The Hardest Ranged Physical DPS in Endwalker!

Which Ranged Physical DPS is actually the hardest to learn, play and master, in Final Fantasy 14 Endwalker? Let's talk about exactly that!
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Music Used:
FFXIV Endwalker - Cradle of Hope
#ffxiv #endwalker
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:28 Dancer
04:58 Machinist
09:13 Bard
14:01 Different Players find Different Things Difficult
16:23 Outro
16:59 Fun Fact

[@Xorua]

“Oh wait my DoTs dropped” how could you absolutely call me out like this

[@stargasior]

I main Bard and your description is spot on.

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

I'm glad to hear that! 😂

[@BardicHyena]

As someone who mains the ranged physical dps classes, I've always seen people say that these jobs are the easiest yet don't understand the intricate tool kits of them. You explained each so well and hopefully people who thought this way have a new perspective.

[@BloodDragoon]

My old raid team just did not understand how hard it is to keep machinist working.

[@koy540]

What I don't think people understand about bard and dancer is that while playing optimally EVERY burst phase is different. The order of gcds and ogcds change every time. Furthermore all of this has to be done at a speed slightly slower than a ninja's app, but unlike ninja you can't muscle memory your burst. You have to make decisions

[@majimapyro370]

I plan to fully main Bard for the first time in Dawntrail, so learning all this stuff is gonna be an exciting experience

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

That is quite interesting! I am curious what caused you to choose bard specifically for dawntrail! 😊

[@Topaz542]

Bard was my main up through Stormblood before I switched to Summoner and it's just so much fun. I'm seriously considering picking it back up for DT cuz the changes to Bard look so good

[@TheSteret]

In a similar situation. I just like dots and procs, and I didn't realize they were a core part of bard until now.

[@majimapyro370]

@@CaetsuChaijiCh Mainly the new outfit... But it really spoke to me the most while I was watching the Job Action Trailer (out of the ones I did not already main, that is. Those being MCH, MNK and SCH)

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

@majimapyro370 that's a reasonable explanation! I was exactly wondering why bard stood out among all the flashy new things, but I can see it! I personally love the style of bard too, it's just so hard! 😅

[@tyler5013]

I think part of the problem MCH has is the lack of continuity between the aoe and single target parts of kit, for example single-target hypercharge skills reduce OGCD cooldowns but aoe one does not. Drill and Bioblaster share a cool down but with reassemble drill can be a dps gain even when there is multiple targets. Also, until very late you only get battery gauge from single target attacks while the heat gauge is very easy to fill leaving new players unsure of what to prioritize, delay building battery to spend heat or overcap on heat to build battery faster.

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

Indeed! It is probably also very confusing that the battery gauge doesn't help that much on aoe!

[@shurhaian]

@@CaetsuChaijiCh There is definitely part of me that misses the Bishop autoturret and wonders why it couldn't have been in there for AoE purposes, but then raiders probably would just think it a useless button. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[@Dae-Dae97]

Raiders would use it for 2 target fights. Smh 🤭​@@shurhaian

[@Spiritchuckpvp]

@@shurhaian But every AoE button is useless in a raid scenario if there aren't adds and the aoe button isn't at least a gain on 2? I don't think I follow how it's raider's faults that fights aren't designed to have AoE encounters. MNK's Six Sided Star is considered a practically useless button but in raiding it's used as the last GCD before the boss disappears/dies to get in some additional damage.

[@yoonigan]

The way you described BRD is exactly what goes through my mind when I play BRD. It's so much stuff to keep track of, it hurts my brain.

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

Yeah that is also how the job feels for me, despite the fact I know exactly how to play it! 😂

[@iPlayOnSpica]

For me, it's not about keeping track because the cooldowns are all pretty visible in my hotbar setup. It's about when you exit and reenter combat or if the boss exits the arena, you'll find more and more of your cooldowns falling out of alignment. I also absolutely hate the 2 button filler rng rotation.

[@gasparguruoftime5475]

That moment when you have two Pitch Perfect stacks and the song tick is about to happen AND Empyreal Arrow is about to come off CD.

[@koy540]

This is why I love the job all the things you have to do allows you to basically just look at your bars and your song gauge to time out a fight. You know key points of the fight by dot refreshes, song changes, and even emperyl arrow uses. So you typically don't need to even look at the fight because your rotation plays the fight for you.

[@iPlayOnSpica]

@@koy540 I don't know if we're playing the same game? Looking at the fight is very important, and I hate gluing my eyes too much on the job gauge or hotbars

[@laerwen]

DNC main here - I find I did eventually get out of that tunnel vision problem, but by sheer practice and muscle memory. I really enjoy the random procs; the real challenge is taking that randomness and making a structure out of it to suit the encounter. I never see it as free form. Randomness is saved for when it's best used: ie: 3 feathers for burst window, never cap 4, never Tech Step before an intermission/phase transition/active time maneuver/etc. Despite the RNG my brain is able to make a script for every encounter once I've learned it well, and it's very satisfying to feel like I've done as much as I can, worked around other DNC player buff windows AND used my support abilities as needed. Once I have that down, some fights make me feel like I'm in flight. It's an awesome feeling! P11 is a favorite. BRD though - I love that job but I KNOW I'm rusty when I'm tunnel-visioning on the hot bar. Woof. There are a lot of plates to keep spinning, to use a old metaphor.

[@kisaragireion]

Fellow DNC main here. I always feel like high five-ing the other DNC in the party whenever we manage to adjust each other’s buff window without even communicating

[@RinTheBard]

Bard becomes mostly muscle memory after awhile and you kinda just know like “it’s time to press iron fang and move to mages ballad” and the more I’ve played it the more auto pilot the job gets. Unlike dancer which the randomness doesn’t allow me to mostly spreadsheet a fight like current 6.58 bard dawntrail changes seem cool but machinist is looking better for dawntrail the bard atm.

[@Spiritchuckpvp]

Yeah BRD and MCH are definitely the spreadsheet jobs when it comes to raiding, but I think the inherent difficulty of BRD is it has the most rotational fail conditions of basically any job with the exception of BLM and arguably MNK. Drop your dots? +1 GCD to reapply them. Mess up your song timers? Lose damage. Die? You're cooked GG. Had "Straight Shot Ready" but accidentally pressed Barrage? -1 Refulgent Arrow and I could go on. This isn't anything to diss BRD, I love the job, I play it in 3/5 ultimates and in savage, and these are all skill issues, but compare this to the potential fail conditions of DNC and MCH and I think it makes sense why BRD is considered one of the more difficult jobs in the game.

[@fishtrekgames]

key to bard is setting your UI up for it. bring the boss bar down and closer to your song gauge and cooldowns, keep your dots and buffs aligned left in a small screen space so you can check everything you need to in a single glance. my HUD for all other jobs is now based on what i needed for bard. i play all 3 phys ranged and i'd say bard's hardest.. but it's not that bad. its a nice challenge

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

Definitely! If I played jobs like bard and monk more, I'd probably had separated the debuffs from the enemy target and put them closer to my hotbars and gauges! 😊

[@Spiritchuckpvp]

Reminder that you can separate the boss's debuffs from the health bar! Could make this process a bit easier. Also there's plugins to make tracking the dots/procs easier but I didn't tell you that xoxoxo.

[@steveaustin4118]

I'm one of the sad people who love the RNG of dancer, I find it makes it more interesting

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

That's not a sad thing. I think the more relaxed randomness of dancer is one of its greater selling points!

[@Spiritchuckpvp]

This is actually true. I played a lot of Dancer in DSR and I really appreciated how every burst window was different, especially in DSR since you press Flourish about 15 seconds before the last burst window of P2 to be able to cleave both eyes in P4.

[@1Shayz1]

12:07 THIS

[@porina_pew]

Casual Bard main since StormBlood (I don't do EX+ until after some ilvl creep). I was initially surprised to see Bard listed as hardest, but after hearing the reasoning I kinda agree. I felt dancer was the most difficult of the three. In part due to "press button when it lights up" and in part the aoe requires you to be in the middle of everything which can get a bit exciting. Bard can just stand pretty much wherever in comparison. I will admit I'm not the best at song rotation and DOT uptime when things get busy. MCH didn't feel that difficult either, but to me was incredibly boring. Dancer is the most fun but it feels like more work too. I pick Bard because it is less stressful.

[@niito_vt]

I love this video. Bard main for almost all my years of on-again/off-again playing and I really loved EW endgame play for the job. I solved for most of my hotbar tunnel vision with a unique-ish UI set-up that mimics my MMO mouse buttons + target debuffs/cast bar near enough my character that I can see mechanics and procs; all with high peripheral readability while I focus on one thing or the other :v I didn't realize the job was considered hardest by so many! I really gotta try out the other two phys ranged :D I enjoy the hyperactivity of the job while procs are going, but it can also be painful when RNG says "no shadowbite/refulgent for you!" haha "Oh wait my DoTs dropped" happens no matter how good you get with this job I think 😂Conversely, that feeling of hitting Iron Jaws at the very LAST second gives me my brain happy feelings.. xD

[@thesuperthingymabob8209]

Surprised at the lack of mention of ping reliant hypercharge burst ngl

[@smallj900]

“Oh wait there’s a boss mechanic” ahhhhh that’s me, I get distracted by all the things I’m paying attention to 😅

[@TheFiretiger]

I play the expansion on physical ranged, and the post expansion on magical dps. I'm looking forward to putting my rapiers down and picking my bow back up. It's going to be a ride

[@cathat1756]

Maybe because I’m just hitting level 56 bard myself, but I’m surprised it’s seen as the hardest ranged dps. The song management seems like they flow into each other naturally enough alongside the song duration serving as a dot duration reminder. It seems fairly straightforward to keep track of the shiny straight shot button lighting up with your big song timer notifying you of it being time to change up.

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

It could be that it just makes sense for you! After all, we are all different! 😊

[@RinTheBard]

Doing this in a higher raid difficulty gets overwhelming at times. My first class was bard, my first ultimate clear was on bard. But you are right the class is mostly straight forward and the only issue that people have with it is remembering to press a button at the right time

[@claytonsteed6767]

For me, using a song for 42 seconds, 33 seconds and then 42 seconds is not an obvious flow. Being forced to cut songs short for optimal dps is probably my least favorite part of the job.

[@cathat1756]

@@claytonsteed6767 what song is 33 seconds? Wanderer army paeon then mage’s ballad?

[@MinhQuan900]

​@cathat1756 the optimal order you play your songs are Wanderer's Minuet, Mage Ballad and then Army's Paeon before cycling back to the beginning. At level 70, you play 42 seconds of MB and 33 seconds of AP because MB effect is more powerful at this lvl range. From 80 onwards it's the other way around and you play 33 seconds of MB, cutting it short and jumping to 42 seconds of AP since it's effect is now more powerful than MB

[@LarkyLuna]

Yeah, I didn't vote for bard as the hardest because it was my first job. I'm way too used to it but I can see how people would have trouble with it I voted machinist because losing over 5 hours of work on a solo deep dungeon run on a misstimed rotation is not fun

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

Wow, that's weirdly specific, but also perfectly understandable on the deep dungeon part!

[@TheQman69]

Any job except for healers can lose to the 180 boss due to a missed rotation. Healers can stay alive indefinitely to meteor spam, other than running out of time. I have PotD cleared solo on all jobs ;)

[@Hoooound]

7:33 ACTUALLY I’m pretty sure you use wildfire and flamethrower together for optimal damage, it just makes sense!

[@DioDinero]

Big brain time

[@Spiritchuckpvp]

While part of me wishes it worked like that because it's funny, another part of me knows that it would feel awful in a raid environment LOL. Imagine having to sit still for 10 seconds during a 2 minute burst window with mechanics going on at the same time. It'd be like having to do Ten Chi Jin 4 times in a row LMFAO.

[@GarnetDust24]

I love bard. It so much fun and very busy but you have to do so much for so little and if you die forget about it.

[@koy540]

Dying on Bard 3 seconds Into wanderers is like just saying "I'm skipping put on this burst phase see you in 2 minutes."

[@Danny83Munich]

I played ff14 years ago with my Bard till i think lvl40 then i stopped. Now for Dawntrail i was just courious again ( And it was actually rly confusing cause i almost forgott everything xD ) and my goal was (and still is) to enjoy the story from all main quests. As i started again i actually read everywhere how bad they changed the Bard. I actually never really played any other class, but for me personal its super fun to try ( i think im now lvl60something and finished a realm reborn and the first quests) to line everything correctly. I have to be focused all the Time and i know i still dont have the complete rotation ( wanderers minuet still missing) it keeps me engaged without the fear of when i miss something the whole raid will die ( props to all main healer and tanks

[@krovidae]

Biggest hot tip as a (fairly recent) bard main - audio queues! Learn the different audio queues for when skills are ready (apex arrow doesn't work below level 86 because reasons 🙄) and also I have a macro on both Stormbite and Iron Jaws with a timer that beeps at me about 2 gcds before I need to refresh dots (be careful to spam macro at end of previous gcd as it will not queue it if you press early like normal skill buttons)

[@Kyser96]

Totally agree. I want to like bard but in practice, it feels like you're juggling plates while someone throws rocks at you. I'm sure it becomes more natural as you play, but its really overwhelming when you try to take it into any content as a newer bard.

[@reddfranzen9072]

@Caetsu Chaiji Ch. i mentioned this in a previous video comment section, but the reason classes are deemed hard or easy is based on the amount of skill they have to remember and movement. If a class has the list amount of buttons needed to press and is super mobile to avoid damage, majority of players maining or otherwise would consider it easy. You havent released it yet but i bet that the Melee dps wont be so dramatic in its votes, and a couple will be neck and neck for hardness, why? because they have to be upfront with the boss and tend to have a good amount of buttons to press, based on this, ninja will be hardest class in ur next video, followed by either monk or reaper, samurai then dragoon as easiast.

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

Those factors may be what makes some players decide what is easy or hard, but ultimately we all find different things difficult. That's why some players find dancer the hardest, and others machinist and bard 😊 I can also inform you that your suggested ranking of nin > mnk / rpr > Sam > drg Has one job correct only, and also makes me think you might be a dragoon main 😁 But that also tells me exactly as I said, we all find different things difficult, and I give the whole speech at the end about what kind of reasons people have to vote on one job over another! Thank you for your input!

[@reddfranzen9072]

@@CaetsuChaijiCh NP, i can see i was wrong on most of it. i was actually suprized reaper was deemed easiest, but thinking about it, its abilities are fairly easy to use, and it has both a forward and retreat skill making mobility the best, i shouldve considered that. But all in all, When ff14 came out i was a Monk main until shadowbringers, where i switched over to gunbreaker, mostly for aesthetic and how fun the class can be with its abilities. But overall im an altoholic, i tend to play every class when playing mmos, this game i love cuz i dont have to make new characters. P.S. i only thought dragoon may have been easiest because it had mobility and was around the longest but i can see people still seem to struggle with it.

[@marksconplaystasy7328]

I will watch this video when I drive home from work. I can say bard is super super busy. Maybe not quite “hard,” but super busy. I am furiously mashing buttons on that poor controller to the point where I still get all flustered and start hitting the wrong button combos. And all that in the middle of raid mechanics. And I have yet to learn how to target team members with the controller to apply Warden’s Paean (spell check) in order to be a little more helpful and therefore that more effective. But I love that the focus of bard is on party buffs. So my priority is to buff my party first and foremost and then proceed to do as much dps as possible. I am nowhere near level cap, still in the middle of Stormblood MSQ, and I am having a blast! So whatever I say, is probably not relevant at all. Thank you for letting me what your video.

[@Xorua]

Can’t wait to absolutely slam dunk Dancer and Machinist in the bin in Dawntrail and become the Bard I always wanted to be

[@oltro15]

My first class was bard so naturally with all the practise I have with it it's second nature to me but that doesn't mean I never make mistakes. Miskicking a song right after another, which still happens to me sometimes, is super punishing. I kind of wish there was a way to recover from that easier.

[@alistine8000]

You skimmed over it but BRD also has optimizations going on with WHEN they use their dots since you need to snapshot your dots twice during your first burst window to align, then you need to use them half way through mages to delay them so you can snap army fully stacked or you lose a lot of damage.

[@Likian5]

As someone who plays machinist using a controller, I find that it's the friendliest out of the 3 when it comes to button layout for your hotbar. With my current setup, I can have a single-target/boss-centric layout for one, another for trash packs during dungeon pulls, and a third for defensive cooldowns, second wind, peloton, etc. It's the one job I've found that forces me to shuffle through my hotbars the least, so for me it's by far the easiest to play.

[@mr.matthews8002]

When I started playing this I started as an arcanist and didn't enjoy my casts getting interrupted because I didn't know how the game worked yet. After dropping the game and later remaking a character as an archer, I liked the feel of it a lot more, and I have a personal liking to bards so that was a plus. I feel bard is great that it starts from lv1 even though it takes a lot longer to level, you get to know the tiny bits in detail. I don't do EXs and stuff but I like the chaos of my rotation and I still drop my dots

[@itsmaxey4597]

Bard was basically my main for my whole first playthrough (after deciding early dragoon was too boring) and I had a load of fun. I definitely didn't level it at first just to unlock the performance feature... Anyway after I level all the other DPS jobs I'm not so sure if it's my favorite anymore. The fact that it is so punishing with it's 120sec rotation that better not get broken by anything (god forbid you die) makes me enjoy it less after learning what other job play like. If it wasn't the job I started with I wouldn't still like it. I wouldn't do this today but Bard made me change the UI just so I could play better. Keeping up the DoT was a bigger deal back when Mages ballad relied on it for procs back in Shadowbringes so I moved the enemy health bar with it's debuffs right above my hotbars so I wouldn't have to dart my eyes from the bottom of the screen to the top over and over again to check on the timers. Love the look of my HUD now though so it's not just a change that worked for Bard. It would be cool to see them make the job more modern, I like the new features of Dawntrail like the fact that Pitch Perfect does AoE now (generally like that they make more moves viable for dungeon trash) but it still feels so rough compared to the other reworked jobs. Not as necessary as the small Dragoon rework for example but would be interesting to see still. Part of me likes that it's kinda punishing though but that's probably just me being weird. Great content btw!

[@samj1512]

Looking at the hotbars is an issue I have with all phys range jobs lol. MCH is probably the one I find the easiest to play well consistently, while DNC is fun when the prics actually activate. Never really clicked with BRD. Not sure why, but it feels a bit too proc heavy (ironically, since I don't feel the same about DNC...) with little variation on the base of the job. Not a huge fan of phys range in general though and has often been the last set of classes I leveled each 10-level bracket

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

I imagine what makes dnc feel less proc heavy, is that aspect that the random factors that do happen don't require you to react to immediately, compared to bard! 🤔 It is at least a possibility!

[@samj1512]

@@CaetsuChaijiCh could be! It's difficult to put a finger on

[@eidolon8816]

I play on controller which I think has an impact on this as well. DNC and MCH largely become auto-pilot for me when using a controller, same as most melee jobs, where as BRD I'm constantly messing up, forgetting my dots, hitting the wrong button etc. Which is why I love it. I can't just check out when playing it. People say Ninja is difficult but I honestly thing MNK and BRD are harder because there's so much more to keep track of and their rotations aren't just 123.

[@delimelone]

Honestly I truly love bard for raiding because I tend to forget burst timers and since you have a literal built in song timer you can't miss

[@arielchanter]

I enjoyed MCH back in Stormblood, even though I knew it NEEDED to be changed. But it was so chaotic and fun to absolutely micromanage all of it's kit. BRD is that for me now. Sure, BRD can freely move around the arena, but it's so easy to tunnel vision between dots, songs, and procs.

[@firby7341]

my difficulties with dancer is, it has too many buttons that all do the same. while you could say that about every dps, buttons do damage, for dancer its like you have a 12 rotation that can activate 1' and 2' and the ressource you MAY get from these triggers can use an ability thats either single target or aoe, lets name both 3, and 3 can trigger 3' and all of them "just deal damage". to me, i dont see a point in making so many conditional triggers besides for just filling the bars, which they didnt do with the summoner rework. to me, a bard main, all dancer abilities feel the same while having the need to be bound to different keys and my brain cant handle that because i fail to see a reason for their existence. and i didnt even mention 4, which you can get with 50% bar filling

[@formy52]

BRD was my first job so its hard for me to say it is the hardest for me exactly but I understand entirely what you mean. My personal thing with BRD is the DoT timer. I glance, see I have ten seconds left. Cool, I've got time to chuck in a few more filler. I look again, and dang it's on one second already. It's so so easy to lose discipline with BRD. Everything else I'm comfy with, but the Iron Jaws timings always mess me up. I do like how BRD very easily tells you when to burst with the songs. The songs can also mess with you hugely if you die; death on BRD is supremely punishing.

[@bleh491]

I’m surprised MCH being ping reliant wasn’t mentioned. Having to high of ping can really hurt the jobs rotations and damage with how apm heavy it is during its overheat phase.

[@RoboJ71]

Being honest I was *very* surprised to see BRD that high up. The RNG is definitely a factor, sure, but I thought it was pretty easy to understand as compared to MCH who has more active GCDs and having to pay attention to what order you need to do it in else your rotation is just *shot*. I still have massive trouble figuring out when to use what cause I lose track. ...but I then I realized tracking timers (and procs) were a thing I have fun doing (speaking as someone who mained summoner in ShB), and it tickles my neurons. Which knowing how my ADHD brain works, I realize is not the norm. I will walk into an aoe during my burst in wanderer's though, I'm not infallible.

[@MrGoofyGooberson]

5:43 This is the truest thing I have ever heard about machinist I remember when I first was leveling machinist and I just did not get why I can never get all charges off with hypercharge I thought I was just messing up but then heat blast comes in and it all comes together Playing machinist in brayflox's longstop and haukke manor is the most goofy experience ever

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

Oh yeah, those are great examples. I'm shocked they don't give you heat blast alongside hyper charge!

[@Silversky1113]

Bard is definitely the hardest. I main the other 2 ranged jobs, but bard gave me some trouble. It took me a few years after starting ffxiv to realize that I was playing bard totally wrong and that I should be paying more attention to the tooltips. For a lot of these jobs, organizing your cross/hot bars and UI is very very important, and I feel that is especially true with bard. However, I do like the support it brings. I may have to go back and finish leveling it.

[@kman6004]

Can someone explain why devilment before tech step is a trap? Isn't tech step their highest damaging GCDS? Even when you consider how long it takes to use?

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

While technical finishes 1200 potency is impressive, it takes around 3 gcds time to perform, making it more like a 400 potency per gcd attack, meaning just for starters that it isn't the best attack in your arsenal. During your burst, most of your gcds should be worth more than 400 potency either through actions like saber dance or star fall dance, or through weaving feathers alongside weaker attacks as well 😊 If you use devilment first, it also means that you give you and your dance partner about 7 seconds of just devilment, then 13 seconds of both buffs, and then 7 seconds of just technical finish. If you use technical finish and then devilment immediately after you get 20 seconds of both, and stacking buffs that increase your damage output together leads to a greater whole. Since technical finish makes your entire raid able to generate esprit for you, having these buffs overlap also increases the chance of getting more saber dances inside devilment! I hope this helps! 😊

[@raarasunai4896]

I'm kind of surprised to see Bard as the hardest. But I suppose that's because Machinist is ping unfriendly and my less than perfect hardware makes it clip when it shouldn't.

[@damonhawke1963]

This surprised me. I've always thought of Bard as being the easiest one by far. I have the job mapped to like 3 macros that make it a 6-button job. Two macros in particular are just 90% me just spamming the button till it's time to play a song/buff. I guess playing songs on time could be difficult, but I've never found it to be an issue even when in hard content.

[@ImArchieK]

I started and still main Bard, are you saying the other jobs you don't have to do so much lol. After starting Bard I didn't have the mental capacity to remember this for all the other jobs, so I have one tank and one heal.

[@lawrencealcantara]

excuse me? i use devilment before final step for that slight addition of damage, why the other way round?

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

While technical finishes 1200 potency is impressive, it takes around 3 gcds time to perform, making it more like a 400 potency per gcd attack, meaning just for starters that it isn't the best attack in your arsenal. During your burst, most of your gcds should be worth more than 400 potency either through actions like saber dance or star fall dance, or through weaving feathers alongside weaker attacks as well 😊 If you use devilment first, it also means that you give you and your dance partner about 7 seconds of just devilment, then 13 seconds of both buffs, and then 7 seconds of just technical finish. If you use technical finish and then devilment immediately after you get 20 seconds of both, and stacking buffs that increase your damage output together leads to a greater whole. Since technical finish makes your entire raid able to generate esprit for you, having these buffs overlap also increases the chance of getting more saber dances inside devilment! I hope this helps! 😊

[@lawrencealcantara]

@@CaetsuChaijiCh quite a bit actually, thank you very much! who knew i've been doing it wrong for years XD

[@BlackSpartan11799]

I main BRD because it was the class that just clicked for me and is easy for me to manage, so I was surprised when I found out a lot of other players think it’s on the harder end to play. I do pretty well with it, not that there are a lot of other BRDs to compare against.

[@GimmeTOKYO]

I’ve been a dancer main since 5.3, and mostly do it in higher end content. I love the burst damage activates the goody good chemicals. I do MCH in lower levels because it’s so OP nowadays and I just wanna shut down brain. Bard is when I need the mental exercise

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

That makes sense! In most content, I would also default to dancer for ranged physical, but specifically low level I'd be more likely to pick machinist too! 😊

[@FragileEgo]

It would've been nice if you brought up timing SS during downtime to hit right as the boss phases back requiring very high levels of timeline awareness along with certain comps/fights benefiting from swapping standard step targets due to either priorizing specific jobs for strong filler/burst or specific phases in general instead of pretending like it didnt exist to make the job seem more braindead than it already is. DP swapping and precasting SS during downtime perfectly is very rewarding but also difficult.

[@ThatHomestar]

been a bard main since i started playing in stormblood. i miss the RNG dot proc-ing song effects ;-;

[@Zamerus]

For machinist and its like 16 or 18 button combo or whatever is ridiculous to me, 4-5 skills in and then everything else is botched like ive got hotbar dyslexia

[@SlackersForHire]

Dawntrail is the first expansion since the launch of ARR where I am considering switching from BRD as my main. I personally find MCH to be super easy and at the same time much better DPS.

[@PureRandumosity]

Im surprised for dancer it wasn't mentioned that when its actually time to push all those glowy buttons for the burst, thats where the complexity mostly lies. Once you've grasped the concept of stock piling everything- when the moment of truth actually comes, it can be very overwhelming and difficult to pull off when raid mechanics are happening because you gotta double weave your fans and spend your guage so youre not over capping. And because of the randomness, you can just be generating fans and espree like mad during burst and you want to squeeze all that damage into the party buff window. It goes from a snooze fest to high apm and stress every burst 😂

[@laerwen]

This this this. Sure, you have RNG and everyone seems to focus on that. But how do you use it? How do you give this structure to best suit the fight and (here's me in duty finder--) WHOOPS your healers are dead, RDM is (HOPEFULLY) dualcasting Rez oh no RAIDWIDE ::slams Samba:: CRAP ::dodges AoE:: And Tech Step is off CD, is it the right time? Where is your other DNC's 2 minute window, what is the fight and where is the transition? ::glances at boss HP:: 5% more, there's no time! ::tosses 4th feather proc away:: It is really stressful to make that work with the randomness of other people and mechs and get a clean full-length burst without clipping yourself or any other ranged buffs, LOL.

[@berrymage.]

I agree! I think a lot of people really underestimate how complex it can be to spend everything in the right priority order, without overcapping, constantly double-weaving and moving around the whole time. all without accidentally hitting the wrong buttons? "ah crap I hit fan dance when I already had a fan 3 proc. oh dammit I tried to double-weave after tilana. nooo I let my combo fall off..." all during Superchain Theory lmao.

[@markup6394]

Add to that the fact that its almost impossible to properly recover your song rotation after death...

[@sjaak9568]

Hopefully the upgraded Bloodletter in Dawntrail will make Mage's Ballad better than Army's Paeon again so we don't have this cursed song rotation of full WM, short MB, full AP anymore. Also I really want them to let BRD start duties with 3 Codas.

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

Based on what we've heard, it absolutely does that so we instead do full wm, full mb, short ap 😅 Don't know about the codas though!

[@sjaak9568]

@@CaetsuChaijiCh That's good to hear, AP was always the most boring song to me haha. I do really hope they address the codas, felt bad enough that you can't start with a full power radiant finale but they've just doubled down on it with the new lvl 100 nuke dmg also being tied to codas :/ Losing out on so much potency with a weaker nuke, weaker radiant finale, not to mention no apex/blast arrow on pull really sucks imo.

[@dustinhatfield8373]

Out of every job Bard is the only one I consistently fuck up when playing

[@aprilgodvivi6776]

I started about a month n 2 weeks ago and i went with bard.Maining it till i die fr.

[@thomasnguyen4427]

Yep, that job should be the hardest when plenty of fellas I've seen in DF couldn't even clear the lowest bar lul

[@fabianadavien]

Dancer is my favourite DPS. The personal damage sucks, no matter how much I tried to get better gear or change my materia traits. Then again, Dancer is really a support class. It's not designed to shine on its own. A good DPS when paired as a Dance Partner will top the damage sum. And boy - I just love having healing, shield and buffs skills in one class. And one thing people tend to forget - Dancer shines as an AOE party member. Dungeons with lots of mobs loves a Dancer!

[@johanmedioni7856]

Flamethrower is always a gain on scratching your nose. And THAT has to count for something right? Right???

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

The stretching break part of the rotation!

[@johanmedioni7856]

@@CaetsuChaijiCh monk has it too with star. #tip

[@mervinkimballjr1251]

Tho I've been playing this game off and on from arr to now I finally got my wife to try out the game. She has only played ffxi before and hadn't play anything like this before got her to try brd and she seems to like it cause I thought out of the starter jobs that would be the easiest to get the hang of things but now this video makes me question that choice

[@Zulmofo]

I've been a bard/sch main since ARR and I plan to keep it that way. Bard is a lot of fun for me and the other phys. ranged just arent as enjoyable for me.

[@onewingedangelo1611]

I found bard to be the easiest of the 3. The only difficulty comes when remembering to refresh my dots. Songs are easy to keep on rotation if you move the soul gauge somewhere where your eyes are always going and then you just hit the simon says as they light up. Dancer has way too much going on although it is just Single target Combo and an AoE combo with each having a proc to each step. But there are just so many buttons you need for Dancer compared to how few Bard has

[@necrolord1920]

I generally consider MCH the easiest. I am by no means an optimized player though. The thing that is most difficult for me is delaying hypercharge when drill, air anchor, or chain saw are almost off cooldown.

[@mismismism]

Not surprised by this, BRD can be a kot more punishing than the others. That feeling of dying to a new mechanic, mistake death or drifting songs focusing too hard on something else and realizing you have no way to realign with the party. Sadly that doesn't look to be fixed in DT so I'm not expecting the difficulty ranking to shift much although songs not being attacks anymore is gonna be so nice, I'll take whatever I can get that unclunks the song system in any way.

[@asdsad17]

mch easiest. my tip is, wildfire must go on time in raid buffs. being slightly late to drill, air anchor and chainaw is fine. use on cooldown in that priority order. i don't do fflogs, but apparently i parse 90% in unreal. i drift all the time, can't be that bad huh? dnc and brd about the same to me, I only play casually. my tip for dnc is to line up the 1,2,3,4 weaponskill hotbar right under your character. espirit use on cooldown because it's easy to overcap. fan dance 3 and fan dance double weave together. birb, you need an internal clock for this. i drop dots and songs all the time. maybe birb is the hardest after all.

[@phantomvox951]

Ive seen dancers partnering up with the tank. Like wtf

[@Zelkiiro]

Speaking as someone who's only been playing for a year or so, Bard felt great at 70 and was a *little* unwieldy but otherwise fine at 80. At 90? Screw that. Those last few additions are the straw that broke the camel's back. Utterly miserable to play at max level.

[@Scerttle]

I'm gonna sound like a broken record, but... ping makes MCH hardest for me, even though I find it the most fun.

[@Scerttle]

For BRD, I have doubles of a bunch of skills on 7 8 9 0 and - that I need to press every 2 minutes. Makes sure I always line up wanderer's with everything else. I somehow find bard easier to slide into out of the three whenever I feel like playing a phys ranged for that reason 🤔

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

I can totally understand ping making a significant impact! I don't play on higher ping often enough. So when I do experience lag, it makes all jobs feel nigh impossible to play well, so I would have a hard time gauging what of it is me being bad on latency, and the latency making the job particularly difficult! 😅

[@Scerttle]

@@CaetsuChaijiCh yep! I imagine your trips to materia have probably given you an idea of how it is!

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

@Scerttle an idea indeed! 😂

[@Scerttle]

@@CaetsuChaijiCh I will say that for the alt I've made on Loiusoix, I'm definitely more conscious about the jobs I take just to avoid ability ghosting.

[@Dzyntara]

Leveling Bard to 90 was TERRIBLE as someone who can't double weave due to latency. The coolness factor was the only reason I didn't drop it at 70.

[@IssicheaV]

Bard is a pain in the ass to play in EW Ultimate

[@NaitoPsych21]

'Oh wait my DoTs dropped' I'm in this video and I don't like it.

[@Lyrxen]

I personally find mch to be the hardest. There's so many cds to keep on cooldown, and drifting even one can cause issues. I love bard myself, its the job i cleared UwU and TEA with.

[@The_Yukki]

Not to mention job being outright unplayable on anything but lowest pings due to how heat works

[@Lyrxen]

@The_Yukki it's playable at 50-60 ping but I for sure feel for those with over 100

[@ph0nez]

dancer is the hardest because it makes you question why you'd even want to bother with the other two when they have all these issues and all that pressure...just play simon says and look good :>

[@ditzyhere3138]

I’d say bard is hardest but only because I don’t care enough about it to learn. That was 1 of the three jobs I got to 90 without ever playing it. 😂

[@GuerreiroAventureiro]

Mch>Dnc>Brd Mch is like Smn but more easy and no problems/punishment when you screw up Dnc is like Rdm but kinda ballanced, only losing to Rdm in ranking difficulty Brd you just need to time your buffs/debuffs combination and rotation

[@CadeAid1]

Bard is the hardest dps to play optimally in my opinion. A lot of people who don’t play it unfortunately think it’s easy as well…

[@KinVao]

I am a person who loves playing the support class. I love building up my team, and as such Dancer is my main. So, speaking as a Dancer main, and as someone who has played all three physical ranged classes I don't have even the faintest idea what Bard is even trying to do. It seems to want to be a support like Dancer, while also being a damage dealer like Machinist. It's a complete and utter mess. I wish that it would get a rework and pick one thing that it wants to do, and then do that. As for the tunneling on Dancer... Yeah, I get that. It definitely happens. However, most of the time I know the boss well enough that I don't really need to pay attention to them that much. Hurray for scripted content. And if I do get caught out, well, En Avant is a truly wonderful thing. Just don't spam it. Cause then you won't have it for later. Not to mention that if you are En Avanting, then you aren't dancing, and if you aren't dancing, then you are no frien- I mean you aren't doing damage.

[@laerwen]

You're so right about En Avant. Sure, we can make it across an arena lighting quick - it covers for some of my mistakes. But then we're vulnerable and better hope Sprint will be enough until our next En Avant charge comes back up. There is a calculated cost.

[@Raven3557]

Hardest is MCH cuz you don't get accepted in PF

[@iPlayOnSpica]

I have a lot of problems with BRD that ultimately add up to it not being fun, not necessarily difficult. One thing not very many people point out is the paltry 2 button rng based filler rotation, and the chance is 20-35% depending on level, making the filler very unsatisfying. 1-1-2-1-1-1-2-1-2? DNC is also rng based, but a guaranteed 1-2 and a much higher 50% for the remaining two buttons makes it much more engaging. The proc based buttons are freeform and don't break combo. MCH has a 1-2-3 with no rng whatsoever. Another thing people also seldom point out is that the songs' cooldowns are 120s, not 100-110s, so you cannot fix misalignment from combat ending, i.e. between dungeon pulls. I also hate Pitch Perfect due to the constant concern for it overcapping.

[@astrealove2247]

The one thing they need to do for all Phys Ranged is buff the damage to be on par with melee, it doesn't make sense in 2024 to have the "range tax" still be a thing.

[@michealvincent731]

Don't agree with Dancer being the easiest to pick up of the ranged classes. We had a new player in our FC boost to 80 and chose DNC because "KZbin said it was easy", seven hells was that a nightmare for them. KZbinrs need to STOP RECCOMENDING DANCER TO NEW PLAYERS it is overwhelming.

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

I mean picking up ANY job at level 80 with no prior experience is going to feel like that. 😅

[@SuperImPrOv]

P. Range? hard to play?? yeah right!!

[@ch0biq]

Didnt even watch but will chime in Bard. Why? Drop anything and you completely fall off Die and be non relevant for 4 minutes Neither mch or dnc can state those

[@vigo2669]

Trick question. None of them are that hard. XD

[@Hoooound]

“Dancer is the easiest ranged DPS” meanwhile I’ve seen: -Dancers who partner up with the healer or tank (unsure if they’re doing it for the lolz or just dumb) -Dancers only using Standard step outside of fights -Dancers not using standard or technical steps at all People will find a way to mess up 🫠

[@Myrtneough]

My personal favorite is the two dancer party where one dancer refuses to tech step until they see the other use tech step

[@CaetsuChaijiCh]

It is an interesting coincidence that the jobs that are often considered the easiest by far, have some extremely common mistakes because the jobs get this perception of being trivial, so people don't bother to figure it out properly! 😅

[@Hoooound]

@@Myrtneough Oh no that's me actually, then I take the plunge and use it only for the other Dancer to remember that the move exists and uses it 4 seconds after 💀💀💀

[@laerwen]

@@Myrtneough Right, because overwriting each other's buffs really isn't ideal.

[@laerwen]

There are a lot of DNC players who flat out do not understand their job, don't know anything about their buffs, and hit random buttons without a clue as to how they should be used. I've seen it too. This is why I say that any dancer who tries to be organized is already winning most of the battle amongst us "serious casual" nerds in duty finder.

[@Break0x0Heartz]

I'm curious what the melee video will look like because i think this will be the only video were polls might not be a good reflection of reality, where people might consider Ninja/Samurai the hardest because of the amount of buttons on the hotbar when the filler phase is pretty "empty" on Ninja and Samurai is easy after you learned the stickers. As someone that have played them all I think Reaper is the easiest and followed by Ninja. Viper will have a similar vibe to Ninja and Reaper, especially since they are going for the Reaper/Sage philosophy of design of "Pretty simple but still interesting" unlike some jobs that are just easy and boring (personal opinion). The hardest things about Ninja are having a decent apm, learn the burst phases and having a decent ping lol Imo the hardest jobs are the ones where you have to maintain a dot, a buff and doing both positional pretty often, the "filler melees" while still having a decent amount of things to do during the burst phases. Samurai is probably 3rd in easiest because you just have to learn the "stickers" thing and keep both buff and dot. The remaining top 2 hardest should be Dragoon at 2nd because of the previously said positionals and buff/debuff stuff on top of your "jumps" that can really screw you over but overall just know your big cooldowns and follow up on the next combo Monk is probably the hardest because of all the difficulty of other melees combined into one, also you do not have a single ranged ability to cover out-of-melee-range downtime (you got Six Sided Star but it's not comparable to Ninja's Ninjutsus and Reaper's insane range potency on Harpe and Harvest Moon + the fact that Communio is also long range) There's a lot of things i didn't talk about, like the Strictness of not drifting on some VERSUS the Freedom of adjusting to drift on others. While some will view the strictness as a big difficulty some will see it as an easy way to build muscle memory and trying to stick to the rotation. While some will view the freedom of drifting and adjusting the rotation as a good thing some others will find it daunting to have to learn and figure out how to recover from said drifting Edit : typo