To those that usually stick to one archetype of character throughout most RPGs-

[Lauront]

For me, elves are undoubtedly my go-to choice, but they have to be a particular breed of elf. I especially liked the Aen Elle of the Witcher cosmos, the Altmer and Dunmer of TES, the drow elves of the Forgotten Realms, the Eldar and Dark Eldar of WH40k, or above all others, the blood elves, Naga and Highborne of Warcraft. Generally, what I like about them is their existence as an ancient, long-lived, ethereal race of beings that refuse to simply fade away and continue to vie for their position in the world, be it one of dominance or mere survival. I also have a thing for races which turn to dark powers in pursuit of these aims, so I'd add the Man'ari Eredar of Warcraft to that list, and it is thus little wonder why I like the Ascians and the ancients in XIV. As I enjoy arcane magic in fantasy settings, the elves' common affinity for that further seals the deal. I'm not too fond of the vanilla D&D elf aesthetic and I like games which depart from it a bit, as Warcraft & Witcher did with their elves... blood elves were more or less ideal to me.

In terms of classes, I enjoy arcane magic-wielders and those dabbling in their darker aspects, so be it a mage, sorcerer, warlock, demonologist, necromancer, whatever, I like those. I also enjoy classes that fuse magic with swordsmanship. I tend to be least drawn to archers, gunmen etc.

XIV hasn't really got any elves I like, so I default to midlanders as they look pretty good in most gear, but I like the classically handsome features of male Au Ra, as well as their slightly devilish look, as well. Viera are a touch too effeminate for my liking. Class-wise? SMN and BLM would be the ones I enjoy most, though I wish the game had something like a Void mage. Among the other jobs, I like DRG and RPR - the latter especially for its use of darkness and heavily integrating it into its attacks. SAM and DRK to a lesser degree are also not bad jobs and have appealing aesthetics. I use WHM and PLD extensively in FL but mainly for the objective of winning; if someone has those covered, BLM is my go-to.

So I tend to go in with a rather fixed idea of what I like to play. I do try other stuff from time to time but it rarely satisfies me much.

[vormela]

I love this thread!

Apart from looking at jobs/professions online, I look up popularity of race/class types or what works best (like maybe something has a bonus in strength and is worse in magical abilities) and then pick whatever looks most unique that no one picks. I do not suggest this route but it is one I do. I wound up with roegadyn and still have my level 50 fantasia so I think it worked. Often the races have racials that affect their jobs/occupations but thankfully in FFXIV it doesn't matter.

In other games where you can't switch professions, it keeps things humorous to be suboptimal from the character creation screen. Not everyone does well under pressure! It gives the character a level of humility, maybe.

I pick healer or dps, whichever:
doesn't require facing a certain direction or knowing which end of boss is head/butt. doesn't obscure the screen too much
Is kind of tanky or has healing powers so I can explore the land and survive big monsters

This may sound lazy, and it is, but I use the overworld situational abilities and strengths to justify my choice of occupation.

[Averax]

For me, elves are undoubtedly my go-to choice, but they have to be a particular breed of elf. I especially liked the Aen Elle of the Witcher cosmos, the Altmer and Dunmer of TES, the drow elves of the Forgotten Realms, the Eldar and Dark Eldar of WH40k, or above all others, the blood elves, Naga and Highborne of Warcraft. Generally, what I like about them is their existence as an ancient, long-lived, ethereal race of beings that refuse to simply fade away and continue to vie for their position in the world, be it one of dominance or mere survival. I also have a thing for races which turn to dark powers in pursuit of these aims, so I'd add the Man'ari Eredar of Warcraft to that list, and it is thus little wonder why I like the Ascians and the ancients in XIV. As I enjoy arcane magic in fantasy settings, the elves' common affinity for that further seals the deal. I'm not too fond of the vanilla D&D elf aesthetic and I like games which depart from it a bit, as Warcraft & Witcher did with their elves... blood elves were more or less ideal to me.

Same. This is one thing i love about the Warcraft universe yet. The OG races are so well done, and have such rich lore. When i first started playing WoW, the Blood Elves just lept out at 11 year old me, and have hooked me to this day 14 years later. Still love my Blood Elf DH, it was my gateway into melee classes. When we got Reaper here and i started getting into it, i was just like "Wait a minute....this is literally just DH with a scythe, i got an inner demon, and enshroud is basically metamorphosis, just missing eye beam. Easy to play like DH to boot, lol!"

Ironic, i think, that i'm considering dropping healer as my main role after being unsatisfied by it this expansion, and picking up Reaper as my main job. Just as i did in WoW with my mage when i switched my main to DH. Not sure if i will, but i've been having fun as reaper, and have been dragging my feet leveling my healing jobs.

XIV doesn't really have the expansive lore for races like the warcraft universe does. Especially since it seems like everybody's spread out everywhere and nobody has roots. There's not many places that are comprised of just one demographic that gets expanded upon. There's garlemald, the viera, the xaela of the steppe, a couple of seeker tribes, and i suppose the raen under the ruby sea.

[ApolloGenX]

I typically play a healer and love it... except in EQ, I did change to enchanter.... because it was such a cool role.

[Nishira]

From the description of what you enjoy, I understand ff14 doesn’t fully scratch your itch. It sounds like quite a particular flavour where customisation of classes would be more your thing. In that sense, while it’s great that one has access to all classes on one character, there’s no overlap between them, to achieve that particular end result you’d want. At least, that’s what sprang to my mind when reading your post

Personally I’ve always been drawn to healers with a clerical vibe, so usually I can get my fix as it’s a standard archetype. I played a cleric in EQ (and had an enchanter alt, they were indeed cool!) and a priest and paladin early WoW, and usually hunt down something similar when trying something else. There are definitely ties there to who I am as a person in the real world, so it feels comfy to slip into those characters. Fits like a glove!

I’ve had alts with whom I explored different themes, death knight, hunter, mage and shaman come to mind, and I created background stories for them, rp-ed on some, considered their experience of their world, their interaction with it, their personal beliefs and motivations. Very interesting. But still not ‘home’.

[Lauront]

Same. This is one thing i love about the Warcraft universe yet. The OG races are so well done, and have such rich lore. When i first started playing WoW, the Blood Elves just lept out at 11 year old me, and have hooked me to this day 14 years later. Still love my Blood Elf DH, it was my gateway into melee classes. When we got Reaper here and i started getting into it, i was just like "Wait a minute....this is literally just DH with a scythe, i got an inner demon, and enshroud is basically metamorphosis, just missing eye beam. Easy to play like DH to boot, lol!"

Ironic, i think, that i'm considering dropping healer as my main role after being unsatisfied by it this expansion, and picking up Reaper as my main job. Just as i did in WoW with my mage when i switched my main to DH. Not sure if i will, but i've been having fun as reaper, and have been dragging my feet leveling my healing jobs.

XIV doesn't really have the expansive lore for races like the warcraft universe does. Especially since it seems like everybody's spread out everywhere and nobody has roots. There's not many places that are comprised of just one demographic that gets expanded upon. There's garlemald, the viera, the xaela of the steppe, a couple of seeker tribes, and i suppose the raen under the ruby sea.

Yeah, it's a great shame. For me, some of the stuff where you see ghosts of the Highborne's past, before their great cataclysm, and the Naga as their ancient Highborne selves, impressed upon me as much, if not more so, than seeing them tie the Ascians to their former existences as ancients and the reawakened ancients inside Zodiark wandering around the moon. That is the kind of thing I enjoy in a game.

WoW had good racial lore across the board, but I really loved the Highborne and all their descendant races, so much I'd love to have seen them as a faction in their own right... it also had a great selection of classes dabbling in verboten powers, be it shadow priest, warlock, demon hunter or death knight... plus you could stretch fire mages into a blood mage lorewise. Such a dire pity that game went the way it did. Little point in crying over it now I guess but I do hope an MMO that captivates me in the same way emerges one day.

[Mezzoforte]

How do you do it? I usually struggle with this in most types of RPGs, from tabletops to MMORPGs, I kinda want to main one type of class, but I always have a bunch of variables in my head, for instance, I love the idea of tanks, I find enjoyable to be the protector of my friends, that how I usually am and yet I always found mage classes to be far more interesting, I mean, if you had the capability, being through birthright or through study and dedication, through research and mastery of the arcane you could alter the physical laws of the universe... Why wouldn't you, you know what I'm talking about?

At the same time, I find tank classes to be boring in games, particularly video games, and while I love the concept of a battlemage/spellsword, in most games you end up being more one than the other, including DnD where Eldritch Knight for instance will mostly use spells that improve defensives and utility.

I don't know, while it has been a blessing having multiple jobs in the same character on FFXIV, I still kinda feel the need to find that "right" job to main and I've been struggling with this decision.

Seems like you struggle with limited ideas of classes. No reason a tank and protector cant be steeped deeply in magic. Or a fighter. Or whatever. Most the archtypes all over are so boring and samey. DnD is especially bad with this. Theres almost no interesting variety to it. Its all the same thing.

To find that one thing takes time and knowing yourself. It doesnt help that there are such limited options to try and find that perfect fit in most games specially here. It sounds like you either wanna be the biggest baddest of whatever you can find. Like rewriting reality. Or what strikes convenient for a role at the moment. Just play whatever tickles your fancy at that moment. See what you end up playing most. Also take into account tank classes can be much more simple and boring to play which may also influence your choice. I had the same issue for years as you do until a game called RIFT and I played a Planar Rogue. That was the first time any class in any game ever “spoke to me” and felt like “this is me.” If you cant find that one class. Its cause it isnt here on this game :P