Most difficult DPS class to play?

[AniCelestine]

Rated purely by rotations:
Mnk
Drg
Smn
Blm
Brd.

Rated by the effort to maximize dps:
Blm
Smn
Mnk/drg/brd

Note that these are my personal opnions from experience and from looking at rotations/priority systems of how to dps to the max.

Also, with 1 macro* and thinking that Contagion is not garuda's skill but yours** makes smn's "micromanaging" alot easier, but it still needs effort to get the max out of it.

*/micon "TheSkillOfYourChoise"
/ac "TheAboveSkill" <t>
/ac "Obey" <t>

I myself chose Ruin II

But that makes garuda hit the target you had targetted and used this macro, if you press during GCD ruin II won't be queued, cause it's macro, and garuda will still start targetting the target. Essentially you don't have to have obey on your already stuffed hotbars.

**in 2.3 though you really want to switch garuda to Steady before trying to cast contagion(garuda doesn't queue our commands to be cast after the current cast), which doesn't feel like your skill anymore, but this has been accepted as a bug, so I'm hoping that it will br fixed.

[ViviAnimus]

They're all easy if you get used to them. But Black Mage is by far the hardest to get a higher DPS on

[Sygmaelle]

Hardest to play heh

Well overall, including maximising dmg and positionning in fight

1) Blm

Long cast times, have to know every fight by heart to know when to pop stuff in order to not have to move a lot. Otherwise, its the easiest class in term of rotation

2) Dragoon

Havin Debuff + 2 dots while heavy thrust is up on two targets at the same time when needed and come back to your first target in a perfect timing so you just have to redo the whole debuff sequence + phlebotomise before they drop IS quite the challenge. Out of all the classes its the class that is the most demanding on a pure timing point of view and you gotta rock these off gcds abilities straight when they are available too, meanwhile

3) Monk

Its all about not wastin tp by not refreshin stuff that doesnt have to too soon. Very particular playstyle but not really hard in any way when you figured it out, the only tricky thing is the positionning

4) Bards

Not a lot of things to use and its pretty straightforward. Problem with the bard mainly is how often you gotta rock these songs that lower your dps in your group.

Can do their things while they move

5) Summoner

Most stupid class ever.

Just remember one precise opening rotation and then spam the same ability one bazilion of time while movin if needed. Depending of your group you have to know if you can use fester as much as you want or if its better to keep your aetherflow in order to bane but thats about it. Refresh dots a bit before they run out, win.

On top your pet that you re not even directly controllin is kinda doin almost one third or almost half of your own dps, do I need to say more ?

[Machetazzo]

I don't have experience in all classes, so cannot speak about all dps choices from my own experience.
Each class has its own fights where they have their own difficulties due to boss mechanics. At the end of the day it is all about knowing the fight so you know when and where to or not to use particular abilities.

As I have only Monk and Summoner from dps classes at 50, I will speak mainly about those two.

Regarding diffuclty of Summoner.
It was a diffcult road at the beginning especially on gamepad for micromanaging pet+using all skills, but after few months of playing I would say it is fairly easy class to play once you get your brain used to particular bars, situations and pets idiotic behaviour
What is fun, but at the same time might be difficult at the beginning, is the fact that other than opening rotation you do not have set skill order. Keeping dots up, managing your aether stacks and CDs is priority for optimizing DPS.
Class is very capable of dealing damage even in move.
The main area I find problematic and believe I have most room for improvement is burning adds for dps checks. In my opinion that's the weakest spot of summoner as you need few GCD to build your aoe damage.

Regarding Monk.
Some encounters are a nightmare for monk due to forced stops in fight which can result in loosing GL buff. I am not feeling as comfortable on monk as on summoner yet as I hit 50 few weeks ago, so perhaps I will not find it as problematic in future as I do now,. Nonetheless managing your GL is a priority, hence proper usage of PB seems vital for problematic encounters.
Monk seems to me to have pretty set rotation, although positionals+GLmanagement+keeping up dots and buffs seems to be more problematic for me than summoner to keep the dps high.

Since announcement of BLM increase in single target potency I have noticed some sort of trend that suddenly BLM started to be considered as a difficult class. Now, I don't have this class at 50 so don't want to throw empty words without any background, but from what I saw in game and read, BLMs issue is being unable to deal damage while moving. Well it is the feature of a class and some fights might be hell unless you know the fight well. Although, it is a case for all classes that in order to utilize your abilities, you need to know the fight, so I wouldn't make BLMs martyrs
Have quite set skill rotation, rocks in AOE burning and is quite fine now I believe in single target.

Dragon no clue from my side, Bard seems fairly simple with its mobility.

Hope this helps a bit

[skaterger]

I believe some players are hugely exaggerating the difficulty of optimising blm dps while moving. They repeat is as fact without explaining what the difficulty is. It takes some practice but like all classes, because the mechanics of bosses are hugely scripted, once you memorize the fights it's just basically repeating the same thing. It can basically be broken down into the following steps

1. Can I totally circumvent moving totally? Notice how some blm stand away from plumes in titan ex, get assigned the least duties in t8, not stack for thermionic beam in t9 or leave it to other players to break vines in t6. For some reason it seems acceptable to do this which in itself mitigates many of their movement problems.

2. Make a macro for aetherial manipulation and use it when you need to move somewhere after finishing your cast

/macroicon "Aetherial Manipulation"
/ac "Aetherial Manipulation" <mo>

3. Can I use mana wall to avoid moving like Titan ex landslide? If can, use it.

4. If you know you need to move somewhere in a few seconds, try to save a Firestarter or thundercloud proc.

5. If the aforementioned does not proc, use scathe.

6. If I need to move somewhere for am extended period, i.e. shriek in turn 7, then swiftcast flare and transpose to get back mana

7. If I am in the middle of casting and need to move, can I get the cast off before moving? (Usually 2/3 of casting car but depends on your latency.)

So yes, I think blm is far from what people are making them out to be. What I will say however, is that blm suffers the biggest loss in dps if they screw up their rotation, for example having 5 mana short of blizzard 3 and having to stand around waiting for transpose. The basic rotation however, is terribly hard to screw up. This brings me to my next point. There are many more blms than smns, at least on my server, and many can't even do 300 dps on turn 8. Considering that there is little to no movement in that fight, it seems many blms can't even do their basic rotation of 4 to 5 buttons. That is probably why many think it's a hard class to play.

snip

Salty about getting out dpsed by a smn? Learn to play your class better. And it's hilarious you don't even have arcanist levelled. I rest my case.

[Kitkat]

When it comes to Hardest to best utilize it is always a mix between Drg and Mnk for me. I'm currently more familiar with mnk rotations than I am with drg, but with the sheer amount of "bad drg" I've run into it makes it seem like it is somehow harder as a job to me. The amount of really good drg I've seen is few...and I do mean very few. One used to be in a coil group with me and was parsing near 370-380 while most the rest of us were in the low 300's in roughly same ilvl gear. I'd imagine, if he is at 105ilvl in gear now he is probably doing far better. Drg is more dependent on when to use buffs with what attacks, where mnk isn't so that puts it higher on difficulty in my book.

[Sygmaelle]

Salty about getting out dpsed by a smn? Learn to play your class better. And it's hilarious you don't even have arcanist levelled. I rest my case.

I always love your kind of beein, you know the smartass one. "I rest my case". Yeah I guess you re so clever you didnt think about people havin 2 toons, did you ? it happen that my 2nd one is ... I'll let you figure it out. The hilarious thing is that the face of your avatar reflect perflectly your attitude.

And no, im not beein salty since that without usin X pots at all and not profitin of doubled Foe requiem im outdps'd by a mere 20 big maximum in turn 6 (sittin at 393, highest I saw was our ilvl109 smn doin 410 so thats not even 20), then in turn 7 and 8 I simply outdps both and get totally wrecked in 9 (im at like 330 - 340 there, they are at like 380 - 390) but theres nothing much I can do about it I think, at this point its simply fight design.

It was all about difficulty of playin the job, which isnt very very high as a summoner. Pretty much the only class in the game you can play a la Al Bundy's style, you know, the hand in the underpants.

[silentwindfr]

exept the blm is not by far the hardest dps at play: no ressource management, no combo, no melee, no real position outside be smart to know a bit the pattern of the boss and move at the right time.
it's actually one of the easiest class to play.

you say that monk are easy, i will say that you have never truelly play monk at the top. for get the best dps from it, you will need to know your cycle and almost be able to do it in automatic, since you must pay attention to your buff, your position, the boss position, the tank position, your tp comsuption. and the cycle of the monk is something that always changing in function of your timer on the debuff and buff. seriously, stop say stuff that are misleading.

by the way, remember me how many skill you do use as blm? your number of skill is ridiculous... it's soo easy at play actually.

[whiskeybravo]

I don't have BRD or BLM, so can't comment on those specifically. I do have a well-geared DRG, SMN and MNK, however, and really they all feel about the same difficulty to maximize, with exception of feeling a bit more comfortable on DRG since I main that one and have had it at 50 the longest comparatively.

SMN has 3 main DoTs to maintain, filler with Ruin I/II, bursting with Fester. Little intricacies such as adding Miasma II on single target when you have Contagion up, fitting in 2 Festers under Raging Strikes, and using off-GCDs after instant casts to maximize uptime, etc.

DRG has 1 main damage buff, 1 resistance down debuff, 2 DoTs, and quite a few off-GCDs. The general rotation is about 24 moves long, but fairly easy to master. Only 2 positional requirements makes it a bit more forgiving than Monk. Superior burst AoE when used properly.

MNK is my latest lv50 so not so much insight into the intricacies of this job yet. I've found it to be pretty hectic compared to DRG, once you get GL3 and are cruising through the GCD you have to be pretty well aware of your positionals and status of buffs/debuffs, thinking 2-3 moves ahead always. You buff yourself with Twin Snakes and GL3, debuff the enemy and manage 2 DoTs (3 if using Fracture, this is pro, I'm not there yet :P).

If I had to rank them in difficulty, it would probably be MNK > SMN > DRG. But this is a bit biased, as I am very confident on DRG, and still learning a bit on MNK.

Good luck!

[skaterger]

snip

Yes the discussion was always about the difficulty of playing the job. You can dislike smn's playstyle, call it stupid or whatever I don't really care as that is your opinion, but when you blatantly misrepresent the job by simplifying it as 3 dots + refresh + bane and fester that's where I am going to call out your BS. This is not an opinion, but a fact that there's much more to optimizing smn's dps than that. It's as nonsensical as me saying that drg's rotation is TT->VT->FT and calling it a day.

Now I'm going to state my opinion why Drg and especially Blm are easy classes to play. This is what you said

Just remember one precise opening rotation and then spam the same ability one bazilion of time while movin if needed.

See here is where you lost me. What classes don't have basic moves and fillers to spam? Smns have 3 dots, SF and Ruin 1 or 2 as filler, blm has F3, F1, T2/3, B3, scathe and flare situational, drg has HT, Ph, Dis, CT, TT, VT and FT as basic moves. The difference is that for drgs, you can and should memorize the optimum dps rotation, and apply it over and over again until the boss dies. Sounds familiar? When you know what you need to do next, there is no need to think and you kinda go on auto pilot. The rotation might be 20+ moves long, but do it long enough and it becomes part of muscle memory. This to me is incredibly boring and mundane, which is precisely the reason why I switched over to smn from blm.

Now if you are going to reply with insults then save it, I got better things to do than feed your trolling urges. If you have facts to back up or disprove what I say then by all means. I'm not going to argue with someone who has a differing opinion because that is just a waste of time.