What job is the highest priority to fix?

[Lunavi]

Just look at FFLogs and see which DPS classes are performing the worst, so DNC.

[LauraAdalena]

Just look at FFLogs and see which DPS classes are performing the worst, so DNC.

Not true, actually. It provides decent buffs. But it's not the most urgent to change.

Highest priority is, in this order in my perspective:

1. Ninja due to high abandon rate of players upon SHB launch.

2. healers.

3. Summoner and Samurai due to Summoner having some clunky mechanics that are unenjoyable and lack of damage for its complexity, and Samurai due to doing less than Monk and Dragoon despite both of those providing support and buffs to party

4. Machinist due to lack of damage over Bard which has, say it with me, more support despite Machinist not giving any.

5. Dancer to buff its personal damage. The buffs it gives seem to be particularly well balanced.

6. Red Mage needs a little bit better damage to compete with the other two of its role.

7. Monk maybe needs a nerf, but imo let's just bring classes up to it instead of nerfing. If this was a competitive game I wouldn't be saying that.

that being said, no class is in urgent urgent strides like ARR bard where you couldn't clear content with a bard period, so none are like "FIX IMMEDIATELY"

Edit: Also, usually they save new job changes for a little later. At least that's my understanding, so that's why dancer is a little lower.

[Lunavi]

Not true, actually. It provides decent buffs. But it's not the most urgent to change.

Actually, DPS on FFLogs is based on rDPS nowadays which includes buffs, and DNC are in fact the lowest by those standards.

[Noctisnine]

Just look at FFLogs and see which DPS classes are performing the worst, so DNC.

Not really... Summoner is the hardest dps to play right now it's damage does not reflect that at all, so top priority should be giving summoner quality of life improvements and buffs. Dancer does not need buffs at all. I would say samurai needs more quality of life improvements, followed by machinist who needs a slight buff and red mage.

[HyoMinPark]

Not really... Summoner is the hardest dps to play right now it's damage does not reflect that at all, so top priority should be giving summoner quality of life improvements and buffs. Dancer does not need buffs at all. I would say samurai needs more quality of life improvements, followed by machinist who needs a slight buff and red mage.

DNC absolutely needs potency buffs—all of the physical ranged do. It’s better to bring 2 BLMs than it is to bring a physical ranged, even with you losing the 1% party buff from having a physical ranged in your party. I don’t think that SMN being more complicated is a good enough defense to ignore the role as a whole.

Back on the subject of DNC specifically, though: if you think it doesn’t need potency adjustments, I’d invite you to look at some of the lower percentiles of the Big 3 jobs and then find how high a DNC has to be to match them in rDPS—not aDPS, not pDPS, but rDPS. There was a post in another thread that was actually very interesting to consider:

Is it impossible to clear with X jobs or X comps?
No, you can clear with every 2 Tank / 2 Healers / 4 DPS comp

The problem is that some comps using BLM, MNK, DRG, NIN and/or SAM will have a much easier time clearing content.
Ranged DPS, SMN and RDM are taxed for utility/mobility that doesn't lives up to the cost.

The other problem is that a bad MNK, BLM, DRG will do as much DPS as a ranged DPS/RDM/SMN, not rewarding their skill and job optimisation.

You have the argument that since all jobs can clear so nobody should care, that the tax is deserved.
And you have the argument that ranged/SMN/RDM's effort should be rewarded as much as any melee effort.

For example about a "random" (One of the worst, I have to admit) FFLog Report on E4S:
Machinist - 71th percentile - 12.678 rDPS
Black Mage - 21th Percentile - 12.325 rDPS
Monk - 13th Percentile - 12.510 rDPS
Dragoon - 13th Percentile - 12.256 rDPS

In other words, if their Black mage was a SMN/RDM or their MNK/DRG was a SAM/NIN they wouldn't have cleared E4S.
Jobs DPS disparity is so big that if you can't do the mechanics right, shifting your comp to the highest DPS job becomes a pass for the clear.

I looked up DNC’s rDPS after reading this post, and under the All Bosses average metric, a DNC would have to be 90th percentile—so, almost orange percentile, since orange starts at 95th percentile—just to reach ~12,300 rDPS. Meanwhile, that’s something those 3 “big jobs” (BLM/MNK/DRG) can hit in a gray percentile. For E4S specifically, DNC still has to be purple to meet these rDPS thresholds: 80th percentile for the job is ~12,400 rDPS. For funnsies, a 10th percentile DNC on E4S is ~11,100 rDPS, over 1,100 rDPS less than the 13th percentile DRG in that log quoted above.



On topic, I think the jobs that need to be looked at first should be:
—The physical ranged: all three need potency buffs straight up. When it’s mathematically better to sacrifice the 1% and do triple melee or double BLM over bringing physical ranged, there’s a problem with the role as a whole.

Other jobs that could stand to be looked at soon:
—AST: something needs to be done with this job. It has to work harder to achieve less results than a WHM or SCH does. It’s still the lowest rDPS of the three healers, and its opener is one of the jankiest openers I’ve ever dealt with. The cards are also in need of TLC.
—SAM: It does need to be more on par with the other melee. It makes little sense to me why it’s so low still. I don’t think it’s as high of a priority as some jobs above, but it does need to be addressed.
—SMN: I don’t know much about it, but the gameplay is garbage from every SMN I’ve spoken to. It could also use potency buffs.
—RDM: Needs potency buffs. If SMN is buffed considerably in Patch 5.1, RDM is dead.