Yoshi-P: "If you want more engaging content, go play Ultimate"

[Semirhage]

But, more to the point, I think this idea of "exclusion" is a bit misguided among the playerbase. When you compare to a WoW or GW2, job balance matters because players invest in a single job and have to entirely re-roll a character if the job they have is excluded by the meta (in theory, both games allow for speccing differently, but then we are talking players being shoehorned into a specific role they may not enjoy, so not much better). FFXIV, in theory, would not be "excluding" anyone from participating in higher tier content when they have the option to switch to any other job. The fact that XIV's balance is such that "any job can clear" is certainly quite nice for people who like a particular job fantasy and definitely helps its sub-base. But again, I pointed out that we have a *lot* of jobs to choose from--in theory, allocating a small handful of jobs to "baby's first" category would not destroy job balance and create exclusionism in a way that would totally ruin the game like it would other job-locked MMOs.

I have always refused to allow Square Enix to try this on me, and I'm not about to start.

"WHM being boring and weak and stupidly designed could actually be a good thing because then someday when you're not a window-licker you could either feel proud that you cleared content on a hamstrung underpowered crayon eater Fisher Price baby-tier job or graduate to a powerful, smoothly designed, non-clunky job that actually matters"

Or...or....ooooor.....maybe, WHM could actually be good at things and have an entertaining gameplay loop and not punish you for playing skillfully and perhaps in a drug-fueled pipe dream actually be competitive in its role, instead of being literally the only job in this game that people constantly, unironically rationalize its horrible insultingly easy design as a "good thing".

Better make Monk spend all of its time spamming 111111111111 because that's good design for newbies and it's healthy to have at least one job in a role arbitrarily suck because a skill ceiling is scary and they need a playpen where improvement is forbidden. Said nobody ever.

[Laphicet]

Better make Monk spend all of its time spamming 111111111111 because that's good design for newbies and it's healthy to have at least one job in a role arbitrarily suck because a skill ceiling is scary and they need a playpen where improvement is forbidden. Said nobody ever.

People asked that about Summoner at some point, apparently, judging by the borefest that the class is at the current moment. Just spamming 1 and 2, not alternating, just changing which button you spam depending on what phase you're in with no thought given to anything.

[Ixon]

People asked that about Summoner at some point, apparently, judging by the borefest that the class is at the current moment. Just spamming 1 and 2, not alternating, just changing which button you spam depending on what phase you're in with no thought given to anything.

There is a guide to macro SMN to just one button if you really want the 1-1-1-1-1-1 dream.

[SeverianLyonesse]

I have always refused to allow Square Enix to try this on me, and I'm not about to start.

"WHM being boring and weak and stupidly designed could actually be a good thing because then someday when you're not a window-licker you could either feel proud that you cleared content on a hamstrung underpowered crayon eater Fisher Price baby-tier job or graduate to a powerful, smoothly designed, non-clunky job that actually matters"

Or...or....ooooor.....maybe, WHM could actually be good at things and have an entertaining gameplay loop and not punish you for playing skillfully and perhaps in a drug-fueled pipe dream actually be competitive in its role, instead of being literally the only job in this game that people constantly, unironically rationalize its horrible insultingly easy design as a "good thing".

Better make Monk spend all of its time spamming 111111111111 because that's good design for newbies and it's healthy to have at least one job in a role arbitrarily suck because a skill ceiling is scary and they need a playpen where improvement is forbidden. Said nobody ever.

Okay this actually made me laugh.

I can't really take a hardline position on this either way though, unfortunately. WHM is a very archetypal FF job, tending to be played by traditionalists and new players, and none of those things really facilitate a gimmicky playstyle. Maybe if it had leaned more into the earth/water conjuring we could have something interesting evolve like BLM's AF/UI without alienating too many WHM fans, although I would argue elementalist spells just don't resonate as well with the popular idea of WHMs as much as they do BLMs. In either case, I consider WHM, BLM, PLD to be "obligatory" jobs that really don't facilitate good/original design, and it's a minor miracle BLM ended up interesting at all.

So it doesn't surprise me that WHM sucks when it's easily the least conceptually deep job in FF canon and hasn't been a standalone job since FFV, needing to be propped up by more interesting job traits. And yeah that doesn't excuse XIV's job being inefficient and clunky...it could at least be streamlined like SMN. But also...I'm not sure what people were expecting? It hasn't been interesting to me in years, since we lost Stone/Aero and got some stupid glitter and flower spells?