Keeping your Job going

Other than having 5 less cross-class skills and a limited number of those skills to draw from, is there any reason for not playing your Job all the time rather than switching back to the base class?

Not really.

There are a few cases where the wider cross-class selection can be nice. FATEs, leveling your chocobo, soloing in general. There was talk when PvP first hit about going as the class for some classes (I know some people tinkered with MRD instead of WAR; don't know if it's remained popular). But I don't know of any content that you can't do as the job, or that's significantly more difficult as the job.

The stat increase that comes with your Job is usually a sufficient argument to never go back to the base class.

I'm expecting we'll have more choices once all classes have 2 jobs, like arcanist currently has. But even then, you'll be choosing between jobs and not between classes and jobs.

I guess if doing low level content, where you're going to lose your job skills and most of your stat buffs to the level-sync anyway, some people might want to balance that with the extra cross-class skills. Having just recently unlocked my first job, I can't personally attest to whether that's actually useful or not, but it sort of seems to make sense.

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

I guess if doing low level content, where you're going to lose your job skills and most of your stat buffs to the level-sync anyway, some people might want to balance that with the extra cross-class skills. Having just recently unlocked my first job, I can't personally attest to whether that's actually useful or not, but it sort of seems to make sense.

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Eh. It'd be a little better, but it's not worth a lot of extra effort. Everything pre-30 is pretty forgiving. It's tuned to not really require any cross-class skills. Or good gear. Or the entire party alive.

If you know you're going to get sync'ed below 30 (i.e., specifically queueing for a low-level dungeon, not doing the roulette), and you're keeping your base class gear set and action bars updated anyway, sure, the class can do a bit better. Otherwise, IMO, it's not worth the trouble.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

I guess if doing low level content, where you're going to lose your job skills and most of your stat buffs to the level-sync anyway, some people might want to balance that with the extra cross-class skills. Having just recently unlocked my first job, I can't personally attest to whether that's actually useful or not, but it sort of seems to make sense.

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I had a gear set for Conjurer after I had already obtained WHM so that I could have access to Quelling Strikes while running sub-30 dungeons. It's a one off occurrence really, apart from DPS MRDs being a viable option.

I never went back to my base class after getting my job. the cross class skills are usually fairly minor if you dont have the associated traits for them.

I leveled Arcanist to 30 so I could unlock Scholar but found that Scholar's kinda terrible for over-world hunting so out of dungeons I ended up running as an Arcanist until level 35 because it felt like I wasn't downing stuff quickly enough to safely give up Protect and Stone Skin. I've been playing as Summoner since I got Fester, though.

Two things.

Main stats and skills.

If you don't play the advanced class you get a stat penalty. I call it a penalty because there is no reason why an Archer should have less DEX than a Bard. Such things could be managed through the use of gear.

The other thing are some of the "advanced" skills you won't have if you play a base class.
Like PGL missing two of its the combo attacks, Shoulder Tackle, the 5% dmg boost from Fists of Fire and your best AoE skill Rock Breaker.

These things far outweight the use of some cross class skills.

On the other hand, there are useless cross class attack skills nobody ever uses, because it messes everything up in a game where melee classes use a combo system.