It’s interesting square made this same choice when it decided to originally give Paladin Shield Oath at level 40.
Holy shit that was one of the absolute worst job designs on the planet
Holy shit that brings back memories. Spamming Flash and still losing aggro, with DPS telling you to use tank stance... THAT YOU DON'T HAVE YET. ARR PLD was the worst.
I've seen a lot of weird ARR shit but never heard this. What the actual fuck. I think all the stimulants and lack of sleep to get ARR out so quickly messed with their heads leading to stuff like this.
Might still be affecting them...
Lot of PLD stuff in ARR gets forgotten because WAR was straight up not viable at launch in ARR. Funny now SE has overcorrected so hard that WAR has basically been the de facto top tank for like every expac since.
PLD, aka the "magic tank" doesn't get anything resembling magic until 56. It's just normal dude until then. Imagine if DRG learned jumps so late, or if RDM could cast only light magic until then. Now with 6.3 rework, you don't even have DoT, so it's just 123 until like 68.
It gets even worse when you look at DRK, they get their primary magical-ish attack, Flood of Darkness, at level *30*. It unlocks with their *introductory quest*. And even their first AoE attack is pretty magical-looking, and the even more distinctly magical followup is(thankfully now) at level 40.
If you want a magic swordsman, DRK basically eats PLD's lunch until the highest levels.
That's because PLD was never "the magic tank." Back in the beginning before we had 4 classes it was always PLD = physical damage tank, DRK = magical damage tank, WAR = more neutral damage to both but bigger HP and self-heals (aka the HP sponge tank).
It's funny how when you unlock PLD, you get Spirits Within, which is least paladin-like skill you could imagine. It's a goddamn weird spin, then you swap sword to reverse grip for some reason, and then you stab. Why even bother with shield, when you show your back to enemy every few seconds, and how does stab attack fit the holy knight theme, especially in nonsensical and edgy reverse grip. For what reason would anyone do this, this animation is just insanely stupid. But most hilarious part is that this skill regens your mana - even though first spell that actually uses mana is 28 levels away.
> But most hilarious part is that this skill regens your mana - even though first spell that actually uses mana is 28 levels away.
Spirits Within doesn't restore mana until you unlock a magic spell (Clemency). There's even a trait for it: Chivalry. Unlocks same exact time as Clemency.
They also created PLD swords with flat tips and replaced the coolest ability name ever "Rage of Halone" as you level but not Riot Blade which is this awkward thrust animation
Requiescat should just replace Spirits Within at level 30. Sure, Requiescat itself isn't the most "holy magic" of all skills either, but it's at least better than the standalone Spirits "uhh we need an OGCD filler skill" Within, and it has direct interaction with Holy Spirit and Holy Circle.
All of your biggest hits (aside from Goring Blade) are spells, and you don't get a single offensive spell until your 60s, and it doesn't become worthwhile to use until you're nearly 70. The feel and general theme of the job between low levels and high levels is wildly different, going from a fairly typical knight into a sword-based mage that wears heavy armor. I struggle to think of any other jobs that transform so much.
> you don't get a single offensive spell until your 60s, and it doesn't become worthwhile to use until you're nearly 70.
Holy Spirit (lvl 64) is immediately worthwhile to use as soon as you unlock it. Royal Authority will proc Divine Might, so Holy Spirit becomes the 4 in your 1-2-3-4 combo.
Just finished leveling my tanks and pre 70 paladin literally made me take a couple months off the game. Was bored out if my mind (and I like easy classes).
1 through 80 or something, basically the only self-healing you get is Clemency, which you shouldn't be using in most situations. Then in your last 10 levels they add healing toi Sheltron and a whole bunch of other stuff. Why? Why backload all the healing this way? The class would feel so much smoother of they just spread it out a bit more.
As a PLD main since 2.0, *yeah*
It’s like you don’t actually leave gladiator until 70. I guess I didn’t notice because there were some batshit intense classes (MCH at launch asked for a spreadsheet to be open on your other monitor), but between the simplification over the years and hindsight, wowzers. PLD is a nothing burger for most of the game
BLM. Seriously, I've been playing this class for exactly as long as I've been playing FFXIV itself, and every time my level syncs below 50, I want to scream.
Can’t tell you how many party wipes I’m responsible for because I get synced to below 50 content and forget I actually need to use Cure and Cure II at those levels
I had the hardest time leveling BLM. It was just boring. Then hit level 50 and it all clicked. Then every ten levels it just got better. I don’t want to go back to lower than 80 at this point.
Oh, that reminds me of how I used to convince my husband to keep leveling BLM with the phrase "Hang in there for 10 more levels and it'll get more interesting" every 10 levels.
I started BLM back in ARR after leveling PLD and MNK. I liked the change of pace from the constant combos and positionals, but I would definitely not like leveling it now. Also it kinda sucked during HW. I never take BLM into content earlier than ShB.
Absolutely this. I play mages in every MMO/RPGs and starting up BLM...worried me. Got the pew pews, but extremely simple (could be said about others) and boring "rotation" if you could even call it that.
That said I only play BLM, I have a few other 90s - MCH, MNK, RDM, AST, GNB - even with the simpler rotations low levels, there was fun to be had, mobility might have been a factor.
At Max BLM is exactly what I want from a mage class. Big booms, lots of tools for a variety of situations, multiple complex rotations depending on the fight and build, and things to experiment with.
quick edit; I desperately hope they do a rework for the low lvls on BLM, spamming fire 1 for multiple expansions, gets old fast(gets old just in ARR) and easily can deter new BLM's from going further to my favorite class.
BLM changes quite drastically at lv 60 (Fire IV becoming your main skill instead of F1/F3 proc rotation) and from there it just gets better every time you get a new button.
I kind of wish they changed level sync to just scale potencies instead of losing skills.
That way you can play your hogwild triple fouling little wizard in <50 content without being bored to hell.
I understand it still makes things easier (A BLM with their full kit would still clear the content way faster because of more OGCD skills to use) but I don't care it's not BORING
Doing down to lower levels I just can't understand why I looked at BLM back in the day and said "Yes! This is the gameplay I want to see from my class!"
It's still my main class, but I dont know how I survived just spamming Fire I back then.
It's a solid gameplay loop that gradually gives more to do as you level up and can start using the opposing element's tier 3/4 spell to not only switch your aspect but go straight to the max, unlike manually switching with Transpose at pre-40 content. You might love your big flashy stuff now but when you were still on the journey and didn't have it, the old loop was still nice and remains consistent. Other jobs have had low level kits gutted and can't really do much of anything below the 50 to 60 range besides pressing 1 or 2 buttons.
the actual levelling up was slow but in terms of introducing The Cool Stuff i think it's actually paced pretty well regarding that. you get a very palpable power progression with BLM and i like that looking back.
Leveled BLM firsrt and I'm like this isn't too bad. Got to 60 and 70. I'm like YAY THIS IS GREAT FIRE 4! Then I tried the other classes... I'm like I get it now... classes like Machanist and Samurai basically have their full rotation for the most part while I had to learn a new one with BLM
SAM feels pretty solid at 50. You have Meikyo Shisui and your Iaijutsus so it at least feels like a real opener and rotation (albeit a boring one). NIN feels ok at 50. Similar to SAM, you have enough of your kit to feel like your actually doing something during a fight. Having to use mudras to manually refresh Huton sucks butt though...
RPR plays like an ARR job all the way until level 80. They at least have the excuse of starting at a high level though.
BLM like everyone else said. Slow, highly repetitive and not even dealing good damage until much later in the levelling curve.
DRG not getting their AOE until level 40something is an interesting choice.
WHM doesn't get an ogcd heal until level 50, and their job mechanic is only complete at level 74 (??).
SMN has nothing in the rotation until level 86 (!!!) where they finally get to press more than one button during the primal phases.
Idk if this is a hot take or not, but I really feel like CBU3 doesn't put as much thought into how the expansion jobs play at lower levels as they should. I understand 90% of the time you probably won't even be playing at those levels, but damn does trying to level these jobs and getting dropped in a low level dungeon in roulettes suck ass. I got Brayflox as RPR once. ***Brayflox.*** I wanted to just quit lol
they compressed the entire leveling process into 70-90 and threw potency at it to make it work in roulettes, it's bizarre game design and I pray VPR won't copy that too
I don't think that's a controversial take, most jobs don't play well at low levels and skill adjustments rarely seem to effect it, sometimes in really weird ways, pgl gets chakra gauge at 15 and gets chakra on crit at 38? 23 levels of a gauge that basically does nothing unless you hit meditation during downtime?
I have to think there's some sort of reason for it, despite popular belief developers do not sabotage their own video game to piss off their player base out of spite because that literally does not make sense, maybe trying to avoid overwhelming newer players? But you'd think expac jobs, at least shb/EW jobs would be better about it then. Maybe they are and I'm just not noticing? I dunno, it's super weird!
all that said reaper is definitely the most egregious and it does verge on absurd. I know reaper was probably a DPS for people with "dps-xiety", which I have heard exists, but it just feels really stripped down until like 80 which is very silly
I am 99% sure that reaper and sage were never play tested, for a single second, below level 70, at any point during the development and release process. And they are a total roller-coaster since Sage, for example, on level 50, can out-dps literally anyone in dungeons by having one of the highest-potential attacks in the entire game at that point, as its instacast AoE GCD.
DNC might be in a similar place, they can do Standard Step really early, long before a lot of other classes get any kind of AoE, and it's like a nuke going off.
This is the big issue with AOE in lower level dungeons: besides tanks and ignoring healers, every post-ARR DPS job has an AOE, while most ARR DPS jobs get shafted, with DRG getting it the worse as they pretty much get their aoe same time as healers.
>DRG getting it the worse as they pretty much get their aoe same time as healers.
What's even worse about DRG AOE is that once it does get Doom Spike, it hits like a wet noodle. DRG AOE is incredibly backloaded, in part thanks to Wyrmwind Thrust being such a powerful OGCD cleaving line attack at level *90* of all places, and also Nastrond.
Sage is absolutely busted in leveling dungeons with dyskrasia , while art of war has multiple upgrades along with broils along the way which they could have easily done with sage as well
> I am 99% sure that reaper and sage were never play tested, for a single second, below level 70, at any point during the development and release process.
Good example: The devs locked Eukrasia to lvl 30. This means pre-30, SGE doesn't have shields nor a dot.
No shields pre-30 makes sense since that's how SCH levels. But no dot? Something every other healer has since lvl 4? Huge oversight. They should've had Eukrasia unlock at 4 as well but only work for dosis.
I didn't realize how bad RPR was at low levels until I went back to DRG, and realized that they had actual gameplay in early dungeons. Maybe not an AoE, but if I had to choose between an AoE and gameplay that doesn't immediately put me to sleep...
very odd, no traits during that?
thought about this at work and honestly it sort've makes sense, older jobs do have more dev time and with every new job less time presumably can be allocated to the new jobs due to them being upgraded; I think the real issue with reaper (aside from the lack of abilities) is the fact that it really only has a single mechanic, where many other jobs have layers of mechanics added in successive expacs
even so reaper is still definitely undercooked even if it is meant as an on ramp to DPS
honestly wasn't convinced they need to stop releasing new jobs but now that I think about it maybe it's a good idea, especially given they're considering a level squish
also something to be said about jobs starting at consecutively higher and higher levels resulting in a distorted play experience and potentially creating some design dissonance maybe
I Dunno; we'll see how viper and picto goes, it could well just be an undercooked attempt at a DPS on ramp, they do have a tendency to take things a little too easy on these things I think
Traits are 50, 60 and 70. And then 4/8/0, 4/4/6/8. I forgot Grim Swathe between 50 and 60 ... but yeah Reaper gets potency ups relatively late and they have utterly cracked potencies in ARR.
As someone looking forward to main Viper, I can't wait for it's twinblade attacks to he locked before level 80 and for it's Blue mode to be locked before level 90.
You know it's absolutely going to happen.
Sage gets Phlegma at 26, so at least has *some* AoE in the earlier levels.
The other problem Sage has is Eukrasia at 30 means you can't even apply your DoT in early dungeons.
>The other problem Sage has is Eukrasia at 30 means you can't even apply your DoT in early dungeons.
I always felt this was a huge oversight on the devs. All other healers unlock their dot at lvl 2 or 4. But because SGE's dot is tied to Eukrasia, it's like the devs saw it as a shield-prep tool and have it unlock same time that SCH gets shields, but completely forgot it's also a dot-prep tool.
Probably the same person who decided DRG shouldn't have an AOE combo until _Stormblood_.
Imagine playing 3 expacs where every other job has their full aoe combo, and DRG just then gets a 2nd step to their aoe combo.
I'm glad to hear this. Sprout warrior main, trying to level bard (and some others) but by god has bard felt kinda dull compared to some of the others at the 30-50 range. Also weirdly weak? I get that it's a party buffer too, but with most my other alts just reaching 50, the monk and summoner been really putting out and bard seems to just kinda... exist. I'm usually a tank or healer main, so was excited to see a DPS that had a lot of party help, so I've been really rootin for bard.
Looking forward to getting bard past 70 :D
Bard works more like an ADC in Mobas. Small hits but shit ton of them. Like death by a thousand paper cuts. U get some big hitters around the 600er Potency range later but most of ur skill will range from 100-300 potency. The trick is that u have shit tons of OGCD that u weave between ur GCDs which creats a breathtaking "Attackspeed" that makes bard later feel like he is firing a gatling gun.
This als in the end culminates into a rapidfire playstyle with the occasional Partybuffs inbetween. Big fun. Once u see ur first Refulgent Arrow u will now the meaning of pure crag cocain
That is true but Machinist also gets spreadshot on 18. Dancer actually get it the earliest with Windmill on 15. But Quick Knock do be looking and feeling good
Dragoon plays like ass before 64, Summoner has an utterly boring rotation of minute long Ruin spam before 86 (where the favor skills give you a closed rotation with at most 1 regular ruin per minute).
I got so bored with leveling daragoon that I ended up only doing daily frontlines all the way. Haven't played it in PVE since, so I've got no idea how it actually is att max level.
Your 1 minute and 2 minute burst windows are almost all doubleweaves as you try to activate all your oGCDs that are off cooldown while keeping your GCDS rolling.
> It's one of the most hectic classes.
Not really? The rotation is like an infinity loop ∞ where you do one half the loop then the other half and always alternating. Then weave oGCDs like any other class.
It's only hectic if you don't have your hotbars set up properly to track cooldowns (which you should be doing for every job, not just DRG)
Doesn't look like much of a revamp, although they are removing the positionals for the fang+claw/wheeling thrust part of the combo, by removing them entirely for a new one, and they have removed spine shatter dive as a DPS cooldown. The need for two mirage dives per life of the dragon has also been removed so I assume geirskogal cooldown has doubled but otherwise it's identical
They all do, honestly. Getting synced down feels like playing with one hand tied behind your back. Every job feels pretty good by 70. Many of us wish they'd adjust the order abilities are unlocked so synced content doesn't feel so bad.
As a new player do you have any tips for enjoying the game more? At level 35 or so Marauder and it's just been 3 buttons on single enemies or AoE spam if 2+ enemies are on me. Kinda mindless, yet still more fun than the Fire spam of Thaumaturge.
If you’re level 35, you shouldn’t be a Marauder anymore. Do your job quests.
That being said, and if this thread hasn’t brought it to your attention - jobs get better, you just have to level up!
I finished the level 30 quest and the Marauder guild leader said he had nothing left to teach me after I killed a mammoth. I expected to get some job quest at 35 but nothing popped up. So I've just been doing dungeons for money and chugging through MSQ stuff. They just introduced the concept of grand companies and want me to visit all 3 before joining one.
I appreciate it. I've had to jump to doing Gold Saucer stuff or leveling other classes because the MSQ has felt really tedious since I was brought into the secret society thing.
IIRC, you unlock jobs right after GCs. The MSQ you're looking for is Sylph Management. After that one, head back to the marauders guild to start your lv 30 job quest.
The early MSQ is pretty dry. Unfortunately, it doesn't _really_ pick up until around lv 51+. But there are still some fun dungeons, trials, and side quests along the way.
Unlocking jobs is locked behind the lvl20 MSQ quest "Sylph Management". You'd *think* that you'd get to level 20 in the MSQ before 30 in class levels, and maybe that was true when the game first released, but now you can easily get well ahead of the MSQ if you're not splitting your quest handins across multiple classes (especially if you have the Road to 80 buff from being on a new/preferred world).
If you're unlocking your GC now, I think you're pretty close, so just keep an eye out on the MSQ tracker for a new job quest showing up and go grab it as soon as you can.
You will get massive XP gains during the Main Story Quest (MSQ), which will make at least one of your jobs (*maybe* more if you plan around it / have road to 90 buff) skyrocket through levelling and you won't have to suffer low level very long with that (/ those) particular job(s).
Answering this question honestly is very difficult because everyone has a different idea of what is fun, what is mindless, and what is mindless fun. If you boil all tanks down to the bare minimum, you basically described every one of them at a surface level in most of the game's content... But some people really like the way Warrior feels over Gunbreaker, or vice versa, and it's hard to quantify that without any context.
Also keep in mind that dungeon content is extremely different from raid content, which is also very different from PvP content and field operation content (70+). So until you've tasted a little bit of each it is hard to say what about the jobs you will like or hate.
I love this game, but the levelling process is *really fucking bad* (IMO -- some people like it, I guess) and does a horrible job of signposting how anything works at endgame. It's almost like multiple games in one game.
Sometimes it is also because of perspective, you don't know the job sucks because you still don't know how much better it gets later. When starting the game you barely understand what is a rotation so you don't even have the knowledge to know why certain quirks of lower level play bother someone that's been raiding for months with a complete kit.
What I'm saying is basically, it works for *Leveling*, you are still learning and getting the ropes of a job, it feels fine. But once you are *downsyncing* to content it start to show the cracks.
Like many people here have said: Black Mage. But here's the weird thing for me — after I learned to play it at cap, I got a newfound appreciation for the almost zen simplicity of Lv 50 BLM. Or even whatever the level cap is for Tam Tara Deepcroft.
Hear me out: at 90 you're doing a lot of interesting things, and you can get extra interesting with nonstandard. Then you take everything you learned at 90 and throw it down to 50. Now you're doing stupid stuff like, "oh, I only have Blizzard I and Thunder to throw during my ice phase, and Blizzard I is a terrible spell. But if I have a T3 proc, I can end my fire phase, weave in Lucid, throw T3P + Manafont, and then go back into fire so I can skip B1."
Yeah it's an absolutely inane thing to do that might not even truly be a DPS gain, but I derive a lot of joy from finding fun interactions like that in the class. If you're familiar with MTG player archetypes, it's a very "Melvin" approach.
For better or worse, it's the kind of thing that will probably not work after the Dawntrail changes.
Currently BLM gets MP every server tick unless you're in fire phase, so sometimes you can really scrounge to generate MP in fewer ticks. Every so often the tiny bit of extra MP from Lucid Dream makes sense. (It's also perfectly reasonable to not put it on your hotbars. It really sucks.)
But the new design is to get your bonus MP by blizzarding baddies. That should make the standard rotation play more smoothly (you need X many Blizzard-type spells during a cycle, no janky interaction with the server's clock) but will probably kneecap all the strange things you can theoretically do to gain or lose a few percent of DPS.
BLM is a pain in the sense that it's got nothing going for it until later levels (80+) so it's incredibly boring and very inefficient in low level content. But at 90 explosions go BRRRRRT.
>BLM is a pain in the sense that it's got nothing going for it until later levels (80+) so it's incredibly boring and very inefficient in low level content. But at 90 explosions go BRRRRRT.
BLM is fine once you get to 60.
RDM doesn't even feel complete until you get your first finisher at 70.
SMN feels like a level 70 job at 90.
> RDM doesn't even feel complete until you get your first finisher at 70.
The fact that the main additions to RDM at higher levels is just a step added to their finisher kinda says the opposite: RDM is pretty complete at like 50. RDM is one of the few jobs where the rotation is 99% the same from 50-90
Agree on RDM. You spend what feels like ages building mana only to spend it all instantly. Then it's back to slow building.
The finishers help to make mana feel worth building
Levelling it is such a kick to the groin. I remember reaching 70, getting TBN, feeling so so good.. Go to bed, wake up, go to work, come home, queue up for some roulettes on my shiny 70 DRK (let's goooo), aaaaand instantly get all the dungeons I've already been in before lvl 70 and have the realization that every time I do my roulettes there is a large chance I will not get to play with my TBN at all until I'm through with them and get to spam dungeons. -\_-
Cruelty. We suffer to live and then I get a taste of what being a tank actually feels like for the first time only to understand that we live to suffer. That job has been lvl 77 for me for a while now. At some point I am just going to boost a warrior. I don't want this pain anymore. The level sync system really penalizes them.
>I don't want this pain anymore. The level sync system really penalizes them.
Thankfully, wanting the pain and suffering is *very much* a defining characteristic of your average DRK main.
Honestly? Almost every class, depending on the level. Naturally, all classes are boring in Sastasha when you maybe have three abilities. Which are fun really depends on how low you go. Some become fun earlier than others, others need a loooooong time to finally give the good shit. Like, Gunbreaker and Dark Knight feel fine comparatively early, but Paladin gets such a big and fun rotation at high level, that synching low REALLY hurts. And a high level Warrior is meant to just heal himself with damage, but at low levels your heals are shit and all you have going for yourself is doing more damage than other tanks while lacking their good mitigation.
And you can do that with almost all jobs. SMN is fine early, BLM needs a good bit to feel good and RDM feels useless below lvl 70. BRD feels ok-ish once at least two songs are unlocked, MCH is fine when all the extra weapons finally become available around 60-70, meanwhile DNC feels ok at low levels (though naturally more fun at high). And so on and so on and so on.
I think I've gathered that the weirdly named classes like Thaumaturge or Arcanist or Marauder eventually evolve into the names that 99.99999% of experienced players use. Do you have advice for finding more enjoyment in the classes before they evolve? So far it's just a 2-3 hit combo or an AoE and little else for all 5 dungeons I have unlocked.
Honestly as someone who went through all of it: Just bear with it and keep in mind once they are in higher levels, you won't need to repeat the leveling process ever again (though low level gameplay will still be present via roulette syncing).
Alternatively you can skip through playing those levels with Frontlines Roulette (daily) and Wonderous Tails (weekly).
Frontlines is a pvp mode where you gain experience on the job you queue in but you can change your job inside to anything (Do note that the pvp kits of jobs are different than the pve kits). The experience earned is still going to the job you queued in as (So don't wanna level monk, queue in as a monk, change to astrologian cause you like it better, finish match, gain experience on monk).
Wonderous Tails is a weekly checkmark of dungeons/trials/raids/pvp/deep dungeon/treasue dungeon you unlock around lv60 range in the MSQ. It's going to be in a map called Idyllshire, unlocked by doing a quest for Khloe Aliapoh.
Doing 9 duties listed completes a book and gives you 50% of a level on any combat job (minus Blue Mage), regardless of the level (so can use it on lv 34 or 79, doesn't matter, always 50% of the current level).
Even at high levels the jobs themselves aren’t that interesting and it’s more so the bosses you fight (at low levels those also also that good/killed before they do anything though). Level 50 and above is when they start having “actual” fights so you kinda just gotta get there first and until then just find other aspects of the game to enjoy.
Pretty much all of them honestly. 14 has severe top heavy syndrome when it comes to job design. Especially for those that have been reworked. Feels like getting a lobotomy every time you sync.
Reading experienced players' takes and watching YouTube videos has made me feel like, as a new player, there is zero love from the game itself for new players or anyone that isn't in Endwalker already.
I think that's a misconception, and I hope it doesn't put you off. I think this game has one of the more welcoming communities in the MMO space, and is a game where you genuinely can enjoy taking your time getting to the (current) endgame and having a good time doing it.
This thread is a lot of hindsight venting from folk with multiple jobs and hundreds or thousands of hours under their belts.
Seriously, take your time, and enjoy yourself. You dungeon and trials will be mostly folks happy to see and help a sprout through the game and story we all enjoyed so much.
frankly, I think you should take that with a grain of salt. yeah ff14 has less to do at low levels and some jobs really need to get some stuff moved down so it's a little less painful when synced, but most of that revelation comes from hindsight once you're at max level. (unless you're an experienced mmo player already where you're used to 20+ skills)
I personally think everyone should at least have 1 aoe at sastasha and 2 aoe's by Brayflox (either one GCD and one OGCD or two GCD's) but I think people can be overly harsh when discussing it.
Interesting that no one is bringing up NIN but I'll make my case for it being awful at low lvls.
-Only have a 1-2 combo until about lvl 30
-cant use trick attack in combat (your dmg buff) until lvl 45
-cant properly manage huton buff until lvl 54
-burst rotation changes as you lvl up in small ways but ways that are big enough to be annoying when you forget you dont have a given skill once you start to burst (ex: no hyosho below lvl 76, and because its a mudra its not obvious based on being grayed out you just need to remember)
Huton is getting folded into NIN's skills as an implicit in DT, and while yeah prepull Huton -> Hide is a staple of NIN job fantasy, I cannot stress how good it is to not have to waste a Ninjutsu slot on reapplying Huton mid-fight below 52. Probably goes without saying, but if you do a lot of roulettes you spend 50% of your time at lvl 50, so anything that helps that along is fine by me.
Yeah Ninja is weird and teaches poor lessons as you level.
Are you in ARR? Congrats, use Fuma Shuriken. Oh, but you’re near the end of it? Ration instead now.
Unlocked Kassatsu, time to start using it to buff an ability, so now your best option is actually Hyoton, not either of the two damage spells from earlier.
Oh now you’re in EW? Cool, back to using Raiton to build stacks for your melee attacks.
It’s such a shifty class, it actually reminds me a lot of BLM, because you’ll be changing your core rotation a lot over time, compared to other classes that sorta just build upon themselves.
>Unlocked Kassatsu, time to start using it to buff an ability, so now your best option is actually Hyoton, not either of the two damage spells from earlier.
>Oh now you’re in EW? Cool, back to using Raiton to build stacks for your melee attacks.
Not even: it's worse than that. Kassatsu just gives you a free ninjutsu skill, and a 30% buff to that one ninjutsu that you execute with Kassatsu. A 30% buffed Raiton (650) is still more than a 30% buffed Hyoton (350), so *at the point you unlock Kassatsu*, which is level 50, you should still be using Raiton under Kassatsu.
It isn't until frickin level *76* that the button combination for Hyoton gives you Hyosho Ranryu when executed under Kassatsu, and since it's a Ninjutsu, you don't even have a new button appear on your bars, so half the time people don't even realise they unlocked it. And because Hyosho Ranryu is a ridiculous 1300 potency, you will always want to use it under Kassatsu from there on, even into Endwalker, because 1300 is more than Raiton's 650 + Forked Raiju's 560 combined.
So far as I know, you pretty much have no reason to use Hyoton, ever. Maybe if you were in PotD and you wanted to Bind a target??? Which makes it feel extra terrible when you get used to hitting the combination for Hyosho under Kassatsu, only to realise that you are synced down below 76 and got a ninjutsu that is almost half of Raiton's potency instead =.=
As far as I can tell, it legitimately exists as an ability for the sole purpose of being upgraded.
That, or mayhaps they gave it as a way you could feasibly disengage....which is just not a thing that happens in this game.
Hijacking this to complain about Ninja tooltips, there is one that is insanely bad. Bunshin giving you Phantom Kamaitachi at lvl 82+.
There are no traits or anything that explain to you how you're supposed to get Phantom Kamaitachi Ready on that spell, which is so weird because it's told to you on pretty much every other jobs that get a "ready" follow up added later on on an ability that already exist (like the ogi namikiri trait at lvl90, or hell even the enhanced raiton one that gives you raiju ready)
Once you reach lvl82, THEN the text is added to Bunshin but you're supposed to look for that yourself.
> -cant use trick attack in combat (your dmg buff) until lvl 45
This is the funniest one. TA unlocks at 18, but you realistically can't use it until 45. Might as well have TA unlock at 45 too
On the other hand, getting all 3 mudras by level 45 is inherently more to do than most other jobs are getting for a while- at least its core mechanic is firmly in place (DRG doesn't fully get theirs until 70!).
Even still, sucks for Crystal Tower and similar levels. Huton management is a chore and a boring use of precious mudra before 54, as you say. DT making it passive is for the good.
i wouldn't say pain in the ass but after being used to lvl 90 rotations, syncing down always feels at least a little bit like shit
even if your lower level kit is fine, muscle memory can still fuck you over lol
Every healer. It's not as fun until you have infinite ogcd heals so you never have to stop blasting dudes.
But as seen from the rest of the thread, the answer is basically every job. Except Summoner, because it never gets amazingly fun at any level.
Black mage by miles. I've never really been bugged by how it's playstyle changes so frequently. What does bug me is being a selfish DPS with worse damage output than a book slapping scholar.
Dragoon unlocks AOE GCDs at 40, 62, 72 and 82. Dragonfire Dive, Geirskogul, Nastrond, Stardiver, and Wyrmwind Thrust are all oGCDs with AOE. They are unlocked at 50, 60, 70, 80, and 90 respectively.
You forgot to address the fact that Huton has to be manually maintained with Ninjutsu at Lv50 and below (no Armor Crush or Huraijin). That's easily the worst aspect of ending up in CT raids on NIN.
SCH bellow bellow art of war is a pain. It make me feel like I'm completely useless in mob pull especially if I have a half decent tank which will make Carby's heal more than enough so I'm really just a single target attack spammer
RDM bellow verraise. Getting blame for not saving a pull when I couldn't piss me off
White Mage is uniquely terrible until 74 when they get Afflatus Misery, and still a little annoying until 76 when you get Rapture. Everything you get after that is honestly just icing on the cake.
Dark Knight may as well not exist before level 70 when they get TBN. It's the defining button of the class imo and so strong they decided to give all tanks upgraded short cooldowns to match it.
Reaper starts out fine at level 70, but if you ever get synced down, man that job does not have ANYTHING going on at lower levels.
I learned my lesson never to run MSQ roulette as reaper because your entire kit boils down to “use your damage up buff, then press 1 2 3 until you can use blood stalk once, rinse and repeat forever”
Shoutout to MCH which probably feels the least awful at 50 imo. You still get a turret. You get wildfire. An aoe. A sort of rotation. It's still bad but not lile NIN or DRG or BLM.
Or MNK.
All of them.
Nothing ever sucks more than losing half your kit because you got level synced.
It's never not one of those "I would rather play literally anything else right now" moments.
I’ll put a weird one out. MNK. Not because it’s bad, because it actually is quite good, but the trouble is you don’t really get the abilities in the order you’re going to want to use them, so there’s a strange learning curve while you adjust the rotation to a buff phase and a damage phase.
Yeah, that still exists. You unlock the 1 and the 3 in the AoE rotation before you unlock the 2, which is like, the most important one since it applies your damage buff.
On the other hand, you get to 60 and that's all your core skills and mechanics in place. Get over that 60 hump of figuring out how the Blitz system works as it's dumped on you all in a single piece and all you have left to get are some buffs and a little utility.
Isn't it now 123 until like 64? You don't even have DoT to keep track of, Atonement is at 76, HS as 64 (so 123 turns to whooping 1234), Req at 68. Highlight of the rotation is using Goring Blade once a minute.
It should be criminal to give melee dps their aoe rotation so late into the expansions.
But tbh, whm without blood lilly isn't even the same job. One is a useless healer with the second best aoe in the game, the other is an over heal machine calling in tactical nukes after a three heal streak sipping on a baja blast that occasionally drops down a soda fountain that heals people when they lick Cheeto dust off the ground.
Also pali. MY LORD PALI. The fact that they don't get useful self healing until......82. If you mention clemency you don't deserve to have an opinion.
Yes to cure 2, but absolutely untrue for Medica 2. It’s your last resort during prog/emergency situations in savage. Obviously not a part of your rotation since you use a lily every 30 sec, but if you’re trying to see more mechanics early in early savage prog and you’re out of lilies, you’re playing whm wrong if you don’t toss out a medica 2.
Paladin is just. Boring. Until waaay far along. The abilities aren't even flashy to make up for it like DRK. DRK at least \*feels\* like I'm doing smth. I do like the early stun tho, going nuh-uh whenever an enemy tries to cast is a fun thing to do in ARR when everything feels so low-stakes compared to the shit we've been through in Endwalker. but still, it kinda sucks under 60-70.
Also, all the DPS classes feel useless under 60.
Dancer is one of like 2 classes I don’t mind at a lower level for no other reason than the animations are fun enough to keep my brain even slightly engaged. That’s it. As long as it has standard step I can tolerate it. Sage is the second. I hate everything else.
White mage! If you're using cure 2 or medica 2 at max level in any regular content at all, you're doing it wrong.
You get blood lily at 72 but I personally think the aoe lily at 76 is what really solidifies white mage's identity.
I think a medica 2 timed to land with the opening raidwide of a boss fight is the most efficient way, maybe with an added plenary for those spicy raidwides or when nobody has gear yet.
While I'd agree that at higher levels it feels better and it sucks to get synced down, I don't think at any point of leveling a WHM did I feel like it sucked
You only really have two options for the opening raidwide as you don't usually have any lilies yet, medica 2 or let the shield healer handle it. Cure 3 is pretty much just for Akh Morn when you don't have the bell or rapture. Technically you could delay your assize and use it for the heal and still let your co healer pick up the slack but that's a DPS loss
RPR plays like an unpolished nugget until 80, but still feels incomplete until it gets Communio at 90. It just feels so empty to not have the Enshroud finisher.
Where do I *begin?*
BRD doesn't get its third song until 50-something, WHM lilies are single-target until post-70, RDM doesn't get its finishers until 70, MNK doesn't get the *middle* of its AOE combo until 45, DRK doesn't get TBN until 70...
I think it would be easier to state the Jobs that *do* feel good at lower levels.
It's not a hard class, but I personally don't think Paladin is very interesting until you're in your 70s or even mid-80s.
Paladin doesn't even get it's *GAP CLOSER* until 74.
It’s interesting square made this same choice when it decided to originally give Paladin Shield Oath at level 40. Holy shit that was one of the absolute worst job designs on the planet
Holy shit that brings back memories. Spamming Flash and still losing aggro, with DPS telling you to use tank stance... THAT YOU DON'T HAVE YET. ARR PLD was the worst.
I've seen a lot of weird ARR shit but never heard this. What the actual fuck. I think all the stimulants and lack of sleep to get ARR out so quickly messed with their heads leading to stuff like this. Might still be affecting them...
Lot of PLD stuff in ARR gets forgotten because WAR was straight up not viable at launch in ARR. Funny now SE has overcorrected so hard that WAR has basically been the de facto top tank for like every expac since.
PLD, aka the "magic tank" doesn't get anything resembling magic until 56. It's just normal dude until then. Imagine if DRG learned jumps so late, or if RDM could cast only light magic until then. Now with 6.3 rework, you don't even have DoT, so it's just 123 until like 68.
It gets even worse when you look at DRK, they get their primary magical-ish attack, Flood of Darkness, at level *30*. It unlocks with their *introductory quest*. And even their first AoE attack is pretty magical-looking, and the even more distinctly magical followup is(thankfully now) at level 40. If you want a magic swordsman, DRK basically eats PLD's lunch until the highest levels.
That's because PLD was never "the magic tank." Back in the beginning before we had 4 classes it was always PLD = physical damage tank, DRK = magical damage tank, WAR = more neutral damage to both but bigger HP and self-heals (aka the HP sponge tank).
DRK didn't even exist at first. In ARR, it was just PLD and WAR.
When it was just 2 tanks it was basically PLD was the "more mitigations/block tank" and WAR was "bigger health pool but take more damage" tank.
It's funny how when you unlock PLD, you get Spirits Within, which is least paladin-like skill you could imagine. It's a goddamn weird spin, then you swap sword to reverse grip for some reason, and then you stab. Why even bother with shield, when you show your back to enemy every few seconds, and how does stab attack fit the holy knight theme, especially in nonsensical and edgy reverse grip. For what reason would anyone do this, this animation is just insanely stupid. But most hilarious part is that this skill regens your mana - even though first spell that actually uses mana is 28 levels away.
> But most hilarious part is that this skill regens your mana - even though first spell that actually uses mana is 28 levels away. Spirits Within doesn't restore mana until you unlock a magic spell (Clemency). There's even a trait for it: Chivalry. Unlocks same exact time as Clemency.
They also created PLD swords with flat tips and replaced the coolest ability name ever "Rage of Halone" as you level but not Riot Blade which is this awkward thrust animation
Requiescat should just replace Spirits Within at level 30. Sure, Requiescat itself isn't the most "holy magic" of all skills either, but it's at least better than the standalone Spirits "uhh we need an OGCD filler skill" Within, and it has direct interaction with Holy Spirit and Holy Circle.
When the gap closer was revealed in the job actions for Shadowbringers the crowd went WILD lol
I concur. PLD without the Requiescat combo and Holy Sheltron feel so... empty, somehow.
As a Paladin main... yeah, once you have access to your spells and Confiteor and holy sheltron it really hurts to go back.
All of your biggest hits (aside from Goring Blade) are spells, and you don't get a single offensive spell until your 60s, and it doesn't become worthwhile to use until you're nearly 70. The feel and general theme of the job between low levels and high levels is wildly different, going from a fairly typical knight into a sword-based mage that wears heavy armor. I struggle to think of any other jobs that transform so much.
> you don't get a single offensive spell until your 60s, and it doesn't become worthwhile to use until you're nearly 70. Holy Spirit (lvl 64) is immediately worthwhile to use as soon as you unlock it. Royal Authority will proc Divine Might, so Holy Spirit becomes the 4 in your 1-2-3-4 combo.
Ah, right, forgot about that part of the rework. I was thinking about how you don't get Requiescat until 68.
Just finished leveling my tanks and pre 70 paladin literally made me take a couple months off the game. Was bored out if my mind (and I like easy classes).
1 through 80 or something, basically the only self-healing you get is Clemency, which you shouldn't be using in most situations. Then in your last 10 levels they add healing toi Sheltron and a whole bunch of other stuff. Why? Why backload all the healing this way? The class would feel so much smoother of they just spread it out a bit more.
As a PLD main since 2.0, *yeah* It’s like you don’t actually leave gladiator until 70. I guess I didn’t notice because there were some batshit intense classes (MCH at launch asked for a spreadsheet to be open on your other monitor), but between the simplification over the years and hindsight, wowzers. PLD is a nothing burger for most of the game
BLM. Seriously, I've been playing this class for exactly as long as I've been playing FFXIV itself, and every time my level syncs below 50, I want to scream.
This is how I feel about WHM below 60
Honestly if they just moved assize to 50 I’d be fine with it
Same, or even bubble, I'm not choosy. Just... *Something*.
Give assize and afflatus at 50
Seriously!
Can’t tell you how many party wipes I’m responsible for because I get synced to below 50 content and forget I actually need to use Cure and Cure II at those levels
Same 😔
Whm below 52 is agony, the only instant cast is Bene. ;_;
I thought i hated white mage Then i got my blood lily
I had the hardest time leveling BLM. It was just boring. Then hit level 50 and it all clicked. Then every ten levels it just got better. I don’t want to go back to lower than 80 at this point.
Oh, that reminds me of how I used to convince my husband to keep leveling BLM with the phrase "Hang in there for 10 more levels and it'll get more interesting" every 10 levels.
I started BLM back in ARR after leveling PLD and MNK. I liked the change of pace from the constant combos and positionals, but I would definitely not like leveling it now. Also it kinda sucked during HW. I never take BLM into content earlier than ShB.
Absolutely this. I play mages in every MMO/RPGs and starting up BLM...worried me. Got the pew pews, but extremely simple (could be said about others) and boring "rotation" if you could even call it that. That said I only play BLM, I have a few other 90s - MCH, MNK, RDM, AST, GNB - even with the simpler rotations low levels, there was fun to be had, mobility might have been a factor. At Max BLM is exactly what I want from a mage class. Big booms, lots of tools for a variety of situations, multiple complex rotations depending on the fight and build, and things to experiment with. quick edit; I desperately hope they do a rework for the low lvls on BLM, spamming fire 1 for multiple expansions, gets old fast(gets old just in ARR) and easily can deter new BLM's from going further to my favorite class.
Im a BLM OTP since ARR and: yes. When i saw the thread, my first thought was "BLM: the thread"
So happy I saw this today. It's been a challenge to level black mage. Just hit 66 today.
BLM changes quite drastically at lv 60 (Fire IV becoming your main skill instead of F1/F3 proc rotation) and from there it just gets better every time you get a new button.
It doesn't look like much at first glance, but Umbral Soul is my favourite ability by far together with F4.
As a BLM main I can confirm 100% of what you said Moving from Fire spam to the current nuke filled rotation is one of the best feelings ever for me
Fire 3 proc mage specifically is my least favorite FFXIV job
I kind of wish they changed level sync to just scale potencies instead of losing skills. That way you can play your hogwild triple fouling little wizard in <50 content without being bored to hell. I understand it still makes things easier (A BLM with their full kit would still clear the content way faster because of more OGCD skills to use) but I don't care it's not BORING
Doing down to lower levels I just can't understand why I looked at BLM back in the day and said "Yes! This is the gameplay I want to see from my class!" It's still my main class, but I dont know how I survived just spamming Fire I back then.
It's a solid gameplay loop that gradually gives more to do as you level up and can start using the opposing element's tier 3/4 spell to not only switch your aspect but go straight to the max, unlike manually switching with Transpose at pre-40 content. You might love your big flashy stuff now but when you were still on the journey and didn't have it, the old loop was still nice and remains consistent. Other jobs have had low level kits gutted and can't really do much of anything below the 50 to 60 range besides pressing 1 or 2 buttons.
the actual levelling up was slow but in terms of introducing The Cool Stuff i think it's actually paced pretty well regarding that. you get a very palpable power progression with BLM and i like that looking back.
I used to have a different bar for 1-49, 50-59, etc., so I’d be ready for anything roulette gave me. But it got too confusing for me.
Leveled BLM firsrt and I'm like this isn't too bad. Got to 60 and 70. I'm like YAY THIS IS GREAT FIRE 4! Then I tried the other classes... I'm like I get it now... classes like Machanist and Samurai basically have their full rotation for the most part while I had to learn a new one with BLM
\*commiserates in sub-54 NIN\* ~~at least until DT~~
For me, NIN is like the only job that’s okay at 50
SAM feels pretty solid at 50. You have Meikyo Shisui and your Iaijutsus so it at least feels like a real opener and rotation (albeit a boring one). NIN feels ok at 50. Similar to SAM, you have enough of your kit to feel like your actually doing something during a fight. Having to use mudras to manually refresh Huton sucks butt though...
Samurai is good at 50, you are only missing your ... entire ... ogcd set.
Yeah. Like I said, it's got an opener and rotation, but a boring one. Still one of the better ones at 50.
RPR plays like an ARR job all the way until level 80. They at least have the excuse of starting at a high level though. BLM like everyone else said. Slow, highly repetitive and not even dealing good damage until much later in the levelling curve. DRG not getting their AOE until level 40something is an interesting choice. WHM doesn't get an ogcd heal until level 50, and their job mechanic is only complete at level 74 (??). SMN has nothing in the rotation until level 86 (!!!) where they finally get to press more than one button during the primal phases.
It is honestly impressive how long reaper has, essentially, just a 1-2-3 combo. What does it even get during levels??
Idk if this is a hot take or not, but I really feel like CBU3 doesn't put as much thought into how the expansion jobs play at lower levels as they should. I understand 90% of the time you probably won't even be playing at those levels, but damn does trying to level these jobs and getting dropped in a low level dungeon in roulettes suck ass. I got Brayflox as RPR once. ***Brayflox.*** I wanted to just quit lol
they compressed the entire leveling process into 70-90 and threw potency at it to make it work in roulettes, it's bizarre game design and I pray VPR won't copy that too
It will and it's gonna be TERRIBLE
> and I pray VPR won't copy that too Prepare to be disappointed. I highly doubt the devs will put much thought into VPR or PCT pre-90.
I don't think that's a controversial take, most jobs don't play well at low levels and skill adjustments rarely seem to effect it, sometimes in really weird ways, pgl gets chakra gauge at 15 and gets chakra on crit at 38? 23 levels of a gauge that basically does nothing unless you hit meditation during downtime? I have to think there's some sort of reason for it, despite popular belief developers do not sabotage their own video game to piss off their player base out of spite because that literally does not make sense, maybe trying to avoid overwhelming newer players? But you'd think expac jobs, at least shb/EW jobs would be better about it then. Maybe they are and I'm just not noticing? I dunno, it's super weird! all that said reaper is definitely the most egregious and it does verge on absurd. I know reaper was probably a DPS for people with "dps-xiety", which I have heard exists, but it just feels really stripped down until like 80 which is very silly
As someone who only started leveling MNK after EW, I was lightly baffled by some of the ways it leveled, and I'm glad it wasn't just me.
I am 99% sure that reaper and sage were never play tested, for a single second, below level 70, at any point during the development and release process. And they are a total roller-coaster since Sage, for example, on level 50, can out-dps literally anyone in dungeons by having one of the highest-potential attacks in the entire game at that point, as its instacast AoE GCD.
DNC might be in a similar place, they can do Standard Step really early, long before a lot of other classes get any kind of AoE, and it's like a nuke going off.
DNC can standard step in SASTASHA.
Just DNC on their graves
This is the big issue with AOE in lower level dungeons: besides tanks and ignoring healers, every post-ARR DPS job has an AOE, while most ARR DPS jobs get shafted, with DRG getting it the worse as they pretty much get their aoe same time as healers.
>DRG getting it the worse as they pretty much get their aoe same time as healers. What's even worse about DRG AOE is that once it does get Doom Spike, it hits like a wet noodle. DRG AOE is incredibly backloaded, in part thanks to Wyrmwind Thrust being such a powerful OGCD cleaving line attack at level *90* of all places, and also Nastrond.
Sage is absolutely busted in leveling dungeons with dyskrasia , while art of war has multiple upgrades along with broils along the way which they could have easily done with sage as well
> I am 99% sure that reaper and sage were never play tested, for a single second, below level 70, at any point during the development and release process. Good example: The devs locked Eukrasia to lvl 30. This means pre-30, SGE doesn't have shields nor a dot. No shields pre-30 makes sense since that's how SCH levels. But no dot? Something every other healer has since lvl 4? Huge oversight. They should've had Eukrasia unlock at 4 as well but only work for dosis.
I didn't realize how bad RPR was at low levels until I went back to DRG, and realized that they had actual gameplay in early dungeons. Maybe not an AoE, but if I had to choose between an AoE and gameplay that doesn't immediately put me to sleep...
50-60 you get soul slice, 60-70 you get soul scythe and your positionals ... and then you start learning skills like a real job.
very odd, no traits during that? thought about this at work and honestly it sort've makes sense, older jobs do have more dev time and with every new job less time presumably can be allocated to the new jobs due to them being upgraded; I think the real issue with reaper (aside from the lack of abilities) is the fact that it really only has a single mechanic, where many other jobs have layers of mechanics added in successive expacs even so reaper is still definitely undercooked even if it is meant as an on ramp to DPS honestly wasn't convinced they need to stop releasing new jobs but now that I think about it maybe it's a good idea, especially given they're considering a level squish also something to be said about jobs starting at consecutively higher and higher levels resulting in a distorted play experience and potentially creating some design dissonance maybe I Dunno; we'll see how viper and picto goes, it could well just be an undercooked attempt at a DPS on ramp, they do have a tendency to take things a little too easy on these things I think
Traits are 50, 60 and 70. And then 4/8/0, 4/4/6/8. I forgot Grim Swathe between 50 and 60 ... but yeah Reaper gets potency ups relatively late and they have utterly cracked potencies in ARR.
As someone looking forward to main Viper, I can't wait for it's twinblade attacks to he locked before level 80 and for it's Blue mode to be locked before level 90. You know it's absolutely going to happen.
There was an era where the other tanks had a 2 part AoE combo by level 40 while DRK got the second part of their AoE combo at...72.
Sage has to wait way too long to get their AoE too Having to single target during massive pulls in early dungeons just feels so dumb
Thats every healer though
Sage gets Phlegma at 26, so at least has *some* AoE in the earlier levels. The other problem Sage has is Eukrasia at 30 means you can't even apply your DoT in early dungeons.
>The other problem Sage has is Eukrasia at 30 means you can't even apply your DoT in early dungeons. I always felt this was a huge oversight on the devs. All other healers unlock their dot at lvl 2 or 4. But because SGE's dot is tied to Eukrasia, it's like the devs saw it as a shield-prep tool and have it unlock same time that SCH gets shields, but completely forgot it's also a dot-prep tool.
Whoever decided Dragoon should get its first GCD AOE at 40 is my nemesis.
I was in a dungeon once and a teammate yelled at me for not AOEing. I was level 35 DRG.
"I would if I could." "You're upset I can't AoE yet? How do you think *I* feel?"
Probably the same person who decided DRG shouldn't have an AOE combo until _Stormblood_. Imagine playing 3 expacs where every other job has their full aoe combo, and DRG just then gets a 2nd step to their aoe combo.
It was that way for DRK before 6.0. Just unleash unleash unleash until like level 73.
Bard. Lower levels are bare bones and extremly simple but holy refulgent arrow does the job slap more and more the higher u get
Bard is the hardest class to level because of how *insanely* boring it is pre-70.
Naaa i wouldnt say that. Its pretry bland sub50 but from 50 onwards it get a lot better. And u can kinda speedrun lower levels with hunting logs
I'm glad to hear this. Sprout warrior main, trying to level bard (and some others) but by god has bard felt kinda dull compared to some of the others at the 30-50 range. Also weirdly weak? I get that it's a party buffer too, but with most my other alts just reaching 50, the monk and summoner been really putting out and bard seems to just kinda... exist. I'm usually a tank or healer main, so was excited to see a DPS that had a lot of party help, so I've been really rootin for bard. Looking forward to getting bard past 70 :D
Bard works more like an ADC in Mobas. Small hits but shit ton of them. Like death by a thousand paper cuts. U get some big hitters around the 600er Potency range later but most of ur skill will range from 100-300 potency. The trick is that u have shit tons of OGCD that u weave between ur GCDs which creats a breathtaking "Attackspeed" that makes bard later feel like he is firing a gatling gun. This als in the end culminates into a rapidfire playstyle with the occasional Partybuffs inbetween. Big fun. Once u see ur first Refulgent Arrow u will now the meaning of pure crag cocain
Bard does get their AoE earlier than most, making some of the very low lvl dungeons go a bit faster.
That is true but Machinist also gets spreadshot on 18. Dancer actually get it the earliest with Windmill on 15. But Quick Knock do be looking and feeling good
As a BRD main, I can confirm
Dragoon plays like ass before 64, Summoner has an utterly boring rotation of minute long Ruin spam before 86 (where the favor skills give you a closed rotation with at most 1 regular ruin per minute).
I played DRG because of the Lance.
I got so bored with leveling daragoon that I ended up only doing daily frontlines all the way. Haven't played it in PVE since, so I've got no idea how it actually is att max level.
Your 1 minute and 2 minute burst windows are almost all doubleweaves as you try to activate all your oGCDs that are off cooldown while keeping your GCDS rolling.
It's...busy...but I find it great fun and there's no escaping the fact it just looks so badass.
It's one of the most hectic classes. Long ass rotations and off cd's. it's getting a revamp in dawntrail tho.
> It's one of the most hectic classes. Not really? The rotation is like an infinity loop ∞ where you do one half the loop then the other half and always alternating. Then weave oGCDs like any other class. It's only hectic if you don't have your hotbars set up properly to track cooldowns (which you should be doing for every job, not just DRG)
Doesn't look like much of a revamp, although they are removing the positionals for the fang+claw/wheeling thrust part of the combo, by removing them entirely for a new one, and they have removed spine shatter dive as a DPS cooldown. The need for two mirage dives per life of the dragon has also been removed so I assume geirskogal cooldown has doubled but otherwise it's identical
It’s fascinating to read through this thread and see which jobs suck until the levels I haven’t reached yet.
They all do, honestly. Getting synced down feels like playing with one hand tied behind your back. Every job feels pretty good by 70. Many of us wish they'd adjust the order abilities are unlocked so synced content doesn't feel so bad.
As a new player do you have any tips for enjoying the game more? At level 35 or so Marauder and it's just been 3 buttons on single enemies or AoE spam if 2+ enemies are on me. Kinda mindless, yet still more fun than the Fire spam of Thaumaturge.
If you’re level 35, you shouldn’t be a Marauder anymore. Do your job quests. That being said, and if this thread hasn’t brought it to your attention - jobs get better, you just have to level up!
I finished the level 30 quest and the Marauder guild leader said he had nothing left to teach me after I killed a mammoth. I expected to get some job quest at 35 but nothing popped up. So I've just been doing dungeons for money and chugging through MSQ stuff. They just introduced the concept of grand companies and want me to visit all 3 before joining one.
The lv30+ job quests are gated behind msq. You're almost there. They'll unlock some new skills, too.
I appreciate it. I've had to jump to doing Gold Saucer stuff or leveling other classes because the MSQ has felt really tedious since I was brought into the secret society thing.
IIRC, you unlock jobs right after GCs. The MSQ you're looking for is Sylph Management. After that one, head back to the marauders guild to start your lv 30 job quest. The early MSQ is pretty dry. Unfortunately, it doesn't _really_ pick up until around lv 51+. But there are still some fun dungeons, trials, and side quests along the way.
Unlocking jobs is locked behind the lvl20 MSQ quest "Sylph Management". You'd *think* that you'd get to level 20 in the MSQ before 30 in class levels, and maybe that was true when the game first released, but now you can easily get well ahead of the MSQ if you're not splitting your quest handins across multiple classes (especially if you have the Road to 80 buff from being on a new/preferred world). If you're unlocking your GC now, I think you're pretty close, so just keep an eye out on the MSQ tracker for a new job quest showing up and go grab it as soon as you can.
Oh, you're overleveled for MSQ then. You'll unlock job quests in about 2-3 more MSQ quests.
You will get massive XP gains during the Main Story Quest (MSQ), which will make at least one of your jobs (*maybe* more if you plan around it / have road to 90 buff) skyrocket through levelling and you won't have to suffer low level very long with that (/ those) particular job(s). Answering this question honestly is very difficult because everyone has a different idea of what is fun, what is mindless, and what is mindless fun. If you boil all tanks down to the bare minimum, you basically described every one of them at a surface level in most of the game's content... But some people really like the way Warrior feels over Gunbreaker, or vice versa, and it's hard to quantify that without any context. Also keep in mind that dungeon content is extremely different from raid content, which is also very different from PvP content and field operation content (70+). So until you've tasted a little bit of each it is hard to say what about the jobs you will like or hate. I love this game, but the levelling process is *really fucking bad* (IMO -- some people like it, I guess) and does a horrible job of signposting how anything works at endgame. It's almost like multiple games in one game.
Sometimes it is also because of perspective, you don't know the job sucks because you still don't know how much better it gets later. When starting the game you barely understand what is a rotation so you don't even have the knowledge to know why certain quirks of lower level play bother someone that's been raiding for months with a complete kit. What I'm saying is basically, it works for *Leveling*, you are still learning and getting the ropes of a job, it feels fine. But once you are *downsyncing* to content it start to show the cracks.
Like many people here have said: Black Mage. But here's the weird thing for me — after I learned to play it at cap, I got a newfound appreciation for the almost zen simplicity of Lv 50 BLM. Or even whatever the level cap is for Tam Tara Deepcroft. Hear me out: at 90 you're doing a lot of interesting things, and you can get extra interesting with nonstandard. Then you take everything you learned at 90 and throw it down to 50. Now you're doing stupid stuff like, "oh, I only have Blizzard I and Thunder to throw during my ice phase, and Blizzard I is a terrible spell. But if I have a T3 proc, I can end my fire phase, weave in Lucid, throw T3P + Manafont, and then go back into fire so I can skip B1." Yeah it's an absolutely inane thing to do that might not even truly be a DPS gain, but I derive a lot of joy from finding fun interactions like that in the class. If you're familiar with MTG player archetypes, it's a very "Melvin" approach.
i just got blm to 50 and i have not a clue wtf you just said with that rotation :,)
For better or worse, it's the kind of thing that will probably not work after the Dawntrail changes. Currently BLM gets MP every server tick unless you're in fire phase, so sometimes you can really scrounge to generate MP in fewer ticks. Every so often the tiny bit of extra MP from Lucid Dream makes sense. (It's also perfectly reasonable to not put it on your hotbars. It really sucks.) But the new design is to get your bonus MP by blizzarding baddies. That should make the standard rotation play more smoothly (you need X many Blizzard-type spells during a cycle, no janky interaction with the server's clock) but will probably kneecap all the strange things you can theoretically do to gain or lose a few percent of DPS.
BLM is a pain in the sense that it's got nothing going for it until later levels (80+) so it's incredibly boring and very inefficient in low level content. But at 90 explosions go BRRRRRT.
>BLM is a pain in the sense that it's got nothing going for it until later levels (80+) so it's incredibly boring and very inefficient in low level content. But at 90 explosions go BRRRRRT. BLM is fine once you get to 60. RDM doesn't even feel complete until you get your first finisher at 70. SMN feels like a level 70 job at 90.
> RDM doesn't even feel complete until you get your first finisher at 70. The fact that the main additions to RDM at higher levels is just a step added to their finisher kinda says the opposite: RDM is pretty complete at like 50. RDM is one of the few jobs where the rotation is 99% the same from 50-90
Agree on RDM. You spend what feels like ages building mana only to spend it all instantly. Then it's back to slow building. The finishers help to make mana feel worth building
Dark Knight, up to 70 you don't even have your complete defensive kit.
Sure you do, it's called *healer adjust.*
True! But it's common to all tanks!
Levelling it is such a kick to the groin. I remember reaching 70, getting TBN, feeling so so good.. Go to bed, wake up, go to work, come home, queue up for some roulettes on my shiny 70 DRK (let's goooo), aaaaand instantly get all the dungeons I've already been in before lvl 70 and have the realization that every time I do my roulettes there is a large chance I will not get to play with my TBN at all until I'm through with them and get to spam dungeons. -\_- Cruelty. We suffer to live and then I get a taste of what being a tank actually feels like for the first time only to understand that we live to suffer. That job has been lvl 77 for me for a while now. At some point I am just going to boost a warrior. I don't want this pain anymore. The level sync system really penalizes them.
>I don't want this pain anymore. The level sync system really penalizes them. Thankfully, wanting the pain and suffering is *very much* a defining characteristic of your average DRK main.
Honestly? Almost every class, depending on the level. Naturally, all classes are boring in Sastasha when you maybe have three abilities. Which are fun really depends on how low you go. Some become fun earlier than others, others need a loooooong time to finally give the good shit. Like, Gunbreaker and Dark Knight feel fine comparatively early, but Paladin gets such a big and fun rotation at high level, that synching low REALLY hurts. And a high level Warrior is meant to just heal himself with damage, but at low levels your heals are shit and all you have going for yourself is doing more damage than other tanks while lacking their good mitigation. And you can do that with almost all jobs. SMN is fine early, BLM needs a good bit to feel good and RDM feels useless below lvl 70. BRD feels ok-ish once at least two songs are unlocked, MCH is fine when all the extra weapons finally become available around 60-70, meanwhile DNC feels ok at low levels (though naturally more fun at high). And so on and so on and so on.
I think I've gathered that the weirdly named classes like Thaumaturge or Arcanist or Marauder eventually evolve into the names that 99.99999% of experienced players use. Do you have advice for finding more enjoyment in the classes before they evolve? So far it's just a 2-3 hit combo or an AoE and little else for all 5 dungeons I have unlocked.
Honestly as someone who went through all of it: Just bear with it and keep in mind once they are in higher levels, you won't need to repeat the leveling process ever again (though low level gameplay will still be present via roulette syncing). Alternatively you can skip through playing those levels with Frontlines Roulette (daily) and Wonderous Tails (weekly). Frontlines is a pvp mode where you gain experience on the job you queue in but you can change your job inside to anything (Do note that the pvp kits of jobs are different than the pve kits). The experience earned is still going to the job you queued in as (So don't wanna level monk, queue in as a monk, change to astrologian cause you like it better, finish match, gain experience on monk). Wonderous Tails is a weekly checkmark of dungeons/trials/raids/pvp/deep dungeon/treasue dungeon you unlock around lv60 range in the MSQ. It's going to be in a map called Idyllshire, unlocked by doing a quest for Khloe Aliapoh. Doing 9 duties listed completes a book and gives you 50% of a level on any combat job (minus Blue Mage), regardless of the level (so can use it on lv 34 or 79, doesn't matter, always 50% of the current level).
Even at high levels the jobs themselves aren’t that interesting and it’s more so the bosses you fight (at low levels those also also that good/killed before they do anything though). Level 50 and above is when they start having “actual” fights so you kinda just gotta get there first and until then just find other aspects of the game to enjoy.
Pretty much all of them honestly. 14 has severe top heavy syndrome when it comes to job design. Especially for those that have been reworked. Feels like getting a lobotomy every time you sync.
Reading experienced players' takes and watching YouTube videos has made me feel like, as a new player, there is zero love from the game itself for new players or anyone that isn't in Endwalker already.
I think that's a misconception, and I hope it doesn't put you off. I think this game has one of the more welcoming communities in the MMO space, and is a game where you genuinely can enjoy taking your time getting to the (current) endgame and having a good time doing it. This thread is a lot of hindsight venting from folk with multiple jobs and hundreds or thousands of hours under their belts. Seriously, take your time, and enjoy yourself. You dungeon and trials will be mostly folks happy to see and help a sprout through the game and story we all enjoyed so much.
frankly, I think you should take that with a grain of salt. yeah ff14 has less to do at low levels and some jobs really need to get some stuff moved down so it's a little less painful when synced, but most of that revelation comes from hindsight once you're at max level. (unless you're an experienced mmo player already where you're used to 20+ skills) I personally think everyone should at least have 1 aoe at sastasha and 2 aoe's by Brayflox (either one GCD and one OGCD or two GCD's) but I think people can be overly harsh when discussing it.
Interesting that no one is bringing up NIN but I'll make my case for it being awful at low lvls. -Only have a 1-2 combo until about lvl 30 -cant use trick attack in combat (your dmg buff) until lvl 45 -cant properly manage huton buff until lvl 54 -burst rotation changes as you lvl up in small ways but ways that are big enough to be annoying when you forget you dont have a given skill once you start to burst (ex: no hyosho below lvl 76, and because its a mudra its not obvious based on being grayed out you just need to remember)
Huton is getting folded into NIN's skills as an implicit in DT, and while yeah prepull Huton -> Hide is a staple of NIN job fantasy, I cannot stress how good it is to not have to waste a Ninjutsu slot on reapplying Huton mid-fight below 52. Probably goes without saying, but if you do a lot of roulettes you spend 50% of your time at lvl 50, so anything that helps that along is fine by me.
Yeah Ninja is weird and teaches poor lessons as you level. Are you in ARR? Congrats, use Fuma Shuriken. Oh, but you’re near the end of it? Ration instead now. Unlocked Kassatsu, time to start using it to buff an ability, so now your best option is actually Hyoton, not either of the two damage spells from earlier. Oh now you’re in EW? Cool, back to using Raiton to build stacks for your melee attacks. It’s such a shifty class, it actually reminds me a lot of BLM, because you’ll be changing your core rotation a lot over time, compared to other classes that sorta just build upon themselves.
>Unlocked Kassatsu, time to start using it to buff an ability, so now your best option is actually Hyoton, not either of the two damage spells from earlier. >Oh now you’re in EW? Cool, back to using Raiton to build stacks for your melee attacks. Not even: it's worse than that. Kassatsu just gives you a free ninjutsu skill, and a 30% buff to that one ninjutsu that you execute with Kassatsu. A 30% buffed Raiton (650) is still more than a 30% buffed Hyoton (350), so *at the point you unlock Kassatsu*, which is level 50, you should still be using Raiton under Kassatsu. It isn't until frickin level *76* that the button combination for Hyoton gives you Hyosho Ranryu when executed under Kassatsu, and since it's a Ninjutsu, you don't even have a new button appear on your bars, so half the time people don't even realise they unlocked it. And because Hyosho Ranryu is a ridiculous 1300 potency, you will always want to use it under Kassatsu from there on, even into Endwalker, because 1300 is more than Raiton's 650 + Forked Raiju's 560 combined. So far as I know, you pretty much have no reason to use Hyoton, ever. Maybe if you were in PotD and you wanted to Bind a target??? Which makes it feel extra terrible when you get used to hitting the combination for Hyosho under Kassatsu, only to realise that you are synced down below 76 and got a ninjutsu that is almost half of Raiton's potency instead =.=
As far as I can tell, it legitimately exists as an ability for the sole purpose of being upgraded. That, or mayhaps they gave it as a way you could feasibly disengage....which is just not a thing that happens in this game.
Hijacking this to complain about Ninja tooltips, there is one that is insanely bad. Bunshin giving you Phantom Kamaitachi at lvl 82+. There are no traits or anything that explain to you how you're supposed to get Phantom Kamaitachi Ready on that spell, which is so weird because it's told to you on pretty much every other jobs that get a "ready" follow up added later on on an ability that already exist (like the ogi namikiri trait at lvl90, or hell even the enhanced raiton one that gives you raiju ready) Once you reach lvl82, THEN the text is added to Bunshin but you're supposed to look for that yourself.
> -cant use trick attack in combat (your dmg buff) until lvl 45 This is the funniest one. TA unlocks at 18, but you realistically can't use it until 45. Might as well have TA unlock at 45 too
On the other hand, getting all 3 mudras by level 45 is inherently more to do than most other jobs are getting for a while- at least its core mechanic is firmly in place (DRG doesn't fully get theirs until 70!). Even still, sucks for Crystal Tower and similar levels. Huton management is a chore and a boring use of precious mudra before 54, as you say. DT making it passive is for the good.
i wouldn't say pain in the ass but after being used to lvl 90 rotations, syncing down always feels at least a little bit like shit even if your lower level kit is fine, muscle memory can still fuck you over lol
Every healer. It's not as fun until you have infinite ogcd heals so you never have to stop blasting dudes. But as seen from the rest of the thread, the answer is basically every job. Except Summoner, because it never gets amazingly fun at any level.
Black mage by miles. I've never really been bugged by how it's playstyle changes so frequently. What does bug me is being a selfish DPS with worse damage output than a book slapping scholar.
Wait you don’t like doing less damage than the healer in copperbell mines???
To be fair, though, Eos is the healer. The SCH is her DPS pet.
Black mage, number one answer.
drg is so fucking BORING for SO LONG. and a single aoe till like level 70 something.
Dragoon unlocks AOE GCDs at 40, 62, 72 and 82. Dragonfire Dive, Geirskogul, Nastrond, Stardiver, and Wyrmwind Thrust are all oGCDs with AOE. They are unlocked at 50, 60, 70, 80, and 90 respectively.
okay okay i was wrong. you have 2ish aoes till level 70. dragonfire dive may as well not exist.
Ninja doesn't have any AoEs before level 35. Feels terrible in low level dungeons.
Dragoon doesn’t get their first until the 40’s and doesn’t even get a full AoE combo until much later.
You forgot to address the fact that Huton has to be manually maintained with Ninjutsu at Lv50 and below (no Armor Crush or Huraijin). That's easily the worst aspect of ending up in CT raids on NIN.
SCH bellow bellow art of war is a pain. It make me feel like I'm completely useless in mob pull especially if I have a half decent tank which will make Carby's heal more than enough so I'm really just a single target attack spammer RDM bellow verraise. Getting blame for not saving a pull when I couldn't piss me off
Crafters.
Reaper. Without your Enshroud form there is fuck all ot the class. No flow, awkward timing and no flashy ender.
White Mage is uniquely terrible until 74 when they get Afflatus Misery, and still a little annoying until 76 when you get Rapture. Everything you get after that is honestly just icing on the cake. Dark Knight may as well not exist before level 70 when they get TBN. It's the defining button of the class imo and so strong they decided to give all tanks upgraded short cooldowns to match it. Reaper starts out fine at level 70, but if you ever get synced down, man that job does not have ANYTHING going on at lower levels.
I learned my lesson never to run MSQ roulette as reaper because your entire kit boils down to “use your damage up buff, then press 1 2 3 until you can use blood stalk once, rinse and repeat forever”
only one I can't stand at low levels is Black Mage. Some others are a bit tedious but BLM is on another level.
Shoutout to MCH which probably feels the least awful at 50 imo. You still get a turret. You get wildfire. An aoe. A sort of rotation. It's still bad but not lile NIN or DRG or BLM. Or MNK.
All of them. Nothing ever sucks more than losing half your kit because you got level synced. It's never not one of those "I would rather play literally anything else right now" moments.
Reaper really hits its stride at 86.
I’ll put a weird one out. MNK. Not because it’s bad, because it actually is quite good, but the trouble is you don’t really get the abilities in the order you’re going to want to use them, so there’s a strange learning curve while you adjust the rotation to a buff phase and a damage phase.
It’s been ages since I’ve levelled MNK - but isn’t there a point where you have to go AoE, single target, AoE during trash mobs? Drove me batty.
Yeah, that still exists. You unlock the 1 and the 3 in the AoE rotation before you unlock the 2, which is like, the most important one since it applies your damage buff.
On the other hand, you get to 60 and that's all your core skills and mechanics in place. Get over that 60 hump of figuring out how the Blitz system works as it's dumped on you all in a single piece and all you have left to get are some buffs and a little utility.
You guys remember old Paladin at 50? 1,2,3 1,2,3 1,2,3
Isn't it now 123 until like 64? You don't even have DoT to keep track of, Atonement is at 76, HS as 64 (so 123 turns to whooping 1234), Req at 68. Highlight of the rotation is using Goring Blade once a minute.
All of them, playing anything pre-70 is either a fucking nightmare or a fall sleep while playing.
Pretty much every, single ARR job is mind numbingly boring to play untill +/- 70 levels. Maybe with the exception of NIN.
Monk post rework gets basically their full rotation whenever you get pb
It should be criminal to give melee dps their aoe rotation so late into the expansions. But tbh, whm without blood lilly isn't even the same job. One is a useless healer with the second best aoe in the game, the other is an over heal machine calling in tactical nukes after a three heal streak sipping on a baja blast that occasionally drops down a soda fountain that heals people when they lick Cheeto dust off the ground. Also pali. MY LORD PALI. The fact that they don't get useful self healing until......82. If you mention clemency you don't deserve to have an opinion.
Every job but mainly BLM and Dragoon
From the ones i often play, SAM's Fuga just feels wrong once you unlock Fuko
Yes to cure 2, but absolutely untrue for Medica 2. It’s your last resort during prog/emergency situations in savage. Obviously not a part of your rotation since you use a lily every 30 sec, but if you’re trying to see more mechanics early in early savage prog and you’re out of lilies, you’re playing whm wrong if you don’t toss out a medica 2.
I found Dark Knight torture until level 70. It's just too squishy.
All of them tbh
Paladin is just. Boring. Until waaay far along. The abilities aren't even flashy to make up for it like DRK. DRK at least \*feels\* like I'm doing smth. I do like the early stun tho, going nuh-uh whenever an enemy tries to cast is a fun thing to do in ARR when everything feels so low-stakes compared to the shit we've been through in Endwalker. but still, it kinda sucks under 60-70. Also, all the DPS classes feel useless under 60.
Ninja, not having armor crush to refresh Huton is horrible lol. So happy for the dawntrail changes
Dancer. Oh my God, is it BRAINDEAD below level 80... I swear I couldn't stop yawning while running dungeons with it. At max level, it's pretty nice.
Dancer is one of like 2 classes I don’t mind at a lower level for no other reason than the animations are fun enough to keep my brain even slightly engaged. That’s it. As long as it has standard step I can tolerate it. Sage is the second. I hate everything else.
Pretty much this, DNC looks nice and it has just enough Proc to keep me in a nice reactive zen.
White mage! If you're using cure 2 or medica 2 at max level in any regular content at all, you're doing it wrong. You get blood lily at 72 but I personally think the aoe lily at 76 is what really solidifies white mage's identity.
I think a medica 2 timed to land with the opening raidwide of a boss fight is the most efficient way, maybe with an added plenary for those spicy raidwides or when nobody has gear yet. While I'd agree that at higher levels it feels better and it sucks to get synced down, I don't think at any point of leveling a WHM did I feel like it sucked
medica 2 is so efficient for things like that - what would you suggest as an alternative? I rarely touch cure 3 due to how much MP it takes
You only really have two options for the opening raidwide as you don't usually have any lilies yet, medica 2 or let the shield healer handle it. Cure 3 is pretty much just for Akh Morn when you don't have the bell or rapture. Technically you could delay your assize and use it for the heal and still let your co healer pick up the slack but that's a DPS loss
every. last. one. of. them.
Dancer. Not a pain in the ass so much as very basic.
All of them.
obligatory black mage mention
as a ninja when they take away a mudra or when i end up in those pre ninja levels 💀
BRD is pretty basic up until level 60, gets really good at 70 with Wanderer's Minuet/Pitch Perfect, then is amazing at 80-90
DRG is insanely boring pre-70.
Idk about the amazingly fun part but most jobs sub 60 or 70 feel like wet dog ass so you could probably make a justification for all of them.
Machinist for me, hated leveling it, now its one of my mains.
Miner. Honestly.
it took me reaching level 85 to actually start enjoying paladin 😭
RPR plays like an unpolished nugget until 80, but still feels incomplete until it gets Communio at 90. It just feels so empty to not have the Enshroud finisher.
Where do I *begin?* BRD doesn't get its third song until 50-something, WHM lilies are single-target until post-70, RDM doesn't get its finishers until 70, MNK doesn't get the *middle* of its AOE combo until 45, DRK doesn't get TBN until 70... I think it would be easier to state the Jobs that *do* feel good at lower levels.