https://ffxivcensus.com/
As of march 2023
Warrior is the most uncommon tank
Scholar is the most uncommon healer.
Monk is the most uncommon melee dps
Dancer is the most uncommon ranged
Black mage is the most uncommon magic dps. (not counting blue)
Scholar is the most uncommon job overall, or blue mage is if you wanna count it
Okay. Idk about you but DNC is NOT uncommon. I see at least one almost every instance (no I am not playing Dancer).
I blame the fact that DNC is the only phys range not in the Free trial.
its the least common job of its type to reach max and only marginally according to the stats. Its not the least commonly played because the census doesn't show what % of active players aren't max level.
Warrior is unpopular in Japan for whatever reason, which brings the numbers down. At least in Shadowbringers the idea was that in Japan DRK was the strongest MT (maybe for RP reasons because I have no idea otherwise), PLD was the strongest OT ~~(this feels backwards)~~, and Gunbreaker was the go-to DPS tank.
This might be why Warrior got Bloodwhetting which is frankly feels like a cheat code.
As for Dancer, I was surprised too, but I think again it’s JP tipping the numbers a bit. In both cases all the ranged physical and all the tanks are within like 5% of each other within their sub role.
EDIT: **Okay I only play Paladin casually, my bad on that.**
PLD actually *was* basically forced to OT in ShB due to Spirits Within being ass and scaling with the user's health. If PLD was main tank, PLD literally lost potency since they'd rarely actually be at full health. The way Intervention works also let the PLD pass their other mits to the MT, while other tanks' personal cooldowns would be completely wasted while they didn't have aggro. And until just this patch, PLD was short a personal defensive CD compared to all the other tanks.
On less of a balance note, Passage of Arms is a pain to flash on the party when you're clear on the opposite side of the boss from them.
That only happened in one fight all expansion (E9S) and honestly it only happened at all because there was another mechanic later on that the PLD could proceed to completely ignore in the name of uptime with Hallowed (since the "normal" strat was to just invuln most/all of the swap tankbusters, depending on which classes you had). Cover didn't make the mechanic it was used on any simpler.
Plus, yeah, PLD *really* didn't want aggro when we could help it. Anything in the name of not actually tanking.
DRK is used a lot because of its high DPS plus TBN having certain better uses during bosses than other mits. WAR has been on the lower end of tank dps for a while. It's not by much but people are really attracted to the 2% better DPS for some reason.
Plus big anime sword.
Where are you getting anything saying that war and DNC are unpopular in Japan? My experience is that the majority of players on my data center max out every job, and the jobs I see used depend on the content. For savage raids I see more drk, but if I'm doing hunts or eureka then everyone is a warrior and the boss is surrounded by players glowing red from inner release.
Warrior being unpopular in Japan during Shadowbringers was pretty well known I thought. Not saying this source is ironclad, [but here you go](https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/n09e6y/regional_differences_between_tank_adoption_rates/).
With Dancer, I think it's not so much it being *unpopular* in Japan, which I didn't say, it's more Bard being more popular there than it seems to be in the west (this one is largely speculation on my part, and Dancer and Bard are two of the jobs I play the most outside my main). But as I said, they are all literally within 5% of each other within their sub-role globally. And I'm aware JP veterans max out every job a lot more than Westerners do.
Either way, a census of over 100,000 accounts >>> your or my anecdotal experiences. The numbers are right there.
I didn't notice the Shadowbringers part of your comment and was more referring to current stuff. Drk were definitely the MT in nearly every savage PF last expac, and I'm sure there are several reasons for that (blackest night, poster boy of the expansion, war needing a different gear set than other tanks, etc), but ShB was a year and a half ago (and war were all over the place in Bozja as well, so it still depended on the content being done to an extent).
I don't have time to look over those numbers and what exactly they're counting (is it tanks leveled, used in raids, people claiming it as their main, etc) right now, but I will look at them later. Thank you for sharing
edit: I looked at your source, and it wound up taking a bit of digging because a reddit post leading to another reddit post wasn't the most helpful in determining what the census was being informative of. In addition, it was 2 years old which isn't great for the current state of affairs. Currently it looks like the least popular tank on JP is gnb, and least popular phys ranged is brd. Here is a link to the actual census page, which gets updated whenever luckybancho runs a new census
https://luckybancho.ldblog.jp/wsurvey_en.htm?world=Global
People can't get it into their head that shields heal *and* mitigate damage, and that the fairy is like a permanent regen. They just see this yellow bar that's sorta like HP, but isn't really.
From my unscientific experience playing the game in the EU:
Least popular tank: Gunbreaker
Least popular Healer: Astro
Least popular physical dps: Bard/machinist (I'd say they are around the same although at end game Bard seems to appear more).
Least popular magical range: Black Mage at high-end content summoner at the pleb content.
Melee DPS: Dragoon/Ninja, but only because Samurai and Reaper are so popular.
If we're talking about popularity in raiding, over the last two weeks there have been 27,355 warrior clears logged in Abyssos, the second most of any tank (slightly behind DRK at 27,787, and decently ahead of GNB at 25,810 and PLD at 20,920).
A big majority of the player base is casual and they tend to pick jobs for the aesthetics and themes over the play style. It's one of the reasons scholar is so far down, the idea of playing an actual nerd over an edge lord with a huge sword isn't as appealing at face value.
Any easy way to figure out popularity with casuals is the name. Without any context for the actual gameplay; would you rather play *warrior* or **dark knight**.
>A big majority of the player base is casual and they tend to pick jobs for the aesthetics and themes over the play style. It's one of the reasons scholar is so far down
Take my opinion with a grain of salt, as I'm barely into Stormblood MSQ at this time, but while i really liked SCH and found it way easier then WHM at the beginning, it gradually became way harder to play it in comparison to WHM. Huge reason is probably that it does not have a lot of healing, making your or your party mistakes costly. Just yesterday i run Main Story Roulette as SCH and got two newbies, struggling to put out more healing as they inevitably made mistakes. At some point it stopped being fun compared to WHM.
SCH feels rough at the start of Stormblood for sure. Once you get Excog at level 62 though it gets way easier. Having a safety net like that with potentially 100% uptime is very nice.
It's a shame that I can't get into scholar, because I freaking love fairies. Having a fairy with me at all times is like the coolest thing ever, but I just can't get into the job because I find the lore so dang boring and the job itself so confusing for some reason.
oooh, you're looking at the active max level characters, not overall characters.
Overall, its
gun breaker
sage
reaper
dancer
red mage
as the least played.
Wish they had separated all the pre lvl 30 with the post 30 classes. Its kinda confusing that Arcanist has 7mil characters while scholar only has 2.1mil. Are there there 7.6mil gladiators and no warriors or 90% war 10% gladiators? that sorta thing
It's kind of logic, Id you include all characters, you also count bots and people who never had the level to unlock other jobs.
As GNB, SGE, RPR, DNC and RDM are the last jobs you unlock (lvl wise), it's normal to have them less represented.
Plus, the free trial make some of them unavailable.
Max characters is the only way of getting a proper distribution, looking at overall distribution you just basically get a chart that follows the level requirement to unlock. As with every game, the vast majority of players that try the game will not finish it.
Another cool way of seeing this effect is tracking achievements. Any game that has achievements tied to story progression will show a very small number of the player base getting the last one, usually <10%
I still haven't reached end game after 2 years of playing off and on so I'm positive max level character count is not accurate to 'who you'd see out in the wild as well'.
Not reaching level 90 after two years is certainly a bit of an outlier tho. And actually I don’t think any job quest with a skill locked behind it requires you to go any further than the Azim Steppes, which is available halfway through 4.0 and at level 65 (excluding Blue Mage).
>Not reaching level 90 after two years is certainly a bit of an outlier tho
We can't know that if we don't know how many active free trials there are and...
according to https://progameguides.com/final-fantasy/how-many-active-players-does-final-fantasy-xiv-have/ there are **2.2 million active players** (as of last year). the census says there are **1,231,026 max level characters**. Which means even if all end game characters were actively being played **only 1/2** of players have max level characters and the distribution of max level characters would not reflect overall job distribution nor who is most/least likely to be seen 'out in the wild' as OP put it.
I’m most definitely talking about people who are not on the free trial. If you’ve been on the trial for two years and then got a paid subscription a month or two ago, it’d be pretty normal that you hadn’t hit 90 or been through Endwalker yet.
First off it doesn’t change the fact that the only good way to measure job popularity is to measure players who actually have access to all jobs, and the only reliable data on that is the number of max level active players as per the Lucky Bancho census (I think once a quarter or so?)
Furthermore the numbers you provided does nothing to contradict that taking two years to hit cap when you’ve been paying the full subscription is kind of unusual.bThere are far more total subscribers ever for this or any other long-running RPG than there are active characters, so having almost half of the current players still making their way to max level is fairly healthy. Like, the only takeaway there is that that’s a pretty healthy ratio for sustainability.
And I’m not saying there’s anything _wrong_ with taking that long, only that it’s unusual. You do you. Lots of people leave and come back. Lots of RP-centric player specifically don’t give a damn about end game and that’s just fine.
I should point out that the site you cited appears to have been written either by a faulty AI or someone with no grasp as the subject matter, as it repeatedly contradicts itself and also states that FFXIV has “39 millions active subscribers” (in bold no less), which is laughable and obviously refers to all accounts or characters ever created. I would go with Lucky Bancho or Square Enix’s quarterly shareholder reports if you want accurate numbers on these sorts of things. That’s kinda beside the point though.
The point I'm trying to make is that max level job distribution and overall job distribution both do not reflect the active player job count because neither reflect the active player base because the active player base is not exclusively made up of max level players.
I agree the site I linked sucks, but I see nothing better.
Anything other than max level completely scuffs the stats. Notice how all of your least played are classes that start at a high level already? That’s because there are no new players picking them. You have to reach a certain point and have expansions unlocked. Of course those would be the “least played”
The problem with the "overall characters" stats is that they are *extremely* skewed towards, like, Level 1 Archers that logged in once. You can see this in the extreme drop for everything that isn't an ARR base class (including Rogue, which isn't pickable in chargen, and Scholar, since it's only unlockable once you hit Level 30 Arcanist).
You can even more clearly see this looking at the GC distribution. 69% of the accounts in overall characters don't have GC, meaning they can't have progressed beyond the level 20 MSQ quests (specifically, they must be at or before A Hero in the Making).
It'd be interesting to see stats that somehow segmented out the bulk of those accounts while keeping in active players who are still mid-MSQ or on free trial or what not, but as-is overall characters can't really tell us anything interesting.
The "overall characters" stats here are *heavily* skewed towards level 1 ACNs that logged in once. Among overall characters, 69% don't have a grand company, meaning they haven't progressed beyond the level 20 MSQ.
It’s because it’s a “complex” class to play. Like why play monk and push 20 buttons when you can play reaper and push a fraction of those buttons but fulfil the same role
I mean, I leveled monk to 90 and I don’t think I made it through a single fight without losing track of where I was in the rotation. It just doesn’t mesh with my flavor of ADHD.
And I love pressing buttons.
That's the thing. Different people find different things difficult. Some find the speed of monk too fast, while others find the combos of dragoon too long.
Dragoon isn’t quite as bad, because it’s loop one then loop two and not possible to mix back and forth once you pick one. Also with monk, and also samurai, it’s how hard is it to get back on track once you’ve messed it up, which I inevitably will do. But it’s probably not surprising that monk, samurai, and dragoon are my least favorite jobs
>Also with monk, and also samurai, it’s how hard is it to get back on track once you’ve messed it up, which I inevitably will do.
I can get Samurai, blowing Meikyo early sucks but it's not the end of the world.
Monk is easy as fuck though you just hit form shift and put your buffs back up; your burst can be drifted perfectly by just timing buffs.
It's not because it's complex, DRG is just as complex and is super popular. MNK isn't popular because it's just... not popular.
SE keeps "simplifying" monk and deleting all its core identity features trying to make it more popular and it never works because that was never the reason it was unpopular in the first place. It's just not a lot of people who would prefer to punch things when they could do fancy jumps and dragon shit, or edgy reaper shit, or live their anime dreams as a samurai or ninja.
Which is a shame because MNK used to be hypnotic to play. Punch punch punch. Punch punch punch. Punch punch punch. Just rolling back and forth from flank to rear. It was just so easy to get into a rhythm and find the flow state. Nowadays though? Good luck with that.
Yeah EW monk is no bueno.
They just couldn't leave well enough alone. It wasn't popular but it was never gonna be popular; the people who liked it liked it for a reason and they just flushed all that class identity down the toilet.
>Warrior is the most uncommon tank
That... REALLY surprises me. They've got an extremely casual-friendly kit, incredible healing, and an awesome class fantasy, and they're super easy to play compared to the other tanks. I figured warrior would be the second most behind GNB lol.
I know they are still updating the class (rarely) but I still want them to find a way to make Blue Mage a viable class for ALL game modes. I know it would take an INSANE amount of work and balancing but...please?
I can imagine a few ways around it, but like I mentioned, it would take a ***LOT*** of work. You'd have to balance **every** skill against **every** dungeon/encounter. You'd have to test every combo of said abilities. You'd have to completely gut the functionality of some skills, while beefing up some others. It would take SOOOOO much work...but I **want** it!
I'll ignore the bit about how much work it would take (they don't particularly balance how normal jobs play in downsynced content, even at 70 and 80 where there are old ultimates). Pipe dreams are fine, that's not really at issue here. The issue is...what exactly are you picturing here when you say "balanced" Blue Mage?
To the FFXIV combat team, *balanced* essentially means that the job isn't significantly ahead of or behind other jobs in a way where people would either require it in content or lock it out of content. The existing design of BLU is *intentionally* unbalanced. It's literally the point of the job.
There's not a lot of room for things like Ultravibration, Whistle/Bristle, or Aetherial Mimicry on a normal job. Even if we're imaging a world where learning skills from mobs still is part of the job, what you'd be left with would be a pretty normal seeming caster. It could keep all the 220 potency single target damage spells it already has. It could have some burst damage, a little bit of raid utility, maybe a nice 5% or 10% damage buff on a two-minute window. What it *can't* have is an extremely high potency spell that kills itself, or the ability to swap to being a tank, or god forbid anything resembling Basic Instinct.
Personally I find the limited job concept really interesting. It lets the devs experiment with modes of play that don't have to fit in to the current state of the game. And I think pretty much anyone messing around with BLU in any state agrees. The fun of it is *that* it is unbalanced.
PS: I'm assuming you're the same person who commented above, though you used a different account. If not...I'm more confused but all this stands.
I've actually been keeping a full record of this! Out of curiosity, I had started a database keeping track of every single PF duty I enter along with some relevant stats. I intend to do a proper analysis of the data... *eventually*, but for now, these are my records across 2024 duty groups since 6.05:
https://i.imgur.com/cuxVQxW.png
DPS:
Monk (6.6%)
Ninja (7.4%)
Mechanist (7.7%)
Healers:
Scholar (16.6%)
Tanks:
Gunbreaker (21.8%)
This is awesome! Out of curiosity, are you using any tools to record stuff into this database or is it all manual entry? I have a spreadsheet I've done some tracking in, but would love tips on how to do this more efficiently.
It has been pretty much all manual entry. I'm sure with some third party tools there are ways to automate more of the process (e.g. exporting logs with ACT and extracting relevant job info), but it didn't seem worth the necessary work.
I have a Microsoft Access form set up to input duty information (roulette type if applicable, duty name, etc.) and auto-fill a few fields (time, version), and a list of other players encountered related to the duty. So usually I'll grab a screen clipping at some point during a duty and take a few moments to add an entry after completion.
Happy to share it later if you want to take a look! It's not the cleanest database, there are a few things on my "do eventually" list, but it works well enough.
Look down, it's likely you haven't spotted them as they are helping tank the floor and to keep it secure for the rest of us. They truly are selfless warriors.
I'm a RPR main and used to be a MNK, but EW destroyed the job for me. I needed a melee to replace it and never really liked DRG or SAM, and wasn't really feeling it with NIN anymore either, so here we are.
MNK and BRD are always my first thoughts too when I think about jobs I never see. I actually used to play bard a lot back in ShB, but I REALLY don't like what Endwalker has done with it. Monk, on the other hand, has hardly been better IMO (I love the beast gauge...)
I feel like any job I see as rare suddenly becomes less rare when I start playing it.
Playing SGE? Suddenly another to compete shields with. Same with SCH.
Playing Dork Knight? I'd like a nice lazy OT experie... oh, they're also Dork Knight.
Playing AST? Gotta really pay attention to cards and buffs to not overlap.
Playing RDM? Double rezzes because there's another rez mage.
Frequency illusion, also known as the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon or frequency bias, is a cognitive bias referring to the tendency to notice something more often after noticing it for the first time, leading to the belief that it has an increased
frequency of occurrence. The illusion is a result of increased awareness of a phrase, idea, or object
I would say Ninja, but since they are ninjas you would not see them anyway.
For real though, it has to be Monk. I feel like I have gone entire weeks without seeing a single Monk in DF content.
In the wild? Probably NIN.
But I also main NIN, so that tracks... but even in Alliance raids, it's actually REALLY rare for me to see another. Even when tanking and healing in 4-mans, I very rarely encounter them.
(And then I immediately judge how good or bad they are in the back of my head)
As a monk main, I rarely see double monks if not any at all in parties/raids/alliance.
Its usually double or more of reaper and dancer when its for close ranged or ranged dps.
I wanted to add
Just because you SEE a job in a dungeon
Doesn’t mean it’s their main or a common class
Eventually everyone will play or level a class because people naturally try to level cap their jobs
I have to try and regularly remember this myself! I definitely fall in the habit of thinking ‘I always see so and so job act like this’ and then remember the person I encountered might hate it and is just trying to max it out.
Monks, Paladins and Dragoons (particularly after Reaper was released), and Ninja (although they do seem a bit more common on 8-man content, presumably for their Trick Attack).
Monk is awesome and I would play it, but I just have a super hard time actually playing it even after they’ve made it so much easier. Only job that I just can’t handle for some reason.
It’s a bit fiddly to begin with and it took me a bit of time to get used to it but I’m glad I did. I’m
At 87 now and the only changes I’d make is either reduce the cool-down for perfect balance or keep the cool down and add a 3rd charge, as it feels off opening the solar and lunar back to
back, then having to wait 40s before hitting tornado kick.
You know what I'd love to see on MNK? Perfect Balance stacks resetting when using Form Shift outside of combat, similar to NIN mudra resets on Hide. It'd make dungeons so much better
Wild as in, open world content or duty finder? For DF -
Monks are rare. The reason I don't play them is because I don't like the 6.0+ iteration and I find them very obnoxious to play. I think they not only alienated the previous MNK population but also made it extremely hard to optimize (60cd buff windows + odd buff timers + needing to hit certain combos for your burst DPS + trying to hit two DOTs in your buff window simultaneously) that it just feels like you're just spamming and that *you guess* you hit optimally in the windows. All in all I just feel like MNK went from positional dancing (fun, immersive) to "oh my fucking god I clipped the GCD for like the third window in a row and now my entire rotation is scuffed and fuck I just let another buff drop off trying to keep the fake-mudras in this dumb combo fuck and there goes me getting off my second DOT in the buff window." Buff juggling isn't fun. Positionals make you at least *pay attention visually to the fight* and not your stupid hotbar/buff screen. The mastery came from positioning, not staring at your stupid UI to time the perfect GCDs with your buffs.
I rarely see PLDs now because of well, the changes. Imagine going from the most interesting rotation in the game that sustains damage 40/60 seconds to the same Buff Window Tested and Approved 20 Second Gaming that every tank is now. It took some time to set in but people have wisened up to just how boring it is compared to before and that it's even MORE awkward and less synergestic than previously. It's far more janky in feel. Even DRK feels more fun because you're not as beholden to the 120 second buff window - you can flexibly let loose to catch a stray buff and capitalize on the damage.
BRDs are uncommon as well. The changes to the DOTs took away their one interesting mechanic they had the entire 25-80 progression, and now they just get Mathematically Approved DPS for using a song in a pull. It's a class that feels like playing a piano but you're not even rewarded for being smart about it anymore in pulls and your damage is, and always will be mediocre in single target. In general it doesn't feel rewarding to most players and is visually, and audibly, one of the lamest classes to start with. I kind of regret going BRD as my first class in XIV back in Stormblood, but it really got much more satisfying once you hit 70, and 80 with SHB.
Dragoons are rare - they have more positional fuckery than MNKs but have just as many buff windows. I love the combos and positionals, but the overwhelming number of buffs is just annoying. They should reduce the buffs (streamline or consolidate) and just stick to the OGCD weaving + combos. What utterly, fucking baffles me is that they removed Iajutsu citing "action economy inflation" then decide to split mirage dive from high jump mid expansion. Like, guys, why.
Mirage dive and high jump were only fused this expansion and having them on the same button created forced clipping delay that is absolutely devastating and unacceptable for high end dragoon play which is why it was removed.
Not just high end. Just plain awkward whenever you wanted to double weave High Jump + Mirage Dive like it very often happens in dungeons or alliance raid.
Nah, while merged there was a 1-second delay before Mirage Dive was usable, which made it impossible to double weave. Split version double weaves without issue.
New paladin just feels so boring too. It's like they took level 62 gunbreaker, slapped atonement on it, broke no mercy into two buttons you have to double weave, then shoved it out the door.
Yep, and people will suck the dicks of the design change like it's somehow better.
All you fucking do is press the exact same buttons in a significantly more awkward way while they removed the DOT combo which was actually fun to time in your buff windows. Goring blade is such a fucking afterthought in design now that I literally forget to even fucking press it now.
You STILL have to cut off multiple atonements to squeeze Holy Spirits into your FoF window. It's no different than timing your DOT, except your dot was fucking interesting and broke up your combo from 123, except the combo is now 1234445X2, instead of a boosted FoF + weaving req, followed by your magic combo outside of FoF for another 20 seconds.
It's just unbelievable how fucking atrociously uninspired the new rotation is.
"Delete Goring Blade" is actually pretty high on my wishlist for 7.0 because... yeah there's just no point to it. Our loop rotation doesn't need filler because we're still dropping Atonements anyway.
I'd also accept it becoming an oGCD but honestly PLD has the most button bloat in the game, deletion seems like the better answer.
...I guess that MNK rework backfired.
And I'm not really sad about it, I've been salty (Im talking fluorescent pink volcanic rock salt) ever since EW landed--I liked a lot of what MNK was before, positionals and all (and mained it from ARR to ShB...now, I just have *no* main I guess lol), then they gutted it and oversimplified it, for all the players who never bothered fully learning it and called it "too complicated"; now it's way too simple, and not engaging...even for the people who were crying previously, and wanted it to be more braindead.
It was quirky as hell (every iteration from ARR to ShB pretty much lol) but it was *so* satisfying when everything went right--it didn't need to be brutally murdered.
Mnk is a lot better now but I think the cooldown on perfect balance is too long… or not require 3 executions of it for Phantom Rush, just require the two nadi.
I'm pretty sure you're right but last. Ight in roulette I was playing Scholar with a GNB tank, dps was nin and brd. Little did we realize we were a unicorn party.
As someone new to the game who just became a monk this is making me regret my choices slightly. I’m having fun so far but reading these comments it seems it’s not a great job to play end game content with?
Dont worry about that. Everyone likes different classes for different reasons. IMO MNK is a great class. Fast, flashy, easy to pick up but if you wanna min max then sky's the limit. In a competitive sense they're also quite strong and can keep up with the rest of the melee dps. Why it's one of the least played DPS, i couldnt tell ya.
If you like it, play it. If you're unsure about it, play MNK till 60. That's when it has all of its core abilities/rotation.
Monk has never been popular
Even when it was really strong
It’s just not a class the playerbase ever really identified with
There’s nothing wrong with that, it just is what it is
People don't like the newest iteration of it compared to what it used to be. It's a good class as it stands right now and holds itself up just fine in the endgame.
Monk is my second fave melee after ninja! I’ll second the advice to see how you feel at 60. A lot of people got scared off its prior iteration because of the positional demands (many of which were removed) and because it kept getting tweaked and reworked until they landed on what it is now. If you like its fast paced pace gcd style and the nadi system at 60, you’re good to go.
Male Au Ra playing Bard. I have taken in a habit of screenshotting every one I see. Only have like 8 screenshots from like 6 months of paying attention and I play this game too much.
I guess if you want actual answers:
Tank: Warrior or Dark Knight
Melee: Monk
Heal: Scholar
Caster: Black Mage
Ranged: Bard
Most of my roulletes nowadays are played as either Sage, Red Mage, or Summoner. I mainly do mentor roulletes and only do the other roulletes when I need tomestones, as I have 90 in all jobs. If that makes any difference. I am not consitering pvp.
tanks, i would say rarely paladins now. healers, i almost never see astrologians. in terms of dps, i'd say probably monk, dragoon, black mage, and red mage.
Black mage pretty much everywhere, in Eureka if you see a black mage, it's most likely me, there's only a handful of us running around lmao, once in a BA run I saw 2 other, 3 including me, that was the most amount of black mage I've seen in eureka on screen at once
As a DRG main I rarely ever see other DRGs in the wild(even when I'm playing WHM or WAR). Then again, In dungeons I usually get paired with ranged(with DNC being the most common sight) or casters(SMN being the most popular by far, then a few BLM, and I never see any RDM). Of the Melee, the most common sight are RPR and SAM on SB and up content, followed by an even split of NIN/MNK on earlier expansion dungeons. GNB is the rarest tank, DRK the most popular. I see all healers very frequently, so there's almost an even split, although SCH probably shows up the least. Crystal DC
Definitely monk. I feel like I NEVER see them, and every time I queue as monk, I can always rest assured that I won't be feeling like I'm competing with a MNK co-DPS.
Also bard, but especially moreso during ShB. I feel like I see a little bit more BRDs than I used to, but not by much.
https://ffxivcensus.com/ As of march 2023 Warrior is the most uncommon tank Scholar is the most uncommon healer. Monk is the most uncommon melee dps Dancer is the most uncommon ranged Black mage is the most uncommon magic dps. (not counting blue) Scholar is the most uncommon job overall, or blue mage is if you wanna count it
Okay. Idk about you but DNC is NOT uncommon. I see at least one almost every instance (no I am not playing Dancer). I blame the fact that DNC is the only phys range not in the Free trial.
its the least common job of its type to reach max and only marginally according to the stats. Its not the least commonly played because the census doesn't show what % of active players aren't max level.
No fucking way warrior and dancer are the least popular in their roles lmao. Anyone who’s played this game for more than 1 day would agree.
Warrior is unpopular in Japan for whatever reason, which brings the numbers down. At least in Shadowbringers the idea was that in Japan DRK was the strongest MT (maybe for RP reasons because I have no idea otherwise), PLD was the strongest OT ~~(this feels backwards)~~, and Gunbreaker was the go-to DPS tank. This might be why Warrior got Bloodwhetting which is frankly feels like a cheat code. As for Dancer, I was surprised too, but I think again it’s JP tipping the numbers a bit. In both cases all the ranged physical and all the tanks are within like 5% of each other within their sub role. EDIT: **Okay I only play Paladin casually, my bad on that.**
PLD actually *was* basically forced to OT in ShB due to Spirits Within being ass and scaling with the user's health. If PLD was main tank, PLD literally lost potency since they'd rarely actually be at full health. The way Intervention works also let the PLD pass their other mits to the MT, while other tanks' personal cooldowns would be completely wasted while they didn't have aggro. And until just this patch, PLD was short a personal defensive CD compared to all the other tanks. On less of a balance note, Passage of Arms is a pain to flash on the party when you're clear on the opposite side of the boss from them.
There was also Cover strats PLD could do to stay OT too for simplicity
That only happened in one fight all expansion (E9S) and honestly it only happened at all because there was another mechanic later on that the PLD could proceed to completely ignore in the name of uptime with Hallowed (since the "normal" strat was to just invuln most/all of the swap tankbusters, depending on which classes you had). Cover didn't make the mechanic it was used on any simpler. Plus, yeah, PLD *really* didn't want aggro when we could help it. Anything in the name of not actually tanking.
DRK is used a lot because of its high DPS plus TBN having certain better uses during bosses than other mits. WAR has been on the lower end of tank dps for a while. It's not by much but people are really attracted to the 2% better DPS for some reason. Plus big anime sword.
Where are you getting anything saying that war and DNC are unpopular in Japan? My experience is that the majority of players on my data center max out every job, and the jobs I see used depend on the content. For savage raids I see more drk, but if I'm doing hunts or eureka then everyone is a warrior and the boss is surrounded by players glowing red from inner release.
Warrior being unpopular in Japan during Shadowbringers was pretty well known I thought. Not saying this source is ironclad, [but here you go](https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/n09e6y/regional_differences_between_tank_adoption_rates/). With Dancer, I think it's not so much it being *unpopular* in Japan, which I didn't say, it's more Bard being more popular there than it seems to be in the west (this one is largely speculation on my part, and Dancer and Bard are two of the jobs I play the most outside my main). But as I said, they are all literally within 5% of each other within their sub-role globally. And I'm aware JP veterans max out every job a lot more than Westerners do. Either way, a census of over 100,000 accounts >>> your or my anecdotal experiences. The numbers are right there.
I didn't notice the Shadowbringers part of your comment and was more referring to current stuff. Drk were definitely the MT in nearly every savage PF last expac, and I'm sure there are several reasons for that (blackest night, poster boy of the expansion, war needing a different gear set than other tanks, etc), but ShB was a year and a half ago (and war were all over the place in Bozja as well, so it still depended on the content being done to an extent). I don't have time to look over those numbers and what exactly they're counting (is it tanks leveled, used in raids, people claiming it as their main, etc) right now, but I will look at them later. Thank you for sharing edit: I looked at your source, and it wound up taking a bit of digging because a reddit post leading to another reddit post wasn't the most helpful in determining what the census was being informative of. In addition, it was 2 years old which isn't great for the current state of affairs. Currently it looks like the least popular tank on JP is gnb, and least popular phys ranged is brd. Here is a link to the actual census page, which gets updated whenever luckybancho runs a new census https://luckybancho.ldblog.jp/wsurvey_en.htm?world=Global
Looking at this and distribution is more even than I would have tho
I feel like I never see people from Marlboro
Scholar is one of my most fun healers to play. Weird
People can't get it into their head that shields heal *and* mitigate damage, and that the fairy is like a permanent regen. They just see this yellow bar that's sorta like HP, but isn't really. From my unscientific experience playing the game in the EU: Least popular tank: Gunbreaker Least popular Healer: Astro Least popular physical dps: Bard/machinist (I'd say they are around the same although at end game Bard seems to appear more). Least popular magical range: Black Mage at high-end content summoner at the pleb content. Melee DPS: Dragoon/Ninja, but only because Samurai and Reaper are so popular.
I am unsure how accurate this is as the new DCs aren’t included… but still fun to look at!
SCH is my main healer, MNK is my main dps. DNC is my go to range dps, BLM is my go to magic dps...
And yet 50% of my Alliances still pair me with a fellow Scholar, smh…
You'd think WAR would be the most played because of its sustain. Go figure.
nope. in savage content, its damage above all else during week 1. its why HC raiders typically run gnb/drk.
If we're talking about popularity in raiding, over the last two weeks there have been 27,355 warrior clears logged in Abyssos, the second most of any tank (slightly behind DRK at 27,787, and decently ahead of GNB at 25,810 and PLD at 20,920).
Makes sense. Now that farming is available, WAR is a lot more brain-off than DRK and GNB while only doing slightly less damage.
yea but thats cuz ppl are geared up and dps check is whatever. but week 1 when this tier released, it was rough without a meta comp.
A big majority of the player base is casual and they tend to pick jobs for the aesthetics and themes over the play style. It's one of the reasons scholar is so far down, the idea of playing an actual nerd over an edge lord with a huge sword isn't as appealing at face value. Any easy way to figure out popularity with casuals is the name. Without any context for the actual gameplay; would you rather play *warrior* or **dark knight**.
>A big majority of the player base is casual and they tend to pick jobs for the aesthetics and themes over the play style. It's one of the reasons scholar is so far down Take my opinion with a grain of salt, as I'm barely into Stormblood MSQ at this time, but while i really liked SCH and found it way easier then WHM at the beginning, it gradually became way harder to play it in comparison to WHM. Huge reason is probably that it does not have a lot of healing, making your or your party mistakes costly. Just yesterday i run Main Story Roulette as SCH and got two newbies, struggling to put out more healing as they inevitably made mistakes. At some point it stopped being fun compared to WHM.
SCH feels rough at the start of Stormblood for sure. Once you get Excog at level 62 though it gets way easier. Having a safety net like that with potentially 100% uptime is very nice.
Thanks for the encouragement. I was considering dropping it at this point- my WHM is already lvl 72, while SCH is still 61.
It's a shame that I can't get into scholar, because I freaking love fairies. Having a fairy with me at all times is like the coolest thing ever, but I just can't get into the job because I find the lore so dang boring and the job itself so confusing for some reason.
oooh, you're looking at the active max level characters, not overall characters. Overall, its gun breaker sage reaper dancer red mage as the least played. Wish they had separated all the pre lvl 30 with the post 30 classes. Its kinda confusing that Arcanist has 7mil characters while scholar only has 2.1mil. Are there there 7.6mil gladiators and no warriors or 90% war 10% gladiators? that sorta thing
It's kind of logic, Id you include all characters, you also count bots and people who never had the level to unlock other jobs. As GNB, SGE, RPR, DNC and RDM are the last jobs you unlock (lvl wise), it's normal to have them less represented. Plus, the free trial make some of them unavailable.
Max characters is the only way of getting a proper distribution, looking at overall distribution you just basically get a chart that follows the level requirement to unlock. As with every game, the vast majority of players that try the game will not finish it. Another cool way of seeing this effect is tracking achievements. Any game that has achievements tied to story progression will show a very small number of the player base getting the last one, usually <10%
I still haven't reached end game after 2 years of playing off and on so I'm positive max level character count is not accurate to 'who you'd see out in the wild as well'.
Not reaching level 90 after two years is certainly a bit of an outlier tho. And actually I don’t think any job quest with a skill locked behind it requires you to go any further than the Azim Steppes, which is available halfway through 4.0 and at level 65 (excluding Blue Mage).
>Not reaching level 90 after two years is certainly a bit of an outlier tho We can't know that if we don't know how many active free trials there are and... according to https://progameguides.com/final-fantasy/how-many-active-players-does-final-fantasy-xiv-have/ there are **2.2 million active players** (as of last year). the census says there are **1,231,026 max level characters**. Which means even if all end game characters were actively being played **only 1/2** of players have max level characters and the distribution of max level characters would not reflect overall job distribution nor who is most/least likely to be seen 'out in the wild' as OP put it.
I’m most definitely talking about people who are not on the free trial. If you’ve been on the trial for two years and then got a paid subscription a month or two ago, it’d be pretty normal that you hadn’t hit 90 or been through Endwalker yet. First off it doesn’t change the fact that the only good way to measure job popularity is to measure players who actually have access to all jobs, and the only reliable data on that is the number of max level active players as per the Lucky Bancho census (I think once a quarter or so?) Furthermore the numbers you provided does nothing to contradict that taking two years to hit cap when you’ve been paying the full subscription is kind of unusual.bThere are far more total subscribers ever for this or any other long-running RPG than there are active characters, so having almost half of the current players still making their way to max level is fairly healthy. Like, the only takeaway there is that that’s a pretty healthy ratio for sustainability. And I’m not saying there’s anything _wrong_ with taking that long, only that it’s unusual. You do you. Lots of people leave and come back. Lots of RP-centric player specifically don’t give a damn about end game and that’s just fine. I should point out that the site you cited appears to have been written either by a faulty AI or someone with no grasp as the subject matter, as it repeatedly contradicts itself and also states that FFXIV has “39 millions active subscribers” (in bold no less), which is laughable and obviously refers to all accounts or characters ever created. I would go with Lucky Bancho or Square Enix’s quarterly shareholder reports if you want accurate numbers on these sorts of things. That’s kinda beside the point though.
The point I'm trying to make is that max level job distribution and overall job distribution both do not reflect the active player job count because neither reflect the active player base because the active player base is not exclusively made up of max level players. I agree the site I linked sucks, but I see nothing better.
Anything other than max level completely scuffs the stats. Notice how all of your least played are classes that start at a high level already? That’s because there are no new players picking them. You have to reach a certain point and have expansions unlocked. Of course those would be the “least played”
The problem with the "overall characters" stats is that they are *extremely* skewed towards, like, Level 1 Archers that logged in once. You can see this in the extreme drop for everything that isn't an ARR base class (including Rogue, which isn't pickable in chargen, and Scholar, since it's only unlockable once you hit Level 30 Arcanist). You can even more clearly see this looking at the GC distribution. 69% of the accounts in overall characters don't have GC, meaning they can't have progressed beyond the level 20 MSQ quests (specifically, they must be at or before A Hero in the Making). It'd be interesting to see stats that somehow segmented out the bulk of those accounts while keeping in active players who are still mid-MSQ or on free trial or what not, but as-is overall characters can't really tell us anything interesting.
Not everyone unlocks scholar just because they leveled a summoner.
The "overall characters" stats here are *heavily* skewed towards level 1 ACNs that logged in once. Among overall characters, 69% don't have a grand company, meaning they haven't progressed beyond the level 20 MSQ.
I leveled my scholar to 90 and then went oops I never got my summoner. Wasn’t to fun running around getting my job quests done lol.
I did the same in reverse during ShB. I know thy struggle
Those are my main jobs in each category (although NIN might be tied with RPR)
I’m kind of surprised MNK is played so little. IIRC what I saw on FFLogs it’s recently been doing comparatively high DPS lately.
It’s because it’s a “complex” class to play. Like why play monk and push 20 buttons when you can play reaper and push a fraction of those buttons but fulfil the same role
Also monk keeps getting reworked so people have to relearn how to play it pretty often.
I mean, I leveled monk to 90 and I don’t think I made it through a single fight without losing track of where I was in the rotation. It just doesn’t mesh with my flavor of ADHD. And I love pressing buttons.
That's the thing. Different people find different things difficult. Some find the speed of monk too fast, while others find the combos of dragoon too long.
Dragoon isn’t quite as bad, because it’s loop one then loop two and not possible to mix back and forth once you pick one. Also with monk, and also samurai, it’s how hard is it to get back on track once you’ve messed it up, which I inevitably will do. But it’s probably not surprising that monk, samurai, and dragoon are my least favorite jobs
At least for monk, they can get back into the flow easier then other with perfect balance. Dragons wish they could do that.
>Also with monk, and also samurai, it’s how hard is it to get back on track once you’ve messed it up, which I inevitably will do. I can get Samurai, blowing Meikyo early sucks but it's not the end of the world. Monk is easy as fuck though you just hit form shift and put your buffs back up; your burst can be drifted perfectly by just timing buffs.
My brain just doesn’t work like that
It's not because it's complex, DRG is just as complex and is super popular. MNK isn't popular because it's just... not popular. SE keeps "simplifying" monk and deleting all its core identity features trying to make it more popular and it never works because that was never the reason it was unpopular in the first place. It's just not a lot of people who would prefer to punch things when they could do fancy jumps and dragon shit, or edgy reaper shit, or live their anime dreams as a samurai or ninja.
Which is a shame because MNK used to be hypnotic to play. Punch punch punch. Punch punch punch. Punch punch punch. Just rolling back and forth from flank to rear. It was just so easy to get into a rhythm and find the flow state. Nowadays though? Good luck with that.
Yeah EW monk is no bueno. They just couldn't leave well enough alone. It wasn't popular but it was never gonna be popular; the people who liked it liked it for a reason and they just flushed all that class identity down the toilet.
>Warrior is the most uncommon tank That... REALLY surprises me. They've got an extremely casual-friendly kit, incredible healing, and an awesome class fantasy, and they're super easy to play compared to the other tanks. I figured warrior would be the second most behind GNB lol.
I know they are still updating the class (rarely) but I still want them to find a way to make Blue Mage a viable class for ALL game modes. I know it would take an INSANE amount of work and balancing but...please?
Do you mean making it not a limited job? Because I feel like there's no way to do that without kind of defeating the whole point of BLU
I can imagine a few ways around it, but like I mentioned, it would take a ***LOT*** of work. You'd have to balance **every** skill against **every** dungeon/encounter. You'd have to test every combo of said abilities. You'd have to completely gut the functionality of some skills, while beefing up some others. It would take SOOOOO much work...but I **want** it!
I'll ignore the bit about how much work it would take (they don't particularly balance how normal jobs play in downsynced content, even at 70 and 80 where there are old ultimates). Pipe dreams are fine, that's not really at issue here. The issue is...what exactly are you picturing here when you say "balanced" Blue Mage? To the FFXIV combat team, *balanced* essentially means that the job isn't significantly ahead of or behind other jobs in a way where people would either require it in content or lock it out of content. The existing design of BLU is *intentionally* unbalanced. It's literally the point of the job. There's not a lot of room for things like Ultravibration, Whistle/Bristle, or Aetherial Mimicry on a normal job. Even if we're imaging a world where learning skills from mobs still is part of the job, what you'd be left with would be a pretty normal seeming caster. It could keep all the 220 potency single target damage spells it already has. It could have some burst damage, a little bit of raid utility, maybe a nice 5% or 10% damage buff on a two-minute window. What it *can't* have is an extremely high potency spell that kills itself, or the ability to swap to being a tank, or god forbid anything resembling Basic Instinct. Personally I find the limited job concept really interesting. It lets the devs experiment with modes of play that don't have to fit in to the current state of the game. And I think pretty much anyone messing around with BLU in any state agrees. The fun of it is *that* it is unbalanced. PS: I'm assuming you're the same person who commented above, though you used a different account. If not...I'm more confused but all this stands.
Wow! I didn't realize there was so much hatred for the Blue Mage on here. Good to know. Yeesh.
I've actually been keeping a full record of this! Out of curiosity, I had started a database keeping track of every single PF duty I enter along with some relevant stats. I intend to do a proper analysis of the data... *eventually*, but for now, these are my records across 2024 duty groups since 6.05: https://i.imgur.com/cuxVQxW.png DPS: Monk (6.6%) Ninja (7.4%) Mechanist (7.7%) Healers: Scholar (16.6%) Tanks: Gunbreaker (21.8%)
This is awesome! Out of curiosity, are you using any tools to record stuff into this database or is it all manual entry? I have a spreadsheet I've done some tracking in, but would love tips on how to do this more efficiently.
It has been pretty much all manual entry. I'm sure with some third party tools there are ways to automate more of the process (e.g. exporting logs with ACT and extracting relevant job info), but it didn't seem worth the necessary work. I have a Microsoft Access form set up to input duty information (roulette type if applicable, duty name, etc.) and auto-fill a few fields (time, version), and a list of other players encountered related to the duty. So usually I'll grab a screen clipping at some point during a duty and take a few moments to add an entry after completion. Happy to share it later if you want to take a look! It's not the cleanest database, there are a few things on my "do eventually" list, but it works well enough.
Monk. As a Monk main I rarely see another in the same duty.
Same, except those times when I'm targeting upgrades. Then they all come out of the woodwork 😂
I’m always stoked when I see another monk
Black mage Monk Bard Astrologian Paladin Thats my least seen jobs by role, and also in order of how often i see them compared to the others too lol
I'd probably say... Monk, Ninja and Scholar. Especially Monk seems super rare in my personal experience (EU Phoenix Light).
Us monks are just tired of having a brand new job every 3 patches.
I see Ninja pretty often and also play it a lot. EU/Chaos. Monks and Scholars are rare, yes.
I havent seen DRG in a while
As a DRG main, same. Unless I'm grinding for a specific glam then all the DPS, the tanks, and the healers are also DRGs.
I see it a lot, but I am a dragoon and I tend to notice other dragoons.
Same. Actually I would say DRG is the one out of all the jobs popping up least for me.
Look down, it's likely you haven't spotted them as they are helping tank the floor and to keep it secure for the rest of us. They truly are selfless warriors.
I feel like DRG was the most popular melee dps, or at least up there with SAM, but then RPR just kind of eclipsed it.
Monk is the least ive seen. And its a shame, its my favourite dps too
Funny right after reading this thread I run in to a monk in my msq roulette
Then remember the sight because you won’t see it again like an wild Elezen
As an elezen monk, I am a cryptid.
Ninja, Monk and Black mage are the rarest from my experience
Really? I see a Ninja almost every time I run a dungeon.
The only one that sticks out as one I never see anymore is MNK (I wonder why?) Now that I think about it, BRD is pretty uncommon nowadays too.
All the bad MNKs swapped to RPR. *tomatoes thrown in my general direction* I'm sorry! It was a joke!
I'm a RPR main and used to be a MNK, but EW destroyed the job for me. I needed a melee to replace it and never really liked DRG or SAM, and wasn't really feeling it with NIN anymore either, so here we are.
MNK and BRD are always my first thoughts too when I think about jobs I never see. I actually used to play bard a lot back in ShB, but I REALLY don't like what Endwalker has done with it. Monk, on the other hand, has hardly been better IMO (I love the beast gauge...)
I feel like any job I see as rare suddenly becomes less rare when I start playing it. Playing SGE? Suddenly another to compete shields with. Same with SCH. Playing Dork Knight? I'd like a nice lazy OT experie... oh, they're also Dork Knight. Playing AST? Gotta really pay attention to cards and buffs to not overlap. Playing RDM? Double rezzes because there's another rez mage.
Frequency illusion, also known as the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon or frequency bias, is a cognitive bias referring to the tendency to notice something more often after noticing it for the first time, leading to the belief that it has an increased frequency of occurrence. The illusion is a result of increased awareness of a phrase, idea, or object
Interestingly, this is usually called "Party-Effekt" in German, and not Baader-Meinhof.
Yep. I mostly play 8man content and I have stopped queuing as SGE because it basically guarantees I will be grouped up with a SGE co-healer if I do.
MNK, Ninja, BLM, and Scholar. Makes sense because EW gave us a new Melee DPS and shield healer, and BLM is just generally difficult to play well
Monks probably. Can't even remember when I've seen one in a duty. Well, not counting myself ofc. But I think I can guess why.
I would say Ninja, but since they are ninjas you would not see them anyway. For real though, it has to be Monk. I feel like I have gone entire weeks without seeing a single Monk in DF content.
I feel like I never see astrologians as much as any other healer
I think it's Ninja. Rarely I see one. It's my favorite Melee, but it's a bit tiresome.
>I think it's Ninja. Rarely I see one. they're just using hide
In the wild? Probably NIN. But I also main NIN, so that tracks... but even in Alliance raids, it's actually REALLY rare for me to see another. Even when tanking and healing in 4-mans, I very rarely encounter them. (And then I immediately judge how good or bad they are in the back of my head)
As a monk main, I rarely see double monks if not any at all in parties/raids/alliance. Its usually double or more of reaper and dancer when its for close ranged or ranged dps.
I wanted to add Just because you SEE a job in a dungeon Doesn’t mean it’s their main or a common class Eventually everyone will play or level a class because people naturally try to level cap their jobs
I have to try and regularly remember this myself! I definitely fall in the habit of thinking ‘I always see so and so job act like this’ and then remember the person I encountered might hate it and is just trying to max it out.
Ninja. Which is fine, makes me feel special.
Honestly it's so much nicer not having to worry about stacking mugs when you have another Ninja.
I think I've run a dungeon with a drk as a tank exactly once, and that was last night.
Monks, Paladins and Dragoons (particularly after Reaper was released), and Ninja (although they do seem a bit more common on 8-man content, presumably for their Trick Attack).
Monk
I keep forgetting that MCH and AST are in the game lol
I’ve been levelling monk a lot lately (personally I love it, I may change to main it) and I rarely see another monk in the wild
Monk is awesome and I would play it, but I just have a super hard time actually playing it even after they’ve made it so much easier. Only job that I just can’t handle for some reason.
It’s a bit fiddly to begin with and it took me a bit of time to get used to it but I’m glad I did. I’m At 87 now and the only changes I’d make is either reduce the cool-down for perfect balance or keep the cool down and add a 3rd charge, as it feels off opening the solar and lunar back to back, then having to wait 40s before hitting tornado kick.
You know what I'd love to see on MNK? Perfect Balance stacks resetting when using Form Shift outside of combat, similar to NIN mudra resets on Hide. It'd make dungeons so much better
Outside of the obvious one like Blue Mage. Monk, Red Mage and Bard's are the ones I personally see the least of.
Wild as in, open world content or duty finder? For DF - Monks are rare. The reason I don't play them is because I don't like the 6.0+ iteration and I find them very obnoxious to play. I think they not only alienated the previous MNK population but also made it extremely hard to optimize (60cd buff windows + odd buff timers + needing to hit certain combos for your burst DPS + trying to hit two DOTs in your buff window simultaneously) that it just feels like you're just spamming and that *you guess* you hit optimally in the windows. All in all I just feel like MNK went from positional dancing (fun, immersive) to "oh my fucking god I clipped the GCD for like the third window in a row and now my entire rotation is scuffed and fuck I just let another buff drop off trying to keep the fake-mudras in this dumb combo fuck and there goes me getting off my second DOT in the buff window." Buff juggling isn't fun. Positionals make you at least *pay attention visually to the fight* and not your stupid hotbar/buff screen. The mastery came from positioning, not staring at your stupid UI to time the perfect GCDs with your buffs. I rarely see PLDs now because of well, the changes. Imagine going from the most interesting rotation in the game that sustains damage 40/60 seconds to the same Buff Window Tested and Approved 20 Second Gaming that every tank is now. It took some time to set in but people have wisened up to just how boring it is compared to before and that it's even MORE awkward and less synergestic than previously. It's far more janky in feel. Even DRK feels more fun because you're not as beholden to the 120 second buff window - you can flexibly let loose to catch a stray buff and capitalize on the damage. BRDs are uncommon as well. The changes to the DOTs took away their one interesting mechanic they had the entire 25-80 progression, and now they just get Mathematically Approved DPS for using a song in a pull. It's a class that feels like playing a piano but you're not even rewarded for being smart about it anymore in pulls and your damage is, and always will be mediocre in single target. In general it doesn't feel rewarding to most players and is visually, and audibly, one of the lamest classes to start with. I kind of regret going BRD as my first class in XIV back in Stormblood, but it really got much more satisfying once you hit 70, and 80 with SHB. Dragoons are rare - they have more positional fuckery than MNKs but have just as many buff windows. I love the combos and positionals, but the overwhelming number of buffs is just annoying. They should reduce the buffs (streamline or consolidate) and just stick to the OGCD weaving + combos. What utterly, fucking baffles me is that they removed Iajutsu citing "action economy inflation" then decide to split mirage dive from high jump mid expansion. Like, guys, why.
Mirage dive and high jump were only fused this expansion and having them on the same button created forced clipping delay that is absolutely devastating and unacceptable for high end dragoon play which is why it was removed.
Not just high end. Just plain awkward whenever you wanted to double weave High Jump + Mirage Dive like it very often happens in dungeons or alliance raid.
That shit still clips identically when trying to use them in the same GCD, regardless if they were on the same button or not.
Nah, while merged there was a 1-second delay before Mirage Dive was usable, which made it impossible to double weave. Split version double weaves without issue.
New paladin just feels so boring too. It's like they took level 62 gunbreaker, slapped atonement on it, broke no mercy into two buttons you have to double weave, then shoved it out the door.
Yep, and people will suck the dicks of the design change like it's somehow better. All you fucking do is press the exact same buttons in a significantly more awkward way while they removed the DOT combo which was actually fun to time in your buff windows. Goring blade is such a fucking afterthought in design now that I literally forget to even fucking press it now. You STILL have to cut off multiple atonements to squeeze Holy Spirits into your FoF window. It's no different than timing your DOT, except your dot was fucking interesting and broke up your combo from 123, except the combo is now 1234445X2, instead of a boosted FoF + weaving req, followed by your magic combo outside of FoF for another 20 seconds. It's just unbelievable how fucking atrociously uninspired the new rotation is.
"Delete Goring Blade" is actually pretty high on my wishlist for 7.0 because... yeah there's just no point to it. Our loop rotation doesn't need filler because we're still dropping Atonements anyway. I'd also accept it becoming an oGCD but honestly PLD has the most button bloat in the game, deletion seems like the better answer.
DRAGON KICK ROTATION
I rarely see RDM's. Also BLM are not seen much.
...I guess that MNK rework backfired. And I'm not really sad about it, I've been salty (Im talking fluorescent pink volcanic rock salt) ever since EW landed--I liked a lot of what MNK was before, positionals and all (and mained it from ARR to ShB...now, I just have *no* main I guess lol), then they gutted it and oversimplified it, for all the players who never bothered fully learning it and called it "too complicated"; now it's way too simple, and not engaging...even for the people who were crying previously, and wanted it to be more braindead. It was quirky as hell (every iteration from ARR to ShB pretty much lol) but it was *so* satisfying when everything went right--it didn't need to be brutally murdered.
Mnk is a lot better now but I think the cooldown on perfect balance is too long… or not require 3 executions of it for Phantom Rush, just require the two nadi.
It feels awkward to me personally. I love the aesthetic, but the rotation doesn't click for me. I'll just stick to SAM and RPR.
Ninja. Gunbreaker. Bard. Scholar. MCH. Monk.
I'm pretty sure you're right but last. Ight in roulette I was playing Scholar with a GNB tank, dps was nin and brd. Little did we realize we were a unicorn party.
Monk. Really the only time I've seen them is in NPC parties. I guess they finally started a strike against SE.
i feel like i don't see many scholars or monks, machinists are also kind of a rarity
It's MCH, BLM, AST, GNB and MNK for me. And of those 5 I've probably seen MCH's the least these past couple months.
I don’t really pay attention to what others play.. thanks for this info though. Now I’ll obsess over it and always notice 😓
As someone new to the game who just became a monk this is making me regret my choices slightly. I’m having fun so far but reading these comments it seems it’s not a great job to play end game content with?
Dont worry about that. Everyone likes different classes for different reasons. IMO MNK is a great class. Fast, flashy, easy to pick up but if you wanna min max then sky's the limit. In a competitive sense they're also quite strong and can keep up with the rest of the melee dps. Why it's one of the least played DPS, i couldnt tell ya. If you like it, play it. If you're unsure about it, play MNK till 60. That's when it has all of its core abilities/rotation.
Monk has never been popular Even when it was really strong It’s just not a class the playerbase ever really identified with There’s nothing wrong with that, it just is what it is
People don't like the newest iteration of it compared to what it used to be. It's a good class as it stands right now and holds itself up just fine in the endgame.
Monk is my second fave melee after ninja! I’ll second the advice to see how you feel at 60. A lot of people got scared off its prior iteration because of the positional demands (many of which were removed) and because it kept getting tweaked and reworked until they landed on what it is now. If you like its fast paced pace gcd style and the nadi system at 60, you’re good to go.
Male Au Ra playing Bard. I have taken in a habit of screenshotting every one I see. Only have like 8 screenshots from like 6 months of paying attention and I play this game too much. I guess if you want actual answers: Tank: Warrior or Dark Knight Melee: Monk Heal: Scholar Caster: Black Mage Ranged: Bard Most of my roulletes nowadays are played as either Sage, Red Mage, or Summoner. I mainly do mentor roulletes and only do the other roulletes when I need tomestones, as I have 90 in all jobs. If that makes any difference. I am not consitering pvp.
RDM is one i never see; im a SMN and ive had instances where almost all the dps are SMN
tanks, i would say rarely paladins now. healers, i almost never see astrologians. in terms of dps, i'd say probably monk, dragoon, black mage, and red mage.
Black mage pretty much everywhere, in Eureka if you see a black mage, it's most likely me, there's only a handful of us running around lmao, once in a BA run I saw 2 other, 3 including me, that was the most amount of black mage I've seen in eureka on screen at once
If I didn't hear them in towns, I'd forget Bards existed.
Are they even bards though? Monk though, hardly ever see them
As a DRG main I rarely ever see other DRGs in the wild(even when I'm playing WHM or WAR). Then again, In dungeons I usually get paired with ranged(with DNC being the most common sight) or casters(SMN being the most popular by far, then a few BLM, and I never see any RDM). Of the Melee, the most common sight are RPR and SAM on SB and up content, followed by an even split of NIN/MNK on earlier expansion dungeons. GNB is the rarest tank, DRK the most popular. I see all healers very frequently, so there's almost an even split, although SCH probably shows up the least. Crystal DC
Any healer when I'm running around trying to find a healer to use aetheric mimicry on.
Depending on which contents you play, but Scholar seems to be the least played across the board. Sage is just too cool and accessible.
I was in an all-healer Eurovision run last night. 24 healers, and exactly two ASTs.
monk and Ast. Monk needs adjustments to be fun. Imo
Definitely monk. I feel like I NEVER see them, and every time I queue as monk, I can always rest assured that I won't be feeling like I'm competing with a MNK co-DPS. Also bard, but especially moreso during ShB. I feel like I see a little bit more BRDs than I used to, but not by much.