One minor criticism

[SnowVix]

I love this game, just like all of you, I think it immensely superior to WoW. I quit WoW long before the exodus here in recent years.

However the one minor criticism of this game that I have is that there is no specialisations, so if I want to play something like a Paladin (which have traditionally been all 3 roles), I need to be a tank.

It really puts me off being a Paladin, because I love the look but just don't want to tank dungeons and raids. Its sad that there weren't more choices when it comes to classes, I know that makes it harder to balance and I'm not complaining to be petty...

Just makes me a little sad is all. (Healer main btw)

I would argue that the specialization system from WoW is rendered unnecessary by the Armoury system here. And also, historically in Final Fantasy (and also in D&D, which the first Final Fantasy was pretty clearly based on) Paladin has never been anything but a tank.

Final Fantasy 3 - Paladin has the special ability Cover, which intercepts physical attacks aimed at low HP party members.
Final Fantasy 4 - Same as above (Cecil after proceeding through the Mount of Ordeals)
Final Fantasy 5 - Same as above (though called Knight).
Final Fantasy 6 - Knight's Code/True Knight relic grants the ability to use Cover
Final Fantasy 11 - Paladins are pretty much exclusively tanks
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance & A2 - Paladins gain abilities like Defense, Cover, and Parley (which can convince an enemy to leave battle)
D&D 3.5e - Paladins have the heaviest armor, are one of the few classes with shield proficiency, and have a spell list that has primarily buffs, and are meant to be played to place themselves in between the enemy and the squishy mages.
D&D 4e - Paladins are explicitly the Defender class of the Divine power source. Defender is literally a tank, and they gain abilities that force enemies to engage them or take severe penalties if they decide not to.
D&D 5e - Building on 4e, they get some of those abilities again as spells, able to magically force a particularly dangerous enemy to face them instead of their allies.

[ddwarbird]

However Cecil could use the Cure line of spells, Esuna and other white magic.
In FFIX Beatrix (A Paladin/Knight) could one-shot you with Climhazzard and Shock... but I don't see the Paladin in FFXIV one shotting mobs.

I don't really see your point... its not like Final Fantasy hasn't played around with classes before. They could very easily give a tanky/healer version of the Paladin.
Plus their armour is literally the coolest in the game.

There is no beefy, tanky healer in this game... that's the issue. You are limited to jobs that take 1-2 hits and die in the healing role.

[Mikey_R]

However Cecil could use the Cure line of spells, Esuna and other white magic.
In FFIX Beatrix (A Paladin/Knight) could one-shot you with Climhazzard and Shock... but I don't see the Paladin in FFXIV one shotting mobs.

I don't really see your point... its not like Final Fantasy hasn't played around with classes before. They could very easily give a tanky/healer version of the Paladin.
Plus their armour is literally the coolest in the game.

There is no beefy, tanky healer in this game... that's the issue. You are limited to jobs that take 1-2 hits and die in the healing role.

Paladins could use cure in the old cross class system, but that has been replaced with the role system. Plus, Paladin has Clemency, which is essentially their own version of Cure (Cure was useless as it scaled off of Mind, Clemency scales off of strength).

Beatrix was wiping out your party for story reasons. She is an incredibly powerful knight storywise after all. Plus, by that logic, basically every character had a way to deal guaranteed 9999 damage, does that mean every job represented there shoudl also be one-shotting everything? Think about that for a second.

Other FF games were mainly single player where balance is not important and experimentation was encouraged. The difference here is that some semblance of balance has to be held. You cannot have a healer than can take hits better than the other healers otherwise that isn't fair as they can survive more and potentially survive things that they shouldn't, making them mandatory. It's the same reason why tanks deal less damage than DPS. If tanks did do the same damage, you would just take more tanks over DPS. Might as well take the ones that can take hits and deal it back with the added benefit of even more defensive utility. You need the balance.