Best designed DPS and Worst designed.

[Navnav]

For me the best designed dps would be:

1. NIN
2. RDM
3. DNC
4. SAM

Bear in mind I have never played BLM so can't comment.

The worst would be:

1. MNK
2. SMN(Because of pet design)
3. BRD

What's yours?

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

I see Black Mage, Blue Mage, Dancer, and Samurai as good design, Monk as not bad design, but in a bad current position and in need of improvement, and the rest are worse than Monk(Bard, Machinist, Summoner) and needs even more improvement, or I rate as neutral(Dragoon, Red Mage, Shinobi), better than Monk but have some flaws.

If I had to do a tiered list.. Uh... Blue mage is #1, Dancer at #2, Samurai at #3, Black Mage at #4. These four I put at the top, as their game-play feels the most smooth to me, with less flaws than the rest. Dragoon at #5, Shinobi at #6, Red Mage at #7, Monk at #8. I put these four in the middle, as the first three function well enough, and have only a few flaws, while I put Monk near the bottom because its current state is bad, more than because of bad game-play.
and worse than Monk is just.. not much of a 9-to-11, in my perspective, as all three have game-play design full of flaws, and "worst" would be a opinion with little value.

[Jirah]

Hate these lists as they are too personal and vague. I can’t really put a finger on any job to be “badly designed” but a decent chunk of them haven’t hit their prime like DNC, MCH, MNK and a few tanks and healers so it’s hard to gauge.

Some people may argue on others that contradict them, yadda yadda yadda. All in all it’s just easy to be focused on individuals instead of more godawful “tier lists” or “top 10” due to how vastly they vary

[Anienai]

Best:
Warrior
MNK
WHM

[FoxCh40s]

Black Mage is undisputedly the most well designed job. You can literally count casts and mana, and everything is timed down to the second on that job.

[VentVanitas]

Black Mage is undisputedly the most well designed job. You can literally count casts and mana, and everything is timed down to the second on that job.

This, mostly everything on BLM has a purpose. (unless it's the obsolete spells like Scathe or Blizzard 2) With the other DPS jobs, I can't help but feel like their success was only incidental or circumstantial, considering every other terrible choice when it came to job design in ShB.

[Claire_Pendragon]

I feel DNC is "sort" of badly designed.
BUT
If it were a healer, then I'd say its tool kit is nearly perfect. Things like DNCs dancing actually refunds the time lost dancing. (Replaced with an effect like WHMs Assize, where it deals AoE dmg, and AoE healing, so you neither wasted DPS or Healing while doing it) Dance Partner acts as a draw from healing effects, and probably also increased some DPS as well (obviously lowering the dmg to either the healer, or the partner, to compensate) And honestly, it fits the rumors of its original design being a Healer, and then being changed somewhat last minute to a DPS.

As for best designed? Probably BLM. but only at 80. theres plenty of levels where its THE MOST awkward job of them all.
The tanks in the game have always had serious synergy problems, and it only seems to get worse every expansion. But PLD is the least damaged by it atm.
For the healers, id say its kinda similar to above, but WHMs "GCDs get refunded" and SCHs "I have enough oGCDs to keep DPSIng" are pretty nice design in theory. But need more fine tuning. AST is currently a mess.

most DPS jobs have been adjusted enough to not be a complete mess, but theres a lot of soul removed from them over the years while trying to shave off rough edges. but id say the DPS jobs are the most well designed of the 3 roles. (I have a personal bias for RDM, even though i know BLM is technically better designed)

[Shurrikhan]

All, in order:

1. SAM - It's just straight-up really well crafted, with no particular warts or similar weirdness outside of Kaiten arguably being bloat and Kenki being a bit weird before 64, not that such is a particularly long span for a 50+ job.
2. BLM - Though the pre- vs. post-74 disparity (and the rapidly obsolete skills in general) are an oddly large annoyance, this is still a really great job; if not for its outright effectively removing mechanics through traits instead of polishing their original forms, this would beat out SAM.
3. DRG - Just distract yourself from noticing the skill bloat of 7-button rigid 10-step ST combos and you're golden; DRG has plenty of macrorotational depth in the forms of resource banking and Lance Charge alignments.
4. SMN - It lot of the good stuff seen from DRG, but with more clunkiness; though I've placed it here, I'd still often take it over DRG for the added flexibility and utility of being a caster.
5. BRD - Not much to say here; it has its disappointments and issues, but it's at least a complete and decently deep job, in context.
6. NIN - This one's still fun, but a shadow of what it was in 5.0; if only it could have simply gotten the TCJ change, allowed mudras to queue correctly, and been tuned correctly... without the rotational gutting or reduced fluidity for low-ping players... For those who don't know what they're missing, it might go up a place or three.
7. RDM - A job that's decently "complete" but only from and around mechanics that add more fluff than depth; it can also be a turn-off that its sword is almost solely an added liability rather than an advantage.
8. MNK - 4.3 Monk was god-like, imo. Current MNK is instead somehow less entertaining, even, than ARR Monk. It's basic, plays tight when approaching anything near optimal play, and is still rife with bloat. Also known as "Leaden Fist and remaining RoE/TN charges vs. spin-Tank and/or forced-facing mechanics."
9. DNC / MCH - The first is an ultimately very simple bank-and-burn RNG fest and the second is as shallow as it gets. I suppose they're good if you really like enjoy the life of the casual proc-watcher or ceaselessly cycling 1-2-3 between 20, 40, and 60-second CDs.

[Jirah]

All, in order:

1. SAM - It's just straight-up really well crafted, with no particular warts or similar weirdness outside of Kaiten arguably being bloat and Kenki being a bit weird before 64, not that such is a particularly long span for a 50+ job.
2. BLM - Though the pre- vs. post-74 disparity (and the rapidly obsolete skills in general) are an oddly large annoyance, this is still a really great job; if not for its outright effectively removing mechanics through traits instead of polishing their original forms, this would beat out SAM.
3. DRG - Just distract yourself from noticing the skill bloat of 7-button rigid 10-step ST combos and you're golden; DRG has plenty of macrorotational depth in the forms of resource banking and Lance Charge alignments.
4. SMN - It lot of the good stuff seen from DRG, but with more clunkiness; though I've placed it here, I'd still often take it over DRG for the added flexibility and utility of being a caster.
5. BRD - Not much to say here; it has its disappointments and issues, but it's at least a complete and decently deep job, in context.
6. NIN - This one's still fun, but a shadow of what it was in 5.0; if only it could have simply gotten the TCJ change, allowed mudras to queue correctly, and been tuned correctly... without the rotational gutting or reduced fluidity for low-ping players... For those who don't know what they're missing, it might go up a place or three.
7. RDM - A job that's decently "complete" but only from and around mechanics that add more fluff than depth; it can also be a turn-off that its sword is almost solely an added liability rather than an advantage.
8. MNK - 4.3 Monk was god-like, imo. Current MNK is instead somehow less entertaining, even, than ARR Monk. It's basic, plays tight when approaching anything near optimal play, and is still rife with bloat. Also known as "Leaden Fist and remaining RoE/TN charges vs. spin-Tank and/or forced-facing mechanics."
9. DNC / MCH - The first is an ultimately very simple bank-and-burn RNG fest and the second is as shallow as it gets. I suppose they're good if you really like enjoy the life of the casual proc-watcher or ceaselessly cycling 1-2-3 between 20, 40, and 60-second CDs.

I know I said I don’t care for personal opinions but this hits the nail in the head

[Recon1o6]

1. Dnc: a nice resource management job in which we are sorely lacking nowadays with no drift, very little redundant or useless buttons and a bit of support chuced in for good measure. Just needs a buff for duties it cant partner with someone like duels or solo fights and something to get feathers with at the opener.
2. blm: though I dislike its playstyle, I can't argue with how smoothly its designed. No doubt because its yoshida's main. It does have a couple of redundancies though and its levelling process is like my accountancy course- incoherent and makes no sense at times but it works. All jobs are like this to some degress except dancer but blm has one of the more absurd ones. At least it doesn't have tons of empty levels with no gain.
3. Drg: it functions smoothly with an infinite combo and a suite of buffs. It came out of the shb destruction relatively unscathed and it doesn't really have much trouble at any level after it gets an aoe.
4. Sam: similar to dragoon its got a well rounded rotation and a few tools. Its kenki pre 64 and its minor drift are the only weird parts of the kit plus whatever third eye does when its drunk.
5. rdm: its extremely smooth at first glance, but its lacking in some areas like its sword and mp recovery and its mana mechanic stands out by punishing the player where every other job does not. It also lacks impact in its audio and visual effects. Its very middle of the road...fitting I suppose
6. Smn: 3 jobs as 1 job. Pet class where yoshida's been trying to eliminate pets, a dot class when that's scholars thing and a build/spender that works really well. Its very clunky however but its levelling process is one of the few that feels good AS its levelling.
7. Nin: fun but only for so long and its got bugger all to do outside of TA windows which lack impact now. Mudra's still buggy.
8. Monk: Its 2.0 monk again! but with a little bit of qol. Still bloated with redundant buttons, a gauge thats inaccurate (there's 7 chakra of umbral and 7 of astral) and a weird levelling kit. But at least it got better in 5.4
9. Brd: it really needs help. Songs unaffecting self and too weak to notice without 3rd party tools, its other mechanics seem to be more hindering than helpful
10 mch: turning this into a warrior clone was a very dumb move, its gauges and levelling suck and its got useless buttons.