I’m leveling a lot of jobs right now, and my feelings on them are really variable. Currently I have:
- Reaper (81): Feels pretty decent to play. Soul Reavers and Enshroud are a bit awkward, but as a Warrior main, Reaper feels kind of like a Warrior’s offensive suite, enlarged and made into a job in its own right. Has a lumbering, powerful feel, with just enough mobility to keep in contact with the enemy, and probably the best defenses of any DPS.
- Gunbreaker (81): Defensive suite is much like any other tank, but it took me quite a while to understand how to use the offensive suite. I get it now, but with all the different independent parts in it, compared to Warrior I am reminded of the “See what they must do to attain a fraction of our power” anime meme. Especially since patch 6.4 seems to have put Warrior and Gunbreaker on par with each other in terms of DPS, the only reason for me to level Gunbreaker is for the achievements.
- Dragoon (80): I originally leveled this job into the low 50s, then abandoned it because it felt like a boring chore to play. From about 70 onward it feels complicated and intricate, and I can respect it, but Dragoon now relates to Reaper as Gunbreaker relates to Warrior for me: “See what they must do to attain a fraction of our power.”
- Scholar (51): Since I normally heal on Sage, the general ideas here feel familiar. Scholar feels slower, klunkier, and more MP-guzzling, but it’s solid enough. I miss Kardia and Sage’s mobility, but I’m looking forward to seeing how Scholar might make up for it with different abilities.
- Summoner (51): I was originally put off by the weird modal structure of Arcanist — do an elemental summon, then have your abilities modified to follow that element for a bit afterward — but once I got used to it, it was fine. Summoner is a simple, straightforward job with a record low number buttons to press, at least among the jobs I’ve tried thus far.
- Astrologian (48): What if White Mage, but with more responsibilities and lousy personal damage output? Most of Astro’s abilities map cleanly onto White Mage’s thus far, but the card system adds extra complexity and busy-ness. I can’t say I’m a fan.
- Black Mage (44): Generally not too awful, but weird. The fire/ice switching mechanic isn’t too complicated, but it’s still foreign to me, and I have a hard time managing DoTs. (Which is funny, because I have no real trouble maintaining Warrior’s self buff or Reaper’s debuff.) I have heard Black Mage is hard to level because its rotation changes every ten levels, so I will just have to see how it goes.