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I have RPR to 90, SAM to 80 and NIN only at 30. Trying to decide which is easier to play and why?
Only done RPR this expansion for a little bit, SAM I played some in ShB. NIN well its unlocked.
Wasn't good at combos or positionals. I heard SAM changed some but also didnt like the look of the armor. Not a deal breaker.
I switched from RPR to RDM as a main and love RDM and its sort of simplicity as to how I understand it. But wanted a melee as well.
Reaper and Red Mage have incredibly similar foundations so I'm not surprised you went from one to another easily. I personally found myself rolling from Red Mage to Reaper this tier.
Reaper is probably the easiest melee, at least as far as I've heard anyway. If you can get the hang of double enshroud then the rotation is fairly simple to grasp and repeat. I haven't had any real issues with it this tier. I am unqualified to speak about the other melee but I often hear SAM isn't far behind RPR.
I'd say reaper is easier personally. Your positionals aren't part of your base combo and your base combo is a simple 1-2-3 button press. There's a little more when you unlock demon mode (and it's faster than the normal GCD) but it's not something you have to deal with constantly.
The only thing I don't like about reaper is having to maintain the debuff. The maintenance buffs for sam are a lot more fun to manage because as long as you're doing your combo correctly you maintain them, whenever I have to refresh my debuff on rpr I *always* feel like it's interrupting my rhythm.
I have all 3 jobs at 90 and have played them all to some extent and I can confirm, that reaper is the easiest to play for reasons, that have already been said.
Between Sam and Ninja it depends on what is harder for you to do!
Ninja has a very busy burst phase! You have to hit all of your skills in your burst window to maximize dmg! Outside of your burst window, ninja is fairly boring, as you're only spamming 1-2-3 combo!
Samurai, my current main, has a busy burst phase, but not quite as busy as ninja, but also two 1-2-3 combos and one 1-2 combo, that you have to use correctly!
Some people think, that fitting all spells in your burst phase is harder, some think the alternating 1-2-3 combos are harder!
So you have to see for yourself, what is harder for you!
I'd say NIN is very fun to play. One of my favorites for sure.
You didn't do "a bit" of Reaper if you leveled it to 90.
From this 3 would i say the reaper.
The ninja can be a pain with his jutsu (did you make a error or the system didnt recocnice the right button, is the bunny coming and you lost attack for the moment). He was ok in shb. But feels a little weird in the 80er-90er area. At last have i trouble to use the chidori and Raiton correctly (raiton create a buff for chidori, but vanish, of you use weapon skills).
Samurai feels a little to stiff for my taste. The animations looks a little boring. Because he move very little. And it feels like, that he has nearly no reach with his sword (esspecial his aoe has a low reach). And, because he has 3x 3er combo, can it be questionable, how to place the skill for a good flow.
Reaper is mostly fast and has nice animations. But has the feeling of small reach to. And, based how you Set up your skills, can your finger hurt, when you need allways the shift button to, for your skill (dont know, how it looks on the controller).
If you want to add more classes, could the monk or dragoon maybe be nice. Monk is fast and very forgiveable with the skills and feels easy to use. Its only a little pain, that he has no normal distance attack (aside of chakra use).
And the dragoon is corrently the most streamlined class. And his skills feels as the one, who connected as the best from skill flow. And, has with his aoe a little more reach, as the other. But, the dragoon will have a rework next year. And could maybe change very strong (if it is like with the summoner). Or only a little (if it is, like with the monk, compaired to the 5.5 version).
I'd recommend just waiting for the next expansion, with slated rework on dragoon, and then try to decide what you want to play. But if you are asking about right now, Reaper is definitely the "easiest" of the three with respect to its significantly lower skill floor and ceiling, and it's "2 positionals/minute" playstyle, which some of the non-melees seem to like.
Both SAM and RPR average about 1 positional every 10-12 seconds. That's pretty standard for melee this expansion, although some jobs have more forced positional changes than others, as was discussed in a previous thread.
Most jobs are forgiving if you play them freestyle, which is the level that most comments in this thread seem to be weighing in at. NIN is the most ping sensitive choice, however, irrespective of skill.
Also, I wouldn't wait eight months to decide what melee to play. Just find the aesthetic you enjoy right now and start practicing. All melee jobs have roughly equal interquartile ratios, so the skill/performance distribution is very similar in practice. The most popular melee, SAM, has very similar player numbers in raid content to SMN, so there's no great barriers to entry here.