Advice in picking a main for a returning player

Hey everyone, returning player here. Played a little at the launch of ShB but life got busy, but I'm back. I used to like playing support jobs like BRD or MCH, but I know both of them gradually lost their support abilities until DNC basically replaced both of them. I have several classes in the 60-70 range (and several lower I wouldnt be against leveling) and I'd just like some advice on which I should play.

Basically I prefer to play a supporting role in the game, I don't mind tanking or healing but I would prefer my first character at 80 to be a dps just so I'm not as relied upon by parties as I'm learning the new content. I have it narrowed down to SMN, NIN, DNC (I know SMN isnt that support heavy) and I'm wondering what I can expect to experience playing these classes now that ShB has been out for a while and 5.1 releases some (what looks like to me) big changes to classes.

Thanks in advance!

Edit: Changed SB to ShB where applicable.

Well all three of the ones you want to play are HEAVY AoE jobs so they will work great for you in dungeons which gives you a lot of flexibility.

Summoner and Ninja can get a little complicated at high levels so be prepared for some complexity there. Dancer I've never done before so I'll have to let others speak on that.

If you wanted Support abilities though I think Red Mage has better support abilities than any of those if that's what you like.

Dancer - Probably the easiest of the options. Some have compared the Dancer to an "Organic Lawnmower". I'd have to say the most mobile of the 3 jobs and exceptionally well suited for support. Everyone in my FC fights over my dancer partner buff when I play my Dancer and I'm almost always a welcome addition to any raid group for the increase in DPS a dancer brings. The down side, they are not top on DPS by a large margin although decent gear and good skills with the job as well as good RNG for your procs will change that fast I've found. And while not top dog on DPS, it is very fun to play with good range for single target and melee for most your AOE.

Ninja - I mained a ninja in ARR. Always fun and fast. They are also not always top dog on DPS but they still hold their own. You have the big con that most your abilities are melee range and positional meaning you have to be VERY good at dancing around your enemies and staying behind and flanking them. Also the only melee with some range attacks that can to decent damage, but you'll still be in melee range 90% of the time. The Mudra system is a little rough to get your head around at first but once your muscle memory has kicked in and you've memorized the combos it becomes easy. I'd say Ninja is fun but alot more work to master. Then there's the one ability EVERYONE loves from ninja.. Trick Attack. This is an attack that makes the mob take 5% MORE damage from ALL sources for 15 seconds and has only a 1 minute cooldown. So every minute everyone is doing 5% more damage if you keep this on cooldown and everyone loves it. I had a raid once with 3 ninjas and we had our trick attacks timed perfectly so the boss only had 10-15 seconds each minute that it wasn't debuffed. Fun class, more challenging though and great theme.

Summoner - Probably one of my biggest challenges right now. The basics of the job is DOT management. Keep your dots up on all or as many mobs as possible while managing all your cooldowns. It's a decently mobile class in combat, out of combat much slower. In my experience it's been rough getting my head around what I should be using and when.. but there is a clear cut theme.. keep dots up, pummel them with all your other attacks and summon you big hitters, Bahamut and Firebird, and watch yer cooldowns. In my opinion it's a higher skill floor meaning it takes more to understand and master it and a high skill ceiling. But once you have it sorted out they hit like a TRUCK. Keep in mind they are NOT fast, instant damage so in a dungeon they are not top dog on the trash, but on bosses and anything that lives more than a minute, they tear it up. They have a heal but it does not scale with their main stats so it's next to useless but they do have a resurrect spell which I use with my swift cast to make it instant and I can't tell you how many times I've save my party when a healer goes down by using a quick rez on them.

Welcome back! If you prefer support role in your gameplay, DNC offers various buffs to allies as well as dealing damage as well as a DPS class.

You can easily level 2 or even 3 classes, just going through the MSQ and doing side quests. I leveled Dancer (which is my main now and it is very good support), Bard and Red Mage in SHB through msq and side quests - I like doing all the quests, I'm a completionist I guess. If you seem to be behind on one, do a level duty and you catch up quick. Welcome back, and good luck with whichever you choose!

Actually Summoner is really good at Dungeon Trash.

Almost all of its attacks are AoE. But just as was stated... SMN is a low burn. So it takes bit for it to build up. But once its there its pretty devastating at AoE.

First of all you have to use the Garuda Pet... not Ifrit for it. Then you have to throw out your DoTs and Bane them out to all other targets. Then use up your Egi Assaults and Enkindles and Painflares... THEN you whip out the Big Summons like your Deathflare and Bahamut with Ahk Morns or Phoenix and Conduits + Revelations.

So its starts slow but builds into a crescendo and does large chunks of AoE DPS.

But like has been stated here before... complexity, slow burn, and layering... the watchwords of the Summoner.

Bard is still pretty high in term of dps support, dps support tier list is going like this.

ultra high support: DNC
high support: BRD, NIN
medium support: DRG, RDM
low support: MNK, SMN
zero support: BLM, SAM, MCH

Thanks for the input everyone! After much thought and going off what you've posted here I've decided to go with the Dancer.

**support** is a really big word for jobs Who spend 99% of their action dpsing