In the FFXIV world, lore-wise which job is the strongest if there was a tourney?

Hi guys,

Wondering what would lore-wise be the strongest playable class ingame?

I don't think there's anything lore-wise to suggest that any one job is more powerful than another.

But, if I had to bet on it, I'd probably put my money on a BRD/ARC first, MCH and magic jobs second, and all others third. Bows are a ridiculous advantage in a straight up fight.

My money would be on the one with the rifle.

Couldn't a BLM simply raise a shield and blow up the BRD/ARCH though? Or a ninja hide and trick attack. A dragoon jump on him.

lore wise.. npc has their own flare and unique skills, not like ours.

Alphinaud has that diamond carbuncle which put regen field.
I think Thancred has been a gld, rog/nin, can't remember what else.
Y'shtola put an awesome shield againsts Zenos.
My favorite is these three. I'm sure lots Im missing.

edit: lol the thread title got cutoff. For tourney, easy RAUBAHN. best match 1v1

Black Mages and Summoners are top contenders for strongest lore-wise in terms of raw-destructive potential.

Their all pretty well balanced, Lore wise they have only had champions for each class, see relic Lore. Over all you can always test it based on skill and gear in Wolf's Den and challenge classes :P Now Role wise is a different story.

don't think this topic is about NPCs but the lore of the Job Quests. what challenges did a WoL PLD have to overcome in their quests, how easy did they do it and how much help did they have?

of the ones i've done i feel like PLD and MCH does absolutely nothing special. healers are slightly better but they all have a lot of helpers. NIN is probably a tier above the healers. the 3 casters are probably the strongest of all, not sure i can order them.

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Originally Posted by Raiden_Ki

Couldn't a BLM simply raise a shield and blow up the BRD/ARCH though? Or a ninja hide and trick attack. A dragoon jump on him.

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Well, a ninja apparently can't hide once someone is actively tracking them, dragoon jumps would be pretty easy to dodge since they only hit one spot, and as for BLM shields, that depends on how good the shield is. Arrows in real-life can punch through plate mail pretty easily, so can a BLM raise a shield that's stronger than metal armour?

But, admittedly, we know that at the very least, thaumaturges have the ability to completely lock down someone in one spot, which Mumuepo demonstrated in Halatali HM. Presumably, a BLM/THM that can pull that off would be pretty much unbeatable unless they were outnumbered.

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Originally Posted by uvuvwevwevweonyetenyevweugwemu

Alphinaud has that diamond carbuncle which put regen field.

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Moonstone Carbuncle, and I think the field was also meant to be some sort of barrier. It felt far less effective than he probably intended it to be, in that fight.

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Originally Posted by SendohJin

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PLD actually has 1v1 tourney quest at level 70. No help just 1v1, 3 matches for 'Ul Cup Champion' title (Level 70 PLD title), againsts guildmate, an Ishgardian knight and a master swordsman.
Quests wise, I agree smn and sch are fun going back to dungeons with NPCs, but it feels like unsynced tbh.

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Originally Posted by uvuvwevwevweonyetenyevweugwemu

PLD actually has 1v1 tourney quest at level 70. No help just 1v1, 3 matches for 'Ul Cup Champion' title (Level 70 PLD title), againsts guildmate, an Ishgardian knight and a master swordsman.

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exactly, those are average joes, not other quests where they have to fight ancient demons and demi-gods. if you put that master swordsman from the PLD quest in the Black Mage quest in the WoL's place the world would have most likely ended.

actually looking back i overrated the opponent in the NIN quest a bit as well, he's also not that special.

the BLM quest has the highest stakes but it can be argued that the BLM quest has the strongest helper.
the RDM and SMN quests can be argued that what you're fighting are weakened versions of their true selves but their true versions are the most powerful beings any of the job quests i've seen are faced with. AST too but you have a metric crapload of help in the AST quest.

I'd say it's largely a matter or
1) circumstances and rules?
2) do we go with the apparent efficiency we see in-game, or with how effective these things would be in real life?

for 1), scholars for example are intended as strategists, and thus should have an advantage in a team fight, but possibly a disadvantage in a 1v1. Ninjas would have an advantage if the terrain is uneven and would allow for hiding, not so much otherwise. The further away the combatants start from each other, the bigger of an advantage the ranged jobs would get. Also consider setup time etc.

for 2), going by real-life efficiency, bards and machinists get a leg up on everyone else (non-tanks at least), since bows/guns are just that good (reloading and firing rate due to level of gun technology might drop MCH). Beyond that I'd say casters have it pretty good, I mean what do you do when someone starts flinging napalm in your face? Ain't no armor gonna help you there. And further still, how literally do we take the animations of tank cooldowns for example? There's a big difference between "I now have a magical shield floating around myself" and "things hurt less now".
And I'd say us monks may get pretty much shafted (depending on our degree of supposed super strength) unless we get to start in shoulder tackle range against a squishy caster or healer. :P

And then there could even be situation of "X class can beat Y class which can beat Z class which can beat X", individual matchups.
It's a fun thing to think about, but we'd need to set a whole bunch of ground rules first to reach any conclusions.

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Originally Posted by Aosha

Beyond that I'd say casters have it pretty good, I mean what do you do when someone starts flinging napalm in your face? Ain't no armor gonna help you there.

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Lucia blocks dragonfire with her shield during the lead up to the Nidhogg trial, so I'd say armor would actually help.

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Originally Posted by Wyssahtyn

Lucia blocks dragonfire with her shield during the lead up to the Nidhogg trial, so I'd say armor would actually help.

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Yeah thinking back on it, at least a black mage's basic Fire spell should be blockable (although it was also mentioned in the Heavensward side stories that strong fire spells would eventually melt shields/armor: http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest.../#sidestory_05). But what about, say, Flare? There's no projectile to block, it's just a giant fire storm that forms on you. Goes back to the question of how literally do we take animations (which I just added to my original comment). And then we get to Thunder, which by all means should be unblockable, etc, but then we also take into account that Paladins are probably using some form defensive magic on their shields, and then it just keeps spiraling out into more and more questions on what setup we use.

I'd say red mage as they have so many different skills that they would surely find the right tools for every situation. Melee combat, white magic, black magic, anything. They create gaps, close gaps, heal and attack.

As for ninja not being able to hide....well Suiton is a solution for that.

Monks are likely at the top, even just unlocking 7 chakras they're capable of extraordinary superhuman feats, with all 14 it's been mentioned their power can be similar to deific levels. Bullets and arrows lose any effectiveness when your opponent is capable of superhuman speed, endurance, and strength so that easily rules out brd and mch.

After that it'd be the 3 mages, smn, blm, and rdm. Rdm is only there if they discard the whole premise and code of ethics of a red mage however, as the very art itself is purposefully restricting. Blm and smn have incredibly high power ceilings and raw destructive capabilities, but they'd be put down pretty quickly by a full Chakra monk I feel. Again it's hard to fight an opponent who could win the fight in the blink of an eye due to superhuman speed and strength. Casters need time to get off the big spells generally.

Well I am totally not biased or anything (who am I kidding) but I would say that at least in lore we summoners would be part of the top jobs. We do not fight alone thanks to our pet and we even have a Bahamut nuke right now. Also if we would wear our horns we would totally blind our opponents with awe. ;)

The thing about summoner is the conditions of being one. You essentially must have the echo in order to reliably and and safely withstand encounters with various primals. You also have to encounter and likely defeat said primals in order to draw upon their specific aether.

Even drawing on the dreadwyrm trance required bahamut to be summoned and then ceremoniously destroyed, scattering his aether to the land.

There's no doubt they are powerful but it requires a lot of special circumstances to fall into place beforehand, primarily being gifted with the echo.

Lore-wise and assuming that the competitors involved are not Warriors of Light, the strongest job based character whose power is based solely on their job is Estinien. While he is essentially the "best of the best" when it comes to Dragoons, he is still on a whole other level compared to other "master level" characters based on the jobs. This is probably because at this point, all of the other characters are there to make the Warrior of Light feel powerful while Estinien's role is to be a peer and rival in terms of the Warrior of Light's growth.

If we're going by old school FF rules, WHM and BLM. Sleep target > nuke until dead, because magic doesn't wake up a slept target.

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Originally Posted by The_Last_Dragoon

Lore-wise and assuming that the competitors involved are not Warriors of Light, the strongest job based character whose power is based solely on their job is Estinien. While he is essentially the "best of the best" when it comes to Dragoons, he is still on a whole other level compared to other "master level" characters based on the jobs.

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the NPC in the Stormblood Black Mage quests would destroy Estinien.

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Originally Posted by Quor

If we're going by old school FF rules, WHM and BLM. Sleep target > nuke until dead, because magic doesn't wake up a slept target.

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that's mechanics, not lore.

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Originally Posted by SendohJin

the NPC in the Stormblood Black Mage quests would destroy Estinien.

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Beware, black mage quest spoilers ahead!

I get the feeling that you're associating the Shantotto in FFXIV with the Shantotto in the FFXI universe. The Shantotto from that quest line is not only a mere echo of the person who actually created Black magic was, but once again they play second fiddle to the Warrior of Light. Not to mention that there is very little to be shown that accurately gauges exactly how much power Lalai has while fused with Shantotto. I would also deign to point out that the whole fact that Lalai is only powerful because she's fused with Shantotto is made very evident in the quest line (which means she's powerful because of something other than her job) and it's to the point where Lalai is actually limiting the power that Shantotto has. Estinien on the other hand is strong because he's a Dragoon, period.

I would argue that there is a certain equilibrium among all the classes. Which is to say, no class is weaker than another. The reason for this is that every class uses magic and their own physical abilities to empower themselves. What changes is how much they lean into these two categories.

Monks for instances use Chakra as a way to tap into a type of magic, and we see in the Stormsblood trailer (and the many times "Yda" swatted armored opponents aside) that these fist-wielding fighters rival demi-gods at the later level ranges. As for Paladins and other Tanks, their reliance on armor is not such a weakness considering that it is established that lvl 50 cobalt chainmail can stop/hamper bullets (armorcrafter storyline) which means later material can probably be expected to pull through most ordeals. Blackmages and other casters lean the most into the realm of magic, but even they rely to a certain extent on their own physical capabilities to allow them to harness this power (a lvl 70 Blackmage has more hp than a lvl 50 one etc). And of course we see Samurai pull of ridiculous superhuman feats in the game, such as cutting a steel blade in half or intercepting a bullet in midair.

Frankly if you take any of these classes out of FF14 and put them in another Fantasy setting they would likely annihilate the opposition because all classes at the later levels perform superhuman feats on a regular basis. The world of Eorzea is at times bleeding hell-hole and your lvl 70 Warriors of Light are the end result.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to the combatants. Lore-wise, a powerful monk can likely go toe-to-toe with a powerful black mage if it is a quick one-on-one and not an encounter made unequal by either party through preparation.

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Originally Posted by The_Last_Dragoon

Estinien on the other hand is strong because he's a Dragoon, period.

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Except he absolutely isnt. He was the azure dragoon, his higher powers coming directly from an eye of nidhogg, and even with that he played second fiddle to the WoL in the 50 drg questline. After that in heavensward he continues to use the eye of nidhogg for power, gets possessed and basically merges with nidhogg, and in stormblood we see he is capable of harnessing that power still, though upon destroying the eyes for good it may severely diminish his abilities.

He's still absolutely an exception and his heightened power is not because he's simply a dragoon, but because he is given (or takes) power from a being much stronger than himself. He's owes his strength to an outside source just as much as that blm NPC you just dismissed.

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Originally Posted by Shippuu

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I had to watch the second cutscene again to see it, but yeah apparently there's some leftover essence in Estinien's lance, which seems weird since the eyes are gone for good, and he definitely can't use their power unless they are in his possession. Regardless that would put him off the list, but that means that there's really only one choice for strongest class in Stormblood...

https://68.media.tumblr.com/e2a00033...31fo1_1280.gif

http://68.media.tumblr.com/13b399954...r948o1_500.gif

http://37.media.tumblr.com/cce8e3d76...p9yqo1_250.gif

http://cloud-3.steamusercontent.com/...E43C0A670DE55/

https://i.makeagif.com/media/7-25-2014/UrvMdF.gif

http://i.imgur.com/4ms8BtV.gif

The man, the myth, the legend...

^^ Goldsmith OP
Also, culinarian. See Julyan.

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Originally Posted by Mysterysword

Arrows in real-life can punch through plate mail pretty easily, so can a BLM raise a shield that's stronger than metal armour?

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If by easily you mean just barely penetrating the mail and stopping on the padding underneath (medieval English longbow vs medieval plate), or just bouncing straight off, then yes.

I would personally like to know where Ninja falls here in the lore. By that, I of course mean not Ninja as we know and play it as much as what the capstone bosses have demonstrated to us for the purpose of flavor and added mechanics. Stuff like "the forbidden fourth mudra" that comes up multiple times or all the other wackiness that goes on in the level 70 quest. As far as villains go, your Ninja progression encounters an awful lot of "imagine what you COULD be doing if Oboro wasn't the one training you!"

Basically, the Ninja's role in the tournament would be a nonstop cascade of Naruto tropes. An endless stream of "you thought you killed me but that was an illusion!" among a few dozen other Ninjitsu tricks. Pair the Ninja up with a Scholar (or hells, even an Arcanist on par with the guildmaster and his disciple) and you end up with a combination that could potentially prevail through wits and nigh-Black Mage-tier might.

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Originally Posted by Waliel

If by easily you mean just barely penetrating the mail and stopping on the padding underneath (medieval English longbow vs medieval plate), or just bouncing straight off, then yes.

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No, I mean that it is possible for a longbow archer to kill someone in one shot. The draw weight of an English longbow was at least 80 pounds. That's just based on the physical strength of the archer, not counting whatever magic an FF XIV BRD/ARC may be using to augment their draw, which could easily double it. And 80 pounds is the low end of the estimate.

I'm more curious as to why there seems to have been no history of the crossbow being invented or used in FF XIV, because here on Earth, humans had crossbows in the 6th century BC that could fire with a draw weight of 200 pounds.

It could that crossbows exist but have just never caught on, guns have existed in Eorzea for a while but because technology only recently is able to keep up with the magic wielded by Eorzeans they went largely ignored outside Limsa Lominsa and now Ishgard.

I would imagine the healer wins, because you can't kill it. And amongst healers, my best guess is either Scholar or White Mage. Scholar because of the tricks up their sleeve, and White Mage because their raw magic potential is as powerful as Black Mages, but can also heal.

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Originally Posted by Mysterysword

No, I mean that it is possible for a longbow archer to kill someone in one shot. The draw weight of an English longbow was at least 80 pounds. That's just based on the physical strength of the archer, not counting whatever magic an FF XIV BRD/ARC may be using to augment their draw, which could easily double it. And 80 pounds is the low end of the estimate.

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https://youtu.be/Ej3qjUzUzQg?t=50

Here's what happens when you shoot a 150lb warbow at a breastplate from roughly 20m. The worst you could do against a Paladin would be to interrupt their afternoon tea.

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Originally Posted by Mysterysword

I'm more curious as to why there seems to have been no history of the crossbow being invented or used in FF XIV, because here on Earth, humans had crossbows in the 6th century BC that could fire with a draw weight of 200 pounds.

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Originally Posted by lycropath

It could that crossbows exist but have just never caught on, guns have existed in Eorzea for a while but because technology only recently is able to keep up with the magic wielded by Eorzeans they went largely ignored outside Limsa Lominsa and now Ishgard.

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FF lore wise, crossbows are usually regarded as weaker than bows/guns. There are some other minor considerations as well, such as status effecting bolts that really don't have a place in 14 (although guns and bows have had various ammo options at times too, maybe it's nothing). So I'd lean more towards lycro's opinion, they could very well exist but just be inferior weapons for the vaunted WoL. This angle does seem to leave it open for future job considerations, though, as tech is always advancing.

As for the OP, I'd lean more towards either healers or tanks being dominate, simply from their superior ability to survive and recover. But yea, there's a lot of criteria that needs to be established before we could really find out who's the strongest.

On the point of crossbows, there are a few places whee they can be assumed to exist. Ballistas are directly mentioned as part of the Ishgardian arsenal, even being commanded by Emmanelain at one point. Additionally, the limit break for ranged characters features them wielding aetherial crossbows. From these points it can be pretty clearly inferred that crossbows do exist. That being siad, I could definitely see them not gaining the same traction as bows and firearms in Eorzea. Namely, since one of the primary advantages of crossbows over bows was their easier training, and the magic of Eorzean archers mean they would be capable of far more than the mundane archers of our world. Similarly, they may be able to support greater draw strengths, something normally afforded to crossbows. We're not sure about when exactly firearms developed, but they were developed partially as a cheaper alternative to crossbows, so it's quite possible there was a 'crossbow' age that Eorzea has already come out of. While bows have an illustrious, magical tradition to fall back on for utility, crossbows were probably closer to peasant weapons and weren't utilized as heavily.

On a more Doylist/out of character note, it's possible they're saving crossbows for a future class. They could be chemists, snipers, or something far different than either of those. Although status affecting bolts could certainly be utilized, they'd just be class abilities rather than inventory items. I can understand why the developers might come to the belief that bows and guns are 'cooler' weapons than crossbows. Hm...now that I think about it, I'm not sure if Japan ever saw crossbow use on the same level as European and other civilizations. They utilized guns quite heavily when they got them (having some of the highest guns per capita of any nation and coming up with advanced firearms tactics fairly quickly). Maybe that's part of it?

Actually the Chinese (I know, not Japanese) were likely the first to develop crossbows. So it's possible that, being in the same geographic area, they could've been fairly common at one point or another in Japan. History buffs are welcome to interject, it's too much for me to study atm lol

On the topic of magically-augmented archers, is the power drawn from the bow or from the being himself/herself? In either case, could the same logic not be applied to crossbows? (IE, magic bows = magic crossbows, or magic archers = magic crossbow archers). And if anything, I'd think bows in general are more simple to manufacturer than crossbows, and hence cheaper, which would likely result in peasants having the bows instead.

This is a more interesting conversation than I originally thought lol, though it veers a bit off topic for this particular thread

They don't appear to have been particularly common. Traditional bows were far more prevalent, though some might have imported the Chinese repeating crossbow.

I actually did some research on the lack of Japanese crossbows since this thread made me rather curious. It is very true that China had a great many types of crossbows. They were the first nation to create repeating crossbows, and there are historical records of utilizing them deep in Chinese history. Accordingly, there are actually some very early mentions of crossbows being utilized by Japanese sources, apparently titled the Oyumi. However, crossbows would have been very difficult to construct for the Japanese. They required a variety of materials not often found, from bone and animal parts usually found in the Steppe regions (which would be easily available for China but not Japan) to various types of woods that would be hard to find in the mountainous islands of Japan. The type of wood and bamboo they had available instead lent itself well to longbows like the Yumi.

Additionally, early Japanese military tactics were based far more around horse archery. Crossbows are very difficult to use mounted, making them inefficient for that style of combat. While western knights used crossbows (very famously in Richard the Lionheart's Crusade) they always had to dismount to utilize them. Crossbows are far more effective in terms of massed infantry combat, which became prevalent only far later in Japanese history. On a comparative note, China had a very long history of massed infantry battles, making crossbows (even repeating ones) far more appealing. It was not for lack of machining or engineering knowledge, they were able to adopt firearms very, very quickly once they received them.

As a side note, while bows and crossbows would always be seen as 'Peasant weapons' until their obsolescence, the main cost that I'm talking about is not manufacturing, but training. It was said in England that the best way to train a longbowman was to 'start with the grandfather.' Training to properly utilize a longbow required a great, great deal of time and effort. With the magical arts available, I'm saying moreso that the archer might be capable of higher draws, allowing for larger and more powerful bows than in our world. While a crafter might know more, as far as I can tell the inborn aetherial manipulation used by Eorzeans is the main source of power rather than weapons or armor being directly magical.

I'm not sure how much of this discussion applies to Eorzea/Doma of course. Especially given that Doma itself seems more based around China than Japan. I was originally talking in the regard that the developers might not have had the same associations about the crossbow that westerners do. Although that is rather silly given their prevalence in pop culture...

Doma is Nara era Japan, not China.