Personally I think what makes a job fun isn’t necessarily how high the cpm and intense burst windows are but rather how the buttons feel when you press them and what they reward you with
I think you're right on the money. As a lala I tend to not notice animations much, so I pay more attention to other things, namely the feel of the rotation and sound cues. I like viper because playing it on controller feels kind of like playing an instrument, it's got an inherent digital repetition that tickles my brain. I like warrior because the buzzsaws and bass-y crashes sound like I'm really annihilating the enemy. And both have some emotional overlap with how appropriate it feels to take it through the MSQ and other story content as the "face" of the WoL.
I agree, DRK has little buttons that feels impactful. Warrior feels good because it has so many buttons going big boom. Gunbreaker has a very satisfying combo to pull off. DRK feels bad, its new combo isn't very impactful, you summon a living shadow that does the job for you and you drop a puddle that can do... lame bubbles. MCH is a very good example, Chainsaw is boring as hell but Excavator is very satisfying to press, yet they're both the exact same buttons!
I agree. And they keep slowly but surely removing all " feel good " buttons. Old Smn with miasma and spreading it with bane felt awesome. Kaiten just was there for the dopamine drip. Plunge and spineshatter both felt so impactful. What will go next?
@@Shinnouryu I think there is also a lack of variety. Slower jobs can feel good, with a varied rotation. Gunbreaker feels good, among other reasons, because there is more variety in its burst window and gnashing fang is available every 30 seconds. Dark Knight has no such variety, its only selling point was the double weave intensity every minute during burst.
I think one of the most important points of job design is having a good reason why you're pressing your buttons. This is why I think buttons like Mirage Dive on DRG feel so lifeless now in Dawntrail since it doesn't provide eyes anymore. Another example would be MNK's core rotation which they changed in .01 to essentially match the rotation done in Endwalker, except that the reason why you're pressing twin snakes and demolish is vastly different and way less interesting now.
This. There is absolutely almost no job agency in this game. Almost every dps skill is designed to setup or fit in your burst windows which obviously makes sense, but the 2 minute meta is such a boring combat mechanic because it forces devs to build their jobs around it essentially making every jobs reason to press a dps button the same across all of them. Homogenization is lazy design. I love everything about this game except the combat. Get rid of this 2 minute meta and make jobs actually unique.
That's why sidewinder from BRD or goring blade from PLD annoys me more than they should. Sure, they're both damage ogcd, so it's not like they don't do anything, but neither builds up the gauge, or unlock a proc, or give a damage buff, nothing, it's just something to press for the sake of having something to press.
Viper is a big surprise for me, since its announcement I didn't care at all about the job and when I unlocked it I thought I was gonna hate it because of how simple it was, 3 weeks later and it has become my favorite melee and my pick for the first tier of savage. I think one of the big reasons why I'm having so much fun with the job is indeed the high CPM, and the buffs management. I'm eating my words bc I was an avid Viper hater among my firends before the launch 🤣
I personally enjoy the simpler jobs as I am in my 40s and haven't been a heavy gamer in decades. Warrior, WHM, Summoner - the braindead jobs. I appreciate that there is a spectrum of skill across all jobs - from the most simple, to the most complex, there's ways for players of all skill levels to succeed and be good. Whether it be the smooth brains like me, who want jobs that are very simple so we can focus on the fight mechanics with our smooth brains, or for the good players who can keep all their rotations, procs, buffs, and debuffs rolling perfectly throughout the fight. Even without having dipped my feet into savage or EX content, I think that having that spectrum of skill requirements, rather than everything requiring the same high levels of skill to play correctly, is a crucial component of keeping FFXIV fun. Even in high end content!
I'm right there with you. Us smooth brains need to stick together. Picto looks like it might be a good alternative to SMN, as you mostly just have a single button rotation with a 1.5sec cast, much like playing WHM, with long casts you can delay for low movement times during the fight to drop with instant casts during the burst window.
Same! I gave up serious raiding long ago. SMN is my ideal job. I'm not disappointed in it nor do I want any changes, it's great just as it is. For people who don't play constantly a job where they can keep an eye on boss and arena tells and learn the dance is ideal. As you point out it frees the devs to make fights more complex because with a choice of simpler jobs, more players can experience them. There are hard jobs out there for people who want them.
I agree, as someone who's kind of in the middle. Some days I want a more complicated job to make my brain work, other days I just want to unga bunga. And I think that's great for the health of the game.
Totally agreed. A job doesn't have to be difficult or fast to be enjoyable. Whoever on the team is responsible for the animation and sound design for WAR's attacks really nails it. I love the new Primal Ruination, Fell Cleave is so good that it's never gotten a permanent upgrade, the sound that plays after you use Chaotic Cyclone on a big add pull is immaculate, etc.
@K3fka_ you're definitely on the money with the sound design. It's funny because fell cleave has the same animation X3, and pictomancer's hammer changes animation, but for some reason, spamming fell cleave still feels more fun for some reason
Been saying SINCE HEAVENSWARD that APM/CPM brainrot is real. Intuitive > how many times. Anyone operating in good faith knows that healer and BLM have the highest skill ceilings in the game for different reason, and lower apm/cpm
This is actually helpful because I have physical impairments that make playing faster jobs much more straining, so I've been looking for the slowest jobs possible to play.
I agree with this comment, i tried playing picto and realized how slow the casts are and its easier on my wrists, ive had a issue with my keyboard hand for months
I'd recommend summoner. You don't have to ever target other players, the opener is not super weave heavy, and it's also fairly easy. This only matters if you're doing savage content. Otherwise just respect mechanics and you should clear. I carried a DPS that was doing less damage than a healer through valigardmanda ex ln.😅
Having focused primarily on VPR I can say that while yes, the high APM of the job is quite fun, I also like the flexibility and planning around using the Uncoiled Fury stacks to minimize the impact of being off the boss outside of burst windows and the ability to place Dreadwinder in spots where it won't put me in danger to get my positional hits. The cooldown of True North is only five seconds longer than Dreadwinder's cooldown so I have a tool to mitigate how many positionals are required as needed.
This is exactly me. I hate positional and suck with keeping my rotation at perfect form, but VPR gives me all the tools I need to keep up my damage and avoid the position dancing that has turned me off of so many Melee DPS
In my opinion a well designed job is always easy to learn, hard to master. Both picto and VPR fit this mantra because they almost guide you through their core rotations with hitting buttons that light up, but fully mastering each job requires a lot of fight knowledge, optimizing burst windows, and skill
Yep, Picto has this in spades, imo. Extremely open and flexible rotation, but a LOT of skill expression and fight mastery to be had for optimizing things like the burst window and when you can afford to use your Subtractive combo. I also love jobs with mechanics that are kinda _designed_ to be abused for uptime or output. The one I enjoy the most on this is Reaper's teleport. That ability is _begging_ for abusing it around snapshot timing (though I wish it were a _true_ teleport and didn't just really quickly move you through all of the intervening space too. Getting snapshot mid-teleport is annoying as hell). BLM has something similar. One of the most significant marks of a _really good_ BLM is abusing the hell out of Aetherial Manipulation. Seeing a BLM yeet over to a party member a half second before the snapshot, and then yeet back to their Ley Lines a half second later, is a joy to watch (and something I'm largely incapable of managing myself >.>)
@@siduxjxhdgzhdjxhxuuxxyhgg1079 I mean, maybe to you. Realize that others have differing experiences. Ninja, for example, breaks my brain, I don't have the bandwidth for their piano concert burst window. I'm glad you feel you can pick up any job in the game and learn it without even trying, but realize that's not the case for everyone that plays this game.
@@KaedysKor nor is it a good thing to scare new players or people who havent tried certain jobs into never trying them because all it takes to understand a job fundamentally is going up to a training dummy, wiping your hotbar and starting from 1. Ninja isnt hard either it just requires basic practice and mudra memorization which you probably dony have either of because you havent given the job a fair shot. Yes the game does an abysmal job of introducing jobs but there are more than enough resources one can use to further understand the job. Everyone can play any job as long as they put in a little effort and im dissapointed that the community still hasnt grown past misconstruing the skill floor of the game for whatever ridiculous reason.
I miss plunge, i gope we get more Mana aswell for more edge of Shadow. I liked DRK because of how good it felt doing the opener, now it feels like im running with restrains
I feel like one of the reasons why Picto and Viper are both receiving praise despite being on opposite ends of the CPM spectrum is because they are interesting in their burst but also outside of their burst. Viper achieves that through its CPM yes but it is also because it gets tools like Uncoiled Fury and the Dreadwinder combo to break up the monotony outside of burst to the point where using your normal combo is almost noteworthy and no longer feels like the "boring" part of the rotation. Picto achieves that by making you work for your burst, forcing you to cycle between your creature motifs, making sure you have all your tools available when you need them with the long cast times making it necessary to actively engage and think about the right times to stand still and cast even outside of burst, making it all about preparation. I think this division of "filler" and "burst" is very interesting to look at for different jobs. And I feel for many jobs the way they fill the time outside of burst is almost more interesting than the burst themselves.
I think a really noteworthy mark of how varied the Viper rotation is is that the 40s buff from the 3rd combo can legitimately and in fact reasonably easily fall off, especially during the burst window, if you're not careful about refreshing it beforehand. Same thing with Picto, it's easier than I expected to let Aetherhues expire, because you can rather easily fill 30+ seconds without casting either of your Aetherhues combos.
facerolling my keyboard is my specialty (old DRK/ NIN / AST / MCH ) were my mains. However, my caster of choice was BLM for two reasons: job fantasy of channelling so much power that you physically can't move, and the old non-standard gameplay where just about every 15 seconds had to be thought out in relation to each and every fight. Viper was added to the repertoire of new fun jobs for me to face roll over, but DRK got removed and BLM had meaningful job choices and flexibility removed for a strict rotation which is somehow even more punishing than it was before (essentially cast 6x Fire IV or perish). Even when you're doing the lv 100 BLM rotation perfectly you don't even get the satisfaction that you were doing the biggest numbers on the boss got it removed. PCT, on the other hand is somehow fun in managing their short and long GCDs, burst windows, and movement that interacts with both. PCT doesn't quite Xeno into triple cast boring BLM movement planning, but it has comet prism weapon muse and swift casting paintings as different options for different situations and alignment purposes that make me have the happy chemicals. tldr; going zoom fast but meaningful decisions also good
What I loved about drk in 6.0 was the contrast between it's burst and rotation. I find really fast jobs with a lot of weaving the most fun, but in harder content I tend to get distracted and neglect either the mechanics of the fight or my dps. So, drk was the perfect balance of having those very fast moments, but cooling down a lot in between so I could go on autopilot in between bursts. Also, I feel that a job that's fast all the time can get kind of exhausting. Having slower parts of a rotation really highlights the burst and increases it's impact while giving my hands time to rest so I don't end up with arthritis. With the update, drk still has a lot of those aspects for me, but just to a lesser extent. It still feels fast in the burst, but it doesn't last as long, and I don't feel nearly as much of a difference between the burst and the rotation. It does make the job significantly less interesting to me. I'm not gonna be moving off of it anytime soon, because it is still the most fun job to me, but it is less fun now.
The highs aren't really that high anymore and the lows feel way worse than before. They turned Drk into Warrior and i hate it so much. If i wanted slow and boring i'd just play War.
The issue is really how DRK is basically a simplified copy of warrior which only had its double weave intensity during burst going for it. With that decreased, part of what makes DRK not just a worse WAR got removed.
@arieltorres3594 it's not the overall apm, it's specifically the burst window we're talking about. Drk packs (packed) more into it's burst than most jobs. Apm doesn't account for that. If it were actions per 15 seconds, the numbers would look very different.
I think Viper is popular because it's always busy. Having stuff to do outside buff windows is fun. Picto has lots of thinking to do outside buff windows. If you don't have a bonkers buff window, you need something to do all fight long. Be it either high BPM or planning your movement.
Traditionally, BLM is my most fun job because it feels genuinely demanding in the odd fight - and because the long cast times mean that when you DO connect, it tends to have a visible effect on the enemy's HP. "And now you BURN. Triplecast. Flare. Flare. Flare Star." Such a satisfying feeling, watching their HP plummet.
This actually makes me realize why I’ve always preferred casting jobs over melee. I much prefer having the options to choose my next options fight to fight rather than be locked in a set pattern to an extent Despite its low number of cast bars, it still feels rewarding when playing summoner and (when doing fights blind) correctly guessing and finding the spots where I’m able to stand still and cast
One thing I love Viper is how natural it feels to double weave, or even triple weave with it. Other jobs feel kinda awkward with it as it's usually heavily dependant on how good your internet is, but with VPR it basically accounts for that with its Dreadwinder/Pit of Dread combos. There's always enough space for at least 2 OGCDs, and 3 if your internet is good.
Learning uncoiled fury lets you triple weave comfortably was a game changer for me. You can use it as a free space to weave your feints and true norths :3
I think what makes a job interesting and fun to play is meaningful decision making. EW Black Mage and Monk were perfect job designs in my opinion because of this. Being able to choose and mold your rotation based on the constraints of the fight or knowing the optimal way to enter a burst window given the point you are in your rotation and the timeline of the fight allows for skill expression and the player to feel like they matter and are doing something instead of just pressing the glowy buttons. As a whole, I do think that jobs are a mixed bag. For example, I think Black Mage and Monk got undoubtedly worse in the meaningful decision making department. But I do think that Gunbreaker and White Mage got their kits improved with more freedom to move around their rotation to what the fight demands. I am actually in the camp that DRK did not get worse (feeling wise), but the removal of oGCDs revealed how hollow that job was (123 bloodspiller, all your oGCDs). If anything, the Dawntrail changes call for a larger rework of DRK (and BLM too) to a system that actually demands skill expression.
@@Nempo13 Monk wasn't fun because of it's tracking timers. It was fun because you had a choice on choosing an easy looping rotation and slightly overcapping on timers or carefully planning perfect balance usage to fulfill both Nadi requirements and perfectly refresh timers every single burst window. That skill expression is gone in DT monk. For most monks, nothing has changed. For high end monks who enjoy optimization, the job has gotten worse. Since this change does nothing at best and negatively affects people at worst, it is a net negative change. If SE wanted to keep this skill expression, they could have updated the UI elements to display the buff and DoT timers next to each other. Instead, they decided to forgo that management of timers and by extension eliminated the skill expression of early and optimal refreshes and drift.
I started playing in 5.0 and I've been a Red Mage main since I unlocked the job after beating ARR. I've really been having a ton of fun playing it in Dawntrail, more than ever before. I think it's a very well-designed job because on the surface it's pretty straightforward, but there's a lot of room for optimization. I think that most people can pick up and play it decently, but to become a truly great RDM requires thinking ahead and it feels very rewarding. I wouldn't try to say that it's got the highest skill ceiling or anything, but that skill ceiling is probably higher than a lot of people think. Planning out your uses of Acceleration/Swiftcast and your melee combos for movement and to hit Fleche and Contre Sixte on cooldown is both engaging and rewarding. For example, having full uptime during the feather phase in Valigarmanda EX that requires you to rotate around the entire platform feels so good to pull off! The skill expression that comes with optimizing even a simpler job like RDM is what makes the game most fun to me.
I'm a DRK main. It's literally the only class I play beyond just levelling my classes to max, and I've found that this expansion has left my class slightly empty. DRK plays fine in general, but the burst window of the class just feels less than it did in Endwalker. With the fact that enhanced unmend is basically a worthless talent now, I feel that the changes made to DRK were kind of half thought out. If I was fixing the class I would probably do something like reduce the cost of the MP skills by 500, giving just over one more cast during DRK burst per cycle. The class doesn't need much, but it does need something.
What i feel makes a job fun to play engaging and rewarding from someone who played RPR, BLM, NIN and PLD: 1- How well the job fits current fights, i used to play lots BLM in EW but early in DT i switched to RPR because i really didn't like how hectic some fights were, and at the same time RPRs mobility and survival skills are great when you get to use it 2- A balanced "focus on the fight vs focus on the job" scale, exemple: some fights in EW were really simple so all my focus went to playing the job right so i picked up BLM because you can have fun optimizing stuff without the content needing to provide it, now in DT where i need to pay more attention to fights i picked up RPR who is simpler so i can focus on the fight more 3- Having a burst phase, i would say that my first step into learning how to play properly was learning NIN, having a hectic burst phase that you need to squeeze all the damage you can combined with some filler in between that you can "rest", that a play style i enjoy that i kinda missed when picking up VPR who is hectic all the time 4- Damage, i can't lie that BLM being at the bottom of the dps lists makes me not want to play it, its similar to NIN when compared to RPR, i like doing the big damages Are jobs more interresting? No but yes? i feel like the jobs themselves didn't change much, but the content gave more use to some underutilized tools some jobs have so it kinda feel like it Am i enjoying VPR and PCT? Not really, VPR didn't feel right to me, and PCT i felt like it had a lot of "homework" to do when getting your paintings done, its like "what if you had to soulsow to get harvest moon ready for your burst every 2 minutes" I hope these awnsers help in some way, i can't wait for the job design video
For me a job is most fun when the rotation is not too strict and feels more free flowing. It forces me to pay attention as each pull feels different. The example of this is my main DNC as the procs and feathers force me to pay attention on when they proc and that is the most fun gameplay for me. All while having freedom of movement and being an easy job to learn but hard to master type. Other jobs I have fun on is AST and PCT due to their planning ahead gameplay style.
I adore Picto in large part due to how open and flexible the rotation is. I feel like that, combined with the long-cast sections and the ground-location-tethered cooldown window, give a LOT of opportunity for skill expression on the job. For example, in the first Extreme (the level 93 one), the first 2-minute window occurs almost exactly when the light party moving stack marker mechanic occurs, where you have to take 3 hits that drop puddles as a group. Knowing where to place your Starry Muse and how to handle the GCDs during it so you can optimize usage of the raid buff window and get your full burst sequence off inside the Muse area is tricky and takes practice. The second Extreme has a similar issue, where one of the 2-minute windows lines up perfectly with you having to break the chains (potentially by jumping platforms), and the placement of the Muse can end up outside the arena shortly thereafter if you're not careful.
I'm an old DRK main. When I say old, I mean "maining it since HW"-old. I did find things to enjoy on all versions of the job, even if I have my favourites (HW and StB). I've used it a lot in savage and cleared both TEA and DSR with it. DT version of DRK feels... a bit hollow. What's new on the job is good, the new Scarlet Delirium combo and Disesteem feels good, but they removed damaging gap closers, merged BW and Delirium and nerfed the MP gain of the job meaning losing one Edge of Shadow every two minutes compared to EW or even ShB. We didn't get anything for all those removals, and DRK being the less busy tank feels a bit disheartening to me. I don't know about other people, but what drove me to play DRK back in the day and kept me playing it throughout the years was the busy-ness of the job, be it the MP management and array of oGCDs of HW, the DA spam of StB, or the delirious burst of ShB/EW. DRK must be a busy job for me, and seeing it sitting at 36 CPM compared to the riddiculous highs of StB were it went up as high as 49 iirc... it does'nt feel right. While I still like the visual identity of DRK and still succeed to find some enjoyement from it, the job feels much more boring right now, it lacks substance outside of the few optimizations with TBN and the flexibility of Edge of Shadow. The void between the 2mn burst is worse than ever. While I was already dual-maining DRK alongside GNB while tanking, I will be playing mostly GNB these days if nothing change. The job is still fine, it works, its burst is still crazy strong, but yeah... I will still play it from time to time, I still have a deep connexion to the job and I can still find enjoyement, but not enough to make me main it as before for this expansion. On other jobs, I do enjoy busy jobs the most, with my DPS mains being MNK, SAM, MCH and NIN, and probably VPR from now on. I often joke that I am a "monkey that like to push buttons", going as far as decoupling many skills to push even more different buttons. But I can also enjoy classes with decision making and micromanagement - HW DRK was a bit of that and I mained MNK during EW, and it was also a job with decision making on the fly which made it very compeling to play on top of being busy. I do really like PCT, which is probably going to be my caster of choice, which makes me happy because I historically struggled to find a caster fitting my taste. That's all for my take. I have jobs that I still enjoy, but unfortunately, the job closest to my heart is the worse its been for me - even if I can still find a bit fun from it. VPR and PCT are clear successes however, which makes me hopefull for the future, when SE will be working on improving job identity.
what really makes a job for me is an aspect of… i guess job fantasy is the best descriptor. full disclosure i’m a tank/healer main, so take any comments on dps with a grain of salt. specifically, when a job makes me feel like im filling the role, i find the job more easy to adjust to and execute. with a less intricate burst phase, a lot of enjoyment comes from how im able to adapt to boss mechanics and how well my kit caters to that. paladin, for instance, while i enjoy the rotation, most of my enjoyment comes from my variety of party mitigation tools. between passage of arms, divine veil, intervention and cover, high-damage fights become dances of party mitigation. while playing gunbreaker feels more like juggling a backup medic with aurora and heart of corundum in-between high-damage bursts. warrior and dark knight, meanwhile, feel less impactful to the team in exchange for feeling more personally powerful (high healing for warrior, pleasing tbn usage for dark knight) though dark knight slips to the bottom slot as they feel like the least impactful tank among the four. healers (ast aside as i’ve not gotten the to a high level since their changes and don’t feel good commenting on it), meanwhile, all very much feel like they serve their role perfectly, partially to fight design and partially due to good foundations. scholar in particular i’ve come to love, as playing it i really do feel the tactical elements of the job come into focus. between dissipation, seraph, their enshroud, and more frequent availability of recitation, i feel like i can sort of go down a list of pre-planned healing contingencies when the party is in danger.
I feel like jobs have lost a lot of gameplay and skill expression that was changed in the name of quality of life. Many of the combat systems in the game no longer make any sense with the way the jobs are designed now. Things like the combo system made more sense when combos had more branches instead of it always being 123. Positionals used to carry a lot more weight when missing a positional meant you broke your combo or lost a buff. Mana and TP used to require a lot more management and planning or you would run out. While I think that the game better off moving away from these mechanics the gameplay around them just didn't get replaced with anything meaningful to fill the void. Most jobs when they get new abilities are just disconnected ogcds that you throw into a burst window and call it a day. I want more interactivity between abilities and more resource management to make jobs feel more satisfying. You can fill a jobs action bars with all the abilities in the world and spike cpm through the roof, but if they are just more single instance ogcds that have no interaction with other parts of the kit it feels lazy and boring.
I swapped over to Viper after leveling an alt and having it play each expansion’s poster job throughout msq. And, I gotta say, best choice I’ve made this expansion! Best part is when the rotation starts to/naturally lines up with the BPM of battle themes
I've come with my boring answer and just say: I really like planning heavy jobs. Scholar is my main, and I really like the ability to map everything for a situation, but also the ability to use the multitude of tools for a few fights, to find a new order, and to improvise. Astro is the same, with the flexibility, it feels very comfortable, and I was thinking of picking up bard too, strict rotations are somewhat of a comfort to me.
Honestly, part of what makes a job fun for me is the aesthetic and the job identity. Does the job feel and sound good to play? Honestly I'm worried for Dark Knight. Plunge got cut in favour of a gap close which does no damage, continues to have problems with sustain, and (to my knowledge?) doesn't even do the most damage of the tanks.
As someone who loves the lore and aesthetics of DRK, it does feel bad to play. I don't feel like an unstoppable juggernaut bolstered by darkness, I feel like three different job ideas mashed together taking the weakest parts of each of those jobs.
I think the most fun thing about viper and picto is having non standard rotations, having to prepare for the burst and that prep looks different fight to fight, not having to just go through the rotations waiting for the burst phase helps a lot with fun as when you're progging or reprogging and have a mechanic down I feel like it's really easy to turn your brain off and just go through the motions on some classes
I think dark Knight is my favourite tank. I love that the burst has a lot of apm and the core rotation doesn't what makes for a unique feel especially since gnb in the 2 min burst got less hectic as well with the lionheart combo! I felt drk in Endwalker was just a lot lot to get into but now that I get it I think I would have preferred having stuff like plunge back in burst
I think one of the more interesting case studies is between Bard and Machinist. On paper, both jobs have very similar CPMs, but most players will tell you that Bard feels busier due to the number of things you're keeping track of while doing your rotation, including DoT management, song rotations, and managing RNG based procs. Machinist on the other hand has a rotation that's very consistent and self-explanatory, with very few considerations for fight design outside of forced downtime.
Im not one who particularly cares abous DPS or cast times or anything like that, I care about how fun it is to play in general. And for me, picto has become my favourite job. That slapstick style gives me so much joy ❤
I don't know, Viper made me discover a whole new world by both being simple and high APM, I did not think I could enjoy a melee job with high apm to boot, but I played it more than anything else since I finished story, and am gearing it up first. I think the simplicity of it still allows me to focus on execution while still being very engaging because of the high APM. There's also this crunchy feedback to viper skills that is just feelsgood.jpg. I think we tend to ignore the "feel" component a lot, like WAR is really fun to play partly because of the crunchy hits and the bursty heals. Kinda rewards you even before you look at numbers and optimization. ;p
You cannot just look at how many casts per minute a job has as it isn't indicative of the job itself, what you do need to consider is what the buttons do when you press them and, what I think is also very important, how does your kit interact with an encounter. Taking Pictomancer as an example. When I unlocked it and was hitting a striking dummy, painting the motifs (at least for me) felt off. It took away from the flow. However, when you put yourself in an encounter you can then start thinking about when is the best time I can stand still and cast these. An example being the first boss of strayborourgh. With such hectic sections it can be difficult to stop and cast for 3 seconds, so you really have to think where you place them. A really good example of kits and encounters not mixing is when people say they want the PvP kits in PvE. The PvP kits are designed for short, bursty encounters and generally have a lot of status effects to help swing the fight in your favour, however, not everything is going to translate into PvE, you aren't going to be Miracle of Natureing bosses anytime soon as an example, so you are left with, what is quite a boring kit to play. However, one of the most important things to consider is that everyone is different. What works for one person isn't necessarily going to work for someone else. This is why having a wide spectrum of different playstyles is important, so that as many people as possible have a job they can enjoy playing.
Based on this analysis, i see that WHM and Picto are the best jobs in the game. I don't include BLM as it's only a low CPM because of long cast times, which makes content harder. Fun to me is having a job with an extremely simple to execute rotation, so that i can focus 100% of my attention on not standing in mechanics. I have fun when i don't screw up mechanics. Lower CPM the better, as long as it's not low because of extremely long cast times like the BLM which makes avoiding mechanics more difficult.
@@ReinaKou I have, have you? Most of it's casts are short 1.5s, with a lot of instant casts to use while moving. The only long casts are motif's, but you don't have to cast them as soon as you use them, there is a cooldown on their use, so you can wait until a time in the mechanics you are doing that doesn't require a lot of movement to cast them.
@@ReinaKou That's your opinion. I look at the CPM list, and all the lowest CPM jobs for each role are all my favorite jobs to play because they are easy for me to play.
@@screes620 your original statement came across as less subjectively easy for you and more objectively easy. Objectively easy jobs would be like phys range and summoner which all have middling to high cpm. If you're just stating your opinion, my bad, you're more than entitled to do that.
Right now my favorite jobs are samurai and pictomancer. I like flexible rotations where I can recover from mistakes pretty easily, but I also like room to improve. I also like having to react to things within the fight itself. Samurai having cast times means you need to be aware of when they're gonna happen and occasionally manipulate your rotation to come up at different times and even take advantage of the greater range on your iaijutsus. Pictomancer is planning ahead: the job. You gotta be constantly thinking about what you need to do in the next 20 seconds, and figure out where the best spots are to cast your motifs. While I do have some grievances with job design, I appreciate the direction Dawntrail is taking its fight design, as making optimal rotations really hard or even impossible to do is how you make jobs with pretty simple rotations fun to play
What makes a job fun to me is how fluid it feels to play and the effects. Dancer I've always loved how fluid it is for the simplicity, but with enough going on to keep me busy, especially in the burst phase. Picto takes the fluidity to the max. Being able to go from aoe to st combo and back feels really good and having so many options when something happens is just so nice to have.
I generally find jobs fun if each button has a purpose and reason to be used, and it's not just "part of a combo that could've been on a single button" - which also moves into jobs designed around systems/job mechanics they have, rather than being designed around rotation. Ideally, I like it when jobs rotation is damage-optimal way of pressing buttons heavily conditioned on fight allowing you to do it, and forcing you to figure out how to combine things together in suboptimal conditions (read: whenever you're not fighting training dummy). Healers check all the boxes - to a point some buttons might never be used for entire fight if there's simply no need to use them; out of new jobs picto also fits this description - you have some clear goals presented by your kit (build up meter for subtractive, paint motifs so they're ready when cooldowns are up, don't overcap on resources) and full freedom to figure out how you get there, depending on fight. On the opposite spectrum - jobs like DRG, GNB or MCH - where you heavily move towards needing to press specific buttons in specific order I find unfun; if I'm going to play some QTE memory game, I can just play piano instead.
I think one thing that gets missed with Viper is uncoiled fury is going to have some similar planning to hammer. In your opener you want to use them for potency, but if you aren't careful you 'll end up having to writhing snap (or if you spend coils when you didn't need to). As someone who likes casters, I really like this element. To me planning when I'm going to be using those dreadwinders or regular attacks to make sure I can weave in feint is where a lot of skill expression lies. To answer the question - for me what makes jobs fun is optimizing in the fight and then reacting when things go wrong. How little mit can I get away with? If my co-tank dies, can I save the pull here? Do I need to build up a bunch of white paint before a certain section? Where do I need to be in my combo to weave in the mit I need here? Is there any uptime or damage optimization I can fit in by diverging from "standard" gameplay? For me, the strict-looping jobs with little decision making aren't really very interesting.
I used to play drk in EW and as you said the burst was what made it fun for me, but on a similar note, that's why I am enjoying drg, the ogcd intensive burst with the rework being more focused on fitting everything in the 20 second window is what makes it fun for me
The main thing that makes 14’s gameplay (and that of any tab target mmo) fun is why I’m pressing my buttons. Kit interaction in other words. If I’m pressing a button that deals damage, doesn’t combo into anything, doesn’t cost any resource, doesn’t have a cast time, doesnt buff me/the party and doesn’t debuff the enemy, that button is boring. I’d rather play a job with six buttons that all have crazy interactions than a job with 20 buttons that are boring.
My mains in EW were Ninja and Monk. I find VPR to be the perfect blend of both, with fun little internal game with Dreadwinder combos but the NIN burst of "Press everything NOW" also VPR being flexible with its tools, because your burst is literally just the 2 Reawakens back to back means you can hold / use Dreadwinder as you want. Same with the ranged attack (Uncoiled Fury I think?) Do you know you will have to go out of the melee range? 3 Uncoiled Fury's stocked up and we are a MCH for up to 8 seconds babyyy! I also love how everything clicks when you go into the burst phase and think, why not 3 Reawakens and then you realize that the 40 seconds buff and debuff duration was picked very much deliberately to prevent that.
I hate what they did to DRK. They took away 1) the busy burst; 2) management of blood gauge for LS; 3) prioritization of double weaves. It's fine though, GNB is fun. I can forget DRK ever existed.
Looking at this, I find I need to reevaluate my stance on what makes the jobs I enjoy 'fun' to me. Yes, speed is definitely a part of it (will likely be maining Samurai or Gunbreaker this time around), but I also love Black Mage and Dancer, both of whom are pretty low in the CPM department, yet I can't stand what White Mage has gone, despite being right next to Black Mage in those same terms. I think more than just speed, the key to making a job fun is a mix of mechanical complexity and and audio/visual feedback. Complicated rotations may be out of vogue, and that might be for the better, but at the same time all the classes I mentioned save White Mage all have some level of depth to their gameplay and variations on how or when resources can be used. Save Namikiri in case of add phase? Blizzard IV or Umbral Soul? Save up feathers for burst, or have higher sustain? When to hold cooldowns or burst cartridges? Furthermore, they all have some fantastic feedback in the graphical and audio departments which makes playing them a treat. Yet White Mage by comparison, unless someone needs healing, is a single button being smashed repeatedly over and over again. Gameplay in this respect becomes extremely dull quickly, sometimes in the span of one or two pulls depending on the kind of content. I think this might be the key difference here - a class doesn't necessarily need to be fast to be fun, but it can't be too obviously repetitive. Edit: I approach this not just from Savage and Ultimate as not everyone plays those, but from a holistic approach to the job as a whole. Considering you still have to grind significant amounts in this game even to get into raiding, be it by tome/normal mode raid gear or gil to buy crafted gear, discounting normal gameplay I feel is a very common problem when analyzing jobs. Gameplay should feel rewarding in **ALL** content, not just the high end.
Your complaint applies to all healers then if that is the only criticism of WHM. Which maybe you also agree with that but I do not think healers feel unfun to play in non high end content just because the dps rotation is 1 gcd and 1 dot gcd.
Im gonna be real for a sec here. i mained DRK in stormblood and shadowbringers, the more they remove from the job the more i go play something else. ive played WAR more then DRK in the last 2 expacs, not with a lack of trying mind you, like WAR just has more ways to help the party and now does more damage and has almost as many weaves as DRK. i was a fan of dark arts back in STB however i understand why they got rid of it but then the job just became WAR with more weaves now it cant do that anymore. now i play WAR as my tank of choice. if they fix DRK like they did with PLD last expac, i would be very happy but now im just barely playing it as the new GCD could have easily been an oGCD, healing could have been added to the new bloodspiller combo and MP needs to be fixed cause they keep removing how much MP we get back. Thanks for bringing it up Rinon and i hope you go further into DRK and how it can be fixed.
My personal favorite jobs are ones that had elements of both planning and execution - BRD, RDM, and AST being my top 3. BRD is more execution-heavy than the other two, but reacting to procs and quickly planning things in advance around what procs you get and when is a lot of fun to me, and I think the new GCDs it got as part of its burst add a lot to making its execution more satisfying too. RDM's fast burst phase is a lot of fun, but I also love planning around when I'm going to use my melee combo, how, adapting to procs, and movement requirements. The new addition of Grand Impact also adds a lot to planning - you can save your Acceleration stacks to pile on damage with Grand Impact's potency, but it's also a much more potent movement tool now. AST has gotten a bit less going on in both execution and planning in DT, which makes me a bit sad, but planning out heals is still a lot of fun, as is deciding who gets your card buffs (I do really miss the odd-minute damage card, but that's a different problem). The 2nd stack of Acceleration from the most recent patch also feels great to use.
Thoughts on the ones I play a lot: I like the DRK change. Most of the reduction in "pace" is just from having squished Blood Weapon and Delirium together, and for me at least that always just means getting to comfortably single-weave instead of awkwardly double-weave. Astro I'm kind of ambivalent about. I think the new Astro is, fundamentally, better; A better thematic match for the planning and "an answer to every occasion" vibe I love about the job. At the same time I miss the weird, kind of janky minigame you could play to push out ever-so-slightly more damage with Astrodyne's self-buffs and making sure you're dropping the card buffs on the right DPS. I'm kind of shocked that "greased lightning" Monk ends up in 7th, but I suppose the fundamental attack speed plays a smaller role in total buttons per minute and in a way ends up pushing the opposite direction by making double-weaves less viable once attack speed moves beyond a certain point. And while it's technically accurate I still feel like Ninja is kind of cheating its way to the top, what with its "you have to press 3-4 buttons to do an action" effects every 15 seconds or so. That seems like such a different reason for extra buttons compared to everyone else that I wonder whether it should be counted the same.
i think something worth noting abt specifically the tanks is that the dash attacks used to be weaved into the combos as available, but as they no longer deal damage and are instead just a rapid approach, there's been no new reason to weave them. DRK Plunge and GNB Rough Divide have been replaced with Shadowstride and Trajectory respectively, which deal no damage and only act as an approach tool. Dragoon saw this as well with the change from Spineshatter Dive to Winged Glide. basically, skills used to approach and deal damage have been reworked to no longer deal damage and just act as a quick approach, and there is no longer a reason to weave them into combos, lowering the CPM. anyway, to answer the actual question: the thing that makes a job fun for me is the flow, or the dance. viper feels like it has a really good rhythm, and slipping into double-time with reawaken for a short window feels really satisfying. dancer is similar for me, with a stable flow and the option to weave feathers into the mix. alternatively, the problem solving and working out what options are best for a given situation are what makes scholar really fun for me; deciding if a mechanic will require seraph, seraphism, or simply burning aetherflow like crazy feels rewarding as my party's health stays near full after a heavy hitting mechanic.
What makes a job fun is decision making. Some people are asking for healers to get a 1 2 3 instead of 1 1 1, but I argue these are the same thing. For Viper they literally are! I think decision making: that is, having multiple valid uses for resources that are mutually exclusive in the moment, is fun. Beyond any rotation, this is something evergreen and varies with encounter design, so you aren't just pressing the same buttons in the same order every time. It's why I main healer. I want to see more jobs tuned this way, giving you flexible gameplay
I've been loving pictomancer so much. I'm an artist in real life and was determined to learn the job regardless but lucky for me I vibe really well with the main opener and skill expression so far. I was a little worried at first because I'm not a black mage player at all lol
This depends heavily on the person. For example, I don't enjoy DPS optimizing, and I HATE spreadsheeting my abilities. So despite me being a healer main, I may drop them because I'm tired of the "healing plan" game. I like Jobs that let me react and do things in situations, so I like RDM having Vercure and Verraise, despite people hating on those abilities. They're what make it fun to me, and I don't care. They're FUN. I also like how RDM doesn't have a set rotation, and with Manification's rework, is now very forgiving and flexible, without many things to juggle. I also LOVE SMN. It has nice anchor points/waymarkers to point me along my rotation, but isn't at all rigid. Just nudges showing me where to go next. "Oh, Titan, okay, next 8 buttons are the 1-2 combo 4 times". I actually like that I can play SMN like I'd play Smash Bros or Legend of Zelda, games where I'm not constantly looking down at a hotbar to see how many seconds until I have to use things to keep them from overcapping. (I hate having to do that). I COULD like Jobs with rigid rotations as long as they're neatly closed. PLD I like okay (Clemency is fun, and the ranged burst is fun), but it has too many buttons and doesn't neetly fit into a 60 second closed loop. I also don't like MNK, because despite it initially appearing flexible like RDM, it's actually a rigid loop...with random "record skips" to throw you off with Blitz, AND with random off-kilter oGCDs like the 90 sec one that you have to track in addition to everything else. I don't like healers anymore because I don't like the spreadsheet planning. I DO (normally) like healers and tanks in games because they're less about stupid damage rotations and more about situational awareness and reacting to situations, but in FFXIV, they're about plate juggling and DPS rotations. And the DPS rotations are not neat loops OR anchor point loose rotations (though PLD is the closest, sorta like SMN, and I like that okay). So, how do you parse THAT? I like things that are ACTUALLY freeform and have utility stuff I can do like heal and raise or mitigate for my party (RDM) or semi-loose rotations with waypoints but not really locked in, like SMN. And I don't like CDs (I'd love a Job that had NO cooldowns at all, like imagine RDM if the movement oGCDs did no damage and had no CDs and so were just movement whenever tools, and that didn't have Fleche, Contre Sixte, Manification, or Embolden), DoTs, or random buff/debuff/odd timer CDs (like 90 sec ones which MNK and NIN have) to have to keep track of. . Honestly, there's no DPS Job in the game I like right now, but SMN and RDM probably come the closest. There's not really a Tank I like right now, though I like PLD okayish (GNB I like the aesthetics more, but...) And at this point, I largely dislike the healers, though I find WHM acceptable since you can largely ignore "healing plans" and just YOLO the bomb heals when you need them, though it unfortunately doesn't have mitigation like it should. Seriously, AST is half a barrier healer and WHM got "for 30 sec after Temperance, you can use Succor once" (Yeah, I know it's stronger than that, but AST gets 20 seconds of Succor followed by 10 seconds of Temperance AND has Collective every minute anyway!) They need to get rid of the pure/barrier split since it's such a broken system, give WHM as much party mit as AST, then maybe we'll have one healer Job that I really like. (Seriously, it's the Job that has Protect, Shell, Wall, and Stoneskin, both in this and other FF games; why the heck doesn't it have those things now? Give Plenary's buff 10 seconds of 10% damage reduction from a Pro-Shell trait and call it a day!)
As a FFXIV nerd and game designer both, I have a LOT of thoughts of current job design - which means a looong post, sorry lol. Viper and Picto are fantastically designed jobs that, as stated in the video, cater to different crowds really effectively. Unfortunately, as someone who is always most excited by class designs and new skills in FFXIV and other RPGs, it's hard to overstate who disappointed I feel on the whole with the transition to Dawntrail. Animation upgrades that change nothing about how a skill is used, filler traits like Enhanced Reprisal to take up space and close to identical capstone abilities of "enjoy a new GCD/oGCD that you use once every 2 minutes!"... It's felt really disappointing. The reworks haven't hit great for me either, all in all. DRK is truly a straight downgrade from EW in terms of gameplay and both the MP and Living Shadow nerfs (if the shadow needs to gapclose to a new target it now uses Shadowstride instead of Plunge, meaning it loses the full 'GCD' damage that it would normally have) feel like oversights from a lack of playtesting, and it's really hard to force myself to play it over it's competition for any reason other than aesthetics. AST's new cards are functionally Aetherflow with less freedom of choice as to the effects, with the support cards feeling mostly vestigial considering Astro's already loaded single target oGCD kit (hello third charge of ED). They removed the RNG component of the fortune teller without reaping the potential benefits of allowing for interesting card effects in return, truly feels like the worst of both worlds. It's a really powerful healer objectively, but the thing that solidified it's identity when compared to other healers has been dulled down and made far less unique. BLM actually just makes me miserable now, the rework has pushed it from being my favourite job to one of my least favourite. In their quest to kill non-standard, they have ironically increased the skill floor and lowered the skill ceiling. The problems with new BLM feel pretty well-documented and I'm sure will be discussed in your next video on job design, so I don't want to talk too much about it here. All I'll say is that in BLM's case, I'd take level 90 EW BLM over 100 DT BLM in a heartbeat. I know that job design wasn't a focus for this expansion, and that battle content was. But waiting 2.5 years for the potential of the evolution of jobs is a really hard sell. Well and truly, it feels as though Square Enix needs to hire and invest more manpower into their job design teams going forward.
Tank main with 3 to 100: I like weaving and juggling my own mitigation with party support and my burst window. I like having moment-to-moment decisions that when executed correctly makes other players have an easier experience.
After figuring out my button layouts for Extreme/Savage raids for DRG, not only do I miss DRG having fewer buttons but I actually miss the buttons that were meant to be pressed strictly on cooldown as well. The sort of long-term cadence of it all is what I liked. Now I just slam my face on the keyboard every 120s lol. Why DRG's 200-damage instant tied to High Jump lost its Nastrond-enabling effect is beyond me haha. Now all the ability does is the measly 200 damage! This weenie instant is the lion's share of what is inflating DRG's button presses as well which is the funniest part lol.
I do not correlate APM or CPM with fun, only how bad it makes my hands hurt. In my opinion, 'fun' is directly related to learnability. Complexity and decision making while playing leads to something feeling more enjoyable or, on the flip side, overwhelming if maybe you're not quite there yet so I myself might instead desire my rotation to shift and change based on the situation and consider that the pinnacle of enjoyment. Now, this measurement of APM not representing fun is one I felt the need to point out because I consider it underrepresented, and because if the jobs all got much faster, I would likely quit the game. HOWEVER, I have a friend who complained relentlessly that the game wasn't fast enough for him because he got a decent dopamine spike every time he hit a button that made a number appear on screen. My point being, there needs to be slow and fast jobs so people can find their niche. Just like my friend avoids spell casters and I prefer them. We have enough jobs to let everyone play piano at their own speed, I think.
its hard for me to say what makes a job fun, but ive tended to stay away from the 'harder' jobs personally. ive played all ARR and HW jobs to 50 with a fair amount to 60, and i dont like BLM, AST and somewhat NIN, the rest im completely fine with. i find SCH much easier than WHM im enjoying SAM, people say RDM is easy but it confuses me lots and its one of the few jobs i feel like i NEED to watch my bars constantly
I think it's a combination of speed along with aesthetic. Fury Warrior was my "funnest" job in the time I spent in WOW and Viper is essentially FFXIV Fury Warrior. . . and I love it.
To me what makes a job fun is the intent of the buttons you press. A problem I have with a lot of jobs is that their OGCD's boil down to "more damage 1" and "more damage 2" etc. I prefer it if the buttons tangibly allow me to do something else than bigger numbers. Stuff like Triplecast, Perfect Balance and Requiescat. The less boring stat buffs a job has, the more enjoyable it is to me.
I'd say job flow is a lot more interesting than just shear button pressing. Been playing White Mage a ton recently and it's been one of my favorite jobs, used to play Astro and even got it to 90 back in EW but sometimes it's just too much between raid buffs, dots, healing, stack mitigation, cards, and I just don't enjoy it anymore. Gonna work on the Summoner/Scholar pair whenever I feel like taking a break from White Mage since they're the same base class
To me one of the biggest flaws of 7.0 dark knight wasn't the removal of plunge, but instead the removal of meaningful gauge management. Sure you still pool MP and try to pull blood, but your burst no longer is going to be wildly off if you fail to do either of those. Before you had to be careful to not overcap or overspend blood so that you could use Living Shadow on cooldown. The change now is beneficial for burst alignment and openers, both being simpler to both keep aligned and execute, but I still feel something was lost that helped DRK stand out in comparison to warrior which didn't have that. TBN thankfully still cost MP, but the blood weapon change also indirectly loses you 1200 MP per min at all levels kinda sucks now too and just leads you to using less edge/flood to keep enough MP for TBN instead of any meaningful decision making with MP. Right now, between DRK's still relatively low self sustain and lack of significant resource management it just feels like a worse warrior. I wish they would play more into gauge management, make blood have more use and management involved for pooling again, maybe make the new Disesteem cost 50 blood if they wish to keep Living Shadow costless and restore blood weapon to 5 stacks. Id love for more uses of blood and MP in general. What we had in EW wasn't a lot, and I know there are plenty who hated (and still hate) skills like Living Shadow and TBN requiring resources, but it was what separated DRK from the other tanks to me and I would love to see it gain a more thought provoking playstyle instead of just having the same burst as any other tank.
Can't really comment on EW vs DT job fun since I only started playing a couple months before DT came out, but I HAVE made it to EW's MSQ. I decided to play through it as VPR since my main job, MCH, was already at 92, and VPR's been really fun! I sometimes drop my Death Rattles by mistake because I'm a goob, but that’s about it. The constant keeping up with positionals is a bit more brain intensive than "avoid puddles and shoot," so that's been an interesting adjustment period.
Time to yap about monk for a bit :D EW Monk was definitely a job that had both a respectably high cpm (in large part due to its GCD) and also a fair amount of decision making. With three distinct burst windows and multiple opener/rotation options, as well as plenty of niche tech, it had a lot of sauce for those who really wanted to get into the thick of it. Monk's cpm in DT is more or less identical to what it was in EW, but the decision making aspect has been pretty much completely neutered. The most there is to it is that ideally the three GCDs in your perfect balance when building a rising phoenix should go from weakest to strongest based on what you have available. Outside of that, there's really not a whole lot. You live by the balls, you die by the balls. DT Monk isn't a bad job by any means, but it definitely feels like it's a shell of its former self, much like many other jobs. Even some of the niche optimization tricks, such as RoF holding and triple blitz reopeners, are much more straightforward in their execution. Like many, I think that lowering the skill floor is a good thing. But when it comes at the cost of the skill ceiling, it definitely becomes a shaky decision, one that I think the developers are maybe a little *too* willing to make. I'll still be playing it for this first savage tier though, in large part because keeping melee uptime in these fights might actually be a fun challenge, and it doesn't get more melee than monk. As for the new jobs: Picto is insanely fun, and the vibes are immaculate. 10/10, no notes. I haven't leveled viper much so far but it hasn't been very exciting. Obviously that's not my final judgement, I haven't even gotten Reawaken yet, it's more of a comment about the very inconsistent levelling experience in this game. A supposedly high cpm job like viper being pretty snoozer in the mid 80s is definitely noteworthy, albeit a different topic entirely.
Prefacing this with- by no means a master of any job let alone all of them, but I always level them all and try to not be useless when doing so, so I at least read the resources available. I've talked about this a few times with friends on discord etc... outside of the obvious jobs that saw very impactful changes like BLM/AST, most of the jobs play almost exactly like they did in EW. That's either a really good thing or a really bad thing and its been REALLY interesting seeing which is which and to whom since not really changing being good or bad will be subjective. Dancer for example outside of some QoL plays more or less the same except for the new buttons you see peppered in, and that's been a good change for me, I'm less (not by much, but less) bored waiting for the push everything phase and coming from an ex-nin main, I enjoy the "difficulty" being in a fast paced burst phase where you need to make good decisions on order of weaves to not overcap something/clip your gcd/have something fall out or let the WRONG thing fall out of buffs. Gunbreaker with that big beefy finisher feels amazing and the AoE follow up is so fun, they're basic additions but they FEEL good to push. On the other hand SMN got an entire new phase and... it plays exactly the same. And that really sucks. New baha looks really cool don't get me wrong, but I don't feel like I'm really doing anything different than I was doing in EW. Reaper for as strong as it is right now also doesn't feel any more engaging or fun to play than it did in EW which for some is a good thing, not so much for me. I hate death's design (Viper's concept was better I'll die on that hill) and the ramp up just doesn't do it for me. DT's new buttons ARE interesting but the issues with the core gameplay are still there. I've definitely enjoyed Viper and Picto and because of that I don't think putting it in terms of CPM really tells us anything about a job's level of fun unless that's just your kink. It really points to how important overall design is and how they want you to do what the job is supposed to do. Viper and Reaper both want to keep a debuff on the enemy to increase damage, HOW they do it is very different though, namely one is fun. Picto needs to plan for movement and juggle long casts to keep their dps going and their tools are setup in a way that "rotation" is a weird word to use, its more like "do whatever you want as long as this doesn't happen" and that feels great, while BLM just feels extremely rigid now and while you still get to have that 3d chess timeline in your head to make your options work for the movement that's asked, those options aren't nearly as impactful as they used to be because you're still doing the same rigid rotation at the end of day.
I started playing FFXIV a little over a year ago, and this is my first on-content expansion. I've mostly played BLM for the MSQ, so I've done most dungeons and trials blind on it, but I've always found SMN more comfy to take in to raids. For me, the low apm of BLM was balanced out by the absolutely horrid time I had with positioning myself consistently - the hits I landed were satisfying, but I felt like I couldn't land them as often. SMN has been wonderful for me as a relatively simple job that nonetheless does require some degree of pre-planning and decision making - things like can I use Ifrit here? - as well as bringing some utility to the group, as I tend to favor a more hybrid dps/support style build in other games. RDM, by contrast, never quite clicked with me - the mobility is nice, but I keep losing track of my dualcasts, and having to flip in and out of melee makes me feel like I'm essentially playing two classes at once, so I ironically feel less flexible. I've found PCT to be a nice middle ground between BLM and SMN - relatively shorter cast times and lots of instant cast options means I still have the mobility I enjoy from SMN while still having the satisfying punch I love from BLM. While PCT doesn't have the party utility of SMN in the form of a rez, being able to buff my party in other ways has been quite nice as well. Besides all that, who doesn't love to whip out a cartoonishly large hammer and just go BONK?
I basically only play tanks, and what i enjoy about them a lot is balancing their relatively simply combo line with using mitigation to benefit the party. PLD is by far my favorite in this regard because of the sheet utility I have on hand. At a base level you have regular stuff. Reprisal, Devine veil, and passage of arms if you find good moments. But it's the smaller decision making. Throwing out an intervention on a caster during big raid wides. Casting over on a dps so they can maintain uptime in an otherwise impossible situation. Or even the odd clemency on a healer as they slow rez up an ally. It's these fun utility options combined with my ability to keep up on my rotation that really makes tanks, but specifically PLD really enjoyable to me.
I was a DRK in EW and the job feels hollow now. Going into your burst and being finished after like 3 GCDs instead of the old 5+ just feels bad. And all we got to show for it was a mediocre heal on a 2 minute cooldown and an extra GCD again on a 2 minute cooldown. I’ll be playing WAR and GNB instead this expac and DRK is staying at 90.
I think more than anything, what makes a job fun is having a large variety of animations and vfx to look at when you aren't doing the big burst window.
Your point about the importance of decision making is a major part of why I've switched off of maining SMN in DT. I was really looking forward to DT adding literally anything to SMN's kit to make me think a bit and need to make meaningful decisions during combat. Instead I'm just pressing the exact same buttons I've been pressing all through EW, in the same order. So no thanks SE, I'll main something else.
One overlooked victim of the DT moveset would be DNC. DNC gained Last Dance and Dance of the Dawn, both of which sit on the GCD but do not give feathers. These two, plus the fact that Tillana has now been shifted to a 2.5s recast from its previous 1.5s, means thats the opener feels slow as you’re only pressing GCDs and not weaving anything. Subsequent burst windows are fine for the first 5 GCDs while you have feathers saved, but once they run out, you’re still not going back to the GCDs that give feathers, because there are higher DPS GCDs to still hit. That is probably the reason for such a drastic drop in CPM. It’s not bad per se, but compared to the high speed decision making and double weaving that I got used to in 6.0, 7.0 DNC feels like a downgrade, even though it has much higher DPS.
What makes any job fun is going to widely depend on who you ask and what they want out of the job in the first place. I could write you an essay about the varying opinions of every job change since ShB and how none of them have had consistent reasoning for why anyone did/didn't like something. What ultimately matters is if our monkey brain gets the dopamine, and that can come from animations, the beeg numahs that show up, etc. These factors are so numerous and varied between players that there ISN'T anything that specifically makes a job fun. The only real consistency comes down to the artistic design of each skill (ie sound, animation, screen shake), and that is fairly independent of what's actually happening in game.
I can't really make a call on how I want the jobs to hash out because leveling jobs through Dawntrail content is so different from leveling jobs in SHB or EW content, and I'm not sure at what point I'm evaluating the job or evaluating the fight - and if I do end up going back to older content, I'm not testing the job's full current capabilities. Like, I love playing Machinist in Dawntrail, but I don't know if that's because more fights allow me to show off my skill by forcing the party to move a lot or if I just really love the new buttons. Or both.
My favorite job is White Mage, and I like the more steady pace it has. Jobs like AST or NIN feel like a lot of busy work to me -- like I'm pressing a bunch of buttons for no real reason. On White Mage when I press a button I feel like it's for a direct reason and it does something. I've actually looked at that list to decide what jobs to play and lower CPM jobs like WAR and SMN are generally more fun for me. I like that there is a variety.
I feel the same way about AST. It's like i have to press twice as many buttons to do the same thing i could have done on WHM, it just feels so inefficient. WHM has a button for every occasion, and sometimes more than one option for each. WHM and WAR are definitely my two favorite jobs in the game as well.
I wholeheartedly agree. I feel like current AST requires too much focus on the skills and healing rotation that I can't keep my eyes on the fight. I can't begin to count the number of times I missed my card cooldowns because I needed to hyperfocus keeping the party alive. I personally play Sage and WHM because you can still preplan your heals but have more than enough room to use your situational awareness to adapt.
I think what makes a job fun is much more subjective rather than objective. I read the comments here and everyone has very different reasons they like their job and every job has a particular fan base! from my perspective its more the idea of feeling powerful and badass So I like WAR because of the spamming, healing, and critting MCH for the vast amount of tools i can use and prepping wildfire for a big blast, WHM for Sprouting wings and healing everyone with massive heals and fueling the blood lily and lastly NIN for its insane mobility and adaptability being able to deal consistent damage from anywhere if you rotate and use mudras when forced out of melee range.
While high CPM can be a fun factor for a job, I think it also depends on what is the effect of the buttons you have to press. I'll take the example of DRK : while I understand that some people missed having to weave in the 2 plunges for optimal burst, I doubt a lot of people would consider the fusion of blood weapon and delirium a "not fun" change.
I havent had much time to play since the expansion launch but, I have been enjoying Viper - this may not make sense but, to me, it feels like the iligitimate child between monk and samurai with some ninja uncle/aunt influence on how it 'grew up'. I have been a monk main forever and always go back to it - so far, viper is a close second for me. I unlocked picto not too long ago and enjoy it so far - i quite like the decision making with a bit of a slower pace. Currently, its my favorite caster. We'll see after everfy job is leveled if that holds true.
As a player I heavily gravitate towards classes that do not double weave, partially due to not being located near the server hubs and having some amount of latency inherently even on my own server, and partially due to not having the hands and reflexes suitable for maximum APM jobs. I'm currently playing monk as primary, which while bit above the middle line of CPM has only one double weave in its current rotation, is actually surprisingly comfy to play for me. Beyond that I favour the more planning oriented jobs and would likely very much enjoy picto, if my regular party mate didn't main it and if its aesthetics weren't something I wasn't too keen on. Viper to me felt absolutely terrible as a job, while ironically I don't hate ninja nearly as much despite them being relatively similar on APM. Lot of that to me has to do with the feeling and sound design of impact. Ninja's ninjitsus are relatively hefty feeling abilities even if most of the kit is fairly light. Meanwhile both Reaper and Viper are very floaty feeling jobs in my opinion and don't feel great. Viper especially I didn't enjoy since it felt like all my animations clipped into each other without having the time and impact to land properly. By comparison monk feels like it makes use of the whole GCD of each attack, allowing you to appreciate the impact and animation of the attack. Even forbidden chakra is one of the more impactful feeling OGCDs. Of course this is just personal opinions on the matter and I'm happy for people who enjoy viper and machinist and similar jobs, but for me they never landed.
For me, what makes the job fun is the personality of it. I absolutely love AST (well, I would still prefer Stormblood's card system) and PCT. It makes the jobs feel more alive to me and not really a press 1,2,3 to use x, y, z skills. It feels like pure artistry. Which makes sense with Pictomancer.
I personally enjoy things that are simple, yet effective. And somehow (to me) Viper and Picto both fit that description. Viper is way faster than anything, but I find it very simple for some reason. You'd think I would enjoy it, but Dark Knight is my most hated job and it's not even close.
As someone who primarily mained both GNB and DRK in EW, it’s very interesting and likewise disappointing to me that the two jobs turned out exactly the way they did in 7.0. I’m both a little baffled and impressed by how GNB’s Reign of Beasts combo elegantly handles both lowering the skill floor (granting gcd space by not requiring continuation, lessening the burden of managing defensives/tank movement) while still maintaining a generally similar skill ceiling (RoB combo breaks Gnashing Fang combo which is a huge loss vs 3 burst strikes in EW maintaining combos). DRK on the other hand got QoL in combining Blood Weapon and Delirium, and while Scarlet Delirium does force you to use the full combo in sequence or it breaks, unlike 3 bloodspillers, this is the closest thing to adding more rigidity to the job. otherwise, the job is emptier and lacking in considerations. I liked the job design in StB better, but overall I thought EW DRK was a step in the right direction from ShB DRK, yet now in 7.0 it lost both its dominance in dealing raw damage and its frenetic burst windows. Living Shadow not costing gauge anymore is sort of the nail in the coffin here; if I were to have guessed how DRK could improve from 6.x, I would’ve guessed that it would gain a blood spender, not lose one. Still, perhaps they’ll pull a mid-StB and DRK will get some random skills buffed or reintroduced (give me Sole Survivor and Dark Passenger back please ^u^)
I'm a former samurai main that instantly became a viper main. I'm enjoying its flexibility a lot compared to my very rotationally rigid old main. I think I prefer's samurai burst window over viper's though, viper is just very fast paced though mostly braindead strategically whereas samurai's is/was very methodical into how you could squeeze the most potency under buffs. I think both jobs are well designed against each other as the two pure selfish melee dps and I commend SE for nailing this first try.
I think speed is irrelevant towards whether or not the job is fun. What’s really important is the ability to learn the job effectively, think critically, and apply the tools at your disposal to a variety of situations. In other words, it’s less about the jobs themselves and more about the possibilities of what players can do with the job that determines the fun factor. For me, whm is super simple, but still a really fun job to play (and still my main) because I feel like I have to think situations through and my parties performance can change based on how well I use my kit.
I mean both decisions and high cpm make a fun job, what I cant play is jobs with static rotations. I want to create my rotation for each fight and each go around I know where we are in a fight because of where I am in my rotation. I do enjoy the planning of casters and catering my movement to a fight, but I would call myself a melee main because I like the busy nature of the job and trying to squeeze as much uptime as I can, figuring out what I can get away through trial and error. I loved fights like p8s that made my desire to perfect my rotation and uptime a necessity vs p12s where it was only important to me since the dps check was so lenient.
I think the most important thing is that the job's dps rotation has flexibility. You can move around different buttons and abilities, without losing optimal DPS. And then that all of these buttons and abilities might have different range, posittional, movement, and resource requirements. That is where most of the fun is. Because then in an encounter to encounter basis, you can shift your rotation around to fit the needs of the encounter. I'm a BLM main obviously and its flexibility is why I main it. I only play standard, and hate like 80% of the changes DT made compared to EW BLM. But it still is my favorite job, even in this much worse state. I wish more jobs had meaningful decisions to make. SMN and SCH have my favorite theme, but I find healing too boring, and SMN is like the worst designed DPS kit. I would main SB SMN right now if I could with how flexible the length of different parts of its rotation were.
What makes a job fun for me is a fair bit of business to it but also it needs to feel different from the other jobs that I play. At least feel as different as they can feel within the current FFXIV job homogomization. Also utility skills like gap closers or NIN's tp to allow me to really greed and push it when I really learn a fight.
As someone who raided on both NIN and BLM in EW, for me the changes feel as follows: I personally like the additions to NIN's kit, while CPM isn't the be all and end all, it truly is a matter of skill expression in executing those high cast amount bursts correctly all the time. For BLM, the reduction of CPM truly is an indicator of it's downfall. The skill expression on BLM came from optimizing the casts that you had per minute. As said with PCT, PCT truly embraces having slow casts and that planning around it. BLM lost that planning for a big part, and still lost CPM.
I remember progging DSR as DRK in EW, I'm GNB main but decided to give DRK a try. It was fun, fast and the MP management + TBN optimisation was fun. Changing DRK's movement tool to an actual movement tool is great, but DRK lost an Edge of Shadow and 2 plunge per minute. DRK has lost a lot to weave, but it also execute the same actions, the job is very repetitive on the GCD side.
I focused mostly on trying new jobs. Viper is fun to learn, but honestly, in my opinion is "easy to learn, easy to master" job. Viper have nothing to optimize except positionals, 3 gapclosers and 3 ranged attack with high gcd gives him easy uptime. Entire burst is just "save 50 gauge", outside of burst I can press almost anything in order I want while avoiding overcap on uncoiled and dreadwinder which is quite easy. Viper just dont have anything to optimize or think about, which is become boring at some point. I know some players love such jobs, but I'm not one of them. I feel even summoner have more optimization options due to forced gapcloser. On another hand, Picto is fun to play. Ex1 and normal raids provide a lot of moments where I can plan my movement and skills for keeping gcd rolling and it feels good. Picto is easy in core, but big focus on casting (especially motifs and CYM which have long casting) makes him imteresting, especially when I dont know fight.
I do overall prefer busy jobs. I mained EW AST (on controller) and overall liked the speedy jobs the most, like GNB, MCH, MNK. But whats the most important to me is how a job feels. I used to love BLM but after the changes it feels bad to play, the fire phase is too long, ice phase is too short, without sharpcast you dont really need to think about how you will weave it to refresh thunder on the second part of fire, its insanely strict, and on top of all of that they took away ice paradox which just felt *good* same with with MNK, we returned to the 223 flow of EW but it still feels *bad,* EW MNk was all about the flow, specially during your bursts where you had to make sure you mazimized the uses of oppo gcds while not dropping your dot and buff, but now the 2 minute is "oops, all oppo oppo!" and for me it just makes the flow halt in a jarring way that makes me go "where was I?" at the end, looking down at my hotbars to even know what comes next while I regain my footing. currently Im maining PCT and ADORING it, it just feels great, how outside of your burst you can do anything however you want, like paint for like the whole valigarmanda transition because you got places to be when thats done, or how in P4S I was saving one motif unpainted right before the 2 minute for movement during pinax, even the burst you can do it in so many ways to deal with movement requierements and can do a bit of hyperfantasia just to go dance around the stage with 3 hammers and then come back to finish your burst, its a marvelous job that really nails the aesthetic.... and the hammer combo animation is just amazing Im also hugely enjoying VPR. in EW I played all the melees but RPR which I didnt enjoy, but with the DT changes I just dont enjoy DRG and SAM as much and MNK feels awful. I was expecting I would dislike VPR as it looked like a "click the shiny" job and I enjoy the more complicated jobs, but VPR plesantly surprised me. is not only the speed but the moment to moment desicion making, VPR is very much a job about juggling, having the debuff, the positonal buffs, the dreadwinder combo, and two gauges to manage makes it so much more engaging. I found myself plesantly surprised by the fact that keeping up my positional buff was actually something I needed to keep in mind. at the end, what makes a fun job in my opinion is the moment to moment descicion making, the ability to adapt to different situations, and the oportunity to improve oneself... and funny paint noises.
I've been absolutely loving pictomancer for how freeform it is. It was also what I loved in ShB SMN and EW BLM, but both are gone now. I also quite enjoy dragoon's burst because while you have enough stuff to double-weave after every GCD, most of that stuff is procs not cooldowns, so you don't need to press them the exact second then come up. For viper, it's decently fun but I don't forsee myself coming back to it once I have all jobs at 100. It feels *too* simple for my tastes My least favourite job is bard, where you're just flooded with 5 things all at once shouting for your attention randomly proccing and also having no mercy on cooldown drift with the songs being 120s
Unfortunately this is really one of the small list of ways Jobs can be "Fun" in ffxiv. In the past of Heavenswards and Stormblood, job overall was much more accepted in it's enjoyment (And, admittedly needlessly high ceiling) where enjoyment came in many different forms. A prime example is Dragoon. Originally in HW, with Dragoon Blood of the Dragon was a buff you HAD to to maintain by landing Wheeling thrust/Fang n claw to add timer to its reletively short window (starts at 15 second, max 20 second and GCD refreshed I think 10 seconds). Whenever you used Geirksgogul it took 10 seconds off the timer. To REALLY optimize your damage, you had to fit in atleast 3 Geirskgogul in your 20 second buff window of Blood for blood, which lead to, you had to get a certain counter, use 2 Geirksgogul, let the timer run out, and then REFRESH a new timer of Blood of the Dragon to land your last one. In Stormblood, this changed where you had Blood of the Dragon, and when you enter life of the dragon, you get access to Nastrond, but the timer was dependant on the timer of Life of the Dragon. So you HAD to keep up good uptime so that Blood of the dragon was up for as long as possible, and you had atleast 24second on your timer before entering Life of the Dragon so you can pull 3 Nastrond. Or another job, look at Machinist. Heavensward Machinist had a VERY high ceiling to really pull off some ridiculous damage, and when you do they did the most. Wildfire used to be a 10 second debuff where it accumulates 20% of the damage YOU did, piled up, and then it explodes on the target (Rather than land GCD to increase potency by 200 per GCD, max of 1200), AND it could crit. So MCH was all about getting your opener down to fit in as MUCH burst as possible so that first wild-fire did ridiculous damage (It used to do 8% of a bosses health if pulled off perfectly in savage), and from there, every other wildfire you had to learn what you can pump in to keep that good damage. Along with that, MCH used to have a very RNG proc heavy base rotation. your 1 2 3 combo involved 1 proccing 2, and then 2 potentially proccing 3. And you had "Bullet" resources where these procs will be 100%. Then they dumbed it down in Stormblood where Wildfire no longer critted, and allllllllll of MCH's oGCD/rotation was designed specifically to be put into Wildfire. Same GCD, same timer everytime. What I want in Future Expansion with the comment of "Plans to bring individuality" with jobs, is I want them to atleast give every job completely different burst windows, and some "New" to manage in their rotation. I wouldn't mind if they straight up made raid buffs hardly line up, and make it so players simply have to focus on their own rotation and optimization, and not be so heavily affected because someone happened to miss a raid-line up which is currently the main problem right now. I know this is pretty much kind of asking to bring back some old rotation designs for jobs, but you MUST understand, jobs back in HW and SB was the more enjoyable times where you felt REALLY satisfied when you learned your rotation. But I know this won't be easily done cause these changes will agian, bring back the old problem where while the High-Skill level players were doing great, players who could not learn or have a high skill-play will do so little DPS that people will once again become infuriated playing together.
My favorite job was NIN when it had to manage its dot and its buff with the basic combo and oGCD mudras. Viper in its current state reminds me a lot of that spinning plate job design that FFXIV has been crusading against for the past 3 expansions, which is why the changes they are gonna make to the job are very disappointing and don't give me hope for whatever they are cooking up in 8.0 for jobs.
To me its how consistent it is Viper is so frustrating to play if your ISP sucks, because, if you lag it becomes hard to do the off-gcds and your gcd starts clipping badly And maybe the CPM its important someone more "hardcore" but i feel that we all have at least one friend that loves picto (an if not you are that person) I like viper because its fun but i also love picto, in dungeons, the burst feels really nice
Black Mage has been my favorite job for a long time, but honestly the changes they made to it in Dawntrail made it incredibly difficult for me to continue enjoying playing it, luckily, I do like Pictomancer quite a lot, and as long as holy in white stays as a small DPS loss, it has been giving me the feeling of planning that I desire from Black Mage! Im excited with the direction theyve taken with the newly designed jobs, it really feels like they are leaning into jobs that have one type of gameplay specialty, I just hope that they revisit the changes they made to Black Mage because the instant cast fire paradox, deletion of ice paradox, instant cast of fire 3, have all made the class extremely strict to play. (I dont mind the mana changes, or the elimination of non-standard BLM play, even though I do understand mourning the loss of rotation creativity) Dont get me wrong, I love optimization, I never want to drop a fire four, but losing your strongest spell just because you made a single mistake just doesnt feel good. Black Mage has always been about the players ability to use their tools to make sure their rotation can still happen despite all of the mechanics and movement required, but its so low damage right now, and its so needlessly strict right now that I cant help but find myself enjoying that same game loop in Pictomancer right now. If they change even a couple of those things with Black mage, i will go right back to it, because i miss it, but right now im resting in Pictomancer Land
![BOWKYLION - วิงวอน (ex-change) [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/cLdnZWDaO-w/mqdefault.jpg)
Personally I think what makes a job fun isn’t necessarily how high the cpm and intense burst windows are but rather how the buttons feel when you press them and what they reward you with
I think you're right on the money. As a lala I tend to not notice animations much, so I pay more attention to other things, namely the feel of the rotation and sound cues. I like viper because playing it on controller feels kind of like playing an instrument, it's got an inherent digital repetition that tickles my brain. I like warrior because the buzzsaws and bass-y crashes sound like I'm really annihilating the enemy. And both have some emotional overlap with how appropriate it feels to take it through the MSQ and other story content as the "face" of the WoL.
I agree completely. Factors like animations, sound effects, critical direct hits proccing can all apply to a job’s satisfaction level.
I agree, DRK has little buttons that feels impactful. Warrior feels good because it has so many buttons going big boom. Gunbreaker has a very satisfying combo to pull off.
DRK feels bad, its new combo isn't very impactful, you summon a living shadow that does the job for you and you drop a puddle that can do... lame bubbles.
MCH is a very good example, Chainsaw is boring as hell but Excavator is very satisfying to press, yet they're both the exact same buttons!
I agree. And they keep slowly but surely removing all " feel good " buttons. Old Smn with miasma and spreading it with bane felt awesome. Kaiten just was there for the dopamine drip. Plunge and spineshatter both felt so impactful. What will go next?
@@Shinnouryu I think there is also a lack of variety. Slower jobs can feel good, with a varied rotation. Gunbreaker feels good, among other reasons, because there is more variety in its burst window and gnashing fang is available every 30 seconds. Dark Knight has no such variety, its only selling point was the double weave intensity every minute during burst.
I think one of the most important points of job design is having a good reason why you're pressing your buttons. This is why I think buttons like Mirage Dive on DRG feel so lifeless now in Dawntrail since it doesn't provide eyes anymore. Another example would be MNK's core rotation which they changed in .01 to essentially match the rotation done in Endwalker, except that the reason why you're pressing twin snakes and demolish is vastly different and way less interesting now.
it just doesn't feel the same not hearing the buff/debuff sound and seeing the timeline light up and the little visual glint on the character
This. There is absolutely almost no job agency in this game. Almost every dps skill is designed to setup or fit in your burst windows which obviously makes sense, but the 2 minute meta is such a boring combat mechanic because it forces devs to build their jobs around it essentially making every jobs reason to press a dps button the same across all of them. Homogenization is lazy design. I love everything about this game except the combat. Get rid of this 2 minute meta and make jobs actually unique.
That's why sidewinder from BRD or goring blade from PLD annoys me more than they should. Sure, they're both damage ogcd, so it's not like they don't do anything, but neither builds up the gauge, or unlock a proc, or give a damage buff, nothing, it's just something to press for the sake of having something to press.
Viper is a big surprise for me, since its announcement I didn't care at all about the job and when I unlocked it I thought I was gonna hate it because of how simple it was, 3 weeks later and it has become my favorite melee and my pick for the first tier of savage. I think one of the big reasons why I'm having so much fun with the job is indeed the high CPM, and the buffs management. I'm eating my words bc I was an avid Viper hater among my firends before the launch 🤣
I'm in the same boat for this, pre-DT I had no love for the Viper and was soo looking forward to the picto. Now I'm a viper main with an 84 picto. oO
I personally enjoy the simpler jobs as I am in my 40s and haven't been a heavy gamer in decades. Warrior, WHM, Summoner - the braindead jobs. I appreciate that there is a spectrum of skill across all jobs - from the most simple, to the most complex, there's ways for players of all skill levels to succeed and be good. Whether it be the smooth brains like me, who want jobs that are very simple so we can focus on the fight mechanics with our smooth brains, or for the good players who can keep all their rotations, procs, buffs, and debuffs rolling perfectly throughout the fight.
Even without having dipped my feet into savage or EX content, I think that having that spectrum of skill requirements, rather than everything requiring the same high levels of skill to play correctly, is a crucial component of keeping FFXIV fun. Even in high end content!
I'm right there with you. Us smooth brains need to stick together. Picto looks like it might be a good alternative to SMN, as you mostly just have a single button rotation with a 1.5sec cast, much like playing WHM, with long casts you can delay for low movement times during the fight to drop with instant casts during the burst window.
Same! I gave up serious raiding long ago. SMN is my ideal job. I'm not disappointed in it nor do I want any changes, it's great just as it is. For people who don't play constantly a job where they can keep an eye on boss and arena tells and learn the dance is ideal. As you point out it frees the devs to make fights more complex because with a choice of simpler jobs, more players can experience them.
There are hard jobs out there for people who want them.
I agree, as someone who's kind of in the middle. Some days I want a more complicated job to make my brain work, other days I just want to unga bunga. And I think that's great for the health of the game.
Warrior is easy and slow, but it's a lot of fun imo. Those attacks have such weight and impact, and that 'feels' good
No it's not. War is fucking boring.
@@casualduck1580 To you maybe
Totally agreed. A job doesn't have to be difficult or fast to be enjoyable. Whoever on the team is responsible for the animation and sound design for WAR's attacks really nails it. I love the new Primal Ruination, Fell Cleave is so good that it's never gotten a permanent upgrade, the sound that plays after you use Chaotic Cyclone on a big add pull is immaculate, etc.
@K3fka_ you're definitely on the money with the sound design. It's funny because fell cleave has the same animation X3, and pictomancer's hammer changes animation, but for some reason, spamming fell cleave still feels more fun for some reason
warriors visuals and audio go incredibly hard
Been saying SINCE HEAVENSWARD that APM/CPM brainrot is real. Intuitive > how many times.
Anyone operating in good faith knows that healer and BLM have the highest skill ceilings in the game for different reason, and lower apm/cpm
This is actually helpful because I have physical impairments that make playing faster jobs much more straining, so I've been looking for the slowest jobs possible to play.
I agree with this comment, i tried playing picto and realized how slow the casts are and its easier on my wrists, ive had a issue with my keyboard hand for months
I'd recommend summoner. You don't have to ever target other players, the opener is not super weave heavy, and it's also fairly easy.
This only matters if you're doing savage content. Otherwise just respect mechanics and you should clear. I carried a DPS that was doing less damage than a healer through valigardmanda ex ln.😅
@@thesagem Thanks. I've been considering Summoner.
Having focused primarily on VPR I can say that while yes, the high APM of the job is quite fun, I also like the flexibility and planning around using the Uncoiled Fury stacks to minimize the impact of being off the boss outside of burst windows and the ability to place Dreadwinder in spots where it won't put me in danger to get my positional hits. The cooldown of True North is only five seconds longer than Dreadwinder's cooldown so I have a tool to mitigate how many positionals are required as needed.
This is exactly me. I hate positional and suck with keeping my rotation at perfect form, but VPR gives me all the tools I need to keep up my damage and avoid the position dancing that has turned me off of so many Melee DPS
I've always enjoyed high apm jobs. It's why ninja has been my favorite dps since shb.
In my opinion a well designed job is always easy to learn, hard to master. Both picto and VPR fit this mantra because they almost guide you through their core rotations with hitting buttons that light up, but fully mastering each job requires a lot of fight knowledge, optimizing burst windows, and skill
Yep, Picto has this in spades, imo. Extremely open and flexible rotation, but a LOT of skill expression and fight mastery to be had for optimizing things like the burst window and when you can afford to use your Subtractive combo.
I also love jobs with mechanics that are kinda _designed_ to be abused for uptime or output. The one I enjoy the most on this is Reaper's teleport. That ability is _begging_ for abusing it around snapshot timing (though I wish it were a _true_ teleport and didn't just really quickly move you through all of the intervening space too. Getting snapshot mid-teleport is annoying as hell). BLM has something similar. One of the most significant marks of a _really good_ BLM is abusing the hell out of Aetherial Manipulation. Seeing a BLM yeet over to a party member a half second before the snapshot, and then yeet back to their Ley Lines a half second later, is a joy to watch (and something I'm largely incapable of managing myself >.>)
not a single job in this game is hard to learn
@@siduxjxhdgzhdjxhxuuxxyhgg1079 And yet some are harder to master than others.
@@siduxjxhdgzhdjxhxuuxxyhgg1079 I mean, maybe to you. Realize that others have differing experiences. Ninja, for example, breaks my brain, I don't have the bandwidth for their piano concert burst window.
I'm glad you feel you can pick up any job in the game and learn it without even trying, but realize that's not the case for everyone that plays this game.
@@KaedysKor nor is it a good thing to scare new players or people who havent tried certain jobs into never trying them because all it takes to understand a job fundamentally is going up to a training dummy, wiping your hotbar and starting from 1. Ninja isnt hard either it just requires basic practice and mudra memorization which you probably dony have either of because you havent given the job a fair shot. Yes the game does an abysmal job of introducing jobs but there are more than enough resources one can use to further understand the job. Everyone can play any job as long as they put in a little effort and im dissapointed that the community still hasnt grown past misconstruing the skill floor of the game for whatever ridiculous reason.
I miss plunge, i gope we get more Mana aswell for more edge of Shadow. I liked DRK because of how good it felt doing the opener, now it feels like im running with restrains
DRK feels in a severe need of an emergency revamp. The ShB revamp was a mistake and just cripped the job.
I feel like one of the reasons why Picto and Viper are both receiving praise despite being on opposite ends of the CPM spectrum is because they are interesting in their burst but also outside of their burst.
Viper achieves that through its CPM yes but it is also because it gets tools like Uncoiled Fury and the Dreadwinder combo to break up the monotony outside of burst to the point where using your normal combo is almost noteworthy and no longer feels like the "boring" part of the rotation.
Picto achieves that by making you work for your burst, forcing you to cycle between your creature motifs, making sure you have all your tools available when you need them with the long cast times making it necessary to actively engage and think about the right times to stand still and cast even outside of burst, making it all about preparation.
I think this division of "filler" and "burst" is very interesting to look at for different jobs. And I feel for many jobs the way they fill the time outside of burst is almost more interesting than the burst themselves.
I think a really noteworthy mark of how varied the Viper rotation is is that the 40s buff from the 3rd combo can legitimately and in fact reasonably easily fall off, especially during the burst window, if you're not careful about refreshing it beforehand. Same thing with Picto, it's easier than I expected to let Aetherhues expire, because you can rather easily fill 30+ seconds without casting either of your Aetherhues combos.
facerolling my keyboard is my specialty (old DRK/ NIN / AST / MCH ) were my mains. However, my caster of choice was BLM for two reasons: job fantasy of channelling so much power that you physically can't move, and the old non-standard gameplay where just about every 15 seconds had to be thought out in relation to each and every fight. Viper was added to the repertoire of new fun jobs for me to face roll over, but DRK got removed and BLM had meaningful job choices and flexibility removed for a strict rotation which is somehow even more punishing than it was before (essentially cast 6x Fire IV or perish). Even when you're doing the lv 100 BLM rotation perfectly you don't even get the satisfaction that you were doing the biggest numbers on the boss got it removed. PCT, on the other hand is somehow fun in managing their short and long GCDs, burst windows, and movement that interacts with both. PCT doesn't quite Xeno into triple cast boring BLM movement planning, but it has comet prism weapon muse and swift casting paintings as different options for different situations and alignment purposes that make me have the happy chemicals.
tldr; going zoom fast but meaningful decisions also good
What I loved about drk in 6.0 was the contrast between it's burst and rotation. I find really fast jobs with a lot of weaving the most fun, but in harder content I tend to get distracted and neglect either the mechanics of the fight or my dps. So, drk was the perfect balance of having those very fast moments, but cooling down a lot in between so I could go on autopilot in between bursts. Also, I feel that a job that's fast all the time can get kind of exhausting. Having slower parts of a rotation really highlights the burst and increases it's impact while giving my hands time to rest so I don't end up with arthritis.
With the update, drk still has a lot of those aspects for me, but just to a lesser extent. It still feels fast in the burst, but it doesn't last as long, and I don't feel nearly as much of a difference between the burst and the rotation. It does make the job significantly less interesting to me. I'm not gonna be moving off of it anytime soon, because it is still the most fun job to me, but it is less fun now.
The highs aren't really that high anymore and the lows feel way worse than before.
They turned Drk into Warrior and i hate it so much. If i wanted slow and boring i'd just play War.
The issue is really how DRK is basically a simplified copy of warrior which only had its double weave intensity during burst going for it. With that decreased, part of what makes DRK not just a worse WAR got removed.
The thing u can clearly see the apm on drk wasn't as high as u guys make it out to be. But that makes the changes even more noticeable, so I get it.
@arieltorres3594 it's not the overall apm, it's specifically the burst window we're talking about. Drk packs (packed) more into it's burst than most jobs. Apm doesn't account for that. If it were actions per 15 seconds, the numbers would look very different.
@@starlightrose8305 try dnc and hope u get non stop feather procs during your burst lol.
I think Viper is popular because it's always busy. Having stuff to do outside buff windows is fun. Picto has lots of thinking to do outside buff windows. If you don't have a bonkers buff window, you need something to do all fight long. Be it either high BPM or planning your movement.
Traditionally, BLM is my most fun job because it feels genuinely demanding in the odd fight - and because the long cast times mean that when you DO connect, it tends to have a visible effect on the enemy's HP.
"And now you BURN. Triplecast. Flare. Flare. Flare Star." Such a satisfying feeling, watching their HP plummet.
its griefing level caster atm
This actually makes me realize why I’ve always preferred casting jobs over melee. I much prefer having the options to choose my next options fight to fight rather than be locked in a set pattern to an extent
Despite its low number of cast bars, it still feels rewarding when playing summoner and (when doing fights blind) correctly guessing and finding the spots where I’m able to stand still and cast
One thing I love Viper is how natural it feels to double weave, or even triple weave with it. Other jobs feel kinda awkward with it as it's usually heavily dependant on how good your internet is, but with VPR it basically accounts for that with its Dreadwinder/Pit of Dread combos. There's always enough space for at least 2 OGCDs, and 3 if your internet is good.
Learning uncoiled fury lets you triple weave comfortably was a game changer for me. You can use it as a free space to weave your feints and true norths :3
I think what makes a job interesting and fun to play is meaningful decision making. EW Black Mage and Monk were perfect job designs in my opinion because of this. Being able to choose and mold your rotation based on the constraints of the fight or knowing the optimal way to enter a burst window given the point you are in your rotation and the timeline of the fight allows for skill expression and the player to feel like they matter and are doing something instead of just pressing the glowy buttons.
As a whole, I do think that jobs are a mixed bag. For example, I think Black Mage and Monk got undoubtedly worse in the meaningful decision making department. But I do think that Gunbreaker and White Mage got their kits improved with more freedom to move around their rotation to what the fight demands. I am actually in the camp that DRK did not get worse (feeling wise), but the removal of oGCDs revealed how hollow that job was (123 bloodspiller, all your oGCDs). If anything, the Dawntrail changes call for a larger rework of DRK (and BLM too) to a system that actually demands skill expression.
Monk got better, tracking timers is rarely fun. The simple buff counters solve this issue.
@@Nempo13 Monk wasn't fun because of it's tracking timers. It was fun because you had a choice on choosing an easy looping rotation and slightly overcapping on timers or carefully planning perfect balance usage to fulfill both Nadi requirements and perfectly refresh timers every single burst window. That skill expression is gone in DT monk. For most monks, nothing has changed. For high end monks who enjoy optimization, the job has gotten worse. Since this change does nothing at best and negatively affects people at worst, it is a net negative change.
If SE wanted to keep this skill expression, they could have updated the UI elements to display the buff and DoT timers next to each other. Instead, they decided to forgo that management of timers and by extension eliminated the skill expression of early and optimal refreshes and drift.
I started playing in 5.0 and I've been a Red Mage main since I unlocked the job after beating ARR. I've really been having a ton of fun playing it in Dawntrail, more than ever before. I think it's a very well-designed job because on the surface it's pretty straightforward, but there's a lot of room for optimization. I think that most people can pick up and play it decently, but to become a truly great RDM requires thinking ahead and it feels very rewarding. I wouldn't try to say that it's got the highest skill ceiling or anything, but that skill ceiling is probably higher than a lot of people think.
Planning out your uses of Acceleration/Swiftcast and your melee combos for movement and to hit Fleche and Contre Sixte on cooldown is both engaging and rewarding. For example, having full uptime during the feather phase in Valigarmanda EX that requires you to rotate around the entire platform feels so good to pull off! The skill expression that comes with optimizing even a simpler job like RDM is what makes the game most fun to me.
I'm a DRK main. It's literally the only class I play beyond just levelling my classes to max, and I've found that this expansion has left my class slightly empty. DRK plays fine in general, but the burst window of the class just feels less than it did in Endwalker. With the fact that enhanced unmend is basically a worthless talent now, I feel that the changes made to DRK were kind of half thought out. If I was fixing the class I would probably do something like reduce the cost of the MP skills by 500, giving just over one more cast during DRK burst per cycle.
The class doesn't need much, but it does need something.
What i feel makes a job fun to play engaging and rewarding from someone who played RPR, BLM, NIN and PLD:
1- How well the job fits current fights, i used to play lots BLM in EW but early in DT i switched to RPR because i really didn't like how hectic some fights were, and at the same time RPRs mobility and survival skills are great when you get to use it
2- A balanced "focus on the fight vs focus on the job" scale, exemple: some fights in EW were really simple so all my focus went to playing the job right so i picked up BLM because you can have fun optimizing stuff without the content needing to provide it, now in DT where i need to pay more attention to fights i picked up RPR who is simpler so i can focus on the fight more
3- Having a burst phase, i would say that my first step into learning how to play properly was learning NIN, having a hectic burst phase that you need to squeeze all the damage you can combined with some filler in between that you can "rest", that a play style i enjoy that i kinda missed when picking up VPR who is hectic all the time
4- Damage, i can't lie that BLM being at the bottom of the dps lists makes me not want to play it, its similar to NIN when compared to RPR, i like doing the big damages
Are jobs more interresting?
No but yes? i feel like the jobs themselves didn't change much, but the content gave more use to some underutilized tools some jobs have so it kinda feel like it
Am i enjoying VPR and PCT?
Not really, VPR didn't feel right to me, and PCT i felt like it had a lot of "homework" to do when getting your paintings done, its like "what if you had to soulsow to get harvest moon ready for your burst every 2 minutes"
I hope these awnsers help in some way, i can't wait for the job design video
For me a job is most fun when the rotation is not too strict and feels more free flowing. It forces me to pay attention as each pull feels different. The example of this is my main DNC as the procs and feathers force me to pay attention on when they proc and that is the most fun gameplay for me. All while having freedom of movement and being an easy job to learn but hard to master type. Other jobs I have fun on is AST and PCT due to their planning ahead gameplay style.
I adore Picto in large part due to how open and flexible the rotation is. I feel like that, combined with the long-cast sections and the ground-location-tethered cooldown window, give a LOT of opportunity for skill expression on the job.
For example, in the first Extreme (the level 93 one), the first 2-minute window occurs almost exactly when the light party moving stack marker mechanic occurs, where you have to take 3 hits that drop puddles as a group. Knowing where to place your Starry Muse and how to handle the GCDs during it so you can optimize usage of the raid buff window and get your full burst sequence off inside the Muse area is tricky and takes practice. The second Extreme has a similar issue, where one of the 2-minute windows lines up perfectly with you having to break the chains (potentially by jumping platforms), and the placement of the Muse can end up outside the arena shortly thereafter if you're not careful.
I'm an old DRK main. When I say old, I mean "maining it since HW"-old. I did find things to enjoy on all versions of the job, even if I have my favourites (HW and StB). I've used it a lot in savage and cleared both TEA and DSR with it.
DT version of DRK feels... a bit hollow. What's new on the job is good, the new Scarlet Delirium combo and Disesteem feels good, but they removed damaging gap closers, merged BW and Delirium and nerfed the MP gain of the job meaning losing one Edge of Shadow every two minutes compared to EW or even ShB. We didn't get anything for all those removals, and DRK being the less busy tank feels a bit disheartening to me.
I don't know about other people, but what drove me to play DRK back in the day and kept me playing it throughout the years was the busy-ness of the job, be it the MP management and array of oGCDs of HW, the DA spam of StB, or the delirious burst of ShB/EW. DRK must be a busy job for me, and seeing it sitting at 36 CPM compared to the riddiculous highs of StB were it went up as high as 49 iirc... it does'nt feel right.
While I still like the visual identity of DRK and still succeed to find some enjoyement from it, the job feels much more boring right now, it lacks substance outside of the few optimizations with TBN and the flexibility of Edge of Shadow. The void between the 2mn burst is worse than ever. While I was already dual-maining DRK alongside GNB while tanking, I will be playing mostly GNB these days if nothing change. The job is still fine, it works, its burst is still crazy strong, but yeah... I will still play it from time to time, I still have a deep connexion to the job and I can still find enjoyement, but not enough to make me main it as before for this expansion.
On other jobs, I do enjoy busy jobs the most, with my DPS mains being MNK, SAM, MCH and NIN, and probably VPR from now on. I often joke that I am a "monkey that like to push buttons", going as far as decoupling many skills to push even more different buttons. But I can also enjoy classes with decision making and micromanagement - HW DRK was a bit of that and I mained MNK during EW, and it was also a job with decision making on the fly which made it very compeling to play on top of being busy. I do really like PCT, which is probably going to be my caster of choice, which makes me happy because I historically struggled to find a caster fitting my taste.
That's all for my take. I have jobs that I still enjoy, but unfortunately, the job closest to my heart is the worse its been for me - even if I can still find a bit fun from it. VPR and PCT are clear successes however, which makes me hopefull for the future, when SE will be working on improving job identity.
I dont think its the only factor. Reaper has never felt better and theyre still at the very bottom. I find it to flow really well
what really makes a job for me is an aspect of… i guess job fantasy is the best descriptor. full disclosure i’m a tank/healer main, so take any comments on dps with a grain of salt.
specifically, when a job makes me feel like im filling the role, i find the job more easy to adjust to and execute. with a less intricate burst phase, a lot of enjoyment comes from how im able to adapt to boss mechanics and how well my kit caters to that. paladin, for instance, while i enjoy the rotation, most of my enjoyment comes from my variety of party mitigation tools. between passage of arms, divine veil, intervention and cover, high-damage fights become dances of party mitigation. while playing gunbreaker feels more like juggling a backup medic with aurora and heart of corundum in-between high-damage bursts. warrior and dark knight, meanwhile, feel less impactful to the team in exchange for feeling more personally powerful (high healing for warrior, pleasing tbn usage for dark knight) though dark knight slips to the bottom slot as they feel like the least impactful tank among the four.
healers (ast aside as i’ve not gotten the to a high level since their changes and don’t feel good commenting on it), meanwhile, all very much feel like they serve their role perfectly, partially to fight design and partially due to good foundations. scholar in particular i’ve come to love, as playing it i really do feel the tactical elements of the job come into focus. between dissipation, seraph, their enshroud, and more frequent availability of recitation, i feel like i can sort of go down a list of pre-planned healing contingencies when the party is in danger.
I feel like jobs have lost a lot of gameplay and skill expression that was changed in the name of quality of life. Many of the combat systems in the game no longer make any sense with the way the jobs are designed now. Things like the combo system made more sense when combos had more branches instead of it always being 123. Positionals used to carry a lot more weight when missing a positional meant you broke your combo or lost a buff. Mana and TP used to require a lot more management and planning or you would run out. While I think that the game better off moving away from these mechanics the gameplay around them just didn't get replaced with anything meaningful to fill the void.
Most jobs when they get new abilities are just disconnected ogcds that you throw into a burst window and call it a day. I want more interactivity between abilities and more resource management to make jobs feel more satisfying. You can fill a jobs action bars with all the abilities in the world and spike cpm through the roof, but if they are just more single instance ogcds that have no interaction with other parts of the kit it feels lazy and boring.
I swapped over to Viper after leveling an alt and having it play each expansion’s poster job throughout msq. And, I gotta say, best choice I’ve made this expansion! Best part is when the rotation starts to/naturally lines up with the BPM of battle themes
I do think it's interesting that if you create a speed vs planning bell curve of sorts, it's both ends and the peak that are the sweet spots.
I've come with my boring answer and just say: I really like planning heavy jobs.
Scholar is my main, and I really like the ability to map everything for a situation, but also the ability to use the multitude of tools for a few fights, to find a new order, and to improvise. Astro is the same, with the flexibility, it feels very comfortable, and I was thinking of picking up bard too, strict rotations are somewhat of a comfort to me.
Honestly, part of what makes a job fun for me is the aesthetic and the job identity. Does the job feel and sound good to play?
Honestly I'm worried for Dark Knight. Plunge got cut in favour of a gap close which does no damage, continues to have problems with sustain, and (to my knowledge?) doesn't even do the most damage of the tanks.
As someone who loves the lore and aesthetics of DRK, it does feel bad to play. I don't feel like an unstoppable juggernaut bolstered by darkness, I feel like three different job ideas mashed together taking the weakest parts of each of those jobs.
I think the most fun thing about viper and picto is having non standard rotations, having to prepare for the burst and that prep looks different fight to fight, not having to just go through the rotations waiting for the burst phase helps a lot with fun as when you're progging or reprogging and have a mechanic down I feel like it's really easy to turn your brain off and just go through the motions on some classes
I think dark Knight is my favourite tank. I love that the burst has a lot of apm and the core rotation doesn't what makes for a unique feel especially since gnb in the 2 min burst got less hectic as well with the lionheart combo! I felt drk in Endwalker was just a lot lot to get into but now that I get it I think I would have preferred having stuff like plunge back in burst
I think one of the more interesting case studies is between Bard and Machinist. On paper, both jobs have very similar CPMs, but most players will tell you that Bard feels busier due to the number of things you're keeping track of while doing your rotation, including DoT management, song rotations, and managing RNG based procs. Machinist on the other hand has a rotation that's very consistent and self-explanatory, with very few considerations for fight design outside of forced downtime.
Im not one who particularly cares abous DPS or cast times or anything like that, I care about how fun it is to play in general. And for me, picto has become my favourite job. That slapstick style gives me so much joy ❤
I don't know, Viper made me discover a whole new world by both being simple and high APM, I did not think I could enjoy a melee job with high apm to boot, but I played it more than anything else since I finished story, and am gearing it up first. I think the simplicity of it still allows me to focus on execution while still being very engaging because of the high APM. There's also this crunchy feedback to viper skills that is just feelsgood.jpg. I think we tend to ignore the "feel" component a lot, like WAR is really fun to play partly because of the crunchy hits and the bursty heals. Kinda rewards you even before you look at numbers and optimization. ;p
You cannot just look at how many casts per minute a job has as it isn't indicative of the job itself, what you do need to consider is what the buttons do when you press them and, what I think is also very important, how does your kit interact with an encounter. Taking Pictomancer as an example. When I unlocked it and was hitting a striking dummy, painting the motifs (at least for me) felt off. It took away from the flow. However, when you put yourself in an encounter you can then start thinking about when is the best time I can stand still and cast these. An example being the first boss of strayborourgh. With such hectic sections it can be difficult to stop and cast for 3 seconds, so you really have to think where you place them.
A really good example of kits and encounters not mixing is when people say they want the PvP kits in PvE. The PvP kits are designed for short, bursty encounters and generally have a lot of status effects to help swing the fight in your favour, however, not everything is going to translate into PvE, you aren't going to be Miracle of Natureing bosses anytime soon as an example, so you are left with, what is quite a boring kit to play.
However, one of the most important things to consider is that everyone is different. What works for one person isn't necessarily going to work for someone else. This is why having a wide spectrum of different playstyles is important, so that as many people as possible have a job they can enjoy playing.
Based on this analysis, i see that WHM and Picto are the best jobs in the game. I don't include BLM as it's only a low CPM because of long cast times, which makes content harder.
Fun to me is having a job with an extremely simple to execute rotation, so that i can focus 100% of my attention on not standing in mechanics. I have fun when i don't screw up mechanics. Lower CPM the better, as long as it's not low because of extremely long cast times like the BLM which makes avoiding mechanics more difficult.
Have you played picto? It also just has long cast times.
@@ReinaKou I have, have you? Most of it's casts are short 1.5s, with a lot of instant casts to use while moving. The only long casts are motif's, but you don't have to cast them as soon as you use them, there is a cooldown on their use, so you can wait until a time in the mechanics you are doing that doesn't require a lot of movement to cast them.
@@screes620 look, i'm simply saying its silly to equate cpm to difficulty in rotation.
@@ReinaKou That's your opinion. I look at the CPM list, and all the lowest CPM jobs for each role are all my favorite jobs to play because they are easy for me to play.
@@screes620 your original statement came across as less subjectively easy for you and more objectively easy. Objectively easy jobs would be like phys range and summoner which all have middling to high cpm. If you're just stating your opinion, my bad, you're more than entitled to do that.
Right now my favorite jobs are samurai and pictomancer. I like flexible rotations where I can recover from mistakes pretty easily, but I also like room to improve. I also like having to react to things within the fight itself. Samurai having cast times means you need to be aware of when they're gonna happen and occasionally manipulate your rotation to come up at different times and even take advantage of the greater range on your iaijutsus.
Pictomancer is planning ahead: the job. You gotta be constantly thinking about what you need to do in the next 20 seconds, and figure out where the best spots are to cast your motifs.
While I do have some grievances with job design, I appreciate the direction Dawntrail is taking its fight design, as making optimal rotations really hard or even impossible to do is how you make jobs with pretty simple rotations fun to play
What makes a job fun to me is how fluid it feels to play and the effects.
Dancer I've always loved how fluid it is for the simplicity, but with enough going on to keep me busy, especially in the burst phase.
Picto takes the fluidity to the max. Being able to go from aoe to st combo and back feels really good and having so many options when something happens is just so nice to have.
I generally find jobs fun if each button has a purpose and reason to be used, and it's not just "part of a combo that could've been on a single button" - which also moves into jobs designed around systems/job mechanics they have, rather than being designed around rotation. Ideally, I like it when jobs rotation is damage-optimal way of pressing buttons heavily conditioned on fight allowing you to do it, and forcing you to figure out how to combine things together in suboptimal conditions (read: whenever you're not fighting training dummy).
Healers check all the boxes - to a point some buttons might never be used for entire fight if there's simply no need to use them; out of new jobs picto also fits this description - you have some clear goals presented by your kit (build up meter for subtractive, paint motifs so they're ready when cooldowns are up, don't overcap on resources) and full freedom to figure out how you get there, depending on fight. On the opposite spectrum - jobs like DRG, GNB or MCH - where you heavily move towards needing to press specific buttons in specific order I find unfun; if I'm going to play some QTE memory game, I can just play piano instead.
I think one thing that gets missed with Viper is uncoiled fury is going to have some similar planning to hammer. In your opener you want to use them for potency, but if you aren't careful you 'll end up having to writhing snap (or if you spend coils when you didn't need to). As someone who likes casters, I really like this element. To me planning when I'm going to be using those dreadwinders or regular attacks to make sure I can weave in feint is where a lot of skill expression lies. To answer the question - for me what makes jobs fun is optimizing in the fight and then reacting when things go wrong. How little mit can I get away with? If my co-tank dies, can I save the pull here? Do I need to build up a bunch of white paint before a certain section? Where do I need to be in my combo to weave in the mit I need here? Is there any uptime or damage optimization I can fit in by diverging from "standard" gameplay? For me, the strict-looping jobs with little decision making aren't really very interesting.
I used to play drk in EW and as you said the burst was what made it fun for me, but on a similar note, that's why I am enjoying drg, the ogcd intensive burst with the rework being more focused on fitting everything in the 20 second window is what makes it fun for me
The main thing that makes 14’s gameplay (and that of any tab target mmo) fun is why I’m pressing my buttons. Kit interaction in other words. If I’m pressing a button that deals damage, doesn’t combo into anything, doesn’t cost any resource, doesn’t have a cast time, doesnt buff me/the party and doesn’t debuff the enemy, that button is boring. I’d rather play a job with six buttons that all have crazy interactions than a job with 20 buttons that are boring.
My mains in EW were Ninja and Monk. I find VPR to be the perfect blend of both, with fun little internal game with Dreadwinder combos but the NIN burst of "Press everything NOW" also VPR being flexible with its tools, because your burst is literally just the 2 Reawakens back to back means you can hold / use Dreadwinder as you want. Same with the ranged attack (Uncoiled Fury I think?) Do you know you will have to go out of the melee range? 3 Uncoiled Fury's stocked up and we are a MCH for up to 8 seconds babyyy! I also love how everything clicks when you go into the burst phase and think, why not 3 Reawakens and then you realize that the 40 seconds buff and debuff duration was picked very much deliberately to prevent that.
I hate what they did to DRK. They took away 1) the busy burst; 2) management of blood gauge for LS; 3) prioritization of double weaves. It's fine though, GNB is fun. I can forget DRK ever existed.
Looking at this, I find I need to reevaluate my stance on what makes the jobs I enjoy 'fun' to me. Yes, speed is definitely a part of it (will likely be maining Samurai or Gunbreaker this time around), but I also love Black Mage and Dancer, both of whom are pretty low in the CPM department, yet I can't stand what White Mage has gone, despite being right next to Black Mage in those same terms.
I think more than just speed, the key to making a job fun is a mix of mechanical complexity and and audio/visual feedback. Complicated rotations may be out of vogue, and that might be for the better, but at the same time all the classes I mentioned save White Mage all have some level of depth to their gameplay and variations on how or when resources can be used. Save Namikiri in case of add phase? Blizzard IV or Umbral Soul? Save up feathers for burst, or have higher sustain? When to hold cooldowns or burst cartridges? Furthermore, they all have some fantastic feedback in the graphical and audio departments which makes playing them a treat.
Yet White Mage by comparison, unless someone needs healing, is a single button being smashed repeatedly over and over again. Gameplay in this respect becomes extremely dull quickly, sometimes in the span of one or two pulls depending on the kind of content. I think this might be the key difference here - a class doesn't necessarily need to be fast to be fun, but it can't be too obviously repetitive.
Edit: I approach this not just from Savage and Ultimate as not everyone plays those, but from a holistic approach to the job as a whole. Considering you still have to grind significant amounts in this game even to get into raiding, be it by tome/normal mode raid gear or gil to buy crafted gear, discounting normal gameplay I feel is a very common problem when analyzing jobs. Gameplay should feel rewarding in **ALL** content, not just the high end.
Your complaint applies to all healers then if that is the only criticism of WHM. Which maybe you also agree with that but I do not think healers feel unfun to play in non high end content just because the dps rotation is 1 gcd and 1 dot gcd.
Im gonna be real for a sec here. i mained DRK in stormblood and shadowbringers, the more they remove from the job the more i go play something else. ive played WAR more then DRK in the last 2 expacs, not with a lack of trying mind you, like WAR just has more ways to help the party and now does more damage and has almost as many weaves as DRK. i was a fan of dark arts back in STB however i understand why they got rid of it but then the job just became WAR with more weaves now it cant do that anymore. now i play WAR as my tank of choice. if they fix DRK like they did with PLD last expac, i would be very happy but now im just barely playing it as the new GCD could have easily been an oGCD, healing could have been added to the new bloodspiller combo and MP needs to be fixed cause they keep removing how much MP we get back. Thanks for bringing it up Rinon and i hope you go further into DRK and how it can be fixed.
My personal favorite jobs are ones that had elements of both planning and execution - BRD, RDM, and AST being my top 3.
BRD is more execution-heavy than the other two, but reacting to procs and quickly planning things in advance around what procs you get and when is a lot of fun to me, and I think the new GCDs it got as part of its burst add a lot to making its execution more satisfying too.
RDM's fast burst phase is a lot of fun, but I also love planning around when I'm going to use my melee combo, how, adapting to procs, and movement requirements. The new addition of Grand Impact also adds a lot to planning - you can save your Acceleration stacks to pile on damage with Grand Impact's potency, but it's also a much more potent movement tool now.
AST has gotten a bit less going on in both execution and planning in DT, which makes me a bit sad, but planning out heals is still a lot of fun, as is deciding who gets your card buffs (I do really miss the odd-minute damage card, but that's a different problem). The 2nd stack of Acceleration from the most recent patch also feels great to use.
Thoughts on the ones I play a lot:
I like the DRK change. Most of the reduction in "pace" is just from having squished Blood Weapon and Delirium together, and for me at least that always just means getting to comfortably single-weave instead of awkwardly double-weave.
Astro I'm kind of ambivalent about. I think the new Astro is, fundamentally, better; A better thematic match for the planning and "an answer to every occasion" vibe I love about the job. At the same time I miss the weird, kind of janky minigame you could play to push out ever-so-slightly more damage with Astrodyne's self-buffs and making sure you're dropping the card buffs on the right DPS.
I'm kind of shocked that "greased lightning" Monk ends up in 7th, but I suppose the fundamental attack speed plays a smaller role in total buttons per minute and in a way ends up pushing the opposite direction by making double-weaves less viable once attack speed moves beyond a certain point.
And while it's technically accurate I still feel like Ninja is kind of cheating its way to the top, what with its "you have to press 3-4 buttons to do an action" effects every 15 seconds or so. That seems like such a different reason for extra buttons compared to everyone else that I wonder whether it should be counted the same.
i think something worth noting abt specifically the tanks is that the dash attacks used to be weaved into the combos as available, but as they no longer deal damage and are instead just a rapid approach, there's been no new reason to weave them. DRK Plunge and GNB Rough Divide have been replaced with Shadowstride and Trajectory respectively, which deal no damage and only act as an approach tool. Dragoon saw this as well with the change from Spineshatter Dive to Winged Glide.
basically, skills used to approach and deal damage have been reworked to no longer deal damage and just act as a quick approach, and there is no longer a reason to weave them into combos, lowering the CPM.
anyway, to answer the actual question: the thing that makes a job fun for me is the flow, or the dance. viper feels like it has a really good rhythm, and slipping into double-time with reawaken for a short window feels really satisfying. dancer is similar for me, with a stable flow and the option to weave feathers into the mix. alternatively, the problem solving and working out what options are best for a given situation are what makes scholar really fun for me; deciding if a mechanic will require seraph, seraphism, or simply burning aetherflow like crazy feels rewarding as my party's health stays near full after a heavy hitting mechanic.
What makes a job fun is decision making. Some people are asking for healers to get a 1 2 3 instead of 1 1 1, but I argue these are the same thing. For Viper they literally are! I think decision making: that is, having multiple valid uses for resources that are mutually exclusive in the moment, is fun. Beyond any rotation, this is something evergreen and varies with encounter design, so you aren't just pressing the same buttons in the same order every time. It's why I main healer. I want to see more jobs tuned this way, giving you flexible gameplay
I've been loving pictomancer so much. I'm an artist in real life and was determined to learn the job regardless but lucky for me I vibe really well with the main opener and skill expression so far. I was a little worried at first because I'm not a black mage player at all lol
This depends heavily on the person. For example, I don't enjoy DPS optimizing, and I HATE spreadsheeting my abilities. So despite me being a healer main, I may drop them because I'm tired of the "healing plan" game. I like Jobs that let me react and do things in situations, so I like RDM having Vercure and Verraise, despite people hating on those abilities. They're what make it fun to me, and I don't care. They're FUN. I also like how RDM doesn't have a set rotation, and with Manification's rework, is now very forgiving and flexible, without many things to juggle. I also LOVE SMN. It has nice anchor points/waymarkers to point me along my rotation, but isn't at all rigid. Just nudges showing me where to go next. "Oh, Titan, okay, next 8 buttons are the 1-2 combo 4 times". I actually like that I can play SMN like I'd play Smash Bros or Legend of Zelda, games where I'm not constantly looking down at a hotbar to see how many seconds until I have to use things to keep them from overcapping. (I hate having to do that).
I COULD like Jobs with rigid rotations as long as they're neatly closed. PLD I like okay (Clemency is fun, and the ranged burst is fun), but it has too many buttons and doesn't neetly fit into a 60 second closed loop.
I also don't like MNK, because despite it initially appearing flexible like RDM, it's actually a rigid loop...with random "record skips" to throw you off with Blitz, AND with random off-kilter oGCDs like the 90 sec one that you have to track in addition to everything else.
I don't like healers anymore because I don't like the spreadsheet planning. I DO (normally) like healers and tanks in games because they're less about stupid damage rotations and more about situational awareness and reacting to situations, but in FFXIV, they're about plate juggling and DPS rotations. And the DPS rotations are not neat loops OR anchor point loose rotations (though PLD is the closest, sorta like SMN, and I like that okay).
So, how do you parse THAT?
I like things that are ACTUALLY freeform and have utility stuff I can do like heal and raise or mitigate for my party (RDM) or semi-loose rotations with waypoints but not really locked in, like SMN. And I don't like CDs (I'd love a Job that had NO cooldowns at all, like imagine RDM if the movement oGCDs did no damage and had no CDs and so were just movement whenever tools, and that didn't have Fleche, Contre Sixte, Manification, or Embolden), DoTs, or random buff/debuff/odd timer CDs (like 90 sec ones which MNK and NIN have) to have to keep track of.
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Honestly, there's no DPS Job in the game I like right now, but SMN and RDM probably come the closest.
There's not really a Tank I like right now, though I like PLD okayish (GNB I like the aesthetics more, but...)
And at this point, I largely dislike the healers, though I find WHM acceptable since you can largely ignore "healing plans" and just YOLO the bomb heals when you need them, though it unfortunately doesn't have mitigation like it should. Seriously, AST is half a barrier healer and WHM got "for 30 sec after Temperance, you can use Succor once" (Yeah, I know it's stronger than that, but AST gets 20 seconds of Succor followed by 10 seconds of Temperance AND has Collective every minute anyway!) They need to get rid of the pure/barrier split since it's such a broken system, give WHM as much party mit as AST, then maybe we'll have one healer Job that I really like. (Seriously, it's the Job that has Protect, Shell, Wall, and Stoneskin, both in this and other FF games; why the heck doesn't it have those things now? Give Plenary's buff 10 seconds of 10% damage reduction from a Pro-Shell trait and call it a day!)
cpm, decision making, low impact high satisfaction skill expression buttons (think third eye, meditate etc.)
As a FFXIV nerd and game designer both, I have a LOT of thoughts of current job design - which means a looong post, sorry lol.
Viper and Picto are fantastically designed jobs that, as stated in the video, cater to different crowds really effectively.
Unfortunately, as someone who is always most excited by class designs and new skills in FFXIV and other RPGs, it's hard to overstate who disappointed I feel on the whole with the transition to Dawntrail. Animation upgrades that change nothing about how a skill is used, filler traits like Enhanced Reprisal to take up space and close to identical capstone abilities of "enjoy a new GCD/oGCD that you use once every 2 minutes!"... It's felt really disappointing.
The reworks haven't hit great for me either, all in all.
DRK is truly a straight downgrade from EW in terms of gameplay and both the MP and Living Shadow nerfs (if the shadow needs to gapclose to a new target it now uses Shadowstride instead of Plunge, meaning it loses the full 'GCD' damage that it would normally have) feel like oversights from a lack of playtesting, and it's really hard to force myself to play it over it's competition for any reason other than aesthetics.
AST's new cards are functionally Aetherflow with less freedom of choice as to the effects, with the support cards feeling mostly vestigial considering Astro's already loaded single target oGCD kit (hello third charge of ED). They removed the RNG component of the fortune teller without reaping the potential benefits of allowing for interesting card effects in return, truly feels like the worst of both worlds. It's a really powerful healer objectively, but the thing that solidified it's identity when compared to other healers has been dulled down and made far less unique.
BLM actually just makes me miserable now, the rework has pushed it from being my favourite job to one of my least favourite. In their quest to kill non-standard, they have ironically increased the skill floor and lowered the skill ceiling. The problems with new BLM feel pretty well-documented and I'm sure will be discussed in your next video on job design, so I don't want to talk too much about it here. All I'll say is that in BLM's case, I'd take level 90 EW BLM over 100 DT BLM in a heartbeat.
I know that job design wasn't a focus for this expansion, and that battle content was. But waiting 2.5 years for the potential of the evolution of jobs is a really hard sell. Well and truly, it feels as though Square Enix needs to hire and invest more manpower into their job design teams going forward.
Tank main with 3 to 100: I like weaving and juggling my own mitigation with party support and my burst window. I like having moment-to-moment decisions that when executed correctly makes other players have an easier experience.
After figuring out my button layouts for Extreme/Savage raids for DRG, not only do I miss DRG having fewer buttons but I actually miss the buttons that were meant to be pressed strictly on cooldown as well. The sort of long-term cadence of it all is what I liked. Now I just slam my face on the keyboard every 120s lol.
Why DRG's 200-damage instant tied to High Jump lost its Nastrond-enabling effect is beyond me haha. Now all the ability does is the measly 200 damage! This weenie instant is the lion's share of what is inflating DRG's button presses as well which is the funniest part lol.
I do not correlate APM or CPM with fun, only how bad it makes my hands hurt. In my opinion, 'fun' is directly related to learnability. Complexity and decision making while playing leads to something feeling more enjoyable or, on the flip side, overwhelming if maybe you're not quite there yet so I myself might instead desire my rotation to shift and change based on the situation and consider that the pinnacle of enjoyment.
Now, this measurement of APM not representing fun is one I felt the need to point out because I consider it underrepresented, and because if the jobs all got much faster, I would likely quit the game. HOWEVER, I have a friend who complained relentlessly that the game wasn't fast enough for him because he got a decent dopamine spike every time he hit a button that made a number appear on screen. My point being, there needs to be slow and fast jobs so people can find their niche. Just like my friend avoids spell casters and I prefer them.
We have enough jobs to let everyone play piano at their own speed, I think.
its hard for me to say what makes a job fun, but ive tended to stay away from the 'harder' jobs personally. ive played all ARR and HW jobs to 50 with a fair amount to 60, and i dont like BLM, AST and somewhat NIN, the rest im completely fine with. i find SCH much easier than WHM
im enjoying SAM, people say RDM is easy but it confuses me lots and its one of the few jobs i feel like i NEED to watch my bars constantly
I think it's a combination of speed along with aesthetic. Fury Warrior was my "funnest" job in the time I spent in WOW and Viper is essentially FFXIV Fury Warrior. . . and I love it.
To me what makes a job fun is the intent of the buttons you press. A problem I have with a lot of jobs is that their OGCD's boil down to "more damage 1" and "more damage 2" etc. I prefer it if the buttons tangibly allow me to do something else than bigger numbers. Stuff like Triplecast, Perfect Balance and Requiescat. The less boring stat buffs a job has, the more enjoyable it is to me.
I'd say job flow is a lot more interesting than just shear button pressing. Been playing White Mage a ton recently and it's been one of my favorite jobs, used to play Astro and even got it to 90 back in EW but sometimes it's just too much between raid buffs, dots, healing, stack mitigation, cards, and I just don't enjoy it anymore. Gonna work on the Summoner/Scholar pair whenever I feel like taking a break from White Mage since they're the same base class
To me one of the biggest flaws of 7.0 dark knight wasn't the removal of plunge, but instead the removal of meaningful gauge management. Sure you still pool MP and try to pull blood, but your burst no longer is going to be wildly off if you fail to do either of those. Before you had to be careful to not overcap or overspend blood so that you could use Living Shadow on cooldown. The change now is beneficial for burst alignment and openers, both being simpler to both keep aligned and execute, but I still feel something was lost that helped DRK stand out in comparison to warrior which didn't have that. TBN thankfully still cost MP, but the blood weapon change also indirectly loses you 1200 MP per min at all levels kinda sucks now too and just leads you to using less edge/flood to keep enough MP for TBN instead of any meaningful decision making with MP.
Right now, between DRK's still relatively low self sustain and lack of significant resource management it just feels like a worse warrior. I wish they would play more into gauge management, make blood have more use and management involved for pooling again, maybe make the new Disesteem cost 50 blood if they wish to keep Living Shadow costless and restore blood weapon to 5 stacks. Id love for more uses of blood and MP in general. What we had in EW wasn't a lot, and I know there are plenty who hated (and still hate) skills like Living Shadow and TBN requiring resources, but it was what separated DRK from the other tanks to me and I would love to see it gain a more thought provoking playstyle instead of just having the same burst as any other tank.
Can't really comment on EW vs DT job fun since I only started playing a couple months before DT came out, but I HAVE made it to EW's MSQ. I decided to play through it as VPR since my main job, MCH, was already at 92, and VPR's been really fun! I sometimes drop my Death Rattles by mistake because I'm a goob, but that’s about it. The constant keeping up with positionals is a bit more brain intensive than "avoid puddles and shoot," so that's been an interesting adjustment period.
Time to yap about monk for a bit :D
EW Monk was definitely a job that had both a respectably high cpm (in large part due to its GCD) and also a fair amount of decision making. With three distinct burst windows and multiple opener/rotation options, as well as plenty of niche tech, it had a lot of sauce for those who really wanted to get into the thick of it. Monk's cpm in DT is more or less identical to what it was in EW, but the decision making aspect has been pretty much completely neutered. The most there is to it is that ideally the three GCDs in your perfect balance when building a rising phoenix should go from weakest to strongest based on what you have available. Outside of that, there's really not a whole lot. You live by the balls, you die by the balls.
DT Monk isn't a bad job by any means, but it definitely feels like it's a shell of its former self, much like many other jobs. Even some of the niche optimization tricks, such as RoF holding and triple blitz reopeners, are much more straightforward in their execution. Like many, I think that lowering the skill floor is a good thing. But when it comes at the cost of the skill ceiling, it definitely becomes a shaky decision, one that I think the developers are maybe a little *too* willing to make. I'll still be playing it for this first savage tier though, in large part because keeping melee uptime in these fights might actually be a fun challenge, and it doesn't get more melee than monk.
As for the new jobs:
Picto is insanely fun, and the vibes are immaculate. 10/10, no notes.
I haven't leveled viper much so far but it hasn't been very exciting. Obviously that's not my final judgement, I haven't even gotten Reawaken yet, it's more of a comment about the very inconsistent levelling experience in this game. A supposedly high cpm job like viper being pretty snoozer in the mid 80s is definitely noteworthy, albeit a different topic entirely.
Prefacing this with- by no means a master of any job let alone all of them, but I always level them all and try to not be useless when doing so, so I at least read the resources available.
I've talked about this a few times with friends on discord etc... outside of the obvious jobs that saw very impactful changes like BLM/AST, most of the jobs play almost exactly like they did in EW. That's either a really good thing or a really bad thing and its been REALLY interesting seeing which is which and to whom since not really changing being good or bad will be subjective.
Dancer for example outside of some QoL plays more or less the same except for the new buttons you see peppered in, and that's been a good change for me, I'm less (not by much, but less) bored waiting for the push everything phase and coming from an ex-nin main, I enjoy the "difficulty" being in a fast paced burst phase where you need to make good decisions on order of weaves to not overcap something/clip your gcd/have something fall out or let the WRONG thing fall out of buffs. Gunbreaker with that big beefy finisher feels amazing and the AoE follow up is so fun, they're basic additions but they FEEL good to push.
On the other hand SMN got an entire new phase and... it plays exactly the same. And that really sucks. New baha looks really cool don't get me wrong, but I don't feel like I'm really doing anything different than I was doing in EW. Reaper for as strong as it is right now also doesn't feel any more engaging or fun to play than it did in EW which for some is a good thing, not so much for me. I hate death's design (Viper's concept was better I'll die on that hill) and the ramp up just doesn't do it for me. DT's new buttons ARE interesting but the issues with the core gameplay are still there.
I've definitely enjoyed Viper and Picto and because of that I don't think putting it in terms of CPM really tells us anything about a job's level of fun unless that's just your kink. It really points to how important overall design is and how they want you to do what the job is supposed to do. Viper and Reaper both want to keep a debuff on the enemy to increase damage, HOW they do it is very different though, namely one is fun. Picto needs to plan for movement and juggle long casts to keep their dps going and their tools are setup in a way that "rotation" is a weird word to use, its more like "do whatever you want as long as this doesn't happen" and that feels great, while BLM just feels extremely rigid now and while you still get to have that 3d chess timeline in your head to make your options work for the movement that's asked, those options aren't nearly as impactful as they used to be because you're still doing the same rigid rotation at the end of day.
I started playing FFXIV a little over a year ago, and this is my first on-content expansion. I've mostly played BLM for the MSQ, so I've done most dungeons and trials blind on it, but I've always found SMN more comfy to take in to raids. For me, the low apm of BLM was balanced out by the absolutely horrid time I had with positioning myself consistently - the hits I landed were satisfying, but I felt like I couldn't land them as often. SMN has been wonderful for me as a relatively simple job that nonetheless does require some degree of pre-planning and decision making - things like can I use Ifrit here? - as well as bringing some utility to the group, as I tend to favor a more hybrid dps/support style build in other games. RDM, by contrast, never quite clicked with me - the mobility is nice, but I keep losing track of my dualcasts, and having to flip in and out of melee makes me feel like I'm essentially playing two classes at once, so I ironically feel less flexible. I've found PCT to be a nice middle ground between BLM and SMN - relatively shorter cast times and lots of instant cast options means I still have the mobility I enjoy from SMN while still having the satisfying punch I love from BLM. While PCT doesn't have the party utility of SMN in the form of a rez, being able to buff my party in other ways has been quite nice as well. Besides all that, who doesn't love to whip out a cartoonishly large hammer and just go BONK?
I basically only play tanks, and what i enjoy about them a lot is balancing their relatively simply combo line with using mitigation to benefit the party.
PLD is by far my favorite in this regard because of the sheet utility I have on hand. At a base level you have regular stuff. Reprisal, Devine veil, and passage of arms if you find good moments.
But it's the smaller decision making. Throwing out an intervention on a caster during big raid wides. Casting over on a dps so they can maintain uptime in an otherwise impossible situation. Or even the odd clemency on a healer as they slow rez up an ally.
It's these fun utility options combined with my ability to keep up on my rotation that really makes tanks, but specifically PLD really enjoyable to me.
I was a DRK in EW and the job feels hollow now. Going into your burst and being finished after like 3 GCDs instead of the old 5+ just feels bad. And all we got to show for it was a mediocre heal on a 2 minute cooldown and an extra GCD again on a 2 minute cooldown. I’ll be playing WAR and GNB instead this expac and DRK is staying at 90.
I think more than anything, what makes a job fun is having a large variety of animations and vfx to look at when you aren't doing the big burst window.
Your point about the importance of decision making is a major part of why I've switched off of maining SMN in DT. I was really looking forward to DT adding literally anything to SMN's kit to make me think a bit and need to make meaningful decisions during combat. Instead I'm just pressing the exact same buttons I've been pressing all through EW, in the same order. So no thanks SE, I'll main something else.
One overlooked victim of the DT moveset would be DNC. DNC gained Last Dance and Dance of the Dawn, both of which sit on the GCD but do not give feathers. These two, plus the fact that Tillana has now been shifted to a 2.5s recast from its previous 1.5s, means thats the opener feels slow as you’re only pressing GCDs and not weaving anything. Subsequent burst windows are fine for the first 5 GCDs while you have feathers saved, but once they run out, you’re still not going back to the GCDs that give feathers, because there are higher DPS GCDs to still hit. That is probably the reason for such a drastic drop in CPM. It’s not bad per se, but compared to the high speed decision making and double weaving that I got used to in 6.0, 7.0 DNC feels like a downgrade, even though it has much higher DPS.
What makes any job fun is going to widely depend on who you ask and what they want out of the job in the first place. I could write you an essay about the varying opinions of every job change since ShB and how none of them have had consistent reasoning for why anyone did/didn't like something. What ultimately matters is if our monkey brain gets the dopamine, and that can come from animations, the beeg numahs that show up, etc. These factors are so numerous and varied between players that there ISN'T anything that specifically makes a job fun. The only real consistency comes down to the artistic design of each skill (ie sound, animation, screen shake), and that is fairly independent of what's actually happening in game.
I can't really make a call on how I want the jobs to hash out because leveling jobs through Dawntrail content is so different from leveling jobs in SHB or EW content, and I'm not sure at what point I'm evaluating the job or evaluating the fight - and if I do end up going back to older content, I'm not testing the job's full current capabilities. Like, I love playing Machinist in Dawntrail, but I don't know if that's because more fights allow me to show off my skill by forcing the party to move a lot or if I just really love the new buttons. Or both.
My favorite job is White Mage, and I like the more steady pace it has. Jobs like AST or NIN feel like a lot of busy work to me -- like I'm pressing a bunch of buttons for no real reason. On White Mage when I press a button I feel like it's for a direct reason and it does something. I've actually looked at that list to decide what jobs to play and lower CPM jobs like WAR and SMN are generally more fun for me. I like that there is a variety.
I feel the same way about AST. It's like i have to press twice as many buttons to do the same thing i could have done on WHM, it just feels so inefficient. WHM has a button for every occasion, and sometimes more than one option for each. WHM and WAR are definitely my two favorite jobs in the game as well.
I wholeheartedly agree. I feel like current AST requires too much focus on the skills and healing rotation that I can't keep my eyes on the fight. I can't begin to count the number of times I missed my card cooldowns because I needed to hyperfocus keeping the party alive. I personally play Sage and WHM because you can still preplan your heals but have more than enough room to use your situational awareness to adapt.
I think what makes a job fun is much more subjective rather than objective. I read the comments here and everyone has very different reasons they like their job and every job has a particular fan base! from my perspective its more the idea of feeling powerful and badass So I like WAR because of the spamming, healing, and critting MCH for the vast amount of tools i can use and prepping wildfire for a big blast, WHM for Sprouting wings and healing everyone with massive heals and fueling the blood lily and lastly NIN for its insane mobility and adaptability being able to deal consistent damage from anywhere if you rotate and use mudras when forced out of melee range.
While high CPM can be a fun factor for a job, I think it also depends on what is the effect of the buttons you have to press. I'll take the example of DRK : while I understand that some people missed having to weave in the 2 plunges for optimal burst, I doubt a lot of people would consider the fusion of blood weapon and delirium a "not fun" change.
I havent had much time to play since the expansion launch but, I have been enjoying Viper - this may not make sense but, to me, it feels like the iligitimate child between monk and samurai with some ninja uncle/aunt influence on how it 'grew up'. I have been a monk main forever and always go back to it - so far, viper is a close second for me.
I unlocked picto not too long ago and enjoy it so far - i quite like the decision making with a bit of a slower pace. Currently, its my favorite caster. We'll see after everfy job is leveled if that holds true.
As a player I heavily gravitate towards classes that do not double weave, partially due to not being located near the server hubs and having some amount of latency inherently even on my own server, and partially due to not having the hands and reflexes suitable for maximum APM jobs. I'm currently playing monk as primary, which while bit above the middle line of CPM has only one double weave in its current rotation, is actually surprisingly comfy to play for me. Beyond that I favour the more planning oriented jobs and would likely very much enjoy picto, if my regular party mate didn't main it and if its aesthetics weren't something I wasn't too keen on.
Viper to me felt absolutely terrible as a job, while ironically I don't hate ninja nearly as much despite them being relatively similar on APM. Lot of that to me has to do with the feeling and sound design of impact. Ninja's ninjitsus are relatively hefty feeling abilities even if most of the kit is fairly light. Meanwhile both Reaper and Viper are very floaty feeling jobs in my opinion and don't feel great. Viper especially I didn't enjoy since it felt like all my animations clipped into each other without having the time and impact to land properly. By comparison monk feels like it makes use of the whole GCD of each attack, allowing you to appreciate the impact and animation of the attack. Even forbidden chakra is one of the more impactful feeling OGCDs.
Of course this is just personal opinions on the matter and I'm happy for people who enjoy viper and machinist and similar jobs, but for me they never landed.
For me, what makes the job fun is the personality of it. I absolutely love AST (well, I would still prefer Stormblood's card system) and PCT. It makes the jobs feel more alive to me and not really a press 1,2,3 to use x, y, z skills. It feels like pure artistry. Which makes sense with Pictomancer.
I personally enjoy things that are simple, yet effective. And somehow (to me) Viper and Picto both fit that description. Viper is way faster than anything, but I find it very simple for some reason.
You'd think I would enjoy it, but Dark Knight is my most hated job and it's not even close.
As someone who primarily mained both GNB and DRK in EW, it’s very interesting and likewise disappointing to me that the two jobs turned out exactly the way they did in 7.0. I’m both a little baffled and impressed by how GNB’s Reign of Beasts combo elegantly handles both lowering the skill floor (granting gcd space by not requiring continuation, lessening the burden of managing defensives/tank movement) while still maintaining a generally similar skill ceiling (RoB combo breaks Gnashing Fang combo which is a huge loss vs 3 burst strikes in EW maintaining combos).
DRK on the other hand got QoL in combining Blood Weapon and Delirium, and while Scarlet Delirium does force you to use the full combo in sequence or it breaks, unlike 3 bloodspillers, this is the closest thing to adding more rigidity to the job. otherwise, the job is emptier and lacking in considerations. I liked the job design in StB better, but overall I thought EW DRK was a step in the right direction from ShB DRK, yet now in 7.0 it lost both its dominance in dealing raw damage and its frenetic burst windows. Living Shadow not costing gauge anymore is sort of the nail in the coffin here; if I were to have guessed how DRK could improve from 6.x, I would’ve guessed that it would gain a blood spender, not lose one. Still, perhaps they’ll pull a mid-StB and DRK will get some random skills buffed or reintroduced (give me Sole Survivor and Dark Passenger back please ^u^)
I'm a former samurai main that instantly became a viper main. I'm enjoying its flexibility a lot compared to my very rotationally rigid old main. I think I prefer's samurai burst window over viper's though, viper is just very fast paced though mostly braindead strategically whereas samurai's is/was very methodical into how you could squeeze the most potency under buffs. I think both jobs are well designed against each other as the two pure selfish melee dps and I commend SE for nailing this first try.
I think speed is irrelevant towards whether or not the job is fun. What’s really important is the ability to learn the job effectively, think critically, and apply the tools at your disposal to a variety of situations. In other words, it’s less about the jobs themselves and more about the possibilities of what players can do with the job that determines the fun factor.
For me, whm is super simple, but still a really fun job to play (and still my main) because I feel like I have to think situations through and my parties performance can change based on how well I use my kit.
I mean both decisions and high cpm make a fun job, what I cant play is jobs with static rotations. I want to create my rotation for each fight and each go around I know where we are in a fight because of where I am in my rotation. I do enjoy the planning of casters and catering my movement to a fight, but I would call myself a melee main because I like the busy nature of the job and trying to squeeze as much uptime as I can, figuring out what I can get away through trial and error. I loved fights like p8s that made my desire to perfect my rotation and uptime a necessity vs p12s where it was only important to me since the dps check was so lenient.
I think the most important thing is that the job's dps rotation has flexibility. You can move around different buttons and abilities, without losing optimal DPS. And then that all of these buttons and abilities might have different range, posittional, movement, and resource requirements. That is where most of the fun is. Because then in an encounter to encounter basis, you can shift your rotation around to fit the needs of the encounter.
I'm a BLM main obviously and its flexibility is why I main it. I only play standard, and hate like 80% of the changes DT made compared to EW BLM. But it still is my favorite job, even in this much worse state.
I wish more jobs had meaningful decisions to make. SMN and SCH have my favorite theme, but I find healing too boring, and SMN is like the worst designed DPS kit. I would main SB SMN right now if I could with how flexible the length of different parts of its rotation were.
Tornado kick monk transpose line blm freestyle sam and caster brd/mch was the most fun i ever had when playing the game.
What makes a job fun for me is a fair bit of business to it but also it needs to feel different from the other jobs that I play. At least feel as different as they can feel within the current FFXIV job homogomization. Also utility skills like gap closers or NIN's tp to allow me to really greed and push it when I really learn a fight.
As someone who raided on both NIN and BLM in EW, for me the changes feel as follows: I personally like the additions to NIN's kit, while CPM isn't the be all and end all, it truly is a matter of skill expression in executing those high cast amount bursts correctly all the time.
For BLM, the reduction of CPM truly is an indicator of it's downfall. The skill expression on BLM came from optimizing the casts that you had per minute. As said with PCT, PCT truly embraces having slow casts and that planning around it. BLM lost that planning for a big part, and still lost CPM.
I remember progging DSR as DRK in EW, I'm GNB main but decided to give DRK a try. It was fun, fast and the MP management + TBN optimisation was fun.
Changing DRK's movement tool to an actual movement tool is great, but DRK lost an Edge of Shadow and 2 plunge per minute.
DRK has lost a lot to weave, but it also execute the same actions, the job is very repetitive on the GCD side.
I focused mostly on trying new jobs.
Viper is fun to learn, but honestly, in my opinion is "easy to learn, easy to master" job. Viper have nothing to optimize except positionals, 3 gapclosers and 3 ranged attack with high gcd gives him easy uptime. Entire burst is just "save 50 gauge", outside of burst I can press almost anything in order I want while avoiding overcap on uncoiled and dreadwinder which is quite easy. Viper just dont have anything to optimize or think about, which is become boring at some point. I know some players love such jobs, but I'm not one of them. I feel even summoner have more optimization options due to forced gapcloser.
On another hand, Picto is fun to play. Ex1 and normal raids provide a lot of moments where I can plan my movement and skills for keeping gcd rolling and it feels good. Picto is easy in core, but big focus on casting (especially motifs and CYM which have long casting) makes him imteresting, especially when I dont know fight.
I do overall prefer busy jobs. I mained EW AST (on controller) and overall liked the speedy jobs the most, like GNB, MCH, MNK. But whats the most important to me is how a job feels. I used to love BLM but after the changes it feels bad to play, the fire phase is too long, ice phase is too short, without sharpcast you dont really need to think about how you will weave it to refresh thunder on the second part of fire, its insanely strict, and on top of all of that they took away ice paradox which just felt *good*
same with with MNK, we returned to the 223 flow of EW but it still feels *bad,* EW MNk was all about the flow, specially during your bursts where you had to make sure you mazimized the uses of oppo gcds while not dropping your dot and buff, but now the 2 minute is "oops, all oppo oppo!" and for me it just makes the flow halt in a jarring way that makes me go "where was I?" at the end, looking down at my hotbars to even know what comes next while I regain my footing.
currently Im maining PCT and ADORING it, it just feels great, how outside of your burst you can do anything however you want, like paint for like the whole valigarmanda transition because you got places to be when thats done, or how in P4S I was saving one motif unpainted right before the 2 minute for movement during pinax, even the burst you can do it in so many ways to deal with movement requierements and can do a bit of hyperfantasia just to go dance around the stage with 3 hammers and then come back to finish your burst, its a marvelous job that really nails the aesthetic.... and the hammer combo animation is just amazing
Im also hugely enjoying VPR. in EW I played all the melees but RPR which I didnt enjoy, but with the DT changes I just dont enjoy DRG and SAM as much and MNK feels awful. I was expecting I would dislike VPR as it looked like a "click the shiny" job and I enjoy the more complicated jobs, but VPR plesantly surprised me. is not only the speed but the moment to moment desicion making, VPR is very much a job about juggling, having the debuff, the positonal buffs, the dreadwinder combo, and two gauges to manage makes it so much more engaging. I found myself plesantly surprised by the fact that keeping up my positional buff was actually something I needed to keep in mind.
at the end, what makes a fun job in my opinion is the moment to moment descicion making, the ability to adapt to different situations, and the oportunity to improve oneself... and funny paint noises.
DRK and SMN were bad enough in EW that i didn't think they could get any worse, and yet both somehow did
I've been absolutely loving pictomancer for how freeform it is. It was also what I loved in ShB SMN and EW BLM, but both are gone now.
I also quite enjoy dragoon's burst because while you have enough stuff to double-weave after every GCD, most of that stuff is procs not cooldowns, so you don't need to press them the exact second then come up.
For viper, it's decently fun but I don't forsee myself coming back to it once I have all jobs at 100. It feels *too* simple for my tastes
My least favourite job is bard, where you're just flooded with 5 things all at once shouting for your attention randomly proccing and also having no mercy on cooldown drift with the songs being 120s
Darknight is in a much less interesting than it used to be
i dont think too much weaving or lack of weaving is the issue even remotely.
Unfortunately this is really one of the small list of ways Jobs can be "Fun" in ffxiv.
In the past of Heavenswards and Stormblood, job overall was much more accepted in it's enjoyment (And, admittedly needlessly high ceiling) where enjoyment came in many different forms.
A prime example is Dragoon. Originally in HW, with Dragoon Blood of the Dragon was a buff you HAD to to maintain by landing Wheeling thrust/Fang n claw to add timer to its reletively short window (starts at 15 second, max 20 second and GCD refreshed I think 10 seconds). Whenever you used Geirksgogul it took 10 seconds off the timer. To REALLY optimize your damage, you had to fit in atleast 3 Geirskgogul in your 20 second buff window of Blood for blood, which lead to, you had to get a certain counter, use 2 Geirksgogul, let the timer run out, and then REFRESH a new timer of Blood of the Dragon to land your last one.
In Stormblood, this changed where you had Blood of the Dragon, and when you enter life of the dragon, you get access to Nastrond, but the timer was dependant on the timer of Life of the Dragon. So you HAD to keep up good uptime so that Blood of the dragon was up for as long as possible, and you had atleast 24second on your timer before entering Life of the Dragon so you can pull 3 Nastrond.
Or another job, look at Machinist. Heavensward Machinist had a VERY high ceiling to really pull off some ridiculous damage, and when you do they did the most. Wildfire used to be a 10 second debuff where it accumulates 20% of the damage YOU did, piled up, and then it explodes on the target (Rather than land GCD to increase potency by 200 per GCD, max of 1200), AND it could crit. So MCH was all about getting your opener down to fit in as MUCH burst as possible so that first wild-fire did ridiculous damage (It used to do 8% of a bosses health if pulled off perfectly in savage), and from there, every other wildfire you had to learn what you can pump in to keep that good damage. Along with that, MCH used to have a very RNG proc heavy base rotation. your 1 2 3 combo involved 1 proccing 2, and then 2 potentially proccing 3. And you had "Bullet" resources where these procs will be 100%.
Then they dumbed it down in Stormblood where Wildfire no longer critted, and allllllllll of MCH's oGCD/rotation was designed specifically to be put into Wildfire. Same GCD, same timer everytime.
What I want in Future Expansion with the comment of "Plans to bring individuality" with jobs, is I want them to atleast give every job completely different burst windows, and some "New" to manage in their rotation. I wouldn't mind if they straight up made raid buffs hardly line up, and make it so players simply have to focus on their own rotation and optimization, and not be so heavily affected because someone happened to miss a raid-line up which is currently the main problem right now.
I know this is pretty much kind of asking to bring back some old rotation designs for jobs, but you MUST understand, jobs back in HW and SB was the more enjoyable times where you felt REALLY satisfied when you learned your rotation. But I know this won't be easily done cause these changes will agian, bring back the old problem where while the High-Skill level players were doing great, players who could not learn or have a high skill-play will do so little DPS that people will once again become infuriated playing together.
My favorite job was NIN when it had to manage its dot and its buff with the basic combo and oGCD mudras. Viper in its current state reminds me a lot of that spinning plate job design that FFXIV has been crusading against for the past 3 expansions, which is why the changes they are gonna make to the job are very disappointing and don't give me hope for whatever they are cooking up in 8.0 for jobs.
To me its how consistent it is
Viper is so frustrating to play if your ISP sucks, because, if you lag it becomes hard to do the off-gcds and your gcd starts clipping badly
And maybe the CPM its important someone more "hardcore" but i feel that we all have at least one friend that loves picto (an if not you are that person)
I like viper because its fun but i also love picto, in dungeons, the burst feels really nice
Black Mage has been my favorite job for a long time, but honestly the changes they made to it in Dawntrail made it incredibly difficult for me to continue enjoying playing it, luckily, I do like Pictomancer quite a lot, and as long as holy in white stays as a small DPS loss, it has been giving me the feeling of planning that I desire from Black Mage!
Im excited with the direction theyve taken with the newly designed jobs, it really feels like they are leaning into jobs that have one type of gameplay specialty, I just hope that they revisit the changes they made to Black Mage because the instant cast fire paradox, deletion of ice paradox, instant cast of fire 3, have all made the class extremely strict to play. (I dont mind the mana changes, or the elimination of non-standard BLM play, even though I do understand mourning the loss of rotation creativity)
Dont get me wrong, I love optimization, I never want to drop a fire four, but losing your strongest spell just because you made a single mistake just doesnt feel good. Black Mage has always been about the players ability to use their tools to make sure their rotation can still happen despite all of the mechanics and movement required, but its so low damage right now, and its so needlessly strict right now that I cant help but find myself enjoying that same game loop in Pictomancer right now.
If they change even a couple of those things with Black mage, i will go right back to it, because i miss it, but right now im resting in Pictomancer Land