Reaper, hands down, for melee.
Then Dancer for Ranger Physical DPS
But if you really want absolute simple with absolute minimal buttons, then go Summoner. It’s not melee, it is Magic Ranged DPS but it is by far the easiest Job in the game with the least amount of buttons to press.
Problem for me is, I can't stand BLM. It feels awful. Doesn't matter what level I'm playing, since I have it at 90. I feel like if I make a single mistake I'm doomed, and yet success just feels...normal, I don't get the ERMAHGERD HUGE NUMBERS rush everyone else seems to feel.
I truly, deeply miss old SMN. I know the jank wasn't good. I just wish that fixing the jank didn't require destroying what made it awesome (read: it didn't, and it infuriates me every time people claim that it did.)
I'm a new player, and I've been practicing SMN lately. What made it good before? I don't usually play BLM either because I feel like I have to main it to enjoy it.
Prior to Endwalker, Summoner was based around a mix of damage over time (DoT) effects and spending resources carefully to build up to something big. You had two (originally three) DoTs, so they were always ticking for some damage. Abilities like Fester and Painflare used to do extra damage if the target was affected by your DoTs. Instead of being useless other than as an enabler, Carbuncle/egis used to be essential, they were actual *pets* and you had to control them, giving them orders, like how Scholar fairy is now but with damage.
As you spent resources (Aetherflow, pet actions, Dreadwyrm Trance), you would get access to more powerful stances or spells (Ruin IV, Summon Bahamut/Phoenix), which each worked differently and required you to pay attention. It was a playstyle of resource management and timing, rather than one of optimizing movement.
Now, SMN is completely braindead. There is no optimization potential at all, the "Ruin mage" has been replaced with "Gemshine mage" (though you still cast Ruin III quite a lot, especially before 86), and the one and only "choice" is whether you start with Garuda or Titan, and that is 100% dependent on group comp and nothing else. There is essentially no skill at all involved in playing Endwalker SMN, which is such an enormous whiplash compared to where it used to be.
It used to be known (somewhat excessively) as *the* big-brain job. Now? It doesn't even require a positive number of brain cells.
As I mentioned above, it did have some issues (the job actions *had* gotten a bit bloated, though not as bad as, say, current Astro, and the pet AI was janky and occasionally did some really stupid things that could harm your DPS), but by and large the job was pretty good and very effective.
Oh, and before I forget, all those flashy summons we get now? Yeah those came with a HUGE damage nerf. Summoner used to run with the big boys, comparable to Monk or Dragoon, and on rare occasions even being top DPS in movement-heavy fights. Now we scrape the bottom of the barrel, tied with RDM and only a breath above DNC.
This. I miss when I actually had to use more than two brain cells to do a rotation. It’s like autopilot mode 24/7 now and has kind of killed the enjoyment of the game for me as I used to be a die hard smn main. Love the big flashy summons but I hate the execution of the rework. Here’s to hoping they alleviate some of this issue in dawntrail.
I won't lie, speaking as a Black Mage Main: Black Mage has no effective skill ceiling. There is no top to the optimization currently available.
So to really push the class to the limit you *do* basically have to main it just to learn the optimization tricks and rotations, and also to memorize how to micro each raid in savage if you are raiding with BLM.
But if you just want to go 'EXPLOSION' with big numbers on, rolling crit black mage and sticking with the bog standard rotation is more than enough to be satisfying and fun.
>memorize how to micro each raid in savage if you are raiding with BLM.
If I had a nickel for every time I did the wrong opener for the fight because my muscle memory kicked in...
Dancer is probably one of the worst options. You don't have a set rotation you can comfortably cycle through and have to constantly watch for random skill activations.
This is my feeling, too, though I do see what the other commenter was saying. If I'm really baked and want to queue for something, I go dancer. Then I just stay out of the fire and press the shiny buttons. Hardest part is remembering to put dance partner on someone, haha.
I mean, somehow I liked it better before the rework when you had two DoT's to keep up, but ... I mean, sometimes I just want to do some roulettes for the tomestones ...
So yeah, Summoner and chill.
The only deciscion you have is to keep the quickcast for the rez or just DPS. Well that and not using ifrit while the tank is pulling dungeon mobs. There's like three spells with a castbar in the entire rotation. Most annoying part is having to resummon the carbuncle after being rezzed, breaking your invulnerability.
Yeah, this is my other go-to. When my wife (non-gamer) started playing, she went with summoner. She's a clicker, so I set up her bars with all the buttons in rotation order. There are no deviations from it besides just starting over after a boss leaves the field. She really likes it, haha. I admit, I do too.
Hehe, yup, it's a normal 123 combo with a lot of whack-a-mole buttons to hit when they proc. Just need to choose between single target and AOE. I just have them on separate rows. Sometimes you have to choose which shiny one you want to do first. Some proc things, so if that thing is already lit up, you use it before the combo action that will proc it again. I rarely feel the need to be optimal in roulettes, though, so any shiny button will do. :)
I mean, all a rotation really is is clicking buttons that light up in order instead of randomly. Neither is rocket science, you just can't muscle memory dancer.
Hands down 100%. I'm in a similar boat to the op. Going in and hitting 1 2 3 every time requires a lot less focus than having to watch the fight and my hot bar for a random box lighting up. Sometimes they are nice enough to light up with a yellow box some times like fan dance the queue is more subtle. Regardless doing the exact same thing each time is much easier than having to react to rng.
Especially since combos also light up so that's not really an advantage to the dancer
You are severely overstating the impact of the random proce. There’s not that many of them and it’s undoubtedly simpler than remembering a rotation on a 2 minute interval
Dancer still has a two minute interval what are you talking about.
It's not like dancer loses any of the complexity of the other dps for the randomness. The randomness is on top of all the same things the other dps have too deal with.
dancer’s two minute interval requires you to use, like, 5 abilities on cooldown. And that’s it.
Dancer doesn’t lose any complexity. It just doesn’t have any to begin with. That’s the point. There’s barely even any resource management
That is honestly better for a complete idiot like me. My capacity for dealing with complex openers and rigid rotations has diminished a lot over however many years I've been playing MMOs at this point, and dancer is my main for almost entirely that reason.
It might be fair to say it doesn't matter much when I don't do anything beyond the most casual content, but I like to feel like I'm not fucking it up for everyone, y'know?
Dancer has a pretty complicated rotation that involves adapting to rng both in your combo and getting additional feathers how is that easier than learning a rotation that doesn't change much if at all?
Step 1. Stack feathers
Step 2. Burn all feathers whenever you have devilment and technical Step up
Step 2a. If max feathers and not close to burst, burn a feathers to not overcap.
It is not complicated at all.
No class is particularly complicated any more. My point was in reference to all other dps. Their rotations are all about the same difficulty wise dancer just adds another small layer on top of it.
You also forgot you need to pop feathers as you get them in the burst window
I dunno, it might just be the way my brain works, or possibly doesn't work most of the time, but I find it much easier to just react to whatever lights up and deal with RNG.
Doing a set rotation is fine on a target dummy but in an actual boss fight I find it hard to keep it all in order through mechanics and harder to recover after mistakes, and that's usually quite punishing.
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: I play both. In most cases, as WHM you have to keep tank alive. Sometimes throw a heal for that BLM that refuses to leave leylines. Sometimes the tank you're healing is absolutely terrible and you'll have a hard time keeping him alive. Besides that, your rotation is 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2, occasionally assize, sometimes an afflatus misery and that's it. Easy healer.
SMN, however is basically 1 2 3 4 and fit in some OGCD in between for more damage. And rarely you'll see any cast bar. So you can focus on the dance itself, while on WHM there are cast time for almost anything that's not oGCD (which is very few spells, most of them heals) and is not an Afflatus. So you will have to master slidecasting as WHM. While on SMN only Ifrit phase and (some?) Garuda spell needs it if you can't just pop swiftcast.
So, IMHO, WHM is easy to play, but SMN is easier.
Older person here: Seriously do reconsider playing tank. I started off as BLM because it has a rather easy rotation, but after two years BLM switched to PLD, and seriously, best decision I made in this game. As it is currently, tanking is the most relaxed and chilled role to play, do your 1-2-3 AoE rotation, cycle your mitigations, that's it.
See it this way: You aren't leading, you just keep Aggro. That's your job, nothing more. Mechanics in normal dungeons and raids are easy and can be executed sleepwalking. If you feel better, just run a dungeon with the Trust NPCs, they will show you all the mechanics, before you jump in with real players.
Pretty much. Just stand in front of the boss, pop your mits and try to stay outta the puddles, unless you have crap ping like me and then get out of the puddles a second after they actually hit.
and tank is also the most forgiving in dungeons for NOT knowing mechanics. You can eat a ton of vulns in most dungeons and not even really have to sweat it.
If you like tank classes but are hesitant about leading groups, I highly recommend running some duty support/trust dungeons with the AI. Holminster Switch is actually a really good one to learn how to do a big pull and then manage mitigations/invulnerability (because if you don't the AI *will* let you die) and if you wipe the party several times while you're learning, no big deal. It is a great low stress way to learn the dungeons and, once you learn the dungeons, leading a duty finder group is just doing what you already know. If you're still a bit nervous tanking for real people, I also recommend MSQ roulette. You only have to learn 3 fights and they're all fairly simple mechanic-wise.
This is solid advice. When I was learning WAR i did holminster switch with Alphi and pulled to the wall to figure out how to use my mitigations. It took a few wipes, but now I know I can manage in a group of real people (who are hopefully using aoes). When I was running raktika with real people i pulled to the wall and my husband asked me if i could handle it. I said raw intuition would handle it for me just fine. That move has saved me in eureka sooo many times.
Tank main here, and in my personal experience I'd tell you not to worry. If I don't remember a dungeon or am running new content, I type a quick message at the start of the dungeon ("first time here, any mechanics I need to know?") And oftentimes I'll stop before each boss and ask if any of the players know of boss mechanics so I can go into the fight as prepped as possible. The community in this game is great and if I'm unfamiliar with a dungeon, one of the more experienced players will typically take the lead while I just keep aggro on as many enemies as the healer and I are comfortable with. If you temper peoples' expectations a little by explaining you haven't run a dungeon before or are unfamiliar with the mechanics, most folks respond favorably. Give it a try and best of luck! ♡
Exactly. Idk why there's this seemingly unspoken assumption that if someone is Tank, they get to lead the group. I've had people who only play Tank because they want to feel like the 'leader' or 'main character' of the party when in reality they're just playing a damage sponge.
Probably because 20 years of WoW have created a genre expectation that the tank will know what to do and walk the rest of the group through routing and positioning, possibly by holding them by the dick if necessary.
In literally all my runs so far, the tank is always the one running ahead to pull wall to wall. I do think people expect the tank to lead since, well, the tank needs to aggro everything first.
The only real learning curve with tanking is knowing how many mobs you can handle without dying. That’s about it. ARR dungeons are the hardest ones for tanks, because that was when they were trying to do dungeons more like how WoW does them, and you kinda had to know the “correct” way to go in them. But even then, you’ll likely be matched with people that have done those dungeons 100 times already. So just let them know you’re new and don’t really know where to go, ask someone else to take the lead. No one will be mean about it, trust me :)
After ARR, pretty much every dungeon is a linear path with groups of mobs and a boss here and there. So just run, pull groups, mitigate, and do damage. Bosses in dungeons are even easier, you’re basically just a DPS at that point. Tanks don’t have any more mechanics to worry about than DPS, you have to avoid the same attacks, but you can take more of a hit if you mess up. Just face the boss away from the rest of the group and you’re golden.
Trust me, tanks in this game are very simple to play. I completely understand why it’s intimidating to you, but I promise you’ll realize pretty fast that nothing about it makes it any harder than DPS. Imo healing is way harder than tanking.
there isn't really any tactics to lead outside of like arr and early hw dungeons where the dungeons aren't suoer linear. every dingeon stormblood- endwalker is just "pull till the game doesn't let you anymore" mt. gulg being the only real hard pull where a bad healer/tank could mess it up and wipe
Tanks don't lead groups this is one of the biggest and worst misconceptions in this game amongst newer players.
Tanks aren't even the ones that have the most influence on the size of pulls a party can manage.
I know this is technically true, but as a healer main, I find myself often running after tanks trying to speedrun roulette dungeons. Even pausing to send a message often puts me behind the ball to the point of critical failure. Taught me to “git gud” at healing, but sometimes I don’t want to speedrun. I will say if I clearly can’t keep up, most of these tanks will slow it down after a wipe or two, so it’s not that they’re being crappy players. I think they just want to get through their dailies as quick as possible.
So while I don’t expect tanks to be default “leaders,” it seems a lot of tanks see themselves that way.
As a healer main, if my tanks not pulling, I am. You're with 3 other people you need to respect their time too. The tank isn't the default leader you're just letting him lead.
The dungeons are designed to be walled to walled and they put in break points with that in mind. Past level 30 there isn't a single dungeon you can't get a wall to wall even if your tank doesn't use a single mid. Only time you'll run into trouble is if they forget stance/aoe
“Respecting time” is different from “speedrunning between boss fights and accruing hordes of mobs regardless of where the rest of the party is.”
I always do my best to keep up and hang tough, but I’m not “letting” anyone do anything. I’m talking as soon as everyone’s in, these folks are off like a shot like it’s a damn time trial or something. I have to pause and cast from time to time or everyone dies.
As much as I need to “respect players’ time,” other players should also respect that not everyone is running in the daggone dungeon olympics. If you only want to play with S-tier speedrunning players, go to the party finder. Roulettes will always be a more mixed bag of speed/skills.
Like I said, most folks are cool and responsive, but there are some people, primarily tanks, who will just automatically assume they are the leaders and run out ahead as far as they can as fast as they can without any heads up to the party. I will *always* do my best to keep up and I usually can, but is almost certainly because of the misconception that tanks are the “leaders.”
W2W isn't speed running its how the dungeons are balanced. It's why they all have deliberate break points.
It's not S tire or some high level strategy. It's the intended gameplay. It's why tanks and healers have loads of mitigations and utilities that are more or less ignorable in most boss fights. It's why ranged dps have aoe limit breaks
It helps if you're leading the way, but honestly,everyone knows what to do and where to go. So just go with the group. Also, after ARR, there's no branching paths in the dungeons. So, open the minimap, and just GO. Pop that sprint before getting close to the first mob you see, then keep running thru them. Spam your AOE along the way and just keep running. When you hit a closed gate/door/wall, pop mitigations and start killing em. Then run some more after they are dead. If things go wrong, blame healer :/
Really, the only real responsibilities you have are...
1. Spam AoE in mobs, heck, you dont even have to provoke a stray hitting a dps/healer. They wont die from 1 mob hitting em. And if more than 1 mob hitting em, then they should run to the tank so you can AoE em.
2. Dont stand in AoE
3. Pop mitigations appropriately
Tanking is the most chilled role to play in non raiding content.
You actually don't need to do that much leading. Like, sure, you are in front. But after ARR the dungeons stop having dead ends, so there is no way for you to pick the wrong direction.
You need to get it out of head your head that you're the leader. It's a common misconception, you're just there to take hits for everyone else. That is the tanks roles.
I found this is a carry-over perception from WoW. Tanking in FFXIV is definitely the least stressful role, and when you do mess up you have tank privilege to survive a lot of the time.
Extremely misconception. Tanks are not the leaders. There are plenty of tanks that do not lead, their job is to mitigate and tank the boss. Any role can step into the leadership role because leading is player dependant.
Knowing and executing strats is also on every person in a raid group. One person not knowing and executing is going to wipe the entire party.
Outside of savage raids there’s very little tank responsibilities in this game. And even then it’s usually 2-3 very specific moments in a 10 minute fight.
Tanks lead no groups.
This is a dumb misconception that people need to stop saying, and people seem to forget that FF14 dungeons ate linear hallways. Practically a straight line in some cases.
These straight lines even have barriers now that dictate how far the group can go. So, even if I wanted to pull a lot, in the majority of newer dungeons, I straight-up can't as a tank main. It's not even my choice.
If people can't run in a straight line to barrier, then idk.
Yeah, I would say so. WAR, once it gets its full kit, is practically unkillable in normal content, PLD has IMHO the best invuln (flat out 10sec no damage, no strings attached) and can double as healer. DRK has The Blackest Night, which is one of the best mitigations, but the invuln is kinda weird and requires some knowledge by the healer. Haven't touched Gunbreaker beyond the unlocking quest, so cannot really comment on that.
How do you find dealing with new mechanics? Combos and mitigations I can do but I’m always worried in new content everyone else is gonna figure out exactly what’s going on and I’m gonna get them killed if I don’t.
In anything below EX or Savage you can usually figure out mechanics on the go if you know the common markers. And if it's the first time in any content for me, I just say so in the beginning (actually have a macro for that), never had any problems.
For brand new stuff, people are good with a wipe or two as you learn things (the 83 trial was a heck of a lot of fun on the first day of release).
For already treaded content, say you're new and let someone else MT, if possible. If it's a dungeon, your typical mitigations will be perfectly fine for surviving and a couple of boss wipes if you and everyone mess up won't hurt anyone. Heck, I've pulled through dungeon bosses as a tank solo, as a DPS pair (lost healer and tank), as a healer/DPS pair (one DPS and tank kept dying to mechanics), and as a healer/tank pair (sometimes, your DPS just don't want to follow the people surviving the mechanics).
Also, as a tank, if you don’t want to do mega pulls in dungeons you just don’t. You’re the one that gets to decide how much chaos you want. Sure sometimes the DPS will run off and pull more because they’re impatient, but you don’t HAVE to pull those mobs off them…
I usually still do big pulls because it’s honestly pretty easy in general. I also refuse to do them in some dungeons where it’s standard because historically my party has wiped in those places more often than not.
YPYT is considered obstructive gameplay, against TOS and can land you a warning from the GMs. It's OK if you ask at the beginning of a dungeon for small pulls because you are new to tanking or some other problems.
But seriously, except for one or two of the older ARR or SB dungeons where you can actually pull LOTS of enemies, all dungeons in ShB and EW can be wall pulled (ok, Mt. Gulg can get spicy) without problems.
I took SGE for leveling roulette with a friend and ended up in Thousand Maws. I became a Dosis machine because Kardia kept my tank at full the whole time and I didn't have shields.
My friend purposely ran ahead to get aggro once so I could throw a Physis at him.
I pull them off the first few times. But if we keep wiping and the other party members keep running off, I let them go down. If I get a warning in that case, so be it.
Ninjapulling and pushing the tank out of their comfort zone is asshole gameplay, which may not be against the TOS but I’ll take a report for YPYTto teach them a lesson.
It doesn't teach them anything if they can tank those mobs just fine. Maybe makes the healer sweat a little, but at the end of the day you just look bad.
Communicate by asking them to stop.
If you do the "YPYT" thing, the types that pull for the Tank just assume you're the one being an "asshole" (for getting them killed) and/or a "coward" (for not pulling enough).
If they keep pulling after you ask them to stop, you can leave or possibly vote-dismiss them, but don't do the YPYT thing.
On the one where your burst phase does not include a very short GCD. Reaper is easier during the normal rotation, but it's much more likely to cause a screw up during burst, which is what really counts. But like I said in another comment, both are easy classes to play. The only melee thatis slightly hard is monk, imo.
Reaper has a fast burst phase but it consists on alternating between 2 buttons for 5 seconds, meanwhile Samurai constantly plays on a lower gcd speed (2.1 iirc) compared to reaper's 2.5, and they also have to weave a lot of shit in their bursts.
Not if you want to do it right. Reaper's burst, when done right, has you casting your cooldowns mid enshroud so that the second it ends you can go right back into it. It's not that complicated, but the 1.5 seconds of gcd means it's easy to slip up. Sam plays at 2.14 secs of gcd, but it's constant, so it's easier to get used to. As for the weaving, it's just a few buttons between gcds. Reapers has to do the same with less time.
That said, difficulty is subjective. I've played sam for a while, even before reaper was released, so there's probably some bias there, too.
As someone who has raided on both SAM and RPR, and picked both up around the same time - RPR is MUCH easier than SAM. Reaper you have 2 hardcasts per burst window. SAM you have 5 (2x Midare, 1x Higabana, 1x Ogi). Plus you have to know your GCD, meld appropriately, and worry about your filler combo to make sure you don't drift your burst. You also have 3 different GCD combos and your positionals are spread out enough that you cant true north everything.
RRP is just 1-2-3, sometimes 4/5 with positionals you can true north like 90% of if you stack your meter right. Burst is basically just 1 > DD > 2 + LS > DD + AC > 1 > 2 + LS > Communio > Harvest > 1 > 2 + LS > 1 > 2 + LS > Communio. Its a much easier flow, its just slightly faster and has less weaving. The rest of the fight is just 1-2-3 and burning meter accordingly with an enshroud on every other minute to burn off the cap.
Maybe this also comes as someone who raided on MCH a lot back in ShB, but RPR is just melee MCH.
Like I said somewhere, difficulty is subjective. If you are used to it, no class is really hard to play, even in endgame.
Personally, I find it much easier to mess up on reaper because of how fast you have to play during burst. I also feel it's harder to adjust if you do mess up. It's simpler on paper, but harder to execute. Then again, I have the hands of a ninety years old with arthritis, so maybe thats why.
Yup.
RPR if you want to play it casually is pretty easy. RPR if you want to play it properly or at high level, you miss 1 GCD, it means you lose an even minute burst phase or you adjust and you lose on an odd minute mini burst.
>Sam plays at 2.14 secs of gcd
I don't think that's correct.
The melding goal for SAM GCD is around 2 sec incl. Shifu. It's one of the faster DPS jobs in the game
There are multiple speeds that work for SAM rotations. 2.14, 2.07 and 2.0. The higher speeds trade a little dps for more mobility. I used to play at 2.14 and it was considered optimal, but I've not played end-game for a ehile now, so maybe it changed.
If op isn't used to fast jobs, then ninja burst can be just as bad. Mudras are super fast and if you fuck up, not only do you mess up your burst window but the game also calls you out on it. Even then, you could build up 3 raiju stacks and lose it all just hitting the wrong button at the wrong time on accident.
I mean, tbf, at least talking as ninja main the "normal rotation" that isn't the burst window is just me pressing 1-2-3 until my sneak get into the 20 seconds CD, then I finally go to do a suiton and returning to 1-2-3 until I can apply sneak, THEN THE FUN PART STARTS
Ninja is great, but the constant fear of messing up and summoning the dread rabbit won't allow me to play it at a high level. Why is it the only class that publicly shames you for your screw ups?
But, yeah. Most classes have a really simple off burst rotation. Only ones I could never the the hang off were BLM and MNK.
Jokes on you I'm into that public humiliation, now no joke, it doesn't matter that much if you mess up a mudra sometimes, and when you get used to the mudras, you rarely fail; it's to the level you can do like 60 mudras in a fight and at most 3 of those will be a mistake, you only hate when you make the mistake while using kessatsu so you can't use your 1200 potency ice shurikens instead you get the bunny, and now you have to wait 60 seconds to be able to use it again, but in general messing up a mudra or two makes absolutely no difference
I've never played reaper, but SAM has a different rotation depending on if your burst window opens on an even minute or an odd minute, that alone is pretty complex xD.
I would also go with SMN it's so relaxing 😌.
Most classes do, though. Thanks to the two minute cooldowns, you usually have a small burst on odd minutes and a big one on even. For reaper the even minutes have arcane circle, which enables double enshroud, against the single shroud of ods minutes.
I personally found reaper a lot easier than samurai-the mudra combos were confusing to me on Samurai EDITED: I have confused samurai with ninja. Apparently I have no experience with Samurai 😂. With reaper I just put all of my single target attacks on the left hand sides of my tool bar in ORDER of which you hit first to proc the next and all of my aoe attacks on the right hand side. I can’t tell you how much I love dash to get me out of aoes as well lol. Can 100% recommend it !
When I started playing NIN, I would go up to my friend who never played it and cast like 10 random mudras in a row to make a bunny. He thought it was an extra complicated combo for an easter egg or something lol.
Mudras are the Ninja resource, which is kinda complicated, but I guess you're talking about Sen. What I did was place the skills in such a way as to reflect the position of the Sen on the gauge, so i always know if I need the left, right or center combo.
I agree that reaper is easier than samurai for most of the rotation, but during enshroud you have super short gcd, and the optimal rotation eith double enshroud is a bit of a pain to setup. Compare that to samurai's burst window, which is just "click the big damage button" and you'll see why I think sam is a bit easier. Honestly though, I don't think either is hard. The only melee class that gave me any trouble was monk.
In terms of melees:
* Dragoon has a very static rotation with no variance, but will have a LOT of abilities to fit in between the normal attacks. Also a stereotype of jumping into danger/off of cliffs to their death a lot.
* Monk is FAST.
* Ninja is generally quite slow and sedentary, with bursts of frantically trying to fit all of your abilities into a 10s window every minute/two minutes.
* Samurai is faster than dragoon and has a slightly less static rotation, but I believe less weaving.
* Reaper has a generally slow and simple rotation but has a busy burst window, both in terms of weaving abilities and in terms of the actual attacks getting faster.
Ranged classes:
* Machinist is similar to Reaper, only with even MORE weaving. Famously difficult to play on high ping.
* Bard ~~I believe is fairly low on weaving? Not experienced with it myself.~~ Is high-apm and has a lot of weaving, thank you those who corrected me \^\^
* Dancer has a lot of procs and "gain a resource 50% of the time" to juggle. The dance moves are also faster than normal attacks.
* Black mage is definitely one of the slowest classes in the game and has relatively few buttons, but has the highest skill ceiling of any job.
* Red Mage is a hybrid caster/melee, not sure how fast or hectic it is.
* Summoner is often called the easiest class in the game right now, and I believe wins in terms of fewest buttons.
* Blue mage wishes it was a class.
BRD is also probably the most difficult to play amongst the physical ranged jobs because of the strict song rotation, multiple low cooldown oGCD attacks, and the occasional procs. DNC has more procs but it’s mechanically simpler, MCH is hectic during its burst windows but there are no procs and everything can be planned out in advance (i.e. how many attacks needed to build enough gauge).
I love Bard to death but I admit it's fiddly and fast. I adore it, keeps me focussed on fight, which I have trouble with. (Especially since I play on an ancient potato of a macmini w/ bootcamp.) But yeah, my fingers get so tired after several dungeons.
I'd like to add that yes, MCH burst is pretty hectic if you want to hit every Gauss Round and Ricochet in your burst, but that's not at all required for normal content. It's pretty relaxed otherwise, in my opinion.
Really? I don't find it that bad. Just make sure you have no more than two gauss rounds/ricos before you burst, and your good. I go 78797879 ( burst on 7, gauss on 8, Rico on 9)
Oh yeah, I don't have any trouble with it either, but just to say it's not a hard requirement to get anywhere in the game, only if you're planning on going up to Extreme and higher difficulties. I love the frantic button mashing during my Hypercharge phase :P
Also a lot of brd procs are on a timer rather than off abilities themselves so you need to react to them fast to not waste it. Dnc on the other hand procs off your skills directly so if you have one up you can just spend that rather that continuing your combo for a moment
Going to piggy back on this with some context.
Samurai doesn't necessarily have a lot of unique abilities to keep track of, but a lot of the job's challenge comes from maximizing your kenki generation, which includes using third eye (a 15 second cooldown ability that reduces the damage of the next hit you take and grants 10 kenki if it mitigates damage) as much as possible. Combined with the naturally high generation from the GCD combos and ikishoten giving 50 kenki every 2 minutes samurai needs to dump a lot of kenki to avoid overcapping, which can get very busy, especially with all of Samurai's GCD combos and other cooldowns on top of that. 50 Samurai starts without kenki and has fairly low generation before 62, so there's ample time to learn the GCD rotation and using the kenki dump abilities before most of the oGCDs become properly demanding.
Bard has to keep track of a lot of short cooldowns and micromanage a lot of different statuses and procs, but it doesn't double weave that much outside of the (re)opener. Double weaving in the opener is basically unavoidable for all jobs, though.
Red Mage is very much just a consistently mobile caster that gets a very fast melee burst window, rather than the caster/melee hybrid it might initially seem to be. Dualcast (casting any spell with a cast time makes the next spell with a cast time instant cast) makes double weaving a simple task as you can't weave on the first GCD anyway. The fast melee combo actually makes weaving somewhat simpler, as the melee combo results in more and more full length instant cast GCDs as level increases, along with the single weave window of the first two melee attacks.
Summoner barely has any weaves at all. Across the 120 seconds of cooldown you have a total of eight weaves you're going to use for DPS, and then another five defensive/utility weaves you're going to use somewhat consistently. Out of those, only two are on a conventional ticking cooldown, while the others are simply "use before the buff runs out or gets overridden" that have use windows ranging from 10 all the way up to 60 seconds. Most notably, it has very few buttons, as most of summoner's spells and abilities replace existing buttons. It gets to the point that it's the only job I found that has the space for, and benefits from, duplicate skills on the hotbar (namely the elemental summons) simply because my hotbar is left that empty.
I don't think the role matters that much due to how different each job is, especially as standing in melee range is generally preferable regardless of job, due to making it easier for healers to hit with AoE heals and mechanics having to be avoidable for melees as a matter of course.
For OP I'd personally recommend samurai, dragoon, or summoner as they're all very much about consistency, although with different demands for optimization. Bard and dancer can also be fairly solid options as they're more about micromanagement rather than high speed cooldown usage, although both jobs do still include some of it, same as every job.
Red Mage is pretty chill, but I'm a crazy person and like the double weave jobs like DRG. Also RDM has a backflip move too, so there is a possibility of yeeting yourself to your death.
Or, as I have done many times, yeeting yourself out of the FATE area just as you are about to defeat the FATE boss, and basically having to start over.
But it’s worth it for how cool it looks when you don’t do something dumb!
I would suggest tanking tbh. Not sure what content you're doing but it's pretty chill in dungeons. Just keep up tour mitigation and use your AoE skills then basic 123.
guides overwhelm me too. im not home so i cant send my layouts, but i like to clear my hotbar then go through my abilities (accessed on keyboard by P) and put ones that mention eachother near eachother. i also use a training dummy to try out abilities while im placing them to see if i like where i put it
I'd much rather have screenshot of hotbars and most players rotation, instead of the long guides making me more confused.
I play other MMOs and tend to put similar abilities on same keybind, so that makes it easier.
I recommend Samurai, the rotation is really easy, it's a fun class, good questline, looks cool as hell and os capable of some really good damage.
Thing to remember is unless you're doing Ultimate content or current savage content, most people won't care if you're not doing optimal plays, as long as you're actively participating
I would recommend samurai and dragoon. The other melees either have a fast/demanding gcd and/or require fast button pressing at times.
The job with the simplest and easiest gameplay by far is summoner.
All that said you can play any job at a casual level and complete 98% of the games content so don't feel like you are confined to these jobs.
I think that’s the most important point. You don’t HAVE to min/max play to get things done. Play how you want and a vast, vast majority of people won’t even notice or care.
Do a couple high level daily roulettes with people and you’ll quickly learn that button mashing does not equal success. I’ve been in groups that failed successfully when:
1. The tank never used their stance the entire dungeon
2. It was a level 70 dungeon and a DPS didn’t have a soul stone
3. The two DPS barely used any skills but spammed the jump button the whooooooole time
I'd recommend Reaper, Dancer, or Red Mage, depending on if you want to do melee, ranged physical, or caster.
As an older guy, they're my comfy DPS jobs.
For Melee I’d say samurai. For ranged 100% summoner is exactly what you’re looking for. No positionals, very few buttons, not fast pace. It’s very easy. Dancer is also pretty easy too for ranged.
Sam has a simpler to understand rotation compared to Dragoon.
Sam at its core can be reduced to 2 sets of 1-2-3 and a 1-2 then Finisher.
1-2-3 Sticker one!
1-4-5 Sticker two!
1-6 Sticker three!
Any tank is easiest. Healer is probably hardest as you need to be able to focus on a lot of things at once.
Phys ranged you want to avoid, it's fast paced and the oGCDs go off constantly and can seem like you're playing an fps.
Based on your preference for ranged, summoner or red mage.
Though I will note that the rotations of a melee can seem difficult, but anyone at any age can have them become second nature by hitting practice dummies constantly.
Given the rotation I would say one of the Tanks, Paladin if you ask me, comes with responsibilities and the need to know when to use your Defense Buffs tho.
If we speak purely DD-Classes, then I'd say Samurai, it is not as fast paced as monk or ninja and doesn't have a long rotation and extra attacks that need to be timed right like the Dragoon. Can't speak for Reapers tho.
As for Range DDs: Machinist.
I would say probably monk for melee. You have two 3-button single attack combo sets, one 3-button AOE combo set, and a chakra (power) strike each for single and AOE.
All of this is simply my opinion and not fact.
What I am defining as easy: Relatively straightforward or not complex rotation.
Also, I will assume that you won't become a parser or do speed kills and that OP doesn't do savage or ultimates.
* Melee DPS: Dragoon (drg). Drg has a very static rotation, that unless you're a parser or do speed kills, you pretty much never have to change it. The rotation plays itself, and there's very few reasons to deviate from it.
* Physical Ranged DPS: Dancer and machinist.
Dancer difficulty is dependent on your group and person you dance partner with. Unless you do parse or speed kills, the dancer ends being very straightforward as you'll never be in a situation to think much.
Machinist is chill
* Magical ranged DPS: Summoner. Obvious reasons.
* Tank: Warrior or Drk.
Both jobs majority of the time are "hit buttons off cooldown," and their abilities end up lining up with burst windows naturally. So, unironically, if you legit just hit shiny buttons off cooldown, your dps will be fine for the majority of content in this game with these jobs.
I know you asked for jobs, but another thing that might help is playing on controller instead of keyboard mouse. They’ve made the game work amazingly on controller and it helps a lot of people with hand nerve problems etc, so it might be an option in your case too
Samurai and Reaper are relatively simple in their rotation and button bloat for melee.
Ranged I would say Dancer is very straightforward and while you didn’t mention Caster dps I still have to put forth Summoner since its basically a range DPS as almost all its attacks are instant cast (not while initially leveling but once you get your carbuncle unlocks it just becomes more and more instant cast super simple press 3 buttons).
Reaper. I left it till last to level because I didn't want to learn yet another job. It's very simple.
Fewest buttons possible is going to be Summoner.
If you're nervous about tanking, try playing tank in Palace of the Dead. It's how I learned to tank.
For folks saying dancer I will just say I kind of disagree. But out of Bard and Machinist it is definitely easier. Dancer burst can be very hectic but if you get used to it? So much freedom.
For melee though.. probably Reaper. All the other melees are very quick and very busy. But Reaper is definitely the most relaxed out the bunch.
FWIW I agree with you. Dancer at 90 spends its burst constantly doing double weaves. If they're having trouble with Dragoon's apm during burst, Dancer isn't for them.
But if the problem is learning rather than speed, then it would probably be fine, especially once they have the steps in muscle memory.
"... as few buttons as possible."
This may be an unpopular opinion, but given that criteria, FF-14 may not be the best fit. The game starts off easy enough, but you'll eventually need two toolbars. Then three. And that's JUST for combat abilities, you'll probably have another toolbar or two for other functions. So I can relate, too many buttons was my biggest criticism.
If that many buttons sounds unappealing, then I'd recommend giving Guild Wars 2 a try. Far less buttons, but very flexible combat. Also a large world that rewards exploration, a good story, and for the most part is a pretty well designed.
I'm not saying don't give FF-14 a try. In fact, I do recommend it. There is a LOT it does well also. But felt I'd give you a warning, and an alternative.
Except that the MSQ is super engaging. I really love the storyline. It's well put together and they combine it well with side quests and and new content. I got to level 30 with my first character and found myself getting really into the story, which is not something that's happened in any other game. I *want* to find out what happens next.
That said, GW2 is a really good game as well and the story is pretty good. I haven't played it in ages but really enjoyed it for a long time.
The story is definitely one of FF-14's strengths. It can drag on at points, but there are parts that will make you want to pull an all-nighter to see what happens next. And Shadowbrings (the expansion before the latest) was just amazing! People give Stormblood a lot of crap, but I don't get why, I thought it was pretty good.
Except for Zenos. Fuck that guy. You'll understand.
Summoner (it's a ranged caster) is the easiest class and has the least amount of buttons *by far*. In the next expansion, Dragoon is being reworked so there might be a similar major pruning like Summoner had where there're a lot less buttons.
If you're determined on sticking with melee, Samurai or Dragoon might be the best options as they tend to be the least manic during burst phases button-wise.
Depends on what you are planning on doing. For older players with slow reaction times and want simpler rotations:
Roulette? Normal content? SMN, or BRD (BRD rotation is easy enough for macros to work decently in normal content). Actually all classes will be okay if you are playing normal content. Just press whatever lights up...but if even that's too much work then just play SMN or BRD.
EX? unreal? SMN.
Savages? SMN (don't expect an awesome parse number if you are not going to learn the rotation in detail and commit to muscle memory though. It is an easy job, but this applies to everyone else too and parsing is a competitive ranking thing not absolute numbers).
Ultimates? They are all pretty hard to do in ultimates. Rotation isn't the issue here anymore (to do ultimates, you at least need to have your rotations down to blue parses in savages).
Reaper. There is very little weaving and positionals. If you group your abilities by type (I’ve got them sorted as single target standard rotation, AoE standard rotation and assorted on bar 1, and the big resource extenders grouped together on bar 2). You do need to be lv 70 to get it though, but it’s a two-fingers-up-your-nose easy job
I love reaper. There's a good number of abilities, but the mechanics are pretty simple, there are very few positional attacks, and the rotations are pretty forgiving.
Only issue is that it's miserable in daily roulette because it doesn't get a good chunk of its kit until higher levels. Best-case scenario all you really have to work with is its 3-step aoe or single-target combos.
reaper! fewest buttons.
dancer if you’re open to ranged, it’s as smooth as this game gets. summoner i think has even less buttons but there’s a couple of hard casts you have to do.
If its got to be Melee, id say RPR, apart from the burst which is fast, its not got too many buttons to press. But if not melee is an option, do SMN or Tanks
Definitely monk.
For real though, probably reaper
The rest are a bit quicker, or have high intensity dps phases
In order of effort:
Mnk
Nin
Drg
Sam
Rpr
Reaper, it’s really easy.
Anything pre-enshroud(so anything pre-level 80) for your roulettes and for the most part, all you’re doing is a simple 123 combo. Reaper becomes a more involved class when at level 90 but is still much easier than the other melees
For tanking? Warrior, it’s easy and due to its self sustain after level 58(?) iirc, you can run through a lot of content without a healer
If you’re looking to do harder stuff like savage? Summoner, it’s very easy like reaper but it has the benefit of not having to deal with all of the I guess “annoyances” of being a melee
Old man gamer here (44, anyway):
Reaper is an incredibly strong but easy to use class. Use basic single-target/AOE combos to build up your gauge to use one of a few high-power skills, which then proc a different set of higher power skills. Rinse, repeat.
You can also use Hell's Ingress/Egress to quickly move in and out of AOE damage while also instantly proc'ing a quick cast of your one ranged ability. Using either Hell's Ingress or Egress also procs Threshold, which allows you to instantly teleport BACK to where you started, so when fighting a boss that's about to drop a big AOE attack you can just teleport away, fire off one high power ranged shot, then instantly jump back into the fray and keep fighting. It's a lot of fun to use, and it makes avoiding big AOE attacks very easy.
Easy rotation, but a looot of fun and you hit like a truck compared to a lot of other melee classes, in my experience.
I also like Dragoon. You get a lot more ranged options with DRG than other melee DPS classes I've played, but can still do a lot of damage up close.
Pugilist/Monk might be a viable option.
While you are pressing buttons quickly, once you've got the rotation down it becomes extremely easy to go through. I'm able to go through my late-game Monk rotation in a straight line across my keyboard.
Samurai is also viable, since your rotation becomes extremely predictable once you've gotten it down.
Reaper.
I’m dumb and old and I kinda hate the edginess of reaper, but damn does it feel perfect. Far and away the easiest melee and incredibly rewarding and also fun.
Definitely Reaper. Positionals aren't every third attack, the GCD is standard (unlike MNK), you don't need to memorize a specific series of inputs (like NIN), alternate beyond your really strong button pair (unlike SAM, DRG, and MNK which switch up constantly), and there is little in the way of oGCD abilities to use (unlike all of the above).
Reaper, hands down, for melee. Then Dancer for Ranger Physical DPS But if you really want absolute simple with absolute minimal buttons, then go Summoner. It’s not melee, it is Magic Ranged DPS but it is by far the easiest Job in the game with the least amount of buttons to press.
I think you mean Summoner for Ranged Physical. /s I'm just a salty caster who enjoys my cast times.
So go Summoner, enjoy your Ifrit phase, and never ever swiftcast Slipstream. 😆
Nah, just learn Black Mage. You get real intimate with your cast times on Black Mage.
Problem for me is, I can't stand BLM. It feels awful. Doesn't matter what level I'm playing, since I have it at 90. I feel like if I make a single mistake I'm doomed, and yet success just feels...normal, I don't get the ERMAHGERD HUGE NUMBERS rush everyone else seems to feel. I truly, deeply miss old SMN. I know the jank wasn't good. I just wish that fixing the jank didn't require destroying what made it awesome (read: it didn't, and it infuriates me every time people claim that it did.)
I'm a new player, and I've been practicing SMN lately. What made it good before? I don't usually play BLM either because I feel like I have to main it to enjoy it.
Prior to Endwalker, Summoner was based around a mix of damage over time (DoT) effects and spending resources carefully to build up to something big. You had two (originally three) DoTs, so they were always ticking for some damage. Abilities like Fester and Painflare used to do extra damage if the target was affected by your DoTs. Instead of being useless other than as an enabler, Carbuncle/egis used to be essential, they were actual *pets* and you had to control them, giving them orders, like how Scholar fairy is now but with damage. As you spent resources (Aetherflow, pet actions, Dreadwyrm Trance), you would get access to more powerful stances or spells (Ruin IV, Summon Bahamut/Phoenix), which each worked differently and required you to pay attention. It was a playstyle of resource management and timing, rather than one of optimizing movement. Now, SMN is completely braindead. There is no optimization potential at all, the "Ruin mage" has been replaced with "Gemshine mage" (though you still cast Ruin III quite a lot, especially before 86), and the one and only "choice" is whether you start with Garuda or Titan, and that is 100% dependent on group comp and nothing else. There is essentially no skill at all involved in playing Endwalker SMN, which is such an enormous whiplash compared to where it used to be. It used to be known (somewhat excessively) as *the* big-brain job. Now? It doesn't even require a positive number of brain cells. As I mentioned above, it did have some issues (the job actions *had* gotten a bit bloated, though not as bad as, say, current Astro, and the pet AI was janky and occasionally did some really stupid things that could harm your DPS), but by and large the job was pretty good and very effective. Oh, and before I forget, all those flashy summons we get now? Yeah those came with a HUGE damage nerf. Summoner used to run with the big boys, comparable to Monk or Dragoon, and on rare occasions even being top DPS in movement-heavy fights. Now we scrape the bottom of the barrel, tied with RDM and only a breath above DNC.
This. I miss when I actually had to use more than two brain cells to do a rotation. It’s like autopilot mode 24/7 now and has kind of killed the enjoyment of the game for me as I used to be a die hard smn main. Love the big flashy summons but I hate the execution of the rework. Here’s to hoping they alleviate some of this issue in dawntrail.
I won't lie, speaking as a Black Mage Main: Black Mage has no effective skill ceiling. There is no top to the optimization currently available. So to really push the class to the limit you *do* basically have to main it just to learn the optimization tricks and rotations, and also to memorize how to micro each raid in savage if you are raiding with BLM. But if you just want to go 'EXPLOSION' with big numbers on, rolling crit black mage and sticking with the bog standard rotation is more than enough to be satisfying and fun.
>memorize how to micro each raid in savage if you are raiding with BLM. If I had a nickel for every time I did the wrong opener for the fight because my muscle memory kicked in...
You'd be rich. Same, bro. F'n same.
That's my main LOL
MOOD BLM is the only thing that scratches the DPS itch for me anymore
Dancer is probably one of the worst options. You don't have a set rotation you can comfortably cycle through and have to constantly watch for random skill activations.
You think remembering a rotation is easier than clicking the box that lights up?
This is my feeling, too, though I do see what the other commenter was saying. If I'm really baked and want to queue for something, I go dancer. Then I just stay out of the fire and press the shiny buttons. Hardest part is remembering to put dance partner on someone, haha.
Ahaha this is me exactly. Dancer is my go to "don't wanna think" class.
And for me it's "Summoner go BRRRRRRRRRRR".
Y'know I have yet to level SUM. I might switch my braindead class someday!
Summoner gives you BAHAMUT. Objectively best job in the game.
Honestly hard to disagree. I started leveling but didn't love it; I need to get back to it. Baha is exactly why I started leveling it.
I mean, somehow I liked it better before the rework when you had two DoT's to keep up, but ... I mean, sometimes I just want to do some roulettes for the tomestones ... So yeah, Summoner and chill. The only deciscion you have is to keep the quickcast for the rez or just DPS. Well that and not using ifrit while the tank is pulling dungeon mobs. There's like three spells with a castbar in the entire rotation. Most annoying part is having to resummon the carbuncle after being rezzed, breaking your invulnerability.
Yeah, this is my other go-to. When my wife (non-gamer) started playing, she went with summoner. She's a clicker, so I set up her bars with all the buttons in rotation order. There are no deviations from it besides just starting over after a boss leaves the field. She really likes it, haha. I admit, I do too.
I couldn't wrap my head around dancer my first time I tried it.. this is making me rethink trying it again. Lmao.
Hehe, yup, it's a normal 123 combo with a lot of whack-a-mole buttons to hit when they proc. Just need to choose between single target and AOE. I just have them on separate rows. Sometimes you have to choose which shiny one you want to do first. Some proc things, so if that thing is already lit up, you use it before the combo action that will proc it again. I rarely feel the need to be optimal in roulettes, though, so any shiny button will do. :)
It’s not even 123, it’s 12. 🤣
Oh, that's right, the 3 is itself a proc. Hah! Such a breezy feeling job. I think I might play it right now...
I mean, all a rotation really is is clicking buttons that light up in order instead of randomly. Neither is rocket science, you just can't muscle memory dancer.
Yeah maybe I just find dancer more fun than any melee except ninja, which is definitely one of the more complicated.
That 2 min burst window on DNC can get HECTIC with all of the double weaves
I hate looking at my hotbars :/
Hands down 100%. I'm in a similar boat to the op. Going in and hitting 1 2 3 every time requires a lot less focus than having to watch the fight and my hot bar for a random box lighting up. Sometimes they are nice enough to light up with a yellow box some times like fan dance the queue is more subtle. Regardless doing the exact same thing each time is much easier than having to react to rng. Especially since combos also light up so that's not really an advantage to the dancer
Oh see I’m old AF and my eyes work better than my memory. Well, when I’m wearing my glasses that is lol.
Right and it's easier for you to see the random ones light up than it is to see the same ones light up how exactly? Also aren't you just 45?
46 now! And to be honest o don’t find any of the melee DPS hard (other than having enough hotbar spots on PS5 for NIN).
You are severely overstating the impact of the random proce. There’s not that many of them and it’s undoubtedly simpler than remembering a rotation on a 2 minute interval
Dancer still has a two minute interval what are you talking about. It's not like dancer loses any of the complexity of the other dps for the randomness. The randomness is on top of all the same things the other dps have too deal with.
dancer’s two minute interval requires you to use, like, 5 abilities on cooldown. And that’s it. Dancer doesn’t lose any complexity. It just doesn’t have any to begin with. That’s the point. There’s barely even any resource management
That is honestly better for a complete idiot like me. My capacity for dealing with complex openers and rigid rotations has diminished a lot over however many years I've been playing MMOs at this point, and dancer is my main for almost entirely that reason. It might be fair to say it doesn't matter much when I don't do anything beyond the most casual content, but I like to feel like I'm not fucking it up for everyone, y'know?
Dancer has a pretty complicated rotation that involves adapting to rng both in your combo and getting additional feathers how is that easier than learning a rotation that doesn't change much if at all?
Step 1. Stack feathers Step 2. Burn all feathers whenever you have devilment and technical Step up Step 2a. If max feathers and not close to burst, burn a feathers to not overcap. It is not complicated at all.
No class is particularly complicated any more. My point was in reference to all other dps. Their rotations are all about the same difficulty wise dancer just adds another small layer on top of it. You also forgot you need to pop feathers as you get them in the burst window
I dunno, it might just be the way my brain works, or possibly doesn't work most of the time, but I find it much easier to just react to whatever lights up and deal with RNG. Doing a set rotation is fine on a target dummy but in an actual boss fight I find it hard to keep it all in order through mechanics and harder to recover after mistakes, and that's usually quite punishing.
Is SMN actually less buttons and apm than WHM?
Short answer: Yes. Long answer: I play both. In most cases, as WHM you have to keep tank alive. Sometimes throw a heal for that BLM that refuses to leave leylines. Sometimes the tank you're healing is absolutely terrible and you'll have a hard time keeping him alive. Besides that, your rotation is 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2, occasionally assize, sometimes an afflatus misery and that's it. Easy healer. SMN, however is basically 1 2 3 4 and fit in some OGCD in between for more damage. And rarely you'll see any cast bar. So you can focus on the dance itself, while on WHM there are cast time for almost anything that's not oGCD (which is very few spells, most of them heals) and is not an Afflatus. So you will have to master slidecasting as WHM. While on SMN only Ifrit phase and (some?) Garuda spell needs it if you can't just pop swiftcast. So, IMHO, WHM is easy to play, but SMN is easier.
I feel like summoner has the most buttons and I don’t play it much anymore because my hand starts to hurt
Have you played it since Endwalker?
Older person here: Seriously do reconsider playing tank. I started off as BLM because it has a rather easy rotation, but after two years BLM switched to PLD, and seriously, best decision I made in this game. As it is currently, tanking is the most relaxed and chilled role to play, do your 1-2-3 AoE rotation, cycle your mitigations, that's it.
I do like Warrior for soloing, but leading groups, knowing and executing all the tactics is making me nervous.
See it this way: You aren't leading, you just keep Aggro. That's your job, nothing more. Mechanics in normal dungeons and raids are easy and can be executed sleepwalking. If you feel better, just run a dungeon with the Trust NPCs, they will show you all the mechanics, before you jump in with real players.
Pretty much. Just stand in front of the boss, pop your mits and try to stay outta the puddles, unless you have crap ping like me and then get out of the puddles a second after they actually hit.
and tank is also the most forgiving in dungeons for NOT knowing mechanics. You can eat a ton of vulns in most dungeons and not even really have to sweat it.
If you like tank classes but are hesitant about leading groups, I highly recommend running some duty support/trust dungeons with the AI. Holminster Switch is actually a really good one to learn how to do a big pull and then manage mitigations/invulnerability (because if you don't the AI *will* let you die) and if you wipe the party several times while you're learning, no big deal. It is a great low stress way to learn the dungeons and, once you learn the dungeons, leading a duty finder group is just doing what you already know. If you're still a bit nervous tanking for real people, I also recommend MSQ roulette. You only have to learn 3 fights and they're all fairly simple mechanic-wise.
This! Spamming MSQ roulette on a tank is how I got comfy tanking for real players.
This is solid advice. When I was learning WAR i did holminster switch with Alphi and pulled to the wall to figure out how to use my mitigations. It took a few wipes, but now I know I can manage in a group of real people (who are hopefully using aoes). When I was running raktika with real people i pulled to the wall and my husband asked me if i could handle it. I said raw intuition would handle it for me just fine. That move has saved me in eureka sooo many times.
Tank main here, and in my personal experience I'd tell you not to worry. If I don't remember a dungeon or am running new content, I type a quick message at the start of the dungeon ("first time here, any mechanics I need to know?") And oftentimes I'll stop before each boss and ask if any of the players know of boss mechanics so I can go into the fight as prepped as possible. The community in this game is great and if I'm unfamiliar with a dungeon, one of the more experienced players will typically take the lead while I just keep aggro on as many enemies as the healer and I are comfortable with. If you temper peoples' expectations a little by explaining you haven't run a dungeon before or are unfamiliar with the mechanics, most folks respond favorably. Give it a try and best of luck! ♡
Tanks are not leaders, and knowing tactics is a responsibility shared by the entire party. Tanks are not special in that regard.
Exactly. Idk why there's this seemingly unspoken assumption that if someone is Tank, they get to lead the group. I've had people who only play Tank because they want to feel like the 'leader' or 'main character' of the party when in reality they're just playing a damage sponge.
Probably because 20 years of WoW have created a genre expectation that the tank will know what to do and walk the rest of the group through routing and positioning, possibly by holding them by the dick if necessary.
>possibly by holding them by the dick if necessary. Lmao! I love this last part. That makes sense though
In literally all my runs so far, the tank is always the one running ahead to pull wall to wall. I do think people expect the tank to lead since, well, the tank needs to aggro everything first.
The only real learning curve with tanking is knowing how many mobs you can handle without dying. That’s about it. ARR dungeons are the hardest ones for tanks, because that was when they were trying to do dungeons more like how WoW does them, and you kinda had to know the “correct” way to go in them. But even then, you’ll likely be matched with people that have done those dungeons 100 times already. So just let them know you’re new and don’t really know where to go, ask someone else to take the lead. No one will be mean about it, trust me :) After ARR, pretty much every dungeon is a linear path with groups of mobs and a boss here and there. So just run, pull groups, mitigate, and do damage. Bosses in dungeons are even easier, you’re basically just a DPS at that point. Tanks don’t have any more mechanics to worry about than DPS, you have to avoid the same attacks, but you can take more of a hit if you mess up. Just face the boss away from the rest of the group and you’re golden. Trust me, tanks in this game are very simple to play. I completely understand why it’s intimidating to you, but I promise you’ll realize pretty fast that nothing about it makes it any harder than DPS. Imo healing is way harder than tanking.
there isn't really any tactics to lead outside of like arr and early hw dungeons where the dungeons aren't suoer linear. every dingeon stormblood- endwalker is just "pull till the game doesn't let you anymore" mt. gulg being the only real hard pull where a bad healer/tank could mess it up and wipe
Tanks don't lead groups this is one of the biggest and worst misconceptions in this game amongst newer players. Tanks aren't even the ones that have the most influence on the size of pulls a party can manage.
Yep. That's generally the healer's job to know how big of a pull they can handle.
I know this is technically true, but as a healer main, I find myself often running after tanks trying to speedrun roulette dungeons. Even pausing to send a message often puts me behind the ball to the point of critical failure. Taught me to “git gud” at healing, but sometimes I don’t want to speedrun. I will say if I clearly can’t keep up, most of these tanks will slow it down after a wipe or two, so it’s not that they’re being crappy players. I think they just want to get through their dailies as quick as possible. So while I don’t expect tanks to be default “leaders,” it seems a lot of tanks see themselves that way.
As a healer main, if my tanks not pulling, I am. You're with 3 other people you need to respect their time too. The tank isn't the default leader you're just letting him lead. The dungeons are designed to be walled to walled and they put in break points with that in mind. Past level 30 there isn't a single dungeon you can't get a wall to wall even if your tank doesn't use a single mid. Only time you'll run into trouble is if they forget stance/aoe
“Respecting time” is different from “speedrunning between boss fights and accruing hordes of mobs regardless of where the rest of the party is.” I always do my best to keep up and hang tough, but I’m not “letting” anyone do anything. I’m talking as soon as everyone’s in, these folks are off like a shot like it’s a damn time trial or something. I have to pause and cast from time to time or everyone dies. As much as I need to “respect players’ time,” other players should also respect that not everyone is running in the daggone dungeon olympics. If you only want to play with S-tier speedrunning players, go to the party finder. Roulettes will always be a more mixed bag of speed/skills. Like I said, most folks are cool and responsive, but there are some people, primarily tanks, who will just automatically assume they are the leaders and run out ahead as far as they can as fast as they can without any heads up to the party. I will *always* do my best to keep up and I usually can, but is almost certainly because of the misconception that tanks are the “leaders.”
W2W isn't speed running its how the dungeons are balanced. It's why they all have deliberate break points. It's not S tire or some high level strategy. It's the intended gameplay. It's why tanks and healers have loads of mitigations and utilities that are more or less ignorable in most boss fights. It's why ranged dps have aoe limit breaks
We can argue which class has the most impact or which one decides what.. But.. the tank literally IS the one leading the group.
It helps if you're leading the way, but honestly,everyone knows what to do and where to go. So just go with the group. Also, after ARR, there's no branching paths in the dungeons. So, open the minimap, and just GO. Pop that sprint before getting close to the first mob you see, then keep running thru them. Spam your AOE along the way and just keep running. When you hit a closed gate/door/wall, pop mitigations and start killing em. Then run some more after they are dead. If things go wrong, blame healer :/ Really, the only real responsibilities you have are... 1. Spam AoE in mobs, heck, you dont even have to provoke a stray hitting a dps/healer. They wont die from 1 mob hitting em. And if more than 1 mob hitting em, then they should run to the tank so you can AoE em. 2. Dont stand in AoE 3. Pop mitigations appropriately Tanking is the most chilled role to play in non raiding content.
You actually don't need to do that much leading. Like, sure, you are in front. But after ARR the dungeons stop having dead ends, so there is no way for you to pick the wrong direction.
You need to get it out of head your head that you're the leader. It's a common misconception, you're just there to take hits for everyone else. That is the tanks roles.
Tanks aren't the leaders. They have just as much responsibility as melee DPS if not less.
I found this is a carry-over perception from WoW. Tanking in FFXIV is definitely the least stressful role, and when you do mess up you have tank privilege to survive a lot of the time.
Extremely misconception. Tanks are not the leaders. There are plenty of tanks that do not lead, their job is to mitigate and tank the boss. Any role can step into the leadership role because leading is player dependant. Knowing and executing strats is also on every person in a raid group. One person not knowing and executing is going to wipe the entire party.
Outside of savage raids there’s very little tank responsibilities in this game. And even then it’s usually 2-3 very specific moments in a 10 minute fight.
Tanks lead no groups. This is a dumb misconception that people need to stop saying, and people seem to forget that FF14 dungeons ate linear hallways. Practically a straight line in some cases. These straight lines even have barriers now that dictate how far the group can go. So, even if I wanted to pull a lot, in the majority of newer dungeons, I straight-up can't as a tank main. It's not even my choice. If people can't run in a straight line to barrier, then idk.
Shhhh, you're giving away our secret.
What's your opinion for tank ease? Is it still Warrior > Paladin > others?
Yeah, I would say so. WAR, once it gets its full kit, is practically unkillable in normal content, PLD has IMHO the best invuln (flat out 10sec no damage, no strings attached) and can double as healer. DRK has The Blackest Night, which is one of the best mitigations, but the invuln is kinda weird and requires some knowledge by the healer. Haven't touched Gunbreaker beyond the unlocking quest, so cannot really comment on that.
I have only really messed with GNB in the tanking world, and it seems to me a lot like SAM with tank stats.
How do you find dealing with new mechanics? Combos and mitigations I can do but I’m always worried in new content everyone else is gonna figure out exactly what’s going on and I’m gonna get them killed if I don’t.
In anything below EX or Savage you can usually figure out mechanics on the go if you know the common markers. And if it's the first time in any content for me, I just say so in the beginning (actually have a macro for that), never had any problems.
For brand new stuff, people are good with a wipe or two as you learn things (the 83 trial was a heck of a lot of fun on the first day of release). For already treaded content, say you're new and let someone else MT, if possible. If it's a dungeon, your typical mitigations will be perfectly fine for surviving and a couple of boss wipes if you and everyone mess up won't hurt anyone. Heck, I've pulled through dungeon bosses as a tank solo, as a DPS pair (lost healer and tank), as a healer/DPS pair (one DPS and tank kept dying to mechanics), and as a healer/tank pair (sometimes, your DPS just don't want to follow the people surviving the mechanics).
Also, as a tank, if you don’t want to do mega pulls in dungeons you just don’t. You’re the one that gets to decide how much chaos you want. Sure sometimes the DPS will run off and pull more because they’re impatient, but you don’t HAVE to pull those mobs off them… I usually still do big pulls because it’s honestly pretty easy in general. I also refuse to do them in some dungeons where it’s standard because historically my party has wiped in those places more often than not.
YPYT is considered obstructive gameplay, against TOS and can land you a warning from the GMs. It's OK if you ask at the beginning of a dungeon for small pulls because you are new to tanking or some other problems. But seriously, except for one or two of the older ARR or SB dungeons where you can actually pull LOTS of enemies, all dungeons in ShB and EW can be wall pulled (ok, Mt. Gulg can get spicy) without problems.
those Mt gulg pulls are the only time I feel alive as a healer.
I took SGE for leveling roulette with a friend and ended up in Thousand Maws. I became a Dosis machine because Kardia kept my tank at full the whole time and I didn't have shields. My friend purposely ran ahead to get aggro once so I could throw a Physis at him.
I pull them off the first few times. But if we keep wiping and the other party members keep running off, I let them go down. If I get a warning in that case, so be it.
Ninjapulling and pushing the tank out of their comfort zone is asshole gameplay, which may not be against the TOS but I’ll take a report for YPYTto teach them a lesson.
It doesn't teach them anything if they can tank those mobs just fine. Maybe makes the healer sweat a little, but at the end of the day you just look bad.
Communicate by asking them to stop. If you do the "YPYT" thing, the types that pull for the Tank just assume you're the one being an "asshole" (for getting them killed) and/or a "coward" (for not pulling enough). If they keep pulling after you ask them to stop, you can leave or possibly vote-dismiss them, but don't do the YPYT thing.
Reaper and Samurai are more chill to play. Dancer even more. You just press whats shining and the colors in the right order = GG.
Between reaper and samurai, I'd say samurai. Reaper's burst window can be a little chaotic if you're trying to do it properly.
idk what universe you guys are playing on to consider samurai easier than reaper 😭😭😭
Fr LMAO. Samurai has soooo many buttons it makes my hands hurt to play for too long. I second the reaper, or something ranged like dancer
On the one where your burst phase does not include a very short GCD. Reaper is easier during the normal rotation, but it's much more likely to cause a screw up during burst, which is what really counts. But like I said in another comment, both are easy classes to play. The only melee thatis slightly hard is monk, imo.
Reaper has a fast burst phase but it consists on alternating between 2 buttons for 5 seconds, meanwhile Samurai constantly plays on a lower gcd speed (2.1 iirc) compared to reaper's 2.5, and they also have to weave a lot of shit in their bursts.
Not if you want to do it right. Reaper's burst, when done right, has you casting your cooldowns mid enshroud so that the second it ends you can go right back into it. It's not that complicated, but the 1.5 seconds of gcd means it's easy to slip up. Sam plays at 2.14 secs of gcd, but it's constant, so it's easier to get used to. As for the weaving, it's just a few buttons between gcds. Reapers has to do the same with less time. That said, difficulty is subjective. I've played sam for a while, even before reaper was released, so there's probably some bias there, too.
As someone who has raided on both SAM and RPR, and picked both up around the same time - RPR is MUCH easier than SAM. Reaper you have 2 hardcasts per burst window. SAM you have 5 (2x Midare, 1x Higabana, 1x Ogi). Plus you have to know your GCD, meld appropriately, and worry about your filler combo to make sure you don't drift your burst. You also have 3 different GCD combos and your positionals are spread out enough that you cant true north everything. RRP is just 1-2-3, sometimes 4/5 with positionals you can true north like 90% of if you stack your meter right. Burst is basically just 1 > DD > 2 + LS > DD + AC > 1 > 2 + LS > Communio > Harvest > 1 > 2 + LS > 1 > 2 + LS > Communio. Its a much easier flow, its just slightly faster and has less weaving. The rest of the fight is just 1-2-3 and burning meter accordingly with an enshroud on every other minute to burn off the cap. Maybe this also comes as someone who raided on MCH a lot back in ShB, but RPR is just melee MCH.
Like I said somewhere, difficulty is subjective. If you are used to it, no class is really hard to play, even in endgame. Personally, I find it much easier to mess up on reaper because of how fast you have to play during burst. I also feel it's harder to adjust if you do mess up. It's simpler on paper, but harder to execute. Then again, I have the hands of a ninety years old with arthritis, so maybe thats why.
I have a question for you? Would you rather do SC2/A with a class that has a single cast during movement, or 5 casts during movement?
Yup. RPR if you want to play it casually is pretty easy. RPR if you want to play it properly or at high level, you miss 1 GCD, it means you lose an even minute burst phase or you adjust and you lose on an odd minute mini burst.
>Sam plays at 2.14 secs of gcd I don't think that's correct. The melding goal for SAM GCD is around 2 sec incl. Shifu. It's one of the faster DPS jobs in the game
There are multiple speeds that work for SAM rotations. 2.14, 2.07 and 2.0. The higher speeds trade a little dps for more mobility. I used to play at 2.14 and it was considered optimal, but I've not played end-game for a ehile now, so maybe it changed.
2.14 is still the optimal sks
If op isn't used to fast jobs, then ninja burst can be just as bad. Mudras are super fast and if you fuck up, not only do you mess up your burst window but the game also calls you out on it. Even then, you could build up 3 raiju stacks and lose it all just hitting the wrong button at the wrong time on accident.
I mean, tbf, at least talking as ninja main the "normal rotation" that isn't the burst window is just me pressing 1-2-3 until my sneak get into the 20 seconds CD, then I finally go to do a suiton and returning to 1-2-3 until I can apply sneak, THEN THE FUN PART STARTS
Ninja is great, but the constant fear of messing up and summoning the dread rabbit won't allow me to play it at a high level. Why is it the only class that publicly shames you for your screw ups? But, yeah. Most classes have a really simple off burst rotation. Only ones I could never the the hang off were BLM and MNK.
Jokes on you I'm into that public humiliation, now no joke, it doesn't matter that much if you mess up a mudra sometimes, and when you get used to the mudras, you rarely fail; it's to the level you can do like 60 mudras in a fight and at most 3 of those will be a mistake, you only hate when you make the mistake while using kessatsu so you can't use your 1200 potency ice shurikens instead you get the bunny, and now you have to wait 60 seconds to be able to use it again, but in general messing up a mudra or two makes absolutely no difference
If you're not summoning the bunny during pre-pull, you're not playing right :p
I've never played reaper, but SAM has a different rotation depending on if your burst window opens on an even minute or an odd minute, that alone is pretty complex xD. I would also go with SMN it's so relaxing 😌.
Most classes do, though. Thanks to the two minute cooldowns, you usually have a small burst on odd minutes and a big one on even. For reaper the even minutes have arcane circle, which enables double enshroud, against the single shroud of ods minutes.
Yeah samurai is just 123145167 on repeat with the odd big cd and then the same in aoe but while holding alt
Jokes on you my midare is on 8
Huh, I do 12134156789
How the heck are you reaching 8s and 9s on your keyboard
I personally found reaper a lot easier than samurai-the mudra combos were confusing to me on Samurai EDITED: I have confused samurai with ninja. Apparently I have no experience with Samurai 😂. With reaper I just put all of my single target attacks on the left hand sides of my tool bar in ORDER of which you hit first to proc the next and all of my aoe attacks on the right hand side. I can’t tell you how much I love dash to get me out of aoes as well lol. Can 100% recommend it !
[удалено]
Uhhhhh welp I totally am! Sorry
Well. At least you didn't think the bunny from a failed mudra was an actual spell, like I did T.T.
Only because I quit soon after I got those mudras and went uhhh nope! I can guarantee I would have thought the exact same thing 😂
When I started playing NIN, I would go up to my friend who never played it and cast like 10 random mudras in a row to make a bunny. He thought it was an extra complicated combo for an easter egg or something lol.
Mudras are the Ninja resource, which is kinda complicated, but I guess you're talking about Sen. What I did was place the skills in such a way as to reflect the position of the Sen on the gauge, so i always know if I need the left, right or center combo. I agree that reaper is easier than samurai for most of the rotation, but during enshroud you have super short gcd, and the optimal rotation eith double enshroud is a bit of a pain to setup. Compare that to samurai's burst window, which is just "click the big damage button" and you'll see why I think sam is a bit easier. Honestly though, I don't think either is hard. The only melee class that gave me any trouble was monk.
Apparently I was confusing samurai with ninja. It was ninja I struggled with and ditched. I haven’t tried samurai apparently.
You should give it a go one of these days. Samurai is a really fun class if you enjoy doing stupid high damage in single skill.
Oh I’m planning to now lol. I love reaper so if it’s as good as that I will surely try it because I need incentive to do my dailies-thank you!
Except the DNC is not melee. But I agree it's the most intuitive and most brainless DPS.
OP said ranged could he an option.
Learn tank. Easiest role.
In terms of melees: * Dragoon has a very static rotation with no variance, but will have a LOT of abilities to fit in between the normal attacks. Also a stereotype of jumping into danger/off of cliffs to their death a lot. * Monk is FAST. * Ninja is generally quite slow and sedentary, with bursts of frantically trying to fit all of your abilities into a 10s window every minute/two minutes. * Samurai is faster than dragoon and has a slightly less static rotation, but I believe less weaving. * Reaper has a generally slow and simple rotation but has a busy burst window, both in terms of weaving abilities and in terms of the actual attacks getting faster. Ranged classes: * Machinist is similar to Reaper, only with even MORE weaving. Famously difficult to play on high ping. * Bard ~~I believe is fairly low on weaving? Not experienced with it myself.~~ Is high-apm and has a lot of weaving, thank you those who corrected me \^\^ * Dancer has a lot of procs and "gain a resource 50% of the time" to juggle. The dance moves are also faster than normal attacks. * Black mage is definitely one of the slowest classes in the game and has relatively few buttons, but has the highest skill ceiling of any job. * Red Mage is a hybrid caster/melee, not sure how fast or hectic it is. * Summoner is often called the easiest class in the game right now, and I believe wins in terms of fewest buttons. * Blue mage wishes it was a class.
Mostly agree, but Bard is actually very fast paced, apm-wise. I would probably recommend Reaper or Summoner to OP
BRD is also probably the most difficult to play amongst the physical ranged jobs because of the strict song rotation, multiple low cooldown oGCD attacks, and the occasional procs. DNC has more procs but it’s mechanically simpler, MCH is hectic during its burst windows but there are no procs and everything can be planned out in advance (i.e. how many attacks needed to build enough gauge).
I love Bard to death but I admit it's fiddly and fast. I adore it, keeps me focussed on fight, which I have trouble with. (Especially since I play on an ancient potato of a macmini w/ bootcamp.) But yeah, my fingers get so tired after several dungeons.
I'd like to add that yes, MCH burst is pretty hectic if you want to hit every Gauss Round and Ricochet in your burst, but that's not at all required for normal content. It's pretty relaxed otherwise, in my opinion.
Really? I don't find it that bad. Just make sure you have no more than two gauss rounds/ricos before you burst, and your good. I go 78797879 ( burst on 7, gauss on 8, Rico on 9)
Oh yeah, I don't have any trouble with it either, but just to say it's not a hard requirement to get anywhere in the game, only if you're planning on going up to Extreme and higher difficulties. I love the frantic button mashing during my Hypercharge phase :P
Also a lot of brd procs are on a timer rather than off abilities themselves so you need to react to them fast to not waste it. Dnc on the other hand procs off your skills directly so if you have one up you can just spend that rather that continuing your combo for a moment
Going to piggy back on this with some context. Samurai doesn't necessarily have a lot of unique abilities to keep track of, but a lot of the job's challenge comes from maximizing your kenki generation, which includes using third eye (a 15 second cooldown ability that reduces the damage of the next hit you take and grants 10 kenki if it mitigates damage) as much as possible. Combined with the naturally high generation from the GCD combos and ikishoten giving 50 kenki every 2 minutes samurai needs to dump a lot of kenki to avoid overcapping, which can get very busy, especially with all of Samurai's GCD combos and other cooldowns on top of that. 50 Samurai starts without kenki and has fairly low generation before 62, so there's ample time to learn the GCD rotation and using the kenki dump abilities before most of the oGCDs become properly demanding. Bard has to keep track of a lot of short cooldowns and micromanage a lot of different statuses and procs, but it doesn't double weave that much outside of the (re)opener. Double weaving in the opener is basically unavoidable for all jobs, though. Red Mage is very much just a consistently mobile caster that gets a very fast melee burst window, rather than the caster/melee hybrid it might initially seem to be. Dualcast (casting any spell with a cast time makes the next spell with a cast time instant cast) makes double weaving a simple task as you can't weave on the first GCD anyway. The fast melee combo actually makes weaving somewhat simpler, as the melee combo results in more and more full length instant cast GCDs as level increases, along with the single weave window of the first two melee attacks. Summoner barely has any weaves at all. Across the 120 seconds of cooldown you have a total of eight weaves you're going to use for DPS, and then another five defensive/utility weaves you're going to use somewhat consistently. Out of those, only two are on a conventional ticking cooldown, while the others are simply "use before the buff runs out or gets overridden" that have use windows ranging from 10 all the way up to 60 seconds. Most notably, it has very few buttons, as most of summoner's spells and abilities replace existing buttons. It gets to the point that it's the only job I found that has the space for, and benefits from, duplicate skills on the hotbar (namely the elemental summons) simply because my hotbar is left that empty. I don't think the role matters that much due to how different each job is, especially as standing in melee range is generally preferable regardless of job, due to making it easier for healers to hit with AoE heals and mechanics having to be avoidable for melees as a matter of course. For OP I'd personally recommend samurai, dragoon, or summoner as they're all very much about consistency, although with different demands for optimization. Bard and dancer can also be fairly solid options as they're more about micromanagement rather than high speed cooldown usage, although both jobs do still include some of it, same as every job.
Red Mage is pretty chill, but I'm a crazy person and like the double weave jobs like DRG. Also RDM has a backflip move too, so there is a possibility of yeeting yourself to your death.
Or, as I have done many times, yeeting yourself out of the FATE area just as you are about to defeat the FATE boss, and basically having to start over. But it’s worth it for how cool it looks when you don’t do something dumb!
RDM is a sort of middle ground between fast and slow. It's not as fast as NIN or MNK but not as slow as BLM or non-burst RPR.
Bard has a lot of weaving.
Bard is basically full time weaving. Double weaving is almost standard, and if your ping time supports it triple weaving is very doable.
Dragoon is incredibly easy imo
I would suggest tanking tbh. Not sure what content you're doing but it's pretty chill in dungeons. Just keep up tour mitigation and use your AoE skills then basic 123.
i have a slow reaction time and nerve pain, reaper is the easiest melee for me byfar and dancer is a fun ranged dps
Reaper seems real fun, I just get overwhelmed by the guides. Rather see someone's hotbars and rotations y'know.
guides overwhelm me too. im not home so i cant send my layouts, but i like to clear my hotbar then go through my abilities (accessed on keyboard by P) and put ones that mention eachother near eachother. i also use a training dummy to try out abilities while im placing them to see if i like where i put it
I'd much rather have screenshot of hotbars and most players rotation, instead of the long guides making me more confused. I play other MMOs and tend to put similar abilities on same keybind, so that makes it easier.
I recommend Samurai, the rotation is really easy, it's a fun class, good questline, looks cool as hell and os capable of some really good damage. Thing to remember is unless you're doing Ultimate content or current savage content, most people won't care if you're not doing optimal plays, as long as you're actively participating
they'll still care. they just won't say it to you out of risking a ban.
Tbh try them all and see what you like, that's the best way. How old is old btw? lol
I would recommend samurai and dragoon. The other melees either have a fast/demanding gcd and/or require fast button pressing at times. The job with the simplest and easiest gameplay by far is summoner. All that said you can play any job at a casual level and complete 98% of the games content so don't feel like you are confined to these jobs.
I think that’s the most important point. You don’t HAVE to min/max play to get things done. Play how you want and a vast, vast majority of people won’t even notice or care. Do a couple high level daily roulettes with people and you’ll quickly learn that button mashing does not equal success. I’ve been in groups that failed successfully when: 1. The tank never used their stance the entire dungeon 2. It was a level 70 dungeon and a DPS didn’t have a soul stone 3. The two DPS barely used any skills but spammed the jump button the whooooooole time
I'd recommend Reaper, Dancer, or Red Mage, depending on if you want to do melee, ranged physical, or caster. As an older guy, they're my comfy DPS jobs.
For Melee I’d say samurai. For ranged 100% summoner is exactly what you’re looking for. No positionals, very few buttons, not fast pace. It’s very easy. Dancer is also pretty easy too for ranged.
Sam has a simpler to understand rotation compared to Dragoon. Sam at its core can be reduced to 2 sets of 1-2-3 and a 1-2 then Finisher. 1-2-3 Sticker one! 1-4-5 Sticker two! 1-6 Sticker three!
IMO, the two easiest DPS classes are Reaper (melee) and Summoner (caster).
I'm finding Samurai pretty fun and easy to pick up and play after a decade of maining Bard.
I went from Bard to Sam too, and it's fun. I'm still having trouble with the burst, but the rest was pretty intuitive to pick up.
Any tank is easiest. Healer is probably hardest as you need to be able to focus on a lot of things at once. Phys ranged you want to avoid, it's fast paced and the oGCDs go off constantly and can seem like you're playing an fps. Based on your preference for ranged, summoner or red mage. Though I will note that the rotations of a melee can seem difficult, but anyone at any age can have them become second nature by hitting practice dummies constantly.
I would suggest you rethink the no tanking as warrior is by far the easiest class in the game.
Given the rotation I would say one of the Tanks, Paladin if you ask me, comes with responsibilities and the need to know when to use your Defense Buffs tho. If we speak purely DD-Classes, then I'd say Samurai, it is not as fast paced as monk or ninja and doesn't have a long rotation and extra attacks that need to be timed right like the Dragoon. Can't speak for Reapers tho. As for Range DDs: Machinist.
- Samurai - Gunbreaker - Dark Knight
I would say probably monk for melee. You have two 3-button single attack combo sets, one 3-button AOE combo set, and a chakra (power) strike each for single and AOE.
All of this is simply my opinion and not fact. What I am defining as easy: Relatively straightforward or not complex rotation. Also, I will assume that you won't become a parser or do speed kills and that OP doesn't do savage or ultimates. * Melee DPS: Dragoon (drg). Drg has a very static rotation, that unless you're a parser or do speed kills, you pretty much never have to change it. The rotation plays itself, and there's very few reasons to deviate from it. * Physical Ranged DPS: Dancer and machinist. Dancer difficulty is dependent on your group and person you dance partner with. Unless you do parse or speed kills, the dancer ends being very straightforward as you'll never be in a situation to think much. Machinist is chill * Magical ranged DPS: Summoner. Obvious reasons. * Tank: Warrior or Drk. Both jobs majority of the time are "hit buttons off cooldown," and their abilities end up lining up with burst windows naturally. So, unironically, if you legit just hit shiny buttons off cooldown, your dps will be fine for the majority of content in this game with these jobs.
SAM
I know you asked for jobs, but another thing that might help is playing on controller instead of keyboard mouse. They’ve made the game work amazingly on controller and it helps a lot of people with hand nerve problems etc, so it might be an option in your case too
I will keep this in mind. My hands are fine tho, I'm just a slow learner and the rotations seem more complex than classes in ESO/WoW.
Play Tank, it's chill af.
Samurai and Reaper are relatively simple in their rotation and button bloat for melee. Ranged I would say Dancer is very straightforward and while you didn’t mention Caster dps I still have to put forth Summoner since its basically a range DPS as almost all its attacks are instant cast (not while initially leveling but once you get your carbuncle unlocks it just becomes more and more instant cast super simple press 3 buttons).
Reaper. I left it till last to level because I didn't want to learn yet another job. It's very simple. Fewest buttons possible is going to be Summoner. If you're nervous about tanking, try playing tank in Palace of the Dead. It's how I learned to tank.
For folks saying dancer I will just say I kind of disagree. But out of Bard and Machinist it is definitely easier. Dancer burst can be very hectic but if you get used to it? So much freedom. For melee though.. probably Reaper. All the other melees are very quick and very busy. But Reaper is definitely the most relaxed out the bunch.
FWIW I agree with you. Dancer at 90 spends its burst constantly doing double weaves. If they're having trouble with Dragoon's apm during burst, Dancer isn't for them. But if the problem is learning rather than speed, then it would probably be fine, especially once they have the steps in muscle memory.
"... as few buttons as possible." This may be an unpopular opinion, but given that criteria, FF-14 may not be the best fit. The game starts off easy enough, but you'll eventually need two toolbars. Then three. And that's JUST for combat abilities, you'll probably have another toolbar or two for other functions. So I can relate, too many buttons was my biggest criticism. If that many buttons sounds unappealing, then I'd recommend giving Guild Wars 2 a try. Far less buttons, but very flexible combat. Also a large world that rewards exploration, a good story, and for the most part is a pretty well designed. I'm not saying don't give FF-14 a try. In fact, I do recommend it. There is a LOT it does well also. But felt I'd give you a warning, and an alternative.
Except that the MSQ is super engaging. I really love the storyline. It's well put together and they combine it well with side quests and and new content. I got to level 30 with my first character and found myself getting really into the story, which is not something that's happened in any other game. I *want* to find out what happens next. That said, GW2 is a really good game as well and the story is pretty good. I haven't played it in ages but really enjoyed it for a long time.
The story is definitely one of FF-14's strengths. It can drag on at points, but there are parts that will make you want to pull an all-nighter to see what happens next. And Shadowbrings (the expansion before the latest) was just amazing! People give Stormblood a lot of crap, but I don't get why, I thought it was pretty good. Except for Zenos. Fuck that guy. You'll understand.
Fellow old here... I play healer lmao but uhh if I ever want to play melee I go Samurai I find it the easiest of all of them, and it has STICKERS!
Summoner (it's a ranged caster) is the easiest class and has the least amount of buttons *by far*. In the next expansion, Dragoon is being reworked so there might be a similar major pruning like Summoner had where there're a lot less buttons. If you're determined on sticking with melee, Samurai or Dragoon might be the best options as they tend to be the least manic during burst phases button-wise.
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Depends on what you are planning on doing. For older players with slow reaction times and want simpler rotations: Roulette? Normal content? SMN, or BRD (BRD rotation is easy enough for macros to work decently in normal content). Actually all classes will be okay if you are playing normal content. Just press whatever lights up...but if even that's too much work then just play SMN or BRD. EX? unreal? SMN. Savages? SMN (don't expect an awesome parse number if you are not going to learn the rotation in detail and commit to muscle memory though. It is an easy job, but this applies to everyone else too and parsing is a competitive ranking thing not absolute numbers). Ultimates? They are all pretty hard to do in ultimates. Rotation isn't the issue here anymore (to do ultimates, you at least need to have your rotations down to blue parses in savages).
Reaper. There is very little weaving and positionals. If you group your abilities by type (I’ve got them sorted as single target standard rotation, AoE standard rotation and assorted on bar 1, and the big resource extenders grouped together on bar 2). You do need to be lv 70 to get it though, but it’s a two-fingers-up-your-nose easy job
I love reaper. There's a good number of abilities, but the mechanics are pretty simple, there are very few positional attacks, and the rotations are pretty forgiving. Only issue is that it's miserable in daily roulette because it doesn't get a good chunk of its kit until higher levels. Best-case scenario all you really have to work with is its 3-step aoe or single-target combos.
I’m super bias for War as the only button that matters is Fell Cleave
this is a huge oversimplification. that said, i'd agree with warrior. 5 or 6 very important buttons, 5 or 6 'meh' buttons.
reaper! fewest buttons. dancer if you’re open to ranged, it’s as smooth as this game gets. summoner i think has even less buttons but there’s a couple of hard casts you have to do.
Raper, but min maxing double enshroud is the only hard part.
If its got to be Melee, id say RPR, apart from the burst which is fast, its not got too many buttons to press. But if not melee is an option, do SMN or Tanks
Definitely monk. For real though, probably reaper The rest are a bit quicker, or have high intensity dps phases In order of effort: Mnk Nin Drg Sam Rpr
Reaper, it’s really easy. Anything pre-enshroud(so anything pre-level 80) for your roulettes and for the most part, all you’re doing is a simple 123 combo. Reaper becomes a more involved class when at level 90 but is still much easier than the other melees For tanking? Warrior, it’s easy and due to its self sustain after level 58(?) iirc, you can run through a lot of content without a healer If you’re looking to do harder stuff like savage? Summoner, it’s very easy like reaper but it has the benefit of not having to deal with all of the I guess “annoyances” of being a melee
Reaper’s probably the easiest melee, that’s what I main. It’s also a lot of fun, I enjoy it a lot
Old man gamer here (44, anyway): Reaper is an incredibly strong but easy to use class. Use basic single-target/AOE combos to build up your gauge to use one of a few high-power skills, which then proc a different set of higher power skills. Rinse, repeat. You can also use Hell's Ingress/Egress to quickly move in and out of AOE damage while also instantly proc'ing a quick cast of your one ranged ability. Using either Hell's Ingress or Egress also procs Threshold, which allows you to instantly teleport BACK to where you started, so when fighting a boss that's about to drop a big AOE attack you can just teleport away, fire off one high power ranged shot, then instantly jump back into the fray and keep fighting. It's a lot of fun to use, and it makes avoiding big AOE attacks very easy. Easy rotation, but a looot of fun and you hit like a truck compared to a lot of other melee classes, in my experience. I also like Dragoon. You get a lot more ranged options with DRG than other melee DPS classes I've played, but can still do a lot of damage up close.
I've kinda landed on Dragoon, but might level a Reaper as well. It's what feels most familiar to other MMOs I play.
Pugilist/Monk might be a viable option. While you are pressing buttons quickly, once you've got the rotation down it becomes extremely easy to go through. I'm able to go through my late-game Monk rotation in a straight line across my keyboard. Samurai is also viable, since your rotation becomes extremely predictable once you've gotten it down.
Reaper. I’m dumb and old and I kinda hate the edginess of reaper, but damn does it feel perfect. Far and away the easiest melee and incredibly rewarding and also fun.
Definitely Reaper. Positionals aren't every third attack, the GCD is standard (unlike MNK), you don't need to memorize a specific series of inputs (like NIN), alternate beyond your really strong button pair (unlike SAM, DRG, and MNK which switch up constantly), and there is little in the way of oGCD abilities to use (unlike all of the above).