Final Fantasy 14: How To Find The Best Job For You

Final Fantasy 14 offers its players an impressive amount of choices when it comes to its PvE content, starting with the amount of Jobs, you get to choose from! But between 19 different Jobs with vastly different roles and playstyles it can be tough to find the right one for you, especially since a lot of them only become available later in the game.

Luckily you don't have to settle on any one job forever: FFXIV lets your character learn multiple Jobs and switch between them at nearly any time! So if you decide 40 levels in that Black Mage wasn't the right pick for you after all you can just go back and try out another one.

Still, that's a lot of time and effort spent on something that might not pan out for you. But don't worry, as someone who has already spent way too much time on leveling every Job to Level 90 I can save you some of that headache! So, here's an overview of every PvE Job in the game as of 6.0, their respective playstyle and what kind of player they're suited for.

Tanks

A Tank's primary job is to let the other roles do their job without being harassed by enemy mobs or bosses. And thanks to the Tank Stance ability that all of them get and that lets them draw enemies' attention pretty easily this isn't actually too difficult of a job to do! That said, it's not without its kinks either, and an incompetent tank can get a party killed pretty quickly. So do be careful!

If you like feeling like the hero of the party then you'll probably find a Job for you in this section.

Paladin (PLD)

Paladin is as close to a jack-of-all-trades as you're going to get in this game! Its rotation has it using a standard 1-2-3 melee combo to dish out physical damage most of the time and raining giant magic swords of heavenly light down upon its foes during its burst phase.

When it's time to do some actual tanking PLDs get to use their Oath Gauge points to give themselves some bonus damage reaction at regular intervals. That's pretty much all the Oath Gauge is used for too, unless something goes horribly wrong and they have to use Cover to funnel a party member's received damage onto themselves to keep them alive.

Paladins are also veritable one-man armies with their respectable personal damage output, strong damage mitigation abilities and a surprisingly effective healing spell (which you should only use when you absolutely need it unless you want to annoy your Healer). A Paladin that knows what they're doing can comfortably solo content that even other Tanks would struggle with.

On top of all that, PLD is (and will likely always be) the only Job in the game that actually uses the Off-hand gear slot even in the lategame. Which means that they get to mix and match different swords and shields with each other as they like! Fashion enthusiasts can get real experimental with this one.

With Paladin having been the poster Job for the current expansion it's gotten a lot more attention lately. Maybe you'll learn to love it too?

Warrior (WAR)

Warrior's mission statement is pretty simple: Use Fell Cleave as often as you can get away with. Its Job Gauge points are usually spent on Fell Cleave, many of its buttons boost the damage of Fell Cleave and many more of its buttons let it spam Fell Cleave even more! If you have one of those woodpecker toys aimed at your Fell Cleave button it'll do half of your job for you.

You can't Fell Cleave if you're dead though! Luckily for them WARs are simply too angry to die and have access to genuinely ridiculous amounts of self-sustain abilities. I'm being serious, lategame WARs can out-heal actual healers in some dungeons!

It may not be the most complex job in the game, but WAR is undeniably satisfying to play, and watching your health meter do a bungee act in dungeons is hilarious every time.

Dark Knight (DRK)

The edgiest of the Tank jobs, Dark Knight specializes in doing big damage with its big sword and giving its healers big panic attacks. A good DRK can out-DPS even some DPS jobs in its opener, but at what cost?

DRKs keep a few different balls in the air at any given time. They have to carefully manage their MP and Blood Gauge points to avoid overcapping them, but keep them ready for emergencies or their burst, while also keeping their Darkside buff up at all times. Try not to get overwhelmed!

In terms of survivability DRK is a bit worse off than the other Tanks, but it still has a few tricks up its sleeve. Its signature ability, The Blackest Knight, is an exceptionally strong single-target shield that can also be cast on allies and refunds its MP cost when it breaks. And Living Dead makes DRKs become invulnerable for 10 seconds after taking lethal damage, but die for real if they're not healed to full in that time! This is a Job full of risk-reward scenarios.

DRKs may be the bane of any dungeon healer's existence, but that giant sword is just too cool to resist!

Gunbreaker (GNB)

Gunbreaker, or as it's been lovingly dubbed by the community, "three DPS Jobs in a trenchcoat", is exactly that: a Tank Job for DPS mains who want to step out of their comfort zone.

GNB's modus operandi has it collecting Gunblade ammo with melee combos and using that ammo to blow up enemies with supercharged Gunblade skills! Micromanaging your ammo count to keep some at the ready for your more powerful skills and combos is crucial to getting the most out of this Job.

Apart from that Gunbreakers get nearly as many buttons to press and keep track of as DPS jobs. So if the other Tanks bore you to tears you might just find what you're looking for here instead.

Healers

If you thought that healing was the easiest role, think again! Even experienced players who decide to give healing a shot get overwhelmed by the amount of micromanagement involved in the role very quickly, especially in high-end content. Keeping your party alive through enemy assaults and their own dumb mistakes while still contributing some personal damage can really test your patience and concentration!

If that amount of responsibility sounds like a good time to you, then you'll want to take a look at this section.

White Mage (WHM)

Much like Paladins, White Mage is your typical Lawful Good quarterstaff healer. It gets a wide array of instant heals and regeneration spells at its disposal that let it comfortably heal through just about anything the enemy throws at you!

WHM's most interesting feature is the Lily gauge: While you're in combat it will accumulate Lilies which can be spent on powerful healing abilities with no MP cost. And once you reach Level 74 using 3 Lilies will grant you a Blood Lily which allows you to use Afflatus Misery, an extremely powerful offensive magic spell!

But don't get too overzealous: Afflatus Misery deals exactly as much damage as four of your regular offensive magic casts. So it's really just a refund of the opportunity cost, letting you use Lily heals guilt-free. Still, free healing, on top of all the other free healing WHM already has? No wonder they rarely struggle with keeping their party alive.

WHM is about as straightforward as a healer gets, so there's not much you can do wrong with it! If you're looking for a high skill ceiling you won't find it here, but not everything needs to be Dark Souls, right?

Scholar (SCH)

Scholar is a bit of a unique Job: It shares a base Class (that being Arcanist) with Summoner, meaning that leveling it levels Summoner as well. A real 2-for-1-deal! However, this also leads to a lot of summoners ending up with a Level 90 Healer Job that they have no idea how to play. So let me try to sum up what this job is all about.

Scholar is one of the two Pet Jobs in the game, meaning that it relies on a summoned Pet for many of its abilities. This Pet is a separate unit that can be moved freely on the battlefield, but don't worry: For the vast majority of encounters you can just order it to follow you or place it in the middle of a boss arena and let it do its thing.

SCH's Pet variety, the Fairy, is essentially a healing turret that will auto-cast single-target heals on party members that need it. This makes healing almost trivial in the earlygame, but in later content their poor fairy can't keep up with the outgoing damage anymore by itself and needs a bit more guidance in the form of commands like Whispering Dawn, Fey Blessing and Aetherpact.

Even then Scholars will often need to take a more hands-on approach to healing in the lategame, and they get plenty of options in that regard. Their Shield spells are unrivaled among their Healer peers, and their abilities interact and synergize so well with each other that the right combo can negate most incoming damage with ease! If they know it's coming, that is.

If you want to feel like a real combat strategist then Scholar might just be the Job for you!

Astrologian (AST)

Have you ever wanted to play some solitaire in the middle of a raid? Then Astrologian is perfect for you!

AST's primary gimmick is drawing, re-drawing and sleeve-drawing cards that let them buff themselves and their teammates. That's only the tip of the iceberg though: Once they reach Level 50 they gain one of three astrosigns every time they play a card. And once they've collected three of those signs they get to cast Astrodyne, a personal buff that gets stronger with every unique astrosign they've collected.

This all results in ASTs having to carefully shuffle their deck in their favor on top of doing damage and keeping their team alive, giving them one of the higher skill ceilings in the game. Especially since ASTs value spell speed above all else and usually have very little time to think in between casts! It can all feel a bit overwhelming at first, but once you've gotten a feel for the card system you'll be throwing out Royal Flushes in record time.

Astrologians also get access to some of the most interesting healing abilities in the game: Horoscope is a delayed partywide heal that gets stronger if you cast one of your standard heals during it, Earthly Star is a giant time bomb that damages enemies and heals allies in its blast radius, and Macrocosmos compiles all damage received by allies in its effective radius and heals them for a portion of that damage once it's activated.

Predicting and changing the future is a tough gameplay concept to implement in an MMO, but AST does an admirable job of it, and gives you a minigame to play in-between casts while it's at it!

Sage (SGE)

FFXIV's resident Harmacist, the Sage, takes a sharp turn from the medieval fantasy theming of most other jobs and heads straight into sci-fi territory, with a quartet of floating rifles that shoot healing (and harming) lasers.

Its most distinctive feature is its ability to cast Kardia on another party member (which should usually be the tank) and heal that party member anytime one of their attacks lands. Think of this as a more direct and reliable version of SCH's fairy healing! Much like the fairy this healing isn't enough to sustain a party though, forcing SGEs to make use of their other gimmicks.

The first is Eukrasia, which turns their respectable standard heals into powerful shields on their next use. Another is the Addersgall gauge which accumulates Addersgall stacks over time, letting them use powerful healing and damage mitigation skills, and even revover some MP on the side! And since blasting enemies with magic lasers quickly drains your MP gauge you'll be looking for any excuse your party can give you to use those Addersgall stacks.

SGE is ideal for players who are looking for a more reactive Healer Job, players with a DPS mindset, and Gundam enthusiasts.

Melee DPS

Melee DPS Jobs are usually the stars of the DPS show! They wield melee weapons, want to stay in melee range the vast majority of the time and focus on dealing damage above anything else. And they do deal a lot of damage, usually pulling ahead of the rest of their party by a comfortable margin.

Every melee job has a basic 1-2-3 melee combo that forms the basis of their rotation, and some of their abilities have positional bonuses, meaning that they'll do bonus damage if executed from the back or side of an enemy. If you like to get up close and personal with the enemy and have boss battles feel just a bit more interactive then you're in the right place!

Monk (MNK)

Who needs fancy weapons and magic spells when you can just punch things really, really hard? Monk is the classic fist-fighter Job of the bunch, using earth-shattering jabs and kicks to decimate its enemies.

Monk's most defining feature is its Form Change system: It s 9 primary damage-dealing moves are divided into sets of 3, each granting a different Form, and each move can only be used once you've gained a form from the previous set in the rotation. In other words, once you've used a move from Set 1 you need to use a move from Set 2 and then 3 before you can use Set 1 again.

This isn't too dissimilar from other Melee Jobs's 1-2-3-Combos, you just get to build your own combo! Most of these 9 moves either buff you or debuff the enemy for a short while, so you'll want to use a different combo each time to maximize your damage output.

With a built-in 20% speed boost this job doesn't give you a lot of time to consider your next move inbetween attacks though, so you'll have to think on your feet or build some muscle memory. Preferably both, actually, since being forced out of melee range can really mess you up otherwise! As if all of this wasn't complicated enough, reaching level 60 also unlocks the Master's Gauge, granting you access to powerful finishers if you use the right sequence of moves.

Fighting game players will feel right at home here, even if this Job still hasn't found a way to implement Quarter Circle Forward inputs.

Dragoon (DRG)

If Dark Knight is the edgiest Job in the game, then Dragoon is the sharpest. Just look at all those armor spikes!

DRG can be described as "comfortably routine". You use your first 1-2-3 combo to buff yourself, then your other 1-2-3 combo to do major damage, rinse, repeat. Sure, there are some other abilities to fit in between your combo steps, but by and large this Job has a very set-in-stone rotation that you won't be deviating from unless you're forced out of it.

The Dragoons' signature ability is also their arch-nemesis: They get access to a variety of Jump skills that are crucial to their game plan, but restrict their movement and/or force them into close proximity with the enemy they're attacking. Not only can this make combat awkward and finnicky, it's also the leading cause of death by fall damage or AoE for many an inexperienced Dragoon!

That said, DRG is still one of the most beginner-friendly jobs in the game, has a steady difficulty curve and gets a surprisingly high skill ceiling in the endgame, so it's one of the best choices for your first job!

Ninja (NIN)

Ah yes, Ninja, the only natural career path for street rats.

NIN is an extremely busy Job some of the time and a very chill Job the rest of the time. First, it gets to basically craft its own spells with the Ninjutsu system, which has you use a combination of Ten, Chi and/or Jin in rapid sequence to cast one of 9 different Ninjutsu. Level 62 also grants access to the Ninki Gauge, letting you accumulate Ninki and spend it on powerful attacks.

However, what separates good Ninjas from amazing Ninjas is their ability to make effective use of Mug and Trick Attack. The first makes its target take 5% more damage, while the second increases your personal damage by 15%, adding up to a 20% damage increase against a single enemy.

Naturally you'll want to fit as many of your hard-hitting abilities into this burst window! Which means that high-level NIN play consists of shoring up resources for the majority of their rotation and then pressing all of their damage buttons as quickly as possible during their burst window, making them the Job with the most button presses per minute in the game. Just remember to breathe in between burst phases!

Ninja isn't exactly the most beginner-friendly jobs in the game, but a whole smorgasbord of unique abilities, a high skill ceiling and plenty of room for skill expression make it an attractive endgame choice for DPS players looking for a challenge.

Samurai (SAM)

If you wish to learn the art of the katana in FFXIV you'll need a complimentary sticker book.

Samurais get not just one, or two, but three whole melee combos that they get to rotate between! Every time they finish one of these combos they get one of three stickers (or Sen, as the game calls them), and how many stickers they've collected affects what their signature ability Iaijutsu does. One sticker turns it into a damage-over-time ability, two make it an AoE finisher and all three let them use a powerful single-target finisher!

While Samurais are busy collecting stickers they also accumulate Kenki and Meditation Gauge points, letting them do some bonus damage on the side. Finding good opportunities to spend these resources, and optimizing your sticker collection speed, is what separates good SAMs from great SAMs!

SAM is a selfish DPS, meaning that it doesn't grant any partywide buffs, but benefits the most from receiving them. So if you're planning to study the art of the sword you'd better commit to being the very best at it, or you'll let your party's efforts go to waste!

Reaper (RPR)

Reaper is the first job to attempt to take the Edgelord-crown from DRK, and I have to admit, using scythes as weapons and summoning an actual demon for its combos gives it a solid head start.

Reapers spice up their regular 1-2-3 combo with coordinated attacks by their Voidsent companion and then follow them up with enhanced scythe attacks. And when their Voidsent gets restless they can even allow it to possess them, letting them use lightning-fast combos and a devastating magic finisher!

However, the one thing that will make or break this Job for you is Death's Design, a debuff Reapers can apply to any enemy that lets them do more damage against that enemy. Sounds neat on paper, but it means that if you want to get the most out of this job you'll have to keep an eye on that debuff timer and keep applying and re-applying Death's Design until the enemy is dead. This busywork can be a major turn-off for many players.

But if you're determined to be the edgiest one can be then there's a lot to love about this job!

Physical Ranged DPS

Physical Ranged DPS (or just Ranged DPS) Jobs usually have it the easiest. Unlike the other roles they are bound neither by having to stay in melee range nor by having to stay in place for any cast times to finish!

However, this freedom comes at the cost of their personal DPS output being pretty subpar. Ranged DPS Jobs get to have 100% uptime in many situations where other roles would be forced to disengage from the enemy, so they get a DPS tax to make sure they don't outclass the other DPS roles. All this is to say, don't expect to do spectacular damage with this role.

Still, if you want to play DPS but don't want to have to think about melee range, positionals, cast times or any of that nonsense you'll probably find a job you'll enjoy here!

Bard (BRD)

Just one more D&D comparison for the road! Bard is your typical Bow-and-Arrow DPS Job that also supports its allies with magical songs.

BRD is made of several different layers: At its most foundational level your job is to spam your first damage button until RNG lets you press your second damage button, rinse, repeat. The second layer is your two damage-over-time abilities and an ability that refreshes the timer on both of them at once as long as you press it before they run out.

The third and most complex layer is BRD's three different songs, which grant your party various buffs and yourself access to additional parts of your arsenal! You can only have one song actice at a time, so they're best used in a steady rotation.

If all that sounds like a lot to keep track of to you, don't worry, the leveling process will ease you into it slowly enough that you shouldn't have any trouble. In fact, Bard is actually one of the easiest Jobs in the game and one of the most popular choices for beginners! If you're not sure which Job to pick then Bard is a relatively safe choice.

Besides, BRD is worth leveling just for its Performance feature alone, which lets you play a variety of instruments ingame! If you've ever wanted to be a street performer this Job is a most-have.

Machinist (MCH)

Machinists may not have access to the Plot Guns that pop up occasionally in the main story and can kill with one shot, but their firearms still have plenty of firepower!

MCH is the selfish DPS of the Ranged variety, meaning that it gives up party buffs for personal damage. To that end it brings out a variety of highly devastating gizmos and gadgets alongside its regular gun, such as a cannon that shoots drillheads, chain traps and spinning sawblades!

Machinists do have a regular 1-2-3 combo, but with so many other buttons to press it sees surprisingly little use. After all, they need to make time to deploy their improvised weapons, drain their Heat Gauge with rapid-fire gunplay and send out their supercharged automaton first! Using everything in a Machinist's kit on time can be a real challenge.

Still, if you don't like the restrictions placed on other DPS roles, but like busy rotations and want to take sole responsibility for your damage output, then you might want to consider stopping by the Machinist's Guild the next time you're in Ishgard.

Dancer (DNC)

How do you feel about Dance Dance Revolution?

Dancer leans into the "party support" role the hardest out of all Ranged Jobs while still dealing respectable personal damage. They can designate a single party member as their Dance Partner during any instance and share the effects of certain buffs and abilities with them. If you're the Dancer, choose wisely! If you're the Partner, do your best to make them proud!

That aside, DNC's most defining feature is its two Dance abilities, Standard Step and Technical Step, with both requiring you to play a short minigame to get the most out of them. Standard Step grants you and your partner a constant damage boost, while Technical Step grants a damage boost to the whole party and also happens to have the highest damage potency of any single ability in the game!

When they're not playing DDR Dancers get to play a series of successive coin flips: Both steps of their standard 1-2 combo have a 50% chance to let them use 2 separate abilities, which have a 50% chance to grant them a Fourfold Feather. These Feathers allow them to use Fan Dance, which has a 50% chance to let them use Fan Dance III.

Sounds confusing? Don't worry, just press the glowing buttons and you'll probably be fine. DNC does have some room for skill expression, but it's far from the hardest job in the game, so if you just want to dance across the boss arena and have a good time this job might be for you!

Magical Ranged DPS

The final role in our Job listicle specializes in dealing magic damage. How exciting! This also means that most abilities of the following Jobs have cast times attached to them and can't be used while you're moving. How intimidating!

This condition gives Magicar Ranged DPS (or just Magic DPS) Jobs a higher skill floor across the board, making them less popular overall. But don't let that stop you from giving them a shot! Finding opportunities to sneak in just more cast before barely dodging a lethal attack is a thrill you won't find anywhere else.

Black Mage (BLM)

Our first introduction to this role is also the worst first Job you could pick in this game! Black Mage is a deceptively simple and selfish Job with a high skill floor and an astronomical skill ceiling that gets a brand-new rotation every 10 levels or so.

When you've finally reached the level cap BLM still seems simple on the surface. You have access to two primary spell categories: Fire spells deal lots of damage, but drain MP, while Ice spells deal mediocre damage, but regenerate MP. So naturally you'll want to cast Fire spells for as long as possible before switching to Ice to cool down.

Sounds easy right? But then BLM piles on extra complications. If you stay in your Fire or Ice phase for too long you'll lose their respective bonuses. Your spells have long cast times, and interrupting a cast to dodge an attack can kneecap your damage output. Don't forget to spend your Polyglot charges at some point either. Oh, and did I mention the Lightning DoT you should be applying to enemies at all times?

Truly masterful Black Mage players are a sight to behold! They'll finish casts and dodge AoEs microseconds before they're hit, or just Manaward through the damage. They'll zip across the arena like cast times don't exist for them, and they'll be doing obscene amounts of damage all the while!

If you're looking for a job that really lets you show off your own game skill then look no further! It'll take a lot of practice to get there though, so you'd better be in it for the long haul.

Summoner (SMN)

The other half of the Arcanist-based Job duo has decided to fight fire with fire! Surely this can't go wrong?

Summoner stays true to its namesake by summoning a variety of Primals (weaker versions of them, mind you) into battle in a steady rotation. Ifrit, Garuda and Titan deal damage in a large AoE around your target and let you use special themed abilities, while Bahamut and Phoenix power up your basic spells, attack alongside you and let you use their signature abilities, Akh Morn and Revelation.

To sum it up, your basic rotation consists of summoning Bahamut or Phoenix, using their abilities and then summoning the 3 basic Primals in any order and using their abilities, rinse, repeat. And to make it even simpler most of the Primals' abilities are instant casts, meaning that this Caster Job has a vanishingly small amount of actual cast times!

If you're looking for a job with a high skill ceiling you won't find it here. But if you'd rather take it easy and see some of the coolest spell effects in the game then you're in the right place!

Red Mage (RDM)

Red Mage may technically be a Magic DPS, but it complements its stunning spellcasting with some stylish swordplay!

The core of RDM is its Balance gauge: every time it casts Black Magic it gains black mana, every time it casts White Magic it gains white mana, and once it has accumulated enough of both it can spend that mana to unleash magic-infused melee combos and cap it off with some devastating magic finishers!

If that still sounds like too much standing still and casting to you, don't worry: RDM's signature trait, Dualcast, turns every other cast into an instant cast, meaning that you'll only be bound to cast times for half of your rotation at most. Pair that with its melee phase and some impressive acrobatics abilities and you'll feel more mobile than nearly any other job!

Red Mage lets you experience the gameplay constraints of every role in doses just large enough to give it some variety and room for skill expression without feeling too awkward too play. If you can't settle on any one gameplay style then Red Mage might just suit you perfectly.