Is your class/job tied to your character's identity?

[MevariNavalo]

Kind of?

Those that know me know that I'm big about bard performances. But while I actually bothered to level bard to lvl 80, I actually... kinda hate playing as Bard.

Lately I've been more of a scholar main, which is fitting considering I've adopted a "Sharlayan" origin story.

[Stormfur]

But FFXI Dancer is so much fun and I love the spanish AF Attire <3

As a person of Spanish background this makes my day. /hug . I agree, FFXIV can always use more flamenco outfits.

I should clarify that I don't roleplay in game... I just originally created one character for physical stabby stuff and one for magic stuff and although DRK is the closest thing we have to a magic-tank, I really like paladin's simplicity when you just want to zone out and poke things with the pointy end.

I swear to Rhalgr though we need a better alternative to level up quickly. Between dungeons and Bozja I'd rather chew my arm off. I miss HoH-style dungeons.

[Hank_Hotspur]

I admit I usually play the job that's featured in the expansion promotional material for the base expansion story. Like I played Dragoon for HW, Samurai for SB, Dark Knight for ShB, and already eyeing Paladin for EW. For patches I sort go with whatever, but mostly gravitating towards Gunbreaker for story cutscenes.

[Gemina]

She is not really tied to any particular discipline. In my character's personal lore, she adores and desires to be like her adoptive father; whom is an adventurer and excels in melee combat. However, she is of the Lunarian bloodline, which gives her a ton of innate magical ability and Naruto-like aether reserves. She has an affinity to martial arts, especially swordsmanship, but goes against the grain to be proficient in those disciplines. Her true nature is magical, and her father tries to get her to embrace that heritage, but she has difficulty accepting a heritage from moon people that as far as she is knows, are just a bunch of fairytales.

While Gemina's father took her to the three city nations when she was a child to acquire tutelage from their respective disciples of magic, as a young adult, she took it upon herself to train under various masters of melee combat, and has even fired a gun or two because she "likes the smell". While her masters give her credit for being an excellent disciple, all of them have taken note that she can't help but give herself an edge by augmenting her skills with magic. Even if only instinctively.

Not having my character tied to any particular job gives her the flexibility to partake in different disciplines and drop them as she sees fit. Despite that, people who know me would tell others I am a SCH main. A friend of mine who made job themed cookies for several peeps gave me the SCH cookie, and when I asked her why she chose that one; she said, "everyone knows you're a SCH xD" So very much like how my character tries to deny her magical nature and be really good at melee combat; no matter how much I play SAM, NIN, MNK, MCH etc., I will always be a healer, and a SCH in particular.

[spf1200]

Well I've switch my main class with every expansion so... No?

[SwordswornFox]

Sort of...Each Character I create kind of has a vision of a 'primary job' for them, but also has 2 main secondary jobs; one tank, one heal, and one dps job. Right now my current main is pretty much just straight PLD as my GF and I chug through content till HW and his trinity becomes DRK/AST/MCH(and she wants to focus on that trinity as well).

[SavishSalacious]

I'm curious if there are other players out there who tend to tie their class/job to their character's identity. I was mucking around with DRK at level 79 last night and it has been part of how I build my character up from the beginning. Embracing the darkness, blah blah blah. Yeah yeah careful not to cut myself on that edge and all that.

At the same time, I really love the simplicity of paladin. It was the first class I ever played in game, before I even knew what tanking was. I know it's just a game and I can play whatever class I damn well please, but I'm just curious if anyone else did this, where your class is so tightly wound with what your character is like that it seems odd and out of place to change it.

Please tell me I'm not the only one!

Yes my BLM is my character and ME IRL

[Iscah]

Generally I pick jobs for my characters as part of their initial concept, so that dictates at least part of their development, though sometimes it will turn out that another job suits them better.

Aurelie's background mirrors my gameplay: early experience as a conjurer (for me on a previous abandoned character), then moved to Limsa and took up arcanistry. She is definitely a summoner and I don't want to give up on that idea story-wise even though I don't enjoy playing the job that much and prefer to play RDM. Perhaps that will become canon for her once 6.0 is over and it's time for a new story arc.

Bryna was always going to be a tank, and being Lominsan she naturally started as a marauder, though I thought she was going to turn to a paladin later, because yay pretty noble knight over rough violent attacks - but somewhere along the way, warrior just suits her better and some things in the quests struck a chord. It's not that she likes violence, but her whole reason for fighting is to protect the people she cares about. (I think her inner beast is a mama bear.)

Sylviel was going to be the physical DPS of my original trio, and was 50/50 between archer and lancer (the two stories that would be interesting with a Duskwight protagonist) and got archer mostly because he'd better in that artifact gear for the opening cutscene. Lancer quest promptly morphed into a traumatic backstory event causing him to give up that class. The ARR bard storyline unexpectedly fitted into this perfectly. In practice (and for glamour) I more often play mage classes with him, but I'm not sure about this within the story.

Haru started as rogue but didn't have a really ideal class until dancer released. I'd already decided he was Thavnairian, so now I think he came as part of the dance troupe from the storyline and fell in with Team WoL along the way. He may have still gotten ninja training at Yugiri's suggestion in the post-ARR plot.

U'zolwe is a weird one and his jobs are all over the place - he started as gladiator and I was 100% sure he was going to move from that to gunbreaker, but then fell sideways into samurai prettymuch just because I thought the glamours available to striking role suited him better. I am quite certain he is not actually a samurai, just a lightweight sword fighter.

Zi'aba's whole design concept was "would look cute in scholar artifact gear" and he has prettymuch stuck to just that, though I did pick up BLM to level through story quests.

Zi'lani is primarily a gatherer, but she needed a battle class so I went with archer because it seemed a suitable "trekking through the wilderness" class.

[Allegor]

Kinda, which is why I outright avoided unlocking certain jobs for the longest while, and why even now I still regret unlocking some. I'm happy I got the amaro, but I pretend the only "canon" jobs I got are WHM (first and main), RDM and DNC (half white magic and cleanser of negative spirit thingies) and GNB (hello fellow Hroth, let me teach you the traditions of our people)

That said, I actually like how in the end it adds to the worldbuilding in case you ever cross paths with characters previously tied to job quests in the MSQ, or vice versa - Estinien being one of the earliest and most notable cases.

[Catwho]

Katarh is a goldsmith. That's been the only part that is definitely part of her identity. Actual battle classes come and go, but she's a Master Goldsmith first and foremost.

However, some of my RP characters are much more deeply tied to a single battle job. My Roe guy is only ever a warrior. My Raen Au Ra is a runaway geomancer who joined the conjurer guild and is now a white mage. My Roe grandmother is always a scholar, but she also is a culinarian.