thanks to some testing years ago by interested players it was discovered that it was possible to fight pretty strong stuff alone because of a certain Wyvern set up mixed with certain actions listed below.
Preparation
The basic preparation for a Dragoon is pretty simple; you require a mage sub job and the healing Wyvern type. You might not be aware, but your Wyvern can actually be one of three types (the most common of which being basic damage dealing type). To make your Wyvern become the healing type you must sub one of the following; Black Mage, Red Mage, White Mage, Summoner, and Blue Mage.
Which sub out of the list above you pick depends on your style. In the past White Mage or Red Mage were the best choices, but thanks to the pre Lv37 spells a Blue Mage sub would offer you (in terms of very cheap MP spells) it is also very viable.
You fight an enemy as normal with your Wyvern helping (after having done any pre battle buffs your sub can provide). When your health drops low you use a low MP spell on yourself or the enemy (such as Dia or a Bar spell if you are subbing White Mage) which triggers the healing Wyvern to use Healing Breath, restoring a good amount of HP for a very low MP cost.
Healing Breath levels activate at the following levels; tier 1 Lv1-19, tier 2 Lv20-39, tier 3 Lv40-75. Taking on far stronger enemies is only possible after you have access to Healing Breath Lv3. For tips on improving the healing amount of your tier see the sections below.
Ideal Enemies
Any monster which does not have extremely damaging TP moves is fair game to a soloing Dragoon. You can technically fight some hurtful monsters, but it would make it all the more important to follow the tips below to make your Healing Breaths restore the most amount of HP possible for your level. It is also important to remember that enemies with hurtful AOE attacks should be avoided, you do not want you’re Wyvern taking damage.
Start out easy, on things maybe Decent Challenge and Even Match to get into the swing of how you work. Harder stuff is a challenge despite how easy it might sound, and finding crabs usually results in good safe XP.
Tips
Here are some tips to remember when soloing as this job;
·Healing Breath will heal yourself, or a party member, and will only activate if said persons are under approximately 30% total HP
·Using the Dragoon AF1 helmet increases this base target to 50%
·Using the Dragoon AF2 helmet does not increase the trigger % but does increase the amount healed by a large degree
·Total TP and Wyvern’s total HP also effect the amount of HP healed by a breath
·As long as you have MP you can keep casting low cost spells over and over and your Wyvern will keep using Healing Breaths – it will not ‘run out of MP’ like you can, the only danger is if you run out of MP
·Bringing some cheap refresh drink (outlined in the medicines section) to save you in a pinch is recommended
·It is possible for your healing Wyvern to do a Removal Breath which will take a negative status effect away from you, this is activated when you use a Weapon Skill