NOTE: These guides are currently outdated. Versions that have been updated for Shadowbringers will be uploaded when available! Until then, please ask any questions you have on our questions_and_requests channel in discord.

Sukutak here! As a chronic alt-oholic, one of my favorite features in FFXIV is the ability to take every class on one character, switching between them at will. If you’re new to the game, that feature is unlocked when you finish your level 10 class quest for your first class. It can be hard to decide which class to try next, though, particularly since many of the in-game descriptions focus on lore rather than party role or gameplay.

In addition, FFXIV has both classes and jobs. Your character starts as a class for the first thirty levels. At that point, you can unlock a job associated with that class (two, in the case of arcanist). A job has all the abilities of its base class along with a few additional skills and a stat boost, making jobs more powerful than their base classes. If you’ve played previous Final Fantasy games, jobs are the names you’ll recognize: black mage, paladin, and many of the other classics are available.

Here, I’m going to give a brief description of each role and class to give an idea of what each one is like. I’m specifically avoiding any rankings of which class is ‘best,’ because the game is balanced enough that any job can handle any content just fine, outside of cutting-edge progression raiding. Don’t worry about what’s the most powerful, pick something that sounds fun to play! Since the game doesn’t make it immediately obvious which job each class turns into, I’ve also listed that in case you have a favorite class from other Final Fantasy games that you want to try. The classes and jobs are divided into three categories, either damage dealers (often called DPS, which stands for damage per second), tanks, or healers.

DPS

Damage dealers are focused on a mixture of damage output and party utility. The performance of the DPS players is one of the factors that determines how long a fight will last. In some fights, good DPS will do enough damage to skip past certain boss mechanics, making the fight easier. While most classes in FFXIV start out very simple, DPS classes generally have fairly difficult skill rotations by endgame.

If someone is not good at effectively dealing damage, they are less likely to cause problems for the party than if the tank doesn’t know how to properly mitigate damage or the healer doesn’t effectively heal. Because of this, a lot of players choose DPS classes first in order to learn the game without having as much responsibility for the party’s success as a tank or healer would have. This leads to DPS often being the most populated of the three groups, so queues generally take longer as DPS than they would as a healer or tank.

More details can be found in our guide to DPS.

There are seven DPS class-job combos which are further divided into three categories:

• Melee DPS are focused on doing high damage, with a little extra utility. They need to stay close to what they are fighting, but can generally move without interrupting their attacks. To some degree, each needs to pay attention to ‘positionals,’ getting bonus damage with certain attacks if they are either behind or to the side of the enemy. They generally have rotations that involve combos, abilities boosting each other if used in a certain order.
  • Lancers eventually become dragoons. They use combos to deal damage, alongside special jump skills that lock the dragoon in place briefly, making them vulnerable but dealing high damage. At high levels, they keep up a buff called Blood of the Dragon, adding to its duration with a pair of positional abilities and ‘spending’ its duration on a powerful attack.
  • Pugilists turn into monks. They have the highest number of positionals to look out for. Instead of a combo system, most of their abilities are split into stances. When in a certain stance, the monk will be limited to using the attacks of that stance, which will then move him to the next stance in a cycle. This gives flexibility compared to combos, as there are options of which skill to use next. Each time they cycle through their stances, they get a stack of Greased Lightning that increases damage and makes their attacks faster.
  • Rogues unlock at level 10 instead of being selectable at the start of the game. They become ninjas. In addition to a combo system, they have ninjitsus, which are activated through a combination of three abilities, the order of which determines which ninjitsu. Different ninjitsus have different effects, from single target or multi target damage to a buff.
  • Samurai will be added with Stormblood, but for now little is known about how they’ll play.
• Ranged DPS support the party in addition to doing damage. They can cause enemies to take more damage or restore the MP and TP of party members.  At high levels, they both gain a stance that adds a small cast time in exchange for bonus damage, trading some mobility for additional DPS capability.
  • Archers become bards. They have a priority system instead of a rotation, keeping up damage over time spells and buffs while keeping an eye on proccing extra effects. They use songs to buff the party and restore MP/TP.
  • Machinists are a Heavensward job, not available until you reach Ishgard in the main story. They put up turrets that deal either deal damage or give MP/TP back to the party. Their rotation has a random component, with only a 50% chance of moving to the next skill unless certain buffs are used. At high levels, machinists have a debuff that lasts for a certain amount of time on enemies and then hits them for extra damage based on how much damage they took while debuffed.
• Magic DPS have cast times, and so are less mobile than the other DPS classes. Both thaumaturges and arcanists get access to AoE attacks earlier than most other classes and are good at sustaining AoE damage compared to physical classes.
  • Thaumaturges become black mages. They switch between two stances, Astral Fire and Umbral Ice. In fire stance, they put out high damage but can’t regenerate MP. In ice stance, damage is lowered but MP returns very quickly. Instead of a set rotation, their abilities can ‘proc,’ buffing a certain ability to be instant or do more damage. At high levels, they work to maintain the Enochian buff, which allows for the use of an even more powerful fire spell but must be periodically refreshed with a certain ice spell.
  • Arcanists are special in that they can get two different jobs: summoner and scholar. Summoners and arcanists use damage over time magic and pets to deal damage. They have an ability that gives a stacking buff which can be spent on powerful abilities. In addition, summoners are the only non-healer that can resurrect dead players. At high levels, they can enter a temporary burst DPS mode culminating in a huge hit of damage.
  • Red Mages will be added with Stormblood, but for now little is known about how they’ll play.

Tank

Tanks have two major responsibilities: they need to keep the attention of the enemies (often referred to as ‘holding aggro’) so that the other party members are not attacked, and mitigate the damage they are receiving to keep the healer’s job manageable. As a result of keeping aggro, they are also responsible for positioning the boss and adds in positions that will help DPS do damage while keeping the party safe, doing things like facing a boss’s cleave away from the party.

In higher level content with multiple tanks, one will generally be the main tank, handling the boss, while the other is the off-tank, handling adds and otherwise behaving as a DPS. Some mechanics require a ‘tank swap,’ like when a debuff builds on the main tank and causes them to take progressively more damage. In cases like that, the off-tank will grab the boss’s attention from the main tank at a certain point and they will switch roles. Tanking is sometimes a high-pressure role, as a mistake can result in the death of a DPS or potentially a full wipe. Rotations are often more forgiving than those of DPS players, however, so in some ways it is easier to tank than to DPS.

For more details, check out our general tanking guide.

There are three tanks available:

• Gladiators later turn into paladins. Paladins have some of the strongest defenses when pitted against physical damage, although their magic defense is somewhat lacking. They don’t have as many tools for dealing damage as the other two tanks have, and have very simple rotations, but have a great number of defensive cooldowns available to mitigate incoming damage. They are flexible, either main tank or off tank depending on what the other tank is in 8 man content.
• Marauders become warriors. They have strong defenses, but partly stay alive thanks to massive pools of hit points and some self healing. Their rotation involves building buff stacks which can be spent on special abilities. They can deal very good damage, and so can be very useful as the off-tank as that allows them to dish out a steady stream of hurt.
• Dark Knights are the tank job from Heavensward, unlocking at level 50 once you reach Ishgard. They use MP as a resource to empower their attacks and have a damage buff that consumes MP, requiring them to balance spending and replenishing MP. They have particularly good magic defenses, and generally like to be the main tank as they can restore MP when hit.

Healing

The healer is responsible for keeping the rest of the party alive. Healers in FFXIV are very powerful relative to healers in many other MMOs, and often have down-time where they don’t need to be healing. For times like that, they can switch to dealing damage as long as they are careful to keep an eye on everyone’s health. Healers have the easiest DPS rotations in the game, but must carry them out while effectively keeping the group healed. Like tanking, bad healing can result in party deaths more easily than bad DPS can. This results in there being fewer healers than DPS, so healers will have fast queues, although generally not quite as quick as tank queues.

For more information, you can read our general healing guide.

There are three healers:

• Conjurers become white mages when they get their job. Conjurers are the only healing class: the other healing options unlock later in the game, so if you want to start out as a healer they are your only option. They have a mixture of hard-hitting heals and spells that heal their targets over a set time. They have a spammable area-effect stun that can keep a large group of adds from acting for a time, buying the party time.
• Scholars are the second job that arcanists can take. They get a fairy pet that constantly heals the scholar’s allies. They also have shielding magic, allowing them to prevent damage to the party rather than responding to it and healing after damage has gone out as a white mage does. Like arcanists, they use damage over time magic offensively and have the ability to spread it to a group of enemies.
• Astrologians are the Heavensward healers, unlocked by having a level 50 class and reaching Ishgard in the story. They have two stances, one focusing on heal over time spells and one focusing on shields. This makes them versatile, able to complement either a white mage or a scholar. They also have the ability to give temporary buffs to other classes, enhancing their offensive or defensive capabilities.