A Happy Post

Forums are too negative most of the time, so here is a happy question!

Are there any DPS classes/class designs in ShB that you are really happy with?

Black mage. So much care and attention has been given to the additions to the job in Shadowbringers it almost beggars belief. None of their new skills and traits are lemons, they all synergize with each other, and they all add a little bit of depth to the job and help it play much more smoothly.

Take the MP revamp for instance, now that all jobs have a flat amount of 10,000 MP, their MP costs have been tuned such that many variations of the standard fire phase will all play out smoothly. Coupled with extensions to the AF timer, you're even able to hardcast thunder in astral fire if you wish, as it won't negatively affect the number of fire4s you have access to. In a typical rotation, you end at 1200 MP if thunder was not cast, and 800 if it was, and 800 so happens to be the minimum MP level required to cast despair/flare. This also plays very well with the 30s sharpcast cooldown they received, as you'll practically always be able to make good use of it no matter where in the rotation you are.

Despair, incidentally, is also a well rounded single-target counterpart to flare and allows you to efficiently make use of any remaining MP at the end of a fire phase. And you have no qualms about ending a fire phase with 0 MP because of aspect mastery, a great quality of life trait that eliminates a lot of clunk the blm rotation used to have when switching elements. This, coupled with the buffs to freeze, has also made blm aoe much more fluid in Shadowbringers.

Umbral soul is a big upgrade over transpose when it comes to dealing with downtime. Instead of being stuck in af1/ui1 (and having to juggle between both to ensure you're in the right one when combat restarts), you can freeze (heh) your gauge in the much superior ui3 and accumulate umbral hearts to boot. It's a huge boon, both in terms of simple quality of life and in their ability to prepare a strong reopener when combat restarts which translates to more dps.

Xenoglossy is a fantastic addition to the job and fully deserves its place as a level 80 capstone skill. Though some experienced black mages will no doubt say it lowers the difficulty of the job, that only speaks to how effective of a tool it is. And it's only enhanced even more by polyglot having 2 stacks, as you have an incredible amount of freedom to save them up and use them at your discretion. When enochian was badly received as a job mechanic back in Heavensward, Yoshida went on record to say that (by adding polyglot) they wanted to change it from something that felt like you were being punished for dropping it, to something that felt like you were being rewarded for maintaining it instead. Foul was a decent first step, but with xeno I think they have now fully realized that vision. Having this amount of agency over the timing and use of your offensive tools is a privilege not many jobs in the game currently possess.

Despite its issues in the numbers department I still really enjoy red mage. Just having a proper aoe rotation alone makes it feel better to play in dungeons. Impact feels...well...impactful. I think once they tweak its potencies to be more competitive it will be perfect for me.

I'm probably in the minority here, but I really like the feel of NIN this expansion. It may be a hot mess of GCD clipping at times, but it is extremely fast paced and feels great. There's no telling what the class will be in 5.1 lol, but I am enjoying levelling it now! I'm at 76, so the rotation is pretty much 100% complete, just have to add bunshin at 80, but 99% of the kit is there.

I've played every job to at least 70 and it's definitely taught me what I prefer and what I'd like to avoid. Long casts, keeping up more than one dot, and "Do %damage more damage for x seconds" buffs aren't for me. Being a class with a buffing gimmick (dancer/ninja) also isn't for me, especially since they only really shine with great group coordination.

Machinist has a fun pace and has a nice priority flow to weave in with the 1-2-3 combo. It doesn't have anything I don't like, other than it's potency being a little low. By far my favorite physical ranged class.

Red mage feels good to play and it's awesome when you can save the day as a DPS class. Being a magic class and having low damage are going to keep it on the bench for me now that it's 80, but it's my favorite caster at least.

Samurai is what I just swapped over to as my main. I was planning on going monk, for aesthetic reasons and for that damage, but it didn't click with me like Samurai did. The Open Eyes abilities are too weak to feel rewarding. Using a buff skill (Kaiten) every single time I use Iajutsu, and only for that skill makes me wonder why it was created as a separate ability. Shoha may as well not exist in its current state. But even with these little annoyances, the class itself just feels great to play. Managing it's resources and buffs flows right. Other than the Open Eyes abilities and Shoha, the rest of its skills all feel useful and have their place. Having a couple of positionals forces in a little extra movement and makes it a tad more engaging. I've found I enjoy being melee rather than ranged, even if it stings a bit when I have to be disconnected from a boss and just meditate or toss a weak ranged skill at it. In spite of having a few skills that need some work, the damage and feel of playing Samurai make it my current favorite.

I enjoy DNC despite how weak it is. I like the gameplay. It feels really smooth and fun. The RNG doesn’t bother me at all. And it is satisfying to see your Quadruple Technical Finish crit-direct hit for 130,000+.

Can we talk about blue DPS?

I'm a really big fan of how Paladin is designed. It has a consistent, accessible resource that you can access for 2 useful skills. Every tool in its kit is useful for something, its animations are godlike and fluid, and even though its rotation is relatively static (although doesn't every class have an optimal static rotation?), it feels pretty active and busy throughout. It's rotation lines up as well as GNB while filling that feeling of BEING a tank that GNB somewhat lacks. It also has great damage.

BLM doesn't have literally a single thing wrong with it atm lol. Most mobility out of the three casters, best damage out of the 3 casters and smoothest to play out of the three casters.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Brandedblade

Despite its issues in the numbers department I still really enjoy red mage. Just having a proper aoe rotation alone makes it feel better to play in dungeons. Impact feels...well...impactful. I think once they tweak its potencies to be more competitive it will be perfect for me.

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Red Mage definitely feels very satisfying to play
(And dragoon too.... yeah i said it)

I really enjoy playing Machinist, it's one of those classes I feel like I can consistently play with only 1 or 2 minor mistakes over a 12 minute parse, it's just a shame I can't really break 14k dps without a dancer.

Despair is the closest we'll get to Kingdom Heart's Pyroclasm boss spell, and it makes me happy.

I really like the MCH rework even if its feels slighlty incomplete and has a few issues. I'm surprised they didn't pull inspiration from Edgar and the like earlier.
I also really like Gunbreaker. I find it really fun to play with excellent mobility and the damage combo is actually fun to do unlike the other tanks stuck doing 1-2-3 to do everything.
I think they could go a long way in turning previous FF characters into classes as they have turning Squall and Seifer into the Gunbreaker. It was rather nostalgic reading ability names and having a vague recollection of hearing it before and then using blasting zone on a mob and realizing what it actually was.
I can only Imagine a Thief class based off Zidane now using those double sided swords.

I'm loving the machinist rework. It feels more like a machinist than a gunner. So many awesome tool and gadget animations.
And dancer is a blast to play. The rotations feel smooth and I like the thrill of getting the procs. I also love buffing a teammate to see them get big damage.

Machinist rework made me love the game. Not the job only but the whole game as a whole. The rework is not perfect, very far from perfect and could need a bit of polish and tweaks.

But I can finally queue a daily roulette as a MCH without the job feeling terrible and bad designed.
I can finally enter a trial and not have to place my turret, reload and place the gauss barrel on everytime we wipe.
Our DPS doesn't rely on the hated flamethrower.

I'm finally enjoying MCH as I was enjoying it during HW.
I just hope that one day they will rework the flamethrower and gives interaction with the automaton queen, it's a glorified dot but it is far better than the previous rook autoturret.

I fantasize about a Flamethrower as a cooldown, turning your xxxx shot GCD as new GCD, using the same tool as the Drill/Air Anchor/Bio Blaster to spray fire on your ennemis.

Outside this, the only problem with MCH is the numbers... And maybe a little too much Hypercharge.

But I'm grateful, deeply grateful for the rework SE has done on the MCH.

I agree, new Machinist is great. I see people hating on it and yes it has problems but it's miles better gameplay-wise and aesthetically than what MCH used to be.
It needs to be less ping-reliant and needs more polish in the AoE side of things like Flamethrower and an AoE automaton but that's it.

For jobs I play the most: BLM is near perfection, but I wish most of its QoL changes like the level 68 and 72 trait were acquired at lower levels. SMN on the other hand has a lot of problems but Demi-Phoenix/FBT is an improvement from Bahamut and I hope that becomes a trend for SMN in the future.

Despite the changes to Hagakure making it a bit clunkier, Samurai has been well designed since the beginning. Things flow nicely and it's very intuitive. It also has a pretty complete toolkit with a dash back and dash in and damage reduction through Third Eye (even if Seigan /Merciful Eyes are a bit underwhelming).

Once they fix Shoha and the DPS issues, I think the class will be even better.

5 Stars:

-Black Mage: Literally this is one of those jobs that feels perfect, on a level that very few jobs have ever hit. Like I'm scared of what a further expansion could do to the job because I don't want it to ever change. Everything just feels amazing.

-Dragoon: This feels like the best version of a job that already felt great, love the way everything syncs up the QoL improvements to the jumps and timers.

-Gunbreaker: Found my tank of choice finally after 6 years of waffling between Paladin and Warrior. You feel fast, you feel strong, and it's mitigation tools are nothing to sneeze at.

4 Stars:

-Dancer: A little weak overall but the rotation is solid and is a joy to play, while also being just basic enough that they have left plenty of room for next expansion.

-Paladin: Feels a little weak on personal mitigation, but offensively is so much fun, and you truly do feel like a protector of the party.

-White Mage: I would have preferred a few party buffs like Faith and Bravery, but damn is the job fun.

-Machinist: Rework went great at fixing a lot of small issues. Just needs more damage to justify it's greedy play style, or needs to be given back it's party tools like Hypercharge and Dismantle.

3 Star Honorable Mention:

-Monk: On release I considered it god awful, but the soft rework they gave it fixed so many issues I have with the class. Still needs some TLC and a bit of tuning on its damage down a few degrees, and Tornado kick is still useless while Six Sided star is far too situational, but those can be worked out.

The jobs above have made the serious displeasure I have towards my two favorite jobs, BRD and SMN at least not completely discolor my opinion on what has been an awesome expansion.

I finally found the Dex-user job I’ve been waiting for, Dancer.
I main MNK(Close-ranged) and BLM(Long-ranged) since ARR and I always looking for Any-ranged job that is not STR and INT-user(to prevent melding issues, like SAM and MNK for example) so Dex-user is my answer.
But Seeking a Dex-user that fit my style ain’t that easy.
Since I need Any-ranged job, Nin is out of the question so it comes down to BRD and MCH and now the problem begins.
My ping is high and I can’t double-weave so these 2 jobs are no go for me.
Just like that, I have to wait for new Any-ranged dex-user in the future patches.
Here comes Red Mage and Samurai in stormblood and then finally Dancer, Any-ranged Dex-user.
After tried this job by leveling to lv 70,I think I like it.
No double-weave requirement is the main point here, I still suffer a bit of “Step Lag” but not as bad as Nin’s mundra.
Low personal dps ain’t concern me at all because its a job design and I can’t do anything about it.

And that’s it, my Arsenal is complete.3 jobs for 3 ranged that I can use for any situation.
This fight ain’t melee friendly ? I’ll go BLM.
This fight force me to miss my positionals ? I’ll still go BLM.
but if its the fight that force my BLM to move a lot and can’t do positionals much as Mnk then I go with Dancer.
Perfect.

In all honesty class design wise. I enjoy quite a few jobs, the balance is however absolute whack with some of the choices.

And while plenty will say “it don’t matter things go up and down” it’s very hard to survive in a PuG world where people actively block u entering with said jobs.

5.1 I guess could fix the situation though, so I guess wait til then and see what happens haha

While I've rightfully been very critical of Monk since Heavensward, the 5.05 changes to Formshift and the removal of the slow from Riddle of Fire are great changes to the job and an actual sign that the devs are actually taking our feedback and listening to it instead of getting feedback and then electing to ignore it as they did for launch. Hopefully it means they'll actually fix the manyfold other problems the job has while toning down its output in coming patches instead of letting its kit fester for another expansion in a row.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Brandedblade

Despite its issues in the numbers department I still really enjoy red mage. Just having a proper aoe rotation alone makes it feel better to play in dungeons. Impact feels...well...impactful. I think once they tweak its potencies to be more competitive it will be perfect for me.

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Agreed. Half my dungeon runs and queues in SB were just Scatter-spam, especially when sync'd to 50 so I couldn't Moulinet.

Now I at least have that little bit of variety to blow people up with, which I hope they expand on next Xpac.

I simply love playing the game, and this would only be possible if it contains elements that adhere to my interests. Jobs, servers, vendors, NPCs, etc, they all contribute to this.

Well I like the IDEA of SMN a lot more then it’s previous versions.

Buuuut the actual delivery needs some serious serious serious work. In the future I hope to see the egi system just removed and more focus on Demi summons, to give it that SMN feeling cause it feels amazing to Summon Phoenix and Bahamut excluding their AI issue. I think if SE only needed to deal with their own individual AIs without including the egis AI system as well that we would see better results.

DNC and Machinist. I am inching closer to 80 on Bard and do not care for it and Sam and Red Mage i also have @ 80.
Is a change for me as past expansions (yes even HW) i did not care for machinist like at all, i found it overall boring. Now i enjoy it.
Also for the first time i do not have blm as a job levelled first to max, i am just taking a diff approach this expansion

i love new dark knight rework, just bought Shadowbringer only for his rework, and cant stop playng it

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tex_Mex

Forums are too negative most of the time, so here is a happy question!

Are there any DPS classes/class designs in ShB that you are really happy with?

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I like Ninja.

I’m actually happy with SAM.

Sure it might not be “viable” and I’m not using some abilities right(Sen to Kenji why?),

But I love cranking out my 3 big hits one after another.