Quote Originally Posted by Garet View Post
What about Bard and Machinisit? any thoughts?
I think it'll be hard for me to compare fairly. I've not got MCH to 80 and my experience of ShB MCH (which is very different to the older version) is exp grinding. I enjoy it, it flows well and you have a few different focuses to keep it from getting too monotonous, as you have your shooty shooty rotation, your tools, your wildfire rotation and your robot friend. Wildfire has its appeal in trying to squeeze as much as possible in short space of time trying to achieve the most damage out of a wildfire you can. And I know there's a challenge to timing your wildfire to get the most out of them. I have a couple of friends who main MCH who love it and rate it highly.

BRD, I know it gets its complaints and I am one of the people who likes ShB BRD. It's a late bloomer, which I know a few people have found off putting to level. I like that it provides support and that my focus changes based on the song I have up (and I rotate songs, which I felt was a cool idea) because each song has a different mechanics. Some people don't like it because it's too RNG focused and some don't like it because they're in a weird balance where they have to be in the middle of DNC and MCH in terms how its weighed as a support job and its personal DPS contribution, this means some find its support side lackluster and its personal DPS side also lackluster. But me, I like the juggling of actions and the song benefits to you and it ends up feeling like a very busy job, especially when you're dealing with more than one enemy (as your procs are based on DoTs, more DoTs = more procs). But until you're in that level 70 to 80 stretch bard can feel like it doesn't do a lot and is kinda dull and lackluster.

And I'd like to throw in a special mention for DNC. It's my chosen ranged DPS and it was what I mained for all content before I swapped back to healing for my group, it's very fluid and the RNG is inoffensive and you get a decent weave of oGCD's and the steps can be satisfying. There's a lot of movement too as part of your rotation has you move into melee range and En Avant is a life saver...though it can make you too dependent. I learned that when I took over as my group's healer again, which was when we were still learning Ruby EX, I found my timing of dodging certain mechanics was based on using En Avant...and that was my hard way of learning to not become dependent on it. And the Technical and Standard Steps can be fun. And ngl there is a novelty to being able to break 200k damage in a single skill (a crit direct hit Technical Finish). It's also a simple job, yet, despite being simple I've not grown bored of it (like I did RDM). It's because of things like that DNC despite being job with the lowest personal DPS (because of its support DPS) you still feel like you're dealing heavy damage.

And when you get Saber Dance, you have a codependence with your Dance partner as they will build your Esprit gauge. People with high APM will help build that faster. And when you Technical Finish, your whole party can generate it and can sometimes mean you get out some Saber Dances back-to-back.