No Wrong Answers: What Job(s) do you think are the best desgined, and why?

What the title says. Ignore balance/tuning numbers for a minute and just consider gameplay. What the rotation feels like, if it covers all the bases for what you enjoy in a Job, etc. What things do you like about it? What does it have/do that makes you feel good playing it and feel like it's a good Job?

I don't want to steer the discussion too heavily, but by way of example, I can go first:

RDM:

I really think RDM is a very well designed Job. The basic concept is so easy pretty much everyone can understand what you're trying to do within minutes of picking up the Job, yet there are a lot of little optimizations you can do to improve, and the Job rewards high level fight knowledge just like BLM does in terms of when to use your burst combo, if you need to save Acceleration for things, and whether even really high end play of planning out your Mana gauge across a fight.

Meanwhile, it has easily understandable utility. Verraise is very clear about what it is, Vercure can be useful in some situations (but also for skill ceiling used for optimization Dualcast procing when bosses are untargetable but returning soon). Embolden is straightforward and useful, while Magicked Barrier (along with Addle) is useful for additional planning or emergency use situations. Vercure and Verraise are powerful, but at the cost of disrupting your damage rotation (so you cannot be healer AND DPSer at the same time, a good trade), preventing RDM from displacing healers while also preserving its clutch utility in emergency situations like a healer DC in a 4 man.

It's as easy or hard as the player wants to make it, entry level and high end, and with lots of utility that is well balanced and understandable, and pulling off the burst combo just feels very satisfying, as does Slide-into-Dualcasting your way across the field, dancing through mechanics. Indeed, the rotation itself largely feels buttery smooth to play, even if I personally somewhat dislike the proc system, it still feels good overall in general to move between the short casts and Dualcasts, building up to the burst combo, zooming in to do it, flipping out, and finishing with a bang before starting the process again. It feels responsive and smooth all around, and just feels GOOD to play.

And when it comes to leveling/syncing, the Job fills out early, establishing the core concept and rotation of the Job by level 50, and a more or less complete rotation (Embolden and Manafication) by 60, meaning other than not having Verraise, you get NEARLY the full RDM experience even when synced to mid-level (50/60) content, where most of the game (roulettes etc) are likely to place you on any given day. (Not as good as, say, WAR, but better than, say, BLM, which has to change its hotbars and rotation every few levels).

I feel it's probably the single best designed Job in the game. Not PERFECT (I hate the AOE rotation is "backwards" from the single target rotation, I think Enchanted Reprise should cost 1/1 or 2/2 instead of 5/5 MP or should cost 15/15 but 3x of them can take the place of your melee [for when it's not safe to melee] to unlock your burst but at the cost of a DPS loss traded for that safety, and I think that some spells should come at different levels, like Vercure should be by level 15 and Verraise by level 50), but very well designed overall.

I guess if I was to assign runners up, they'd probably be:

WHM - The straightforward kit is easy to understand and just feels powerful (even if mitigation is actually, mechanically, king). It lives up to the classic archetype of powerful healer and nails the aesthetic, too.

SCH - While way more technical, there are some things that just feel amazing, those little "moments of awesome" like using a Recitation, Adloquium, and Deployment Tactics to just outright ignore mechanics.

SMN - The rotation is smooth, the mini phases are easy to understand and fit into the larger whole, and it has some useful utility between Raise, a party buff, and some limited, rotation dependent healing, and the big hitting spikes of power in the rotation feel powerful between the damage done and VFX.

Note that, of course, all of these have their own issues in various ways - again, no Job is perfect - but these would be my A ranks after RDM being my S rank.

EDIT:

I think my B tier after that would be:

PLD: Since the rework, it plays well as the "Tank with a miner in Healing and Casting" since Holy Might has you slinging spells more often in the rotation. The reason for not making it A is that it still has some weird choices/clunk. Why are FoF and Req separate buttons when always used together? Why does Goring Blade still exist? Why does Cover cost 50 Oath Gauge to use despite having a somewhat lengthy CD to prevent overuse? Just a few things I'd like to see polished a bit more. WHM is just a hair away from A rank to me, it just has a few things that are a BIT clunky for no good reason. Honestly, I could coin-flip this one to A and also feel justified. So many systems DO work well, and I like how Clemency is good party utility in emergencies but costly enough to use that it isn't a go-to to delete healers from content.

WAR: Fun to play, straightforwrad, and seems to nail the class fantasy, but it keeps drifting into being a bit overpowered. Some of the mechanics don't really DO much of anything (like the Infuriate CD reduction; they could just lower Infuriate's native CD and normalize it), and having the self-buff to upkeep can be kind of mildly annoying sometimes since it draws attention away from the more direct/fun unga bunga of the role.

GNB - I like the combo and still having a mini-burst every 30 seconds overall feels good, the animations are cool, and it's got good utility without feeling overpowered. It knows what it wants to be and delivers with a bang. But it was pointed out to me that its gauge generation due to the third charge needed for burst has really bad problems with drift or mechanics preventing consistent uptime, which is an issue in some cases and does disrupt the flow of the Job, though it's still pretty fun overall.

SGE: Overall not bad, but again, some odd design choices. It has Kardia but then leans on oGCD heals instead (like the other non-WHM healers) for some reason, and it has this odd mix of melee range and caster range abilities for no apparent reason. And Toxicon is neither damage neutral (allowing you to get the most out of shielding gameplay) nor does Addersting generate any other way. It also occasionally feels bad to overcap on Addersgall and have to "burn" them on something not useful if Taurochole and/or Kerochole are on CD or you need to hold them for some upcoming mechanic and everyone's at 100% so Durochole and Ixochole would be meaningless to use at that point, yet you have to for SGE's MP management. Not asking for a Energy Drain situation, but something to use Addersgall on that wouldn't be a waste, like either a barrier or Tauro/Kerachole to be a bit more flexible for this purpose.

MCH - It's SOOO close to being A rank, but the issue is the ping reliance. It's a Job that is so close to being great but for that sticking point.

NIN - I love NIN to about level 60, but the Ninki additions just sour me on the Job a lot. Meisui seems to exist just to do something with Suiton, and Suiton just exists to use Trick Attack. The Job SEEMS to be aiming to have a mechanic where it has big hitters that require stealth, at which point Suiton would just be a different and more interesting variation of the 1 min self-buff...but then it isn't. It's JUST for Trick Attack, and Meisui JUST for Suiton. Then you get into the stuff like Bunshin and Phantom and TCJ disrupting your mobility for REASONS...and it just breaks down what would otherwise be a really fun Job to me.

The rest of the Jobs I either consider further from "enjoyable" or haven't played enough to be sure either way.

I like how nin feels fast and precise (the mudras) and also gives me something fun to do every 60 seconds instead of every 120s. The 123 animations are satisfying. Dream within a dream is beautiful looking. I love nin.

Samurai and Dancer are the only ones that have no flaw

War.
It's easy, you have a lot of ways to weave CDs and abilities, you can help a bit with healing whether it be yourself or others and you don't have to track combos, dots or worry about any of that.
If you can count to three, you can play war.

DRG/GNB are off the chain. I enjoy them immensely.

insert obligatory BLM post here.

easy to grasp at a basic level once you hit level 90, incredibly modular rotation for those that wish to get better at it. it's the only job I would dare say has built any semblance of personality for itself because it was simply allowed to be left alone without being unnecessarily reworked to fit the mould of another job. insert obligatory SMN comment here.

I'm no game dev but If pick my favorite DPS, Healer and Tank based purely on fun.

3. Machinist - Because I am biased and I am a sucker for anything Mecha. The animations are cool (love the flips). Going wild with OGCDs during burst windows makes my dopamine receptors light up with glee. Not too much downtime. Fluid to play thanks to freedom of movement.

2. Sage - The most fun healer to play. I like being able to drop a party wide shield and 10% damage reduction buff before AoE damage hits. Having on-demand heals on the move. Being able to dot mobs or spam AoEs during wall to wall pulls while simultaneously sustaining the tank thanks to Kardia. Satisfying OGCDs. It's has more than 1 DPS button which helps break up the monotony. You have to keep an eye on your shields so you can make the most of your Adersing charges. It's easy to pick up, but there's a fair bit to master here which I like. I wouldn't have minded a few more DPS buttons to make up a mini rotation. If it worked a bit like Disc priest in wow where optimizing your damage output also causes you to output more heals that would have been perfect. There's room for improvement, but it's still fun to play. My favorite healer easily.

1. Gunbreaker - A jack of all trades tank with tools to fit any situation. DPS wise, I enjoy playing this over any other DPS. There's virtually zero down time in the rotation. You press 123 twice and you're already back to bursting. The cooldowns line up just right with mini bursts followed by big bursts followed by mini bursts. Super satisfying. Defensively, you've got just enough self sustain with Brutal Shell, Aurora, and Heart of Corundum. Raid wide defensives that you can pop before big damage hits and feel like you are helping.
There's meme potential with Superbolide Macros >:)

I really can't find much to complain about. GNB is why i continue to play this game. It's fun, it's got a cool theme. And I definitely do not simp for the quest giver NPC.

Ever since they nerfed PLD, I've started taking a liking to WAR.

It does have the slight flaw that it still feels like it's kit is designed around Defiance giving it's Max HP buff from before ShB, as it's entire shtick is just kind of facetanking the damage and heal through it with ridiculous amounts of health regen.

But overall it's base rotation isn't bad and Inner Release being on a 60s CD doesn't lets you get away from it often enough.

I tend to prefer classes that were either released in later expansions or got reworked later. Older classes that have been added to with no rework always feel like they just get new systems tacked on and feel clunky for me. Ninja, old Monk, and old Summoner are examples of this in my opinion. Currently my main DPS is Reaper which just flows like water and is very satisfying. RDM has managed to maintain its unique quick pick up for new players that it had on release which is huge advantage of the class. I'm actually looking forward to the upcoming Dragoon rework as the class has started to feel clunky to me.

It's my main so I'm probably biased: Red Mage. I love hybrid / jack of all trades classes in MMOs and RDM is the closest thing to that in XIV. I have ranged damage, melee damage, procs, burst, heal and support. The rotation is quite easy but fun and satisfying. :)

The one's with Job quests.

DRG for me it's so versatile Dragoons hit hard, hit fast , have high mobility, A really good range for a melee, Good in high level for Trash pulls and Boss , have raid buff and when you have all your buff activated you get up to 30% damage increase and 10% crit rate you hit some really really big number like once in a level 90 boss with everything up i did : 17k + 19k + 45k + 35k + 23k in like 5 second

Did you filtch this from a Reddit post or the other way around lol?

But to answer it’s rdm

it’s the best designed class mechanically and nothing compares

Summoner
Overall I think that level 90 SMN is the best designed class; it's just so smooth and lacking in unnecessary clutter. It has distinct phases which keep things varied and interesting, and yet the player has the power to determine the order of these phases, which is where the class becomes strategic. I also like that the big burst phase is on a timer, meaning that even if you do sub-optimally at any point, you're not delaying building up to that burst phase. In essence, this makes it very forgiving. Great easy class, great chill class, much shiny, fun buttons.

Black Mage
BLM is almost the polar opposite of SMN. It's challenging, it's a bit cluttered, it's (unnecessarily) punishing. And yet, it's beautifully designed. And while SMN's great design begins starting at level 86 — before then the elemental summons are lacking their meat — BLM's design is great throughout the entire game. Regularly throughout the process of leveling BLM you will get a new move, and that single move will change the entire way you play the class; I think that's beautiful and compelling. And in terms of the actual gameplay, I think BLM is one of the few classes that makes FF14's combat feel cohesive. In general, FF14 combat consists of two unrelated aspects: movement and your "rotation". On one hand, you want to not stand in the bad places while standing in the right places, and on the other hand you want to keep juggling your rotation without dropping a ball. It's rare for these two aspects of the game to interact rather than coincide, which is disappointing and can leave them feeling disconnected from each other. But with BLM's focus on longer cast times and blinking to party members, movement and "rotation" end up interacting quite frequently. And that keeps things so much more fresh and exciting.

In terms of overall gameplay I will go by roles.

Tank- GNB. Even with the extra cartrige from EW. GNB still feels the best to play and doesnt have the brain dead feel from the other tanks. In terms of gameplay it feels similar to PLD in a way but different enough to shine in its own way.

Healer- WHM. In the past it would go to AST, but with AST now being very clunky, there is a satifying feeling when you see AM crit on WHM. Its very hard for healers as the most satisfying to play to me is the one with the biggest numbers.

Melee DPS: Ninja and Monk. With SAM and RPR feeling very homogenized and DRG being clunky at several times. Ninja and Monk are the only melee jobs that still have good identity and job design to not be brain dead easy.

Ranged Physical: Its MCH. Even with it not being ping friendly to those who live far away from the datacenter they play on. MCH provides the most straight forward gameplay in terms of not having any random procs and fast enough gameplay to keep players engaged.

Range Magical: BLM. For BLM every fight is unique due to its own playstyle and tight movements outside of your instant casts. RDM can be even more restrictive in terms of movement and can sometimes feel clunky to play. SMN is braindead easy to where you can literally macro your entire rotation

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ivtrix

Did you filtch this from a Reddit post or the other way around lol?

But to answer it’s rdm

it’s the best designed class mechanically and nothing compares

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I'm sure it's purely coincidental https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxivdiscus...think_are_the/

You probably believe in the Illuminati too ;)

I've only done tank and DPS for me currently GunBreaker is the most fun to play but I play warrior more just cuz it's stupid broken in dungeons and ez.
As for DPS the one I'm finding the most fun at the moment is reaper but this game really doesn't have a DPS that suits what I enjoy. Coming from a WoW my favorite DPS was the assassin rogue (idk now I quit in shadowlands) managing your bleeds and poison, refreshing them so that you don't clip the timer, the poison bomb proc and envenom hits... I love that style and maybe this is me just wishing but with Yoshi saying that viper will have a higher skill ceiling and they're being no real dot management classes in the game I'm hoping viper will be a bleed or a poison dot management. But that just me

I also think PLD's rework, while a bit miss in some ways (Goring Blade still existing, FoF and Requiescat being separate buttons, 3x Atonements, while adding to rotational flexibility, feel kind of boring), Holy Might itself was such a good change and satisfies the fantasy of being the Tank that still does some spell slinging. There are far more cases of 1 GCD disengages than there are 7 GCD in a row disengages, making it also feel more useful utility, while still having the Confetior combo for burst extended disengages. PLD is the Tank least harmed when the Devs decide to throw the kitchen sink at you at 2 min burst periods in terms of mechanics.

It also has great party utility, and Clemency is like Vercure, a choice between damage and "do I need to be the party healer for a minute", which, again, is good design. And PLD is one of the few Jobs that still has really situational utility (Clemency but especially Cover) and buttons that you don't necessarily use in every battle, but are there for the savy player to use when they can make a difference. Cover is probably the most "old school MMO" button that FFXIV still has in it (even if it has that stupid gauge cost for no good reason considering it has a long internal CD to even use it...)

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Originally Posted by Grizzlpaw

I'm no game dev but If pick my favorite DPS, Healer and Tank based purely on fun.

3. Machinist...
2. Sage...
1. Gunbreaker

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I still remember seeing some 24 man adverts this expansion that were "Guns vs Gods" and only allowed GNB, SGE, and MCH to join. :)

EDIT:

To the people trying to derail the thread - I thought it was an interesting question worth seeing what people think. People talk about Job design a lot and what things they'd change, but all of those things are hypothetical and often influenced by various other things. On the other hand, asking what you feel are well designed and fun to play now is not. Oh the off chance Devs ever read these forums, some of the most useful feedback would probably be what people like and want more of. While not everyone will go into depth on what they like, and saying WHAT is fun can be difficult, people can usually point to something they enjoy and say "I like that".

More to my thinking, I just like to see what people like and why they like it. Not just "is it fun" but "what is fun about it". How well does it flow, how does it feel. And whoever said "post farming troll", I legitimately have no idea what you're talking about. I'm not sure what post farming is or how it's useful to people, but I just posted this because I thought it would be a cool topic to see people's answers to. And I'm clearly no troll, so...don't know what you're on about, but more power to ya, I guess? For my part, I thought it would be a cool topic, no more and no less.

Less theory and more reality: What do you like and why do you like it?

I think the only issue I have with Dancer is that Improv might as well be an OGCD that applies a pathetic shield and a respectable regen.

Other than that I have no issues with the job.

Healer: AST [Best Healkit - has versatility and depth]
PRDps: DNC [No set rotation, but follows a priority list => i like that]
MRDps: SMN [A set rotation, but it's' short and does flow nice]
Tank: Don't play
MDps: Don't play

I actually do like SMN a lot. The core rotation is well designed. The segments are short enough that they don't overstay their welcome at a given time, and you feel constantly moving forward, but the rotation also isn't the same every time since you can move the Primals around.

The things that make it not the top for me are that it has some weird design stuff that just feels...off.

Aetherflow has no business being on the Job at this point and contributes nothing, yet we have 4 abilities dedicated to it, and they feel completely tacked on and unrelated to the kit or Job itself. We don't have DoTs because Summoners tend to be about big summon creatures, not poisoning people...yet we still have Aetherflow. Why? We could get rid of those 4 buttons and add things like the PvP actions that you can use anytime outside of Primals (granted, because PvP doesn't have Primals...) and I feel like that would already flow better and make more sense with the kit. It just seems we could have some SMN flavored abilities instead.

The other things are Physick not scaling off INT - there's no good reason for this as Vercure is clearly not overpowered and Physic would be half that at best, not to mention SCH and SMN/ACN haven't used the same spell since 4.5 as 5.0 made them separate spells in the game files (notice on SCH that the only spell under Class in Actions & Traits is Resurrection; if you try to put the SMN Physick on your SCH bar, it will be grayed out and note the affinity is for ACN/SMN but not SCH).

Likewise, why isn't Radiant Aegis targetable on other players? It's not like it's a super strong ability, and again, PvP allows this.

The Demis also feel like, unlike the Primals, they stay around a BIT too long and overstay their welcome. I feel like they should be 10-12 seconds instead of 15. It'd be one thing if Enkindle's CD was 12.5 or something so you could squeeze in a second one, but it isn't.

.

I really do like a lot about SMN, but it does have those few things that bug me. Granted, RDM has a few things that bug me (as I said), so I guess I'd put SMN up there as well designed/fun, too.

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DNC does get mentioned a lot and does seem fun itself. A lot of people seem to love the flexibility and semi-but-not-terribly-so RNG nature of its rotation, too.

And for people that do like more things going on, AST does have a very powerful kit that can do a lot of things.

I prefer simple over needlessly complicated or having a ton of buttons. I find the 1 2 3 combo just pointless bloat and does not make a job more engaging. If they really want to remove button bloat from jobs, merging the basic combo into being just 1 button would be the first thing I would target.

I do enjoy playing paladin and summoner over most other jobs since it lets me pay attention more to what's happening in the fight, but if I was to give the award to best designed job it would probably be Red Mage followed by Dancer. Both jobs rely on procs, requiring you to pay attention to maximize DPS instead of hitting the same 1-minute long button combination or whatever over and over. Red mage I think is just a bit more well designed due to having to manage your white and black mana levels to ensure you get your guaranteed Ver- Ready procs and don't cap your resources.

When I played WoW, having set button combination you hit over and over was rare for a class. A lot of clases were based around priorities, where your abilities had different cooldowns along with various procs that might reset cooldowns or enable limited use of some abilities, forcing you choose the most potent or ideal ability at a given moment. Even though you may only have like 6 buttons that deal damage, you could not just mindlessly press them and expect to do well (and this game allowed the use of addons so everyone had DPS meters and would immediately know you aren't pulling your weight).

hmm, I like Summoner, Red Mage, Dark Knight, Warrior, Bard, and White Mage. Oh, and Black Mage too :D

Why? Because they're fun.

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Originally Posted by Denji

War.
It's easy, you have a lot of ways to weave CDs and abilities, you can help a bit with healing whether it be yourself or others and you don't have to track combos, dots or worry about any of that.
If you can count to three, you can play war.

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Oversimplification is bad.

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Originally Posted by GoatOfWar

Oversimplification is bad.

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Mayonnaise is BAD.

Reaper and Gunbreaker. My two favorite. Viper looks cool , not my cup of tea but i might try it out when it comes. Nothing can replace my reaper main im committed to since day 1 and it never will change lol

Dps: Black mage, Theirs some others I like too Red Mage, Dragoon, monk come to mind, wouldn't say they're the "best" designed though.
Tank: Despite being a tank main None.
Healer: None? astro is kind of close, I hope the rework along with some changes would happen.

In reality I can't really say tank/healers play into good designs because I think the role categories just currently aren't where I want them to play like, outside of some dps roles.

Scholar is a shadow of its former self. Nonetheless it remains the best designed healer in this game. Opportunity costs such as they are and a variety of tools let players have more control than in others where they have a hell’s bells undo or it’s the 5 hit raidwide button.

Dragoon is probably the best melee. The continuous gcd chain and ogcds make it not spectacularly difficult but busy. With macros that didn’t suck, tether wouldn’t be as annoying as it is. Part of that I think is my eyes getting older and being less able to keep track of the cursor.

Warrior is unfortunately the best. Heal on hit for potency is stupid, I greatly dislike the change to stack-based inner release, circular overpower is unnecessary, unnatural and bizarre. The paladin rework is worse, dark knight is derivative and in the current status quo beyond the devs ability to balance satisfactorily and gunbreaker is starting to get really silly with continuation. If not for how clunky double down feels to me it’d come first.

Back mage. No surprises there. It knows what it wants to do and does it fairly well. I can’t really see where it can go, particularly with the rng and movement mitigation it has. Red mage comes second, no surprises there. It lacks the flexibility of other casters, which skews how good it feels to play when you know that you could be doing comparable damage and taking a nap or setting fire to everything. Fisher is the next best caster. summoner comes a distant last. Doesn’t really summon, the primals are more a fire 4 than anything. The job feels incredibly empty and is completely unacceptable for a dps, particularly one that can be started with. Reaper only gets a pass on how barren it is because it starts at 70 and even then it’s a joke.

Dancer. Mch isn’t it and bard has had all the bits that made it fun taken away.

Fisher. Botanist and miner are clones and simply don’t have the depth.

8 way tie for obvious reasons.

Blue mage could win certainly healer, possibly caster and possibly tank if it were factored in. Whether this is a compliment or indictment is another matter. As a strictly melee it rivals level 60 reaper in simplicity and as phys ranged there’s not really a great breadth of spells either. Does not qualify for the noncombat shortlist but probably entered anyway.

Right now? Summoner, but in saying that it's probably one of the worst when it gets synced down.

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Originally Posted by Ardeth

Right now? Summoner, but in saying that it's probably one of the worst when it gets synced down.

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I'd say summoner is poorly designed but actually is fun in synched down content relative to other jobs.

I know if i had to go back and do ARR content I'd likely just pick summoner because it keeps a lot of its rotational basics, while other jobs feel worse, infact I like how it casts more in lower levels.

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Originally Posted by Rithy255

I'd say summoner is poorly designed but actually is fun in synched down content relative to other jobs.

I know if i had to go back and do ARR content I'd likely just pick summoner because it keeps a lot of its rotational basics, while other jobs feel worse, infact I like how it casts more in lower levels.

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I have no issues with it. Honestly, job simplicity to me isn't a bad thing. To me, the easier something is to play, the harder you can make the content, etc. I tend to excel at mechanics more when I have less to think about while playing my class. It's more of a me thing(ADHD and learning disabilities) that I feel comfortable with. I challenged myself the other day to close my eyes and muscle memory my rotation, and I nailed it. Even the doing the cooldowns in my head. So, for me, that counts more than anything.

I think it’s mostly because you lose your big summons. The substitute is very boring. You're right in that it doesn't really change, which is a good thing in that respect.

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Originally Posted by Ardeth

I have no issues with it. Honestly, job simplicity to me isn't a bad thing. To me, the easier something is to play, the harder you can make the content, etc. I tend to excel at mechanics more when I have less to think about while playing my class. It's more of a me thing(ADHD and learning disabilities) that I feel comfortable with. I challenged myself the other day to close my eyes and muscle memory my rotation, and I nailed it. Even the doing the cooldowns in my head. So, for me, that counts more than anything.

I think it’s mostly because you lose your big summons. The substitute is very boring. You're right in that it doesn't really change, which is a good thing in that respect.

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Yeah I get where you're coming from, I'm fine with more simple job designs (as long as some jobs are more harder it's always good to have choices) that's not my issue with the Job outright (even if I enjoy it less), I personally just dislike the lack of casting on a caster job, I feel like that's kind of the point of the physical ranged role. Poorly designed is also more of a opinion as one person can find something not fun, while another may enjoy it, I personally don't like how Summoner feels like a better Red mage at most things mobility obviously, I guess the only advantage RDM has is chain rez (which usefulness of that depends and also can drain mana fast). I think rotation wise the job is perfectly fine, even if it's not for me.

I get that maybe the animations/feel might be a bit different at lower levels, most jobs are really poorly designed at low levels such as tanks lacking mitigations, or anything other then 1,2,3 dps wise. I think the good thing about Summoner in early levels is you've got the skeleton of the Job it adds on later down the line.

Summoner is significantly less engaging in synced content given the transforming buttons and that it rivals healers in simplicity. What is there to keep you engaged and your mind from wandering? In shadowbringers it had two dots, fester, energy drain and egi assaults to break up the ruin spam. Now there is only ruin spam and energy drain. At all levels.

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Originally Posted by fulminating

Summoner is significantly less engaging in synced content given the transforming buttons and that it rivals healers in simplicity. What is there to keep you engaged and your mind from wandering? In shadowbringers it had two dots, fester, energy drain and egi assaults to break up the ruin spam. Now there is only ruin spam and energy drain. At all levels.

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I think the problem is you're comparing SMN against old SMN, not SMN in a vacuum as a Job. "In shadowbringers it had..." isn't relevant to if the current design itself is good or not. It's only relevant to if you liked the old design better or not. It's like SGE. In a vacuum, SGE's design isn't at all bad. It's entirely serviceable. Where it gets into trouble is it was added to a game that already had SCH in it, and it was basically made as SCH 2.0 with all the QOL things SCH players had been asking for for years given to it instead, and for people who wanted something to shake up healer gameplay, it instead doubled down on it. I think Misshapen Chair said it best when he said "I don't hate Sage, but I hate what it represents."

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Originally Posted by Rithy255

I get that maybe the animations/feel might be a bit different at lower levels, most jobs are really poorly designed at low levels such as tanks lacking mitigations, or anything other then 1,2,3 dps wise. I think the good thing about Summoner in early levels is you've got the skeleton of the Job it adds on later down the line.

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Agreed.

One of the things I HATED on PLD before 6.3 was if I synced into literally anything lower level than level 90 content (the very level cap), my muscle memory would actively work against me. In level 90 content, you'd exit the caster phase with a Royal combo, since Swords inflicted a DoT that couldn't be stacked with Goring. But in literally EVERY OTHER CONTENT in the entire game (where you have Requiescat and thus the magic phase), it was the opposite, with you leaving caster phase into a Goring combo. For any content you synced to before ShB, you didn't have Atonement, so you had to adjust to that, too. For any content before Requiescat, you had to adjust further to not having a caster phase at all. And as you say, lacking so many mitigations. Not to mention PLD is still the only Tank that doesn't have rotational healing/sustain built into its main rotation until level 84 when that function gets added to Holy Spirit/Circle. Even after the rework, PLD's rotation is all over the place depending on what you've been synced to.

BLM does this same thing and I hate it just as much - if not more - on BLM.

Contrast with WAR, where it has basically the entire core Job rotation by level 50. By level 50, you have your 1-2-3 and 1-2-4 upkeep buff combos. You generate gauge that you spend on Inner Beast (low level Fell Cleave which upgrades into Fell Cleave directly). You have Berserk at level 6 as low level Inner Release. And you have Infuriate. Your -3 gives you rotational healing for sustain. You have all your role actions, Vengeance, Holmgang, and Thrill of Battle, which with that self-healing is enough to do the job, and more importantly, your rotation is more or less the same as level 90. The only difference at 90 is you use Primal Rend after Inner Release, you have 4 oGCDs (Upheaval and 3x Onslaughts) to weave (but this doesn't change your GCD rotation), and you can't use quite as many Inner Beasts as you can level 90 Fell Cleaves since you don't get the 3 free ones. But overall, you have all your buttons (or lower ranks of them), and all the core concepts of the Job (build and spend gauge, don't overcap gauge or Infuriate, maintain Storm's Eye damage buff, cycle CDs as needed for defense) by level 50.

SMN is more like WAR than like PLD/BLM. You have the bare bones of the kit by level 22 when you get your third Lego. At that point, you have your spam spell, Aethercharge (as a proto-DWT/Bahamut/Phoenix), and each of your proto-Egis, and each of them have the same characteristic of their cadence (Topaz 4 instants with a standard GCD, Emerald 4 instants with a reduced GCD, and Ruby 2 long cast spells). The only thing that changes is you have 3 more GCDs a minute to fill since you don't have Slipstream, Crimson Cyclone, and Crimson Strike (Mountain Buster is an oGCD, so though it feels weird not to push, it doesn't change the GCD cadence/flow of the Job's rotation), and it still has Energy Drain and Fester (level 11). So basically you end up casting 3-4 extra Ruin 1s. By level 26, it has its AOE kit as well, minus Energy Siphon (level 52 for some odd reason) and Painflare (level 40), but you have the AOE GCD cycle and can just sub in the single target versions of those spells and are essentially "feature complete" at level 26 in terms of the skeleton of the kit being put together. After that, it's additions and spell upgrades until level 86 adds the Primal Astral Flows.

What this means is, unless you're doing Sastasha, Tam-Tara, of Copperbell (levels 15, 16, and 17; Halatali is 20 but syncs at level 23!), you have EFFECTIVELY a near-usable end-game single target rotation. And if you exclude Halatali and Bowl of Embers (4 man), then you also have your core AOE rotation. Earlier than a lot of other Jobs get theirs, btw (looking at you, DRG, Healers, etc.)

I think SMN can feel more incomplete because you don't have the Demis or the level 86 Astral Flows, but in terms of the basic rotation, it's all there before you even get your Job stone, a feat few other Jobs can actually claim. In fact, I'm not sure ANY can. RDM isn't feature complete until around level 60, WAR around level 50, etc. Other than Healers, but even they aren't really feature complete in that sense (WHM doesn't get its first Lily until 52 and doesn't get Misery until ShB...)

The particularly nice thing about Jobs like SMN and WAR is that they still play MOSTLY the same when you do any synced content, which is good in a game where we do...a lot of synced content. And while they feel a bit empty, people complain about that with Jobs like SAM and RPR, which are far busier at higher levels as well, yet somehow even more barebones (and farther from their level 90 incarnations) when you sync.

Monk is the greatest job in this game! It has the strongest and tightest core in it's three forms together with Perfect Balance/Masterful Blitz shakeups and no access to ranged GCDs, which forces you to make good use of SSS, Anatman, Meditation, which are almost completely unique and well integrated downtime tools, making other melees and tanks cry demanding a ranged button for Monk because they don't understand that they want it because of familiarity, not because it's actually better. Thunderclap on 3 charges and being able to target party members? Pure bliss. Whenever downtime is forced (more of that please!) or you make a mistake, you don't drift - you shift onto a different timeline where you now press your buttons differently for the rest of the encounter, no rote-memorized rotations here! It even has two completely different but viable in different contexts openers! And all that on a low number of overall abilities that are all nontheless crucial to it's design. Except Riddle of Wind maybe.

Monk just feels like a gift that keeps on giving mechanically, like you always play your job rather than ignore it due to muscle memory. You always adapt, which is why while we have Riddle of Earth, Wind and Fire, we don't have Riddle of Water, because we are Water. If you play Monk, you don't just play melee, you play Monk.

Melee is the best designed role in the game tho, they all have a unique mechanical identity, including the great Reaper which along with the Monk rework in Endwalker has me not as in shambles about future job design prospects as other people. I think healers and to a lesser but still significant degree tanks really have it the worst and require some out-of-the-box creative solutions.



Edit: In PvP (which is divinely inspired in terms of job design in general, 6.1 was a stroke of genius) my favs are probably Reaper, Dancer, Gunbreaker and Sage, because of the pure fun value of versatility and adaptability.

Blackmage is the hands down best designed job in the entire game. Huge damage potential, easy to play but hard to master and hasn't changed since ARR when it comes to the core gameplay of the job and had just actions added.

It's the only job in the entire game that felt balanced at all times tbh except maybe the ARR flare times.

Blue Mage - the Job is what a blue mage should be and the most RPG friendly. However locking the bulk of the spells in instanced content is a really poor choice.

Blackmage: without a doubt the best job ever. This is pinnacle of job design.
This was my first job and i thought other jobs would be similiar. My disappointment.
All other jobs are 1-2-3 1-2-3 then every,2 mins play piano on your keyboard for the burst.
1)Blm feels unique
2) no button bloat. F3, F4, F4.
3) despite having less buttons, rotation is still very flexible due to transpose.
4) even if you do standard lines correctly your dps is very high. 85%-90% parse.
5) EW is mobile enough to manage heavy movement.

Black Mage without a doubt. It has a unique gameplay that promotes both job and fight knowledge instead of the usual homogenized/oversimplified jobs, a rotation that at its core is simple but with enough restrictions and so much flexibility that it creates an insane optimization potential, it barely has any button bloat, almost every spell (because scathe) has its place in the kit, all the tools it has interact with the core job mechanics and restrictions... I think every job should take a lesson or two when it comes to design from Blm