Most difficult DPS class to play?

[Sygmaelle]

The main difference between dragoon and summoner is that unlike summoner our dps isnt in auto mode because of bane, we also have positionning to take care of and multi dotting in a very strict timing.

Besides, what is important as a summoner is knowin how to time the abilities that depend of your aetherflow stacks in the right maneer, and that just entirely depend of how hard your group can actually dps on X and X fight.

Melees got that positionnal requirement and that pretty much change quite a lot dont you think, on top of the multi dots thing and personnal buffs to keep up, that also require to be refreshed before you do your next move, or not.

Yes summoners dont have a lot to manage after the initial opening rotation, mainly because of the design. If refreshin dots before they fall off between managin aetherflow and not managin directly your pet's dps is something complicated, well guess its all up to a personnal point of view but in all honesty, its the easiest class to faceroll with, and on top of that you re boosted by bards


For the insult part I'm not beein more aggressive than you were in the first place, I just really dislike people makin very quick assumptions toward complete strangers and thats about it

[hamsteak]

hmmm i have every dps job to 50 (bard is on an alt) and in a fight with moderate movement i'd probably say:

1. Black Mage
2.Dragoon
3.Monk
4.Summoner
5.Bard

as other people have said, black mage has to know when to move within a certain fight/what tools to use, or their dps will drop immensely

dragoon has a long rotation that it really complicated, but annoying, especially if you get interrupted for whatever reason

maintaining greased lightning during some fights is a fight itself

i actually find summoner fairly straightforward and simple, and your damage isn't really affected by movement at all

bard is just like summoner, except you don't have to control a pet

[Ragecake]

BLM is easy to play, but difficult to master.

[skaterger]

snip

Fair enough. What I will say is there are many tiny nuances that a player will learn that can increase their dps, regardless of the class they play, and this comes with expeirience the longer they play their class. Let me give you an example for summoner. Do you know why summoners blow every class out of the water there? Good summoners will dot both the head and tail, as well as multi dot spumes and bane them to head and tail but really good smns will refresh their dots on both the head and the tail just before levi flies away for dives/slams. Because the boss flies away for about 20 seconds or so, having 2 full sets of dots tick their full duration will mean almost zero downtime. But to do this, you need to memorize the fight so you know when to refresh your dots before he flies away. Once I mastered this, my dps increased by about 50 and I could hit 400+ dps for that fight. So smn, like any other class including blm, needs to memorize the fight and its really not just as simple as refreshing dots when they wear off like the previous example where you have to refresh it before it wears off. The exact same concept applies to T9 for meteor stream dives and that is why you consistently see smns at the top for that fight, with multi dotting golems playing a part too. Of course, there are other small intricacies to playing smn but I'm not going to reveal all my secrets here

I've cleared up to T9 (last phase) using summoner and I'm still learning learning new things about the class. I don't think I'm even close to full mastery for that class so it just seems weird to me when someone calls a class easy to play when they only see it from the outside. My initial response was indeed snarky but that was also due to me having a bad day regarding the hunt issue and I apologize for that.

[Sygmaelle]

Its okay man, we all have our bad days

[charlemagne]

Dragoon is pretty difficult to play. You have to survive the embarrassment when your df group sighs in disappointment when they see they got a drg and you have to put up with the frustrating wait for a raise during fights.

[Umero]

Well... Drg, Blm, Mnk, Brd, and Smn... They are all Jobs. Not Classes

[Spartan117]

I'm going to call BS on those who say DRG is easy to play becuz of a standard 24 move rotation cause 24 moves is only considering GCD... go figure

On top of basic X-pots and Potent Poisoning pots

DRG: Life Surge, Power Surge, Jump, Spineshatter Dive, Dragonfire Dive, Leg Sweep, Life Surge, Blood for Blood, Internal Release. 9 Compulsory OGCD with varying CDs from 20s to 300s plus 6 Optional OGCD: Invigorate, Bloodbath, Foresight, Mercy Stroke/Mantra, Second Wind, Keen Flurry

MNK: Steel Peak, Howling Fist, Blood for Blood, Internal release. 4 Compulsory OGCD with relatively stable CDs (40s, 60s, 60s, 80s) and 9 Optional OGCD: Shoulder Tackle, Invigorate, Perfect Balance (cause you only cast once at the start not consistently applying it when CD is up), Bloodbath, Foresight, Mercy Stroke, Mantra, Second Wind, Featherfoot.

The difficulties for each DPS class to EXCEL is as follows:

DRG: Memorizing the Long Sequence of Attacks and to a lesser extent the positioning involved (1 X Side for HT, 1 X Back for ID) + monitoring a panel of CDs & reapplying them when optimal/up + to a lesser difficulty reapplying dots and maintaining buffs + stand ground management of jumps (WHICH sad to say there's a lot in the community who can't manage this well leading to the LOLDRG phenomenon, amen.)

MNK: Positioning (can be the difference of as much as 50% more attack) + Maintaining Grease Lightning Stacks (Another 50% more here) + to a lesser difficulty reapplying dots and maintaining buffs. Attack Sequence is still mainly A,B,C with a choice of 2 skills and 1 AOE skill per part in sequence.

BRD: Easily the one with the least downtime as most of the skills can be fired from the move. Reapplying dots to maximise bloodletter procs + Maximising use of buffs during bloodletter procs + refreshing Straight shot buff with heavy shot spam. Due to the easier nature of your DPS rotation (no stand ground required + less active skill pool), also required to take note of party's requirement for songs. Support that comes in with a big gun basically.

SMN: Pet management + reapplying dots + bane/fester management + less of a stand ground management

BLM: Stand Ground management (like someone before has said, there are things that you can do to avoid the need to constant move due to boss mechanics) + skill rotation + proc management

To Understand:
Easy >> Hard
BLM > BRD > SMN > MNK > DRG

Ease to bring out the best in every situation:
Easy >> Hard
BRD > BLM = SMN = MNK = DRG

Rationale: bard has no stand ground nor positional requirements.

[Mnchlx69Lrd]

So I main a DRG.
Learning my Rotations was a challenge cause of all the switching I had to do.

Basic Rotation:
(Flank) Heavy Thrust>(Rear) Impulse Drive> Disembowel> Chaos Thrust> Leg Sweep> Phlebotamize> True Thrust> Vorpal Thrust > Full Thrust

(Flank) Heavy Thrust>True Thrust> Vorpal Thrust > Full Thrust> Phlebot>(Rear) Impulse Drive> Disembowel> Chaos Thrust> Leg Sweep

(Flank) Heavy Thrust>True Thrust> Vorpal Thrust > Full Thrust>Phlebot>True Thrust> Vorpal Thrust > Full Thrust

That's just basic Rotation to keep DPS on level.

Burst Rotation:
(Flank) Heavy Thrust>(Rear) Impulse Drive> Disembowel>Blood For Blood> Internal Release> Chaos Thrust> Leg Sweep> Phlebotamize> Power Surge> True Thrust> Jump> Vorpal Thrust> Life Surge> Full Thrust> Dragonfire Dive

Burst Rotation for maximum DPS.

Rotating between both the basic and the Burst should kill your enemies quick.

Start with Burst> Basic> Basic> Burst
Repeat until dead.
I hit about 1.5k crits without food.

[Lewena]

I have a 48 dragon, hopefully soon 50 and I have a really naive question. It is not for flame at all or anything alike. Why Dragon says that the 24 moves rotation is complex ? I mean sure if you want to memorize the full rotation, it would be a long one but if you think more in terms of priorities, it doesn't seem that much complex to me. Keep in mind that I still don't have CT so I cannot check the following statements.

So the full rotation would be (from Dragoons: A Rotation Reborn thread) : HT-ID-Dis-CT-Ph-TT-VT-FT-HT-TT-VT-FT-Ph-ID-Dis-CT-HT-TT-VT-FT-Ph-TT-VT-FT
As I see it, you would have two combos and two isolated skills :

1. ID - Dis - CT
2. TT - VT - FT
3. HT
4. Ph

You have a kind of opener : HT-ID-Dis-CT-Ph. After that it seems quite straighforward to me, but I may miss something. The priorites would be :

1. keep buff (HT) and debuff (Dis) up
2. keep DoTs (only Ph as the other one is part of a combo)
3. fill in with TT - VT - FT combo

Doing this, you would have

• the opener: HT-ID-Dis-CT-Ph
• then the filler combo: TT - VT - FT
• Here HT would fall off if you were to add another combo filler, so just reapply HT before it fades: HT
• Normally nothing would be near to fade so filler combo: TT - VT - FT
• At that time Ph should be nearly finished: Ph
• Then Dis would fade if you apply a filler combo so Dis combo: ID-Dis-CT
• ...

Am I missing something? By the way, it seems even easier to me if you would just sitck with 3 combos:

1. HT - Ph
2. ID-Dis-CT
3. TT - VT - FT

Am I missing something here also?