Black Mage or Summoner, which is the easier Magic-based DPS class?

[Tharian]

I wouldn't say that I won't put in the effort to learn those things... more that I would be doing it inbetween the other things that I do.

What I mean is that I don't want to sit in front of a Training Dummy for 72 hours straight or so doing nothing but committing a rotation to muscle memory. That to me is not fun. To me it is more fun trying to learn the rotation on the fly while doing normal dungeons and stuff, while sitting at a Dummy during down time trying to learn things.

That said, having a strict rotation that I must follow of the sort that Summoner appears to have... that is also not something that I am overly fond of. I think I can handle the Rotation of the Black Mage easier than I could the Summoner, despite the fact that the Black Mage has more risk of dropping it's self-buffs if it moves too much.

As I said, I am a victim of extreme tunnel vision, and focusing on too many things at one time (such as with the Summoner and micromanaging of pets, managing the Opener, etc...) just does not work well for me.

I guess what this means is that Black Mage is probably the class I will be focusing on. Thanks guys.

[Fevelle]

As I said, I am a victim of extreme tunnel vision, and focusing on too many things at one time (such as with the Summoner and micromanaging of pets, managing the Opener, etc...) just does not work well for me.

Are you sure you don't like Bard? Because I feel that I'm just like you and the only class I'm really competent on DPS is BRD (I'm a main WHM, and while I can keep track of my HoTs, party HP, boss actions, placements and timing, I can't keep track of Enochian + AF/UI timers because my mind is a funny little thing). I've tried Summoner too, and there are lots of cooldowns to keep track too, including pet ones (and using a controller makes it harder to keep track of all of them, because you need to memorize the cooldown time since you won't be seeing them all the time if they're not on the first crossbar).

[Tharian]

Are you sure you don't like Bard? Because I feel that I'm just like you and the only class I'm really competent on DPS is BRD.

I have to admit, I really do love Bard... the real deal breaker for me is the fact that on all of the really cool looking bows (mainly the Relic and Anima Bows), the quiver is just so absurdly long that it looks really weird on the female character model, which is what I play. I suppose I could try to ignore it, but it just feels weird.

Alternatively I suppose I could try figuring out the Machinist, as I hear that the Machinist is remarkably well situated in terms of the DPS it outputs. My main problem with the Machinist though is the fact that I can never remember to place the Turret on the map, which tends to massively reduce the DPS or Support capabilities of the class.