Easiest class rankings?

I keep seeing this argument where if a class is easy and simple, it should do the least dps.

So I am curious, how would people rank the dps classes in terms of difficulty?

Melee definitely does not feel harder these days, double true north, huge hitboxes, bosses without positionals at all or few positional requirements, gap closers, I do enjoy reaper but I cant pretend it is some ultra complicated class.

If anything I would imagine black mage is the hardest class to play perfectly, even machinist would be harder than some melee with all the things that need to be tracked and timed appropriately.

So if you were to rank DPS classes in terms of difficulty to play optimally, how would you rank them?

That's a question that will yield you as many different answers as there is people. Not only is it subjective, but the feedback will also be dramatically coloured by a lot factors like, in what actual content the players go through and base their opinion on, what level of play (meaning, skill floor and accessibility, skill ceiling and skill expression/optimization?), etc. Just having a proc system makes it more confusing and less intuitive to order a rotation properly for a new player, but that doesn't mean that the actual rotation at endgame level is harder. That doesn't mean that its execution is harder, because then you run into loopium and burst alignment shenanigans and not all jobs are equal there too. Then there is uptime considerations, and for some jobs like monk (optimal drift, double solar, etc) and black mage (transpose lines), actual advanced optimization is completely out of this world.

And one of the biggest, if not the biggest factor is that people will by definition rate what they main a lot lower than the rest because they have countless hours of practice behind. Some will rate it higher than it actually is out of bad faith as well. It's... well. I hope the hidden message of such a thread is really to show that it's pointless.

You'd really need a lot of finer filters to rate them and put people somewhat on a the same page/context. Well I guess you said optimally, so it's on me to diverge I guess.

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Originally Posted by Valence

That's a question that will yield you as many different answers as there is people.

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Well yeah I am not expecting perfect unbiased answers, but I assume there is some degree of agreement in what the community TM considers easy and what they consider hard in a very general term

Physical ranged, SMN and RDM are considered fairly easy to play by most peoples standards. At least at an entry level. If you know your rotation, you can pretty much go into a fight blind and still do acceptable DPS.

Melee DPS are in the middle. Some of them have straight forward rotations, but there is usually a bit more consideration required when it comes to your own positioning, where your allies are, where and when the boss is being moved, etc.

BLM is probably the hardest. It tends to need the most knowledge about each specific encounter in order to do at least decently well.

The easiest jobs are the ones that let you do the most amount of damage with the least amount of effort.

Since damage taxing is not at all proportional to effort, that should be considered (your job is less complex, but the price being paid is larger than the value of just screwing up that aspect on another job)

As such I would say SAM as it requires very little skill to outpace yourself on any other jobs deemed "less busy" by SE.

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Originally Posted by Ralphe2449

So if you were to rank DPS classes in terms of difficulty to play optimally, how would you rank them?

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This will vary and differ from player to player.

- Uptime Difficulty
Melee's and BLM, requiring positionals, preposition, dealing with boss movement. Specially if you consider FFXIV to house a bit more content then just Endwalker's P567 and 8 Savage.

- Optimization Difficulty
DNC often deemed a easy job, suddenly becomes extremely difficult when you try to optimize it.

- Speed to learn said Job
How fast rotation/raidbuff/burst alignment/openers/skill name and symbols/muscle memory/standing still to DPS is learned and clicks with players presents a difficulty.

- CPM/APM (Casts/Actions per minute)
Here you'll find MCH and NIN at the top for example,

- Most buttons to bind or press
BLM I consider the most difficult job, yet it has very little buttons to press or bind in comparison to some other DPS jobs.

- Job with most long Casts
Here you'll find to BLM at the top, but to my surprise for example? SAM being higher then SMN. Many will find this also to be easy while others find slide-casting Iaijutsu to be challenging when it's not 2nd nature.

- Ping
Some jobs actually become more difficult to play properly when a player has bad ping. MCH probably at the top of that.

Most, some or all of the above can affect difficulty of playing a Job optimally. You'll need some amount of statistics from a credible source to back up why x is at x difficulty cause there's more then just " x Job does x number performance there for x easy ". That's a bit of a linear way of looking at it.

• The hardest I believe is BLM.
• Then DNC naturally due to its Kit
• Then MNK and NIN probably at the top
• Then DRG in the middle
• RPR and SAM at the bottom of the Melee's.
• BRD harder to play, though not as hard to optimize as DNC.
• Followed by RDM
• MCH/SMN easiest to optimize.

**Though I could be severely wrong**
and also players opinions can differ because difficulty is subjective. A survey somewhere with a good sample size might help this topic, preferably something recent. Or of course good ole FFlogs as a source.

The correct answer from easiest to hardest is

SMN, MCH/DNC, BRD/RPR, RDM/SAM, DRG, MNK, NIN/BLM

A / represents a tiering separation due to various factors

My ranking from hardest to easiest at 90 is probably:
BLM>NIN>MNK>BRD>RPR>MCH>DRG>SAM>DNC>RDM>SMN

• BLM has long casts, random procs, the worst survivability, the worst weaving, the worst mobility, etc. I still don't like this job.
• NIN has six (really four) Ninjutsu skills to go with its job gauge and two vulnerability debuffs, and Shukuchi is still more complex than other movement abilities. BTW, did you forget Enhanced Shukuchi exists? Because I did.
• MNK could be above NIN because it has three statuses to constantly reapply, but they're not too difficult to maintain, though doing it for an entire fight with no mistakes is another thing.
• NIN, MNK, and SAM all have permanent speed buffs, the latter two being heightened at higher levels. BRD also gets one from a song.
• BRD and RPR suddenly have a lot of resources to manage. BRD especially has a random GCD proc, Bloodletter charges, a 15-second and 60-second oGCD, a constant song rotation, a job gauge, two DoTs to keep up, and some support abilities. Better not use Iron Jaws too soon or too late.
• RPR and MCH bursts are high-APM and easy to clip. RDM as well to a much lesser degree.
• MCH gets two resources to manage, Reassemble skills have to be used at different intervals with Hypercharge, Wildfire and Barrel Stabilizer can't be used if you're not ready, and you'd better not waste any Gauss/Ricochet charges.
• DRG has a surprising amount of weaving and you can't double-weave jumps. Very tempting to use Geirskogul too soon. Kind of a diet version of MNK with its statuses.
• SAM is definitely easier without Kaiten/Seigan and it still probably hits the hardest of them all, so it's nice all around. Just remember to (re)apply Higanbana when needed.
• DNC has random procs and you can waste feathers and Saber Dances. Changing dance partners isn't quite as easy as Kardia.
• RDM at least has a resource to manage and more things to weave than SMN. Magick Barrier and Manafication can be a bit finicky to use too.
• SMN doesn't even have to use Swiftcast anymore and most of its strategy comes from using AoEs on as many enemies as possible in dungeons, which also means using summons in the right order. Oh, and having enough spell speed to get that 6th cast reliably.

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Originally Posted by VictorSpoils

My ranking from hardest to easiest at 90 is probably:
BLM>NIN>MNK>BRD>RPR>MCH>DRG>SAM>DNC>RDM>SMN

• DRG has a surprising amount of weaving and you can't double-weave jumps. Very tempting to use Geirskogul too soon. Kind of a diet version of MNK with its statuses.

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You can 100% double weave jumps, you can even double weave jumps with other jumps with low enough ping, only exception being Stardiver* which can't be weaved at all. edit: * meant cant be double weaved.

Why do people consider NIN so hard? I've always found it to be the easiest melee personally, it's my go-to when I want to play melee or learn new fights on. I can execute and optimize it far easier than any of the other 4 melee by a significant margin. Obviously difficulty is subjective but NIN is just single weaving constantly and minimal positionals, what are people finding difficult? I know SAM on a base level feels easier, but I find optimizing it much more difficult than NIN personally.

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Originally Posted by ZiraZ

You can 100% double weave jumps, you can even double weave jumps with other jumps with low enough ping, only exception being Stardiver which can't be weaved at all.

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My ping is fine and they still clip reliably, though weaving them with something like Feint might barely work. Stardiver is also weavable, at least up close. Otherwise, it would've just been a GCD.

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Originally Posted by Mithron

Why do people consider NIN so hard? I've always found it to be the easiest melee personally, it's my go-to when I want to play melee or learn new fights on. I can execute and optimize it far easier than any of the other 4 melee by a significant margin. Obviously difficulty is subjective but NIN is just single weaving constantly and minimal positionals, what are people finding difficult? I know SAM on a base level feels easier, but I find optimizing it much more difficult than NIN personally.

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It could just appear harder in contrast to most of the other jobs.

Difficult is subjective to the player.

Personally;

SMN = RDM = SAM = DRG = RPR
MNK = MCH = BRD = DNC = NIN = BLM

I'm just bad at remembering my proc, that's why all ranged physical are a level higher. Anything that is a script is pretty braindead and that sums up SMN/RDM/SAM/DRG/RPR for me.

In term of jobs having core issue in their kits which affects the difficulty.

SMN simply cannot optimize. It is impossible. You have to resort with cursed knowledge to fit those 6 GCDs on your demi-phases depending on your ping.
MNK requires God ping and you have to resort to cursed knowledge.
MCH induces carpal tunnel for no gain.
BLM makes people adjust for them so it isn't that difficult. The true difficult and villain of BLM is when a group refuses to let the BLM optimize which is why I don't play/prog with BLM.

There isn't truer truth that prog casters are just braindead and RDM just get it awful because of fight design. RDM is actually pretty easy and smooth to play in DSR.

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Originally Posted by Aikaal

BLM makes people adjust for them so it isn't that difficult. The true difficult and villain of BLM is when a group refuses to let the BLM optimize which is why I don't play/prog with BLM.

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I'll do my best to bring my stack markers to the nearest Ley Lines.

The easiest class is your class.

The hardest class is my class.

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Originally Posted by VictorSpoils

I'll do my best to bring my stack markers to the nearest Ley Lines.

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Is there any instance this tier that specifically targets a BLM? I'm pretty sure they are mainly healer stacks.

That said, there is that cursed 6 minutes buff window where BLM has to move during burst window. But when I say the party adjust for the Black Mage. This video comes to mind.

It was great when I rep for my friend's group who had a BLM and I was absolutely not moving on SMN. It's great and all to say BLM is difficult because you're a turret caster but the community brings the big brain strats which smooths the brain of your BLM.

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Originally Posted by Mithron

Why do people consider NIN so hard? I've always found it to be the easiest melee personally, it's my go-to when I want to play melee or learn new fights on. I can execute and optimize it far easier than any of the other 4 melee by a significant margin. Obviously difficulty is subjective but NIN is just single weaving constantly and minimal positionals, what are people finding difficult? I know SAM on a base level feels easier, but I find optimizing it much more difficult than NIN personally.

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As I NIN main, my impression is that NIN is one of the easiest melee jobs. It doesn't have a bunch of short term buffs to manage nor does it have any particular long-term complications in its rotation. Further, outside of burst, NIN is chill is pretty chill, which is great for doing mechanics, etc.

Perhaps NIN looks harder on paper than it is in practice - that was certainly my experience. When I started playing during ShB, I nearly didn't play NIN because it came across as quite complicated. Once I actually played it, I found that it wasn't particularly complicated at all (but felt very good to play).

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Originally Posted by Equitable_Remedy

As I NIN main, my impression is that NIN is one of the easiest melee jobs. It doesn't have a bunch of short term buffs to manage nor does it have any particular long-term complications in its rotation. Further, outside of burst, NIN is chill is pretty chill, which is great for doing mechanics, etc.

Perhaps NIN looks harder on paper than it is in practice - that was certainly my experience. When I started playing during ShB, I nearly didn't play NIN because it came across as quite complicated. Once I actually played it, I found that it wasn't particularly complicated at all (but felt very good to play).

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I'd think for NIN it ping dependent. Bad ping will ruin your ninjutsus.

Easiest jobs to me, are the jobs that are more forgiving if a boss jumps or let you easily recover if you make a mistake. To that end, I'd say summoner and monk are probably the easiest jobs in the game.

On the other end of the spectrum I'd put jobs that require very precise execution of their skills and if you drift by a GCD or in some cases even just a couple seconds, it can mess up your entire rotation for the rest of the encounter. For me, those jobs would be ninja and reaper.

Black Mage is also tricky, but in a different way since it's more about learning where is safe to stand in a fight than about the rotation, though it could be argued that lack of mobility isn't as painful on the job as it used to be, and that now red mage suffers more from low mobility than black mage does.

For better or worse, all the difficulty classes are more or less similar: who has the rotation a little simpler but the more challenging burst, who has the rotation a little bit more complicated but the less demanding burst, who has to think about when, how and what to cast and who has to think about how and when to do positional, who has to think about random procs, who has a bit more difficult optimization to do and who doesn't. And then there is the smn, a class 20 levels behind the others.

For me personally, having leveled everything to 90 and given them all a fair shot, from easiest to hardest it was:

SMN -> DNC -> MCH/RPR -> RDM -> SAM -> BRD -> (everything from here on out is "I don't want to take this into hard content and give high key props to people who play it well in that content" tier) BLM -> NIN -> DRG -> MNK
If I forgot one, then w/e, but yeah. This is just how I felt about them. I'll never understand SAM mains who make the "difficulty" argument for why they deserve to be powerful as hell; for me it was by far the most straightforward melee to pick up and play well, especially now that kaiten's gone. I was also really looking forward to playing RDM because people on here kept saying it needed to do more damage than smn because it was harder to play. Lo and behold, it's harder than pressing 2 buttons, but the actual core is a really straightforward loop. The job's satisfying as hell, but some people here really oversell their pet job's difficulty to make a point that shouldn't exist in the first place. Difficulty is subjective and should never be the deciding factor in how jobs are balanced or made obsolete.

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Originally Posted by Mithron

Why do people consider NIN so hard? I've always found it to be the easiest melee personally, it's my go-to when I want to play melee or learn new fights on. I can execute and optimize it far easier than any of the other 4 melee by a significant margin. Obviously difficulty is subjective but NIN is just single weaving constantly and minimal positionals, what are people finding difficult? I know SAM on a base level feels easier, but I find optimizing it much more difficult than NIN personally.

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From my perspective having done 6.0-6.1 as SAM to swapping to NIN a week before 6.2 is that NIN can be punishing should you goof a mudra or desync potential big CDs, things like that. Punishing is different from difficulty of execution and the amount of effort it takes to optimize I find NIN to be very easy in those respects.

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Originally Posted by FireMage

The correct answer from easiest to hardest is

SMN, MCH/DNC, BRD/RPR, RDM/SAM, DRG, MNK, NIN/BLM

A / represents a tiering separation due to various factors

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You can tell someone is a RDM player by how it is placed, and how NIN (the job with 100% uptime no matter what due to mudra) is at the top.

Impossible to gauge becuase difficulty is subjective.
People say MCH is the easiest ranged phys, but i find Dancer to be
People will say Monk is the easiest melee but i find it the most difficulty (i find drg the easiest)

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Originally Posted by Aurora428

You can tell someone is a RDM player by how it is placed, and how NIN (the job with 100% uptime no matter what due to mudra) is at the top.

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Ninja has to use its mudras at very exact times in its rotation, it can't just disengage and do a raiton. Your logic there is like saying Samurai has 100% uptime because it has enpi

The easiest job to play is the one that you understand the least and play completely freestyle with zero awareness of how the job is actually optimized by players who main it. The hardest job to play is the one that you've dedicated yourself to as your life's work and can name precise GCD sequences and resource totals as they matched up with mechanics on a fight you did last tier.

Every skill that you master has an opportunity cost in time, and nobody can ever be the best at everything (which is why you have to be selective about what you want to excel at). Player assessments of job difficulty should always be taken with a grain of salt, and Dunning-Kruger features heavily in these discussions. If you want to do it objectively, there are statistical tools like the IQR that you can use, but they're still only indirect measures of performance.

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Originally Posted by Aurora428

You can tell someone is a RDM player by how it is placed, and how NIN (the job with 100% uptime no matter what due to mudra) is at the top.

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What I stated was factual. Has no baring on what I play

A lot of these are just based on what I've played, I've got everything to 90, but I do play more jobs then others (If I'm not playing PLD or GNB) its normall RDM. Ninja or samurai. I only play healer for fast queue times.

Hardest DPS jobs (for me)
Monk, Bard, Dragoon, Black Mage. I feel like I get overwhelmed by these jobs a lot BLM I really love the job but also get annoyed at myself when I mess up, I think I really enjoy BLM, bards also pretty fun something about Monk and Dragoon both don't really work well with my brain.

The most easy DPS Jobs (for me)
Summoner, Samurai, Reaper, Dancer. Generally are all too easy for me I think something like Ninja or red mage (yeah both are still pretty easy) feels like more fun, then again I do enjoy samurai sometimes, Summoner is really boring to me personally I don't really get the appeal to the job other then having something easy to pick up, (EDIT): Mch is somewhere in the middle too I forgot to mention mch, because it's just something I don't really play.

Tanks/healers
I'd say I find Gunbreaker hard personally I know it gets a easy(ish) reputation though, PLD is a strong comfort pick for me despite it being known as hard to optimise, WAR/DRK makes me wanna fall asleep so i generally don't play them as much. With Healers the only healer that's "harder" is astro, but i find astro one of the most fun out of the healers, all the other healers are generally really easy to me

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Originally Posted by FireMage

What I stated was factual. Has no baring on what I play

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Why can I clear the hardest content on NIN with ease but struggle on ex trials with BRD, then?

I ll definitely have to agree that ninja really doesnt feel as hard, mudras are not complicated and quickly become muscle memory, it is pretty busy during its burst window but after that it is quite slow, screwing up that burst window could cause serious problems but if you ve played it for a while that shouldnt be happening anyway. The only latency issue I noticed was only in some extremely rare case of a lag spike that made a mudra not register which could be a serious issue if you are about to start the burst window but it is pretty rare, and never rly had problems even when I was playing in JP.

Tbh I would love if we got some crazy ninjutsu ranged class where we get like 8 mudra combination skills for some powerful skills so we can go full naruto, now that would be interesting because 3 is honestly far too simple.



Now a common agreement I am seeing is that many people consider Sam to be quite easy, especially after removing the already little resource management kaiten required, which leads to the question why is it so strong in terms of dps if they truly want to balance based on difficulty?

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Originally Posted by VictorSpoils

My ping is fine and they still clip reliably, though weaving them with something like Feint might barely work. Stardiver is also weavable, at least up close. Otherwise, it would've just been a GCD.


It could just appear harder in contrast to most of the other jobs.

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yeah I meant Stardiver can't be double weaved at all, but with <40 ping you can double weave jumps with other jumps that are not stardiver even with with 2.46
any non stardiver jump should be very easily weaved with any buff/role, gsk/nas, wwt, md even if you have like 100 ping

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Originally Posted by Mithron

Why do people consider NIN so hard? I've always found it to be the easiest melee personally, it's my go-to when I want to play melee or learn new fights on. I can execute and optimize it far easier than any of the other 4 melee by a significant margin. Obviously difficulty is subjective but NIN is just single weaving constantly and minimal positionals, what are people finding difficult? I know SAM on a base level feels easier, but I find optimizing it much more difficult than NIN personally.

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Nin is my main. I agree, I don't find it hard to play/optimise, as I practiced my A off to get the opener + rotation just right, and squeezing in that last raiton+raiju in my buffs. But then put me on my BLM and it's a nightmare for me.

I think this also comes down to not only muscle memory but the way u arrange your hotbar buttons to allow for a flow of Button presses that almost feels like you are building to a crescendo.

I've adjusted my hotbar for my nin in such a way that the rotation flows really nicely for me. No button is too far from each other for the opener.

And I would assume the same would go for a BLM main. They prob have a set up that makes their job feel as easy as my nin feels to me.

So much for community consensus : popcorn :

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Originally Posted by FireMage

What I stated was factual. Has no baring on what I play

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Can you find a new gimmick?
this is getting old.
Opinions are not fact man

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Originally Posted by wereotter

Ninja has to use its mudras at very exact times in its rotation, it can't just disengage and do a raiton. Your logic there is like saying Samurai has 100% uptime because it has enpi

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It is OPTIMAL to use mudra under buffs

However you shouldn't be losing a GCD to get a 5% bonus inside trick.

You should be trying to use your necessary suiton cast with downtime, and if that is not possible, go ahead and use a raiton.

There is no reason why a NIN should be missing a single GCD ever.

It's a negligible loss, especially considering that GCD will be replaced with a weapon skill under trick and/or buffs, negating part of the loss.

It is completely not comparable to using a ranged GCD on another melee lol.

Personally. I find jobs with high apm (Gnb/Nin) and proc based jobs (Brd/Dnc) more difficult.

High apm equals higher chance for a personal mistake. Proc based jobs take attention away for mechanics.

I’m sure if I played the job for 100 hours in high end content I could grasp the concept but I’d rather stick with comfortability.

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Originally Posted by Aurora428

It is OPTIMAL to use mudra under buffs

However you shouldn't be losing a GCD to get a 5% bonus inside trick.

You should be trying to use your necessary suiton cast with downtime, and if that is not possible, go ahead and use a raiton.

There is no reason why a NIN should be missing a single GCD ever.

It's a negligible loss, especially considering that GCD will be replaced with a weapon skill under trick and/or buffs, negating part of the loss.

It is completely not comparable to using a ranged GCD on another melee lol.

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You lose a raiton and a kaiju in the trick attack window by using it as you suggest which means you lost over 120 potency, more than that if it's leading into the two minute window where mug and other raid buffs will also be up. So unless you have to disengage at a point where you'd be using suiton to set up the next trick attack anyway, you're better off using dagger throw. This means it is exactly comparable to using a ranged GCD.

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Originally Posted by Reimmi

Opinions are not fact man

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This is true, and I didn't state an opinion, ergo...

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Originally Posted by wereotter

You lose a raiton and a kaiju in the trick attack window by using it as you suggest which means you lost over 120 potency, more than that if it's leading into the two minute window where mug and other raid buffs will also be up. So unless you have to disengage at a point where you'd be using suiton to set up the next trick attack anyway, you're better off using dagger throw. This means it is exactly comparable to using a ranged GCD.

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No, because the non-raiton or kaiju GCDs will be replaced with normal weapon skills lol. The loss is nowhere near that exaggerated.

You aren't just sitting there doing nothing in trick

Please, please, PLEASE read The Balance before spreading misinformation on jobs.

It literally says:

Suiton within 20s of burst>phantom kamaitachi>raiton>dagger throw

You aren't losing 120 potency, you're still using DIFFERENT GCDs under trick which still benefit

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Originally Posted by wereotter

Ninja has to use its mudras at very exact times in its rotation, it can't just disengage and do a raiton. Your logic there is like saying Samurai has 100% uptime because it has enpi

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I'll say for this tier its been very forgiving for the few times where you may have to potentially disengage mainly because its either during a period where you would have to put up suiton anyways and/or you have Phantom up. The only real painful disengages is if its DPS out on the second exchange of agonies because trick should be coming off cd within 3ish seconds before the aoe goes off, whichever forbidden fruit in p7s with the 3 minotaurs and the bull/yak if you have to stretch your tether to the south platform, Dog 2 on door boss since its after a burst window and you're mudras are down (even then its 1 GCD at most). Even then, using a raiton for disengage is still a better gain than just chucking a throwing dagger and holding it for trick.

Easiest: whatever you play.
Hardest: whatever I play.