DPS: Strengths and weaknesses

[Jaminos]

So I have been pretty much devoted to leveling my Paladin. But now that I am level 40, I am starting to think about which class I want to play next. I have played around with some of the DPS classes, and I almost went Lancer/Dragoon my first time I started playing the game.

While I plan to continue playing my Paladin even after level 50, I am a long term raid tank after all. I do want to have a break from the hard to kill, but hard to kill others, Paladin.

I was curious about DPS classes from players who have been playing the class for a while. (30+)

My questions:

Highest burst damage
I think Black Mage does the highest burst damage in the game, but I am curious who follows in high burst damage. I think Lancer is a fairly good Burst DPS class, but I have never taken the time to actually research until now. PUG/Monk also seems to do high burst DPS, but I hardly see any in the 30+ range, at least on my server.

Highest DoT damage/Debuff
I have looked into the DoM classes least of all, save for Black Mage. But I have seen plenary of DoT/debuff from that side of the game. I know almost nothing about Archer/Bard. I have seen them both do DoT/debuffs and Burst Damage. I'm not sure where they fit into it all.


Thanks guys. I would love your input. I like to make educated decisions about choosing my next class. Additionally, is there a chart from highest possible DPS to lowest for DPS classes? I know each class has a role in the game. But I'm curious who are the damage kings. I know Paladin/GLA ranks near the bottom. Seeing as we are tanks and all.

[Whizawk]

Black Mage is an AOE spammer.
Summoner is a DoT'er.
Dragoon is a burst damage class.
Monk is a constant damage class.

I'm not entirely sure about the Bard.

[Estellios]

Bard is some nice Ranged DPS that relies on DoTs and opportunity triggers to do extra damage. I think it's a lot of fun.

The biggest caveat to it though is that it has the Healer limit break which I think is very useful but some fights you will want either the DPS or Caster limit break for specific reasons.

DPS is actually fairly even among jobs in the same role, they all just have different applications of it.

[Whizawk]

Archer/Bard always seem to be the biggest threat to enemies causing the aggro to be pulled onto them intermittently.
It's strange considering how they're a DPS class and it should be unlikely that they would ever be able to do such a thing.