No Wrong Answers: What Job(s) do you think are the best desgined, and why?

[Renathras]

What the title says. Ignore balance/tuning numbers for a minute and just consider gameplay. What the rotation feels like, if it covers all the bases for what you enjoy in a Job, etc. What things do you like about it? What does it have/do that makes you feel good playing it and feel like it's a good Job?

I don't want to steer the discussion too heavily, but by way of example, I can go first:

RDM:

I really think RDM is a very well designed Job. The basic concept is so easy pretty much everyone can understand what you're trying to do within minutes of picking up the Job, yet there are a lot of little optimizations you can do to improve, and the Job rewards high level fight knowledge just like BLM does in terms of when to use your burst combo, if you need to save Acceleration for things, and whether even really high end play of planning out your Mana gauge across a fight.

Meanwhile, it has easily understandable utility. Verraise is very clear about what it is, Vercure can be useful in some situations (but also for skill ceiling used for optimization Dualcast procing when bosses are untargetable but returning soon). Embolden is straightforward and useful, while Magicked Barrier (along with Addle) is useful for additional planning or emergency use situations. Vercure and Verraise are powerful, but at the cost of disrupting your damage rotation (so you cannot be healer AND DPSer at the same time, a good trade), preventing RDM from displacing healers while also preserving its clutch utility in emergency situations like a healer DC in a 4 man.

It's as easy or hard as the player wants to make it, entry level and high end, and with lots of utility that is well balanced and understandable, and pulling off the burst combo just feels very satisfying, as does Slide-into-Dualcasting your way across the field, dancing through mechanics. Indeed, the rotation itself largely feels buttery smooth to play, even if I personally somewhat dislike the proc system, it still feels good overall in general to move between the short casts and Dualcasts, building up to the burst combo, zooming in to do it, flipping out, and finishing with a bang before starting the process again. It feels responsive and smooth all around, and just feels GOOD to play.

And when it comes to leveling/syncing, the Job fills out early, establishing the core concept and rotation of the Job by level 50, and a more or less complete rotation (Embolden and Manafication) by 60, meaning other than not having Verraise, you get NEARLY the full RDM experience even when synced to mid-level (50/60) content, where most of the game (roulettes etc) are likely to place you on any given day. (Not as good as, say, WAR, but better than, say, BLM, which has to change its hotbars and rotation every few levels).

I feel it's probably the single best designed Job in the game. Not PERFECT (I hate the AOE rotation is "backwards" from the single target rotation, I think Enchanted Reprise should cost 1/1 or 2/2 instead of 5/5 MP or should cost 15/15 but 3x of them can take the place of your melee [for when it's not safe to melee] to unlock your burst but at the cost of a DPS loss traded for that safety, and I think that some spells should come at different levels, like Vercure should be by level 15 and Verraise by level 50), but very well designed overall.

[Renathras]

I guess if I was to assign runners up, they'd probably be:

WHM - The straightforward kit is easy to understand and just feels powerful (even if mitigation is actually, mechanically, king). It lives up to the classic archetype of powerful healer and nails the aesthetic, too.

SCH - While way more technical, there are some things that just feel amazing, those little "moments of awesome" like using a Recitation, Adloquium, and Deployment Tactics to just outright ignore mechanics.

SMN - The rotation is smooth, the mini phases are easy to understand and fit into the larger whole, and it has some useful utility between Raise, a party buff, and some limited, rotation dependent healing, and the big hitting spikes of power in the rotation feel powerful between the damage done and VFX.

Note that, of course, all of these have their own issues in various ways - again, no Job is perfect - but these would be my A ranks after RDM being my S rank.

EDIT:

I think my B tier after that would be:

PLD: Since the rework, it plays well as the "Tank with a miner in Healing and Casting" since Holy Might has you slinging spells more often in the rotation. The reason for not making it A is that it still has some weird choices/clunk. Why are FoF and Req separate buttons when always used together? Why does Goring Blade still exist? Why does Cover cost 50 Oath Gauge to use despite having a somewhat lengthy CD to prevent overuse? Just a few things I'd like to see polished a bit more. WHM is just a hair away from A rank to me, it just has a few things that are a BIT clunky for no good reason. Honestly, I could coin-flip this one to A and also feel justified. So many systems DO work well, and I like how Clemency is good party utility in emergencies but costly enough to use that it isn't a go-to to delete healers from content.

WAR: Fun to play, straightforwrad, and seems to nail the class fantasy, but it keeps drifting into being a bit overpowered. Some of the mechanics don't really DO much of anything (like the Infuriate CD reduction; they could just lower Infuriate's native CD and normalize it), and having the self-buff to upkeep can be kind of mildly annoying sometimes since it draws attention away from the more direct/fun unga bunga of the role.

GNB - I like the combo and still having a mini-burst every 30 seconds overall feels good, the animations are cool, and it's got good utility without feeling overpowered. It knows what it wants to be and delivers with a bang. But it was pointed out to me that its gauge generation due to the third charge needed for burst has really bad problems with drift or mechanics preventing consistent uptime, which is an issue in some cases and does disrupt the flow of the Job, though it's still pretty fun overall.

SGE: Overall not bad, but again, some odd design choices. It has Kardia but then leans on oGCD heals instead (like the other non-WHM healers) for some reason, and it has this odd mix of melee range and caster range abilities for no apparent reason. And Toxicon is neither damage neutral (allowing you to get the most out of shielding gameplay) nor does Addersting generate any other way. It also occasionally feels bad to overcap on Addersgall and have to "burn" them on something not useful if Taurochole and/or Kerochole are on CD or you need to hold them for some upcoming mechanic and everyone's at 100% so Durochole and Ixochole would be meaningless to use at that point, yet you have to for SGE's MP management. Not asking for a Energy Drain situation, but something to use Addersgall on that wouldn't be a waste, like either a barrier or Tauro/Kerachole to be a bit more flexible for this purpose.

MCH - It's SOOO close to being A rank, but the issue is the ping reliance. It's a Job that is so close to being great but for that sticking point.

NIN - I love NIN to about level 60, but the Ninki additions just sour me on the Job a lot. Meisui seems to exist just to do something with Suiton, and Suiton just exists to use Trick Attack. The Job SEEMS to be aiming to have a mechanic where it has big hitters that require stealth, at which point Suiton would just be a different and more interesting variation of the 1 min self-buff...but then it isn't. It's JUST for Trick Attack, and Meisui JUST for Suiton. Then you get into the stuff like Bunshin and Phantom and TCJ disrupting your mobility for REASONS...and it just breaks down what would otherwise be a really fun Job to me.

The rest of the Jobs I either consider further from "enjoyable" or haven't played enough to be sure either way.

[Avoidy]

I like how nin feels fast and precise (the mudras) and also gives me something fun to do every 60 seconds instead of every 120s. The 123 animations are satisfying. Dream within a dream is beautiful looking. I love nin.

[Yuella]

Samurai and Dancer are the only ones that have no flaw

[Denji]

War.
It's easy, you have a lot of ways to weave CDs and abilities, you can help a bit with healing whether it be yourself or others and you don't have to track combos, dots or worry about any of that.
If you can count to three, you can play war.

[CidHeiral]

DRG/GNB are off the chain. I enjoy them immensely.

[VentVanitas]

insert obligatory BLM post here.

easy to grasp at a basic level once you hit level 90, incredibly modular rotation for those that wish to get better at it. it's the only job I would dare say has built any semblance of personality for itself because it was simply allowed to be left alone without being unnecessarily reworked to fit the mould of another job. insert obligatory SMN comment here.

[Grizzlpaw]

I'm no game dev but If pick my favorite DPS, Healer and Tank based purely on fun.

3. Machinist - Because I am biased and I am a sucker for anything Mecha. The animations are cool (love the flips). Going wild with OGCDs during burst windows makes my dopamine receptors light up with glee. Not too much downtime. Fluid to play thanks to freedom of movement.

2. Sage - The most fun healer to play. I like being able to drop a party wide shield and 10% damage reduction buff before AoE damage hits. Having on-demand heals on the move. Being able to dot mobs or spam AoEs during wall to wall pulls while simultaneously sustaining the tank thanks to Kardia. Satisfying OGCDs. It's has more than 1 DPS button which helps break up the monotony. You have to keep an eye on your shields so you can make the most of your Adersing charges. It's easy to pick up, but there's a fair bit to master here which I like. I wouldn't have minded a few more DPS buttons to make up a mini rotation. If it worked a bit like Disc priest in wow where optimizing your damage output also causes you to output more heals that would have been perfect. There's room for improvement, but it's still fun to play. My favorite healer easily.

1. Gunbreaker - A jack of all trades tank with tools to fit any situation. DPS wise, I enjoy playing this over any other DPS. There's virtually zero down time in the rotation. You press 123 twice and you're already back to bursting. The cooldowns line up just right with mini bursts followed by big bursts followed by mini bursts. Super satisfying. Defensively, you've got just enough self sustain with Brutal Shell, Aurora, and Heart of Corundum. Raid wide defensives that you can pop before big damage hits and feel like you are helping.
There's meme potential with Superbolide Macros >

I really can't find much to complain about. GNB is why i continue to play this game. It's fun, it's got a cool theme. And I definitely do not simp for the quest giver NPC.

[CaptainLagbeard]

Ever since they nerfed PLD, I've started taking a liking to WAR.

It does have the slight flaw that it still feels like it's kit is designed around Defiance giving it's Max HP buff from before ShB, as it's entire shtick is just kind of facetanking the damage and heal through it with ridiculous amounts of health regen.

But overall it's base rotation isn't bad and Inner Release being on a 60s CD doesn't lets you get away from it often enough.

[Xirean]

I tend to prefer classes that were either released in later expansions or got reworked later. Older classes that have been added to with no rework always feel like they just get new systems tacked on and feel clunky for me. Ninja, old Monk, and old Summoner are examples of this in my opinion. Currently my main DPS is Reaper which just flows like water and is very satisfying. RDM has managed to maintain its unique quick pick up for new players that it had on release which is huge advantage of the class. I'm actually looking forward to the upcoming Dragoon rework as the class has started to feel clunky to me.