Bard, Machinist or Dancer, which will you choose? Let’s compare their strong and weak points!
Bard Guide: https://youtu.be/m9yxAOshwOs
Machinist Guide: https://youtu.be/B3GuDGk7idc
Dancer Guide: https://youtu.be/bWIZKzscMzk
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Music Used:
FFXIV Dawntrail – Starless Skyline
#ffxiv #dawntrail
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:34 Bard
06:30 Machinist
12:13 Dancer
16:25 Final Summary
17:39 Fun Fact
source
Bard – MEH, Machinist – Hardmode Headache, Dancer – just match colors
Ironically at high level play (parsing, specifically), I feel DNC is the most difficult, mostly due to my most hated skill in the game: Tillana. The extra 50 you get during 2 min burst where you’re already getting flooded with Esprit from the raid makes it incredibly overwhelming. I’m constantly overlapping Esprit through no fault of my own and it just feels BAD.
While in MCH is a lot to keep track of during 2 min, since it’s completely scripted eventually it feels a lot easier.
And BRD is…. idk. It’s BRD. It’s kind of middle of the road in terms of high level optimization since so much of it is based on direct hit luck from your teammates. (Also I don’t like DoT jobs lol)
There is one thing most people not realy take into account if you want to master the dancer 2min burst outside of the opener, because you have to look at your rotation already 10-15sec before the 2min burst starts because if you use your 1 combo attack 7.5secs before the Tec you can end up with the 50% prock and if you use the 2nd combo then 2.5sec before tec and you get there a prock aswell you kinda fucked up because the 2min window has so many aktions that you lose the prock and if you try to use the prock while not overcapping esprit you also can end up losing starfall dance. the main idea is to start your last 1-2 combo 10sec before tec and use as filler if needet Saberdance and in very rare cases your lastdance to not get procks you would lose otherwise. But other then that nice video.
mch needs damage and a more ping friendly setup for heatblast and weaving
Worth noting that 20 battery gauge is worth around 500 potency when accounting for the pet potency difference. So your highest potency per second buttons technically are chain saw and air anchor but they deliver this potency a lot later and likely outside of burst windows unless it's your opener. (Since you want to go into your 2m with 100 gauge already)
Just saying, dancer is the best because we get AN VAAAAAANT~ Flies off the edge
I get that at this point it's just entrenched terminology for Historical Reasons, but I still find it kinda funny how "selfish" dps are the ones who have to schedule their rotations around everyone else's cooldowns, whereas optimal play for non-"selfish" dps (usually) consists of doing what your own kit tells you to do
Wow, how dare you not make this video end up being poorly veiled dancer propaganda, since it's the best job in the game. Factually, of course. None of those silly opinions.
Also, Dancer should have gotten a full five stars in every category. Anything less than that is just a disgrace. smh my head
(But actually, though. Enjoyed the video. Having a comparison of the jobs within a role is nice.)
I absolutely love dancer. It's simplicity has a beauty to it to where there's enough to keep me engaged on my rotation, but not at the detriment of keeping an eye on mechanics.
Haven't been playing it as much lately though, because any 8 man content with double dancer is the most frustrating experience in the game to deal with. The other dancer either never does tech on cooldown or they wait until I start mine to do it just wasting buffs.
MCH has its issues, but it remains my go to DPS class. Flamethrower is bad, it's too easy to accidentally throw off your entire rotation, and trying to coordinate your battery gauge with random groups and their arbitrary two minute timing is all but impossible. Let's not even talk about the damage fall off in 100 content as a selfish DPS with effectively zero other utility in standard content outside of defensive cooldowns you regularly just don't need to use.
All that said, it is a very fun job when things are going well, and in content 90 and below it's still quite strong, particularly in uncoordinated groups.
Been playing since 1.0 and they never gotten the Bard right
Where is Summoner?
Machinists are indeed chess masters, as when they move their Rook it slams the other pieces off the board
Machinist is The Mecha Anime Enjoyer job.
i honestly love your voice. its like nice backdrop asmr
I kinda miss a bit of old MCH with the ammunition system, largely because of how cool it was that some of the guns actually flipped open when you used the reload and quick load skills. I kinda understood it toward the end of StB but I am happy MCH started to lean more into the Gadgeteer with a gun engineer kind of character, especially when they gave us back the wrench!
woo bard yeah
We all know machinist is only technically weakest so it's not the only one played.
BANG BANG BBY
Dancer (in my experience) works best with a 10 second pull timer. The big example I always use is The Weapon's Refrain Ultimate.
If you do a 15 second dance timer, then standard step comes off Cooldown before the Plume ads spawn, and you will need to hold it for two GCDs in order to burst them all down. If you pop Standard Step at 10 seconds instead then you will still have space to fit the next Standard Finish into your Tech-Step window and it will come off CD just as the ads spawned in.
Dancer feels way better to me than the other two. Machinist just feels like "random bullshit go" where you're trying to throw out every tool you have as quickly as possible and trying to keep it all aligned for a burst that other players may or may not give you, and I will not consider Bard to be a real job until they make the Hawkeye proc actually replace the button for your normal shot.
At least Black Mage has some occasional reason to cast Fire again instead of using a Firestarter proc, but there's no reason for Bard to ever not use their proc.
Bard is definitely my favourite dps so far, and it is I think one job that develops most naturally. I am late 70s lvl-wise, and only recently starting thinking specifically about rotations, only to discover with Bard especially I was already mostly on track (in theory at least, if admittedly not always execution).
Dancer for me feels like more casual fun. It took me a while to understand its randomness is overstated. There is a rythym to it. Plus pretty colours 🙂
Machinist is the one I struggle most to "get". I mean I have fun as I play, but it feels more like semi-randomly mashing buttons. Not entirely but no doubt I haven't gotten the flow of it yet. Which on the basis of this sounds like it maybe simply doesn't have quite as natural a flow as the other two.
Interesting vid. For reference all my jobs are currently L78 or L79.
BRD is clearly the best. Look at the peloton animation and dare to tell me I'm wrong (?)
More serious, BRD is indeed my favorite and has turned into my secondary. The 2 minute is busy and EA and dot upkeep keep me busy during the downtime. I also really enjoy playing around with the song lenghts on the fly in ultis and the like now that you dont requiere a target. There's also no feel like snapshoting those dots on the very last second.
I've been playing DNC since I could and I'm 2k hours into 14 now.
I personally think it's an amazing job for sprouts and enjoying content. Three dashes and being always being able to move is an immense QoL for new players, being ranged means you can see what's actually going on, Dancer' rotation and burst is satisfying to master and DNC will always be in the conversation for most stylish job. Finally, their core features and AOE which requires you to be in melee – you actually get a taste of most combat-related things 14 has to offer. All-around, it's an excellent starting point in every way.
I get that some people love the busy-ness of Bard but to me it just feels like a job they keep stapling extra stuff onto every expansion such that it no longer really feels like it's cohesive anymore. I'd say it's one of the jobs most due for a rework at this point so they can tear it down and rebuild it with a more logical and cohesive play style.
When using DPS I usually use Dancer….RNGESUS TAKE THE WHEEL FOR MY DPS
I'm sorry that GIANT HOTBAR is distracting me
(Tho I appreciate it, it makes it easier to read for the video)
Due to pf party merging shenanegans I recently ended up accidentally sight-reading M4S prog on Dancer (I'm usually on SMN). Surprisingly, it was pretty all right!
In a perfect world, Bard's coda would time with the music currently playing.
I just love the movment of DNC after playing BLM DNc is so freeing, I do think BRD builds you into the rotation well as you level
BRD main here, I love to help give my party big damage numbers. Even bigger when a MNK and/or SCH are around.
I started with BRD as my very first job back in Heavensward and absolutely sucked at it for a few years, but having that background has made almost every other job I've picked up feel sooooooo easy 😂Picked up DNC the day ShB early access dropped and only keep BRD gear for performances now.
As a machinist main it does make me sad that hyper charge not the tools is the raw damage. I'm here for the gadgets not the gun play.
For a long time, l though l press all 3 songs At the same time….
Great vid!
I just gotta add that the class stats you display are kinda hard to read due to the bg, so either blurring the bg or adding a 30% opacity square behind it would help with visibility.
I used to main Dancer during Endwalker, but I decided to switch to prioritising Reaper and Red Mage for Dawntrail. Less because I dont enjoy Dancer (I honestly enjoy all phys ranged jobs)… but more because Dancer is one of the most awkward job to make a glam for at times due to most Aiming gear not fitting Dancer too well.
Unrelated, as long as you are "Alive", you can stack the AoEs at 5:07. They don't do damage as long as everyone in the AOE did the mechanic correctly. I love terrorizing PF chasing them with the AoE 🙂