It's going to be 4.2, so how have the Job Guages held up (opinions)

Starting with 4.0 a lot changed within FFXIV, new jobs, new level cap, new gear. But one of the biggest changes was the incorporation of the Job Gauges. With 4.2 on the horizon, we've all had some time to learn and adjust to the new mechanics they bring or the old ones they help regulate.

So what are everyone's opinions on the gauges, were they a good addition, helpful for old mechanics, a bit clunky, or just straight up bad. Obviously Red Mage and Samurai shouldn't be included, since they were designed with gauges in mind and didn't have them added on later.

I'm not fond of the job gauges for SCH, but that's because I barely use Aetherpact outside of very specific situations. Likewise I really don't think that we needed a job gauge for our aetherflow stacks as they were plenty apparent before and while I understand it's likely a hold over from SMN's actually useful gauge it still feels needless to me. Likewise with WHM I really don't like the Lily system and feel it isn't utilized very well. It's a nice idea and what skills make use of it are pretty damn neat, but the gauge just sits on my screen for the most part taking up needless amounts of room. Otherwise I find AST's to be useful and not overly detracting, MCH is extremely helpful though a huge eyesore, haven't played enough serious BRD to form an opinion, and so on and so forth.

Overall I'm really not all that impressed with the system outside of the new jobs where it's clear that the gauges were designed along with the class, rather than added after the fact for a gimmick.

My opinions:
1. Paladin - almost useless
2. White Mage - completely garbage
3. Black Mage - reasonability helpful
4. Dragoon - Helpful
5. Warrior - Indifferent

As someone who relies very much on visuals, the job gauges were a welcome and much-needed addition for me. When there's a lot going on in-game and on the screen, the gauges stand out and make it easier for me to track things. I main BLM, so it's been a blessing (I'd be dropping Enochian much more often if it weren't for these gauges).
Aesthetically speaking, I think they look great, and I love how dynamic and unique they are to each class. They also have a "Kingdom Hearts II menu-esque" feel to them, so I consider that a plus, haha.

Some feel useful, some feel absurdly tacked on. It's pretty obvious which is which, so no need to go in-depth.

Giving every job a gauge just to be "fair" or whatever was a dumb move, in my opinion. Some jobs are just inherently more complex than others and that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I've leveled all classes except paladin/bard and I like them all really, they do what they're supposed to do. The only one that takes forever to get used to though is machisnist's.....machinist just has to many things to keep track of overall.

I like the RDM one a lot - though it helps that the entire job has been built from the ground up with a job gauge in mind. For some of the other jobs and their job gauges it feels as though they're simply tacked on. They all look pretty neat, though. I suppose over time they can be made more useful.

I love them, but I often use the simple version to save space.

for single target the Dark Knight gauge is a nice little personal limit break meter and is fun to use.

however, for aoe the whole mana / blood back and forth shifting with TBN and Quietus, Blood Price and Delirium, is extremely clunky and failed big time in regards of "helping to make the job easier to play" (still fun to use regardless).

the thing helps not the slightest with the actual tanking role and they totally missed the opportunity to add interesting mechincs with these gauges for tanks as a whole.

AST's still feels wholly unnecessary especially since they brought back the status icons for the card, Royal Road and spread that you can manually discard from without using the undraw commands. I suppose some people like to say they appreciate the "more visible" UI for cards, but as someone who was already used to looking at my status bar, it's "meh." Really only justified with Minor Arcana, which in all seriousness could have just been another status icon as well.

It could have been worse I suppose. You can tell though which jobs had their job UI made just to "have something" as opposed to the ones that needed it just to function. I expect all new jobs at this point to make meaningful use of their job gauge in a way some of our older jobs don't.