Fastest and most engaging class

[Raiden_Ki]

Hi guys,

I'm here to ask/discuss which class is the absolute fastest and most engaging to play at high skill levels.
Some points that come to mind to answer this question is:

Attack/skill/spell speed
Procs
oGCDs
Movement (positioning)

I am guessing the outcome will be NIN/MCH. Looking forward to your thoughts on this.

PS. We are not just talking about burst or openers but the global scope of the class.

[MauvaisOeil]

Procs are pretty poor in this game, most of the time everything turns out to be damn predictable, I can't say why SE made this design choice.

[Selova]

Procs are pretty poor in this game, most of the time everything turns out to be damn predictable, I can't say why SE made this design choice.

Because RNG procs and class/job balance do not flow well together. Ask any Machinist, they will tell you all about stale gameplay because of terrible rng procs.

[Greedalox]

Ask any Machinist, they will tell you all about stale gameplay because of terrible rng procs.

I always found that was more of an exaggerated thing people tacked on when the "99 reasons I don't like MCH" threads are around. It's not as bad as some people make it out to be.

[MauvaisOeil]

Because RNG procs and class/job balance do not flow well together. Ask any Machinist, they will tell you all about stale gameplay because of terrible rng procs.

There is a difference between "Poor RNG that dictates your whole gameplay" and "tricky and engaging RNG".

Some example : -Non linear gauge gains, less planning, more reaction.

-Free attacks/chances to increase some damage and adapt your rotation accordingly.


Because FF is so predictable, and the high base GCD implies low variance of skill usage between similar length fights, it often sounds like a partition to play with few adaptations. Bosses follow patterns with little to no variance, players follows patterns with little to no variance, and then everything is just a big orchestra.
Most "Reduce cooldown on use" are translated into "raw reduction" due to the exact same GCD beeing used between cooldowns, and the poor influence of skill speed or spell speed won't change things by any margin. Thus, except patch changing gameplay, a job will play roughly the same from expansion start to expansion end, with at most and for a few job, one more GCD weaved into a cooldown.

There are other games with a lot of RNG and it doesn't kill balance.

[SaitoHikari]

There is a difference between "Poor RNG that dictates your whole gameplay" and "tricky and engaging RNG".

The hilarious part is, an example of both exists in this very game. Compare how MCH RNG works compared to BRD.

MCH RNG boosts the potency of their attacks, and it's based on a flat rate that the MCH cannot manipulate except by reloading.

BRD RNG lets them launch their attacks more often, and it's based on their own personal critical hit stat AND party buffs. BRD RNG is harder to control overall due to the number of factors being considered (gearing, how many mobs are being affected by DoT, whether or not there are any party members that can boost crit rate). In theory though, Bards can recover from bad RNG later in a fight since most of their RNG revolves around straight-up ability spam (turning a normally time-restricted resource into potentially unlimited and spammable via RNG - a strength no other job can wield anywhere nearly as satisfying as Bard can do now), while MCHs really cannot because their RNG is tied to mere potency increases on their GCDs, of which their GCDs can already be thought of as a time-restricted resource. That's not even mentioning that for Bards, since it's their DoTs that determine the majority of their procs, they get their bonuses triggering independently while the Bard is off doing other things, while Machinists have to do things in a very specific order while praying to the RNG gods.

What I mean is that Bards benefit MASSIVELY from their crits in a very exponential sense, while MCH wrestles with very boring flat RNG that is somehow simultaneously restrictive and makes all the difference in the world for them in the process. Bard straight up feels better because their RNG is designed better. Or, to also put it in simpler terms, if BRD RNG revolved entirely around the way that Straighter Shot/Refulgent Arrow procs (the only RNG Bards cannot manipulate in any way AND requires use of a specific attack to fish for the proc), Bards would be crying bloody murder. Because that's exactly what Machinist is dealing with.

[Xau]

to me the most engaging job is bard, meanwhile the faster one ninja followed by monk(because of riddle of fire slow down)

[Daws]

to me the most engaging job is bard, meanwhile the faster one ninja followed by monk(because of riddle of fire slow down)

Bard you say? I was thinking of making a MCH, want something ranged, but there so much negative chatter about MCHs that I may try bard first.

[Idolon]

NIN and BRD both have lots of oGCDs to use all the time. BRD often needs to double weave oGCDs, while NIN's speed buff keeps them similarly active.

MCH used to fit what you want, but I'm not sure it does now. It lost a lot of its oGCDs with 4.0, and the change to heat generation in 4.05 means you have much less to think about between Wildfires. After 4.06, it now has a massive 10 second burst of activity followed by 50 seconds with jack all to do, and the one minute cycle happens about the same way every time. With the current rate of heat generation, you don't want to stack skill speed to make it more active because then you're more likely to need to use Cooldown once followed by 2 ticks of Flamethrower to overheat instead of one, which delays your next GCD and negates some or all of that extra speed.