Looking for advice for a combo

My wife and I have come back to the game recently and we are currently around 240ilvl gear and just pushing into 3.1 content (story). For me the class I wanted was simple, Bard. For my wife it hasn't been as easy. Shes always played a healer but getting worn out on it. She has a WM and Scholar to 60 but isn't looking forward to the having to maximize DPS and healing (she can do it well but just not looking for that stress). We just spent the last 2 years pushing Top 100 raiding in wow and I think shes wanting to relax (but still perform at DPS).

So with that...what would be a better combo and overall maybe not so "stressful" of a class to play for group content. She has a 60 BM and is currently leveling a Dragoon. Shes going to get to 60 on both before she decides but what are the pros/cons of both of those classes while teamed up with a bard? I know Dragoon increases bard DPS but bards increase BM DPS. Which of the two are easier to get raid spots?

Thanks

I mean, a DD class and a Tank class will both be trying to maximize their DPS as well. If she wants to perform well, all classes will be "stressful" as you put it. If she wants to play on a more casual level, all classes can be played by slamming your face on a keyboard.

I know this may not help narrow anything down, but each class is what she makes of it.

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Originally Posted by Canadane

I mean, a DD class and a Tank class will both be trying to maximize their DPS as well. If she wants to perform well, all classes will be "stressful" as you put it. If she wants to play on a more casual level, all classes can be played by slamming your face on a keyboard.

I know this may not help narrow anything down, but each class is what she makes of it.

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She plays characters at a high level. My statement about stress was referring to playing a healer. Shes not looking to have to maximize HPS and DPS at the same time. Of the two classes I listed, basically looking for which one goes well with a bard and can just focus on dps in the raid.

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Originally Posted by Vicus

She plays characters at a high level. My statement about stress was referring to playing a healer. Shes not looking to have to maximize HPS and DPS at the same time. Of the two classes I listed, basically looking for which one goes well with a bard and can just focus on dps in the raid.

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Pushing DPS at a decent level is at same level of difficulty than healing + DPSing on a healer job. It's not any more demanding to play well as a healer than to play well as any other role. :)

BRD goes well with all healer jobs because it can support healer (and other caster) DPS with Requiem, and also provide extra MP with Ballad in case of an emergency. DPS job wise, BRD supports BLM and DRG supports BRD, as you already know. But in the end, this doesn't really matter that much, so you both should just pick jobs you enjoy (and switch between different jobs as you want, since you're not limited to playing only one job). What feels stressful varies from person to person, so the only way to know is to try. :)

Edit: If you're looking for raiding, the current optimal setup seems to be DRK (or PLD depending on fight), WAR, AST, SCH, NIN, DRG, MCH and BLM/SMN. But if you're not looking for a static group you shouldn't have any difficulties in finding groups on any job.

Er, I would say you shouldn't even be looking at raiding yet. The two of you should see how you feel after you complete all of the main scenario first. That's not to discourage you from raiding, just that what you enjoy and want from the game may change over time because it can take a while to get through all of the story.

If you're both convinced she'll still want to raid, then she should just pick the one she's most comfortable with, and that's the end of it. Coming from super high-level play in WoW, you might think minor class differences actually matter, but they really don't matter outside of roles which are slightly different than WoW. Hell, I had never been convinced while playing WoW that the minor differences there mattered, except for ranged vs. melee but that's a different tuning issue. In both games, it's always just about how comfortable someone is and if they're really trying and, most importantly, learning.

Personally, healing is beyond difficult to me. I don't know how anyone handles it at all, and I just can't comprehend the idea that it's the same difficulty as any other role. To me it's literally many several times harder. But yet, people do it just fine all the time, so I accept the role simply isn't for me. That's fine because there are several others roles in this game: Tank, Melee (highest single-target DPS), Caster (slightly lower single-target DPS than Melee, highest AoE DPS), and Ranged (slightly lower single-target DPS than Caster, better AoE DPS than melee). That is how the roles distinguish themselves.

If it means anything, healer DPS has next to no strategy compared to every other role, and for any difficult fight you're going to have to put the boss as a focus target anyway.

I could be the next person posting a whole story about stress management and what not, but since that's not even your question or a discussion in itself, I keep it on topic.

If you guys plan on building your own static, which in most cases is a better option since a so called gaming couple (wife, husband, brother, sisters or any other irl relationship) isn't always welcome, due to the fact that most people think that, if someone needs to be criticized, the other person or anybody out of that group, it might not be seen as productive but rather taken offensive. With that in mind, if you're still looking to join statics that are still farming/processing at current raid tiers, I would strongly recommend in learning the in and outs of that blm.

Blm's are the number 1 caster in nearly every static and most people always are looking for one. With that in mind so, it also has it's negative side, if a static already has a blm most will not likely add a 2nd one, unless it's a super casual group that just tries to enjoy content with their friends.

Therefore it's good to have a 2nd job, in most cases it's a healer/tank but since in your case that wouldn't work, I would suggest looking into ninja (high in demand), or a support class for example mch. BRD's are not really often seen in mid/hardcore statics. I am not saying they are not great or anything, and I am not trying to say that they shouldn't be raiding, but in my opinion mch would be better if you wanted to go that range support route without having to sacrifice your own dps, also great if you guys have a war in your group or your wife wants to stick with drg.

In all I would highly recommend if joining a current static or upcoming static, to pick something that's always in demand at least till 4.0, might change then. NIN, BLM, DRG (might be harder to get a place since everybody is playing it besides war), MNK, MCH. Easiest would be to just make your own static and enjoy some of the raid content till 4.0, play around with the different jobs and then join a static after the update hits. By then you know what you like to play and by then we also know how the jobs including the new ones, effect the next raid tier.

Hope it helps.

Eh, yeah, I could be more on topic too. I'll give my opinion about Dragoon and Black Mage, as I've played both jobs a great deal, though lately I've focused much more on Black Mage. The fact is they both have their stresses.

Dragoon is simply more active, as all Melee is. Not only does it look and feel more busy but it also has postionals (a RANDOM positional at that), and it suffers from everything a melee character naturally suffers from in any video game. It's personal preference if that's too stressful. Personally, I think it's far smoother and calmer than Monk or especially Ninja.

Black Mage is far less active because virtually all of its spells have cast times and of course there are no positionals. It also has the naturally valuable luxury of being able to attack at any range. However, its form of stress comes from having to maintain a buff called Enochian. You have to cast Blizzard IV to refresh Enochian, and Blizzard IV has a 3 sec cast time and can only be cast with Enochian and Umbral Ice active. Without Enochian, your overall DPS drops by something crazy like up to 24% due to lack of access to Fire IV. I'm sure you can see the problems that arise from this, especially in fights where you have to move a lot. However, in Stormblood they are going to change it in some sort of way so it's not completely binary.

Personally, although I didn't like it much at first, I came to find it pretty fun. To me, it's so much calmer than Dragoon in easy content, and in difficult content it's only mildly stressful once I've learned every detail of the encounter. You kind of have to relearn how to play Black Mage every single fight, but that means you can always feel like you're improving as you narrow down the exact windows of time where you can cast Blizzard IV. None of the other jobs, to me, give me nearly as long of a feeling of consistent improvement as Black Mage; that is, with other jobs I often feel like I hit my skill ceiling in any given fight very quickly. Btw, I think Black Mage DPS can actually match Melee and probably even surpass it a little if the Black Mage executes everything perfectly, but that's pretty rare in difficult content, so that's how its DPS is tuned. And when I talked about differences in DPS between Damage Dealer roles, I was talking roughly 7% between each one, nothing significant usually.

Like Luna said, either job can be highly valued in a Savage raid party. But really, ANY Job can be valued as long as you don't have two Ranged, and even then people are now geared enough to overcome that if they're good. The game also slightly discourages more than one of a job (Limit Break gauge fills a little slower with duplicate jobs). The only job that perhaps has a negative perception by the most extreme min/maxers is Monk because it has no enmity reduction ability of any kind and DRK brings the same INT Down debuff just as effortlessly. That won't really matter for most people, but that certainly does seem like a significant oversight to me. These same types of raiders also prefer Machinist over Bard because Hypercharge is much more useful than Battle Voice. But again, it really doesn't matter.