New player - help picking a class/job

There isn't really much of "solo leveling" in this game, as the most effective way of leveling is doing dungeons (fastest exp, always in party) and FATEs (usually with others). The two jobs based on Arcanist: Summoner and Scholar are very strong solo jobs alongside White Mage. The current strongest DD jobs are Ninja, Monk, Dragoon and Black Mage. Good Bards are currently wanted in all endgame groups and can deal some very nice DPS numbers as well. Honestly, just try all the DD jobs that appeal to you and then pick your favourite.

Edit: Also, the job balances and endgame setups may very well change when the expansion is released in only two weeks.

You can switch job as much as you like in this game, so just try everything, and even if you find a favorite, you will still want to switch sometimes for fun.

Honestly, if you spend any time at end game with a class, you will be leveling multiple classes for the cross-class skills.

You can start off as arcanist (summoner), and this will introduce you to thaumaturge (black mage) and archer (bard). If you decide you actually like one of the other classes better, you can jump ship then.

Summoner is a very mobile caster dps. Most of their DPS come in the form of DoTs, so while you won't get big bursts of damage like Black Mage, the damage is actually comparable. It helps with solo work too as you simply have to tag all the enemies you want to kill with DoTs and kite them. In Raids, especially second coil of bahamut, Summoners were the preferred magic dps because many of the mechanics required dps to move. In 1st coil and final coil, dps had to move less and Black Mages were preferred. The meta is rather finicky, but summoners are popular. Just be aware of the summoner's strengths in relation to their main rival, black mage.

Black Mage essentially stands in one spot and spams spells until they're out of MP. They have a few skills that nullify physical or magical damage, so you can take 1 or 2 big hits without having to interrupt your cast and move. They are the masters of AoE though, and can deal incredible amounts of burst damage if given enough time to cast and build up Astral Fire stacks.

Bard is a DPS, but they have to switch between a pure DPS form and a half-DPS support form. Specifically, Bards can regen the party's MP and TP, valuable resources in long drawn out fights at endgame raids. In DPS mode, they can eschew any song and focus on damage or they can turn on a song that reduces an enemy's magic defense. This is ideal for farming and speedrunning as your party's blackmage and summoner will receive a huge damage boost. This damage song is also a DPS song as it does not reduce your damage, whereas the MP and TP recovery ones will reduce bard damage by 30%.

Many classes are good at soloing. It all depends on your preferred play style. If you take of your job stone at higher levels they all have access to good cross class skills for solo play, but I'll tell you my favorite jobs.

Bard is the most mobile, because they have no cast times to worry about. They can take on melee with lots of health by kiting it around. With 5 dps cooldowns they can put out impressive burst damage. Downside is that difficult caster enemies might burn you alive, because you have very little self healing and defensives.

Summoner has access to a tank pet and a healing spell and can easily solo most Fate bosses. They are quite mobile but their strongest spells to their damage slowly. Downside is the lack of cc in case their pet pulls too much or dies. I would say this job is the best for soloing.

Black mage can pick their battles since they can AoE sleep enemies for 30 seconds from afar and just walk past them. They also have the best defensives for a ranged class and can put out really big burst for single or multiple targets. Their weakness is their lack of armor if they get taken by surprise or if the fight lasts for too long.

If you are more into melee classes, consider trying ninja or warrior. Ninja can sneak past mobs with their stealth ability but lacks armor, and warrior has really good defensives but doesn't do quite as much damage as dps jobs.

The other classes don't really have anything that would make them stand out from the rest when it comes to solo play. All jobs are wanted in end game like raiding. If you like fast duty finder queues I suggest you go for warrior because it's a tank. Black mages are the best when it comes to AoE fights in raids or speed running dungeons. Most groups that do serious raiding always take one bard so that's something to consider. It could change now that machinist is coming though.

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Originally Posted by Spurloc

Thanks for the info. My only concern with summoner is are they wanted in groups/raids? Do they do comparable dps in to other non-pet dps?

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Didn't see this answered so I'll take a shot at it.

There are rumors going around that Summoner is not capable of top tier DPS, and so some people do exclude them from their raid groups. However, they're idiots: Summoners can top the DPS charts depending on the group, and are competitive with other DPS. Moving also doesn't hurt them as much as it does a Black Mage. There are also plenty that will accept a SMN (Aside from DPS, they have some excellent raid utility).

Summoner is also getting a major overhaul with the expansion soon that should hopefully do away with rumors of SMN being subpar.

Good luck!

Summoner will have Ark Mon the strongest Bahamut skill :p
And also Virus.. if no Scholar around you're raid life saver

I'd recommend trying out all the classes. Even tanks and healers. The game is remarkably well designed, as tanks and healers get DPS stances to deal increased damage both when soloing, and during lulls in group play (party near full HP, or another tank currently holding the boss). While the damage isn't as good as a pure DPS, the added survivability allows you to do things you otherwise cannot, and lowers downtime between fights considerably. Plus, tanks and healers are far more desirable for group content.

Well I'd say try out Ninja..Its quite easy to survive and solo level with it. Has good damage outputs with abilities that further increases your damage + you get skill speed buff as well with a food that increases skill speed too.

Monk is the best single target damage dealer and black mage is the best aoe damage dealer. Both still have horrible wait times in the duty finder queue.