Jobs ranked from hardest to easiest to play optimally against a DUMMY

Please read below before replying

With "hard" I mean cognitive load. If you consider all jobs to require an equal amount of cognitive load after enough training, then consider the job that required more time to reach that mastery level to be the "harder" job.

If you think a job takes more time/effort to master but becomes relatively easy once mastered, while another job is quicker to learn but remains demanding even at mastery level, then the job that is more demanding at mastery should be considered the 'harder' job for this ranking.

Against a dummy means that we are not in an actual instanced encounter and thus do not have to account for any encounter mechanics. This means healers and tanks will probably rank lower than DPS.

Example format:
1) Time Mage (hardest job)
2) Spell Sword (2nd hardest)
3) Geomancer (3rd hardest)
4) and so on...

You may make a wild guess, or omit jobs you don't know about. And feel free to discuss.

I don't understand... is this a thread about what future jobs could be? If so, isn't it kind of pointless, given that CBU3 can adapt freely a job fantasy from what we know from other titles? Something that we could perceive as complex from other FFs could be delivered here as a shadow of the source material.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

I don't understand... is this a thread about what future jobs could be? If so, isn't it kind of pointless, given that CBU3 can adapt freely a job fantasy from what we know from other titles? Something that we could perceive as complex from other FFs could be delivered here as a shadow of the source material.

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Uh no. I should clarify. For the example I chose jobs that don't exist in ffxiv so I wouldn't show any bias or prime any of the responses here.

But you should rank only existing ffxiv jobs of course.

None of the jobs require any cognitive load to play

Alright then... I'm afraid that, from the jobs I play and/or just know (all sans PLD, DRG, RPR and VPR), against a dummy target, everything ranges from easy to very easy, so not even worth to make a ranking for me. :(

The actual 2 challenges (once the <insert job gimmick> is mastered) we have nowadays are:
a) Whether or not you manage to press your 30s/60s abilities on the right global cooldown so they won't drift or push something else out of the collective 2 minute buff windows.
b) If you have good enough reflexes to correctly allocate all of those oGCDs and the ones generated by your hoarded resources during said buff windows.

In a few words, for the modern XIV, there's almost no job mechanic that requires any sort of deep thinking, reaction or strategy making by the player. The very scripted nature of the encounter design is reflected a bit in the job design too. Follow that strict pattern or the dps you should be pulling will suffer.

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Originally Posted by KillaKilala

None of the jobs require any cognitive load to play

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Surely there is a difference in time it takes for a job to become muscle memory, or is that distinction too small for comparison?

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Originally Posted by SamRF

Surely there is a difference in time it takes for a job to become muscle memory, or is that distinction too small for comparison?

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The time difference between jobs is far smaller than the difference between players, which is limited primarily by the ability to find any interest in learning a sequence of buttons.

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Originally Posted by SamRF

Surely there is a difference in time it takes for a job to become muscle memory, or is that distinction too small for comparison?

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It's not too small too compare, it's too small to care

Up Up down down left right left right A B. Nah wait, that's the konami code not my jobs playstyle. Damn I always confuse these.

Against a dummy isn’t necessarily a great comparison. For example against a dummy an auto clicker would max a healer’s potential but a job like SCH when you factor in its unique kit can end up being much harder than a lot of the formulaic DPS

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Originally Posted by Kandraxx

Up Up down down left right left right A B. Nah wait, that's the konami code not my jobs playstyle. Damn I always confuse these.

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Actually these days Konami prefers you to do 30 minute combos where you special summon from the graveyard 104960106010697 times and play 15 hand traps only to have your opponent surrender because they lost the coin toss

If you removed all skills and actions and gave each job just three buttons: a "do damage" button, a "heal" button, and a "mitigation" button, nothing would change.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

Alright then... I'm afraid that, from the jobs I play and/or just know (all sans PLD, DRG, RPR and VPR), against a dummy target, everything ranges from easy to very easy, so not even worth to make a ranking for me. :(

The actual 2 challenges (once the <insert job gimmick> is mastered) we have nowadays are:
a) Whether or not you manage to press your 30s/60s abilities on the right global cooldown so they won't drift or push something else out of the collective 2 minute buff windows.
b) If you have good enough reflexes to correctly allocate all of those oGCDs and the ones generated by your hoarded resources during said buff windows.

In a few words, for the modern XIV, there's almost no job mechanic that requires any sort of deep thinking, reaction or strategy making by the player. The very scripted nature of the encounter design is reflected a bit in the job design too. Follow that strict pattern or the dps you should be pulling will suffer.

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Following that logic, could one say then that the jobs which have procs will require most cognitive load then gainst dummy, when mastered? Because they need you to at least pay a basic level of attention to know what to press next no matter how deep the muscle memory. Idk all the jobs that have procs, I think Viper, Black Mage and Bard? Perhaps Bard and Black mage more because the procs are also unpredictable in timing.

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Originally Posted by SamRF

Following that logic, could one say then that the jobs which have procs will require most cognitive load then gainst dummy, when mastered? Because they need you to at least pay a basic level of attention to know what to press next no matter how deep the muscle memory. Idk all the jobs that have procs, I think Viper, Black Mage and Bard? Perhaps Bard and Black mage more because the procs are also unpredictable in timing.

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Maybe procs can put a job slightly above the 'cognitive load', but at least for me, is not that much, because a proc is also a test of reflexes rather than a test of problem-solving or adaptation on the go, since reacting to procs usually don't change much of the script (idk about VPR).

By the way, Black Mage no longer have RNG based procs. The latest changes had everything that was a random proc, set in stone. You know when you'll get Firestarter or Thunderhead, and not only that, they removed the timer so you can hold those indefinitely.

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Originally Posted by SamRF

Surely there is a difference in time it takes for a job to become muscle memory, or is that distinction too small for comparison?

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More buttons does not mean more skill to play only more bloat given most actions added after hw have just been so I do the same thing as this other button but with a different animation and potency. At this point with homogenization too every class feels the same and I can legit pick up every class with a 10 min video on youtube and 15 mins on a dummy.

1. Monk
2. Bard
3. Black Mage
4. Samurai
5. Dragoon
6. Ninja
7. Pictomancer
8. Machinist
9. Reaper
10. Red Mage
11. Dancer
12. Viper
13. Gunbreaker
14. Astrologian
15. Dark Knight
16. Summoner
17. Paladin
18. Warrior
19. Scholar
20. Sage
21. White Mage

A lot of people say BLM is the hardest job (or at least before leylines could be moved) but i think they are wrong, its simply the easiest job to be terrible at, but its actually a really simple job when you know what to do, as is every job, no job is difficult cognitively speaking, i would say the hardest jobs ranking (at least for dps) is the same as the average actions per second ranking.

1. monk is just click whatever button lights up
2. bard i would agree
3. blm is easy when you know what youre doing, half your rotation is one button
4. not maxed sam yet, so far its just perform which ever combo you havent done yet which tbf is more thinking than half the other jobs
5. i would agree
6. i would agree
7. pct is either the same difficulty (or slightly trickier) than smn, it is click one button til reductive procs, then click a second button, refill paintings when convenient. also smn has no gap closer outside of a single one thats stuck behind a summon, pictomancer has a good dash which situationally makes smn more difficult
8. i think mch should be higher
9. i think rpr should be higher
10. pct above rdm has to be some kind of crime
11. true
12. true