Final Fantasy 14: Job classes, Warriors of light assemble.

So, you made it through the character customisation and creation screens to now be presented with what job you can play, see here for previous details on creation. The thing to remember here is your starting class does not have to be your main class, there are 19 main playable classes in total and you can level and play each one.  These jobs are split into the following:

Tanks: Limit break- Party-wide damage reductions

Paladin: Pure tank class, weapons include sword and shield.

Warrior: Crazy axe-wielding berserker class

Gun breaker: A tank that thinks it’s a damage class job and uses a gun blade as a weapon.

Dark Knight: Harnesses the power of darkness and attacks with a great sword.

These four guys get hit in the face, repeatedly so you don’t have to.  With strong armour and heightened defence stats, they keep aggro on all the enemies and survive the hard hits by utilising their cooldowns.  The damage they pump out is not as high as other classes available.

Healers: Limit break- Heals players and resurrects KO players

Sage: Shield healers that also think they are a damage class; their weapon of choice is Nouliths.

White Mage: A pure healer with regen actions, their weapon of choice is large canes.

Scholar: These smarty pants heal by using their books and their pet fairies, another shield healer.

Astrologian: Their weapon of choice is a star globe, and they use cards for divination. Another pure healer class.

These are the people you speak nicely to if you want to survive.  They can heal you; cast regen and apply shields to keep you alive and even rez you if you die.  But please be aware these guys will turn on you fast if you keep making the same silly mistakes that eat into their MP.  They too have to pump out some damage actions and not just constantly heal through other's mistakes. 

Damage per Second (DPS) Classes

Melee- Limit break- Strong single-player attack.

Monk: The punchy, kicky guy of the group, pumps out huge amounts of DPS using fist-assisted weapons but had to keep up positional attacks.

Ninja: Uses stealth attacks with their daggers and works mudras into their rotations.

Dragoon: Delivers jump attacks and piercing attacks using their lance.

Samurai: Uses a katana to deliver powerful attacks called Iaijutsu.

Reaper: Harnesses the power of the void by using their scythe weapon.

Each melee class pumps out high amounts of DPS.  Melee classes are particularly good for solo bosses due to the high damage they can afflict on single targets.

Ranged: Limit break-Line Aoe

Machinist: Uses a gun and a robot to pew pew their enemies down.

Dancer: Attacks with chakrams and buffs the group through their dances.

Bard: Plays songs whilst attacking with their bow and arrows.

This class of DPS attacks from afar makes mechanics a little easier to do due to the mobility the players have.  Good for AOE attacks on mobs. Damage is slightly lower than melee classes.

Caster: Limit Break- Large circle AOE

Summoner: The weapon of choice is a book that helps them cast spells and summon pets to do their bidding.

Red Mage: Is it a melee, caster, or healer? Well, it’s actually all 3, can heal, rez and do a melee combo but its main attacks are magic based.

Black Mage: Launches powerful fire and ice attacks through their rods and is not as mobile as other classes due to cast timers.

Casters also can produce high amounts of DPS, the skill in playing them comes from them having reduced movement due to longer cast timers on their actions.

My Opinion

My personal preference is to play paladin as my tank job due to it having great mitigation and it’s not a difficult class to master, Machinist is my DPS job as I like to attack from afar and the rotation is interesting to optimise, and White Mage is my healer class as I find it relaxing to play without too much to think about. Although  I level all the jobs each expansion these are the 3 classes I always end up playing the most as I put time into learning how to optimise them and being good at something always makes it enjoyable for me.