Best/Worst AoE Job?

I like to play with blm and smn, mainly because it's fun to use AoE in the dungeon.

I was testing bard and I noticed that bard aoe rotation is not fun for me:
-isn't fun spread dot without skill like a SMN Bane
-isn't fun spam Quick Nock
-isn't fun depend on RNG for Rain of Death + Mage's Ballad combo
(personal opinion, of course)

So, guys, what other job would you rate good and bad for aoe?

Definitely BLM/SMN are great at aoe... RDM on the other hand is rather boring. It's usually scatter spam till you get enough mana for Enchanted Moulinet.

For the most part, Jobs don't have interesting and engaging AOE rotations. Most of them are just 'Spam 1, hit things on cooldown'. Other than the ones you've mentioned the only outstanding ones are Samurai, which has 1-2, 1-3, Hissatsu:Kaiten>Tenka Goken Keep up Jinpu to a certain threshold of enemies, use things on cooldown with Hagakure letting you freely use your heavy hitting AOE combo finishers. Monk just does it's single target rotation and replaces it's third hit with rockbreaker until it's TP efficient to actually use Arm of the Destroyer unless it's a Riddle of Fire phase, where you pop Perfect Balance and nuke everything for ten seconds with Rockbreaker.

If you don't like Bards AoE, you might be doing something wrong. If done correctly, their AoE is both engaging and rewarding. If you're spamming Quick Nock, on anything other than those "special" mobs that die really fast, there is an issue.

Bard AoE is a bit special, there's a particular thought process behind it.

At level cap, you'll probably want to identify the one or two most dangerous mobs in a mass pull, throw both Stormbite and Caustic Bite on them, then go to town with the AoEs without forgetting to refresh with Iron Jaws (along with Straight Shot). Don't go into Mage's Ballad until the tank has finished gathering the mobs, or else you're more than likely just wasting the first few seconds of the song not getting any Rain of Death procs or your Rain of Deaths aren't hitting as many mobs as they should be.

For mass pulls, you also have the option of going into Army's Paeon first, so you can throw physical Troubadour on the tank (followed by Palisade) to make their life a lot easier. Troubadour and Palisade stack up to 30% phys damage reduction for 10 seconds, and 10% for the remaining 20 from Troubadour, not counting anything else the tank and healer may be using on top of that. And then there's also Nature's Minne to consider as well. Going Army's Paeon first also comes with the small bonuses of letting you throw your DoTs on the big mobs and cast Foe Requiem faster due to the mini-haste effect, and switching into Mage's Ballad from Army's Paeon cuts Ballad's cooldown by 12 seconds.

And you can still do all of that while maintaining absurdly high AoE damage, due to the nature of Rain of Death being a constantly resetting oGCD AoE attack during Mage's Ballad. Although juggling everything can be a bit hectic at times.

what do you mean rng on rain of death + mage's ballad? When you dot up 3 mobs you literally get more procs than you can press them.

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Originally Posted by AppleJinx

what do you mean rng on rain of death + mage's ballad? When you dot up 3 mobs you literally get more procs than you can press them.

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It's still RNG based though, that's all they meant, but yes more mobs means, more pretty soldiers than you can shake a wand at.... I means more procs, lol

RDM AoE can be more fun when you have CDs coming up. If you get to 100/100 while holding Embo and Manafaction you can (Embo) Moulinet×2 (Contre) Scatter×2 (Manafaction) Moulinet×3 which is basically a caster LB.

But otherwise yeah it's pretty dull. I like BRD AoE and for healers WHM.

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Originally Posted by CrimsonDark

So, guys, what other job would you rate good and bad for aoe?

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Healers? >.>

Well, I pulled 45k on a trash mob in The Burn on my SMN last night. Hopefully that answers your question :)