Why can't I find a job to main?

[Travel]

Wanted to make a small vent about my experiences with this game. Keep in mind; this is in no way an attack on anyone or anything else, this is just me talking about my issues with jobs, and I have no idea where else to post this, so...

So, like the title says, I'm having some difficulties picking out a main job to play for FFXIV. A couple of caveats about me; I'm someone who is big on both roleplay ang gameplay, means that I prefer finding a job that makes sense lore-wise that is still fun to play. In my case, I was thinking about making a character that is from The First Shard, the setting for Shadowbringers; hence some of my previous posts here. On top of that, I also run with a group of my friends sometimes; since they already have a Tank and Healer, that leaves me with DPS - which is what I enjoy the most in other video games anyway.

So, I've been going around and trying out a few classes here and there; thing is, I haven't quite found a class that really "clicks" with me yet. Lancer/Dragoon and Summoner is out for RP reasons, and I leveled Archer/Bard up to 50, but I ended up getting a bit burnt on it. Dancer was considered, but I found myself having difficulties playing support. I've given Machinist, Samurai, and Reaper a pretty good shot, but they again failed to "click" with me for whatever reason, and it frustrates me to no end - that second one in particular, as I LOVE samurai games.

At this point, that leaves me with Red Mage, Rogue/Ninja, Thaumaturge/Black Mage, and Pugilist/Monk as my current options; I'm slightly hesitant about RDM, NIN, and MNK, given their usage on buffs and my legendary crappiness at both remembering to keep my buffs up and, in the case of RDM, targeting my teammates for heals - I can aim at the boss really well, but I tend to fumble trying to target specific teammates.

That all being said; if I can't find a job that I enjoy maining then... I'll go right back to maining SAM and RPR for completing the story.

What? I love this game and its story; there's no way I'm giving it up just because of my failure to find a job I like. I'm aiming to make it through the Endwalker MSQ, at least; I've put way too much investment into the story for me to give up now.

[BRVV]

How much do you like Black Mage? You also don't NEED to focus on only one job. Maybe get equipment first for one you feel is easier and then get stuff for your 3 or so most liked jobs.

[george357]

i started this game with arr and have leveled every job in the game this is my fourth time capping my jobs so i got a lot of time learning all of them so work your jobs pick the ones you like and learn them then pick a good fc and start doing runs.

[Shikiseki]

The thing about leveling new jobs at this point in the game's lifespan is that jobs really don't unfold until usually very late in the game as skills get pruned and spaced out to make space for shiny new attacks every expansion, leaving inbetween leveling very stale for some jobs (for example the highly praised reaper absolutely sucks below 80 and really only feels complete at 90).

I know that leveling jobs is actually half of the game in a sense but I'd focus on the following aspects when it comes to find a RP main:
- your weapon choice
- your party role and teamplay
- the overall aesthetic of the attacks and vibe of the job

stuff like shutting down jobs because they wouldn't make sense lorewise (excluding Dragoon and Summoner) would be a shame cause there are always ways to circumvent that (i.e. calling yourself an Evoker instead of Summoner as the reflection version of the Summoner which was founded by the allag - don't forget who founded them in the first place, I'm sure there are ways to make it interesting )

tl;dr - you might like Summoner on regardless due to minimal buffing and mostly focus on direct damage or Black Mage if you don't mind the long cast times

[Vencio]

Give it time & see what resonates best for you (what’s the hurry anyway right?).

Or you could choose to be versatile & be expandable.

Try not to get burn

[LeonKeyh]

There are a lot of options, it'll take a while for you to find that "right one."

Are there other MMOs that you've played with a class that you enjoy? Maybe we can find something similar over here. I'm not entirely sure what the SMN/DRG RP issues are, but DRG is definitely my favorite melee DPS.

Are you looking for something that is difficult to play well, or are you just looking for something easy or middle of the road to sit down and have fun with?

I can say that RDM doesn't need to target teammates to heal. You shouldn't be healing at all whenever you're in a group, there's no need for it. Now, you may need to rez somebody, but that should be fairly rare if you're just doing casual content.

BRD was, by far, my least favorite job pre-50 and I ended up boosting it (boo! boo! I know). At higher levels it's actually much better and popped up to the top of my list of DPS.

It might be a good idea right now to find a SET of jobs that you think that you might end up liking in the long-run

Red Mage, Black Mage, and Summoner share equipment
Reaper and Dragoon share equipment
Samurai and Monk share equipment
Bard, Machinist, and Dancer share equipment

If you at least narrow down to one of those sets, it'll at least be easier to flip between them.

Keep in mind though that you are kind of "lowish" level and a lot of the jobs don't start really clicking until lvl 70+. Most jobs before then do feel a little "incomplete."

[einschwartz]

The thing about leveling new jobs at this point in the game's lifespan is that jobs really don't unfold until usually very late in the game as skills get pruned and spaced out to make space for shiny new attacks every expansion, leaving inbetween leveling very stale for some jobs (for example the highly praised reaper absolutely sucks below 80 and really only feels complete at 90).

This.
I would suggest keep playing the ones that interest you the most. Or switch between 2 or 3 of them.
Based on your post, I feel like you already gravitate towards SAM and RPR, so maining those two jobs while progressing with MSQ seems like the best option.

[ForrestFields]

I would say not to worry about targeting teammates for heals as a Red Mage. As soon as that becomes needed then the run is almost certainly doomed. Mostly let the healers take care of heals and DPS the mobs. The only thing I do is use verraise on already KOed teammates.

[Kalaam]

For red mage you can make a macro list to put the buttons next to the party member list so you only need to click that button to cast raise on them. So all you'll have to care about is proccing dual cast and then clicking that button to raise the teammate number 2/3/4/etc it's a very simple macro and it helps a lot in reducing targetting issues

[Travel]

I... wasn't expecting the support all of you guys are giving me right now; I'm used to Reddit and Discord, if you know what I mean. Thank you; I'll try and keep going for now - I only have a little time left on this subscription, probably won't be able to finish the Shb MSQ, but I'll do what I can.

I'm also going to give RDM a better shot sometime; I did try out the job a while back, but I found it a little complicated starting out, so I decided to put it on the backburner for later. Looks like I'll be bringing it out again!



Also, didn't mention this in the original post; I'm using a controller, not a keyboard. I know it's still possible to assign buttons to different sets, but I keep forgetting about using said sets, so I'm always assigning my skills and such to the main 16 slots there. It's been working out well enough so far, but if I need to use more than 16 slots for a job when I hit 90, I'd like to know.