You had one job!

While I've leveled a few jobs, I generally only play my main, which is NIN.

While maining a job certainly isn't rare, I'd imagine that exclusively playing one job (excluding DoH/DoL jobs) is not particularly common in FF14. It's not surprising for me, though—I've never been one to make alts in MMOs. Once I settle on a character/class, I usually stick with it to the exclusion of all else. I've got limited time to play, and I like what I like—it's just how I play MMOs.

This is a discussion forum, so let's discuss: how many jobs do you play regularly and how do you decide when to play what? Of the jobs that you play, which is your main and why?

(I'm considering trying to focus on DRK for a while to actually learn it, but why play anything other than NIN when I can play NIN? :p)

I only regularly play Samurai, White Mage, and Dark Knight.

I main Samurai because it is aesthetically cool (cool glamours, cool pose, cool animations and abilities) and is easy and fun to play.

If I tank it's usually Dark Knight because, again, aesthetically cool. Also easy to play.

I'm rather "meh" on White Mage, but out of the healers I play it the most because it's the easiest to play. Also because I prefer holding a staff to holding a book or a globe. Will probably switch to Sage in 6.0 as that kills it in aesthetics.

For Frontline PvP, I almost always play Dragoon or Black Mage. Dragoon because of it's mobility and it can burst down targets really quickly, and Black Mage because being able to deal a ton of damage at range nets me the most kills and assists over the whole match.

I only really level other jobs to see their storylines.

Most people have a main job. Leveling other jobs was usually just done when someone wanted an excuse to help their friends or free company members with roulettes.

Obviously people who chase achievements did that anyway, but not necessarily as fast as they do now.

What changed recently was the Amaro mount. It caused a lot of people who would normally not bother leveling other jobs to do that, and quickly.

I usually only play DRK.

However there are certain cases where playing a dps is more beneficial so I secondly play NIN as my primary backup job. I also have PLD and GNB as my alternate tank jobs for those cases where trying to join parties in pf due to duplicate job restrictions. I rarely play healer but if I do its WHM.

I always recommend people play at least 3 jobs. Maining one job is fine, but always have backups, because you never know, there may be an expansion that just ruins your favorite job.

I knew someone who only leveled PLD(and what was needed to get PLD back in ARR, nothing past unlocking PLD though). Ran into them yesterday in Delubrum, and they still only have that leveled, along with crafters for their own gear. So there are definitely some who do play only one class exclusively for battle content.

I make characters based around concepts rather than class. So I tend to play alts with various themes. I am still new to FFXIV but I have a few characters in the works but they're all dps. I don't usually go for tanking or healing.. though I am temped to give Dark Knight a shot.

Off and on since 1.0 and I still only play WHM 99% of the time. I got a few jobs to 80 just to have every role done on some level, but I don't really ever touch them. At most when it mattered I would go between SCH and WHM when I was big into endgame.

I don't think only going one job will harm your experience in FFXIV in any meaningful way if your time's limited. My time is also fairly limited and while getting classes to 80 doesn't take much time, constantly keeping them geared through each update is obnoxious after a certain point.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MoofiaBossVal

I only regularly play Samurai, White Mage, and Dark Knight.

I main Samurai because it is aesthetically cool (cool glamours, cool pose, cool animations and abilities) and is easy and fun to play.

If I tank it's usually Dark Knight because, again, aesthetically cool. Also easy to play.

I'm rather "meh" on White Mage, but out of the healers I play it the most because it's the easiest to play. Also because I prefer holding a staff to holding a book or a globe. Will probably switch to Sage in 6.0 as that kills it in aesthetics.

For Frontline PvP, I almost always play Dragoon or Black Mage. Dragoon because of it's mobility and it can burst down targets really quickly, and Black Mage because being able to deal a ton of damage at range nets me the most kills and assists over the whole match.

I only really level other jobs to see their storylines.

---

What rotation do you use for Sam?!? It’s by far the hardest melee to play perfectly lolol

I am somebody who loves variety, so I have narrowed myself to mains in each category...because you know, I like to sometimes mix it up, though I am primarily a healer but:

Tank: Gunbreaker
Healer: Astrologian (it used to be Scholar, but I get bored on ShB Scholar)
Melee Physical: Monk
Ranged Physical: Dancer
Magical: Red Mage

But out of those it's DNC and AST that get the most love.

I also find it's useful playing all roles to get an appreciate for how each fits in the party dynamic, because you're more conscious of it, especially if you're heal or tank. Like, playing MNK'll engrain it into you as a tank to keep the mob as still as possible, as an example...because you'll get tanks who don't and you'll see how much than can mess with your positionals.

I main WHM but I play DNC and RDM regularly, and I’ll switch to AST if I’m bored or the situation calls for it. I use WHM for most content the first time through. After that it kinda depends on my mood.

I’m really looking forward to seeing how Sage plays. If it’s like WHM but with shields (pure shields, high personal damage) I’ll probably main that after I make my way through 6.0 msq. :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Caitsithhh

What rotation do you use for Sam?!? It’s by far the hardest melee to play perfectly lolol

---

Enter combat. Do your Kasha combo (Hakzae > Shifu > Kasha) to get your speed buff (makes your rotation go faster). Then do your Gekko combo (Hakaze > Jinpu > Gekko) for your attack power buff. After that, it depends on whether or not you are fighting one mob or multiple. For single targets, use Higanbana to apply a DoT to the enemy (use Hissatsu Kaiten before it to buff Higanbana). Then you just spam Midare (use Hissatsu Kaiten before it to buff Midare), and keep your buffs and DoT up. For multiple enemies, you just use Tenka Goken (use Hissatsu Kaiten to buff it).

Try to keep at least 50 Kenki saved at any given time, so you can spend it on Hissatsu Kaiten to buff an attack or on a movement ability (Hissatsu: Gyoten to close distance, and Hissatsu Yaten to backstep away from a boss AoE). Use Shinten to dump excess Kenki if you are nearing the cap of 100 Kenki. Meditate is used when you are in combat but there is nothing to attack, ie during a phase transistion in a boss fight. Use Meikyo Shisui, Hissatsu Senei, Tusbame-Gaeshi, and Shoha on cooldown.

Third Eye, Merciful Eyes, and Hagakure are niche optimization stuff that only really matters at endgame raiding. Don't worry about it. You will pretty much never ever use Enpi for anything and can safely leave it off of your bar.

I like to find the class with which I most click and just stick with that—I don't particularly value variety in and of itself. In the case of FF14, NIN was what clicked—the gameplay, aesthetics, class quests, etc. I just finished the grind for the NIN ARR relic weapon—I won't be doing that again on another class. (I'm in no hurry when I game, so I'm fine with a grind, but I won't generally do the same grind more than once.)

I also like getting to the point of having decent muscle memory and facility built up, and I find that playing multiple classes breaks that pretty easily for me. Were I going to be playing another job, I'd really be looking to switch main/exclusive jobs rather than actively play both.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MoofiaBossVal

Enter combat. Do your Kasha combo (Hakzae > Shifu > Kasha) to get your speed buff (makes your rotation go faster). Then do your Gekko combo (Hakaze > Jinpu > Gekko) for your attack power buff. After that, it depends on whether or not you are fighting one mob or multiple. For single targets, use Higanbana to apply a DoT to the enemy (use Hissatsu Kaiten before it to buff Higanbana). Then you just spam Midare (use Hissatsu Kaiten before it to buff Midare), and keep your buffs and DoT up. For multiple enemies, you just use Tenka Goken (use Hissatsu Kaiten to buff it).

Try to keep at least 50 Kenki saved at any given time, so you can spend it on Hissatsu Kaiten to buff an attack or on a movement ability (Hissatsu: Gyoten to close distance, and Hissatsu Yaten to backstep away from a boss AoE). Use Shinten to dump excess Kenki if you are nearing the cap of 100 Kenki. Meditate is used when you are in combat but there is nothing to attack, ie during a phase transistion in a boss fight. Use Meikyo Shisui, Hissatsu Senei, Tusbame-Gaeshi, and Shoha on cooldown.

Third Eye, Merciful Eyes, and Hagakure are niche optimization stuff that only really matters at endgame raiding. Don't worry about it. You will pretty much never ever use Enpi for anything and can safely leave it off of your bar.

---

You just use the enhanced enpi after the yaten to keep the gcd going. It's also a gauge refund since it gives you 10 back. But that's the most I ever use it. lol

Third eye is just to use to reduce unavoidable damage. Then self-heals are always good. xD

I leveled all classes to 80 but I mainly play Paladin, Dark Knight and Dragoon. Only classes I am half-way competent with. :p

Right now I...
-Main DNC because I like its RNG oGCD proc-based gameplay and its support abilities.
-Second AST because I feel it has more interesting things to do outside of healing. I use to be a healer main since ARR but DNC's gameplay was just way more fun for me.
-sometimes play SMN because I like pet jobs in other games.
-play as a DRK IF I have to tank because I like it's faster, oGCD-based DPS-play and love TBN.
-have PLD, GNB, WHM, SCH, RDM, BRD, and MCH at 80 but don't really play them much.
-was leveling WAR and NIN but, for me, level grinding gets boring after leveling x-amount of jobs.

I've leveled everything to 80 - but I mostly just play Dancer.
Paladin sometimes if a queue just won't pop; or to solo some of the trickier stuff Khloe asks for.
The other 15 classes I haven't touched since getting my Amaro in the first weeks of 5.1.

WARRIOR!!!

Hello, I am the weirdo that plays all the jobs. (Except BLU. Sit down, BLU, nobody likes you.)

I level up all the jobs to the current level cap. From there, I decide which ones I like the best, and that's probably my "main" for the expansion. But I also pride myself on knowing most jobs such that I can swap in and out to them if there's ever a need for it.

Current Savage main: SMN because that's what my group needed.

Current open world main: Bard because pew pew

Current tank main: Everything but GNB because I just didn't feel that job as much but I love all three of the other tanks equally. I DRK for 80 and PLD or WAR for stuff under 70

Current main healer: SCH but in a pinch I can also WHM and if hard pressed I can AST but it's my least favorite

All other DPS: NIN, MNK, DRG, DNC, SAM, MCH, RDM, and BLM all get rotated through non-raid content for funsies. They all stay within a patch of current gear. They all have fun glim glams. BLM is probably my weakest job, since SMN melded caster gear means BLM doesn't get the spell speed love it needs to play at its best. Just last night I was farting around on DRG in Delubrum.

I'm still in the MSQ (I took a long break and am getting back into the swing of things). I use Machinist primarily for anything MSQ or the very low-experience patch side quests like Omega.

I use Paladin as my back up class for any local side quests (I'm one of those people who cannot leave an exclamation point on my map if I can possibly avoid it.) I've been trying to level up Summoner on roulettes though, because I want to be able to do all the role quests.

I use white mage for PVP. At least Frontlines. I used to use it for Feast as well, but around the time that Shadowbringers came out, the abilities were changed and I lost the knack. (I'm thinking of trying again as a DPS instead - harder to mess up an entire group with one's own incompetence.)

I play and level every job in this game just so I can help others if they need it as well as being able to help where needed, but I of course have a main job (rdm) that I'm on usually. Tankwise I lean towards Gunbreaker or Warrior. For some other things I like to use Bard or Dragoon. Healers... I guess WHM atm until Sage is out lol.

I have everything leveled, but here's how they're broken out.

My 'mains: Dancer, Paladin, White Mage. Dancer in particular is the one I bring now and then into EX content, but that's pretty rare. So far I've really only done MM runs for glams and some Diamond Weapon attempts with my FC.

Jobs I play now and then if I want a change of pace in maps/dungeons etc: Ninja, Red Mage, Monk, Dragoon.

Jobs I don't really know what I'm doing and have barely touched since hitting 80: BLM, Summoner, Bard, Machinist, AST, Scholar, SAM, DRK, WAR.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MoofiaBossVal

Enter combat. Do your Kasha combo (Hakzae > Shifu > Kasha) to get your speed buff (makes your rotation go faster). Then do your Gekko combo (Hakaze > Jinpu > Gekko) for your attack power buff. After that, it depends on whether or not you are fighting one mob or multiple. For single targets, use Higanbana to apply a DoT to the enemy (use Hissatsu Kaiten before it to buff Higanbana). Then you just spam Midare (use Hissatsu Kaiten before it to buff Midare), and keep your buffs and DoT up. For multiple enemies, you just use Tenka Goken (use Hissatsu Kaiten to buff it).

Try to keep at least 50 Kenki saved at any given time, so you can spend it on Hissatsu Kaiten to buff an attack or on a movement ability (Hissatsu: Gyoten to close distance, and Hissatsu Yaten to backstep away from a boss AoE). Use Shinten to dump excess Kenki if you are nearing the cap of 100 Kenki. Meditate is used when you are in combat but there is nothing to attack, ie during a phase transistion in a boss fight. Use Meikyo Shisui, Hissatsu Senei, Tusbame-Gaeshi, and Shoha on cooldown.

Third Eye, Merciful Eyes, and Hagakure are niche optimization stuff that only really matters at endgame raiding. Don't worry about it. You will pretty much never ever use Enpi for anything and can safely leave it off of your bar.

---

Your last paragraph just put you in the freestyle sam category. Congratulations

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Caitsithhh

Your last paragraph just put you in the freestyle sam category. Congratulations

---

Try a real rotation and not ever miss a buff window and you’ll see it’s much harder than “easy melee”. And opened eyes is a gain and and defensive all in one. Should try

I leveled all for the sake of completion & likes to be versatile, so I can't easily single out 1 from 17 available combat classes in this game. Although DRK, MNK, and SAM remains untouched ever since I maxed them out. Now that they're out of the way, here goes... for each role

Melee: NIN
Something about their aesthetic pleases my eyes. I also love the niche mix of melee and ranged potential in their kits.

Ranged: DNC & BRD
I like BOTH weapons. I like more supportive roles in any group contents. Now the question is do I want to be busy (I'll pick BRD) or do I want a more relaxed, chill gameplay (DNC)?

Caster: RDM & SMN
Almost all aspect of RDM pleases me. They have hats (lol!), they have rapier, they have utilities, and they can backflip (to death lmao)! As for SMN, I just love books. Biased? Yes. Don't blame me for that :<

Tank: WAR
Fell Cleave? Fell Cleave... FELL...CLEAVE!!!
Fun aside, tank is noticeably my least comfortable role to pick most of time so I'd rather have something simple on hand. WAR fulfill that need. Axes are badass too... and honestly, originally made a MRD/WAR all because I just want to honor Ardbert ;_; he made me want to try tanking for first time.

Healer: All three
Simple. Healer is my go-to role in any games. The nature of its role is to be more supportive in the team than offensive never fail to entice me to try out all and better myself with them. If I really have to pick one of them, I'd go with SCH because GREEN and BOOKS ( Again I'm just biased with books, don't blame me ;w; )

Warrior cause I like to smash.

Though I mostly play tank and heals, GNB being my favorite to play overall with warrior being my favorite for dungeon and solo content.

When it comes to healers I enjoy WHM, and SCH, I was never able to really get into AST, I enjoy the concept behind them just did not mesh with me for some reason on the aesthetic level.

WHM is my favorite healer to play cause I am a simple man I use holy. I do wish healers had a tad more depth in their dps tool kit, I personally do miss cleric stance. That was when I personally had the most fun with healers. I get it was extra busy work, but it was overall fun for me.

I have everything leveled but I main SMN. Tanks I'll usually play PLD or GNB. If I go healer it's WHM. I also like BRD or DNC for another DPS. I don't really play melee but if I do it's DRG.

Maxed everything. While I consider red mage my main job, I switch when I get bored. Went through a summoner phase for a few months, then went to dancer, currently on machinist. Thinking maybe I'll go for monk or gunbreaker next, shake things up a bit.

It’s not visible on this character but I got all classes at 70 by the end of stormblood period and I liked to play all (except scholar, I suck at it unfortunately) according to the type of fight or my mood.
My main was NIN like OP but it’s WHM now ^^

I have most of the classes to 80, including crafters and gatherers, but I really do just main Red Mage. Any content I'm doing for the first time, I'll be RDM. The first class I'm going to gear up is RDM. Heck, even if I'm just looking at glamour, my first consideration is always "can I wear that on my RDM and what will it look like?"

That said, I will step in as Samurai here and there if I want to do content with a different flavour or from a slightly different perspective (or if I'm kind of bored by doing it as RDM for the moment). I also enjoy occasional dips as AST but I'm a pretty inexperienced and probably terrible healer so that's just when I want to really do something out of my comfort zone.

Everything else is mostly 80 and done. I do want to go back and spend more time with Monk and Ninja at some point, and I don't hate doing the occasional thing as Dancer, but there's a lot of dust gathered on anything but RDM, SAM and AST.

I main GNB but I also play BRD and SAM depending on my mood.

GNB was what I waited to have since ARR launch. I play BRD because it's fun, but also because I mained Hunter in WoW and I miss it sometimes. SAM is what I switched to from being a DRG main with Stormblood. Why? I just liked it...and fell out of love with DRG. Still not a fan of the route they took that job to be honest.

I actually maining white mage from the start until i done all content, but now, I queque with black mage all the time, I just want that EXPLOSION =D
For real though, i main 2 class, white mage and black mage, i maxed the equipment on these 2 only, i really love healing class(i also maxed astrologist and scholar) and when i get mad at DPS not doing enough damage or dying all the time, i just play black mage to remind myself, hey being dps in not as easy as it looks XD

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Equitable_Remedy

This is a discussion forum, so let's discuss: how many jobs do you play regularly and how do you decide when to play what? Of the jobs that you play, which is your main and why?

---

I try and regularly play 1 tank, 1 healer, and 1 DPS to try and stay rounded (at least for the sake of my FC).
Usually I play tank though because I'm most in synch with its rhythm (and I find myself swapping between DRK and PLD).
How do I decide what to play? What am I in the mood for / which role haven't I played much of lately.

I main AST, while I can play nearly every job at an acceptable level, I've been sticking to AST, SCH, WHM, RDM, SMN and WAR this tier because it's what I geared.

I play AST when I raid and most of the harder content I do, WHM when I'm doing normal content in DF because it's how I'm likely to dish out most damage as a healer, SCH when I feel like playing something different.
WAR, RDM, SMN when I feel like/need to be tanking or DPS and pick between RDM or SMN depending first of how likely I'm going to have to pick people off the floor then how I feel.

I almost always play healer in DF because the best way to avoid 0 DPS healers is to be the healer regardless of what I actually want to play at the moment.

I've changed main from Summoner to Samurai to Red Mage to Dancer. I still consider DPS as my main role, but starting with Shadowbringers, I've leveled Warrior first and continued to play it in most contents other than dungeons. Interestingly enough, I was more willing to tank dungeons during Stormblood than now even though it should be easier in Shadowbringers, unless my perception on the situation is wrong. I'm still not sure what to play in Endwalker, but I'm hoping the fan fest will give me some idea.

The concept of main job really lost its meaning in this game for me a long time ago. EXP is so easy to obtain, it's just a matter of wanting to level and learn a job to play it.

I've leveled all jobs, and I enjoy them all, but I suppose I could list my preferences, as well as my friend group's preferences.

My preferred jobs as of SHB:

WAR, PLD, SAM, DRG, WHM, MCH, SMN, and DRK. They're all fairly simple for me, with their own perks and downsides. Truthfully, the mood always strikes me to play something I haven't played in a while, so I'll go one day sticking to a job, then the next day I'll play something else.

My friend group's preference for me to play: Any Tank or DPS. Especially tanks though, particularly for roulettes. I have ENERGY LEGS.

What I raid on: I returned to raiding this tier, got the shakes from willfully skipping last tier. My group's BLM had to quit due to his cancer getting worse, so I raid on SMN now. Sometimes RDM if I'm feeling groovy. Direct Crit Scorch is almost as satisfying as the Hellish Conduit(Just sounds so much cooler than Firebird Trance) phase for SMN. I used to raid on tank, generally DRK or WAR. In prior tiers/expansions I've raided on NIN, DRG, SAM, MNK, AST, and SCH. The few healer exceptions aside, I'm a melee at heart, so this has been the weirdest tier for me.

If had to do favorites by role it'd currently be:
Tank - PLD
Melee - SAM, but DRG not far behind at all.
Caster - SMN, RDM not far behind.
Healer - WHM, but for a long time it was SCH or AST. They all feel so samey these days though, so it's hard to honestly nail down the pick.

The only job I don't have any great appreciation for or skill with is BLM. My affinity for it has always been low, and I remember my Thaumaturge set at level 26 for Swiftcast until about 3.5 when it was the only thing I hadn't leveled, and my friends still had things for Leveling roulette/POTD.

I usually rotate between White Mage, Astrologian, Paladin, Machinist, and Ninja.

From 2.0 until 3.1 I only played WHM and have no other job leveled.

In 3.1 I switched to DRK and played it exclusively until the end of SB. Then I started to play BLM and while I only want to play one job, the shorter queues and stuff like running content unsynched and PotD and Bozja drives me always back to DRK.

I've switched every expansion (SMN, SCH, RDM, MCH )because I have a problem. I always try to go back to SMN but it never sticks and what ever class I land on I end of bored of by the end of the expansion. I'm already bored of MCH but it's the only class I have gear for

The past few months it's been GNB, NIN and MCH, in more or less that order. If I had to pick a healer it would be AST.

I pretty much play whatever I think'll be fun, or whatever I feel like learning tbh.

For Stormblood, I predominantly played DRK from Sigmascape til about Alphascape, where I swapped to WAR and then started to learn DRG and SAM a little on the side.

For Shadowbringers, I started on DRK for the first tier but swapped here and there to GNB to break up tedium. Second tier I was just a 2 day sub for a static so I just played DRK since I figured I'd handle it the best on pretty crap gear.

This tier I swapped to playing healer, AST predominantly for Savage, and everything else in everything else. Got bored, so went tank again for everything else and played every tank/healer in Ex, then got bored and decided to learn melee DPS and worked on DRG and SAM.

Once I get bored on the two melee DPS I'm working on now, and get some more 520 gear for base at least, I might mess around with casters or just try to learn the basics of NIN or MNK. Played a bit of MCH in endgame content but found the class extremely dull.

I wouldn't consider myself much of a main of anything anymore, I'll basically play whatever and try to learn it to an appropriate level for the content I'm being asked to do. But tank is generally my best role, overall, and the role I have the most experience on.

I wouldn't say I'm high level at anything, though. In mostly casual environments I managed some high purples/oranges on tanks across the two expansions (and I guess 99's if post-echo for alpha counts since I just farmed Chaos out of boredom and I thought he was fun). At 521 on DPS I do pretty fine in EX, though I think I only have like 2 clean Samurai runs where I didn't either just step off the arena due to small brain syndrome, or get murdered because a tank died and SE removed diversion. I only really had BiS at the tail end of Alphascape and during Gate, but my static stopped running basically the week I got the weapon so I only got to use it once, rip.

AST DPS is generally okay, though I've been more trying to focus on a mix of learning how to properly recover when people die and on a few fights am still learning to tone back extra healing that's no longer needed leftover from progression. More or less got to where I can only OGCD heal E9S and most of E10S barring party mistakes, the only planned GCD I use in either is usually a cast of Neutral Sect in E9S and three casts of it in E10S. E11S is still working out prog-heal kinks, and E12s is just "I'd rather be too healthy than too dead while we learn". Will say though, healing is extremely dull on a farm fight. Fun on a prog fight, though, especially E12s that so far feels like it has more damage than the first three turns combined in the first handful of minutes. DPS kinda just improves as I can take resources away from the fight, and improves the more the party improves since I don't have to cast single-target Benefic II's to cover for errors.