The Best DPS Job for my Playstyle

Hello,
I'm getting back into FFXIV after a year or so hiatus. I've almost exclusively been a tank in all my years of playing. For Endwalker, I'd like to try out a DPS role. I don't know much about them. It's been so long since I last played the jobs I leveled, that I barely remember how to play them. I'm going to list some stuff that I'd like in a job in hopes of people with more knowledge being able to point me in the right direction.

-Range is preferred, but I would play melee. (Dancer excluded, I can't seem to get into the job fantasy)
-I'm looking for fewer total buttons in the opener/rotation while still having some complexity. I really want to avoid button bloat.
-I'd like to not have many OGCD abilities.

Thank you, a ton, for reading my post. I hope you all have a great start to the year!

How much complexity?

It depends on what your definition of range means - physical ranged DPS or ranged as in attacking from afar (casters included)?

RDM sounds like a good fit if you're looking for something that can attack from afar and require hitting up-close as well. It's more GCD focused than oGCD focused, and there's plenty of room for optimization. They don't have many oGCD abilities, but they come up fairly frequently in the rotation. If anything, I say RDM gets the balance between oGCD and GCD actions well for the way the job is played.

They have some complexity over managing Fleche / Contre Sixte uptime without ever having to drop a couple of seconds by making sure you don't dualcast at the wrong timing (using Acceleration and Swift cast to ensure you can weave your oGCD DPS skills when they're off cooldown). This is mainly due to how low their cooldowns are, so it's much easier to miss a usage out of them if you are just using your instant cast abilities nonstop. It's overall very straightforward to play even if you can't optimize that though.

Great! Thank you so much for that. I should have specified ranged DPS as both physical and magical. I played Red Mage to 70ish and then dropped it. I'll definitely hop on it and check it out later.

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Originally Posted by Goodhoof

Hello,
I'm getting back into FFXIV after a year or so hiatus. I've almost exclusively been a tank in all my years of playing. For Endwalker, I'd like to try out a DPS role. I don't know much about them. It's been so long since I last played the jobs I leveled, that I barely remember how to play them. I'm going to list some stuff that I'd like in a job in hopes of people with more knowledge being able to point me in the right direction.

-Range is preferred, but I would play melee. (Dancer excluded, I can't seem to get into the job fantasy)
-I'm looking for fewer total buttons in the opener/rotation while still having some complexity. I really want to avoid button bloat.
-I'd like to not have many OGCD abilities.

Thank you, a ton, for reading my post. I hope you all have a great start to the year!

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for ranged, SMN is very simple, with very few buttons. MCH has the second lowest amount of buttons but you'll be pressing them a lot (MCH is also one of the hardest ranged to optimize since you to max the number of ogcds during buff windows). then there's RDM which is kind of the middle of the road when it comes to complexity and number of buttons to press

monk has the fewest buttons of all the melee, and only one oGCD outside of their buffs (being the gage spender) although you press it multiple times during 2-min windows
also has a lot of complexity when optimizing the ideal gcd to go into burst window, i suppose

the other option is reaper, more buttons but lower APM due to 2.5 gcd being preferred

Honestly, I prefer the machinist. There are no procs or cast times and you have to put in a little more brain power than the summoner. The machinist's burst phase is a quick 1-2 1-3 1-2 1-3. As you want to weave hypercharge with gauss round and ricochet.

If you want melee, then reaper is the way to go if you like the machinist playstyle. It has a similar feel.

Half of Rdm's kit is keeping up with and properly managing your large amount of Ogcd's so if u don't want oGCD's rdm is not the job for u. Machinist has the fewest of everything with, buttons, ogcd's, ect and has no cast times like rdm, doesn't ever have to preposition, and can be in range of everyone at all times to receive and give buff/shield ect. Reaper, though a melee has everything you are looking for except the fact that it's a melee.

Maybe not the most immediate job to come to mind, but what about reaper? It's one of the easier melee jobs as apm is lower than average and is pretty forgiving for mistakes. It's a builder-spender job with 2 resources so it naturally has some complexity in pooling those resources effectively and having your burst phase align with buff windows. I don't think you do much double weaving on reaper, and even its burst phase where your gcd is 1.5s it's still easy to execute as you only have to weave one ogcd in every other gcd.