Most challenging and wanted DPS class?

[Selova]

snip.

This is all simply not true, out of all the dps MCH takes the cake in what is required to play the job optimally. The only reason people claim that BLM is challenging or hard is due to heavy movement fights, unlike MCH BLM's actual rotation is incredibly easy. MCH's entire kit is based around WF and OH and making sure you time your OH's with every WF and all your ogcd's and if you aren't OH with every WF you are intentionally gimping yourself. Contrary to popular belief, MCH is pretty strong, hence whey they are taken on almost every speed kill. The second most challenging job to play optimally is def samurai, but if you want to challenge yourself I'd say either SAM or MCH are a good pick.

[aeoncs]

If you want to perform close to the highest possibile level, SAM is probably the most challenging melee. It has an extremely high skill ceiling, but a very low skill floor.

I know I'm kinda necro'ing here but I'm wondering if you, and others, would stick by that opinion today. Right after SB was released many people were of a similar opinion but imo SAM is most definitely the easiest melee in Savage/Extreme content.
It doesn't get punished for "having to do mechanics", phase transitions or downtimes in the slightest if you use Hagakure correctly, which is probably the only moderately challenging part aside from Kenki/Kaiten management. It also has no buffs or cooldowns to sync with your raid, save for maybe holding on to Guren for 4-5 seconds for an upcoming TA. Tbh, it's probably about as easy as RDM in said content.

B2T:

Most challenging jobs to pick up and do well/ok with: I'd have to go with Dragoon and Summoner
Highest skill ceiling/most challenging job to maximize: Probably Bard, Ninja and Monk
Most wanted: Really depends on whether you're doing serious progression, speed runs or just casual raiding but Ninja > BRD = DRG are probably always first in each scenario.

That being said, I've barely spent any time with Bard & Ninja at 70 on an Alt, so some of that is guesswork.

[Allyrion]

I can only speak on the melee side.


Monk
MNK is (to me) the easiest melee by a good bit, once you get accustomed to constantly dancing around your positionals. It's focus after that (which is 99% muscle memory) is keeping GL stacks and maximizing downtime with meditate and form shift (to keep or regain GL faster). It's super fun and fast paced though.

- Good for raids. High personal dps with utility. May even outdps SAM at the end of this tier(340 ilvl) or the beginning of the next due to scaling.

Ninja
NIN is relatively forgiving when it comes to mechanics. It might be easier than MNK (to me) if not for the utility you can and should maximize. Also, while not as fast GCD-wise as MNK, it's a more hectic Job overall because of its many off-gcd abilities including, but not limited to, the Mudras.

- Almost mandatory spot for raids.


Samurai
SAM is a more demanding Job to optimize. It's base damage is very high, so you can do decently regardless but there's a big discrepancy between a good and bad SAM. It has a relatively involved resource management and priority system, but it's also really well designed and flows really well. It's like playing a Job with a manual transmission since you have a lot of control.

- Highest personal dps currently. No utility otherwise. Still quiet favored for raids due to popularity and high numbers.


Dragoon
I can't speak of DRG confidently. My friend who plays both SAM and DRG very well says that DRG is a little more challenging. I hold that opinion too but only in that DRG's rotation is involved AND mostly static. Almost the opposite of SAM since it has a relatively rigid long rotation. Despite that, it's still fun to play in practice and the Jumps are just super fun. It flows well once you memorize the priority.

- Lowest personal dps. High utility. Not in very high demand since many don't think it's buffs make up for it's low personal dps. They will probably be slightly buffed to NIN level since that's where their utility lies.


Difficulty, in general, is very subjective and really depends on your playstyle or just how your mind works. So take everything with a grain of salt.
Also the beauty of this game is that you can try them all. And if you use Palace of the Dead, you can see all their abilities up to 60, and play around with them, relatively early on to see which you like best. They all play pretty differently so I think it's best to try them for yourself.

[Dregenfox]

If you're looking at it in terms of how much skill "matters" in terms of DPS, then SMN/BLM are probably the top two. SAM can be hard to play optimally but the difference between a good and bad SAM isn't that large.

OTOH, a bad SMN might do less than half the DPS of a good summoner, and the same can be said of BLM. It's very easy to notice good and bad BLM/SMN while pretty much every SAM will do high DPS regardless of skill - some will just do a bit more damage because they read the skill descriptions.

For SMN especially, a single death tanks your DPS for the entire fight, they have probably the most oGCD-usage, and their rotations change every single fight depending on procs/phases/movement required. Same for BLM but they recover from death better.

[AmaSagahl]

... SAM can be hard to play optimally but the difference between a good and bad SAM isn't that large...

I disagree. I actually started a thread on this, because no matter which SAM you speak to, everyone seems to be like 'ahyeah, it's not that hard'. Of course, some know that once you go into depth with this job, it is becoming much harder - and there are a few out there who right out say so.
I have been maining SAM for a while and once you get onto Savage and high end raiding - where numbers actually matter - you need to step your game up. I can easily pull 4.8k on a SSS O1S dummy, but getting those high numbers in actual raid content is far more challenging. I feel like I just really started playing this job when I got onto this content.

Despite what people say, managing your Kenki and GCDs right is hard. It is punishing if you screw up your rotation, because every lost Kenki is lost dps. It is punishing to let your buffs fall off or use Hagakure a few seconds too late. Dps loss again. Clip your abilities and dps loss again. All that while paying attention to mechanics, and you are always right on the boss having to hit your main positionals to generate the most Kenki.
The best Samurais out there, one of them currently teaching me, is doing 5.3k in O3S. That is an insane number and required dozens of runs and hours on training your rotation in high end content, as well as knowing exactly how to exploit uptime.

It is easy to be an average Samurai. It is very hard to be a good one. You can often recognize the average ones spamming Midare instead of using hagakure.

The damage ranges from 3.5k in Savage content until almost 6. That is the difference between someone who still needs to learn the job and the fights and someone who has mastered it. Don't think every Samurai pulls 4.6+, it is just not true.

[LeeraSorlan]

it is just not true.

i am a sam/monk main and i disagree with this for sure. Perhaps it is because of me being used to raiding, but Sam is the easiest melee job ive played in this game to date (i do average 5k in most parties, tipping highher if crits/dh are good that run) and i still think its a very basic job.
So long as you are A keeping your dot up, B, not clipping your sen (which is easy to NOT do) and C, not sitting on 100 kenki/missing TOO many positionals. Then its pretty butter from there. sure there are minor little things you can do to min max your dps that much more, like open eyes usage, knowing when to use hagakure or midare (if trick/any moderate dmg boost is up, and you have three sen, deciding which to use in that moment) etc, things like that, but its really not going to impact you too greatly. Sam is easy to pick up, easy to do good dps, and easy to do great dps. mastering the job is simple and perfecting the job is more about knowing the fight rather than knowing the samurai.


No offense to you, as you are obviously still learning, but when you get up there, and dont mess up on mechanics and it becomes muscle memory, you will see how easy it really is at the top.


I would easily put it as one of the easiest jobs in the game, maybe a bit harder than tank rotatinos and redmage. but definantly one of the easiest imo

[AmaSagahl]

.... but when you get up there, and dont mess up on mechanics and it becomes muscle memory, you will see how easy it really is at the top

You are probably right.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Despite what people say, managing your Kenki and GCDs right is hard. It is punishing if you screw up your rotation, because every lost Kenki is lost dps. It is punishing to let your buffs fall off or use Hagakure a few seconds too late. Dps loss again. Clip your abilities and dps loss again. All that while paying attention to mechanics, and you are always right on the boss having to hit your main positionals to generate the most Kenki.

The best Samurais out there, one of them currently teaching me, is doing 5.3k in O3S. That is an insane number and required dozens of runs and hours on training your rotation in high end content, as well as knowing exactly how to exploit uptime.

No offense, but you either lack Savage or melee experience. The DPS losses on mismanaged Kenki or Shifu/Jinpu buffs are negligible unless it's consistent. Outside the opener, Samurai's base rotation is incredibly simplified and Kenki management boils down to spam Shinten whenever above 60. You cannot cite clipping or rotation hiccups since both impact the other melee, albeit far more severely. Fat finger your rotation on DRG and you lose two GCDs or bunny your murdas—the latter of which needs to be executed quickly lest you lose uptime not attacking. Dropping Greased Lightning, Huton or Blood of the Dragon is absolutely brutal, with all three jobs losing a massive amount of damage if it can't be refreshed quickly. Samurai, comparatively, has no such issue. Even death impacts it the least due to its minimal build up requirements. Ninja can recast Huton, but not only does that hurt its damage more so, the entire raid suffers since now Trick Attack is put off an extra 20 seconds. Dragoons and Monks, meanwhile, would rather just stay dead and beg the party to wipe, especially Monk.

Samurais pulling 3.5k now are simply bad or inexperienced players. It speaks nothing to the complexity of the job or lack thereof as they would pull comparatively low numbers on any job. For reference sake, I pulled 3.2k on my second Alte Roite clear with two deaths and wearing mostly 310 gear.

[AmaSagahl]

No offense, but you either lack Savage or melee experience.

Yes, that's right. No offense taken. I started playing 3-4 months ago with Monk and then switched to Samurai right at level 50 - so no, I had no experience in Savage before.
But I disagree - mismanaged Kenki and buffs cost you a lot of dps. I have spent hours on the dummy, and it ranges between 4.2k with mismanaged kenki and buffs to less screw ups 4.8k to a perfect rotation like my mentor does - 5.5k.

I also disagree that every inexperienced player would pull low numbers on any job. There are better classes to start off than Samurai. I levelled RDM for a while and it was a walk in the park compared - I just didn't enjoy it. But of course, you are right that melee experience plays a role - exploiting the uptime is what makes a huge difference in your dps.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Yes, that's right. No offense taken. I started playing 3-4 months ago with Monk and then switched to Samurai right at level 50 - so no, I had no experience in Savage before.
But I disagree - mismanaged Kenki and buffs cost you a lot of dps. I have spent hours on the dummy, and it ranges between 4.2k with mismanaged kenki and buffs to less screw ups 4.8k to a perfect rotation like my mentor does - 5.5k.

I also disagree that every inexperienced player would pull low numbers on any job. There are better classes to start off than Samurai. I levelled RDM for a while and it was a walk in the park compared - I just didn't enjoy it. But of course, you are right that melee experience plays a role - exploiting the uptime is what makes a huge difference in your dps.

I mean comparatively to its melee counterparts. Both will impact you if consistently mismanaged, but the occasional slip won't cause a huge loss towards your DPS. Likewise, it's comparatively easier to manage Kenki whereas misjudging Huton and allowing it to fall off severely impacts you and/or the raid.

As for other jobs, I was only comparing Samurai against the other three melee. With more experience, especially if you start to dabble in other jobs more, I suspect you'll find Samurai isn't that hard to manage. And I don't say any of this to discourage your own performance. Just speaking from someone who has played all four melee, albeit Monk I haven't taken into Savage yet.