Jobs for players with bad latency and lag?

[Travel]

So, I've been asking around the different boards for a while, getting an idea of the various jobs to play and such - thanks to everyone for helping me out, btw, it means quite a bit more than you think. After getting some recommendations and ideas over on the DPS boards, I had the idea to make a thread here.

In this case, I'm making a board concerning the issues with latency; more specifically, which jobs can be used well when latency and lag become an issue. Here's the jobs that I main, currently, as well as some others that I recommend:

Tank:

- Warrior: Easily the simplest of tanks in FFXIV currently, and a great choice for meat-shielding when the lag spikes start.

- Paladin: Another good choice for tanking; not the simplest of rotations, but still easy-to-learn-and-use, and a blast to play.

Melee DPS:

- Dragoon: Currently, DRG has a fairly simplistic rotation, that nonetheless ends up doing rather solid amounts of damage regardless of the situation; granted, this may or may not get changed with the rumored 7.0 rework, so keep that in mind.

- Samurai: Certainly, has some button bloat, but the rotation itself is fairly simplistic to learn, and it has a fairly high amount of DPS potential attached to it.

- Reaper(?): Not quite too sure how this performs, admittedly; it's actually my current main Melee, and I'm doing fairly well in dungeons and trials, though I'm still learning the ins-and-outs of the job.

Ranged DPS:

- Dancer: One of the simplest jobs, and far, far more fun than it has the right to be - shoutout to Mithron for the recommendation. Great mobility and great support, though the personal damage is a bit low compared to other jobs, so solo players need to keep that in mid.

Magic DPS:

- Red Mage: Probably my favorite DPS job; good damage, extremely versatile, and it has fantastic fashion as a bonus. Admittedly, I'm still not quite at max level with it as of yet, nor have I been able to get the complete rotation figured out, so take what I've said with a grain of salt. Thanks to the DPS boards for the recommendation; would have slept on it otherwise.

- Summoner: The DPS job I'm currently leveling, so I can't quite vouch for it personally; however, there have been plenty of other posters nothing the current ease and reliability of the job - it's literally the most braindead easy job in the game, from the videos and such that I've watched - so it's getting put here.

Healer:

- I don't have all that much experience with healers as of yet - still in the middle of leveling with what little time I have - so I'm afraid I need to leave this spot blank for now.

So, with all of that posted; what do you guys recommend for player with poor latency and bad lag? Any recommendations or suggestions?

[BaconBits]

Machinist

[AmpelioB]

i'd take reaper out since I heard there are some freaked up things on its rotation and for healer, white mage? tbh i think any healer will do with the exception of astrologian

[Midareyukki]

i'd take reaper out since I heard there are some freaked up things on its rotation and for healer, white mage? tbh i think any healer will do with the exception of astrologian

Yeah, it's not even just the rotation. The moment you get into Enshroud, you have to weave a skill between each GCD. And the GCD recast timer is reduced to 1.5s. If you lag or have high ping, you're definitely screwed at that stage.

[Travel]

You seem to be going with the idea that simple = better for high ping. I don't agree with that. What is better for high ping is a job that does not involve a lot of weaving.

I would say, yes, Warrior and Paladin are the GCD tanks that don't have regular weaving like Gunbreaker and Dark Knight and that makes them better for high pings.

Dragoon becomes weave-heavy at 90 and so does Samurai, so I would find Monk and Reaper to be lighter with this.

Dancer has to weave a lot like everything in its role, but it is simpler than tracking everything a Bard does or dealing with the losses you get on Machinist at high latency.

Going to agree about Summoner and Red Mage because with a lot of lag you are probably going to mess up all of your careful positioning and Aetherial Manipulations on a Black Mage.

Despite my suggestions, I am able to play at a very high ping with any job. I just focus on single weaving if it becomes a problem to double weave. It's not as optimal sometimes, but other than a few isolated situations such as the first few weeks of savage or a new ultimate, you don't really need to be that perfect if you optimize everything else.

Not necessarily, I'm just going on what I've found from both personal experience - which isn't much so far right now, as I'm still learning everything - and from what other people have told me previously about the various jobs. I'll be the first to admit; I don't know everything about the jobs even in the best of conditions, to say nothing of dealing with them at endgame with high lag and such, so I fully welcome anyone with more experience to post their thoughts.

i'd take reaper out since I heard there are some freaked up things on its rotation and for healer, white mage? tbh i think any healer will do with the exception of astrologian

Yeah, I haven't really ran to much with Reaper on the higher level; I've got it at 90 currently, but I haven't done much of the really difficult content with it yet, so I'm not the most reliable source of experience, I'll be the first to admit.

[Jeeqbit]

You seem to be going with the idea that simple = better for high ping. I don't agree with that. What is better for high ping is a job that does not involve a lot of weaving.

I would say, yes, Warrior and Paladin are the GCD tanks that don't have regular weaving like Gunbreaker and Dark Knight and that makes them better for high pings.

Dragoon becomes weave-heavy at 90 and so does Samurai, so I would find Monk and Reaper to be lighter with this.

Dancer has to weave a lot like everything in its role, but it is simpler than tracking everything a Bard does or dealing with the losses you get on Machinist at high latency.

Going to agree about Summoner and Red Mage because with a lot of lag you are probably going to mess up all of your careful positioning and Aetherial Manipulations on a Black Mage.

Despite my suggestions, I am able to play at a very high ping with any job. I just focus on single weaving if it becomes a problem to double weave. It's not as optimal sometimes, but other than a few isolated situations such as the first few weeks of savage or a new ultimate, you don't really need to be that perfect if you optimize everything else.

[UkcsAlias]

While a lagging healer is definitely not what you want, shields are a bit more reliable as they do act as overheal allowing you to prepare for incoming damage a bit better. And i think sholar is on that slightly better than sage. Although both should work fine enough.

Earlier casting on normal healers can result in a wasted heal a lot faster.

[Allegor]

While a lagging healer is definitely not what you want, shields are a bit more reliable as they do act as overheal allowing you to prepare for incoming damage a bit better. And i think sholar is on that slightly better than sage. Although both should work fine enough.

Earlier casting on normal healers can result in a wasted heal a lot faster.

I'd say SCH is actually the worst healer to play with high latency since unlike Sage (which isn't much better, mind you) you have to cast your shields, which may get a bit wasted if cast too early, but entirely wasted if cast too late, and that's not even mentioning all the ogcd weaving that will clip.

WHM is the best choice hands down because the job is not only bareboned with nearly no ogcd to begin with, it also has strong instant heals, so it's really forgiving for a late reaction.

[UkcsAlias]

and that's not even mentioning all the ogcd weaving that will clip.

If you have lag (as in packet loss style) and latency, weaving will become very unreliable as it can only rely on it having queued. And as your timing will be off regardless, you want a healer that can apply the effect at both moments. A late shield is not wasted because the shield is still there! That shield acts the same as healing on that. Note that barely any attack will instantly take the HP away, and if it does, an early shield cast would at least have done something, with WHM the player is already dead before you know.

WHM at least has more regens which on that can be better as it grants more healing over time. And if nothing more is demanded, it obviously will work. But in that case, nearly all healers are going to do fine anyway. And below a certain level SCH does lack quite a lot of abilities that benefit when lagging (i would say below lvl 60 sch will indeed have some issues in such way it becomes a pain to handle).

Dont expect lagging players to follow perfect rotations, its not going to happen. So you want to ensure as much as possible is going to work succesfully. Weaving can be queued on that, which does benefit SCH as it does allow quite a bit of these. But reacting quickly isnt going to be possible. SCH can trigger a lot of these indirect effects that are timed perfectly on the server side, WHM has less of those. WHM only has higher raw output numbers on the healing.

You might think DPS matters here, but it doesnt. You will waste a lot of cycles, so optimizing dps is a 'best effort' case and losing 20% here wont matter in any of the dungeons. Only in things like savages you will realy need to optimize this, and thats something that if you are lagging is something i would highly discourage anyway.

But in the end, it depends on how severe the lagging is. If the game just goes into low fps or has a big (but reliable) latency, then most healers will work anyway as you can still follow the flow well. But the moment this isnt reliable, you are often down to guessing. And shields are more forgiving here. WHM only has sustained healing over time which helps a lot in most cases, but its those burst waves that are truly dangerous, and this is where WHM cant realy do a lot against.

[Limecat]

I've been stuck on trash rural satellite for several years now. MCH has been by far the easiest to adapt to high ping, since you're able to keep moving which is important when you need to dodge things a solid second or two before they happen.