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Sounsyy · **08-07-2013, 05:47 PM**

The Armoury System seems to be one of the most misunderstood aspects of FFXIV. So I actually made this little post on the beta forums a long while ago. It basically explains the key differences between Classes and Jobs. Hope it helps!
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Class vs Job Explanation

ClassesÂ are versatile basic jobs. Each class has it's role in the party (tank, dps, healer) however, they are allowed to borrow select abilities from other previously leveled classes as a kind of reward/incentive for leveling multiple classes. These abilities are limited to and mainly used for theirÂ utility.Remember that classes (while not advanced jobs) still have solid party roles that they can't effectively deviate from no matter how much cross-classing you do. A Gladiator will always be a tank, a Conjurer your main healer. The ability to cross-class foreign utility abilities allows these classes toÂ supplementÂ an area where the class is naturally weak. An example would be cross-classing Cure and Protect onto your Lancer, so that you may have some way to heal/support yourself when soloing or tanking in a small low level party where you may not have a Gladiator among your group of friends. It's important to note that a Lancer's cures will not be as potent as a Conjurer's because of a significantly lower Mind stat and many other cross-class abilities lose potency because they lack Class specific Traits that boost their effectiveness on their intended class. (This is a countermeasure so that no class can be replaced by another in a party setting.) This is where classes shine. This is their purpose. They do not make an all-in-one all-powerful class. They supplement your survivability in a situation where traditional party roles are not present or ineffective.

JobsÂ are the paragon of their respective class's job role. Meaning that they specialize in tanking, dpsing, or healing and aren't really equipped to step outside of those roles. Along with a name change, the first real change between the class and the job are the addition of 5 powerful job-specific abilities that embody their respective party role, and the loss of 5 cross-class ability slots to balance the 5 job ability gains. So, you lose a little variety to gain a lot of role defining abilities. (Like Dragoon's Jump, White Mage's Holy, Paladin's Invincibility.) The second major change is having your cross-class abilities limited to two Job-specific preset subclasses. SE takes the work and embarrassment out of learning which classes make optimal subjobs and does it for you. When you change from class to job, you gain that Job's subclass's cross-class abilities and stats. (Example: Gladiator -> Paladin. Subclasses are Marauder and Conjurer. So you see an increase in VIT and MND during the switch. And your Paladin can use MRD and CNJ abilities.)

So, why have both?

As stated before, classes really shine in low-man or solo content. The ability to pull utility from all other leveled classes helps fill in gaps left by the loss of having other classes to fill traditional party roles. Some examples would be a Thaumaturge wanting to pull in defensive abilities or abilities that allow him to dodge powerful attacks or self heals. A lancer needing to equip protect so that they can supplement their lower defense rating. A gladiator wishing to equip attack enhancing abilities to supplement having a low STR stat and attack points.

Jobs shine in full party content where all traditional and necessary party roles are covered by other players. You have a dedicated healer so your DDs can focus on dps instead of having to cure themselves. A tank doesn't need to pull attack abilities because he has dedicated damage dealers to do it for him. Instead they are given abilities that reinforce their party roles so that they can better themselves at their job. You'd want your tank to have the ability to go Invincible or be able to Cover another party member or have a powerful self cure when you're fighting a boss like Bahamut would you not?Â

Now, this is why classes got a lot of flak in 1.0 and some of that may carry over to ARR. In 1.0, there was no such thing as low-man content. All 1.0 game content was L45+ 8 man raids. AKA Job territory. So in 1.0, there was literally no content where classes shined, and so people thought, "why do we even have classes anymore? They serve no purpose." Which was right, they didn't really have a place in 1.0. HOWEVER, in A Realm Reborn, guess what, we do have low man lower level content. We have FATEs, we have Guildhests, we have L15, 25, 30 dungeons for 4 and 8 party members with varying difficulties. We have Hunting Logs. We have many more reasons to use Classes in the way they were meant to be used. So this Jobs > Classes will soon disappear hopefully. Each works effectively as intended.

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Based off the posts so far, I'd definitely say give Archer and Thaumaturge a try. They're both ranged dps. Archer lays down some good ranged damage as well as inflicts enemies with a good number of debuffs. They also have a good balance of single target and area of effect capabilities, making them great at crowd control. Thaumaturges are the glass cannons of FFXIV. They are power houses that focus on burst damage. They increase their magical damage by casting powerful fire spells, then recover their mana by switching to ice type spells. They also have some powerful damage over time spells.
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Lancer/Dragoon is another fun class. They are the sustained damage dealers of ARR. They like to get right up close with their enemies and strike the enemy where they are vulnerable. Most all of their attacks are positional, so there's a lot of maneuvering necessary with the Lancer. But if you get into the right position, you gain some good buffs and inflicts decent debuffs on the enemy all while dealing a lot of damage.
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Based off of SE's description (and some data mined info) Arcanist is a Damage over Time caster and a Healing over Time healer. They like to inflict powerful debuffs on enemies and then either increase their potency or spread those debuffs to nearby enemies. They also have control of a pet which focuses more on support dps. It can also function as a backup healer and tank for the Arcanist if necessary. Of their two jobs, Summoner is the Damage Dealer of the two and Scholar is the Healer.
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Hope this helps!

What's the best class for me?

RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes