Considering starting up; looking for class/job advice.Follow

Hello,

My son and I are considering playing XIV, and I'm looking for advice. He wants to eventually play as a BLM, but I'd rather play whatever is in the most demand (or whatever is always lacking, really). What would you all recommend? I remember PLDs, NINs, RDMs, and BRDs always being the thing that prevented some groups from forming up for whatever they were going to do. What is the job or class in this game that is needed but no one seems to play? It doesn't matter to me if the job is a burden. I played FFXI for several years as a RDM, SCH, and PUP. I understand how tedious a lot of these types of jobs can be.

Thanks!

For in demand jobs you are looking for Healers and Tanks. Either one for either one. I will say that because they are in high demand, you will be expected to know how to play your part so make sure you practice, read up, and understand your role. Its simple to say but it becomes much more apparent as you start to do the content if you can handle the job or not and what you need to work on.

My question is, how often will you play together vs. apart? If you are going to play together a lot I would recommend one of you Heal and one of you Tank,That way you know you will always be able to be in the same party as the other and as a team, you will always be needed.

You will both enjoy the game regardless of what you do. Welcome!

It is true, what people have been writing above. But id like to point out, that you cant compare the "demand-situation" in ffxi with ffxiv. I wouldnt worry about it so much if i were you.

If your son wants to target Black Mage as his main, he'll have to start as the Thaumaturge class, which starts in Uldah. As others have mentioned, it's tanks and healers that are in the biggest demand. If you start as a Gladiator (which becomes a Paladin later), you'll also start in Uldah so you can start playing together immediately. It may not be a big deal to some people, but to some it might.

Arcanist is probably the class that most resembles the Red Mage, Scholar, and Puppetmaster jobs you played in FFXI. Arcanist is the jack-of-all-trades class so far. They can heal with Physick in a pinch, they can tank with topaz carbunclue in a pinch, and their main method of dealing damage is through DoT debuffs that they stack on enemies. Good arcanists will be very busy and will swap between roles as needed over the course of the battle. Arcanist can eventually be upgraded to Summoner or Scholar. As others have stated, as a healer, Scholar will also be in high demand. However you will have to wait until level 30 to unlock it and be "in demand".

From experience, paladin has 0 wait time for any duty finder queue. Black Mage and other DD can wait 30 min to an hour to get a random duty finder party. Obviously you can shout for parties or find a free company that will lend assistance. However, if you randomly queue up with your son as blm and you as pal Im sure that the wait times to get into dungeons will not be a problem. Still, most of the first run to fifty is on your own time anyhow so dungeons are only a small, but necessary part. Have fun, its a great game! Wish my kid was old enough to get involved. =)

Leveling is really not dependent on being an "in-demand" class... however storyline progression is slightly faster since you can queue for the dungeons faster as a Tank than as a DPS. And of course end-game is also dungeon queues... but if you just play something you like you'll probably like the game a lot more. I have played my fiance's toon on occasion and I can't stand being a healer in this game. In FFXI and every other MMO I ever played I was a healer and it was fine... but for some reason I don't like it in FFXIV. To each their own basically, try out the different classes to see what you like playing.

FATE's are actually just as fast as a DPS, maybe even faster.... especially when you join a FATE group (up to 8 members). You'll wind up just spamming your AoE moves for the most part regardless of what job you are.

I think it's less to do with everyone having teleports.

Tanks take more damage in XIV. Period. Heck, a NIN/WAR tank in FFXI was prized because if they were good they would never actually get hit. They needed a haste and status removal, but a properly leveled NIN would either evade the attack outright or have Utsusemi absorb it. A RDM/WHM could handle curing just fine. A paladin in XI took more damage than a NIN, but they also had better shield blocking capabilities so their damage was heavily mitigated.

Warriors didn't tank in XI after level 36. They took too much damage and had the evasion abilities that matched a dark knight's accuracy. (WAR is now a preferred tank again at level 99, though, since they hold hate better than PLD/WAR or NIN/WAR could ever dream.)

Compare that to GLD/Paladin and MRD/Warrior in XIV. Both are blood tanks. GLD takes less damage. MRD takes more initial damage but has self healing abilities. Neither of them are very good at evading attacks, and only properly geared ones get damage mitigation down to manageable levels. Add in the faster pace of combat in XIV,and it's a recipe for a healer job to literally sit there and spam cures every single fight, nonstop, over and over and over again. It's so bad I had to make a macro to alert my party that I had adds on me, because I could not take my fingers off the curing keys for even the ten seconds it would take to type that in the chat bar. I'm riding the GCD timers like a professional bull fighter.

And if your DPS can't dodge an attack and they die, they blame the healer. In XI at least it was understood that everyone had to have some form of reraise, either from a scroll or a hairpin or a gorget or SOMETHING. Melee in XI tended to be more careful with their lives since that reraise charge cost money or effort. XIV has no reraise for anyone. The DPS are at the mercy of the healer to get raise on them, and a healer just doesn't have time (or the MP) to easily cast that mid fight. That's why I'm scrabbling my way to THM 26 - I couldn't get raise on the DPS in Stone Vigil without it.

I agree with this entirely. WHM needs a better MP recovery tool than SoS. Something like Astral/Umbral for WHM's would be lovely.

Respectfully, I disagree. From what I remember nearly all of the WHM class quests included friendly NPCs that would eventually win the fight for you if you kept them alive. The LVL50 quest was the exception. It taught you the importance of spamming HOLY when surrounded by low HP adds.

As for healing at the end game, well, I find it to be pretty straight forward. I took WHM to Bahamut's Coil last night for the first time (Surprise, we needed a healer more than a BLM *sigh*) and the only things to worry about were:

1.) Keep the tank alive
2.) Don't stand in the wrong place

Arguably, the DD have a bit more things to think about through the different phases of most fights. I find MP regen is a non-issue with a Bard and Mage's Ballad.

To the OP, play whatever is fun to you.

If you want to queue very fast in the Duty Finder, play a tank. If you want to fill a much needed role, play a tank or healer. But you know what? A good DD is worth it's weight in gold. Nearly every battle is easier on the both the Tank and Healer if the DD are very strong.

So ultimately, if you learn to play your chosen class very well, no matter what class you pick, your Free Company friends are going to want you in the party.





Edited, Nov 26th 2013 6:13pm by Gnu