What do you feel is your job identity in flavour and gameplay?

[Lethros]

Level 60 Heavensward Scholar > Level 70 Stormblood Scholar > Level 80 Shadowbringers Scholar < Blue Mage 5.15 (greater than/less than, not arrows)

I was very set as Scholar from when I was leveling, even around level 30-40 onward in Heavensward. With the fondest of memories in Heavensward, and the first thing I normally seem to think of is being in Sohm Al (hard). There was so much in ways to expand, progress, and learn with all the spells and abilities I had. Even years later I could push further. Right now I don't really play it, but not all because of the job, and not really because of any other level 80 job. Although I haven't been into the current dungeons, trials, etc. as much as previous equivalents, at least at a longer term, the current state of the job doesn't have me wanting to play like I used to really want to play it. But with 5.15 Blue Mage, at least in this short term (within the last week), I've felt like I've found a serious alternative that in some ways really offers me what current Scholar doesn't but used to

[Tracewood]

I seem to favorably choose Melee DPS. While I do have tank envy, with the cool tank glamours I seem to suffer from brain drain when I play as one. I'll forget to negate a tank buster, or blow all my cooldowns because the healer doesnt' heal very much and the DPS are killing things too slow so I'm panicking at the verge of death every pull lol. After an instance I'm left a touch agitated afterwards.

There are times where I'll try to main something else each patch, but keep falling back to Samurai. Maybe because I really like hitting high damage. For a while I was getting pretty good with DRG, but I like solo "selfish" jobs where I can just focus on output rather than worrying about everyone else... it's probably why I'm more relaxed playing it. MNK used to be this way, but it's gotten too fast paced for my liking now.

[Driven]

I gave DNC a good go since 5.0. And still really enjoy it. But I missed having RDM as my main. As RDM, I really enjoy the range and still being able to mix in some melee combos. I also really enjoy having the knowledge that I can help raise and semi heal in an emergency if needed.
I never enjoyed having that responsibility in other mmos, so it has been an interesting twist for me personally.

[dinnertime]

Summoner has been a mixed bag over the years. I can't remember much of 2.0 anymore, but all I know that's when Summoner was creatively bankrupt. The summons weren't the focal point, but the DoTs. It was incredibly weird and disliked.

Heavensward comes along, and it's when I started to really enjoy it. The DoTs are still the main focus unfortunately, but I really liked managing Aethertrail, Dreadwyrm Trance and the amount of ogcds it had compared to BLM (which had none). It gave the job the depth and diversity it needed. Still, I was hoping it focused less on DoTs and more on summons.

Stormblood Summoner did put more focus on the Trance/Summons than the DoTs, problem is...a lot of its changes were problematic at launch. A lot of restrictions/locking, it felt super clunky and it had high risks. 4.1 comes in and brings arguably the best and most loved iteration of Summoner so far. It became the most mobile caster (with a lot of instant cast spells) and most flexible DPS in the game. It still had issues but this was the Summoner I'm most fond of. I really loved Demi Bahamut and hoped they moved further with the idea.

I got my wish since Shadowbringers Summoner brings us Demi-Phoenix, which is basically just Demi-Bahamut but the concept improved further. I like the idea of a summon creating an aura effect and also changing your own spells themed to said summon. I hope they do the same thing for Bahamut soon. History repeats itself though because they rework the job in the worst way possible. It was laughably weak, lost mobility, lost its flexibility, it was clunky, bloated with buttons, its mechanics not in sync with each other and not friendly to higher latency, then Fester-Ruins. I didn't think it was that terrible after getting used to it, but I'm so glad they fixed it in 5.1. It's incredibly more mobile now than before, the summons do feel impactful and DoTs are less of a problem. Still, the job has a long way to go to feel "perfect" to me.

It's probably one of the most controversial jobs in the game since it doesn't know what it really wants to be. Should it focus on DoTs? Should it focus on pets/Egi's? Should it focus on Trance/Demi's? It evolved so much that even the community is at a divide. Personally how I see it, there's a big focus on instant spells and ogcds on Summoner. That's what's so enjoyable about it for me and they should keep it like that. I'm one of the crowd that prefers Demi's over Egi's and hope they scrap Egi's for good. How they designed Demi-Phoenix makes me wish they applied the same concept for each summon.

I can't really decide which is my favorite out of 4.1 and 5.1. 4.1 gave it more depth, flexibility and rewarded you for planning smart, but 5.1 made it feel more satisfying to play with all of the instant casts and mobility it gives you. I hope in the future they just merge what makes both iterations so good.

[MPNZ]

Bard: It's not really as fun as it was in the previous expansion, and the closest thing to where it's direction was going towards in Stormblood was basically the starlight choir (HM) minigame and rhythm games due to just the dynamic affect that crit had on its proc-rates. And, there was also this big negative of not incorporating better song effects and the ways it's songs support the party, and instead they outright changed it into a selfish DPS class, which was false advertising

Astrologian: Ugh, the card system is just so not controller friendly at all, and have very little value considering all of the effort in eight player content. Plus, it was really weak at launch, and they removed most of it's QOL abilities like bole, mp regen, stun, and protect, which just felt really horrible to heal through since most tanks are not like Thancred and more like healing wet tissue paper. Situationally, AST was super flexible, but is now totally focused on the raid scene but take way too much effort and upkeep to remain viable to validate the amount of work and inputs over the other two healers

Overall: Both jobs basically ignored their lore, and were redesigned without care for certain, ?minutia?, like the feel of the job and its systems in motion in both its parts and as a whole

[Lihtleita]

mnk go fast

[Alaeacus]

I can't see myself "main"-ing any roll but PLD. I don't 100% feel like a golden-boy, pious Paladin though. I feel like a former DRK who used to be edgy and angry all the time in his youth, but is now too old and tired to care about any of that anymore. SO maybe I'm just the pessimistic, sarcastic, grizzled veteran, former-DRK PLD.

[PeppermintBrown]

So far, I am absolutely satisfied with Red Mage. After all those years since this profession exists, in XIV, it's finally fully fleshed out. After 31 years!


Unlike before, where it was just a lazy and half-baked hackjob ("let's recycle WHM and BLM into one single character") with permanent back-and-forths in design (In some part, they had Dualcast, in some not), in visuals (the typical red-clad person with the plumed tricorne or .. whatever XI's supposed to look like) and sometimes totally vanishing even (how many FF parts skipped RDM?).

No, what I love about Red Mage in XIV in the current state: It's like a Rubic's Cube. No matter how I turn it, it all makes sense. There are weaknesses that have a proper compensation. Or strengths that have compensation weaknesses? See, it's perfect.



Right now, I hope they do not touch RDM at all. No buffs, no removals, no nerfs.

I fell two times into an "identity crisis" as Scholar though. Right now, I still have an open thread in the healer section because I could not believe if it's me or the profession that suddenly changed. I got over that finally and enjoy to be your bespectacled Lalafell healer. However, the reason which led to my "Scholar midlife crisis" are there. I could fix the issues on my side, but still, Scholar is, unlike RDM, unfinished.





You can see that cluelessness with the worst jobquest line ever. "Tomberry staring into a lake" for 15 quests straight. It's like a high school student wrote those as homework.

No need to talk about the DPS spells. "Art of War"? You mean the purple "Marylin Monroe Air Gust" (TM). A trashy DoT that lasts too short IMO - very annoying to babysit. Ugh.

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Must you bold and font change every single post you make? Do you think it makes your posts extra special or something?

[RyuDragnier]

I have a tendency to choose support jobs. DNC, BRD, SCH, DRK...I do my best work when I'm able to kill things while helping the party.

[SenorPatty]

BRD, AST and WAR felt to me like they reached the peak in SB. BRD had all these amazing song support that actually won me over ( I had been disgruntled with with my preconceptions that, starting from an archer, I'm now a support).

I loved AST cuz I clearly remembered this job being probably the only one in SB where it rewarded you properly for remembering what each card did. Took me weeks to memorize them to the fullest.

WAR felt like this invincible tank that made stance dancing hella fun.



Now when it comes to what I main typically, I do play tank but with this expansion recently, I find myself just about dabbling in everything. Well, everything except healer. I can completely understand why it's always in need in the roulette duty page (at least on my DC). I'm still kicking myself in the head for not trying out MCH first. It's stupidly fun to play and I can't help but say it's probably the best goddamn reworked job. At the risk of sounding like IGN, it feels like your playing a MCH. My sincerest hope in the next expansion is keep expand on the job and not touch anything right now. I'd like see MCH using electrical nets as traps or lasers, and pretty much a wide assortment of machines. Dancer is kinda fun but I'm still not seeing why BRD had to be stripped of what made it good to make DNC relevant. Feels like poor design and lazy choices imo. WAR is just...plain and DRK's highlight is Fell Cleaving copy.


I could go on but I feel like I'd go into a rant and I just don't feel like voicing for the millionth time what everyone else said.