Impact of selecting your level 30 class change

[Sateist]

Hello,
I'm a rather new player and I have leveled 2 characters to level 30-ish.

My first level 30 class change was from Conjurer to White Mage. When switching to White Mage, the loss of abilities was quite rough, compared to the specific White Mage ability that you received.

My 2nd level 30 class change was from Archer to Bard. I did lose abilities, but the loss of those abilities were far from being as significant compared to White Mage.

Is this normal? Am I overlooking something?
Or do I need to just keep leveling to unlock the class specific abilities later on?

It just struck me as a newer player, that I had to make a post on the forum

Thanks for reading and your feedback.

-S

[HyoMinPark]

I’m guessing that you are talking about losing access to multiple role actions (e.g., Protect, Break, Drain, etc.)?

As you level, you will gain access to more role action slots. Right now, it’s just limited to 5 (each has it’s own level requirement you have to meet—at level 30, you should be able to equip 2 role actions, with your third becoming available at level 32, fourth at around level 38, and fifth at level 46/47), but that will change when the new patch comes out next Tuesday, and you can equip all 10 of them if you so please. I do think they will still have level requirements for unlocking the slots, but you level quickly, so don’t worry about that too much.

As you level, you will also learn new abilities for both of these jobs that are specific to them; some abilities will be upgraded to stronger versions of themselves: CNJ/WHM’s Stone and Aero are examples of these—Stone becomes Stone II, Stone III in your 50s, and then Stone IV at level 64, growing stronger each time; Aero eventually becomes Aero II. You will be able to learn new abilities every 5 levels until level 50; after that, it’s every 2 levels. You will need to do your job quests to unlock these though, so make sure to stay on top of them.

[Sateist]

I’m guessing that you are talking about losing access to multiple role actions (e.g., Protect, Break, Drain, etc.)? .

That is correct! Playing Conjurer, I felt that I lost a lot of good useful role actions, where as for Archer, I didn't mind losing them.
This struck me as a quite big difference in class abilities, at the moment you switch to your new job at 30.

[Rongway]

I think you're only perceiving such a loss because you're overestimating the value of the various role actions available at Lv30, and this is quite normal. You haven't had time to see and comprehend the magnitude of their effects yet. None of them are really meaningful at that level.

• Cleric Stance will make things die about one cast sooner, if at all.
• Break has no practical uses. Even heavied, you'll still only get one, maybe two spells, off before the enemy closes the distance, and healers should never kite unless a specific mechanic explicitly calls for it. Solo, you should be able to kill any single level-appropriate target before it kills you; and in party, you should run to the tank if anything tries to eat you.
• Protect doesn't change the number of hits it takes an enemy to kill you yet. It won't make a difference until you have significantly higher Defense and M.Defense than you have at 30. Even a tank with syncked gear at that level will only be able to survive one extra hit from having Protect up.
• No status effect lasts long enough or has a significant enough effect to compel the use of Esuna at level 30. Anyone who's not taking unnecessary damage will survive paralysis or stacked poisons, and if they get low, you can Cure or Medica. Of course it's a good idea to use it for certain more potent or longer lasting effects, but up to 30 it's not 100% necessary.
• It's unlikely that you will run low on MP unless you're grossly overhealing, in particular spamming Medica for no reason. Still, Dreaming is the best role action south of 30 because it eliminates any worry about running out of MP while spamming Stone.

Of course, that's not to say that all these actions are useless forever; they just don't make a significant difference at 30. And you'll get one slot back at 32, and another at 40, so you're not without them for very long. By 48 when you get your fifth slot, they start to have meaningful impacts on combat.

[AngelCheese77]

Yeah, that got me at first when I started to play some time back.

But cross role skills CAN be gotten again! You can set them up (you get 5 now as a class with a Soul Crystal, instead of 10 as a base class). But I can assure you, a lot of the WHM (White Mage) class skills/spells/abilities are awesome!

As a WHM (White Mage), you'll at least want (IMO); Esuna (very important!) Swiftcast (helps get those Raises off quicker) Protect (Very helpful if you are in a low level dungeon, though many might disagree. I think it's helpful anytime), Lucid Dreaming (lowers your enmity which is hate, as well as helps regen your mana) ... and the last one is debateable.

I chose Largesse to help with heals, but others like Eye for an Eye.

[Kurando]

snip

Come next patch you can equip all 10 of the available role actions for jobs (just like with classes) so you'll be able to have everything at your disposal, hotbar space permitting for some players.