SMN or DRG

After having played both SMN and DRG I feel like I\\'ve experienced both ends of the spectrum sustain/ranged and burst/melee but I\\'m having a hard time choosing which job I make my main squeeze. I really like the playstyle of both classes and currently both are parsing excellently. So which one should I choose!? Just post some opinions on why you like or dislike either class in an endgame raiding situation.

I love SMN because DoTs are very versatile. They are great for damage over time, and they're great for target-switching while maintaining some kind of damage on the original target.

That's not to say that DoT is all SMN has -- It has decent upfront damage(~725 potency in the first 3 GCDs) when you can bring in Fester.

I love the complexity of it, because you do have to factor in animation time/travel time when switching from RS to non-RS rotation, and when doing the normal rotation you want to clip your DoTs at the last possible second due to the way the global DoT timer works. There are a lot of nuances to the class, and I love finding and abusing them.

The other things I love about SMN? Group utility. Swiftcast Battle rez is insanely useful, Virus is awesome, Eye for an Eye is awesome. They even have an AoE heavy/heal debuff which is useful for a multitude of things.

On top of this, SMN have (probably) the highest sustained AoE damage in the game.

^In addition to that, they are the ONLY class that turns their single target rotation/attacks into an AoE attack, and that is very useful if people know what they're doing.


Now, as for the pets? Titan is great for soloing.
Ifrit is..Kind of meh. If stuns weren't so prevalent, then he would have a use. Or if you could put his Radiant Shield on someone else.
Garuda is awesome. Contagion is a wonderful ability, both for single target and AoE, and changes your rotation slightly.

That said, controlling your pet is something you will have to do. You will need to move them out of AoE circles. You will have to make them do certain mechanics(for example, first boss in Qarn. Your pet gets the Doom debuff, you have to move them over the glowing panel, too.)

There are other useful things you can do, too. If you're not quite geared for AK, but can still clear it, you can use Titan-Egi to tank the adds on Demon Wall. If you're running CM, and on the last boss with the cannon phase, you can have Garuda pick up the adds when they spawn and take them away from the precious cannons/death claws.

I mean both seem fun, though i think DRG feels abit more epic, but if you ever played a warlock in WoW then it should fit right in.

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Originally Posted by AsukaLockhart

I mean both seem fun, though i think DRG feels abit more epic, but if you ever played a warlock in WoW then it should fit right in.

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I've never played WoW, but one of the reasons I fell in love with SMN is because it's like Engineer from WAR. Load up DoTs, proceed to frontload damage. Minor focus on pets, but they are important. Lots of utility.

I actually used to play a warlock in wow quite a bit but I stopped in wrath. I do like attrition classes but The burst and combos from drg just makes the class feel so epic (perfect word for it asuka) the jumps the animations and lances all make me feel like im such a boss. I guess its between sustain dps and add control/burst.

I also weirdly like to play the underdog, which one do you think is less represented in your experiences.

Dragoon will be a far more pleasing experience and less dull and have an amazing gap closure ability and feel really close to what a Dragoon is from the Final Fantasy Universe.

^ That is the reason why you do not want to play a Dragoon, because most of the population is playing one just because of the looks.

Personally, I would much rather prefer range DPS than Melee DPS.

DRG is hella fun, I got my first relic on it. Now i'm going to go for SMN relic. So yeah they are both pretty fun.

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/...38/731/0fc.gif

now the question is which job does the most dps? i keep hearing players say smn sucks at endgame because of lack of burst dmg

Endgame is definitely not defined by burst and although it certainly is needed there are many classes with burst potential. I personally have always liked raiding with a well balanced group.

It's hard to tell who does more damage because the parsers are so spotty. For example running brayflox on my 36 SMN the parser showed I ended a boss fight at 146 plus my 17 ifrit dps. I seriously doubt I was doing 150+ dps as a lvl36.

I do believe both toons are incredibly competitive and both are played in a good volume.

Go SMN, they can put out top DPS in many fights.

Melee are getting the shaft right now.

Dragoon, the best.

I went with lancer/dragoon for my first class to level because I've always liked them in the various FF games, I like melee dps (usually) and it didn't hurt that the gear set looked pretty darn cool. After having run some instances and primals with my brothers though I wish I had gone with a ranged dps instead. Seems like too many of the fights punish you and the healer as well since he has to throw more heals your way, because of being stuck in melee range. Fun class overall though and I still enjoy playing it.