Which jobs is at its prime?

[Eliadil]

Overall thus if I had to pick one job to call in its prime itd be SAM. cause it feels good, it plays good, its understandable but complex enough to enjoy, it has options, and it is the highest dps contribution right now of the melee.

On this I'd disagree, but only because I prefered the old Sam from Stormblood way much. I hate the strict rotation and loss of any control you had in the previous expac. Sam is still all about setting up his burst of damage, but it has lost any sort of interest to me since Tsubame optimization meant just putting yourself in danger way more than you should just to not lose a single GCD of uptime to not lose a rotation that cannot recover from the slightest amount of drift without a tremendous dps loss. But it's okay for most peoples because it hits the hardest, so it doesn't need to change. But yeah, old sam was amazing, new sam is just a slave to tsubame gaeshi and I don't like it. :/

I took the time to swap from Sam to Black Mage with shadowbringers, and I'm kinda amazed at how good this job is when you compare both. Movement tools feels good when used properly, and you feel good for playing correctly and managing to not lose uptime, unlike sam. And it seriously makes me afraid of what's to come for BLM going in the next expac, because I don't see how they can improve on his kit further without reaching a "monk" situation, where most skills are just here to try to help you manage stacks when you don't actually need them.

[Kolsykol]

I feel like Samurai and BLM are the most fun they've ever been right now.

[Dogempire]

Summoner is still pretty broken considering the amount of value it brings to a raid and the amount of dps it does on top of that.

Heck if they don't buff ranged roles then I'm considering changing from physical ranged to summoner since it plays almost the same except better overall, plus I like the aesthetic better.

[Jirah]

On this I'd disagree, but only because I prefered the old Sam from Stormblood way much. I hate the strict rotation and loss of any control you had in the previous expac. Sam is still all about setting up his burst of damage, but it has lost any sort of interest to me since Tsubame optimization meant just putting yourself in danger way more than you should just to not lose a single GCD of uptime to not lose a rotation that cannot recover from the slightest amount of drift without a tremendous dps loss. But it's okay for most peoples because it hits the hardest, so it doesn't need to change. But yeah, old sam was amazing, new sam is just a slave to tsubame gaeshi and I don't like it. :/

I took the time to swap from Sam to Black Mage with shadowbringers, and I'm kinda amazed at how good this job is when you compare both. Movement tools feels good when used properly, and you feel good for playing correctly and managing to not lose uptime, unlike sam. And it seriously makes me afraid of what's to come for BLM going in the next expac, because I don't see how they can improve on his kit further without reaching a "monk" situation, where most skills are just here to try to help you manage stacks when you don't actually need them.

Great insight, contrary to any forum every I love hearing critique on jobs. Not everyone will be 100% on a job but some such as BLM,SAM, DNC and maybe MCH to name a few seem that way with the lack of “issues” or vocal outcry

[Eliadil]

Great insight, contrary to any forum every I love hearing critique on jobs. Not everyone will be 100% on a job but some such as BLM,SAM, DNC and maybe MCH to name a few seem that way with the lack of “issues” or vocal outcry

Because there wasn't many hardcore sam players at stormblood, and the playerbase drastically increased since shadowbringers. Sam is still a good job for casuals, but for high end gameplay it gets wonky when you try to optimize stuff. Peoples who care usually aren't on the forums but on a certain discord server, or just simply killing stuff in game.

Still, the job has some good point. I loved TEA prog with sam, because for once it felt kinda good, and the fight design somewhat made the Tsubame issue non-existent (double dotting on the first two phases made for decent fillers as well as some complexity in setting up said double dot. And the large fight transitions/mechanics where nobody can get hit allowed for Tsubame to come back at the same time as the boss), but apart from that I didn't like at all the current content with the job. On BLM tho it's the opposite from what I've seen. Current content feels good when mastered, but on Ultimate it... Kinda never clicked for me. But this may be personal opinion, peoples might disagree on that.

[Nolan-VersaillesOdinFFXI]

PLD. They are having a good time. Not jelly either.

[ForteNightshade]

On this I'd disagree, but only because I prefered the old Sam from Stormblood way much. I hate the strict rotation and loss of any control you had in the previous expac. Sam is still all about setting up his burst of damage, but it has lost any sort of interest to me since Tsubame optimization meant just putting yourself in danger way more than you should just to not lose a single GCD of uptime to not lose a rotation that cannot recover from the slightest amount of drift without a tremendous dps loss. But it's okay for most peoples because it hits the hardest, so it doesn't need to change. But yeah, old sam was amazing, new sam is just a slave to tsubame gaeshi and I don't like it. :/

I took the time to swap from Sam to Black Mage with shadowbringers, and I'm kinda amazed at how good this job is when you compare both. Movement tools feels good when used properly, and you feel good for playing correctly and managing to not lose uptime, unlike sam. And it seriously makes me afraid of what's to come for BLM going in the next expac, because I don't see how they can improve on his kit further without reaching a "monk" situation, where most skills are just here to try to help you manage stacks when you don't actually need them.

This is exactly how I feel. ShB Samurai feels unintuitive and clunky at times. Considering how no other job has comparable drift issues just for following its rotation properly, I suspect it wasn't intentional and will go the way of the Tornado Kick opener in 6.0.

Meanwhile, Black Mage is sitting here thinking "Please don't do to me what you did to Bard. Please don't. I like my rotation. Don't change it. I don't even want new skills. I'm good."

[Eliadil]

Meanwhile, Black Mage is sitting here thinking "Please don't do to me what you did to Bard. Please don't. I like my rotation. Don't change it. I don't even want new skills. I'm good."

This is so true lmao, please don't make us like bard.

But I doubt it's gonna happen. Not as long as Yoshi-p mains BLM. Job isn't gonna be bad because of that.

[Jirah]

This is so true lmao, please don't make us like bard.

But I doubt it's gonna happen. Not as long as Yoshi-p mains BLM. Job isn't gonna be bad because of that.

Whats wrong with Bard? its issues are mostly potency related no so much job desighn

[CKNovel]

Whats wrong with Bard? its issues are mostly potency related no so much job desighn

BRD (And MCH) went through so many changes it was good or bad to play.
In HW, they added casts. It worked with MCH but not with BRD which was not designed with casts in the first place.
In SB, they removed the casts, which makes BRD to be played like a BRD again. On top of that, BRD had massive utility and really good crit buff to all allies.

In ShB, they removed a lot of utility and never balanced the removal of rDPS.
As for new actions, song doesn't feels like song but more like stance, each of them having their problems.

The job relies massively on procs, so much you could compare it to a WoW class.
Mage's Ballad refresh Bloodletter and Rain of Death cooldowns. But those two cooldowns don't have charges, so you definitely lost some casts.
Army's Paeon is boring and the skill speed is also based on RNG.
The Wanderer's Minuet is the same, based on RNG to use Pitch Perfect and any overflow is lost.
Then you have the soul gauge. It's a bit like MCH wildfire, you cast it around every minutes and just it just empties the gauge, it doesn't feel impactful, doesn't deals incredible damage (It only outclassed Sidewinder in 5.2, will remains the same in 5.3), it doesn't feel as a ultimate skill like NIN's Hyôshô Ranryu, DRG's Life of the Dragon phase or SAM double Midare.

BRD is massively RNG based and RNG can punish you. And on top of that you are the worst DPS, if people lets you in their party, it's for the 1% bonus.
That's the take from a MCH, thought. A main BRD could probably bring better and more relevant points.