It's going to be 4.2, so how have the Job Guages held up (opinions)

[Mimilu]

From the jobs I've played and gotten to 70:
AST: It's okay. I bet the job design team was relieved that they didn't have to come up with a new mechanic to give AST like they had to with the other healers (because they already have cards).

WHM: Lilies are kind of pointless. You shouldn't really be planning abilities around them, you can't generate them using HoTs (which is the usual go-to for WHMs), and they don't affect Thin Air or Presence of Mind. If it effected Presence of Mind, I think Lilies would be like x10 more useful. Also, make Divine Benison cost only one Lily. :B

SCH: Do they really even need a gauge for Fey Union? Just give it a timer like every other HoT. This is really a lackluster mechanic and completely goes against being a pet-job (a.k.a. controlling a pet). I know the dev team have said in the past that they have no clue how to design or balance a pet-class but it's been how many years now?

BRD: Personally, in terms of kit, gameplay, and gauge-usage, I think BRD is one of (if not) the best redesigned jobs in Stormblood. It really feels like someone took time to make it better. Wish they did that with the rest of the jobs... >w>

RDM: It's okay. This was a job designed with the gauges in mind.

MNK: It's okay. They didn't add anything new. Maybe could of redone the Fist-Stance system so that it's better and not a clunky afterthought... :B

[Pondera]

Paladin: Does its job well enough. I know when I can shield myself or others

Black Mage: Looked WEIRD when I first saw it, but every part of this bizarre little matrix conveys vital information. Very well done!

Scholar: I would MUCH rather Fey Union be a channeled heal over time on a cooldown from my fairy. I'm always afraid of wasting the charges, or locking down my Eos when she could be casting her 20% heal boost or magic vuln reduction, so I rarely end up using it. The rest of scholar plays very well, but this really needs looked at.

White Mage: Falls squarely in the realms of okay

Dragoon: a little artsy for my tastes, but so are dragoons in general.

[VanilleFang]

White Mage: Falls squarely in the realms of okay

I'm curious. Why so you think the gauge is okay, rather than complete garbage or useless? I'm not saying you're wrong, it's just I can't personally see how anything about the Lilies are "okay".

[Enla]

SCH: Do they really even need a gauge for Fey Union? Just give it a timer like every other HoT. This is really a lackluster mechanic and completely goes against being a pet-job (a.k.a. controlling a pet). I know the dev team have said in the past that they have no clue how to design or balance a pet-class but it's been how many years now?

And especially to have a gauge THAT big for what's ultimately one skill. It's nicely designed, probably my favorite of the healer gauges but it takes up SO much room for a skill that most SCH's I'm aware of never use.

[RLofOBFL]

WHM is the only gauge that I think is absolutely useless. I don't change my playstyle at all for it.

[Rokke]

AST - useless
WHM- useless
SCH - mostly useless

[Tridus]

And especially to have a gauge THAT big for what's ultimately one skill. It's nicely designed, probably my favorite of the healer gauges but it takes up SO much room for a skill that most SCH's I'm aware of never use.

I use it, although I'm by no means a high level SCH player. It's pretty handy in stuff like Rabanastre when people start doing crazy things and you need to try to help another group. I'll stick it on my tank and then can focus a lot of attention elsewhere with a high degree of confidence he won't need my help (such as during the Azure Guard phase, or really anytime if they're the MT). Also do that on Susano Ex when we're all jumping around due to the lightning stun as Eos doesn't get stunned and will just sit there pouring healing into the MT the entire phase. You can also switch to the simple version to save some space, but I like the look of it so I don't.

Not exactly an earth shattering use of the skill, but I've found it pretty useful. It beats the pants off lilies, which could be turned into a "Can you cast Divine Benison? Y/N" indicator without any change in effective gameplay.

(I really wish they'd let us use lilies to fire off a higher power nuke, but they don't seem keen on making healer DPS more interesting.)

[Enla]

.

I'll def agree that it's useful for Susano, but outside of a handful of instances I've personally just found macroing to be that much better. The heal isn't quite as potent, but after derping around with it for awhile I have pretty much the same level of precision and still retain control of my faerie. Only downside is that it makes Lustrates a little harder to weave in when shit hits the fan, but that's one of the handful of instances aetherpact is personally more useful to me. It's def better than the lillies though... I never paid attention to the gauge when leveling my WHM alt and it just felt supremely tacked on.

[Aylis]

(I really wish they'd let us use lilies to fire off a higher power nuke, but they don't seem keen on making healer DPS more interesting.)

I had a similar thought for Scholar and Aetherpact. While Fey Union can be handy in certain situations, I feel most of the time its just going to sit there. So I'm relatively "meh" on Aetherpact in general. I'd be more okay with it if I could have the choice between the focused healing on someone and either a focused damage from Eos on whatever it is were fighting or a focused debuff similar to the effect of Chain Stratagem where whatever it is were fighting takes more crit damage/more damage in general while Eos is doing her thing''

[JunseiKei]

Gauges are a mixed bag for me. They're nice visually, but after playing MMOs for 20+ years, I've learned to look at my buff bar and my environment. FFXIV has been the only game with a gauge system like this, so it's more of a hinderance for me to look at the gauge. As I've gotten more used to their presence, it's become less of an issue and they are rather helpful, but getting to that point was annoying when a buff would have been easier...

...

...Until you take into consideration the quality of life changes they made to seeing other people's statuses, removing the job specific things that would otherwise prevent you from seeing them. (This is where you mention warrior's pacification and not seeing it until it was too late unless they used a macro that would tell you that was especially bad in Heavensward.) When all things are considered, the job gauges have helped more than I think people are willing to admit (or even realize in the grand scheme of things and are looking at them completely micro and not macro).

On the subject of WHM and lilies:
I find it fine. The system doesn't remove anything and you only gain from it. I will always welcome a reduction in some of my core skills just because I used a Cure I or II.

On AST:
This is probably the only job where I will say the gauge has been completely useless for me. I had completely lamented not being able to click off my cards (as rare as that was - all cards are useful). When SE returned them to the status bar as well as the gauge, I don't look at the gauge at all anymore.