Which jobs is at its prime?

[Jirah]

Browsing all the beef DPS mains have with their jobs and was wondering which job is perfect right now. Not the most DPS not the easiest but at its prime, the job with the least amount of beef and controversy. Healers and Tanks are a conversation for another day just curious which job has the highest satisfaction.(as of 5.2)

[Cetonis]

Black Mage. Maybe Summoner, now. I'm sure Machinist has its fans. Maybe Ninja? That's probably it.

By and large ShB job design has been a disappointment for people who main a given job, in the name of making jobs more "approachable" for new players / new players to a job.

Which is a good goal to have, but it really doesn't have to come at the expense of depth, flexibility, options, decision points etc. SE doesn't believe that sort of strategic fun matters though; they think it's fine if all the fun comes from cool animations and all the skill expression is baked into raw execution.

[Mhaeric]

The following is all subjective based on what I see on the forums for complaint threads:

The dps jobs I see with the least complaints are SAM, BLM, RDM, DNC, NIN, DRG. Most of these jobs got QoL fixes or potency buffs in 5.2 that fixed any complaints that arose during the 5.x cycle, and the rest were good right from 5.0. E.g. RDM potencies are in a good place now their dps no longer is completely eclipsed by other casters. Likewise with Ninja. Any complaints you see about these jobs tend to be limited to very minor things that don't affect their performance in an overly meaningful way. E.g. piercing talon on DRG being relatively useless, or RDM wanting Embolden to not have the diminishing buff strength. DNC specifically rarely has any DNC explicit complaints, but often comes up implicitly in general "ranged dps role damage is to low" threads. It's gameplay is strong enough, however, that it could easily just benefit from the RDM treatment and get a potency boost to call it amazing.

I wil also include SMN in this list even though SMN has farily frequent complaint threads. They're odd complaints relative to other dps complain threads, however, because SMN is the current top dps class so they're usually more about wanting gameplay changes to make them pure summoners instead of DoT casters rather than SMN is weak or doesn't function well types of complaints. I.e. aesthetics or thematics of the current mechanics rather than the effectiveness of the current mechanics is what people compain about with it. SMN is in a very good position this expansion.

MNK is the most complained about, rightly so in my opinion, and has been for a long time. It has some very clunky mechanics to it, mostly to do with the chakra gauge being so random even with Brotherhood and the atmanan (sp?) skill being mostly useless.

BRD gets lots of complaints about just needing a damage boost or giving them back more utility. People are especially salty about the DoTs being greatly reduced in potency. BRD is also the job that has had the most core gameplay changes to it over the life of this game, even going back to 1.0. I personally think it needs a bit of a dps boost, but the gameplay and amount of party buffing it has right now works well.

MCH has a lot of complaints that it was too simplified. It went from being one of the most complex job to being one of the least complex in a single expansion. There's just as many who love that about it, however, so this is more of a "you can't please everyone" type of thing. Also, while it is no longer as latency dependent as it used to be, it still can be affected by poor latency and Wildfire went from their big damage signature ability to a relatively minor ability that you use on cooldown during your burst phase just because you can and it does damage. There's quite a bit of salt about that. I personally like the current gameplay and am glad the job is the way it is now, but don't really feel I have a say in it because I don't play it regularly. I will say that I play it a lot more now than I did when it was so complex. It's easier to pick up and play when you want something different from your usual main.

tl;dr: If you want OP, SMN is in its prime. The general consensus is that BLM, SAM, RDM, DNC, DRG, and NIN are all in good places too. I personally think that MCH is too, but that's more split. MNK and BRD are a bit behind the curve right now.

[Wyakin]

All three ranged are under powered. It needs fixing ASAP. End of

[CKNovel]

The whole Ranged role needs a rework of its identity.

During ARR, it was BRD.
During HW, they were Physical Super-Casters with a load of utility + mana battery.
During SB, they were No-cast jobs with Super-Utility (MP and rDPS).

During ShB their utility is less flexible than Casters and limited to a 120s CD mitigation (Reminder Dismantle was 10% for 5s but on 60s)
Damage wise they are near the ground and still easily outshined in a tier where melee uptime is a challenge, for once. Even during Prog, they were at the bottom.

Ranged DPS became the "noob role" where DPS and utility were both gutted in complexity and depth.
It's unhealthy to balance ranged this way next to SMN and its utility, damages and 40% unpunishable instant cast.

As for the topic:

BLM is on the throne for this expansion (At lv80). Great damage, no shame utility wise and an enjoyable rotation.
DRG has been a bit simplified but it might have been required due to the very tight rotation from HW/SB? (Please confirm!)
Ninja, hahaha ration goes brrr. With TA a bit more flexible, I think NIN is quite good. Still needs some QoL, but remains good.
SAM, I'm a bit splitted on it. Compared to SB, it's now a fixed rotation due to Tsubame Gaeshi. But compared to SB SAM, it's better damage wise. Traded a bit of its gameplay for damage.
RDM also in a good place, just lacks complexity gameplay wise.

SMN is the most unhealthy job. It's bad to play due to pets AI, it's incredible damage wise and can easily outshine BLM, has the most insane utility and 40% unpunishable instant cast (60% instant cast overrall). We often agreed that Res should not be taken in account when balancing, but SMN is doing way too much and it's probably why Physick doesn't heal.

MNK is a pile of poop.
It should be taped on each Job designers office "Do not make a job rely on server tick and never forget the clunky Anatman/Flamethrower", next to the "Fix pets" note that should exist since SMN exist.

[EONX_]

DRG has been a bit simplified but it might have been required due to the very tight rotation from HW/SB? (Please confirm!)

I can't speak for HW but SB DRG was extremely similar to SHB DRG, except for a few very small things (all the changes were basically QoL... which in turn were buffs). SB DRG couldn't maintain Blood of the Dragon basically forever like it can now (upon activating Blood of the Dragon, it'd set the gauge to 20/30s instead of 30/30s like it is now), and entering Life of the Dragon would also be dependent on the time left in the gauge (again, not automatically going to 30/30s like it is in SHB). Combo rotation was basically the same, just with one extra button (Heavy Thrust), jumps were slightly more complicated since you needed three eyes to get into LoTD and Spineshatter gave you an eye... and there was also Piercing Debuff (goodbye, don't miss that garbage).

DRG was simplified from SB to SHB but not in a very major way, with almost all of the changes being entirely QoL. Overall I'm very pleased with the changes

[Darkpaw]

To be fair. Blm, sam, drg, nin, even rdm.. are all probably riding high.

It kind of baffles me how much people think mch is in this great spot. It’s certainly in a better spot than it was in stormblood which really wasn’t that hard of a bar to surpass but it has serious design flaws and issues the machinist community want to see addressed.

I wouldn’t include summoners either. Given I’ve known more than a few summoners to move past the job for “weird timings on things” and just general game play clunkiness that makes it less fun to play.

[Jirah]

To be fair. Blm, sam, drg, nin, even rdm.. are all probably riding high.

It kind of baffles me how much people think mch is in this great spot. It’s certainly in a better spot than it was in stormblood which really wasn’t that hard of a bar to surpass but it has serious design flaws and issues the machinist community want to see addressed.

.

Thank you, so far the majority claims MCH is fixed when most of its issues weren't fixed but cut, considering how few MCH mains existed in 4.0 let alone being one of the most unpopular jobs so few maxed them out let alone mastered it. it goes without saying the satisfaction is from 5.0 being functional rather than engaging

[Katie_Kitty]

It's a sad commentary on job balance when a job that has consistently been the worst one in its role and which has been consistently been overshadowed in both DPS and utility by every other job in its role has a whole thread of people declaring it is "in a good spot right now" while remaining completely overshadowed in every way by the other jobs in its role.

I'll be the first to admit that RDM is better arguably than it may have ever been in relation to the other jobs as a whole. But is that really saying anything? Wow, it actually beats Dragoon right now. It's not the worst job in the game. Congratulations to us I guess, it seems that's all it takes to make us happy.

Here are the facts: There's no good reason to bring a RDM over a SMN or a BLM. I mean technically there's no good reason to bring a BLM over a SMN either but at least BLM can compete in DPS and therefore has a spot in a double-caster composition. But Red Mage? It can't compete in DPS against similarly-skilled SMNs and BLMs. Do you want a raise? Well Summoner's got you covered just fine. Why bring RDM?

Don't trick yourself into thinking caster balance is anything but a joke right now. Summoner is king. BLM has a spot in raids right now only because it's good enough to earn a spot in a double-caster comp. That's all fine and good, but it leaves Red Mage without anything to hang its hat on. There is still more work to be done before RDM can really be said to be "in a good spot right now."

Personally, I'd like to see Summoner lose its raise. More damage would also be welcome, but I don't particularly believe that an arms race is necessarily the answer to every question. Allowing RDM to serve as the only DPS with a raise is also an acceptable way to balance the role in my opinion.

[Ayuhra]

I mean for me it's Dancer. Maybe less RNG would be nice but it's perfect for me.

I like mobility, I like support classes, and I can't handle too many buttons.

If not for Dancer I doubt I would have played the game at all past Heavensward (skipped Stormblood) because I would physically be unable to play it.