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

[Mysterysword]

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.

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.

[Waliel]

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.

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.

[whiskeybravo]

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.

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.