What's the "best" AoE classes in the game for specific situations?

First things first, I know there are a lot of specific elements to consider, such as possibly having Bards in your party to regenerate TP/MP, or how long the encounter lasts (20s encounter vs 200s encounter will have drastically different results), what level of gearing you are for the content, etc.

Taking that all into consideration, what do you feel the best AoE classes are for dungeon runs, for Bahamut's Coil Turn 4, and just in general bursting down adds? Playing a BLM, I know my AoE capabilities are strong both in burst and in sustained, but I don't know about how other classes stack up, especially with nigh-infinite TP. What kind of Potency Per Second can the classes boast for AoE?

Bard and blm

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Originally Posted by Astralis

Bard and blm

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No, this is completely incorrect.

Bard - Rain - potency of 100 that reduces enemies damage (so it's good _utility_) but has a whopping 200 TP cost which will quickly make the bard run out if spammed.
A Fire AOE over time with a potency of 35 per tick (each 3 seconds). Their level 50 wide volley with a potency of 110 and 160 TP cost which makes it easier to spam and sometimes makes the 100 potency one free.

Dragoon - RoT - Potency 100 but only 120 TP cost so is much easier to spam. Doom Spike which has to be in a "line" but thats easy when mobs get clumped up on one tank with a potency of 160. Lastly, Dragonfire dive which is a whopping 250 potency though it can only be used every 3 minutes. Our spammable abilities are far more powerful AOE than bards, and in fact are probably more powerful than BLM because BLM has to switch off of Astral Fire to restore their mana so can't spam constantly.

Not to mention that Dragoons also have a superior Invigorate which restores 500 TP, and as any non-spellcaster knows spamming AOE does actually drain our TP which bards have a much larger cost for their abilities anyway

SMN/SCH and BLM.

Melees and Bards are just inferior in AoE.

To be fair monk burst aoe is pretty good if you have perfect balance available. Rockbreaker is 150 (?) potency and you can keep 36% worth of damage buffs up. Howling fists is 170 potency instant too so ...

Normally pretty crappy though.

Summoner AoE is 135 potency every 3 seconds, or 112.5 potency every GCD.

Miasma II adds another ~10 potency every GCD, and tri disaster if you don't have thunder is another 20 potency every GCD.

If there are few enough targets (5 or less) that you can tab target thunder, thats another ~30 potency every GCD.

So around 140 potency every GCD, whether you are tab thundering for <5 targets, or miasma2 + tri disaster for more than 5 targets.

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Originally Posted by 0caid0

To be fair monk burst aoe is pretty good if you have perfect balance available. Rockbreaker is 150 (?) potency and you can keep 36% worth of damage buffs up. Howling fists is 170 potency instant too so ...

Normally pretty crappy though.

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Aoe isn't even a viable option for monk. Howling Fist is strong but no where near spamable. Arm of the destroyer looks pretty, but is a joke at 50 potency.

Depending on perfect balance to use rockbreaker doesn't count. Even if using perfect balance, you get what, 3 uses and done? I don't understand why you need to combo to use an aoe move.

Think about it, adds pop out of no where and you need to quickly kill them all, it doesn't make sense that you need to combo into an aoe. They should make it like other aoe's and allow monks to use it freely, and just have a higher tp cost. Either that, or make perfect balance's cool down a lot shorter.

PB is 10 seconds - so you have time for 4-5 GCD's in that time. That is comparable/better than any other class for that 10 second period.

Our burst is lacking when it's down but I don't think every class should be the same? If you gave everyone the same potency and same cd aoe attacks it may be balanced but what do you lose in response?

Rockbreaker is probably one of the most resource effecient AoE available, if a fight required aoe over a long period a Monk might be superior to the classes. I don't believe any other class has an AoE silence - there may be no encounters that need it now but there may be mechanics that require a monk or that a monk would make much easier later one.

Hmm pretty sure bard and blm comes off the top of aoe list. Havent checked drg and other classes. But when me and my group are running cm. With 4blm and 3brds we finish it within 18mins while havinh a drg we finish it by 20mins so i think aoe and dps wise bard is better. They have bigger range.