Questions regarding class / job choice

[Yimina]

Hello everyone,

I am certain some of these have been asked before, but I couldn't find anything at a glance so please bear with me.

I just started playing FFXIV yesterday so I know practically nothing about the classes / jobs, aside from the roles they're supposed to fullfill. So - here are my questions:

1. Is solo content relevant in any way come endgame and if so, which jobs are generally best at it?

2. Which role (tank, heal, dps) is the most sought after at level 60 (I am thinking about accessibility of dungeons and raids, waiting times and such)?

3. Which jobs are generally the most valuable to a party and which of these are generally the least represented at max level.

4. Which jobs make it easiest to carry a dungeon party with (provided you are good enough at it)?

5. And lastly - which job do you personally enjoy the most and why?

I hope these aren't too many questions at once, any input is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance and have a great day!

[SrahaTia]

Welcome to the game!

1. Anything you queue for at endgame, whether it's trials, dungeons, or raids, is party content. Solo things mostly show up as instances in MSQ, which any job can clear.

2. The "adventurer in need" bonus is almost always for tanks (pretty much 99% of the time, in my experience). As a tank, for light party content my queues are usually instant, generally under 5 mins for full party content (depending on what it is/what time it is) and a bit longer for current 24-man raids, since the current ones only have room for 3 tanks.

3. I haven't really thought about this much, but I'd say it can depend on the content you're doing, where certain party compositions might be somewhat preferable over others.

5. My personal favorite job is Paladin, because it has pretty much everything I want I in a job and I enjoy the job's aesthetic. I also like Astrologian. I think the best job is the job you have the most fun playing, I know I personally perform much better playing a job I love vs a job I don't.

[Sagittarian]

I just started playing FFXIV yesterday

Welcome to Eorzea!

1. Is solo content relevant in any way come endgame and if so, which jobs are generally best at it?

Only for main scenario quests or re-running older content solo for fun. Some of the main scenario instances may be harder to complete as some classes but they are designed to be able to complete with any of them. I have not had any issues with any of them as SMN.

2. Which role (tank, heal, dps) is the most sought after at level 60 (I am thinking about accessibility of dungeons and raids, waiting times and such)?

Generally tank, then heal. Except for the 24 person raids where the role division is 1/2/5 so dps is more in demand.

3. Which jobs are generally the most valuable to a party and which of these are generally the least represented at max level.

That really varies between patches as different classes go through phases of popularity. Also you are encouraged to level multiple classes on your character so most people will have several classes they can play even if they are the same role (tank/heal/dps).

4. Which jobs make it easiest to carry a dungeon party with (provided you are good enough at it)?

I'd say a toss-up between SMN and WAR. WAR has enough self-healing abilities that they can finish a lot of fights solo if done perfectly. SMN is the only non-heal that can raise during combat and has a tank summon.

5. And lastly - which job do you personally enjoy the most and why?

SMN because of the general utility, then AST because of the ability to switch between shields/regen based on the need.

[Rawrz]

3. Which jobs are generally the most valuable to a party and which of these are generally the least represented at max level.

I'm going to say any of the three healers. With Cleric Stance you can easily be an extra DPS, after you've fully mastered a good controller/Keybind setup, while having literal power over death.

Favorite Job?

Scholar! After you learn to micromanage (Spam Embrace Manually/Pop Fairy CDS) you become SUPER effecient at creating windows to DPS, thus making the dunegon run much faster. You easily do 20(Good Party)-35%(Bad Party) of the party's TOTAL damage, dependent on the class/skill of tank and DPS.

Bard is also a breath of fresh air. You have some power to help the party through songs (such as Mage's Ballad, which gives healers back their MP in times when they get low from multiple deaths.) You have Second Wind to help heal yourself (borrowed from Pugilist) and lots of damage up buffs. You have insane burst damage!

[Yimina]

Great, thanks for the answers so far!

Personally I was leaning towards Scholar anyways, since I'm used to playing healer in MMOs and really like the dps potential they offer in this game.

So I'll stick with Arcanist and later Scholar, for the time being - thanks for the encouragement!

[Chocolys]

1. Strictly speaking of solo-only content, I think there is not one better than the other besides pure personal tastes. That being said, to progress further in story, you are often required to do team-content, and being a tank will considerably reduce the time you spend waiting on Duty queues.

2. Tanks by far, followed by Healers.

3. All. Every party, end game wise, need good tanking, good DPSing and good healing. What is the most valuable to a party is how good you are at playing your class and managing the battle mechanics.

4. It depends of the context, if you're all max leveled and max equipped, and carry someone in an Unsync dungeon it does not really matter. But now if you mean level/item sync dungeon, then it's mostly healer, because you can hardly survive and help other survive without proper heals.
Arcanists/Summoners are also good to carry beginners in low level dungeons, thank to the tank egi (and a little heal skill)

5. Solo-wise I love my Summoner and her cute Titan's egi. Team-wise I usually prefer to play White Mage.