The Chimera, the Monk and the Guard

[DeadRiser]

nope. monk is pretty straight forward. paladin and dragoon are more complex than monk. paladin is probably the hardest to pick up and play adequately. bard, played perfectly, probably has the highest skill ceiling.

otherwise, in spite of a couple other things i disagree with (ie: bard should never beat blm in damage on any 2min fight, unless your blms are really bad), you make some good points.

If you include the distance from you and the mobs, your health, and having "tank" moves when you can't really tank, I sorta agree with Quatre. No way is Dragoon harder to play with it's almost limitless TP buildup lol. Ifrit was a good example for this, you almost NEVER saw Pugilist in the party because of the damage they would take from being so close.

Bard is just buff when the buff goes down and buff certain people something different. And you have an instant hate remover plus attacking from far.

Paladin I see as hard since half the time they can't keep hate for sh*t with a Warrior in the party.

But all in all, this is all opinion. Some people play the hardest class the best while they play the easiest the worst.

[fusional]

No way is Dragoon harder to play with it's almost limitless TP buildup lol.

the more TP you have to play with the harder it is to play the job (correctly), as it begins to taking much much much more creativity and skill to squeeze out as many WSs as humanly possible and perfect your rotation. played correctly, dragoon should outdps warrior on princess, both single target and aoe. this doesn't happen often, however, because dragoon isn't easy to play correctly.

it's easy to just hit buttons when you have TP, but if that's your argument- every melee in this game is faceroll.

Ifrit was a good example for this, you almost NEVER saw Pugilist in the party because of the damage they would take from being so close.

getting hit by sear more often doesn't make it more difficult to play pgl/mnk. it simply makes it more difficult to dps without taking damage. they aren't the same thing.

Bard is just buff when the buff goes down and buff certain people something different. And you have an instant hate remover plus attacking from far.

no, that isn't all bard is. an excellent bard is quite capable of 115 single target dps on mistress. while that's quite a bit lower than what the blms and mnks are doing, it's also really fucking hard because dpsing isn't all the bard is doing. the distance advantage also doesn't mean the job doesn't have an incredibly high skill ceiling. it just means it's easier to pick up and smash your face on the keyboard a few times to dps without taking too much unnecessary damage.

correlation does not imply causation.

i'll believe you about bard being really easy when it becomes standard for every single bard in the game to easily hit melee with BV+paeon, backline with BV+ballad (or minuet, if you prefer), then proceed to top 110 dps while tossing spot heals at hairy moments.

[Quatre]

the more TP you have to play with the harder it is to play the job (correctly), as it begins to taking much much much more creativity and skill to squeeze out as many WSs as humanly possible and perfect your rotation. played correctly, dragoon should outdps warrior on princess, both single target and aoe. this doesn't happen often, however, because dragoon isn't easy to play correctly.

it's easy to just hit buttons when you have TP, but if that's your argument- every melee in this game is faceroll.



getting hit by sear more often doesn't make it more difficult to play pgl/mnk. it simply makes it more difficult to dps without taking damage. they aren't the same thing.



no, that isn't all bard is. an excellent bard is quite capable of 115 single target dps on mistress. while that's quite a bit lower than what the blms and mnks are doing, it's also really fucking hard because dpsing isn't all the bard is doing. the distance advantage also doesn't mean the job doesn't have an incredibly high skill ceiling. it just means it's easier to pick up and smash your face on the keyboard a few times to dps without taking too much unnecessary damage.

correlation does not imply causation.

i'll believe you about bard being really easy when it becomes standard for every single bard in the game to easily hit melee with BV+paeon, backline with BV+ballad (or minuet, if you prefer), then proceed to top 110 dps while tossing spot heals at hairy moments.

I'll actually cede my point and agree with you, and reword what I was going for.


I think Monk is the most difficult to play without taking party-crippling damage.

BRD, Dragoon, can all be played relatively "Safely" and still do adequate damage. However, like you said it takes going above and beyond to become great at either.


Out of curiousity, Is you bard stacking Dexterity or Piety? I've only capped out at ~ 100 DPS on Miser and ~200 DPS on Princess with a DEX Build, but haven't done any theorycrafting on PIE vs. DEX.


Edit: I forgot to mention my first love, Paladin. I'll agree it has a high skill ceiling for a Paladin, But what encounter does going the extra mile really help on right now? I can only think of Coincounter, where you're better off being GLA. Besides Coincounter where you can get 1shot if you don't have proper gear, all other fights WHMs usually sit on fill MP Nuking cause healing isn't very demanding anyway

[Wevlum]

People keep blaming community but the issue is if you don't speed run it isn't worth doing. Persuading 7 people to let you go as the job you want at the risk of them not getting their shot at the speedrun chest just isn't going to happen and it's not the community's fault.

SE need to step in and do something.

[Ricky]

run through avoiding monster and aoe sums up dungeons quite nicely
although I haven't done many they all look the same until you get to bosses

[DeadRiser]

They have a high skill ceiling when all parties want for content is BLM, BRD, WAR, and WHM. OK

[Jokerz]

I hate to say it but suck it up and let MNK shines where it shines. This is SE were talking about if you cry for them to balance everything we'll get some hellish content like abby and VW in FFXI where you were forced to bring jobs for artificial reasons.

Honestly I prefer if they perhaps created content that a mnk can excel at over a AOE classes/jobs. If they have the highest single target DPS then a battle against a single boss where a MNK can truly shine.

Really, I think everyone should have multiple classes leveled, how fair is it if you only have one job leveled when everyone else in your group have multiple jobs leveled? Some of which they may not like... Hell in FFXI I leveled WHM(didn't particularly like the job) because my ls was running short on WHM's and the same people were playing it hating the job more and more. Just to be as helpful as I can.

I don't really disagree with op's post but, the beast is what it is. It would be nice if SE made reasonable adjustments to the dungeon, but I fear we'll get more of a lame nerf than anything else.

[Hikozaemon]

i play mnk mainly sometimes blm for first sections of mobs in AV . Nothin does Higher dps on bosses/subbosses than mnk period... My linkshell doesnt even have to use blms in CCs weve done it before plenty of times w/ 1 or none. And u dont need all Wars/blms for Ant Queen either 2-3 smart wars/blms/brds can take care of all the adds w/ ease. Infact having a mnk or lnc even dps on Queen while others off the adds usually makes for a faster Queen kill. As a MNK u can even take out the guard in 1 fast combo before it gets a chance to heal the queen then go about bashing the ant to death again. w/ wind fist u never run outa combos to spam nor tp. IMO mnk is by far overpowered.

BLM does overall pisspoor dmg on bosses in comparison to mnk (I'm a damn well equipped good blm and ive compared the 2) the only thing keeping parties from being diversified is 1sided-drony thinking on the communities part.

[Kinseykinz]

While I totally understand wanting to play your preferred class in every situation, it's just not practical to expect this for every event/raid/primal/NM. In order to have dynamic battles, and raids, you will always get a 'preferred setup' for each different situation...the trick is 1.making sure every job and class has it's own content to shine in. and 2. making sure that content is still clearable by mixed 'less-optimal' groups.

This being said: SE designed a game that you can basically swap out classes/jobs on the fly. It's part of the games design. They sort of expect you to have mastered more than one class for 'Hardcore' Elite content. So basically, SE is rewarding people for being able to be flexible and play different roles on the same raid OR know how to stack a party pre-entry to optimize their time. I know it's not what people want to hear, but speed/5 chest runs weren't designed to be easy to get with every setup.

Also, while it's hard to judge the games direction based on only the handful of 'Elite' content we've had atm, as long as SE creates battles that take out Ranged Damage for example, or add in mobs with high magic resistance, Monk and LNC will get some limelight. It's just now, especially for 'PUG' groups, it's easier and less-risky to recruit certain setups.

Basically, if you want to try Monk in a situation where people don't typically use them, run it with friends first. Make sure you can rock it out. If you can rock it out, video it and put it where people can see. So often people don't think for themselves and do things the way others do it because it's proven.

It's PLD than needs serious love...they aren't even invited to tank....and are supposedly by description, the only tanking class in the game. It's like not letting WHM's be the main healers....

[Kiara]

While I totally understand wanting to play your preferred class in every situation, it's just not practical to expect this for every event/raid/primal/NM. In order to have dynamic battles, and raids, you will always get a 'preferred setup' for each different situation...the trick is 1.making sure every job and class has it's own content to shine in. and 2. making sure that content is still clearable by mixed 'less-optimal' groups.

Definitely agree.

While in a perfect world, every single fight would allow every single class / job to be just as efficient, as Kinsey and others have pointed out, it would lead to a very homogenized feeling.

If every single Damage Dealer could do the same amount of damage / be equally desirable in every single Dungeon / NM / Fight, what would be the point of creating different Jobs? It would lead to a very bland feeling IMHO.

In the long run, if Yoshida-san creates *enough* content (soon enough) so that there are Dungeons / NMs that allow each Job to really shine (and allows certain idiosyncratic Actions / Abilities of a Job to be highlighted / standout), *and* they make sure to balance the Dungeons / NMs so that all Jobs can perform reasonably well (i.e., not too much of a disadvantage), then that'd be ideal.

The problem is right now, there is so little Max Level Content (and not enough experiences that really highlight certain Jobs) that Jobs / Classes that are "not as optimal" are really feeling left out.

I wouldn't mind seeing a future situation where, say:

* Dungeon A: Dragoons, White Mage can really shine.
* Dungeon B: Monk, Warrior can really shine.
* Dungeon C: Paladin, Black Mage can really shine.
* Dungeon D: Bard, etc. can really shine.

But in all Dungeons the other Jobs are still effective enough to clear reasonably well (BTW, all current content can be done with all Jobs just fine, but I mean to the point that mainstream / casual players can see the light, and realize that).

Ultimately, though, as Rydin and Madruk have mentioned, SE's mentality on making super low drop rates is pushing those players / LSs / groups that want to get all the drops to have to spam a Dungeon repeatedly, hundreds of times, to get what they want.

So in those situations, many people would take what they felt was "most efficient" and spam that content repeatedly to get what they wanted.

Will there ever be a perfect solution to make sure all Jobs play equally well against every single NM / Dungeon, and can clear content just as fast, regardless of Job? That probably won't happen.

But hopefully there will be enough Max Level Content soon that allows each Job to shine and standout that there won't be any "Job / Class Prejudice" by the community overall (like in the early days of XI, where Dragoon was known as "loldrg", or how currently, Paladins are generally not as sought after (because of limited, current content we have now)).

Perhaps with enough Content where each Job is the star, that players' mindsets might *change* and people might think outside the box (outside cookie cutter setups)?

Where after experiencing, say, 7 different Dungeons / NMs where each Job was really highlighted, players in general might realize that "Hey, I saw [JOB XYZ] kick butt in Dungeon A... I feel confident inviting them for Dungeon B and C." etc.

Part of it might be education and getting more in-depth, meaningful experiences (across the whole player base) of seeing each Job excel, where they might then realize that all Jobs could be very effective in whichever Dungeon they take on.

Another part is as many have said, with the super low Drop Rates and the emphasis on Speed Runs as a condition for certain loot.