Easiest class rankings?

[Ralphe2449]

I keep seeing this argument where if a class is easy and simple, it should do the least dps.

So I am curious, how would people rank the dps classes in terms of difficulty?

Melee definitely does not feel harder these days, double true north, huge hitboxes, bosses without positionals at all or few positional requirements, gap closers, I do enjoy reaper but I cant pretend it is some ultra complicated class.

If anything I would imagine black mage is the hardest class to play perfectly, even machinist would be harder than some melee with all the things that need to be tracked and timed appropriately.

So if you were to rank DPS classes in terms of difficulty to play optimally, how would you rank them?

[Valence]

That's a question that will yield you as many different answers as there is people. Not only is it subjective, but the feedback will also be dramatically coloured by a lot factors like, in what actual content the players go through and base their opinion on, what level of play (meaning, skill floor and accessibility, skill ceiling and skill expression/optimization?), etc. Just having a proc system makes it more confusing and less intuitive to order a rotation properly for a new player, but that doesn't mean that the actual rotation at endgame level is harder. That doesn't mean that its execution is harder, because then you run into loopium and burst alignment shenanigans and not all jobs are equal there too. Then there is uptime considerations, and for some jobs like monk (optimal drift, double solar, etc) and black mage (transpose lines), actual advanced optimization is completely out of this world.

And one of the biggest, if not the biggest factor is that people will by definition rate what they main a lot lower than the rest because they have countless hours of practice behind. Some will rate it higher than it actually is out of bad faith as well. It's... well. I hope the hidden message of such a thread is really to show that it's pointless.

You'd really need a lot of finer filters to rate them and put people somewhat on a the same page/context. Well I guess you said optimally, so it's on me to diverge I guess.

[Ralphe2449]

That's a question that will yield you as many different answers as there is people.

Well yeah I am not expecting perfect unbiased answers, but I assume there is some degree of agreement in what the community TM considers easy and what they consider hard in a very general term

[AxelDH]

Physical ranged, SMN and RDM are considered fairly easy to play by most peoples standards. At least at an entry level. If you know your rotation, you can pretty much go into a fight blind and still do acceptable DPS.

Melee DPS are in the middle. Some of them have straight forward rotations, but there is usually a bit more consideration required when it comes to your own positioning, where your allies are, where and when the boss is being moved, etc.

BLM is probably the hardest. It tends to need the most knowledge about each specific encounter in order to do at least decently well.

[Aurora428]

The easiest jobs are the ones that let you do the most amount of damage with the least amount of effort.

Since damage taxing is not at all proportional to effort, that should be considered (your job is less complex, but the price being paid is larger than the value of just screwing up that aspect on another job)

As such I would say SAM as it requires very little skill to outpace yourself on any other jobs deemed "less busy" by SE.

[CelestiCer]

So if you were to rank DPS classes in terms of difficulty to play optimally, how would you rank them?

This will vary and differ from player to player.

- Uptime Difficulty
Melee's and BLM, requiring positionals, preposition, dealing with boss movement. Specially if you consider FFXIV to house a bit more content then just Endwalker's P567 and 8 Savage.

- Optimization Difficulty
DNC often deemed a easy job, suddenly becomes extremely difficult when you try to optimize it.

- Speed to learn said Job
How fast rotation/raidbuff/burst alignment/openers/skill name and symbols/muscle memory/standing still to DPS is learned and clicks with players presents a difficulty.

- CPM/APM (Casts/Actions per minute)
Here you'll find MCH and NIN at the top for example,

- Most buttons to bind or press
BLM I consider the most difficult job, yet it has very little buttons to press or bind in comparison to some other DPS jobs.

- Job with most long Casts
Here you'll find to BLM at the top, but to my surprise for example? SAM being higher then SMN. Many will find this also to be easy while others find slide-casting Iaijutsu to be challenging when it's not 2nd nature.

- Ping
Some jobs actually become more difficult to play properly when a player has bad ping. MCH probably at the top of that.

Most, some or all of the above can affect difficulty of playing a Job optimally. You'll need some amount of statistics from a credible source to back up why x is at x difficulty cause there's more then just " x Job does x number performance there for x easy ". That's a bit of a linear way of looking at it.

• The hardest I believe is BLM.
• Then DNC naturally due to its Kit
• Then MNK and NIN probably at the top
• Then DRG in the middle
• RPR and SAM at the bottom of the Melee's.
• BRD harder to play, though not as hard to optimize as DNC.
• Followed by RDM
• MCH/SMN easiest to optimize.

**Though I could be severely wrong**
and also players opinions can differ because difficulty is subjective. A survey somewhere with a good sample size might help this topic, preferably something recent. Or of course good ole FFlogs as a source.

[FireMage]

The correct answer from easiest to hardest is

SMN, MCH/DNC, BRD/RPR, RDM/SAM, DRG, MNK, NIN/BLM

A / represents a tiering separation due to various factors

[Aikaal]

Difficult is subjective to the player.

Personally;

SMN = RDM = SAM = DRG = RPR
MNK = MCH = BRD = DNC = NIN = BLM

I'm just bad at remembering my proc, that's why all ranged physical are a level higher. Anything that is a script is pretty braindead and that sums up SMN/RDM/SAM/DRG/RPR for me.

In term of jobs having core issue in their kits which affects the difficulty.

SMN simply cannot optimize. It is impossible. You have to resort with cursed knowledge to fit those 6 GCDs on your demi-phases depending on your ping.
MNK requires God ping and you have to resort to cursed knowledge.
MCH induces carpal tunnel for no gain.
BLM makes people adjust for them so it isn't that difficult. The true difficult and villain of BLM is when a group refuses to let the BLM optimize which is why I don't play/prog with BLM.

There isn't truer truth that prog casters are just braindead and RDM just get it awful because of fight design. RDM is actually pretty easy and smooth to play in DSR.

[VictorSpoils]

BLM makes people adjust for them so it isn't that difficult. The true difficult and villain of BLM is when a group refuses to let the BLM optimize which is why I don't play/prog with BLM.

I'll do my best to bring my stack markers to the nearest Ley Lines.

[Aikaal]

I'll do my best to bring my stack markers to the nearest Ley Lines.

Is there any instance this tier that specifically targets a BLM? I'm pretty sure they are mainly healer stacks.

That said, there is that cursed 6 minutes buff window where BLM has to move during burst window. But when I say the party adjust for the Black Mage. This video comes to mind.

It was great when I rep for my friend's group who had a BLM and I was absolutely not moving on SMN. It's great and all to say BLM is difficult because you're a turret caster but the community brings the big brain strats which smooths the brain of your BLM.