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Faced with Final Fantasy 14’s wide choice of PvE jobs, new players can quickly be struck by choice paralysis. But don’t worry, we’ve got the perfect remedy: a quick overview of what each task does and what types of players they’re best suited for!
Final Fantasy 14 offers its players an impressive amount of choice when it comes to its PvE content, starting with the number of jobs you can choose from! But between 19 different professions with very different roles and playstyles, it can be difficult to find the one that’s right for you, especially since many of them aren’t available until later in the game.
Luckily, you don’t have to settle for one job forever: FFXIV allows your character to learn multiple tasks and switch between them almost any time! So if you decide that 40 levels in Black Mage wasn’t the right choice for you, you can simply go back and try another one.
Still, that’s a lot of time and effort spent on something that might not work for you. But don’t worry, as someone who has already spent way too much time progressing every task to level 90, I can spare you some of that headache! So here’s a look at each PvE task in the game from version 6.0, their respective playstyle, and the type of player they’re suitable for.
tanks
A tank’s main job is to let other roles do their jobs without being harassed by mobs or enemy bosses. And thanks to the Tank Stance ability that they all have that allows them to attract the attention of enemies quite easily, it’s not really too difficult a task to do! That said, it’s not without its flaws either, and one incompetent tank can kill a group pretty quickly. So be careful!
If you like to feel like the hero of the party, you will probably find a job for you in this section.
Paladin (PLD)
| Gear set: | Defense |
| Preconditions: |
Level 30 Gladiator and main story quest “Sylph Management” completed
|
| Starting level: | 30 |
Paladin is as close to a jack of all trades as you’re going to get in this game! His rotation allows him to use a standard 1-2-3 melee combo to deal physical damage most of the time and rain giant magical swords of celestial light on his enemies during his burst phase.
When it’s time to tank, PLDs can use their Oath Gauge points to grant themselves a bonus damage response at regular intervals. That’s pretty much all the Oath Gauge is for, unless something goes horribly wrong and they need to use cover to channel damage taken by a party member onto themselves in order to keep them alive.
Paladins are also truly 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 who knows what he’s doing can easily solo content that even other Tanks would struggle with.
On top of all that, PLD is (and probably always will be) the only job in the game that actually uses the off-hand gear slot, even in the late game. Which means they can mix and match different swords and shields as they see fit! Fashion enthusiasts can have real experiences with this one.
With Paladin being the poster child for the current expansion, he’s been getting a lot more attention lately. Maybe you’ll learn to love it too?
Warrior (WAR)
| Gear set: | Defense |
| Preconditions: | Level 30 Marauder and main story quest “Sylph Management” completed |
| Starting level: | 30 |
Warrior’s mission statement is pretty simple: use Fell Cleave as often as possible. His Job Gauge points are usually spent on Fell Cleave, many of his buttons increase Fell Cleave’s damage, and many other buttons allow him to spam Fell Cleave even more! If you have one of those woodpecker toys aimed at your Fell Cleave button, it will do half of your work for you.
However, you can’t Fell Cleave if you’re dead! Luckily for them, WARs are simply too angry to die and have access to truly ridiculous amounts of self-sustaining abilities. I’m serious, late game WARs can heal more than real 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 number in dungeons is hilarious every time.
Dark Knight (DRK)
| Gear set: | Defense |
| Preconditions: | All PvE work at level 50 and the main story quest “Before Dawn” completed |
| Starting level: | 30 |
The most daring of Tank jobs, Dark Knight specializes in dealing big damage with his big sword and giving his healers big panic attacks. A good DRK can even outperform some DPS jobs when opened, but at what cost?
DRKs keep several different balls in the air at any given time. They must carefully manage their MP and Blood Gauge points to avoid exceeding them, but keep them ready for emergencies or their explosion, while keeping their Darkside buff at all times. Try not to get overwhelmed!
In terms of survivability, the DRK is a little worse off than other Tanks, but it still has a few tricks up its sleeve. His signing capacity, The blackest knight, is an exceptionally powerful single-target shield that can also be thrown at allies and refunds its MP cost when broken. And Undead makes DRKs invulnerable for 10 seconds after taking lethal damage, but die for real if they aren’t fully healed during this time! This is a job full of risk-reward scenarios.
DRKs may be the bane of any dungeon healer’s existence, but this giant sword is just too cool to resist!
Gun Breaker (GNB)
| Gear set: | Defense |
| Preconditions: | Shadowbringers expansion and all PvE work at level 60 |
| Starting level: |
60 |
Gunbreaker, or as the community has affectionately dubbed it, “three DPS jobs in one trench coat”, is exactly that: a tank job for DPS who want to step out of their comfort zone.
GNB’s modus operandi is to collect Gunblade ammo with melee combos and use that ammo to blast enemies with supercharged Gunblade skills! Micromanaging your ammo count to keep some ready for your more powerful skills and combos is crucial to getting the most out of this job.
Other than that, Gunbreakers have almost as many buttons to press and track as DPS tasks. So if other Tanks bore you to tears, you might find what you’re looking for here instead.
Healers
If you thought healing was the easiest role, think again! Even experienced players who decide to give healing a chance very quickly become overwhelmed by the amount of micromanagement involved in the role, especially in high-end content. Keeping your party alive despite enemy onslaughts and their own stupid mistakes while contributing personal damage can really test your patience and concentration!
If this level of responsibility sounds like the right time for you, then you’ll want to take a look at this section.
White Mage (WHM)
| Gear set: | Healing |
| Preconditions: | Level 30 Summoner and main story quest “Sylph Management” completed |
| Starting level: | 30 |
Much like Paladins, White Mage is your typical Lawful Good healer. He has a wide array of instant heals and regeneration spells that allow him to comfortably heal just about anything the enemy throws at you!
The most interesting feature of WHM is the Lily gauge: while you are in combat, it will accumulate Lilies which can be spent on powerful healing abilities without MP cost. And once you reach level 74, using 3 Lily will grant you a Blood Lily which will allow you to use Afflatus Misery, an extremely powerful offensive magic spell!
But don’t get too zealous: Afflatus Misery deals exactly as much damage as four of your regular offensive magic casts. So this is really just an opportunity cost reimbursement, allowing you to use Lily Heals guilt-free. Yet a free heal, on top of all the other free heals WHM already has? No wonder they rarely have trouble keeping their party alive.
WHM is about as simple as a healer, so you can’t do much wrong with it! If you’re looking for a high skill ceiling, you won’t find it here, but not everything has to be Dark Souls, right?
Scholar (SCH)
| Gear set: |
Healing |
| Preconditions: | Level 30 Arcanist and main story quest “Sylph Management” completed |
| Starting level: | 30 |
The Scholar is a bit of a unique job: he shares a base class (i.e. Arcanist) with the Summoner, meaning that leveling him also levels the Summoner. A true 2 for 1 offer! However, this also leads to many summoners ending up with a level 90 healer job that they don’t know how to play. So let me try to summarize what this job is about.
The Scholar is one of two pet professions in the game., meaning he relies on a summoned familiar for many of his abilities. This pet is a separate unit that can be moved freely around the battlefield, but don’t worry: for the vast majority of encounters, you can simply order it to follow you or place it in the middle of a boss arena and let him do his job. thing.
SCH’s pet variety, the Fairy, is essentially a healing turret that will automatically cast single-target heals on party members who need it. This makes healing almost trivial in the early game, but in later content their poor fairy can no longer keep up with the damage dealt on her own and needs a little more guidance in the form of commands like Whispering Dawn, Fairy Blessing And Aether Pact.
Even then, Scholars will often need to take a more hands-on approach to healing in the late game, and they have plenty of options in this regard. Their Shield spells are unrivaled among their healing peers, and their abilities interact and synergize so well with each other that the right combo can easily negate most damage taken! If they know it’s happening, sure.
If you want to feel like a true combat strategist, then Scholar might just be the job for you!
Astrologer (AST)
| Gear set: |
Healing |
| Preconditions: | All PvE work at level 50 and the main story quest “Before Dawn” completed |
| Starting level: | 30 |
Have you ever wanted to play solitaire in the middle of a raid? Then Astrologer is perfect for you!
The main gadget of AST is to draw, redraw and…
