FFXIV All Jobs Guide

Jobs in Final Fantasy XIV are your standard classes for all things related to combat. Unlike most MMOs, FFXIV allows you to play one character that can easily switch to other Jobs on the fly. This means most players will get a lot with just one FFXIV account and make the most of it. Still, some players can be overwhelmed with all the available Job options, which is why we’ will provide a detailed guide on all Jobs. This way, players can get a good idea of how each Job plays and what playstyle suits them the most and save them the need to buy FFXIV gil for leveled gear.

Tank

These are the definitive aggro-drawing class of FFXIV, trading damage for extra survivability through damage mitigation, health regeneration or barriers to tank bosses. In FFXIV, there are different variations of tanks that provide a unique utility to the team.

Paladin

The classic sword-and-board Job of FFXIV, Paladins use their shields to protect not only themselves but their entire team as well. The Paladin is the only tank class that can even heal other teammates through Clemency. They can also soak all the damage that the entire team receives through Cover and Passage of Arms. When it comes to sheer damage mitigations, Paladins absolutely excel in this regard, playing as both a full support and main tank both.

While they severely lack in DPS, Paladins are a must-have for any raid team that needs someone to tank raidwides for them.

Warriors

Warriors are the best at one thing only: Not dying even in cases where they should. This Job is one of the best health regen tanks in the game, having a set of potent lifesteal skills that can fill their health bars in seconds. They can also output good DPS with their Inner Release skill that grants them guaranteed critical damage for the next 3 hits. However, the real star of the show is their skill Bloodwhetting, Thrill of Battle and Raw Intuition, which grants them 8 seconds of lifesteal, as well as damage reduction on top of it.

These skills make Warriors the absolute best class to bring in dungeons, as healers won’t have to focus on keeping them alive since they can regenerate health by themselves just fine. In some cases, Warriors could even solo dungeons depending on the trash mobs and bosses in it.

Dark Knight

The Dark Knight job is a hybrid offense and defensive role that utilizes Mana as one of their primary resources along with their own Job gauge. Compared to the Paladin, Dark Knights have shorter duration cooldowns, making them a more reactive tank against certain boss mechanics. One of their iconic skills, The Blackest Night, is a powerful mitigation skill that always remains off-cooldown, allowing Dark KnNights to easily take tankbusters without needing emergency healing.

However, the Dark Knight’s MP requirement makes them a finicky class to play, as both their OGCD attacks and cooldowns share MP. This requires Dark Knights to play more conservatively with their damage skills, as consuming all their MP on damage will deprive them of vital mitigation sources.

They are exceptional at surviving lethal damage thanks to Living Dead, provided that their healers can heal them to full before this skill knocks them out. If a boss has a lot of single-target mechanics, Dark Knights are great at holding the fort down.

Gunbreaker

The Gunbreaker is the only tank class to feel like a melee DPS class as well, thanks to their damage rotation performing similarly to the aforementioned category. Gunbreakers build up Cartridgers on their job gauge, which are then expended on a high-damaging rotation. To compensate for their incredible damage, the Gunbreaker job has far less in the way of damage mitigation compared to the other tank jobs. This makes the job more versatile for any situation but means they specializes in none.

In any team, the Gunbreaker is far better as the off-tank of the group, as they are squishier than any of the main tanks. In this role, Gunbreaker can continue to put out serious DPS while remaining on call for any tank swaps in certain encounters. If the team ever needs to squeeze out more DPS, a Gunbreaker would be perfect for the off-tank role in any team composition.

Healers

As the name implies, healers keep the entire team alive with their health-sustaining spells. While they are designed to keep everyone healthy, healers are also expected to output DPS whenever healing is not needed in an encounter. Like all other job categories, there are different healer Jobs that occupy a certain niche in combat, balancing them for whatever situation suits them best.

White Mage

White Mages are pure healers, having one of the best single –target healing spells in the game. Because of this overspecialization in sheer healing output, they have no other utility aside from dealing decent DPS with their Blood Lily gauge. Regardless, they can heal a tank from near zero to full in the span of a second, making them premier healers in the game.

Scholar

The Scholar job has flexibility on their side, allowing them to not only heal the team but even provide damage mitigation and DPS for the team. One of their major job mechanics is the introduction of the Fairies Eos and Seraph, which provide passive and remote healing to teammates who need them. Unlike the White Mage, the Scholar job has more barrier spells than pure healing, making them a proactive healer rather than a reactive one.

Astrologian

Astrologian is one of the most versatile healers in the game, providing both offensive, defensive and healing buffs in the game. With the cards they draw, Astrologians have access to different buffs that will greatly aid the team in any scenario. However, since these buff cards are based on RNG, the job can be tricky to play at first. They also have some of the lowest DPS values even amongst the other healers in the game. For prospective Astrologians, anticipation and patience is key to making good use of the job’s kit, as they can truly enhance raid groups with their support.

Sage

The Sage class, first introduced in Endwalker, are a hybrid DPS and healer job. With their nouliths, Sages can hurt their enemies in order to heal their assigned target. With the skill Kardia, they can give a tank the benefit of passive healing as the Sage deals damage to targets. However, they have low health recovery values, making them struggle in emergency situations where the tank must be brought back to full health. They also lack the team utility of Scholar and Astrologian, relying on their DPS output to heal teammates.

Sages are a fun healer option for players who prefer to play more aggressively while still keeping their teammates alive. With their extensive list of OGCD healing, they can do well in emergencies, but if they run out, they have fewer fallback healing options. This is why they have so many damage options, so that the team will never get into those emergency sticky situations.

Melee DPS

For players who want to get into the fight and deal massive burst damage, this Job category is for you. While each Job here has its differences, at the end of the day, you are here to output serious burst damage on a boss.

Monk

The Monk job is currently one of the fastest Melee DPS jobs in the game. Monks inherently have a lightning-fast global cooldown thanks to some of their weapon skills. This job is also highly mobile, in part of to its the many movement speed self-buffs and gap closers that is a part of thein its kit. What makes this class unique is its Stance system, as each attack can be stringed together for a fluid combo. Unlike other melee DPS jobs, Monks do not have a static damage rotation, allowing players to be more flexible with them.

Monks have the added benefit of providing defensive buffs like Mantra, Riddle of Earth, and Earth’s Reply to the entire team, helping out greatly with raidwides.

However, the biggest downside to this job is that it requires players to attack certain positions on a boss. This makes Monk a difficult class to play, especially on Extreme and Savage content where bosses have a LOT of AoE attacks. However, if played right, the Monk job will perform very high and consistently in the DPS charts.

Dragoon

The Dragoon job is a fairly straightforward class with a simple damage rotation and some team utilities that can boost the damage of an entire raid group. They also have access to Jumps, which is their signature move that can be woven into their main GCD rotation. Despite being a DPS class, Dragoon is also a hybrid support build, as it has access to the skill Battle Litany.

The Dragoon’s biggest weakness is that its best OGCDs have an animation lock, meaning that Dragoon players will likely get hit by a boss mechanic while mid-animation of their attacks. This gives them a reputation of being the “floor tank” in the community. Regardless of this downside, Dragoons are still a great pick in raid groups with their high personal DPS and team buffs but demand the player to plan their animation-locked skills ahead.

Ninja

The Ninja job is one of the few classes that requires the player to input certain commands to cast a “spell.” While Ninjas are primarily a melee DPS class, what makes them stand out is their Mudra system. In this system, players must input two or three Mudras, namely Ten, Chi and Jin, to cast their high damaging OGCDs attacks. This means that players must memorize a list of Mudra inputs to ensure that they have the optimal DPS. Some Mudras provide potent ranged damage options like Fuma Shuriken, Katon and Hyosho Ranryu.

While the Mudra system is an important facet of the Ninja job, it also provides the debuff “Mug” to bosses, making it take more damage from the entire team. Players who can easily execute Mudras can see some high DPS metrics for endgame content.

Samurai

First introduced in Stormblood, Samurais are also a straightforward DPS class with no team utility besides having one of the highest DPS metrics in FFXIV. In this Job, Samurais get most of their DPS through the Sen gauge. When the Samurai has one Sen, they can cast a DoT on an enemy with Higanbana. With two, it becomes a conal AoE with Tenka Goken. If the Samurai has three Sen, they will execute a high damage single target attack called Midare Setsugeka Setsugekka.

This job is easy enough to pick up, great for first time DPS players switching from other roles. However, in the endgame, the Samurai job’s effectiveness solely depends on the player’s skill. Since it offers no other utility, the Samurai must make full use of their entire kit to clear harder fights faster, giving it one of the highest skill ceilings as well. If a player misses their burst windows with a Samurai, this can severely hurt their overall effectiveness in harder content until another burst window arrives.

Once the Samurai job is mastered, this can shave off minutes away from any boss’s enrage timer by a lot.

Reaper

This class was released as part of the Endwalker expansion and has quickly become a fan-favorite melee DPS job to play. The Reaper job is a versatile class that can provide both team utility with healing and strong DPS output. Not only that, but Reapers do not rely heavily on positionals, making it an easy class to pick up from the get-go.

In this Job, Reapers must gain two different resources called Soul and Shroud. Soul is generated by doing basic attacks, which is then used to execute attacks that generate Shroud. Once 50 Shroud is gained, Reapers can Enshroud themselves and gain a new set of attacks that are more powerful than the base rotation.

The job also has a bevy of disengagement and re-engagement skills in its disposal, making it highly mobile for avoiding certain boss mechanics and maintaining their DPS uptime. Overall, the Reaper class is quite fun to play and is a solid starting choice for any new DPS players joining after maining a tank or healer job.

Viper

Introduced in the recently launched Endwalker expansion, the Viper is a fast and frenetic melee DPS Job with a focus on variety in the speed of their GCD Weaponskill actions. Vipers can constantly apply debuffs on the enemy as well as a haste and damage buff on themselves through an intricate array of combo actions.

The class generally “plays itself,“, making the job’s skill floor low, but the upside to maximizing the damage output of the job is incredibly high, especially compared against the other melee. Much like the Samurai class, Vipers are a solely selfish DPS class with no team utility and damage mitigation skills. To compensate, it has one of the fastest GCDs in the game, tied with the Monk job.

Ranged DPS

For players who prefer keeping away from a boss while still outputting damage on a boss. Typically, the DPS performance of this job is lower compared to melee DPS, but provides much more support through buffs for the team and debuffs for enemies.

Bard

The Bard class is one of the best support DPS classes in the game thanks to the many songs that it provides for the entire team. With its DPS rotation fuelling buffs like Battle Voice and Radiant Finale, Bards can grant extra critical hit rate and damage while doing steady DPS themselves. Even if Bards somehow make a mistake in their damage rotations, the fact that their buffs can be refreshed frequently means that they still remain valuable in endgame content even with subpar gameplay.

As a default job in A Realm Reborn, Bards continue to have a place in many raid groups even as Dawntrail is released.

Machinist

Machinist is the only ranged DPS class that does exactly as the tin says: Be a ranged DPS class. Unlike its contemporaries with Bard and Dancer, Machnists does not have any support-based gameplay, instead opting to do damage at a distance. This job can compete with melee DPS jobs, but requires the constant use of OGCDs and resource-based abilities to keep up.

Their gameplay is very simple, generating Heat with basic GCDs to fuel Hypercharge for more DPS. Then, there is the Battery gauge that is used to summon the Automaton Queen, that functions as a summon that deals damage for the Machinist.

It i‘s a simple class to pick up and play, with a flexible damage rotation and plenty of range. While Machinist demands a low ping to make full use of its kit, it is a reliable DPS class that anyone can try and excel with.

Dancer

First seen in the Shadowbringers expansion, Dancers are heavily geared towards support, exchanging powerful buffs and healing for their DPS. This makes them one of the lowest personal damage jobs in the game. The core of Dancer’s effectiveness is Dance Partner, which assigns the best DPS in the group as the main benefactor of the Dancer’s buffs.

Since the Dancer automatically generates buffs for the both of them through their main damage rotation, Dancers can fill both rtoles of DPS and support at the same time, making them a must-have for any raid team with a solid melee DPS character. Because of this, if the assigned Dance Partner performs poorly, the Dancer also suffers from this.

Caster DPS

This subclass of DPS is one of the more difficult Jobs to play, as they are the only characters that need a cast timer. Since cast timers require the player to stand still, playing this category  in harder content where bosses throw mechanics in quick succession will be extremely difficult. However, they also have one of the most competitive DPS performances in the game, making them a high-skill cap family to pick up and play

Black Mage

The Black Mage is the definitive Caster DPS job in the game, with some of the highest skill floor and ceiling. As the preferred class of FFXIV’s game director, Yoshi-P, Black Mage’s entire kit revolves around standing still and casting their long-cast time spells to deal optimal damage. Supporting this playstyle is their iconic Ley Llines, which reward players that stand in it with even more damage.

This playstyle is very difficult to get used to, especially in raid content, as positioning is mandatory to learn for this job. Not only that, but Black Mage consumes a lot of MP, requiring them to make use of its Fire and Ice phase mechanics.

If players can get past Black Mage’s biggest hurdles, this Job will 100% make it to the top charts.

Red Mage

Red Mage is one of the more unique classes in FFXIV, excelling in both ranged and melee, DPS and support. This class is currently the only DPS class that can instantly revive dead teammates with the use of its inherent Quickcast feature.

For Red Mage, the goal is to build enough White and Black Mana as fuel for their burst melee damage rotation, which makes them close the distance and hit enemies with their sword. To gain White and Black Mana, Red Mage must cast from two different rotations that grant them mana of their respective colors. Shorter cast time spells generate less mana while longer cast spells generate more.

To offset the long cooldown, Red Mages have Quickcast. The way this works is that casting a spell causes the next spell to be cast instantly. This means that casting a short 2-second spell makes the 5-second cast-time spell instant.

Red Mage takes time to get used to, but it is extremely fun to play and is a fairly versatile Job that can fit in any team composition.

Summoner

Summoners are a far more agile Caster DPS compared to the Black Mage. Not only that, but they can summon Primals that can output serious DPS while providing buffs to the Summoner. They have an easy damage rotation with easy choices to make to build Aethercharge. With Titan, Garuda, and Ifrit doing good damage, Summoners are a well-rounded Caster DPS Job that can also provide team utility.

Pictoamancer

Along with the Viper Job, the Pictomancer is one of the new jobs brought in from Dawntrail. They are a mix of the Black Mage and Summoner jobs, taking the former’s cast times with the easier damage rotation of the latter. While Pictoamncers can cast short cooldown spells, much of their DPS is found on the Motifs, which take a long time to cast.