Help Understand Low-level Roulette

[whiskeybravo]

According to friends/family + personal experience, here's a listing of all jobs rated according to general queue times (lower numbers having shortest wait). Most of these were judged during peak hours (4-9pm PST) so things may vary if you play late night or early morning. Things will change as people cap NIN and stop queuing with it as well.
1. WAR/PLD (almost instant for each, difference is negligible)
3. SCH
4. WHM
5. MNK
6. SMN
7. DRG
8. BLM
9. NIN
10. BRD

I almost always get 5-6 mins q's on DRG and MNK.. BRD, SMN, BLM (in my experience) take the longest to q for a dungeon/trial (like 11-16 mins avg). Nice explanation btw

[Velox]

I almost always get 5-6 mins q's on DRG and MNK.. BRD, SMN, BLM (in my experience) take the longest to q for a dungeon/trial (like 11-16 mins avg). Nice explanation btw

This is true. Like I said, theoretically ranged DPS classes should have shorter wait times, but what messes this up is that there are a LOT more people playing ranged DPS than melee DPS overall. Much of this is attributed to ease-of-play. Ranged DPS classes tend to be easier to play than melee (SMN is an exception) due to not having as complex rotations or positional requirements. They are also the safer classes to play, allowing for more mobility and less risk of dying to enemy-centered AoEs (there are a lot of enemies that cast AoEs around them). Before NIN was released, a HUGE portion of the playerbase was playing BLM and BRD, giving them the longest queue times. Once the level of NIN players starts dropping it will return to that trend until 3.0 mixes things up with all the new classes/jobs they will be adding.