Which Job Would be Right for me?

[KanonShirogane]

Hey, so up until now, i've been mostly maining healer jobs, my first 60 being a WHM.

I really want to take up DPSing, but i'm not sure which job would suit me.

All i know is i want to get high numbers, look good while getting those high numbers, and have a bit of utility.

Can someone give me an overview of the DPS Jobs and possibly make some recommendations?

[AzraelX]

It seems like you like casters with alots of utility + big numbers = SUmmoner is for you. if you don't like that try BLAGE MAGe but SMN has more utility than a BLK MGE

[Mikedizzy]

Yeah...Summoner and Black Mage seems like what you will like...Black Mage is slightly easier to play.

[o3o]

Yeah...Summoner and Black Mage seems like what you will like...Black Mage is slightly easier to play.

no.. its not.

smn is easier to play in basically all content because of the simple fact that are are much more easily able to move and do whatever it is they are still doing without having to completely alter their rotation or lose everything from not being able to get a cast off in the very strict rotation blm has to follow.

while the conceptually easy. the blm rotation juggles 2 timers that a very strict with little wiggle room to stop casting at all or you will drop either enochian or your astral fire stacks or both.

for smn, you make sure 3 dots are always up, fester every 10 seconds when you have aetherflow up until you have aethereal attunement, pop dreadwyrm trance and cast ruin III for 15 seconds til its time to end it with death flare.

also the only thing smn has over blm utility wise is the raise (which is pretty great). and super virus (which your sch also has if your following the optimal party comp who may or may not get mad at you for putting it on and now have to wait for the antibody buff to fall off before they can use it)

while blm has apocastasis which is a 20% damage reduction from magic (something that has saved my party from a wipe on multiple occasions) and can cross class all the utility arcanist brings besides the raise.

what you really need to know is that....

BLM is a turret dps with higher single target then smn. they cannot really move very freely as everything they do has a cast time (besides scathe which is a weak filler skill you can use to move) and have to juggle 2 strict timers for big sexy hits. their aoe dps took a hit recently with the release of heavensward but it is still very respectable and still the second highest aoe dps in game.

SMN is a Damage over time (dot) dps with a pet. they are able to move alot more freely then most other jobs, including bards and mch while having by far the highest aoe damage in game. they lose very little dps moving at all if any (besides not being able to cast ruin III during dreadwyrm trance) and have that big sexy massive damage aoe attack at the end of dreadwyrm trance as a finisher.

[Mikedizzy]

Okay how many buttons is the Summoner open....and how many is the Black Mage...enough said.

[o3o]

Okay how many buttons is the Summoner open....and how many is the Black Mage...enough said.

the blm opener has you pressing 11 (12 if you can fit thunder in its again very strict rotation, 13 if you press quelling strikes) different skills (would be more if i counted fire IV 6 times) before you get back into astral fire again.

that's just pressing each individual button once.

for me it goes like this ///precast fire III for pull > ley lines > raging strikes > enochian > fire IV > sharpcast > fire > quelling strikes (if needed) > swiftcast > fire IV x 3 > firestarter proc fire III > convert > fire IV x 2 > bliz III > thunder II if time allows > bliz IV/// end of opener. if you move or stop casting for more then a second or 2 you cant do this btw.

would you like to make any more silly baseless comments?

[Erudito]

If you like good looking attacks, nice numbers and utility then you might want to go with either Dragoon, Summoner or Black Mage.
Monks have very little to no utility (just 2: Boosted heals and Int debuff) and I would not suggest you Bard of Machinist because you can throw all you know about the job from level 30 to 50 out the window at level 52.

At level 60, Dragoons are the go to stun dude, has an awesome crit buff for the party and can help Bard and Machinists DPS with their its Piercing damage buff. You can also count an itty-bitty heal boost from Mantra, if you like. Dragoons do good damage and are look real impressive doing it. Oh, and they have 2 gap closers so you keep the action going.

Summoner at level 60 has to manage pets, dots and buffs but its a lot simpler than it sounds. It can raise people, heal (only an itty bit, but it has a healing spell in its arsenal), slow, give malady (enemy healing reduced), bind, stun (if you have the right pet out and can nail the timings), knock back (again, pet trick) and blast things to kingdom come with its level 52 and 60 abilities aside from its DoT play. Oh, and check out its level 3 Limit break when you can, its really cool.

Next is Black Mage, they can slow, heavy, sleep (big thing in PvP), make barriers to ward off physical or magical damage and have a fast move trick in the form of Aetherial Manipulation and a big boom spell in the form of Flare. They also have Swiftcast, a must for any and all casters. But at level 60 something bad happens to them, their rotation gets nasty. If you want to dish out the most damage with Black Mage, you will have to use Enochian and Fire 4. The problem is that the timers on these abilities is very tricky and notoriously tight. I see so many people say, if you move to dodge for over a second, your rotation is busted, sorry. I have it at 60 and as soon as I saw what you have to go through to keep the big damage going, I said NOPE!

Anyway, those are my suggestions. Try them all out to see which one you like best. Keep in mind, that if you choose Black Mage, you have to take it all the way to 60 to see how you like its new rotation. Dragoon doesn't change much but they get new combo finishers that can be a bit strange, but you get them at level 56 so you can see how it feels then. Summoner just has a lot of things to handle, not exactly difficult or tight, it actually feels pretty natural to me, using the poisons, pet control and buff/debuff control.

Again, see for yourself. Hope I helped.

[itti18]

i have both BLM and SMN at 60 , Black mage does much higher single target dps while summoner does much higher aoe dps

however summoner is in my opinion much easier to play than BLM , i play SMN whenever i feel tired and lazy because it takes little to no effort to play

[MrCookTM]

Okay how many buttons is the Summoner open....and how many is the Black Mage...enough said.

Openers are braindead easy for every job once you got them into muscle memory, I don't see where this is a gauge for the jobs difficulty. BLM is by far one of the most challenging jobs to play in actual content and do decent with, while SMN is basically what has already been stated: keep up dot's, enter dwt, use D3 and 2 festers during it, delay the third fester until stuff comes up again. Rinse and repeat to get awesome dps.

Maybe im your opinion BLM is easier, but you have to accept the fact that most of the playerbase will disagree with you.

[Leidiriv]

I haven't played SMN since ARR, but here's a sample opener from when I did play, just to give you a feel for the buttons you would have to push.

Pre-cast: Ifrit > Raging Strikes > Fight begins > B2MB (Rouse, Fester, Swiftcast*) > Shadowflare > Ruin x2 > Ruin II (Fester, Spur) > Ruin II (Enkindle) > Ruin > Bio > Miasma (Fester) > Bio II

And that's as far as I know when it comes to SMN, as I haven't had a chance to play with DWT or any of the associated abilities.

*Note: I do not have Swiftcast yet, it was one of those things that I kept putting off because I enjoyed playing SMN far more than levelling THM, so this part of the opener is purely speculation on my part.