Love the fantasy, hate the gameplay?

Do you have a class where you love the class fantasy, lore, etc, but dislike or even despise the gameplay? Or vice versa?

For me for example, I absolutely adore DRK's 'misunderstood defender of the downtrodden' lore, the class storyline, the massive swords and the edgy 'blood and darkness' attacks. But suffice it to say, out of the 3 tanks I have levelled, DRK is just the one I enjoy playing the least.

Blue Mage. Always loved the class in all FF games, love its lore in xiv, and the actually abilities themselves and its dps rotation is actually pretty fun (if basic), but limited job content does not interest me whatsoever, carnival is fun for the 30 mins it takes to beat it, but doing all blu raids just isnt fun compared to normal challenge runs, or just normal raiding.

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Originally Posted by foyboy

Do you have a class where you love the class fantasy, lore, etc, but dislike or even despise the gameplay?

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Yes, every Job that isn't melee Dps.
I know that Squeenix runs a "this is a final fantasy game first, and a mmo second" policy, but imo that's no excuse to neglect Gameplay for the sake of convenience.

Obviously MCH for me if you know me you know I constantly complain about how they just removed most of its kit for ogcds and called it a day “Rewerk”

Aesthetic and gear was always lovely, the steampunk vibes were a unique take on such a high fantasy game and they made it work without being alienated. Just the gameplay is boring and feeling like s fighting game, ie pressing tons of Buttons randomly for results then slow to a crawl with 1-2-3

Definitely DRK. Maybe I was spoiled by Blood DK's back in WoW (before they were ruined too) where you'd be the immortal life leeching juggernaut, but WAR matches that far better here. DRK is "fine" but the gameplay never clicked, it always felt like you put in more work than WAR for slightly less result.

Summoner. Usually such an important part of a Final Fantasy, and of course Primals are the focus of the plot so you could say it kinda is, but the job itself is a clunky mess of systems that don't work well together, and there aren't enough different summons to use.

It should never have been a DoT class, because layering DoTs means that all your skills end up being weak af to balance it out. Have the egi's be the only 'DoT' so to speak, then utilise other skills to emulate other primal attacks. So lose Bio and Miasma, and instead have things like Leviathan's Gyre Spume, Ramuh's Shock Strike, and Shiva's Hailstorm.

As a sort of 'trade', give Scholar the multiple DoT build, as this works much better for a healer.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

It should never have been a DoT class, because layering DoTs means that all your skills end up being weak af to balance it out. Have the egi's be the only 'DoT' so to speak, then utilise other skills to emulate other primal attacks. So lose Bio and Miasma, and instead have things like Leviathan's Gyre Spume, Ramuh's Shock Strike, and Shiva's Hailstorm.

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The most important part is that they need to commit to one or the other. A DoT class could've worked if they went all in on the DoTs, but instead they tried to do both and now the DoTs have basically been reduced to "a thing you keep up" for no other reason than not doing it would be a dps loss.

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Originally Posted by foyboy

Do you have a class where you love the class fantasy, lore, etc, but dislike or even despise the gameplay? Or vice versa?

For me for example, I absolutely adore DRK's 'misunderstood defender of the downtrodden' lore, the class storyline, the massive swords and the edgy 'blood and darkness' attacks. But suffice it to say, out of the 3 tanks I have levelled, DRK is just the one I enjoy playing the least.

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You like Warrior, but dont like Dark Knight? That is extremely interesting considering Warrior has been the most boring tank class since the release of version 2.0.

Obviously this is all opinion, but thats mine. As for your question, I think for me Monk has always seemed interesting but also since 2.0's release, I just never really enjoyed its gameplay. I'm not sure I even like it now, because while it is fast, and more simple, thats about all it has going. Fast and simple. Nothing interesting to do, except smash your combo's. Love the fantasy and hate the gameplay? I wouldnt say I love anything about monk or hate anything about monk. But I will say WAR and DNC are the two absolutely most boring jobs in the game by far for me. Too slow, far far too simple.

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Originally Posted by Daniolaut

You like Warrior, but dont like Dark Knight? That is extremely interesting considering Warrior has been the most boring tank class since the release of version 2.0.

Obviously this is all opinion, but thats mine. As for your question, I think for me Monk has always seemed interesting but also since 2.0's release, I just never really enjoyed its gameplay. I'm not sure I even like it now, because while it is fast, and more simple, thats about all it has going. Fast and simple. Nothing interesting to do, except smash your combo's. Love the fantasy and hate the gameplay? I wouldnt say I love anything about monk or hate anything about monk. But I will say WAR and DNC are the two absolutely most boring jobs in the game by far for me. Too slow, far far too simple.

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obligatory "delete monk"

I feel like AST fits this well.

In the lorebook and quests for AST you learn the stories, elements, and abilities of the consolations behind our Arcana/cards. They're all different from one another, and the stories tell of how the different cards have different ways of impacting the flow of battle.
Now, after the card reworks when you use them it's all the same. The differences and intricacies of the arcana boiled down to the same buff.

Regardless of how one feels about the card rework from a balancing perspective I can't help but feel a there's disconnect between the lore and the gameplay now. The loss of our other buffs/debuffs over the years doesn't help by any stretch either.

For me it's Nin.
Which is ironic because initially I wanted to pick it up because of its gameplay. I heard it has buttons for 3 different hand symbols you gotta mix together to do different moves and I thought that was just so cool. Then I played it and thoroughly enjoyed the job's story, the aesthetic, how zippy you are with your increased movement speed, but man do I not like playing that class.
It's gameplay revolves around stuffing things into trick attack, making it feel like a one trick pony that just becomes obnoxious to balance if you can't keep uptime. I picked it up at the end of Stormblood, and levelling it would literally give me stress headaches. The ShB version is significantly better, but man do I hate what Trick Attack does to that class.

Paladin. I have nothing against paladin but tanking in general. But I like the idea of a paladin and I like the glamour so I level one entirely through MSQ and trust xp. But don’t ask me to ever play it because I don’t know how.

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Originally Posted by Shalan

I feel like AST fits this well.

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So much this. AST has been my main healer since HW release and I had a blast playing through Stormblood with it. ShB completely destroyed AST's gameplay for the sake of homogenization and I will never stop ranting about it.

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Originally Posted by Imakun

So much this. AST has been my main healer since HW release and I had a blast playing through Stormblood with it. ShB completely destroyed AST's gameplay for the sake of homogenization and I will never stop ranting about it.

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Yep. Same here. Keep your homogeneity, SE.
And that's exactly why I find PvP so boring. It's all so soulless and formulaic with all the fun sucked out.

I cannot with Black Mage.

Don't get me wrong, I think it executes on its fantasy pretty well; raining down hellfire on your opponents and cackling as you leave BIG NUMBER in your wake of destruction. That shit is satisfying as hell.

But I just cannot sit still in one location, pump out a rotation and then get fucked because I didn't think about the mechanic in time. I need my movement, playing a turret just isn't for me.

Dancer fits the "love the fantasy, hate the gameplay" bill for me.
Based on the class fantasy I had hoped for a more complex, support-heavy class, something that can genuinly turn the tide with some well timed support but this is never going to be a reality in this game wit any class. For the most part it comes down to "keep stuff on CD, bank stuff, then push glowing stuff" and the support aspect feels very little like support. Maybe not "hate" the gameplay, it's relaxed and nice one in a while for me, but compared to what I had hoped for or envisioned, it just feels lacking.

White Mage sounded great as the offensive healer that can channel the power of various nature-themed elements and later also gains holy-themed skills. It sounded strong and commanding... and then you get the clunky mess with one button spam.

Astro is...so-so. I liked the time mage aspect but I abhor the whole "fate this, fate that, foretold bla, guided by stars" thing even if it's in the form of trying to turn what fate gave you to your favor. It just never clicked for me, I was never into anything that revolved around prophecies, fate, foretelling etc., so half of the Astros class fantasy isn't doing it for me anyway. But rip time mage aspect.
Astro is fun while you're still figuring things out but it becomes repetetive and boring the moment you got your mental flowchart, busiest healer or not.

Honestly I miss the pre 5.0 DRK. I don't know why even with tank stance, once you learned how to property stance dance, it was an absolute blast to play. Dark Arts made things interesting but I miss having two combo paths for DRK :( I know this job made me drop PLD in a heart beat because in the end was flat out fun to play when HW dropped.

Drk and Mch were fun 5 years ago. Now they are insanely boring

Monk.

I don't know how to explain it. I just expected them to feel more unique than they are, or at least faster. They look cool in cinematics and all, but when it's time to play as one... I feel really underwhelmed by the execution.

Scholar.

I love the idea of a healer who gets their magic from books and arcane formulae and the fairy is cute, but for some reason the gameplay never clicked for me. I just enjoy the other healers more.

Easily SMN and SCH. They both have several concepts that sound good on paper but in practice just feels like a clunky mess.

Also I'll never not be salty about the gutting of AST's cards. Toying and manipulating fate was literally their niche/theme, if you hate RNG that much, WHM was right there. :rolleyes:

Summoner.

Whenever I think of a "summoner" in a JRPG, I think of a mage who summons a large, powerful summon, that feels really special and powerful.

But in FFXIV, the summons are tiny are hit like a wet noodle. And the gameplay isn't about the summon; it's about the magus, with the summon throwing out weak autoattacks while you're focused on your character's rotation.

Carbuncle is the best player summon in FFXIV. It looks cute and special, and is very easy to see. Feels like my personal Pokemon, like Flareon or Glaceon or Pikachu. Whereas the Primal Egis of Ifrit/Titan/Garuda feel like boring boss adds/raid trash, and it's hard to see them.

Summoner also kinda sucks to play outside of raids and trials, as you almost never get a chance to do the full rotation and summon Bahamut and Phoenix because battles don't last long enough to get to that phase. The playstyle feels disjointed. And, again, they don't feel that special because they're a glorified autoattack you don't really control.