After more or less hitting the endgame wall with my first two characters I went and created the third and presumably final one a couple days ago (please excuse the lack of proper glamour; my funds are currently being funneled into leveling Armorer and I have none to spare on dye).
This one is meant to cover the various tanking classes along with Dragoon & Samurai, and my first impressions regarding the tank role are quite favorable.
I’m not sure why it’s not a more popular role considering it can both deal damage and survive situations that would shred your average DPS. Sure you rely upon the Healer in order to survive most Boss fights or larger pulls… but so does DPS (post-60 Red Mage being the occasional exception).
Though I will grant that my initial experience with Gladiator has been underwhelming. The damage is pretty anemic compared to Marauder (let alone DPS) and the shield doesn’t seem to make much of a difference survivability-wise. I’ve been equally unimpressed with Lancer so far, seeing that as of level 30 it completely lacks any AOE attack and has the same attack range as other melee classes. What’s the deal with that? Enemy lancers have an early line-attack called Heartstopper… why don’t players?
So Marauder has been my go-to class so far, featuring as it does both high defense and high damage.
Going back to my second character for a bit, in the end I think I like it more than my
‘main’. While it lacks the self-sufficiently of RDM, Dancer is extremely mobile and easy to play. I’ve even come around a bit on Monk. Sure it can only hit things at point-blank range, but it hits things quite hard.
I think my least favorite class at this point may be Machinist. It just… doesn’t really work. Something feels missing or out of place or something. It’s just uncomfortable to play.
We’ll have to see how Paladin/Warrior/Dragoon, Samurai, Dark Knight, and Gunbreaker stack up down the road.
Oh yeah, and now having experienced all 3 starting scenarios I can confidently say that Ul’Dah‘s is by far the most well integrated with the overall plotline (while Limsa‘s is the most disconnected). So start a new character in that city if at all possible.