Help me choose a melee dps!!

[Mardel]

Difficulty Level:
MNK>NIN>DRG
Lots of debate here... (SNIP)

Okay, I agree with almost everything he said (for what he typed out) except the order of difficulty. The difficulty in any job is somewhat false it's usually people think of their initial learning curve/experience as the indicator that this job is hard, but I will say I've never had issues playing monk or any other dps outside learning the initial rotation. Anyone who says MNK is hard due to positional is making a mountain out of a mole hill.

The harder class to play is ninja because regardless of positional requirements you need to be aware of your dot cycle, other people's TP, your TP, huton recast timer, back positional for trick attack, kassatsu timer, suiton/ta timer, and MUDRA LAG. Also if you cannot get in around 12-13 mudra casts in a housing area before auto-bunny then your connection is having issues and your input lag will lower your DPS and cause other potential issues like accidental bunnies. Playing Ninja at the peak performance almost feels like it requires WTFAST or other pingzapping programs that help you avoid bad routing. So mudra lag coupled with the other things you must be aware of, while playing ninja, makes the job the hardest.

What you should play as a melee: MNK
What you should play as a caster: BLM

[Tex_Mex]

The harder class to play is ninja ...

Ya this always brings up a bit of debate, and I think the difficulty is just different for different players. Personally, i find the constant motion somewhat more daunting than a lot of the CD timer awareness that NIN requires. And the main reason that I believe NIN to be a bit easier is because of the simple nature of their damage rotation (excluding mudras). It is just a simple combo1 -> combo2 -> combo3 -> combo1 -> combo2 -> combo3 style that you add mudras and the one DoT ability on to.

By comparison the main DRG rotation looks more like this:
HT -> Combo1 -> Ph -> Combo2 -> HT -> Combo2 -> Ph -> Combo1 -> HT -> Combo 2 -> Ph -> Combo2 -> Repeat

DRG also has a lot of their own off the GCD timers, including B4B, Invigorate, IR, jump, spineshatter dive, dragonfire dive, life surge, power surge, leg sweep, etc.

All in all, none of the classes in this game are all that difficult to play, but I just find the combination of buffs and movement requirements of MNK to have the highest skill ceiling.

[Zedd702]

The harder class to play is ninja because regardless of positional requirements you need to be aware of your dot cycle, other people's TP, your TP, huton recast timer, back positional for trick attack, kassatsu timer, suiton/ta timer, and MUDRA LAG. Also if you cannot get in around 12-13 mudra casts in a housing area before auto-bunny then your connection is having issues and your input lag will lower your DPS and cause other potential issues like accidental bunnies. Playing Ninja at the peak performance almost feels like it requires WTFAST or other pingzapping programs that help you avoid bad routing. So mudra lag coupled with the other things you must be aware of, while playing ninja, makes the job the hardest.

I disagree that NIN is the hardest to play, in comparison to the other two. This is arguably debatable. Every job has its WTF's, OOPSIES and everything else... However Mudra lag has no bearing on difficulty to play the class and furthermore is not an issue for me when playing NIN. I've experienced it and it's very easy to get down/anticipate/adapt to...

The only thing that makes NIN a tid bit complicated to play is that I don't have enough room on my hotkeys for what I need on my rotations (PS3)... I'M a Tank and Healer at heart so anticipating when my tank needs TP, I'm usually right on time with Goad. Other than that, NIN IMO is very "leh snore" to play to me.

[AlphaDragoon]

I disagree that NIN is the hardest to play, in comparison to the other two. This is arguably debatable. Every job has its WTF's, OOPSIES and everything else... However Mudra lag has no bearing on difficulty to play the class and furthermore is not an issue for me when playing NIN. I've experienced it and it's very easy to get down/anticipate/adapt to...

The only thing that makes NIN a tid bit complicated to play is that I don't have enough room on my hotkeys for what I need on my rotations (PS3)... I'M a Tank and Healer at heart so anticipating when my tank needs TP, I'm usually right on time with Goad. Other than that, NIN IMO is very "leh snore" to play to me.

Mudra lag does not affect difficulty per se, but it does affect your ability to be a good Ninja player. If you've got high latency you can pretty much forget about ever doing the numbers you should be able to do as a NIN, and that's something that shouldn't be ignored when choosing a DPS. The effect of latency on Monk and Dragoon output isn't even in the same universe as it is with Ninja.

[Zedd702]

Mudra lag does not affect difficulty per se, but it does affect your ability to be a good Ninja player. If you've got high latency you can pretty much forget about ever doing the numbers you should be able to do as a NIN, and that's something that shouldn't be ignored when choosing a DPS. The effect of latency on Monk and Dragoon output isn't even in the same universe as it is with Ninja.

Correct you are.

That's what I was implying. But in direct regards to Mudra lag and the other stuff that was quoted in my previous post does not make NIN more difficult class to play than MNK or DRG even with its latency, although I agree it is to be considered when choosing between the three melee DPS, it does not compete with positional requirements of the other two Jobs as NIN can do its damage from anywhere on the enemy...

[RearAdmiralZill]

except the order of difficulty

To be honest, difficulty is relative. What I find hard will be incredibly simple to someone else. I'd just leave the difficulty out of the equation since the OP should know what they are good and bad at. For me, I know i'd screw up mudras like nobody's business, hah.

Tex_Mex did a great job with describing the jobs otherwise. I'm biased as MNK is my main. Take each at face value and go with what you'd want to do.

[Kuwagami]

AoE DPS:
DRG>NIN>MNK
Both NIN and DRG AoE is MILES ahead of MNK. MNK AoE is just awful, but it needs to be as a trade off for their incredible Single Target DPS.

huh ? Nin has AoE possibilities ? Katon every 20 seconds, and that's about it. Monk is far ahead of that with 2 skills, one circular and one conal (ok they cost a lot and leave you TP starved really quick, but still...), and an extra off-GCD conal attack. While not at DRG's level, Monk's AoE is nothing to laugh at.

Compare it with Katon every 20 seconds (if mudra lag lets you...) and a laughable 120 TP 100 potency circular AoE, you know who is better at it.

Hmm, Monk does have 2 skills, but Arm of the Destroyer should never be used for damage really. Much better just using Rockbreaker every Coeurl form while keeping Twin Snakes up and DK'ing as many things as possible in between. Or just Perfect Balance -> Rockbreaker spam. Arm might be viable if you know you can afford the TP against a massive hoard, like at the end of Sastasha HM but the damage is still very poor while eating huge chunks of TP.

I do think Ninja's AoE kinda sucks and is over-rated too, but it's at least better than a Monk without Perfect Balance. The guaranteed crit from Kassatsu on a full-duration Doton is pretty potent, and Katon's...okay....if Doton's already up. Death Blossom is kinda meh. But it's still passable when combined with the Ninjutsus. Drg leaves them both in the dust though.

Touche. I had forgotten about Doton. I guess "less bad" would be a preferred term then regarding ninja vs monk.

Either way, melees shouldn't have to AoE that much in normal gameplay ;D

[Dashadow11]

Thanks everyone for all the great info! A lot to think about! I think im leaning towards drg right now! thanks!!!

[Korilynn]

The constant moving around of the MNK is the only reason I would suggest NIN or DRG over MNK (and I main MNK and love two of it's attack animations to much to move to another Melee DPS role).

It's not so bad when the tank is stationary, but if that tank is constantly moving and the monster moves with them, it just becomes a pain :/

Solo wise, pretty sure DRG and NIN beat MNK damage wise, with not being so position based, but I can only go on feel there for classes that are level 34 and 39/40 respectively.

NIN and DRG also look to have better weapon skins (opinion based here) also, maining a WAR, a DRG just seems like a natural DPS class to go with from an RP standpoint.