What is the Melee DPS most like GNB?

People often say that GNB is like a DPS (specifically a Melee DPS, I'd think?) that just happens to be a Tank. I like GNB most of the Tanks. It's the easiest to me for whatever reason. No upkeep buff, no upkeep DoT (yes, there are two, but you use them on CD, so there's not an upkeep argument), and there's no numeric Job Gauge like WAR's Beast Gauge where different abilities give different amounts and there are abilities that can give more of it (Infuriate, Inner Release giving 3x free uses), and modifiers for those (using spenders reduces the CD of Infuriate).

By contrast, GNB is just...simple. Complete combo, get point. Have 3 points when that little No Mercy is about to come off CD. Use mini-burst combo every time it's up (30 sec), use charge dump when you're about to cap, roll through No Mercy, Gnashing, Continuation, Double Down, Bow Shock, Sonic Break, Blasting Zone, finish GF combo, and if Bloodfest is up, pop it and dump the rest into Burst Strikes (if not, just roll back into your standard combo), and throw in your two Rough Divides if you don't need to save one for movement later.

Something about that is just...simple to me, despite being a few more buttons. I think because it's the same every time where WAR's rotation is slightly contextual (how far has Infuriate drifted to the left by having its CD reduced, do you need to refresh Storm's Eye, etc). GNB on paper has a lot of oGCD weaves...but only 4 buttons (because Continuation is the same button over and over), 5 if Bloodfest, so it doesn't feel like weaving all over the place (my brain may handle defensive CD data differently, though...that is, it doesn't weigh on the stack of "rotational" data somehow.)

In any case, I'm looking for a Melee that plays kind of like GNB. Simple upkeep rotation, simple gauge (ideally non-numeric), burst that's straightforward and largely locked to a timer, few oGCD weaves/oGCD weaves that are simple(?) to execute, no procs, no upkeep buffs/debuffs/DoTs to juggle, and a rotation that's more or less rigid so you just cycle through it without it taking up a lot of mental energy so you can focus on other things like fight mechanics or ensuring upcoming burst aligns.

I haven't really played any of the Melee, so are there any that work like this?

I tried NIN, but it feels more like WAR. And I tried MNK some, but it...is...different.

In the sense of having a strict rotation with plenty of weaving, DRG is the closest one.

However, DRG doesn't have the same GCD gauge generation management, and there's no GF equivalent. SAM or MNK are closer in that regard but also different (especially the latter).

I don't know if any of the melees can fulfill your desire of having a simple upkeep rotation and being similar to GNB. For instance, RPR and SAM are often cited to be easy but their gauges are numerical.

I think EVERY melee has a utility buff you need to worry about other than SAM. You DO have a DoT, but it lasts a full minute. You have positionals, but since you basically have three mini rotations, you have more control over which positional you want to deal with, and when. You DO have a fairly busy 2 min and 1 min burst window, but you should be used to that as GNB with Continuation. Between bursts you're doing almost nothing and your only real OCG weaving is avoiding resource capping--you want to save it for burst periods.

Then you have Reaper, which I haven't played really myself but I understand there aren't even positionals to speak of outside of your burst window. I don't know all the details about the spec personally save for everyone saying how laughably easy it is for a melee DPS.

If we're talking simple, NIN is about as simple as it gets. You do the opener once a minute, and then go into chill mode for 40 seconds. You do have to maintain your Huton buff, and you do have a busier one-minute window, but it's pretty strict, almost exclusively timer-based, and has no procs or any such things to worry about.



I think you'll find that most melee DPS will meet a handful of your requirements, but none will meet all of them. All of the melee have some sort of debuff/buff/dot management (RPR's 10% dmg buff, NIN's Huton, SAM's 10% skill speed + 10% damage buff + DOT, MNK's 10% dmg buff + DOT, DRG's DOT) and all of them barring DRG have some sort of numerical gauge.


Looking at your criteria:

Simple upkeep rotation - NIN by far. 123, occasionally 124, occasionally expend gauge for Bhava, exactly the same as you'd dump excess cartridges.
Simple gauge - DRG's Life Gauge is the most similar, as far as I can tell. Build up towards two eyes, then enter Life.
Straightforward burst - Not sure how you define straightforward, so this one is hard to answer. Personally I find NIN incredibly straightforward, but this might be a "try it and see what makes sense to you" angle.
Burst locked to a timer - NIN for sure. No Mercy windows and Trick Windows are functionally the exact same thing. Press your damage-up button, do your burst. MNK also has a one-minute buff, but their burst is built up via GCDs.
Few/simple oGCD weaves - RPR I think wins this one. Very few oGCDs to speak of.
No procs - The melee don't really have procs in the way DNC or RDM do. Closest I could think of would be MNK's Chakras, RPR's whatever it's called under Arcane Circle, and maybe SAM's Third Eye? So, NIN and DRG, I suppose.
Least upkeep buffs/DOTs - NIN and DRG only maintain Huton and a DOT respectively. Every other melee is managing at least two or more bits and pieces.
Rigid rotation - Another difficult to answer question. In full uptime, technically every melee is "rigid". Assuming you mean in line with cooldown/timer-based, NIN would fit the bill here, but really any melee could.

RPR has some similarities to GNB in terms of playstyle. Instead of having an oGCD that 'combos' off of your GCDs, you have GCDs that 'combo' off of your oGCDs. It also feels like Enshroud is the natural evolution of the Gnashing Fang combo. I don't think that a job being 'resource-gated' vs. 'timer-gated' is overly important, especially when there are no real random elements at work in most fights. When you know a fight well, your GCD-by-GCD play will have next to no variation, and even if there are 'branching paths' in the fight, you'll still automatically end up memorizing all the individual branch possibilities as you work through them. I found that I enjoyed GNB a lot more after I played RPR, simply because it captured some of the 'feel' of the job (although you won't capture the pure freedom of Ingress/Egress on another job outside of maybe NIN, and even that's a stretch).

Where they differ is that RPR has the option of deferring the smaller 60s burst and adding it to the end of the 120s burst. Ordinarily this gives you no additional benefits because you can only fit two Enshrouds into Arcane Circle, but this can be situationally beneficial if you're entering a potion window or a buff mechanic like Everburn. The thinking around rearranging your burst windows and how you pool your resources is possible due to having an appropriately large resource capacity, and it's something I'd like to see more of going forward with future resource driven jobs.