Critically Acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy 14 has up to 19 job roles (20 if you include the Limited job, Blue Mage) which all can be played on one individual character, but choosing your first job or perhaps your main job can be tricky.
Whether you’re a sprout adventurer taking your first steps into Eorzea or a player looking to find a comfortable job to play in end-game content, here are the jobs that you’ll find more comfortable and easy to play on your learning journey.
Throughout this list I will be using a few abbreviations, so here’s a quick breakdown:
GCD (Global Cooldown): A universal cooldown that all classes have, which dictates how often you can use most spells and weapon skills.
OGCD (Off Global Cooldown): Abilities that aren’t affected by GCD and instead have their own recast timer, these can be used in between GCD abilities.
DOT (Damage Over Time): Abilities that cause smaller amounts of repeat damage over a set period of time.
10 Bard
Bard is the only Ranged Physical DPS job available from the beginning of the game until the post-level 50 expansion, Heavensward. Bard (Formerly Archer until you complete the level 30 job quests) uses (at most) 5 GCDs throughout its rotation, while the rest of its kit is entirely OGCD. Playing Bard consists of keeping up your DoTs (Venomous Bite and Windbite) and cycling through your songs (The Wanderer’s Minuet, Mage’s Ballad, and Army’s Paeon), while weaving your OGCD Abilities between your Heavy shot and Straight shot attacks.
This is a very simple play style, especially after you get Iron Jaw’s at level 56, which will reset both of your DoTs with one GCD ability. Additionally, with Bard being a Ranged Physical DPS, it can continue attacking opponents without needing to worry about range or interruption, making it great at dodging mechanics while keeping up damage. However, playing Bard “optimally” can get a bit tricky. DoTs can be easy to lose track of while focusing on your rotation and mechanics and the addition of snapshotting DoTs adds to Bard’s list of timers that the player must micromanage, but you can absolutely still play Bard well without snapshotting.
“Snapshotting” refers to buffing (or debuffing) DoT effects. Fully optimizing includes learning to consistently snapshot its DoTs with the Raging Strikes buffs as the full duration of the DoTs will benefit from the buff. This is a useful thing to keep in mind as it works in the reverse. Using a mitigation skill against an enemy DoT attack will snapshot the DoT and reduce the damage of its full duration. Although both of these are only important in high-end content.
9 Ninja
Ninja (Formerly Rogue until you complete the level 30 job quest) is available to the player in Limsa Lominsa as soon as they gain the ability to change jobs. Ninja offers a much faster play style with a good amount of OGCDs to use between attacks and also brings its Ninjutsu, which will offer you different attacks depending on the order in which you use them. Ninja uses a 3 button rotation (though it will sometimes use a different combo ender that will help to maintain Huton) while consistently weaving OGCDs and Ninjutsu between their attacks and micromanaging their Huton and Ninki gauge.
While this all sounds very daunting, Ninja is still one of the least complicated Melee DPS jobs on the roster. It is a very useful job both to play and to have in your party with its Suiton and Trick attack debuff — as well as its passive increase to movement speed and Shukuchi dashes that allow you to quickly escape mechanics. Successfully grasping the Ninja play style is extremely fun and rewarding. Final Fantasy 14 places a heavy emphasis on DPS, especially in high-end content; at times, you may find it difficult to continue attacking as any Melee DPS due to limited range. It may take a little while to get used to Ninjutsu orders, and maintaining Hutons uptime can sometimes be tricky, but Ninja is a good choice of job and is the easiest to grasp of the 3 starter Melee DPS (Dragoon, Monk and Ninja).
8 Reaper
Ever since its release with the Endwalker expansion, Reaper has boasted a fun and satisfying play style that is by far the easiest to grasp of the Melee DPS Roster. Reaper uses a 3-button combo string to build its gauges and a DoT that can easily be reapplied — each use adds 30 seconds to its timer (though it cannot exceed a 1-minute duration). Its gauge can then be spent to use additional attacks. Reaper also comes with Hell’s Ingress/Egress abilities which offer it a quick escape from mechanics as well as Regress which will then allow the reaper to return to its last position.
Reaper is by no means a complicated job and would have ranked much higher in this list if it were not for the fact that players must own the Endwalker expansion and then reach level 80to be able to unlock the job at all, defeating much of its benefit to beginners.
7 Samurai
Samurai can be unlocked at level 50 if the player owns the Stormblood expansion, and it has the highest DPS output in the game next to Black Mage. However, unlike Black Mage, Samurai is far less punishing to play. Samurai’s gameplay has the player using a trio of combos to unlock Sen effects and perform certain Iaijutsu — specifically their DoT ability Higanbana, which applies the DoT for 1 minute and only costs 1 Sen to use, and their Midare Setsugekka, an ability that uses all 3 Sen to deal massive damage. While cycling through these combos, the Samurai increases its Kenki gauge, which can then be spent to weave additional attacks between its GCDs.
Samurai has a lot of abilities at a glance but is rather simple to play. Keep in mind that the Iaijutsu have a short but present cast time, so be wary of mechanics that may damage you during the cast. Luckily, an interrupted cast won’t spend your Sen, so there’s no punishment for it.
6 Machinist
With the award-winning expansion Heavensward being included in the free trial of the game, anybody can pick up the Machinist job once they reach Ishgard. This Ranged Physical DPS is the only one to feature a full 3-button combo like the Melee DPS has.
Machinist is a very easy job to play and has impressive damage output. Machinists use a combination of the Reassemble buff and the Drill attack to deal massive damage when available, using its Hypercharge state Heat Blast to decrease the cooldown on Gauss Round, and then using both to increase the end damage of Wildfire. Machinist has no DoTs or Buffs to micromanage like Bard, and optimizing its play is extremely easy, making it a solid choice for beginners.
5 Warrior
Available as a starter job, Warrior (Formerly Marauder until the player completes the level 30 Job Quest) is by far the easiest tank to play thanks to its amazing self-sustainability. Warrior has 1 combo with 2 endings that they cycle through to keep up their Surging Tempest buff and increase their beast gauge, which will allow them to use more GCD abilities. Later, they unlock Inner Release, which will offer the Warrior a phase in which they can get up to 3 uses of their beast gauge abilities for no cost.
But, Warrior shines once it unlocks Raw Intuition and later, Bloodwhetting; these skills grant the Warrior a level of mitigation while also offering life-steal effect on their attacks. This, with the Warrior’s Thrill of Battle and Equilibrium healing abilities, grants them so much self-sustain that they can almost completely heal themselves through fights. Tanking can be a daunting role to play, though, and a tank is often looked at to lead the party through dungeons. Most players will not mind if a Tank is new to a piece of content and will offer any help they can give. But, the thought of tanking can still be very intimidating to some.
4 White Mage
The only healer job available from the beginning of the game, White mage (Formerly Conjurer until the player completes the level 30 job quest) is widely agreed by the community to be the easiest job in the healer roster. All healers have a very different kit to DPS and Tanks, completely lacking a combo or rotation in place of one DoT ability and one attack, while the majority of their remaining abilities focus on support and healing. White mage specifically is a raw healer that has many tools to easily and quickly heal your allies, even featuring the Benediction ability, which will immediately restore an ally to full HP.
Similar to Warrior, The job itself is rather easy, but the role is where things can get difficult. While most find healing easier than tanking, it may be worth letting your party know that you are new to healing if that’s the case; usually they won’t mind adjusting to your preferred pace and taking it slow if needs be.
3 Red Mage
Introduced in Stormblood alongside Samurai, players can unlock Red Mage at level 50 if they own the Stormblood expansion. Red Mage is famed for its amazing versatility. Using its unique Dualcasting ability that allows them to instantly cast a second spell after their first to build their black and white magic gauge, and once it exceeds 50 on both gauges, a 3-button melee combo becomes available. This rotation hardly changes from level 50 to level 90, only adding a few extra attacks to the end of its melee combo.
What makes Red Mage useful is its ability to heal and resurrect, both of which can also be cast instantly through the use of Dualcasting, which can allow them to save an entire raid from wiping, thus earning it the name of Rez Mage. This versatility and easy play style not only makes Red Mage a good job for dungeons and such but also makes it a great option for soloing content like Eureka and Bozja or even deep dungeons like Palace of the Dead and Heaven on High.
2 Dancer
Dancer is the 3rd addition to the Ranged Physical DPS roster introduced in the Shadowbringers expansion. Dancer has made a name for itself as one of the easiest jobs in the game while still being perhaps the strongest of the Ranged Physical DPS group. Dancer uses a 2 button combo that has a chance to unlock additional attacks for use (Similar to Bards Straight shot) but more significant to the job, through the successful use of Standard Step and Technical Step it can deal a massive amount of AoE damage and grant raid-wide buffs as well as buffs to its Dance Partner along with Devilment.
Dancer practically tells you what to do by highlighting relevant skills and showing you the step order for your dances. It also comes with En Avant, a dash ability with up to 3 charges that makes dodging mechanics even easier than it already is for a Ranged Physical job.
1 Summoner
Ever since its rework with the introduction of Endwalker, Summoner has gone from one of the harder jobs in the game to the absolute easiest job to play. Available as a starter job, Summoner (Formerly Arcanist until completion of the level 30 job quest) cycles through each of its summons and exhausts its abilities before moving on to the next. Like with Dancer, the abilities will change or be highlighted, essentially telling you what to press. Each of these phases lines up perfectly so that by the Summoners level cap, you rarely have to cast the base Ruin. Summoner does come with resurrection and healing like Red Mage, but its healing is very small, and without the ability to Dualcast, it isn’t able to resurrect as frequently.
To make Summoner even better, it is technically 2 jobs in 1, as leveling Summoner will also level the Scholar healer job, which will also share gear with the Summoner until level 50. Scholar is a somewhat complicated healer, but if you’re willing to learn it, then starting as an Arcanist is a good solution to playing through the MSQ; from level 30, you will have access to the quick healer queues for dungeons and other content while still being able to quickly defeat enemies on your own in the world and in solo instances via Summoner DPS.
