Ranking of Jobs in Season 5

Hey everyone,

I was thinking which jobs are stronger or weaker in the current 4v4 meta, and I d like your opinion on this.

Tanks:
DRK
PLD
WAR

WAR is looking worse than the others due to a lack of CC with not redeeming advantage otherwise. I still value DRKs pull a little over PLDs chain CC due to how it can lead to quick kills.

Melee DPS:

MNK
SAM
DRG
NIN

I am not sure ranking the NIN vs. the DRG. Anyone want to weigh in? MNK and SAM have more burst, with MNK being more flexible with it, so I give it an edge.

Ranged DPS:
BRD
BLM
MCH
SMN
RDM

This is where I am least knowledgable. Its from what I have observed, as I dont play these jobs right now in PvP.

Healers:
WHM
SCH
AST

SCH has a steeper learning curve, but if played well eclipses the AST in my opinion because its just that more of an efficient class, and much harder to silence/CC.

9 button pvp so much depth
Everythings viable but RDM/AST/WAR

Blm against good tanks... 170k dmg

Smn better than mch and blm in plat+games

Sch the well known most op healer

There's no skill behind sch, it has 5 buttons, 6 if you're being pressured. Probably the only hard part about sch might be choosing who to broil spam I guess...

However anything is viable except what takatsuki said, those 3 classes you're more of a burden to the other 3 people on your team.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jigokunoreizasan

There's no skill behind sch, it has 5 buttons, 6 if you're being pressured. Probably the only hard part about sch might be choosing who to broil spam I guess...

However anything is viable except what takatsuki said, those 3 classes you're more of a burden to the other 3 people on your team.

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There's no skill behind any job in 4.0
Thread end :D

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Originally Posted by Arthur_Gwen

There's no skill behind any job in 4.0
Thread end :D

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Well yea lmao, but he specifically said sch had a learning curve

DRG
MNK
NIN
SAM

Dragoon can get away a lot easier than a monk can. they also have a bit more utility beyond just burst. where as monk is literally just burst.

Ninja has good burst/ CC available but its not quite as good as Monk /Drg

Samurai yes on paper has amazing burst. In practice though. Iaijutsu takes too long, your gap closer/escape tool, defense buff/counter, AND your OGCD burst tools all use the same resource so you have too much to spend on and not enough to spend.

Your DoT is locked behind 1 sen + cast time, the other melee just have it as a combo with their dot.

Samurai is by far the worst melee. thats not even everything.

Edit 1: I'll edit this post with more stuff later, doing matches atm.

Edit 2:
To add on to what i've already said about Samurai, that on paper burst comes at heavy costs that other melee jobs do not deal with.

Just to add 3 sen immediately is 250x3 = 750 TP, so if you wanted to do a Higanbana -> Midare combo you'd have to technically spend all of your 1000 TP just to do it as fast as possible. But there's a drawback to doing Meikyou to give you burst. That drawback is you won't have enough Kenki to do more than one shinten inside this combo. Which means its smarter to delay your burst as samurai, However that's not true either, Your defensive cooldown will make use of that kenki, your gap closer is actually really good, though Dragoon and Monk still have far superior mobility.

Mobility wise Dragoons jumps and elusive allow them to get in and out fast, While monk requires a target for tackle, and wind, it still allows them to immediately distance themselves around the map at least twice, Soten does not allow this, as it has a CD and you're only able to use it once. Enpi generates kenki but if you use Enpi to generate Kenki its TP cost will eventually starve you, causing you to either manually build sen or simply sit on sen till its time to burst.

Then we come to the burst, Dragoon, Monk and Ninja all have immediately instant burst, though there is a little bit of downtime after, it's nowhere near as bad as having to generate 100 Kenki from 0 while spending it to survive or move around.

Then the final issue is all melee can burst on the move quite easily, jump around , whatever you feel like you want to do with mobility, Samurai can not, It's quite easy to see Midare being cast on you, the cast is already kind of long to be on a melee inside a PVP environment but to make matters worse, if people out distance you (quite easy for certain melee /range) or LoS you (once again quite easy) your entire cast is wasted, then the fact that it is a cast means you yourself can not move during it, and if you choose to close the gap with Soten, you waste 25 kenki that could have been better used for your burst.

All in all Samurai's entire gameplay is actually counter intuitive to success and even itself, picking Samurai gives you and your team a disadvantage.

Maybe if Hagakure was present and Iaijutsu didn't have as long a cast (or one at all) it would be better. However Higanbana still takes a sen and a cast, it seems all other melee have their +10% damage built into their DoT, Where as Samurai has a resource refresh, and their 10% comes from using Yuki alone, already giving them a disadvantage against other melee, and that resource refresh at best times give you 50 more Kenki from a box to burst with, but boxes aren't always present and otherwise you'll need a kill for it.

tl;dr

I played like 100 games with Samurai and then switched to Monk, I have had a far easier time on Monk than Samurai ever felt like it could possibly do. Samurai is by far the absolute worst melee, the only thing it has going for it is that Midare hits hard. But how shameful it is that Forbidden Chakra and Tornado Kick both hit harder than Midare when under GL3.

I feel smn is pretty strong now but with a good melee with me.

More like:

Tanks:
PLD
DRK
WAR

Ranged DPS:
SMN
BRD
MCH
BLM
RDM

Healers:
SCH
WHM
AST

My melee ranking:
DRG
SAM
MNK
NIN

Yes mnk has strong burst, but its locked behind a long build up and no escapes, ranged attack. Did start to enjoy it after 30ish matches of practice. It feels like firing a musket. Boom! wait a min, need to reload :) As for goon, it has the best combination of tools for the melees imo and with enliven + icarus wings (FL only i guess) you can keep the jumps rolling! I felt SAM has better sustained damage than mnk.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Maxwell

My melee ranking:
DRG
SAM
MNK
NIN

Yes mnk has strong burst, but its locked behind a long build up and no escapes, ranged attack. Did start to enjoy it after 30ish matches of practice. It feels like firing a musket. Boom! wait a min, need to reload :) As for goon, it has the best combination of tools for the melees imo and with enliven + icarus wings (FL only i guess) you can keep the jumps rolling! I felt SAM has better sustained damage than mnk.

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It actually takes less time to "reload" on Monk than on samurai, though I could agree on the sustained part, except burst is the name of the game.

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Originally Posted by Cynric

It actually takes less time to "reload" on Monk than on samurai, though I could agree on the sustained part, except burst is the name of the game.

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I'd say CC/Shielding is more the name of the game, rather than burst. Games are mostly won on the healers and tanks being able to cover and recover what damage is being pushed out. As there just enough of it to have intelligent players counter burst compositions pretty clearly. Sustained damage is still viable, as it wears the healers out of their resources.

Look at the top three punching bags of the community. AST lacks good shielding. War lacks good Shielding or Good CC (Holmgang non-withstanding) Red Mage lacks good CC.

You can play around with the tuning of any of these, to fix their average outputs but it's these key components that are netting them higher losses and will hold them back. If you fix their CC/Shielding issues then they'd be considered more viable.

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Originally Posted by Hyrist

I'd say CC/Shielding is more the name of the game, rather than burst. Games are mostly won on the healers and tanks being able to cover and recover what damage is being pushed out. As there just enough of it to have intelligent players counter burst compositions pretty clearly. Sustained damage is still viable, as it wears the healers out of their resources.

Look at the top three punching bags of the community. AST lacks good shielding. War lacks good Shielding or Good CC (Holmgang non-withstanding) Red Mage lacks good CC.

You can play around with the tuning of any of these, to fix their average outputs but it's these key components that are netting them higher losses and will hold them back. If you fix their CC/Shielding issues then they'd be considered more viable.

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I'm talking purely from a PVP damage standpoint, the amount of sustained damage a job can throw out isn't as important as the amount they do all at one time.

You're right in saying that CC/shielding matters a lot currently.

But what I was speaking of was in specific to Samurai a melee DPS which has to stand still for their burst as well as cast it, with it doing less damage than their counterparts. Sustained damage being high doesn't matter if that sustain doesn't give you a kill.

I never argue mechanics in isolation from one another. I find it to be a poor perspective of rating performance.

You can have high burst, and low sustain, and lose out completely due to having your burst countered by an enemy's defensive measures, and just being worn down. If you have low burst, and high sustain, you can still win out, especially if you have hard shields and CC to counter an enemy's burst. (The Culling also plays in your favor if you are good with hard shielding as immunity frames disregard damage bonuses, yey paladins.) This is why games right now are being won on the backs of healers and tanks, not DPS. The better the healer and tank is at countering the burst-meta, the easier it is for them to gain ranking and wins. From the DPS perspective, this means timing of burst and sustained damage to draw out and wear down powerful shielding and healing skills are both very important.

I'm not saying burst is unimportant, in fact the argument is more along the lines of how frequently you can produce your burst, which is considered part of "sustained damage." But in the discussion of DPS, sustained damage is what helps enable burst damage to work, along with CC. It's okay to call out the Burst meta, but Sustained Damage is also important.

Edit after seeing the mention of Samurai Melee:

No I can agree. Same thing goes with Burst, which is why both is needed. Also, IIRC, the better part of the Samurai's damage isn't just from their Midare Setsugekka so much as using it tandem with their Hissatsu: Shinten, which is off the global cooldown and can be used for both burst and sustain.

But I haven't pushed my Melee DPS yet, nor do I plan on playing Samurai first hand, so you'd know that better than I.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hyrist

snip

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No I agree with you 100% on everything you said. Though I have won games purely on burst alone, there's a bit of RNG to it though of course and if my healer folds it doesn't matter. However currently Healing especially using scholar, CC and shielding from PLD/DRK is very very important.

As far as Samurai, yes you're correct Shinten is a lot of their damage, however its only about 1500, Midare is 3.4k and Shinten requires 25 Kenki, Kenki is used to move around as well with the gap closer and Shield with Chiten. Being 25 and 35 Kenki respectively.


Sen moves build 10 Kenki and can be spammed at the cost of 250 TP, regular combo starters are 5 kenki build, your natural "burst" combo will build 30 kenki, 45 if you opt out of using meikyou to build sen. Your DoT is locked behind 1sen and your +dmg up is separated from it.

To compare damage /wind up your sen finishers kasha and gekko are the same damage as shinten, so the most damage you can do before you use iaijutsu is 3-4k~ iaijutusu will add 3k more but it has a cast time so the previous 3k will be healed already. then you could add one more shinten after for 1500 more capping at around 7500-8500, and spending 50 kenki, while being unable to chase till iaijutsu finished.

All in all the sustain and the burst is slow, in comparison monk can GL3 instantly(before the fight even starts) and both Tornado Kick and Chakra can be used instantly for 8k together and at once, meanwhile inside GL3 with Demolish up all of your attacks are doing 1500+ anyway. Dragoon has similar damages as well.

The only real wind up to the burst for Monk would be waiting on Riddle of Fire, but you don't even need riddle of fire, you could say that waiting on Chakra stacks is a bit of wind up, but the amount of damage you can do in that time (plus T-kick can always be used to finish someone at 25% health and instantly be rebuilt) just destroys samurai in every way.

I used Monk for the comparisons because its what I have the most matchup experience on after Samurai.

I played a lot of matches on Samurai before I came to this judgment of course, it's just such a shame too, it was the job I was looking most forward to using.

I also forgot to add that GL3 has an innate damage and speed boost itself, so while yeah Samurai can hit for 1500 (every 250 TP/25 Kenki) its much slower than what Monk can do.

If Shifu gave speed buff I think they'd be comparable and if hagakure was present in PvP to allow you to convert sen to kenki it'd probably have a lot less wind-up and more sustain as well. But the Kenki : attack ratio is way off and meikyou costs way too much TP to be consistently usable.

Do monk positionals still exist in PVP? That was one of the main reasons why I didn't play it then. Just another unnecessary layer of cumbersome on top of the class.

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Originally Posted by Stormfur

Do monk positionals still exist in PVP? That was one of the main reasons why I didn't play it then. Just another unnecessary layer of cumbersome on top of the class.

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all positionals are gone from pvp period as far as im aware from all melee

I haven't run SAM in a match yet, but I fought against some good SAM myself. I think SAM's designed to be the "cross-counter" DPS, if that make any sense. In an idea situation, which I only run into twice, the SAM should pop Chiten + Safeguard right before getting burst (or mid-burst) by Melee, then Midare > Shinten. If pulled off successfully, it hits crazy hard like getting run over by a truck. (Trust me, I got run over twice) How feasible that is however, is another topic...

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Originally Posted by SokiYagami

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This runs into the Kenki ratio issue though. 35 Kenki for a skill that is very noticeable if you're paying attention, just wait for chiten to wear and all that kenki is wasted. I have no issues reacting to chiten because the animation is so slow before the effect actually takes hold, Plus shielding beats out any damage chiten would send your way, I think regen ticks almost beat it out as well , of course nothing will be better than just not hitting them till it's gone. if you're hitting the Sam with Chiten up that's kinda on you.

Plus midare is a casting move, so just LoS/get away from them/ get healed from the previous damage before it hits.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Koltik

More like:

Tanks:
PLD
DRK
WAR

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Whooooah there buddy, don't you know that the blackest night is literally the best thing ever and DRK deserves to have it's kneecaps broken?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cynric

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Yeah I learnt my lesson after getting run over twice. Now I'm always keeping an eye open for Chiten while I burst. But if a SAM did manage to pull the rug under me they do earn my respect though. All in all I do agree SAM need some love for PVP.

If I may allow to side-track a little, any general tips for MNK? I get the basic idea of bursting is Fire > (wind + dot if possible >) Charkra > Snap > Tornado > ogcd, but anything new is appreciated.

Sam is fine melee classes overall is pretty even atm. but the lack of any kind of stun and fetter ward really hurts us. you cant carry games as hard as melee anymore sadly.

So far i feel like scholar is pretty broken with infinite lustrate spam and adloq shield, WHM is not far behind fluid aura is such a troll skill.

For tanks paladin is king imo some might consider drk they are both strong.
But healers carry the games now more then ever wich is pretty sad in my opinion i see ppl on Chaos thats allready diamond with absurd winrates, ppl that not even played healer in the other seasons.

Highest carry rating Healer by far followed by Tanks because they can stun and shut down healers and apply cover/shield followed by melee and ranged dps.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SokiYagami

snip monk tips

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Sorry didn't see this before. your burst is eh. double weave chakra and T kick don't break them up like that and save wind for closing gaps on low health targets.

your burst is basically put demo up first use fire then attack >Chakra + Tkick > attack > somersault, pretty much kills everything without shielding.

As for general tips, try not to overstack medals, keep safeguard and earth for when people are trying to burst you. if you can, try to combine earth+ fire, if you're at GL2 use a combo finisher and not the GL increaser, that way you get a stack of chakra for 150 instead of spending 250 on somersault. if you're at GL1 > GL increase to 2 then combo finisher.

A lot of things will be like situational awareness checking targets HP. If someone is pushed too far from their healer and/or their health is low Tkick will kill at 25% and only costs 300 TP + combo finisher to re ready your full burst.

You can sometimes poke a healer with T kick to force them to respond, also you can easily Tkick > Snap>somersault boxes to make sure you do over 50% to them right away, save for wolves heart. That's all I can think of off the top of my head.

Oh one last general tip. If you can everyone should have HP bars turned on, it'll make your life far easier.

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Originally Posted by Praesul

Whooooah there buddy, don't you know that the blackest night is literally the best thing ever and DRK deserves to have it's kneecaps broken?

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TFW people still think TBN is the sole reason behind it.