what job holds best AOE DPS # in 4.0 ??

[Vallhallix]

Pretty good. Every dungeon I've ran thus far SMN has beaten everyone in AoE dps. I'd rate BLM and SMN ahead of everyone else, followed closely by SAM.

Yeah people think the nerf to bane killed SMN. I suggest those people get to 70. You'd be surprised how often you're able to use Bahamut in one dungeon run. I've beaten other dps classes (most recently a nin) in the aoe department without even using all my tools for most pulls (pets enkindle). I understand now why they nerfed bane, if we had bane at max with all the tools we have now SMN would be straight up broken.

I gotta say it feels great to be a SMN right now. Every time I go into a dungeon whenever I first summon Bahamut there's always someone who hasen't seen him before and goes ''WHAT THE HELL IS THAT'', ''THAT'S SO SICK''.

I want to get two SMN in one dungeon now haha.

[VitalSuit]

Enochian +5% potency

Oh that's right

[Thorbot]

How can it not be BLM. Quadruple flares with cds and a pot, double flares otherwise. Fouls and t4 procs in UI. It's amazing if you already have a Foul before a pull and you can double Foul.

[Cherub]

Definitely BLM. I also don't see what people mean when they say "BLM for burst but not sustained" when BLM is literally the only Job who can forever keep going with AoEing the targets down. Double Flare will always be there. Thunder IV will always be there. Foul will always be there.
BLM takes the cake for AoE, hands down.
SMN is still good, very good even buttttttttttt once you reach the point where no Aetherflow stacks are available anymore you also reach the point where you literally can't do any AoE. Now SMN is good for burst but not for sustained. The packs have to die before you empty out your resources or you'll stand there and be ruining single target mobs while there are 10 mobs. Nonetheless, still amazing aoe DPS as long as you got stacks.

[Talec]

Yeah people think the nerf to bane killed SMN. I suggest those people get to 70. You'd be surprised how often you're able to use Bahamut in one dungeon run. I've beaten other dps classes (most recently a nin) in the aoe department without even using all my tools for most pulls (pets enkindle). I understand now why they nerfed bane, if we had bane at max with all the tools we have now SMN would be straight up broken.

I gotta say it feels great to be a SMN right now. Every time I go into a dungeon whenever I first summon Bahamut there's always someone who hasen't seen him before and goes ''WHAT THE HELL IS THAT'', ''THAT'S SO SICK''.

I want to get two SMN in one dungeon now haha.

The question is tough: Do you even use Bane anymore for AoE Pulls? or is it a waster aetherstack if you have 3 or more enemies? Right now I burn ridiolously fast through all 3 aetherstack with simple using the AoE Skill three times. Resulting to a terrible AoE-downphase afterwards.

Don't have a bahamut yet tough.

[Thorbot]

Definitely BLM. I also don't see what people mean when they say "BLM for burst but not sustained" when BLM is literally the only Job who can forever keep going with AoEing the targets down. Double Flare will always be there. Thunder IV will always be there. Foul will always be there.
BLM takes the cake for AoE, hands down.
SMN is still good, very good even buttttttttttt once you reach the point where no Aetherflow stacks are available anymore you also reach the point where you literally can't do any AoE. Now SMN is good for burst but not for sustained. The packs have to die before you empty out your resources or you'll stand there and be ruining single target mobs while there are 10 mobs. Nonetheless, still amazing aoe DPS as long as you got stacks.

I am confused by this as well. Melee will run out of TP and SMN will run out of stacks. BLM can go on forever.

[TheChemicalCat]

I know it's not really going to contest anything but how does RDM hold up for AoE to others? The basic just seems like either just spamming scatter or scatter->veraero/thunder for quicker mana gain (not sure which is more effective), followed by Moulinet spam.

I'm also not sure whether to save mana until I'm 90/90 for triple moulinet (quadruple if you manafication on the second one) or just use Moulinet as soon as you get 30/30

[Erudito]

The jury is still out on that one, I feel.

There have been some posts here and there but from what I can gather Black Mage with its 4x Flare capability plus Thunder 4 and Foul would absolutely be top of the line. Red Mage Scatter spam is also some pretty good damage on groups so its also a good choice. Summoner is, to me, under investigation due to the dreaded Bane nerf and the fact that you only get 1 Deathflare per minute. Its level 70 Ahk Mors is also once every 2 minutes. Correct me if I am wrong on Summoner.

From the melee, in my personal experience Monk and Samurai are solid choices. I have always been glad to have a competent Monk beside me when I am a caster. Having played Samurai, I can tell it is also quite capable.
I have yet to see how Ninja is fairing in this department and Dragoon has never been the best at AoE with all their combos to consider.

Healer wise, White Mage wins. Thin Air + Holy spam and Aero III are too good.

[NovaLevossida]

I know it's not really going to contest anything but how does RDM hold up for AoE to others? The basic just seems like either just spamming scatter or scatter->veraero/thunder for quicker mana gain (not sure which is more effective), followed by Moulinet spam.

I'm also not sure whether to save mana until I'm 90/90 for triple moulinet (quadruple if you manafication on the second one) or just use Moulinet as soon as you get 30/30

Do 5 moulinets instead of 4. Go 100/100. Moulinet x2, Scatterx2 (puts you above 45 mana), manification, moulinet x3.

[Bardo]

I know it's not really going to contest anything but how does RDM hold up for AoE to others?

RDM AoE is pretty good.
A little bit of napkin math should show whether it's worth to use verAero/Thunder:
If you spam Scatter, you get 6 mana per cast 3/4 of the time and 16 mana per cast 1/4 of the time. So that averages to 8.5 mana per cast.
VerAero/Thunder give you 11 mana. So you gain an average of 2.5 mana per cast.
With that rate, you'd have to use 24 globals to gain an extra 30/30 for one "extra" Moulinet.

If there are only 3 targets, then your Scatter does the same total potency as a single verAero/Thunder. So in this case, you don't lose out on total damage and you gain a small amount of mana. This also helps the group because you'll kill off one mob faster, which lowers the damage intake rate for the tank.
But if there are 4 targets, then every global you spend on verAero/Thunder loses you 100 potency. So by the time you had enough for an "extra" moulinet, you would have lost 2400 potency in order to gain 400 from being able to use 1 more Moulinet instead of another Scatter. Obviously that's a horrible trade-off, and it gets way worse really quickly as the number of targets goes up to 5/6/7 etc...

So if there are exactly 3 targets, weaving verAero/Thunder is a TINY bit better. More than 3 targets? Scatter spam beats verAero/Thunder weaving by leaps and bounds.

I'm also not sure whether to save mana until I'm 90/90 for triple moulinet (quadruple if you manafication on the second one) or just use Moulinet as soon as you get 30/30

There are only 3 reasons to hold it past 30/30:
1) You're worried about pulling aggro early in the fight
2) You have Manafication up to use at 45/45.
3) You want to line up Moulinet spam with party-wide damage buffs.
Otherwise, using it as you hit 30/30 three times is no different than waiting till 90/90 and using it three times in a row.