Most challenging and wanted DPS class?

If you're looking at it in terms of how much skill "matters" in terms of DPS, then SMN/BLM are probably the top two. SAM can be hard to play optimally but the difference between a good and bad SAM isn't that large.

OTOH, a bad SMN might do less than half the DPS of a good summoner, and the same can be said of BLM. It's very easy to notice good and bad BLM/SMN while pretty much every SAM will do high DPS regardless of skill - some will just do a bit more damage because they read the skill descriptions.

For SMN especially, a single death tanks your DPS for the entire fight, they have probably the most oGCD-usage, and their rotations change every single fight depending on procs/phases/movement required. Same for BLM but they recover from death better.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

However, unless 4.05 really rectified a lot of MCH's Stormblood redesign, they are still not dealing as much damage as an equally-skilled Bard. Again, that's if 4.05 didn't fix the glaring issues with the job.

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4.05 buffed MCH damage slightly, but made the glaring issues with the job even worse. According to data on FF Logs, MCH and BRD are fairly evenly matched up to the 75th percentile, but the most skilled BRDs are able to do significantly more damage than the most skilled MCHs.

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Originally Posted by Lastelli

Then we have MCH, with a moderately high skill floor and a very high skill ceiling, but right now it's in a pretty bad spot since it's outclassed by brd in every possible way and scenario while also being harder to play at a high level. But if you're looking for a challenging job, MCH is a good pick and it's very fun to play.

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If OP is looking for a challenging job, it's not MCH. It used to have a moderately high skill floor in 4.0, but after 4.05 it has a fairly low skill floor and equally low skill ceiling. Avoiding overheating now requires little effort beyond remembering to use Cooldown once every 30-60 seconds, and in the event you do accidentally overheat, it takes so long to have done so that Barrel Stabilizer is almost certainly available to use again, making overheating not much of a penalty. The only things that are particularly challenging now are the things that shouldn't be challenging, like recognizing that overheat + Wildfire is rarely good even though all the tooltips lead you to believe they're intended to be used together, or actually forcing an overheat for the rare situations where it is useful.

Speaking to the Melee DPS, the only one that's particularly difficult is Dragoon since it's class Mechanic: Life of the Dragon takes a long time to build toward and can be delayed by minor missteps in the job.

Samurai is the easiest of Melee DPS contrary to what many people like to say. It's got the second easiest GCD rotation and there is remarkably little depth to Kenki in spite of what others tell you, it pretty much manages itself. It has self buffs, but they're so massively long it's pretty difficult to actually drop them. It has no persistent momentum buffs that you're punished heavily for dropping and you can gain all of them back with little difficulty or relative loss. There are some things you can do at a super high level of play that net you incredibly small potency gains, such as Hagakure and Hissatsu: Seigen use, but they make very little difference overall. There's also a massive number of Samurai players, so if you're looking to main it in end game stuff you've got a lot of competition.

Ninja and Monk are about on the same level of difficulty but in different ways. They both have a persistent buff to upkeep, Ninja has Huton and Monk has Greased Lightning. Huton has a massively long timer and it refreshes for a large amount so it's very difficult to lose, Greased Lightning is the shortest timer of buffs of its type and only ever refreshes for that amount. Monk has more GCDs and the longest GCD rotation of the melee at 12 before it repeats(not the most buttons), Ninja has the least number of GCDs (5) and a more simple rotation. Ninja however has more oGCDs than Monk and the Mudra system. I personally find Ninja harder than Monk but that may be a familiarity thing. Monk does 3rd best damage overall behind Black Mage and Samurai while Ninja is at the middle of the pack at the moment. Their party utility reflects this, Monk's is very weak Ninja's is very strong.

Dragoon is probably the hardest, simply because of how much effort it requires to play at a base level.

The most desired of the Melee is Ninja, the amount of damage it does in conjunction with how strong its party support is makes it pretty much irreplaceable. Samurai and Monk are competing for the other Melee DPS spot, since Monk is relatively close in terms of DPS while also offering Brotherhood as party utility. Dragoon is pretty underplayed at the moment.

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Originally Posted by Dregenfox

... SAM can be hard to play optimally but the difference between a good and bad SAM isn't that large...

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I disagree. I actually started a thread on this, because no matter which SAM you speak to, everyone seems to be like 'ahyeah, it's not that hard'. Of course, some know that once you go into depth with this job, it is becoming much harder - and there are a few out there who right out say so.
I have been maining SAM for a while and once you get onto Savage and high end raiding - where numbers actually matter - you need to step your game up. I can easily pull 4.8k on a SSS O1S dummy, but getting those high numbers in actual raid content is far more challenging. I feel like I just really started playing this job when I got onto this content.

Despite what people say, managing your Kenki and GCDs right is hard. It is punishing if you screw up your rotation, because every lost Kenki is lost dps. It is punishing to let your buffs fall off or use Hagakure a few seconds too late. Dps loss again. Clip your abilities and dps loss again. All that while paying attention to mechanics, and you are always right on the boss having to hit your main positionals to generate the most Kenki.
The best Samurais out there, one of them currently teaching me, is doing 5.3k in O3S. That is an insane number and required dozens of runs and hours on training your rotation in high end content, as well as knowing exactly how to exploit uptime.

It is easy to be an average Samurai. It is very hard to be a good one. You can often recognize the average ones spamming Midare instead of using hagakure. ;)

The damage ranges from 3.5k in Savage content until almost 6. That is the difference between someone who still needs to learn the job and the fights and someone who has mastered it. Don't think every Samurai pulls 4.6+, it is just not true.

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Originally Posted by Dregenfox

Same for BLM but they recover from death better.

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yea.... no. dont let the illusion of umbral ice giving us unlimited mana as a great way to recover from a death without dps lost.
death to blm is a good 200-300 dps lost due to dropping enochian (cd, dmg inc, polygot etc )and neeeding to set things up again, ala bliz, thunder etc etc
its like restarting blm opener but might noy have the necessary cd availiable aftet res too
so, il say ea job got their own pet peeve after death


so what is the op looking for in term of difficulty?
difficult on rotation, cd management, dot/job/ timer management, doing mechanic with x jobs???

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Originally Posted by Komaru_Tatoro

death to blm is a good 200-300 dps lost due to dropping enochian (cd, dmg inc, polygot etc )and neeeding to set things up again, ala bliz, thunder etc etc

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That's cute, but:
Death to SMN is a good bahamut loss.
Death do DRG is a good Life of the dragon loss.

Everyone loses something uppon dying, some more than others, BLM is one of the classes with least penalty for dying, only second by BRD and NIN and maybe SAM. also all other classes need invigorate/lucid dream when ressed or they will just cast 5 or 6 skills and run out of resources to keep going, while BLM just casts bliz III and is good to go.

[QUOTE=Nezia;4497350]That's cute, but:
Death to SMN is a good

like i said all jobs got their pet peeve. you just looking at the face of things that they get bliz going and mana is back but blm in 4.0 takes a slow ramp up to even reach back the dps output they can do.
i played other classes too and i know melee have tp problem, but im just saying blm isnt really "least penalty" as you say.
like yes melee cant do full on rotation like nothing happen but atleast their height of weaponskill potency is still their per ws use. blm's max spell potency height is not there because a) lost enochian b) no astral fire 3.
that being said, i dont think taking recovery from a death to account for job difficultly comparison is the right choice. but whatever, its an opinion and every1 is different.

to op, i would like to suggest you just play all the class to try out whats challenging for you to see for yourself but sadly, majorly of the class rotation or the difficultly doesnt comes until you get full access to your ability at 70. even if you go to wotd for trying out classes its still not enough to see what you need to see, since some jobs pick up skill/spell/ability in the 60 to 70 that changes things up

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Originally Posted by Idolon

snip.

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This is all simply not true, out of all the dps MCH takes the cake in what is required to play the job optimally. The only reason people claim that BLM is challenging or hard is due to heavy movement fights, unlike MCH BLM's actual rotation is incredibly easy. MCH's entire kit is based around WF and OH and making sure you time your OH's with every WF and all your ogcd's and if you aren't OH with every WF you are intentionally gimping yourself. Contrary to popular belief, MCH is pretty strong, hence whey they are taken on almost every speed kill. The second most challenging job to play optimally is def samurai, but if you want to challenge yourself I'd say either SAM or MCH are a good pick.

Only read the OP, but NIN is generally the most desired DPS class by all other jobs, mostly for Trick Attack but also for Shadewalker/Smokescreen (and even slashing if you're running PLD/DRK).

Most DPS jobs aren't particularly complicated by design (and a big bullet point for Stormblood was to "simplify the rotations/complexities of jobs", which has succeeded mostly), and I don't have NIN to 70 so I can't really speak decisively about its complexity at level 70, but if you want a job with tons of timers management and a lot to think about, I'd recommend SMN.

Challenging is subjective.
Personally, I find MNK, DRG and SAM all to be relatively easy as far as melee DPS go, with NIN being mildly more challenging due to needing to maximize Trick Attack with proper oGCD usage.
RDM is simplistic AF
MCH is on a similiar thread as NIN with maximizing Overheat and Wildfires but not terrible either
BLM is challenging for all the wrong reasons, as movement is crippling for them and ruins their flow.
SMN is more challenging than the other casters as pet management sucks and it takes a bit of skill to get every lined up perfectly but oh so rewarding.
BRD is a nightmare IMO just because of the multiple buffs, procs, etc. they need to keep track of. It's probably also the most demanded DPS because of all those buffs.