Your Opinion on the Current State of Job Identity/Balance in 6.4?

Hey there everyone, I'm pretty new to the game (the forums too) and I've been hearing a lot of talk about FFXIV's Jobs like Summoner getting reworked, tanks getting nerfed, skills getting removed, healers getting homogenized and all that stuff.

However, everything I've heard on that front is a year+ old and a lot has happened since then, including some buffs; but I've heard nobody talk about it, so I figured I'd ask you.

What's your opinion on job identity right now? how's your main job doing? do you think Square is going in the right direction or do you still miss how your class(s) were in a past iteration of FFXIV? let me know :D

Never really cared for lots o buttons, especially if they can be brought down into one (like a lot of jobs could be)- personally am enjoying PvP kits more than normal kits (on average) due to identity and lack of button bloat feeling. I am aware some people like lots of abilities, I just don't personally need it. Partly I enjoy the PvP kits because each job feels different and brings something interesting to the table.

I actually quite enjoy SMN at level 90 and think it's my favorite "Summoner" of all the summoners. I think ARR's mechanics were very good, it just was a bad "summoner". Current Summoner before you get the special bloodpact aetherial rite whatchamecallits around level 86 is really simple though.. I feel they should bring that mechanic much earlier and do something with perhaps a new primal flavored skill that replaces physik (which is so useless it's not worth putting on your bar or remembering you have it).

Paladin is quite fun to play which I would have considered my main, but queue are like 5 mins for me even for old content on DD and so I've been enjoying catch up on SMN as I can go in blind and not ruin the party (I never go in blind as the tank, too much potential fun killing for others).

Before EW had suggested they go through each job and attempt to add as much non-savage/ultimate like flavor as possible (roleplay gameplay), mostly exploratory and fluff, to add some feeling of differences, but since EW and all jobs getting a more similar vibe.. feels like they can hopefully capture combat 'differences' in the next expansion. (The quick and dirty example is why does Dragoon take fall damage, or in zones with flying it would be logical if they could manipulate their jump to jump farther (by holding down the spacebar before and during 'flights')).

I play each job a bit, but not so repetitively that things are too painful when similar, but one that stood out to me as 'but y tho' was when each tank got essentially a Fel Cleave phase. We all became part warrior lol. More recently they made the dragoon jump no longer a jump, I'm sure it would have some balance implications for some content (if minor that's fine, imo) but I thought adding a % max hp shield and movement speed boost could have been a more fun way to give dragoon's the ability to manage they're actually jumping to a location.

Certainly there are still differences but it seems like there is a minimum of 2 steps forward to similarity for each 1 step of difference.

I would probably say the most concerned job, even though I don't main it, is healers- they do have to heal when content is brand new and people don't know / don't have good gear.. but it quickly becomes less important in a lot of content. Given what they get to do outside of healing is like 3 abilities... that's a bit unfortunate lol. My suggestion rather than having to change a bunch of systems on their head (impacting all the other roles) is to split the healers between offensive and defensive support actions and then add many skills to that effect with less healing skills (still can heal, still helpful when needed, but a lot of other things to do too). For example Scholar prior to losing all their attack skills and rotations and healing fairy power would be more in line with an offensive healer. Defensive support would still have damage too, it's just the theme / target. So players who like being a battle healer vs a team player. Astrologian being defensive, improving their card systems, etc.

Scholar:
https://i.redd.it/s5mw6156zq961.jpg

Game was at its peak in HW. Game is at its lowest point post 1.0 in EW.

Job balance and identity is the worst it's ever been.

Job design and job identity are steadily going downhill. Considering that there are no builds and jobs have only one way to play them, unlike other games where each job can have multiple distinct ways to play, then I would say balance is pretty bad too. SE just doesn't have any excuse to have bad balance, everything is predictable and there is minimal amount of variance, yet they still can't do it. All nuances are being removed, skill ceilings and skill floors are often few centimeters apart. Someone supposedly beat p12s with 5 deaths and DNC who forgot to DP, all of that in week 1. So what's the point of balance, when DPS check in current hardest content is so forgiving. Another lazy way to ensure that no job is discriminated because it's bad. What a lazy way of "solving" things.

Removing Kaiten was so incredibly out of touch, game has 4 job designers and it shows. Plenty of jobs just feel like unloved children.

Game is still good, but 6.X patches are kind of let down, and job design is just bad in all regards.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

Never really cared for lots o buttons, especially if they can be brought down into one (like a lot of jobs could be)- personally am enjoying PvP kits more than normal kits (on average) due to identity and lack of button bloat feeling. I am aware some people like lots of abilities, I just don't personally need it. Partly I enjoy the PvP kits because each job feels different and brings something interesting to the table.

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I agree with this.
I think the PvP kits are way more enjoyable to play in general.

I feel like the PvE kits exist in kind of a binary state:
Scenario 1: You're having trouble memorizing a strict, uncompromising 32-button rotation and thus you're underperforming.
Scenario 2: You've memorized that strict, uncompromising 32-button rotation and thus you'll easily grow bored.

I am of course simplifying things a lot here, but I feel like that's the crux of it.
If PvE kits were reduced to "10 really impactful abilities" rather than "24 not impactful abilities" I'd be more interested in PvE gameplay.
Lots of buttons just aren't interesting. 3-part combos that are just increasing potencies of damage. Big GCD damage. Big oGCD damage. Big AoE oGCD damage and so on.

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

Scholar:
https://i.redd.it/s5mw6156zq961.jpg

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This 100%. I enjoyed SCH so much more when I had actual choices to make and damage abilities to use. Now I only play it if my group requires a healer and no one else will do it. Current SCH is so braindead boring it is actually unfun for me to play. Luckily SMN is a lot more fun so I can at least keep my ARC levels up.

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Originally Posted by Mithron

Game was at its peak in HW. Game is at its lowest point post 1.0 in EW.

Job balance and identity is the worst it's ever been.

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Bard has always had a job identity crisis.

Job identity and gameplay has only been going downhill since Stormblood, maybe HW depending on the job. They just keep homogenizing everything to the point of ridiculousness. When it comes to balance, it's pretty dumb that Ranged are forced to do less damage then Melee because uptime, when uptime is never a factor these days.

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

Scholar:
https://i.redd.it/s5mw6156zq961.jpg

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You forgot Selene!