Job Machinist: Fun at first and now grinding...

[LuSnow]

Hello All

I have an alt who took over the machinist job in Ishgard. I had taken care not to do any side quests before so that I had a lot available to level up. But now, as I progressed further, fun is getting eroded by how much a grinding it is. Side quests are not enough and I had to do fates to finish levelling up from 34 to 35. Fortunately, I have now again a lot of quests available, but I find the whole thing a bit weird.

At the top of it, I also discovered that hunting logs are dead to me because they're linked to the main class. Seriously? So what? I'm a machinist but I have to return to my original class if I want to finish hunting logs? Why?

My question: What is the original intention of the jobs? I don't get it when I see that obviously, all is done for main class and "jobs" seem to be a back up hobby with nothing attached to it? Or do I fail to understand the concept?

[Hazelx3]

You only want to level up the MCH job? Do daily roulettes with it or dungeons in similar or higher level range you are able to enter to level up quick.
Or if you like PvP, you can also do CC with the job you play, it helps leveling up too

[Jeeqbit]

At first we had classes in version 1.0.

However, these classes were... not very iconic to the Final Fantasy franchise. So when Naoki Yoshida took over, he wanted to add jobs well known to the Final Fantasy franchise. This led to Gladiator upgrading to Paladin, Marauder upgrading to Warrior, Pugilist upgrading to Monk, Lancer upgrading to Dragoon, Archer upgrading to Bard, Conjurer upgrading to White Mage and Thaumaturge upgrading to Black Mage. They got gear that made them resemble iconic types of characters that you play in the single player games.

In ARR (version 2.0), it was immediately apparent that classes were irrelevant and there was no reason to downgrade. As a result, the expansions just added jobs. Since you upgrade to jobs at level 30 and expansion jobs start at level 30 or higher, everything added in expansions is job-only and doesn't have a class hunt log.

There is a similar mechanic in SWTOR where you upgrade to an "advanced class". So it's not entirely just something that happens in this game. But I suspect they will eventually make it harder to downgrade to your class due to there being no reason to do it.

You can still get the guildhest first-time bonus for each guildhest, per job. You can also still do roulettes and the dungeon closest to your level (excluding level 50/60/70/80/90 dungeons).

[LuSnow]

OK, I get it. I'm just a bit disappointed not to be able to manage the same activities than if I would have stayed on Bard. I find machinist pretty funny to play, but quite egoistic! LOL

[Frizze]

Machinist Dark Knight and Astrologian are in a weird place. When they were planning Heavensward as the first expansion they made a few choices that we still feel today. Would they add new jobs with the expansions? They decided yes. There were plenty of job identities that hadnt been explored yet. But the story continues ever onward. The quests in Heavensward would be level 50-60. So what do you do with the new jobs? Do they start at level 1? Thats a LONG grind to get caught up to the new content. Do they start right at 50? That would mean people using them in the new expansion with literally 0 chance to experience how the job functions. So they settled on "close to the expansion, but not AT the expansion level". In Heavensward this was a 20 level grind from 30-50 to "catch up". Player feedback said that was a bit much, so from Stormblood onward it became 10 levels behind. Starting at 30 also meant they didnt have to drop the WHOLE class kit on you at once. You could start with most of it and grow into the rest. As jobs start at higher and higher levels moving forward, they have increasingly complex loadouts to learn on the fly.

Which has nothing to do with your question. Fates, roulettes(leveling, pvp, guildhest at your level), and dungeon ques/duty support are the fastest means. The ARR tribal quests kick in around 40ish if you want an extra boost. Look through your challenge log. Theres a lot of bonus exp to be had if you know to look for it.

[LuSnow]

Thanks a lot, as usual <3

Now that I reached 35, I have a big bunch of side quests available. Let's see how far they bring me. I don't like fates much, but some easy ones are also a good mean to progress. I should be happy with that. 41 is not far ahead and I will have tribe quests: those are not linked to main class right? They are available to job? Yes, they're OK, sorry, failed to see that you told me... ROFL