Job choice clarification, ranged dps with utility

OK, im still a sprout working on my first 90. ive pushed a number of classes to 50ish and Ive been pushing bard for various reasons but im not sure thats where i want to land long term.

My preferred playstyle in these games is ranged dps that has some heals and group utility, but can still hold its own dps wise.

After reading thru materials and watching some vids it seems the only real choices are Red Mage or Summoner.

Both have heals and res eventually utility wise.

RM appears to have the higher dps output, but also a melee component that for me personally feels very clunky.

So this basically leaves me with Summoner even though it might have a lower output potential it feels much more fluid and may have better mobility which i also prefer, even though im not a huge carbunkle fan :). The scholar options also appeals to me as i also like to heal from time to time.

So im thinking the winner will be summoner, am i missing anything or does that about sum it up?

Thanks

Maybe Dancer would be best?

It has access to two fairly useful heals (Curing Waltz and Improvisation), can reduce damage take to the party, and has some extremely valuable damage buffs. The downside of these is that they’re all on cooldowns (60s for Curing, 120 for Improv)

Compared to every other ranged Dancer also has superior mobility thanks to being physical ranged and having the movement skill ‘En Avant’, so they can kinda fly around the battlefield lol.

Dancer itself admittedly is the lowest personal dps job in the game though. That said, their abilities generally have high potencies attached, so you get to see some enormous numbers after Technical Step and Starfall Dance. Plus, when you account for the damage buffs Dancer brings to the party, even though it’s the lowest personal dps it’s still competitive as a dps itself.

Summoner’s healing ability is unfortunately a bit of a weird one right now. It has Physick, but that scales off Mind so even at level 90 will heal like 400 HP lol. It has a healing skill that does scale properly, but it’s limited to being used whilst Phoenix is summoned, which is once every 60(90?) seconds for 15 seconds. So while there are healing capabilities, they’re much more limited compared to jobs like Red Mage or Dancer. It can also increase party damage and reduce magic damage dealt by the enemy, so it has non-healing utility as well.

That said, Summoner’s access to raise does give it a huge advantage in the ‘healing/utility’ range. I think it’s actually better for Summoners to raise than Red Mages because they have better MP economy, so while you’d be less able to heal directly if anyone dies you’re in the perfect position to help.

Overall my advice would be either give Dancer a try, and if it doesn’t appeal then Summoner would be the next best option

Thank you, i wasnt aware of summoners heal scaling, thats not good, i hope they address that.

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Originally Posted by maolconaire

Thank you, i wasnt aware of summoners heal scaling, thats not good, i hope they address that.

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The summoner's kit is more personal, it has 2 charges of untargetable shield, so it's only for them.

Physick is absolutely useless as the previous message mentioned, and the Phoenix only provides regeneration effect every 120 seconds, a small HOT for the group and a small targetable heal spell that applies a HoT.

The only truly effective support ability is resurrection.

Like noted about Dancer, all three physical ranged jobs get a defense buff to nearby allies, so that's nice.

If you want to heal party members, have you considered playing a healer job? All jobs in this game contribute to dealing damage, healers included, but non-healers are not often expected to heal party members routinely.

You know, i am considering that, but healers seem to take longer to level and do solo content due to lower dps.
I really like white mage and scholar so far so those are options

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Originally Posted by maolconaire

RM appears to have the higher dps output, but also a melee component that for me personally feels very clunky.

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The RDM melee combo is a trivial effort to execute if you get used to just living at max melee range, which is where every job should live anyway because that distance makes it extremely easy to handle outs, donuts, stacks, fans, cones, and basically every mechanic other than "run all the way away" which is rare enough it doesn't need to be the default positioning.

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Originally Posted by maolconaire

healers seem to take longer to level and do solo content due to lower dps.

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As long as your gear is up to date, doing private solo quest instances on a healer isn't going to take that much longer than it would on a DD, and private solo quest instances don't make up that much of the game anyway. Overworld trash fights will take "longer", but longer in a fight that takes a DD 10-30 seconds is still only 15-45 seconds. As for leveling, healers can level much faster than DDs because instant queues for leveling dungeons.

It depends on what exactly you're looking for.

Summoner: Utility comes in the form of a revival spell, a party regen, and a single target regen, and a debuff that weakens enemy damage that all the casters share; however, there are caveats here. Your party regen is not something you consciously use, but is a passive consequence to performing your rotation, and the single target regen can only be used during that phase of your rotation, so if you're looking to be someone who can potentially spot heal in a pinch, I don't think Summoner will really accomplish that for you. It can revive in a pinch, but casting Resurrection takes 8 seconds without swiftcast, and Summoner kind of likes using its swiftcast as a part of its rotation, which can sometimes make it tricky to actually pull off a revive when needed. Also, Physick scales off Mind and not Intelligence, so the healing will be entirely useless. It's a dead button. If you are interested in offensive buffs, it has a 2 minute party buff that isn't particularly strong but lasts longer than other party buffs.

Red Mage: Also has a revival spell as a form of utility along with a single target healing spell that you can use at any time, and a party-wide cooldown that reduces magic damage taken and increases healing received. The single target heal scales off Intelligence unlike Summoner's Physick, so you can use it to heal in a pinch, but you almost never will because it's just not that powerful regardless of stat scaling, and it will rarely be worth it to stop attacking to heal someone. Red Mage's dualcast mechanic, though, allows for any resurrection to be instant cast, making it a lot more effective at reviving. Having said all that, you won't really use these all that frequently, so if you're looking for the ability to regularly provide a little utility support, I don't actually think this gives you that much mileage. It's more like having some back pocket emergency tools. The magic defense and healing buff is nice, but that's about it for utility. It also has an offensive party buff though, mostly the same as Summoners. Generally, Red Mage is also the more fun caster on the DPS side of things and is more flexible, where Summoner's gameplay is very rigid and kind of on rails.

Bard: Both Bard and Dancer have a 10% damage reduction buff that is functionally identical, Troubadour for Bard and Shield Samba for Dancer. Beyond that, Bard has access to a single target debuff protection and is the only job in the game to have that. Debuffs that can be prevented or cleansed are not particularly common, but if you can remember to be aware of them, it actually feels really nice to use it. For example, in one of the savage fights currently, mistakes during certain parts can inflict Doom on someone that must be removed with either Esuna on a healer or Bard's Wardan's Paean, and Bard's tool is actually far more responsive, which is important because the Doom has a VERY short duration before it kills someone. Additionally, it has Nature's Minne which increases HP recovered for the whole party. In more casual forms of content, this probably won't feel very special or all that helpful, but in harder content I would argue it's far better than the flat healing that Dancer provides, because you can communicate with your healers to line it up with their stronger cooldowns in situations where healing gets tight. As for offensive buffs, Bard has several very weak ones it maintains constantly plus two party buffs every two minutes in the form of Battle Voice and Radiant Finale. I would say its offensive buff game is as prominent as Dancer's in terms of general feel.

Dancer: As I said with Bard, you have a 10% damage reduction buff that all physical ranged share, plus Curing Waltz and Improvisation. The former is a very small AoE heal that emanates from both you and another party member who you mark as your dance partner. These two AoEs do overlap, so when standing with your partner, it does provide a nice little bump of healing, and has a short cooldown. Improvisation is a small-medium sized AoE channeled regen that has a follow up which provides a small barrier as well. It's a channel, but you almost never want to stand still and maintain the channel and will usually try to double weave the regen and barrier between two weaponskills. It's not a bad action but it definitely feels very weird and clunky to use if I'm being honest. I'd say the healing effects you can grant will feel more effective in easier content--pretty much anything you use the duty finder for--and they still feel good in harder content, but don't have the same impact as powering up your healers. So it kinda depends on what you want out of your experience as to which utility effects will feel better to use on average. Dancer also has a small buff it maintains throughout the encounter on one person and yourself as well as a party-wide buff every 2 minutes and a critical hit/direct hit buff also every 2 minutes for your partner and yourself. Again, I'd say it feels about the same as with Bard.

TL;DR: If you really want the experience of providing a little extra healing often as you play through the game, regardless of how much your team is struggling, I'd say Dancer is your best bet. Unlike Red Mage, the healing doesn't interrupt your ability to attack and has a short cooldown that will let you help out with healing very often in anything from dungeons to ultimate raiding. It's also AoE whereas Red Mage's is single target only. Bard's buff has more potential in challenging fights that actually need extra healing, but that comes from making your healers stronger rather than providing extra healing yourself. Red Mage's main trait is its ability to revive party members quickly and easily, which Bard and Dancer cannot do at all, but you only need to revive people when players mess up and more often then not, you wont' really be providing much utility at all. And Summoner has the strongest healing of them all thanks to a trait that Dancer doesn't have, but its healing isn't something you really control, and will only get once every 2 minutes.

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Originally Posted by maolconaire

Thank you, i wasnt aware of summoners heal scaling, thats not good, i hope they address that.

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I highly doubt they will change Physick from scaling with Mind.

It's an Arcanist ability, it's shared between Scholar and Summoner.

If they made it scale with Intelligence that would screw up the ability for Scholar as healers use Mind.


It's intended to be used by Scholar's more so than Summoner's hence the Mind scaling.

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Originally Posted by NightHour

I highly doubt they will change Physick from scaling with Mind.

It's an Arcanist ability, it's shared between Scholar and Summoner.

If they made it scale with Intelligence that would screw up the ability for Scholar as healers use Mind.

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You are mistaken. Scholar's Physick is a different action with its own behavior. Scholar does not share Physick with ACN/SMN. Changes made to ACN/SMN Physick would not affect SCH Physick.

I agree on dancer or choosing a healer.

Dancer is a fun, fast paced dps with great mobility and is probably the only dps job where Ive used the healing skills constructively. You wont use them often, and they are pretty weak but are enough to take a little heat off the healer or assist a good tank (who is capable of soloing a boss) if things go south and its just you and a tank. Generally though, dps heals are really only used in solo content or to self heal when you've taken a lot of damage and the healer is already dealing with a lot of healing.


I dont get why you think healers are slow to level though. Just select the 5 highest level duties you can and the queue will pop fast and you'll get good exp. Levelling tanks and healers is way faster than dps. Also, due to survivability you'll be able to solo content before most jobs even if the content might be slower.

I'd also add not to worry about dps output. All jobs are capable of all content and the stronger dps tend to have higher skill ceilings and more are sensitive to mistakes. Take BLM, its one of the top DPS but its harder than most jobs to get the DPS uptime, fairly small mistakes can have a significant impact on their performance, and content with a lot of movement makes uptime tricky. A bard or dancer have an easier time with uptime and can easily find themselves outperforming harder jobs.

no dps healing is really ever going to be worth it, especially if you get to the non casual side of endgame, you will hear a lot of times "don't stop your dps its too important, let the healers rez and heal" rdm and smn rez is for emergencies, such as healer down or out of mana.

you're not going to find a class like wow pally that can full heal the grp while being top dps and tanking (unless you play warrior)
best bet is find something that feels fun to play, if you haven't, try MCH, it lacks healing and rez, but its a good class to learn stuff on, easier rotation with a lot of interaction, everyone will say SMN and DNC because they are the de-facto throw a new player on these jobs, but you will also run in to 20 of them for every other class you see, same as WAR tanks and SAM melee dps.. healers do seems to diversify a bit better for new players, granted 90% of the healers toolkit is the same no matter what one you play.

pick what looks cool and fun to you.