I'll be playing AAR as freshly minted lvl 1 so I gave some thought into what class I wanted to play. Now I am sharing what I perceive are some of the pro/cons of each class and perhaps garner feedback on other options or areas where I am mistaken.

So the class I am currently leanign toward playing is :

Archer: the Archer has ranged attacks, most of which are instant and thus allows you to kite around a bit so the low defense and such matter less. Basically seems easy to play/solo with even with no gear or the like. ideal for starting out. On the downside... the Bard job seems ... meh. I guess the dmg debuff is fine, but no cross class skills other than from caster jobs seems like it would be suck. Also Archers aren't (imo) as cool looking as Monks or the like.

The runner up is: Marauder. they seem to be the most "interesting" play style-wise of the DoW classes. a good mix of positional requirements and the like make it seem like the class would be fun-ish in solo or PT. I'm not entirely sold on the extra threat/offtanky nature of some of the skills. Nor positional Weapon skills combined with buffs that fade if you move ( as a melee class no less).

The rest: Conjurer : I don't mind healing but soloing as a Cnj seems like a terrible idea. I might grind one to 15 or so to unlock jobs/skills, but it won't be the first thing I play.

THM: Seemed kinda fun. The whole mana management thing + procs seems relatively interesting, but from what I played in beta they are quite squishy, get almost no defensive utility naturally, and tbh don't really do more damage than other classes. All in all not a great pick for a first timer. might be fun (like cnj) with a buddy or enough gear to kill stuff faster.

Drg/Pug : Both are probably more interesting flavor wise than MAR/Archer, but their skill trees seem inherently flawed since they don't finish their basic 3 step combos until very late in levels and that just seems dumb. Its especially dumb when basically most of the pugilist fighting style is doing that 3 step combo over and over again mixed with reactionary abilities and cooldowns. All in all they just seem flawed and thus worse to level than say a Mar.

Arcanist: TBH I know nothing about them. they *seem* cool but until I know more not really confident committing to playing one.

Gladiator: I enjoy tanking, its fun challenging and rewarding. Sadly being on a legacy server I think overall I'm better off leaving it to legacy players and such with more experience until I get more experience. Its also tends not to be a super quick way to level.

So that's my opinions/impressions form an admittedly small data set. Anyone have feedback contrary or agreeing with my impressions? Factors that might sway my opinion?

I don't have enough time to leave feedback on all of it. I will say +9999 CON is painful and slow solo. I took every job from 0 to max level in Alpha, and CON was by far the most painful. Slow casting, spell interruptions, slow mana regeneration, squishy damage make it really suck for solo chaining exp,....compared to basically any other job lol. White Mage was fun in 1.0, I don't have an opinion in ARR yet as i've only got to play it in capped dungeons where you can only use 2 or 3 spells lol.

Maurauder was "the job" to play for soooo many fights in 1.0, the tanking abilites + high AoE DD made it such a good job. It was very overpowered at times, they had to keep nerfing it, and still it was still really strong after the nerfs. I am sure it will be a useful job in many situations in 2.0.

Bard was very useful in 1.0 for ballad and melee buffs. And it was a lot of fun to solo with. It's nice you don't have to pay for arrows anymore....praise the SE gods for that, because it was $$$ if you didn't farm your own mats and craft them. I'm almost positive it will be useful in ARR, i've already seen it handle fights in Beta very well. For example Pamelita and I duoed Ifrit from 35% to dead - as WHM and BRD when 2 others died. She just kited it and kept shooting while I tried to keep her alive. Other jobs couldn't have done that.

IMO starting with archer and bard would be a good pick. I'm not sure how the party exp will be, but leveling CON a little bit to get protect and cure will assist with soloing.

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There are a fuckton of people with BRD/ARC at 50. I don't know how many people still plan to use it as a main job though. I'll still probably main it, but I don't know if I would start with it on a new character.

I'd probably start with lancer or marauder. Monk suffered a lot in 1.0 because it wasn't very useful for end game content... just like xi. I wouldn't trust them changing that in arr until there is proof otherwise. Lancer looks like it will continue to dominate as a DPS job like it did in 1.0. Marauder seems to be keeping it's insane versatility too.

Overall, I think you'd have more opportunities with lnc or a mage job.

If I went archer I'd level Archer to 10-15 unlock the other classes. then level a couple classes to 6-8 for basic solo spells like cure, second wind, protect or what have you. Then level archer to 30, then Cjn to 15 to unlock bard. At that point I'd have to reevaluate but I'd probably just grind out Archer to 50 before worrying about cross class skills that are above lvl 10 or so.

As for job saturation I'm not too worried about it. Either I have fun playing what I want or don't. On a long enough timeline I will probably get several jobs to 50 and can worry about what's fotm or underrepresented but for my first class I want something to get to max level with minimal fuss.

as someone with all jobs maxed, i can say white mage is the most wanted, followed by warrior. at least in 1.0.

dragoon was probably the highest DPS melee. and bard is very versatile and useful. i'd definitely pick one of those four if i were to start from scratch.

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RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

Though I didn't get much time to mess around with it, I get the impression that Warrior has been somewhat re-tooled in ARR. It appears to now be a straight up tank instead of a "jack of all trades melee" with decent dps with decent aoe tanking abilities.

Steel Cyclone seems to no longer be the amazing skill it once was, and the "Wrath" mechanic drops your damage by a hefty 35%. It felt like the damage output had been scaled back in favour of combos and abilities that increased enmity and HP. It even shows up as a "Tank" role and has a blue job icon (like Paladin) in the Duty Finder and party list. (Damage dealers are brown, healers are green, I believe.)

I imagine it'll be the same as it was near the end of 1.0 though, where Paladin is ideal for tanking things one-on-one, and warrior is great for tanking lots of smaller adds, but no slouch as a tank if you need one. So I guess at the end of the day it's still the jack of all trades melee, but it's mainly a tank, and you're probably better off picking Lancer or Monk if you want to be a dps melee.

in beta i have found that my dragoon and monk both outdamage my warrior (i haven't had a chance to use bard yet). but i also feel like if i could master that defiance/fury system (i forget what it's called) i could probably maximize my dmg and be closer to my dragoon and monk.

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RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

WAR has been completely retooled, I think it's great. Much less damage while tanking, but you can remove it if you want more damage, Steel Cyclone is just plain hard to actually use effectively, and the damage was greatly reduced. Flash is hard to use as WAR has next to 0 MP, which is a good imo.

MNK has been greatly improved from what I've seen so far, damage appears to be on par with DRG, I would even say better except I haven't finished unlocking all the DRG abilities so I can't fairly say.

PLD is a great tank, and I've loved the changes since 1.0. Plenty of tools to hold hate and mitigates damage very well.

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I'm so torn between Paladin and Dragoon. I loved tanking in FFXI, but I'm worried like most games the tank classes will level slow. My playtime is a bit limited these days (damn career) so I don't wanna fall behind.

How the advanced classes are unlocked?

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http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/character/871200/

as far as I am aware you level the main class to 30 and a specific secondary class to 15 and that unlocks a quest to unlock the job's soul crystal or w/e. There may or may not be additional quests later on to unlock additional abilities for the job.

Don't worry, you've already fallen behind.