Easy Jobs/Guides for Casual Player

Hi,

I played FFXIV a few years back, making it through 1 - 50 and briefly into Heavensward before stopping. Now I'm back and am an unabashed, though somewhat humbled newbie. Some questions!

• What's an easy DoM job? I'm playing casual, and honestly not that good. I've leveled BLM & WHM to 50 and neither seems too difficult. I read that a RDM is easy so purchased Stormblood and did the quest. I love the concept and animations but am utterly lost on how to play because it starts at 50 and there are a whole bunch of icons and I'm like ... aaaa. ;-) I really just want to hold my own in PUGs, not do hardcore raiding or anything. I'm in it more for friends and RP.
  
  
• I've also brought SMN/SCH to 40. SMN is by far the easiest to play and I like it a lot. Ignoring SCH aside from the job quests. However, do I need to micro-manage pets to be good? Thus far I'm putting my pet on auto and just focus on DoT's. Run dungeons fine.
  
  
• I'm left-handed and play on the PC. I can't do anything with my right hand, so have a PS4 controller. Works okay but I have no idea how to make a pet hot bar (or even if I need one, see above question!). Any advice on that?
  
  
• I see a lot of RDM guides re: rotations but am hesitant to use them because everything seems to revolve around parsers. My understanding is that parsers are not allowed but SE turns a blind eye. I think that's absurd, but that's outside scope here. I don't want to cheat and don't want to use guides that are based on them. The official RDM guide is useless as it's just a list of spells. Can you actually learn and play this game without the whole parser silliness? It seems embedded in every aspect.
  

Sorry for being verbose; am loving the game though still need to meet people. I really just want a straightforward job, no min/max/hc raid viewpoint and ideally resources that don't dip into the whole gray area of parsing. I'm in it for the fun not the numbers.

Thanks.

All guides are going to, in some way, be founded on the use of parsers because parsers quantifiably determine the best rotation for any given job. It's not "cheating" to use a rotation that was found to be the best available through the use of a tool specifically designed to quantify damage numbers.

As for the easiest DoM job, it's unanimously agreed that RDM is the most simple in terms of basic rotation for a DoM DPS. For a healer, WHM would be the most simplistic.

At its base level, a parser is just adding up the info from your combat log and doing the math for you. With a spreadsheet and a lot of time, you could do all that on your own. You could also just trust someone else who did the math for you and figured out which rotation produces the best results. I wouldnt say that was cheating or condoning cheating anymore then having an accountant to do your taxes is cheating.

As for your questions, BLM has the easiest rotation to learn(lots of fire til out of mana, quick ice phase to refresh, repeat). Executing it at the highest level and wringing every drop of raw power from it during movement heavy fights is challenging, but how much of that challenge you decide to take on is your decision. As for RDM, just because the class starts at level 50 doesnt mean you have to. Take it into lower level content to get a feel for what all those icons do a few at a time(basic idea - use fast spells to proc slow spells, balance mana levels, unleash melee combos when ready). And my SMN knowledge is lacking, so ill leave those for someone who knows what theyre talking about.

RDM's a pretty good choice for starting out as a caster, I'd say. Relatively simple to understand the basic flow of the job and as long as you know to keep your black and white mana balanced there's very little risk to your overall "rotation" (if it could truly be called such), even if you die. Plus you have the ability to heal in a pinch, which is also nice for solo content.

SMN isn't as difficult to learn as some people believe, but it can be a very involved job with several "burst" phases to manage. If you main SMN, you'll need to get used to managing your damage over time debuffs, or DoTs. On top of that, you have your Aetherflow to manage as well, which unlocks abilities that let you eventually unlock Dreadwyrm Trance, which will ultimately be needed to let you summon Demi-Bahamut at the level cap. Reading the various guides online should give you a sense for how to manage these burst phases efficiently, so even if you don't intend to do savage content it's still worth looking into them. In most cases, as far as pets go, leaving Ifrit on Sic isn't bad for starting out, as he does decent damage with little need for micromanagement. Garuda is great if you have multiple casters for your DPS, but requires a little more management compared to Ifrit if you want to get the most out of her (though having her on Sic entirely is still somewhat feasible though not ideal). Titan will be almost useless except during the odd solo quest here and there, if even that. For tougher fights, there's even a pet swap strategy to allow Garuda to use Contagion at the battle's start and then Swiftcast Ifrit to bring him back out, though in casual content you'll probably never need it. A good visual guide once you've learned all your skills can be found here. It's a fun job with decent utility, even if it is a bit of a mess at times lol. It's certainly doable for a beginner, but probably better appreciated once you've gotten a handle on one of the other casters first.

I've not leveled BLM myself, but I'd certainly defer to Frizze's knowledge of the job. Whichever route you go with, I hope you have fun with it and wish you the best of luck!