being forced to play as other characters is garbage (SPOILERS)

[Jojoya]

I agree it's boring, like most of the drawn out RP duties. There's nothing interesting about playing as those characters for 5-10 minutes pressing the same 1-2 buttons 95% of the fight.

But you don't "get destroyed" if you fight Zenos head on. Yugiri or Lyse will cast a decent sized heal on you any time your HP drops below 50%. That's a big difference to get used to when you come here from WoW - you don't need your HP constantly topped off. You're usually going to be okay if you're at least 50%, especially in solo duties and dungeons, so the NPCs are programmed to heal when you reach that point.

Honestly I think it's a good way to promote other jobs to players who would otherwise never touch them.

It's a really poor way to promote other jobs. They're more likely to ensure players who otherwise would never touch them never will.

I'm usually leaving those duties going "so glad that XX isn't really like that".