How often do you change jobs when you play?

[Vhanja]

I'm originally an altoholic so I prefer to have multiple chars doing different things, with light RP. I've only played this game a few months and so I'm trying to wrap my head around the concept of doing everything with one char.

So far I've tried to stick to one job until L50, to unlock a few other jobs. Then I got RLM and SAM, which was confusing as I got a high-level job with a bunch of skills handed to me which was a bit hard to get into. So I started trying out different jobs for shorter amount of time. Which was fun, but meant that I never really took the time to get into a job and the mechanics of it.

How guys do you go about playing the game when it comes to switching jobs?

Do you play one job until L50 or L90 to really get to know how it works before levelling a new one?
Do you change between different jobs in one gaming sessions, for instance doing hunting logs on all active jobs at the same time?
Do you have several jobs at equal-ish lvl and switch between them often?

[ZephyrMenodora]

I tend to focus one at a time until max level, unless I don't like the class in which case I just leave them at whatever random level and move on.

In a given day right now I'm spending 90% of my time on Dancer, who is level 81. But I'll return to WHM if I feel like doing dailies for level 90 Tomes.

I'm doing Pixies on my Warrior since I don't like tanking higher level dungeons for PUGS so am slowly levelling him from those daily quests until 80.

So a given day for me looks like Warrior (Pixies), Dancer (Leveling, Alliance Raid, MSQ), WHM (Normal Raid, Trials, Expert). I have a Reaper at 90 that I levelled from MSQ but as a DPS I have a feeling I prefer Dancer so it probably won't get much play.

Edit: My goal right now is to get 1 of each of the 5 archetypes to 90 for the Role Story Quests, and when I'm done that I'll probably just spend 90% of my time on WHM or DNC), while just using levelling Roulette for any classes left over I have even a minor interest in (Bard, Monk, and Ast).

[HyoMinPark]

In terms of what my character “mains”, it tends to stay the same for extended periods of time.

From my start date (Nov 2015) to the release of ShB, I was a BRD main (nearly 4 years).
In ShB, I was a DNC main (over 2 years).
Now, I’m a SGE main.

However, when I first started, I leveled jobs one at a time. I’d get them to level 60, and then pick up the next one. When SB dropped, everything was level 60, so I start leveling by roles for armory chest space reasons. So all healers, all tanks, all physical ranged, etc.. And I did it at the same time to kind of keep their levels the same and reduce that bloat. And that’s been my pattern now kind of. I’ve deviated slightly in that I get my favorite jobs to cap first, and then go by roles after that.

When I’m just playing casually, I shuffle them within a role, usually. Like last night some friends and I were running Dun Scaith for fun, and I just shuffled among my healers each run. However, the roles I primarily enjoy are healers and physical ranged; so I only really have 7 options to shuffle between. I have friends that pick a new job every run of something if we’re farming; and frequently jump roles, too.

[Ransu]

I more or less only do raiding content on my main. I do level two jobs at the start of every expansion though since the amount of exp you get from the MSQ+Dungeon runs is more than enough to level two jobs at the same time to the new cap. After that I just go back through and level other jobs I'm interested in to the new cap when I have free time and kinda rotate playing them through expert roulette just to have some variety when I run that roulette.

I have switched up my mains over the years though. I used to main drg on an old character and then swapped to BRD after they made changes to DRG in SB and ruined it imo (HW was peak DRG imo) but that only lasted for a short time as I moved to SAM later on and will probably stay a SAM main for a long time unless they make drastic changes like they did with DRG post HW that are bad enough to make me swap to another job.

[Illmaeran]

That's a good question! "Back When I Was Your Age" we had to get different classes to 15 or 30 to qualify for jobs so that made it a bit easier for us to get used to. That being said, I've been a massive altaholic for both RP and crafting reasons in other games so it was a bit of an adjustment being able to play everything on a single character. Since I play my avatars as characters, even if it's just internal dialog with NPCs, I think of my main job as the RP job, with things like crafting or a secondary job as hobbies. For example, guy's a Dragoon who just happened to grow up in the Shroud so he knows how to use a bow (to hunt), herb craft (BTN), how to make poultices (ALC), and how to cook his own food. Everything else is Not Really There and only gets used to allow for different glamours/RP outfits or to help friends with things (PLD).

Back when secondary classes were a requirement I leveled all similar classes together, rotating every 5-10 levels, so I could double dip on gear to avoid clogging up my armory chest. If I were going to attempt getting all jobs to 90 these days I'd do it that way again since each group of jobs has 4 sets of Poetic gear. Since I'm not that insane, I do DRG through the MSQ and max it out first, then gathering/crafting to max, then the secondary/utility jobs, almost always focusing on them until max level before moving on. With the secondary jobs I may switch between them for group activities depending on the needs at the time, but otherwise stick to that one.

[Gemina]

During leveling, I play multiple jobs that span across all five roles. During that time, I map out their skills and try my best to get used to using them while in combat. It isn't until max that I choose 2-3 jobs to really hone and take into harder content. There is no way I can give all my max jobs that kind of time and dedication, but I do tend to favor some jobs depending on the content and the encounter.

This expansion I would like to try taking a physical ranged DPS into some EX content and chose DNC, so in the near future I will be focusing on adding that job to my repertoire.

[BaconBits]

I level up just about every job but usually have a favorite in each role.

Dragoon is my favorite melee, though Ninja is vying for that spot.

I haven't capped Gunbreaker and Dank Knight yet to get a feel for them, but Warrior holds a special place in my heart because of monke flip.

Haven't maxed out any of the physical ranged yet, mainly because Elden Ring has me in an inescapable choke hold. I might give Dancer a shot though.

Black Mage will always be my favorite caster. Plain and simple.

As for healers, while I'm still bitter about the direction they've taken and the hilariously dull damage rotation that practically remains the same from Sastasha all the way to endgame, I like Sage. If only because it at least has a semblance of something approaching an actual damage rotation. Even if it's just hit Phlegma twice during openers or when necessary without overcapping then returning to Dosis spam.

[LeonKeyh]

I group the classes together based off their gear and then generally level most jobs with the "same" gear together.

First, I take 1 character to cap. (I would absolutely suggest sticking with this until you do it, because as you go through the MSQ, you're going to unlock a ton of things that make leveling subsequent jobs easier/quicker).

Then, I level 1 tank, 1 magical DPS, 1 physical ranged DPS, 1 melee DPS and 1 healer to max level for the role quest lines (one of these would be satisfied by the character I leveled to cap, SCH/SMN are 2 birds with 1 stone here too).

From there, I pick one of these groups and level them all, breaking down gear as I pass it up to clean up my inventory:


DRK, GNB, PLD, WAR
SCH, SGE, WHM, AST
BRD,DNC, MCH, NIN* (*special case here, since NIN doesn't share scouting gear with anything, but DOES share accessories, I level it with the ranged physical)
DRG, RPR
SAM, MNK
BLM, RDM, SMN

I basically do it this way so that I can save gear for the other jobs and get rid of the gear as quickly as possible.

[Vhanja]

Thanks for your input, guys (and please give me more of your ideas!)

I like the idea of levelling them in groups, gear-wise. However, I am not that structured. If I were to do it like that, it would become more of a chore because then I would "have to" stick a particular job.

When I was aiming for RLM I wasn't aware that the job would start at L50 along with all those skills. I struggle a bit with that and SAM. Not the jobs themselves, but getting that many skills and high-level job handed to me. I don't even know where to begin with them. With the other classes, I could level them up from scratch, gain skills over time and really learn the class properly.

So even though I find RLM and SAM fun in themselves, I am actually considering starting with GLD or MRD (haven't tried those) so that I can learn a job properly again.

So far, WHM is my main and I got that at L52. BLM at lvl 40-something and a few other classes down the line.

[Recon1o6]

i used to stick to just one job of each healer, tank, dps, but nowadays im swapping constantly on the odd occasion i play because there isn't a job out there now bar BLU healer that has any sort of depth and playstyle that I enjoy anymore that hasn't become stale.

The shb job changes were a massive step backwards for this game and EW's were a doubling down and mainly qol that shouldn't need an entire expansion for.


edit: to provide further clarity, when I level a job I always level it to the next 10 at a time to avoid burnout. So 50,60,70,80,90 unless an update happens that makes me not want to play the job anymore. When choosing a job to level, I look at its tooltips for later. You can get a feel for how jobs work when you read the tooltips, and thats why I've not bothered touching 6.0 smn because its literally one long rotation that can be stuck on a macro.

Thats why mch, smn/sch and bard are all at the odd levels. I haven't touched them since they got changed into something i did not enjoy