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

[rjspencer4]

DRK blood gauge is useful, but the stance crystal doesn't really matter.

[splinter1545]

I really like the BRD gauge, though I wish that near the end of the songs, it would play a tune to let me know it's ending. Sometimes, things get hectic, and I don't realize that I've went a good few secs without playing another song. Aside from that though, I feel like it's very well designed.

[Cakekizyy]

If you could get rid of the extra fluff around them, and just make them simple Plain Jane meters I'd like them. Otherwise they're too big, even when they're shrunk down all the way.

You can.

/10char

[Kazrah]

Well since I've leveled them all up enough, may as well give my opinions on all of them.

PLD: This for me is by far the most pointless gauge. Increase your gauge by blocking so you can get a guaranteed block. Whoop-dee-doo.

WAR: Elaboration on the Wrath/Abandon system, which I'd wager would make more sense in the next expansion.

DRK: Mechanically, the PLD Oath Gauge should've been like this. More explanation from skills that grant Blackblood would help too.

SAM: Yup, it's there, it works, moving on.

DRG: Given all the buttons DRG uses, the Blood of the Dragon gauge has really improved my ability to play the job.

MNK: Chakra gauge helps more with the new passive trait to it, but that Greased Lightning icon is just a bigger reminder of how horrible I am at Monk.

NIN: Pinwheel has improved my Huton uptime, but the Ninki scroll gauge just reminds me that it's ready to use naturally when I'm in the middle of doing half a dozen other things.

BRD: Hands-down best gauge, especially for players like me who have little to no sense of timing.

MCH: The gauge does what it's supposed to. If only the job was so easy to understand....

BLM: Every thirty seconds of "YES, I KNOW FOUL'S UP, I'LL GET TO IT DAMMIT!!". At least the gauge works though.

SMN: This one's helped me a lot coming back to the job from playing about half a dozen others. Tells you all you need as far as the big stuff goes.

RDM: Just like SAM, it's there, it works, moving on.

AST: I think I'm one of the few people who likes the AST gauge. Maybe a secondary timer gauge for Earthly Star would help too.

SCH: I don't understand why it's in measurements of 10 capping to 100 when it'd make more sense to do in measurements 1 and cap to 10 when all it's supposed to do is count how many ticks it'll heal for and how many Aetherflow abilities you've used toward filling the gauge.

WHM: This was clearly a case of trying too hard. Little to no purpose for abilities that bring even less purpose to the job. And what does an Eastern flower have to do with a Western-inspired job anyway? It would've made more sense to use something like a tree going from seed to sapling to tree as a WHM gauge.

Overall, most of them are okay, but some of them seem like they were made not for this expansion, but future ones.

[Anienai]

Warrior - Love it
Paladin - Garbage
Scholar - Meh

[Hestzhyen]

Can't say anything about DRK since I only have it at 61 but I've had experience with the rest.

MNK - Works as intended, though MNK has larger issues that should be addressed ASAP
DRG - Very helpful, I like this one a lot. It's made tracking BotD much easier for me.
NIN - Nice Huton tracker. Isn't fancy but it doesn't need to be. Ninki gauge is cool too but I don't like having to keep track of two separate HUD items, even if it doesn't detract from what I'm doing.
SAM - Functional and elegant, perfect for what it needs to do. But I'd like to have the two HUD items merged if possible.

WHM - Awful, I hate it. (Admittedly I hate the lily system too but that's neither here nor there.) I never really need to know HOW MANY flowers I have, only if I have some or none at all. You could replace it with a traffic light (stop/go) and that would be an improvement.
SCH - Aetherflow gauge is a shiny waste of space. Fairy gauge is an even bigger waste of space. Can they be combined so I only have one thing to look at/arrange in the HUD menu please?
AST - I like seeing all the card information consolidated now. I hated it at first but now I've come to like it.

PLD - Whatever. Seriously. It feels like they tacked it on because everyone needed to watch something accumulate/deplete during a fight.
WAR - Eh. I feel like it's there because every job needs one for some reason. I'm not jazzed about it but I can live with it.

BLM - Nice once I got used to it. It's got a lot going on that isn't immediately obvious; part of the price of playing a job with so many things to juggle I suppose.
SMN - Boring, functional, and could easily be just a status bar buff again. I guess the Bahamut timer is nice but I'd like it if it was part of the Aetherflow gauge somehow.
RDM - Great and very useful. Not surprising considering the job was made with a gauge in mind. Some sort of proc indicator would be nice so I never need glance at my bars at all, but it's not necessary.

MCH - Kind of like Aetherflow and the SCH/SMN problem where having to look at two HUD items is annoying, and the ammo could just be a status bar buff. You combined all of BLM's info into one gauge so could you do the same with this job? Also I'm not a huge fan of the heat system but again, neither here nor there.
BRD - Great ever since they added the Straight Shot timer. This one's very clean and easy to understand at a glance.

tl;dr: please combine gauges for jobs that have more than one and please consider that not every job really needs one. Overall decent job I guess.

[Texa]

AST: I only like it because it's easier for me to see if I have to play out of my chair for some reason.
SCH: I don't raid and usually just use aetherpact to help a healer or dps who is having trouble doing mechanics/multiple vuln stacks and the sound effect it makes is a lot more useful for telling if its full or not than the actual gauge is.
WHM: It's pretty but not very useful.
SMN: I don't mind it but I'm still not used to not being able to use aetherflow when you already have dreadwyrm stacks going. Granted I barely ever dps anymore but that's the only job change that still trips me up.

[Ash_]

SCH: Would be more useful if there was more than one skill that used it.
NIN: Meh. I main NIN, and the huton gauge is useful, but there is not a lot of point to the Ninki gauge since every skill drains it empty. Maybe if it were like DRK and Ninki skills only used half the gauge, but right now the sound effect tells me what I need. The gauge itself is buried in a corner since you can't hide it completely.
SMN: I like the bahamut silhouettes, at least?

Overall: My wish or QoL suggestion is to combine the 2 gauges for every class into just one, like BLM/RDM. OR remove the skill dependent ones completely, and instead have the skill icons on the hot/cross bar fill up gradually with colour from greyed out unusable to usable.

[PuppytimusLeoroccanz]

Only played WAR and MCH.

WAR: Not really necessary but its fine.

MCH: the heat gauge is pretty important for me but Hot Shot getting tied to it and the ammunition bar are not really necessary. Since you'll know your ammo each time you reload/quick reload.

[Squintina]

I'm in the minority that actually likes the SCH gauge. I don't find it to be clutter (I use simple mode) and like being able to glance at my aetherflow stack and faerie gauge (which occasionally I do use, very occasionally)

WHM, eh, feels a little useless. It's nice to have lilies but in the end I'm more likely to end up using what I need to use than what the lilies tell me is going to be boosted.

Thankfully each job gauge can be turned off/simplified individually.