DPS Spot Justification

[AniCelestine]

If I was home and not on mobile, I'd type out some ipnions of mine. But since I'm not I'll give you some reasons why you would take blm over smn (even though I am smn main myself).

First off burst. As a smn, if you have to kill something fast, it just isn't possible, unless you already have some other enemy DoT'ed up and have 2 stacks of aetherflow to bane+fester, then you are a bit above drg on burts, until 3GCDs forward, when he has used both surges and vareity of off GCDs. But then, now you are at 1 or 0 aetherlow, now what? Well, you don't burst until you have aetherflows back.

Second good reason is vareity of classes. Less you have same classes the faster LB increases, so if you really only want 1 melee, it's usually best to have smn+blm+brd for LB's sake. (I know, having only 2 same classes doean't reduce the speed SO much, but still, what if you end up with lb1 when you'd need lb2 for some melee lb or so to kill something off and fast)

As for the insight: a good smn is usually always welcome to any fight, blm are having hard time on T7 or 8 can't currently remember which, since I have't gotten there yet due to summer break on my group and some other dificulties (our bard bailed on us etc.)

As to mnk, generally it's the highest Single target DPS(IF played correctly), but then again, if you have bard(should have one imo) you might want to consider DRG over MNK just cause of the piercing reduction (and drg is better burst than mnk) or take both and leave out a smn or blm depending on what the fight would want (taken that you have options, i.e your blm has mnk or drg geated up etc.)

My 2 cents.
Correct me if I'm wrong on anything.

Edit: owell, I guess I did still type out quite much. I so hope I didn't typo too much!

[Hiruke]

First off burst. As a smn, if you have to kill something fast, it just isn't possible, unless you already have some other enemy DoT'ed up and have 2 stacks of aetherflow to bane+fester, then you are a bit above drg on burts, until 3GCDs forward, when he has used both surges and vareity of off GCDs. But then, now you are at 1 or 0 aetherlow, now what? Well, you don't burst until you have aetherflows back.

It's true you can't burst without stacks of Aetherflow, but please don't discount Energy Drain. Sometimes stuff needs to die quickly, and you don't have time to DoT it up and Fester. In this scenario, you can alternate Ruin2 and Energy Drain. This is for stuff that needs to die super quick but doesn't have the HP/time to justify full DoTs.

Personally, I use BLM or SMN depending on the fight and preference at the time. I prefer SMN whenever possible, but sometimes BLM makes more sense (or, you know, I feel lazy...).