Is a level skip worth it?

[SenorPatty]

I've seen a lot of people say that getting the skills one at a time makes a big difference in a player's ability to play a job, is that true? I'm not the type of person who would blindly run into multiplayer content with the boosted job before practicing on dummies and watching a guide of two, but is the experience of leveling manually worth the terribly long grind? Should I suck it up and level it up myself or is the potion a viable option?

In my opinion, it's not worth it, but that's completely irrelevant. The question of whether or not a job skip potion is worth it solely depends on how much you value the convenience of skipping the leveling. Having a good grasp of the game's core, taking the time to train on dummies, looking for people's opinion on the subjective value of worth, none of that matters in the grand scheme on what you really want out of your game.

Besides, with all the thinking you've done about this, combined with the steps you take or will take to ensure you play the job properly, it seems to me like you might have already made up your mind about it.

EDIT: Now to answer your question about if getting skills one at a time makes a big difference in someone's ability to play the job? The short answer is no. The long answer is no. The ability to play a job is centered around mostly practicing with it. You research, you train, you master the game's instances, all of that tie in with your ability to play a job. Plenty of players get new skills or traits from leveling from scratch but never look into them, prompting them to be the "ice mages" of the end game.