Hard time choosing my DPSer.

[Jaxhammer]

Hey!
Well I started playing last week and so far love it.
Started as a GLD and hated it, and only then I noticed that WARs are also tanks, so I fell in love with WAR :P

Now I wanna start also a dpser role.
At endgame content, who would you rather have in your party?
BRD/BLM/SMN/MNK?
I started both BRD and BLM and love them both equally, BLM for the awesome dmg, and BRD for just awesome everything.
SMN and MNK didn't like that much although havent played past lvl 10 so... If anything I should know... :P

And lastly, the DRG. I haven't tried him at all, is he any fun besides high and slow dps?

[Asdamine]

In reply to "At endgame content, who would you rather have in your party?" - Personally I prefer to have both the Bard and Monk. Reason are as follows...

Bard provides more utility such as FR (increase party member's magical damage) and MB (increase mana regeneration) - consider Bard as a raid group sustainability class.

Monk is, in my opinion, pure destruction. The amount of damage they burn on everything is crazy! It is more fun to play as well (only if you are a lala-monk).

Blm does indeed have damage, a high tier damage dealer in that regard. However, I find the class quite boring, especially it is the only class I could make a macro of a chain attack for a fight into 2 buttons only.

SMN is not for everyone because you have to constantly control and sustain your pet. As well as the use of DoTs does not appeal to anyone.

I can't say anything about dragoons since I have yet to play it. But I can tell you that it is the least demanding class on my server (Phoenix). It is a class that is expendable and replaceable. But hey! don't let you down just because of my last statement, it is all about which class you like to play! You fell in love with WAR, and WAR you shall play! If you like dragoon, go for it! got it?

[Korwin]

Blm does indeed have damage, a high tier damage dealer in that regard. However, I find the class quite boring, especially it is the only class I could make a macro of a chain attack for a fight into 2 buttons only.

What is the macro? I'd like to use it. Thank you.

[Asdamine]

What is the macro? I'd like to use it. Thank you.

/ac "Fire" <t>
/wait 3 (x3/4/5/or whatever amount of MP you can use to cast)
/ac "Transpose" <me>
/wait 3
/ac "Blizzard"<t>
/wait 3 (x3/4/5/until you gain full mana)
/ac "transpose" <me>
/repeat....

Since your macro only allows 15 lines to write, split fire and blizzard into two macros, thus - two buttons.

[Allyrion]

/ac "Fire" <t>
/wait 3 (x3/4/5/or whatever amount of MP you can use to cast)
/ac "Transpose" <me>
/wait 3
/ac "Blizzard"<t>
/wait 3 (x3/4/5/until you gain full mana)
/ac "transpose" <me>
/repeat....

Since your macro only allows 15 lines to write, split fire and blizzard into two macros, thus - two buttons.

Any notion of macros go out the window once you get Firestarter + Thundercloud.
At most, you can macro the UI phase and hope you never get a thundercloud during the transition.

It's a boring class to level, but it's also pretty strong all the way through.
Fire III and Blizzard III allow you to control your phases which makes the rotation a little bit more interesting.
The procs make it a lot more interesting, but they're quite late.
In general, the skill set is small but it does require proper timing and preparation to avoid interruption.

At end-game, BLMs have some tricks up their sleeve to do more damage. They're a little less straight forward than, say, monks which managing multiple things is a constant but there's that much situational tricks to increase output.

[Kitfox]

Just level everything to 50 and see how you like them. Then start gearing them in the order you like 'em.

[PArcher]

SNIP

If you're going to have a BRD for songs...you need a DRG

Disembowel is a piercing debuff, and which two classes use piercing damage? BRD and DRG. A singing BRD needs Dis to offset some of the penalty MB has.

Yes, you can use a MNK...but the damage MNK do is not a ton more than DRG (definitely not the BRD's 10% more) so having a BRD/DRG is more damage than MNK/BRD

An ideal party with songs is honestly PLD, WAR, DRG, BRD, SMN, BLM, SCH, WHM. Without songs, its PLD, WAR, DRG, MNK, SMN, BLM, WHM, SCH. If you want pure damage, just stack 4 MNK and call it a day...but no one is going to do that

The only time I see MNK preferred over DRG is T2, when they want a MNK to solo-silence the Turn, or in Titan when there is already a DRG present.

And MNK and DRG both have the same survival rates; its all about personal skill rather than the class.

[TheHomieData]

snip

1) assuming you're doing the standard dragoon rotation, disembowel will not be applied to the mob until 5th GCD skills which, coincidentally, is about the same as - perhaps more - the number of GCD required for a monk to be at their maximum sustained damage output with GL3, Tw buff, and DK debuff applied.
2) you don't calculate the dps increase from disembowel by adding a flat +10%, you divide output by 0.9. that makes disembowel only an 8.89% increase in bard dps.
3) this minor offset which brings bards back to 88.89% of their original damage output is, of course, solely dependent on whether or not the bard is currently targeting the same mob that the dragoon is targeting.
4) monk and dragoon do not have the same survival rates. as a melee dps, the majority of your incoming damage will be enemy AoE magic damage. assuming i90, an equally geared monk will at baseline have 38% more magic defense than a drg at any given moment and this disparity is not offset by the bit of extra hp that dragoons get. Dragon Kick (blunt resistance debuff) also lowers enemy INT by 10%, further complimenting their advantage of Mg Def over dragoon. this rather large advantage in magic defense could be considered a null point, however, if he never gets hit by AoE. assuming he does, though, extra Mg Def will ease the melee-dps learning curve.
5) the INT lowered by Dragon Kick will most notably affect the magic damage that the tanks take. reduced damage to the tanks alleviates mp strain on the healers. reduced mp strain on the healers means a delayed necessity of Mage's Ballad, extending the time that a bard is not operating at -20% and thus, means more dps. reduced downtime spent casting heal spells also offers the more skilled healers opportunities to pop into cleric stance and help DPS - and Scholar DPS can get pretty impressive.
6) bards will typically clock in the least dps out of any composition of dps classes. this, however, is balanced by the massive amount of utility they bring to any group which is not matched by any other class to any sufficient degree. that being said, an 8.89% offset to a -20% damage penalty on a class that (as of 2.1) is not known for stellar dps will not be very noticeable, especially when said offset can't be utilized until after 5 drg GCD skills and can't be utilized if the raid has the bard targeting a different mob.


i'm not trying to say which dps class is best. i just want to point out that recommending one class by dismissing an another is probably not the best idea, especially with your reasoning.

[Ooshima]

/ac "Fire" <t>
/wait 3 (x3/4/5/or whatever amount of MP you can use to cast)
/ac "Transpose" <me>
/wait 3
/ac "Blizzard"<t>
/wait 3 (x3/4/5/until you gain full mana)
/ac "transpose" <me>
/repeat....

Since your macro only allows 15 lines to write, split fire and blizzard into two macros, thus - two buttons.

Assuming you are in a fight where you don't have to move at all, maybe.. if you want to forego procs.

[NeoAmon]

/ac "Fire" <t>
/wait 3 (x3/4/5/or whatever amount of MP you can use to cast)
/ac "Transpose" <me>
/wait 3
/ac "Blizzard"<t>
/wait 3 (x3/4/5/until you gain full mana)
/ac "transpose" <me>
/repeat....

Since your macro only allows 15 lines to write, split fire and blizzard into two macros, thus - two buttons.

How to be terabad BLM, the guide.