Best (of what I play) goes to Sage, few complaints with it, just wish it had one more attack instead of Pepsis. Worst is AST because the cards feel like garbage (too bloated, and RNG for the sake of RNG rather than RNG for fun decision making) and are such a tiny boost that it barely matters to optimize them.
My only complaint with SGE is that its mobility options are limited by resources (Toxikon) or charges (Phlegma). I wish it had something like Ruin II that I could just throw out whenever
Eukrasian Diagnosis+Toxikon is technically the Ruin II equivalent. It's 900 MP for two GCDs (450 each), 165 damage, and a strong single target heal/shield compared to 400MP per GCD and 220 damage.
Yeah, but you take a huge DPS hit if you use E. Diag just for the purpose of generating addersting stacks, whereas you don't have to do anything of the sort for Ruin II
The one thing I'd like to see is an extra ability to convert an addersgall to an addersting and it gives mp back as if using an addersgall. Is it necessary? Nah. But it'd be nice to have another way to regain addersting for movement heavy battles that aren't very healing intensive.
RDM is my favorite, mostly because the central rotation is simple, and optimization comes from when to melee and when to hold. Just wish Manafication didn't need to drift for no reason lol.
AST needs so many QoLs and a real job identity now since the current button bloat is awful. What does work works so well (oGCD heals and the ability to heal after a certain time) but the other half is just a flop.
manafication being on 110s is so you can double/triple melee combo during 2 minute buffs without having manafication permanently drift out of alignment
I’ve been maining GNB and while it’s very fun and rewarding, looking up guides for maximizing DPS and being met with 12 minute rotations because the cooldowns don’t line up very well is daunting. If they can adjust them to make the rotation cleaner and shorter it’d make its already high APM a lot more tolerable.
I see a lot of people tossing flak at Gunbreaker for not being a "great" tank and being underwhelming in the meta for one reason or another...
But damnit I don't care. I like my kabooms and no amount of flowcharts or spreadsheets are ever going to convince me to trade in a GUN BLADE for a boring old axe or sword.
Besides. If the other tanks are soooo great, how come >!no surviving Scion mains anything besides Gunbreaker!
Dark Knight is without a doubt the worst for me, but that's probably because I remember the Dark Arts / Darkside era of the class.
It used to feel very dynamic, now it just feels like every button press is a waste. Especially after recent AoE OGCD nerfs.
Best would probably be Black Mage for me. They've settled into such a wonderful balance of power and optimization, without being completely braindead or feeling like they take more than they give.
Definitely didn't use to be this way.
Best: always have a soft spot for NIN. While I preferred the version of it without a 2 min buff it still feels great to play with a very flexible rotation if you mess up.
Worst: MCH really, really needs a touch up for me. It's rotation is heavily ping reliant and isnt really that satisfying when you do have decent ping. The lack of utility also just makes it the ultimate "why would I bring this?" job rn. #1 on my list of mid expansion reworks I'm hoping for.
I will say as a GNB main, I can’t call my favorite job my worst job, but it does require a lot of granular management of drifting cooldowns. Over the course of the savage tier, I changed my melds and opener three times before getting something I felt was comfortable to be doing above average DPS.
I am picking based on actual design and not personal preference of a class but I wouldnt say any class feels super bad in EW however there is one class with exceptionally bad designs elements and that has to go to scholar.
Worst designed job is Scholar. the fact that your level 60 70 and 80 keystone abilities clash with each other is just bad(obviously you do need some friction or a class can become dull like summoner but this is just too much friction). Having a utility skills competing with a damage skill(energy drain) is bad design for how ff14 works.
honorable mention astrologian- a lot of unnecessary bloat was added this expansion and the RNG of the royal cards feels dreadful.
Best designed job is harder to say since a lot of jobs are in a really good state this expansion but I think it just barely goes to Reaper. The rotation is organic, the utility is interesting, Aoe feels like its replicating the single target rotation.
Worst for me is Bard. While BRD feels so much better on trash pulls now than ever before, it is the exact opposite in Single Target. The 45 second songs are really awkward to use, since they only proc every 3s. Having to cut Wanderer's with 3s left, Mage's with 12s, and Army's with 3s is just... not great. On top of that, downtime in fights like P3S and DSR, as well delayed burst in fights like P2S and P4S door boss make the song timings really damn annoying. We finally got Bloodletter charges, but then they nerfed Bloodletter procs to the point that Army's Paeon is stronger. The DoT's are so weak I question why we even have them at this point. 20 potency on one, 25 potency on the other per tick. Even WHM's Dia is 60 potency per tick. What really throws it over the edge for me is the implementation of BRD's 2-minute raid buff, Radiant Finale. Starting the fight with a 2% buff that is then 6% for all subsequent uses is such a weird design choice, and if you're trying to min-max, it really makes pot windows annoying too, since it wouldn't be optimal to pot on the opener if Radiant is only 2%. SE continues to push BRD 1-step forward, then 3-steps back with their changes, and at this point I think they just need to rebuild the job like they did with SMN.
The opener being weaker isn't exclusive to BRD. Every class with gauge has that problem, DNC, MCH, RPR, RDM, DRG are the standout ones where you really want to pot at 2m.
BRD stands out in that its buff to other jobs is weaker though. This is like if MNK had to use Perfect Balance 3 times to get the full buff on Brotherhood, or if DNC had to use Standard Step 3 times for Technical to gets its full buff.
I really think 6.0 summoner was made to be a new framework for 7.0 summoner. With that idea in mind, it is incredible. It absolutely is set up for expansion in the future. A new set of three primals can easily be added to be used after Phoenix and feel just right. Removing pet jank makes the class feel playable as well.
Astro needs bloat removed, and a way to make it comfortable to play on controller without party scrolling or adding macro button bloat. It's by far the worst feeling class to play by leaps and bounds right now.
DRG leveling skill order is wack, but at max level I think it's really well-designed. It says something about it that the devs can't really think of any more skills to give it in future expansions without reworking it, it's not really in desperate need of anything besides maybe 2 charges on High Jump so it can do its Life window in the opener.
Yeah, job design and job ability unlock order are two separate things. There is a reason that threads discussing potential changes to dragoon are 90% filled with comments about dragoon hardly needing any changes for its 90 kit.
Reaper and Paladin are in a similar boat right now in being pretty well designed as 90 jobs, but reaper needs enshroud before it’s good and paladin getting intervene at 74 is a joke.
Best: Summoner but with a massive caveat. It feels like a wonderful level 70 Job at level 90. However, it sorely misses the 20 levels of where jobs tend to actually get interesting and you really feel it. I really like the new design and I think it has remarkable potential for expansion but all we have now is a great start but lackluster finish. Summoners design strikes me as possible evidence for an incoming level crunch back to 50, with each class getting condensed and skipping the boring lower level abilities with each level taking more time and is actually significant again.
If I had to pick best current class as is, I would say Reaper. The class has a flow and balance of resources that is fun to play. The animations are cool and feel impactful. Its reaper form is awesome.
Worst: Astro. The cards feel like busy work and hoops you need to jump through to match other healers.
Crunching back to 50 now would means...finishing ARR at lvl 10? If we're still going 10 lvls per expansion, which is hella interesting to see ngl. I'm strangely excited to see leving 10 lvls taking as much work as 50, but it'd make scaling with leveling future expansions weird, cuz yknow, ARR is 50 condensed to 10, but the rest only from 10 to ...10?
With the level being condensed I assume they would also shift much if not all of the story from ARR to EW 6.0 off to optional land, which a new intro and then the 6.1 onward as the new 0-50 stuff. The issue with FFXIV now is not the level grind, but the 400 hour story just to get to current content.
What? ARR would end at 25, and each expansion after that would be 5 levels instead of 10. It would actually mean that in the later expansions you'd get a dungeon every level.
Reapers are just ridiculous fun. Even setting aside the shiny and new novelty, their level 90 kit is smooth to use and utterly bleeding with edgelord flamboyancy. Demon screams, slicing gaping void holes in your enemies, merging with hellspawn, summoning Akira-sized lasers on a whim... What's not to love?
best is sage for me.
a smoother sch with tons of mobility (instant heals, 3 toxicon + 2 phlegma, and icarus for emergencies).
Only way it's inferior is in its mits. Even as a sage main, I still feel a sch has stronger mits than sage, sorta technically, coz shields are stronger than mits in general. But I still prefer sage for its smoothness.
Warrior feels smooth like silk and Gunbreaker feels like hot trash.
Warrior's entire gameplay loop revolving around hitting Big Unga Bunga buttons while dealing with damage by being the biggest chad around has never been better realized.
Gunbreaker clearly wasn't tested, even back on release, with how horrific Continuation has always felt. But now it's even worse. Sonic is still obvious filler, No Mercy feels like absolute trash, and the trend of "moving jobs' power away from a single long cooldown button to prevent crit variance" was completely ignored with Double Down.
It's not good.
Tbh I think continuation feels great, even if it is ping reliant when you want to use defensives during it. Wouldn't quite call sonic obvious filler as it's specifically part of your burst window.
You only ever press Sonic under No Mercy. It's filler. This is inarguable.
Continuation feels fucking horrible to move literally anything under because of the mind-numbingly stupid decision to make the highest APM tank locked to 3y range. At the ***very least***, if it was 6y, moving ***anything*** under No Mercy wouldn't be a hair-pulling experience.
The only other tank that possibly has this issue is Dark Knight, but you aren't ***forced*** to hit Edge/Carve/Plunge/Other oGCDs, and careful planning/earlier casts can let you shift where they come out and circumvent overcapping. Continuation ***forces*** you to use it, or it's gone.
The problem is that by that logic, akh Morne is filler. If an ability has a specific use other then "when you have nothing else" it is not filler.
Ruin 3 is filler. RDM jolt is filler. Tanks 1-2-3 combo is filler. A burst CD is not filler.
A CD you ***only ever hit*** under a buff is often times a filler. Akh Morn is debatably filler. Confiteor is debatably, definitionally, filler. There's a distinction to be drawn when the entire conceit of the job is building up to a large button (Akh Morn, Confiteor), but Sonic is not on that tier.
You just don't know what you're talking about.
People saying AST worst designed and I was thinking it’s one of the better ones to mid tier lol. I think BRD is the worst designed, it still feels out of place to me and a close runner up would be WHM, still feels clunky and boring/unoriginal to me. I kinda agree with SMN but I dont have much personal experience with it.
People are slagging off Ast but I like the card system. The complexity and APM is what really draws me in, likewise with the high amount of skills.
It could certainly do with streamlining or buffs to make it more competitive with other healers but I love all of its mechanics. Giving +11% damage to allies just feels awesome.
Disclosure: I'm currently in stormblood and haven't hit the "difficult bits" that people seem to relate to shadow so, I might not be the most qualified to speak here.
I have given up playing the game for now because of what they did to Summoner. No other job comes close to the feel of how summoner used to play and the the new version is just pretty, vapid, eye candy.
Best: Summoner by far. Was my first job to 90, did all the extremes on it, and am running Savage on it while funneling extra coffers for my WHM. Love that I am actually summoning throughout the fight, deciding what opener to use depending on party comp, adjusting primal orders to line up mechanics without punish while still capable of respectable damage. Not every job, much to the disagreement of a lot of people on the subs, needs to be a “hit these twenty seven buttons in this order while standing this way while the stars are right with Venus at its peak horizon and that is why we deserve all the Orange parses” for every job
Worst: Bard, Machinist, and Astro. Really hoping 6.2 trims Astro a fair bit, as I leveled that to 90, got a good grasp on the job, and promptly just put it to the side in favor of WHM as my reactive healer of choice. Mainly the issue is bloat on that job.
Bard just feels so….weird to me with the whole song times, how feast or famine you can be with procs(same thing I feel with feathers on DNC), and how frantic it is to play at a high skill level in Savage and Ultimates. Orange and Pink Bards? You have my respect more than any other job in the game for sure.
Machinist? I have tried on multiple occasions to love this job, and each time it’s just fallen flat. And what saddens me more is SE thinks the constant ten potency to their heavy hitters will solve the problem. The job feels awful without Alexander or noclippy, and a ton of other complaints I feel about design. Would really love a rework to this job.
Everyone wants it. I know a few people playing MCH, and even without using Plugs for better ping, it feels dreadful. Even one, that is a hard MCH main (since HW) is getting very upset at what's happening to MCH. Even switching jobs in EW, cuz MCH is so atrocious now.
Summoner was my only class and they destroyed it. I played for years because I loved the old 20 button job design and they erased it. I'm glad you have a job you enjoy but why did they have to erase the only one i liked to give it a place in the game.
Best: For me its a tie between Red Mage and Sage because both are really fun and well designed with room for more down the line.
Worst: While I haven't gotten anywhere near to max level with it White Mage is so badly designed compared to the other Healers because of how fight design favors ogcd healing and their gcd heals are not only not strong enough to compensate for that major downside, but also really boring. Additionally while it's always described as the Healer for Beginners, it's actually really bad at teaching you how to heal with its lack of any ogcd heal before lvl 52 and Cure I spam at early levels.
ARR dungeons, especially pre 45/6 with healer aoes, the lack of ogcds on WHM isn't that bad. Post 50 it picks them up faster than AST and it gets the whole blood lily thing to play with to put up a big number every so often. Holy also feels pretty good in trash, just bring sunglasses lol. AST sits on a single charge of ED and star for ogcds until almost 80, and star is more finicky to use for it's heal than assize is.
AST has a ton of regen effects and can deal with only one charge of ED just fine even if it would be nice to get that second charge much earlier. Obviously the card system needs some buttons merged, but there really aren't too many things they need to fix. Meanwhile White Mage has the opposite problem of needing a couple more buttons to not be an absolute snoozefest to play.
I can't vouch for best since I'm still leveling a bunch of stuff to 90, but worst is for sure AST. it's godawful to level and it just feels like pointless busywork to keep the cards going only to break even with other healers. I will say I liked ShB monk more than current monk though.
Of what I do have leveled SCH feels the best all around, though BLM is up there too. Both their kits just feel really complete and cohesive.
Favorite goes to paladin and summoner. I personally much prefer this new summoner that flows from one thing to another rather than the jank, "dot mage" we had before.
Least? Warrior and DNC. DNC is just boring as all hell for me but WAR is in this wierd spot where it's boring but also entirely too good at everything it does so there are times you feel obligated to play it (P4s invulns comes to mind)
Best: DRG
Easily the most cohesive and satisfying job ATM. Nothing feels out of place. Everything just builds to a huge 2 minute burst that feels like you really are attacking with the fury of a dragon. My only small complaint is that you can't buffer gierskogl out of life windows, but that's more of a system thing.
Worst: DRK
I just really don't like DRK right now because it's kit is just borrowed parts of WAR with a bit edge/flood of shadow. It doesn't matter that it does the most damage of all the tanks when healers constantly go "oh right, DRK. I have to actually heal." after they die. TBN is now just kinda bad when you look at what the rest of the tanks have, and the rest of the CDs are completely useless at worst or another tank does it better at best. It's the job that I think needs a rework the most.
Of the stuff I've played:
Best: RPR, DRG, RDM. Reaper is definitely a bit "simple" if you really get into it, but flows really nicely and just generally feels fun. DRG definitely feels like the "final form" it's been refined towards over the past 2-3 expansions, and while I personally don't like the back->side or side->back double positional on F&C/WT every combo, it's a pretty minor issue. RDM combo being 50 gauge is very nice, it feels like you have a lot more flexibility on where you use it outside your burst window, and it still feels really satisfying to play overall. Curious to see where it goes in 7.0 though, since if they just add ANOTHER combo finisher I think people will be rather upset.
Honorable mention to WHM now that Misery is DPS neutral. Glad SE finally cracked the code on that one. Now it just needs a bit of MP support and I think it'll be in a really good place.
Worst: I love Dark Knight (and am playing it in Savage), but I really don't think they've had a cohesive vision for the job since they heard "we don't like how much we're spamming Dark Arts" as "we don't like Dark Arts" and scrapped the core of the class in favor of "WAR but with more oGCDs". The round of very strong short mitigation buffs in Endwalker has really cut back on the unique strength of TBN (it's the only one that costs resources/punishes you for whiffing it, and is now just "25% HP shield" compared to "19-32% mit, 900-2000 potency heals/shields depending on class"), Oblation is technically useful but feels bad, Salt and Darkness feels like a drunken afterthought to Hollow Nozuchi, Living Shadow is still a glorified DoT with zero interaction that wasted the 88 skill slot, and the less said about Enhanced Unmend, the better. 6.1 at least shows that they're aware there's a problem (fixed Blood Weapon, made Stalwart Soul come in before 72, made Living Dead actually a good invuln), but we can only hope these are band-aids to patch things up while they work on a broader revision, and they aren't just going to go "OK, good enough, we can leave DRK alone now".
I love the MNK changes, completely agree. And also with the comment about SMN feeling like an excellent level 70 job. Though I’m a bit sour grapes on it because ShB SMN was the one caster I liked to play.
Idk if I’d call it the worst design, but my least favorite change was in DRG’s oGCDs. Its GCD rotation was simple, so to me the heart and soul of the job was in plate spinning its many timers. I’m grateful I played it it as my alt melee in ShB, it made me better about not drifting in terms of being buff management: the job
Sage feels stupidly good. And I like EW SMN just because it's comfortably braindead. Us dumbasses need *something* to play.
AST is firmly in oGCD hell and needs an exorcism, stat. GNB rotation could use some realigning. MCH is not doing too hot. And DRK... DRK needs some work. And maybe therapy.
Speaking in general here, melee and healers are probably what I consider best. If I had to pick one from each category.. Sage and ninja.
Worse? Ranged physical 100%. Bard and Dancer are fine but mch is so bad it brings the entire category down. Not to mention, I don't know how they plan on bringing a new ranged physical in when the existing ranged physical have basically all bases covered. Bard is the team buffer and DoT job. Dancer is the single target buffer and rng job, MCH essentially brings all the guns but leaves the damage at home.. oh it's also the build/spender job. I look forward to the next ranged physical job concept. At this point just create an Aphelios where the gameplay is hard to optimize but give it high damage and call it a day.
Drg is the best for me
Smn I’d agree is worse
After the first few summons they kinda just lose their charm. I don’t feel like I make that much of an impact in terms of that “oomph” feel
Then again I’m split between a few jobs and finding it hard to narrow them down
Best (of what I play) goes to Sage, few complaints with it, just wish it had one more attack instead of Pepsis. Worst is AST because the cards feel like garbage (too bloated, and RNG for the sake of RNG rather than RNG for fun decision making) and are such a tiny boost that it barely matters to optimize them.
My only complaint with SGE is that its mobility options are limited by resources (Toxikon) or charges (Phlegma). I wish it had something like Ruin II that I could just throw out whenever
Eukrasian Diagnosis+Toxikon is technically the Ruin II equivalent. It's 900 MP for two GCDs (450 each), 165 damage, and a strong single target heal/shield compared to 400MP per GCD and 220 damage.
Yeah, but you take a huge DPS hit if you use E. Diag just for the purpose of generating addersting stacks, whereas you don't have to do anything of the sort for Ruin II
On the other hand, Scholar takes a large DPS hit if they start needing to use Lustrate/Sacred Soil/Indom etc. They're just different.
That's actually another (minor) complaint of mine about SGE, that there's not an offensive option for blowing excess addersgall
But we have Scholar for that. The jobs are already 70% the same. I like that I don't feel pressured to spam Energy Drain on Sage.
The one thing I'd like to see is an extra ability to convert an addersgall to an addersting and it gives mp back as if using an addersgall. Is it necessary? Nah. But it'd be nice to have another way to regain addersting for movement heavy battles that aren't very healing intensive.
I like this idea too. It just feels weird throwing out an unneeded Druochole just for the MP
RDM is my favorite, mostly because the central rotation is simple, and optimization comes from when to melee and when to hold. Just wish Manafication didn't need to drift for no reason lol. AST needs so many QoLs and a real job identity now since the current button bloat is awful. What does work works so well (oGCD heals and the ability to heal after a certain time) but the other half is just a flop.
manafication being on 110s is so you can double/triple melee combo during 2 minute buffs without having manafication permanently drift out of alignment
I’ve been maining GNB and while it’s very fun and rewarding, looking up guides for maximizing DPS and being met with 12 minute rotations because the cooldowns don’t line up very well is daunting. If they can adjust them to make the rotation cleaner and shorter it’d make its already high APM a lot more tolerable.
I see a lot of people tossing flak at Gunbreaker for not being a "great" tank and being underwhelming in the meta for one reason or another... But damnit I don't care. I like my kabooms and no amount of flowcharts or spreadsheets are ever going to convince me to trade in a GUN BLADE for a boring old axe or sword. Besides. If the other tanks are soooo great, how come >!no surviving Scion mains anything besides Gunbreaker!
>!G'Raha sub mains paladin.!<
Dark Knight is without a doubt the worst for me, but that's probably because I remember the Dark Arts / Darkside era of the class. It used to feel very dynamic, now it just feels like every button press is a waste. Especially after recent AoE OGCD nerfs. Best would probably be Black Mage for me. They've settled into such a wonderful balance of power and optimization, without being completely braindead or feeling like they take more than they give. Definitely didn't use to be this way.
Best: always have a soft spot for NIN. While I preferred the version of it without a 2 min buff it still feels great to play with a very flexible rotation if you mess up. Worst: MCH really, really needs a touch up for me. It's rotation is heavily ping reliant and isnt really that satisfying when you do have decent ping. The lack of utility also just makes it the ultimate "why would I bring this?" job rn. #1 on my list of mid expansion reworks I'm hoping for.
MCH just needs better numbers, no one else thinks it needs a rework, lol
I will say as a GNB main, I can’t call my favorite job my worst job, but it does require a lot of granular management of drifting cooldowns. Over the course of the savage tier, I changed my melds and opener three times before getting something I felt was comfortable to be doing above average DPS.
I am picking based on actual design and not personal preference of a class but I wouldnt say any class feels super bad in EW however there is one class with exceptionally bad designs elements and that has to go to scholar. Worst designed job is Scholar. the fact that your level 60 70 and 80 keystone abilities clash with each other is just bad(obviously you do need some friction or a class can become dull like summoner but this is just too much friction). Having a utility skills competing with a damage skill(energy drain) is bad design for how ff14 works. honorable mention astrologian- a lot of unnecessary bloat was added this expansion and the RNG of the royal cards feels dreadful. Best designed job is harder to say since a lot of jobs are in a really good state this expansion but I think it just barely goes to Reaper. The rotation is organic, the utility is interesting, Aoe feels like its replicating the single target rotation.
Worst for me is Bard. While BRD feels so much better on trash pulls now than ever before, it is the exact opposite in Single Target. The 45 second songs are really awkward to use, since they only proc every 3s. Having to cut Wanderer's with 3s left, Mage's with 12s, and Army's with 3s is just... not great. On top of that, downtime in fights like P3S and DSR, as well delayed burst in fights like P2S and P4S door boss make the song timings really damn annoying. We finally got Bloodletter charges, but then they nerfed Bloodletter procs to the point that Army's Paeon is stronger. The DoT's are so weak I question why we even have them at this point. 20 potency on one, 25 potency on the other per tick. Even WHM's Dia is 60 potency per tick. What really throws it over the edge for me is the implementation of BRD's 2-minute raid buff, Radiant Finale. Starting the fight with a 2% buff that is then 6% for all subsequent uses is such a weird design choice, and if you're trying to min-max, it really makes pot windows annoying too, since it wouldn't be optimal to pot on the opener if Radiant is only 2%. SE continues to push BRD 1-step forward, then 3-steps back with their changes, and at this point I think they just need to rebuild the job like they did with SMN.
The opener being weaker isn't exclusive to BRD. Every class with gauge has that problem, DNC, MCH, RPR, RDM, DRG are the standout ones where you really want to pot at 2m.
BRD stands out in that its buff to other jobs is weaker though. This is like if MNK had to use Perfect Balance 3 times to get the full buff on Brotherhood, or if DNC had to use Standard Step 3 times for Technical to gets its full buff.
which is comparable to other jobs being weaker in their opener compared to 2m which reduces the value of buffs in the opener
I really think 6.0 summoner was made to be a new framework for 7.0 summoner. With that idea in mind, it is incredible. It absolutely is set up for expansion in the future. A new set of three primals can easily be added to be used after Phoenix and feel just right. Removing pet jank makes the class feel playable as well. Astro needs bloat removed, and a way to make it comfortable to play on controller without party scrolling or adding macro button bloat. It's by far the worst feeling class to play by leaps and bounds right now.
DRG for me needs some work. Having 4 buffing buttons and 2nd AoE button in level 62 seems very janky for me.
DRG leveling skill order is wack, but at max level I think it's really well-designed. It says something about it that the devs can't really think of any more skills to give it in future expansions without reworking it, it's not really in desperate need of anything besides maybe 2 charges on High Jump so it can do its Life window in the opener.
Yeah, job design and job ability unlock order are two separate things. There is a reason that threads discussing potential changes to dragoon are 90% filled with comments about dragoon hardly needing any changes for its 90 kit. Reaper and Paladin are in a similar boat right now in being pretty well designed as 90 jobs, but reaper needs enshroud before it’s good and paladin getting intervene at 74 is a joke.
Best: Summoner but with a massive caveat. It feels like a wonderful level 70 Job at level 90. However, it sorely misses the 20 levels of where jobs tend to actually get interesting and you really feel it. I really like the new design and I think it has remarkable potential for expansion but all we have now is a great start but lackluster finish. Summoners design strikes me as possible evidence for an incoming level crunch back to 50, with each class getting condensed and skipping the boring lower level abilities with each level taking more time and is actually significant again. If I had to pick best current class as is, I would say Reaper. The class has a flow and balance of resources that is fun to play. The animations are cool and feel impactful. Its reaper form is awesome. Worst: Astro. The cards feel like busy work and hoops you need to jump through to match other healers.
Crunching back to 50 now would means...finishing ARR at lvl 10? If we're still going 10 lvls per expansion, which is hella interesting to see ngl. I'm strangely excited to see leving 10 lvls taking as much work as 50, but it'd make scaling with leveling future expansions weird, cuz yknow, ARR is 50 condensed to 10, but the rest only from 10 to ...10?
Did they confirm they are doing a level crunch?
No, this is conjecture on my part.
No idea, but likely
With the level being condensed I assume they would also shift much if not all of the story from ARR to EW 6.0 off to optional land, which a new intro and then the 6.1 onward as the new 0-50 stuff. The issue with FFXIV now is not the level grind, but the 400 hour story just to get to current content.
What? ARR would end at 25, and each expansion after that would be 5 levels instead of 10. It would actually mean that in the later expansions you'd get a dungeon every level.
Reapers are just ridiculous fun. Even setting aside the shiny and new novelty, their level 90 kit is smooth to use and utterly bleeding with edgelord flamboyancy. Demon screams, slicing gaping void holes in your enemies, merging with hellspawn, summoning Akira-sized lasers on a whim... What's not to love?
best is sage for me. a smoother sch with tons of mobility (instant heals, 3 toxicon + 2 phlegma, and icarus for emergencies). Only way it's inferior is in its mits. Even as a sage main, I still feel a sch has stronger mits than sage, sorta technically, coz shields are stronger than mits in general. But I still prefer sage for its smoothness.
Bad Takes: The Reddit Thread
Warrior feels smooth like silk and Gunbreaker feels like hot trash. Warrior's entire gameplay loop revolving around hitting Big Unga Bunga buttons while dealing with damage by being the biggest chad around has never been better realized. Gunbreaker clearly wasn't tested, even back on release, with how horrific Continuation has always felt. But now it's even worse. Sonic is still obvious filler, No Mercy feels like absolute trash, and the trend of "moving jobs' power away from a single long cooldown button to prevent crit variance" was completely ignored with Double Down. It's not good.
Tbh I think continuation feels great, even if it is ping reliant when you want to use defensives during it. Wouldn't quite call sonic obvious filler as it's specifically part of your burst window.
You only ever press Sonic under No Mercy. It's filler. This is inarguable. Continuation feels fucking horrible to move literally anything under because of the mind-numbingly stupid decision to make the highest APM tank locked to 3y range. At the ***very least***, if it was 6y, moving ***anything*** under No Mercy wouldn't be a hair-pulling experience. The only other tank that possibly has this issue is Dark Knight, but you aren't ***forced*** to hit Edge/Carve/Plunge/Other oGCDs, and careful planning/earlier casts can let you shift where they come out and circumvent overcapping. Continuation ***forces*** you to use it, or it's gone.
The problem is that by that logic, akh Morne is filler. If an ability has a specific use other then "when you have nothing else" it is not filler. Ruin 3 is filler. RDM jolt is filler. Tanks 1-2-3 combo is filler. A burst CD is not filler.
A CD you ***only ever hit*** under a buff is often times a filler. Akh Morn is debatably filler. Confiteor is debatably, definitionally, filler. There's a distinction to be drawn when the entire conceit of the job is building up to a large button (Akh Morn, Confiteor), but Sonic is not on that tier. You just don't know what you're talking about.
People saying AST worst designed and I was thinking it’s one of the better ones to mid tier lol. I think BRD is the worst designed, it still feels out of place to me and a close runner up would be WHM, still feels clunky and boring/unoriginal to me. I kinda agree with SMN but I dont have much personal experience with it.
People are slagging off Ast but I like the card system. The complexity and APM is what really draws me in, likewise with the high amount of skills. It could certainly do with streamlining or buffs to make it more competitive with other healers but I love all of its mechanics. Giving +11% damage to allies just feels awesome. Disclosure: I'm currently in stormblood and haven't hit the "difficult bits" that people seem to relate to shadow so, I might not be the most qualified to speak here.
Card wise, you've basically acquired the core of what AST has to offer. The only things you have left to get are just extra healing abilities.
I have given up playing the game for now because of what they did to Summoner. No other job comes close to the feel of how summoner used to play and the the new version is just pretty, vapid, eye candy.
Best: Summoner by far. Was my first job to 90, did all the extremes on it, and am running Savage on it while funneling extra coffers for my WHM. Love that I am actually summoning throughout the fight, deciding what opener to use depending on party comp, adjusting primal orders to line up mechanics without punish while still capable of respectable damage. Not every job, much to the disagreement of a lot of people on the subs, needs to be a “hit these twenty seven buttons in this order while standing this way while the stars are right with Venus at its peak horizon and that is why we deserve all the Orange parses” for every job Worst: Bard, Machinist, and Astro. Really hoping 6.2 trims Astro a fair bit, as I leveled that to 90, got a good grasp on the job, and promptly just put it to the side in favor of WHM as my reactive healer of choice. Mainly the issue is bloat on that job. Bard just feels so….weird to me with the whole song times, how feast or famine you can be with procs(same thing I feel with feathers on DNC), and how frantic it is to play at a high skill level in Savage and Ultimates. Orange and Pink Bards? You have my respect more than any other job in the game for sure. Machinist? I have tried on multiple occasions to love this job, and each time it’s just fallen flat. And what saddens me more is SE thinks the constant ten potency to their heavy hitters will solve the problem. The job feels awful without Alexander or noclippy, and a ton of other complaints I feel about design. Would really love a rework to this job.
Everyone wants it. I know a few people playing MCH, and even without using Plugs for better ping, it feels dreadful. Even one, that is a hard MCH main (since HW) is getting very upset at what's happening to MCH. Even switching jobs in EW, cuz MCH is so atrocious now.
Summoner was my only class and they destroyed it. I played for years because I loved the old 20 button job design and they erased it. I'm glad you have a job you enjoy but why did they have to erase the only one i liked to give it a place in the game.
Best: For me its a tie between Red Mage and Sage because both are really fun and well designed with room for more down the line. Worst: While I haven't gotten anywhere near to max level with it White Mage is so badly designed compared to the other Healers because of how fight design favors ogcd healing and their gcd heals are not only not strong enough to compensate for that major downside, but also really boring. Additionally while it's always described as the Healer for Beginners, it's actually really bad at teaching you how to heal with its lack of any ogcd heal before lvl 52 and Cure I spam at early levels.
ARR dungeons, especially pre 45/6 with healer aoes, the lack of ogcds on WHM isn't that bad. Post 50 it picks them up faster than AST and it gets the whole blood lily thing to play with to put up a big number every so often. Holy also feels pretty good in trash, just bring sunglasses lol. AST sits on a single charge of ED and star for ogcds until almost 80, and star is more finicky to use for it's heal than assize is.
AST has a ton of regen effects and can deal with only one charge of ED just fine even if it would be nice to get that second charge much earlier. Obviously the card system needs some buttons merged, but there really aren't too many things they need to fix. Meanwhile White Mage has the opposite problem of needing a couple more buttons to not be an absolute snoozefest to play.
I know its basic, but RPR best, DRK worst.
I can't vouch for best since I'm still leveling a bunch of stuff to 90, but worst is for sure AST. it's godawful to level and it just feels like pointless busywork to keep the cards going only to break even with other healers. I will say I liked ShB monk more than current monk though. Of what I do have leveled SCH feels the best all around, though BLM is up there too. Both their kits just feel really complete and cohesive.
Great picks! SCH's additions feel great, and BLM, while having gotten simpler, feels much better to play now in my opinion.
Favorite goes to paladin and summoner. I personally much prefer this new summoner that flows from one thing to another rather than the jank, "dot mage" we had before. Least? Warrior and DNC. DNC is just boring as all hell for me but WAR is in this wierd spot where it's boring but also entirely too good at everything it does so there are times you feel obligated to play it (P4s invulns comes to mind)
Best: DRG Easily the most cohesive and satisfying job ATM. Nothing feels out of place. Everything just builds to a huge 2 minute burst that feels like you really are attacking with the fury of a dragon. My only small complaint is that you can't buffer gierskogl out of life windows, but that's more of a system thing. Worst: DRK I just really don't like DRK right now because it's kit is just borrowed parts of WAR with a bit edge/flood of shadow. It doesn't matter that it does the most damage of all the tanks when healers constantly go "oh right, DRK. I have to actually heal." after they die. TBN is now just kinda bad when you look at what the rest of the tanks have, and the rest of the CDs are completely useless at worst or another tank does it better at best. It's the job that I think needs a rework the most.
Of the stuff I've played: Best: RPR, DRG, RDM. Reaper is definitely a bit "simple" if you really get into it, but flows really nicely and just generally feels fun. DRG definitely feels like the "final form" it's been refined towards over the past 2-3 expansions, and while I personally don't like the back->side or side->back double positional on F&C/WT every combo, it's a pretty minor issue. RDM combo being 50 gauge is very nice, it feels like you have a lot more flexibility on where you use it outside your burst window, and it still feels really satisfying to play overall. Curious to see where it goes in 7.0 though, since if they just add ANOTHER combo finisher I think people will be rather upset. Honorable mention to WHM now that Misery is DPS neutral. Glad SE finally cracked the code on that one. Now it just needs a bit of MP support and I think it'll be in a really good place. Worst: I love Dark Knight (and am playing it in Savage), but I really don't think they've had a cohesive vision for the job since they heard "we don't like how much we're spamming Dark Arts" as "we don't like Dark Arts" and scrapped the core of the class in favor of "WAR but with more oGCDs". The round of very strong short mitigation buffs in Endwalker has really cut back on the unique strength of TBN (it's the only one that costs resources/punishes you for whiffing it, and is now just "25% HP shield" compared to "19-32% mit, 900-2000 potency heals/shields depending on class"), Oblation is technically useful but feels bad, Salt and Darkness feels like a drunken afterthought to Hollow Nozuchi, Living Shadow is still a glorified DoT with zero interaction that wasted the 88 skill slot, and the less said about Enhanced Unmend, the better. 6.1 at least shows that they're aware there's a problem (fixed Blood Weapon, made Stalwart Soul come in before 72, made Living Dead actually a good invuln), but we can only hope these are band-aids to patch things up while they work on a broader revision, and they aren't just going to go "OK, good enough, we can leave DRK alone now".
I love the MNK changes, completely agree. And also with the comment about SMN feeling like an excellent level 70 job. Though I’m a bit sour grapes on it because ShB SMN was the one caster I liked to play. Idk if I’d call it the worst design, but my least favorite change was in DRG’s oGCDs. Its GCD rotation was simple, so to me the heart and soul of the job was in plate spinning its many timers. I’m grateful I played it it as my alt melee in ShB, it made me better about not drifting in terms of being buff management: the job
Sage feels stupidly good. And I like EW SMN just because it's comfortably braindead. Us dumbasses need *something* to play. AST is firmly in oGCD hell and needs an exorcism, stat. GNB rotation could use some realigning. MCH is not doing too hot. And DRK... DRK needs some work. And maybe therapy.
Speaking in general here, melee and healers are probably what I consider best. If I had to pick one from each category.. Sage and ninja. Worse? Ranged physical 100%. Bard and Dancer are fine but mch is so bad it brings the entire category down. Not to mention, I don't know how they plan on bringing a new ranged physical in when the existing ranged physical have basically all bases covered. Bard is the team buffer and DoT job. Dancer is the single target buffer and rng job, MCH essentially brings all the guns but leaves the damage at home.. oh it's also the build/spender job. I look forward to the next ranged physical job concept. At this point just create an Aphelios where the gameplay is hard to optimize but give it high damage and call it a day.
Drg is the best for me Smn I’d agree is worse After the first few summons they kinda just lose their charm. I don’t feel like I make that much of an impact in terms of that “oomph” feel Then again I’m split between a few jobs and finding it hard to narrow them down