My wife and I used to play this together. I found my favorite jobs to be PLD and DRK and hers was RDM. Our accounts got hacked and while dealing with SE they went through the first server merge and Remora was merged with Leviathan. We gave up at that point. Most of our friends had already quit or moved servers and I had figured we lost everything when merged since the accounts were on lock down. Nostalgia is making me want to go back to Vana'Diel though.
Bard was my first 75 and man you weren't kidding about the invites. There was a time back in the day when just logging into the mog house you'd immediately start recieving /tells inviting you to party. Nothing was more fun for my party life than pulling multiple mobs to the party, sleeping them, and having them just waiting there for the party to kill at their leisure.
Yeah BRDs were awesome! As someone who mained a RDM I envied the hell out of aoe buffs particularly an aoe refresh. Honestly something he didn't touch on was how badass BRDs were in ballista. I tried so many times but got mopped by them! Ahh those were good days! Still remember my favorite BRD his name was Jukeboxhero XD
i was the type of party leader who would spam world searches for bards and rdms and immediately /tell and invite ... sorry but i levelled hella fast XD
This game got me through some hard times when it came out. I stopped for years but would always do the return home campaign so they didnt delete my character. Recently, a friend started streaming it and got me back into it. Feels good man.
The Red Mage he mentions is Avesta (JP) of Asura -> Remora. He was the first to solo many high level NMs, 75-era circa '05-07 on PS2, and his videos were legendary. No Windower plugins either, which make the game significantly easier for solo players, whether those people want to admit that or not. Hakutaku Lord of Onzozo Charbydis Big Bomb Cactrot Rapido Zipacna Ungur Operation Desert Swarm (BLM) ZNM16 Automaton Assault Seiryu Suzaku Genbu Byakko (2010 @ Lv. 80) Many of these and a few others are on UA-cam in full. Sadly, some of his later stuff isn't available. Also, don't believe the nonsense when other people say what he solo'd was "easy". Most of those people are talking out of their ass and don't take the context of the eras he performed many of these solos in. His Cactrot Rapido solo is also hilariously underrated.
he was so damn good they named bangles after him with enfeeb on it lol. I "game" idolized that cat lol, i was always trying to do shit like him but was not even close haha.
watching Avesta soloing is what got me into rdm. and really changed my thoughts on ffxi and how to play it. after seeing his stuff, i was trying to solo everything i could. im not saying i was as good as him, but watching him really helped my own solo game.
I still have no freaking clue how he ever soloed Cactrot. It's the one solo he did where no matter how many times I watch it, I just can't understand it. Genbu was the only notable solo he did that would ever be considered "easy", because outranging genbu w/ max rdm gear and whatnot isn't actually that hard. It just takes forever. Yes, I did it at 75 cap once. A bit later (post-wotg, I think) but with the same general gear. So I do get to say that.
i retired FFXI. long ago. I play 14 now. But I miss my RDM tarutaru. I miss my chainspell lol will never miss the 70-75 RDM Maat level cap fight lol shantotto was my favorite NPC in this game. sadly stop playing when my mom got sick. we used play FFXI since COP came out, with each other. sadly she passed away 3 years ago. it been hard for me go back and she not there anymore.. But FFXI was my very first MMO game and always my favorite. even though I move on to FFXIV. FFXI will always be my #1
Man after years, YEARS of hovering around lv 40-50 as a young boy playing this game, BLM ended up being my first lv 75. And I did it because the option to solo was discovered. Soloing BLM to 75 was so fulfilling. I have had many triumphs since, some that I consider much greater, but boy I just wont ever forget solo levelling BLM.
Started playing 14 years ago. Soloed Red Mage to 75, never partied, took years. Then started Summoner and Carby was so bad, I left it at level 3 where the job still sits today. Winkkin-Sylph:119, RDM. BLM, WHM, WAR, MNK, NIN, THF, PLD, DRK Others are making progress. Still play everyday.
currently going for a RUN/RDM playthru, loving the whole idea of parrying everything with a one handed or two handed sword, no shield, and throwing solid magic around. reminds me of Kratos Aurion in ToS.
I don't know whether I should be surprised or not that Corsair isn't on the list. I guess undervalued but ultimately superior jobs still have that stigma and rarity around them. Aside from the extremely rare mobs that could be quick draw kited, I guess it's inability to solo hurt it too much. That being said....being able to dps slightly below a rng, while performing the same role as brd (or even in tandem with brd), Corsair was fucking amazing on levels that were never truly appreciated because of how few of us there were.
@@RichardC1285 RNG rarely truly beat cor as a dps, there was just almost no built cors. I can confidently say this as my main duo partner was the best built cor on asura for like a decade. The difference between him and an equally geared RNG was EASILY made up for by rolls on any group content. And completely outclassed RNG once Aby came out and Wildfire was as broken as it was.
Monk was always my favourite but I can at least recognize it didn't even have a chance of sniffing a list like this. Honestly I expected Blue Mage to be on it.
+Sabateini loved MNK! Honestly it sorta just got screwed by piercing damage camps with colibri and then 119 it literally being one of the least liked options haha. BLU was a tough one for me but at 75 no linkshells wanted to bother with it. Besides cannonball, it was super flexible and one if my favorites though, and at 119 it's just nuts
MNK had one spotlight. Abyssea. MNK during Aby was absolutely busted, and arguably tanked most content better than a pld could if you had a whm in the party. ...was also the only time I ever played whm.
I'm not sure if I'm biased, but I feel like iLevel, Master, Full Apoc DRK is one of the strongest overall in terms of survivability and damage output. With +2 Ambuscade gear, the damage reduction helps. But what puts it in my top 5 is the ability to self SC (or follow a shit-ton of other jobs for a darkness SC), and then MB Drain III, which lasts about 4 minutes if I remember correctly. This can immediately give DRK the most HP in any party or alliance (I've drained 9999 before). This is perfect for using Souleater, Berserk, Warcry, and Last Resort with wild abandon, ESPECIALLY when using an Apoc. The drain effect of Catastrophe, Dread Spikes, plus rapid TP gain has enabled me to effectively tank should the ACTUAL tank need a break. I haven't even touched on the Absorb spells or 1-hours.
Red Mage is nr 1 in my book. I remember back in the day in high level parties, I would main heal, constantly rotating refresh on all party members who had mp, as many as 4 sometimes, while making sure to cast 2-3 enfeebles on every mob at the beginning of each fight, erasing stuff, sometimes magic bursting. I remember relying on regen a lot. Regen is very mp efficient, but mainly it frees up time. RDM doesn't really ever have problems with mp. They're mp tanks who can go on for hours non-stop. In exp parties, rdm was the best healer. I know a fair number of them weren't comfortable or willing to fill in that role, but atleast for me, I could do it very easily. For more casual stuff, like quests, they were even more amazing. When shit hit the fan, they were great at dealing with the situation. They had great crowd control and could even tank additional mobs, as they generally subbed nin. And they were the best soloing job in the game, although a bit slow. But the end result is what matters. They could also sneak and invis your entire party and replenish everyones mp on the go. The only major negative was that it was a very skill-based job, and a lot of rdm's weren't willing to put in that extra effort, or didn't rise to the occasion when under pressure, but that's not the fault of the job. Also, they weren't really amazing at the high end of things, when you had full alliances, but because of their great abilities in exp parties, and casual stuff, as long as you accepted that it was the most advanced job in the game, and was willing to put in an extra effort to take it close to its full potential, you were so well respected by others that they couldn't really reject you. Bard is amazing. Situationally they were better than Red Mage, but they couldn't fill in as an extra healer, and they couldn't really hold their own, the way a rdm could. Blm is probably the best damage dealer, but any dmg dealer is more or less replacable. Situationally, a blm is a must, or atleast a huge asset, but it's kind of like with bard. If you can find one, you always get them, but you can do just fine without them in most situations. Although I remember in the early days, blm almost being a requirement for mid range exp parties, but in the upper levels, you could get on fine with just a melee party. Blm also always had major issues dealing with hate, both in terms of avoiding and surviving it. The melee dmg dealers all had pretty decent defense by comparison, and a really nice health bar on top of that.
Dark Knight was my main. I havent played in probably 10 years but it left a lasting impression on me. I remember being so we'll geared and just smashing it in merit parties when people thought a DRK Couldnt do damage.
Heh, only job I've ever seen break 2k damage with a ws at level 58. Yeah, the "WTF"s from the party chat were great when I just 1-shot a lesser colibri. Fun fact: DRK/NIN dual weilding axes and spamming rampage was actually stronger than using a scythe or great sword for the vast majority of 75 cap content, especially pre-guillotine.
I leveled very slowly, and I hit 60BLM riiiight around that Aht Urgahn range. it was my first 75, and I remembered HAAAATING playing Black Mage, which is why I took up SMN.
I played this for the first time tonight and after a few hours I feel like I'm gonna enjoy this. Playing with my brother who is a white mage while I play a warrior and it's been fun. The brown puzzle chests, discovering that different weapons have entirely separate skill lines and just chilling out on an mmo that's so different to the modern tab target or action mmo is just nice. I have a pretty bad attention span admittedly but I'm gonna work hard not to drop this one.
I use to play since it's arrival on PS2 up to the time they stopped it on the PS2. (Sad Day) I say: Blue Mage. After some months of playtime, I was able to chain and burst for myself and my party. Along with setting up my moc, I help defeated all the world bosses with a burst set-up.
COR was always my favorite support their buffs were always OP. Especially if you have that party member in the party with you and with double up you can always get rid of a bad roll but more importantly. You can actually pour on some damage with a proper setup.
When I decided to level BLM for Warp, I was already a PLD main with 3 points in +enmity! I couldn't even cast level one spells without ripping agro from tanks! I only could cast one spell per fight in xp parties LMAO
My mastered WAR (Asukalangley, Siren) does SO much DPS with a one-handed sword that it's like I'm holding a Kraken club at all times. It's so far the only job I can bring to Apex crabs and not either run out of MP fighting or get painted into a corner ability or HP-wise.
When I came back to play and finish the last expansion, it was BLU that made it possible for me. It's a job that I had Fell Cleaved up just for completeness back in the Abyssea days when chocobo blinkers made gil flow like water. It wasn't until my last time back that I got the experience of really going on spell hunts, and it was a highlight of my FFXI experience. I doubt I would have finished the last expansion without the power of BLU in a Trust party on mission content. Not to mention the solo potential in Zi'Tah.
My top 5 favorite jobs: BST :P Kidding. It was more like BST, THF, RNG, RDM, NIN, in that order. That's just me though. Milestones in those jobs brought me joy. Dang I miss this game.
Suprised you didn't pick BST as most useful job. They were the masters of cleaning up a zone after some party trained a whole zone worth of crawlers into the zoning area :)
My top 5 FFXI jobs - RDM (basically necessary at all stages of the game from solo to groups to end game) BST (best soloer in the game, under used in parties, really fun to play) NIN (reasons you stated, one of the greatest mmo jobs ever) DNC (Changed the game when it was released, made more options for sub jobs and made sustainable soloing on other jobs possible) THF (Amazing, TH makes it an auto choice. Funny that no one actually knew how it worked for like 5+ years, do you let THF last hit?! Do you take more than one THF?! hilarious. Its hate control was a really awesome concept and the dmg it put out was great)
Best party i ever participated in (lvl 75 era) consisted of THF/NIN (me), THF/NIN, NIN/WAR, NIN/WAR, WHM/SMN, RDM/BLM. We literally stayed together for over 12hrs of mob grinding, SATA every fight with double MB's coming from whm/smn and rdm/blm, completely broken and amazing!
Sounds awesome thief is incredibly underrated, people who complain about having to setup for sata usually don't know how to best utilise all the abilities of thier party members. Btw had a great party in GC with nearly the same setup with myself as rdm/blm and a blm/rdm instead of the smn. I main healed, but mostly just mb because lets be honest, how many heals do two NINs need lol.
I had a set group of people I leveled with daily and among others it was me (PLD) THF and BLM...The RNG would pull hate with his broken (at the time) sidewinder weapon skill, then the THF would skillchain onto me w/ SATA. Gave me so much hate that I could hold aggro while magic bursting with ancient magic casually to keep our chains up. THF made me feel like id never lose hate
I duoed Charbydis for my Joyeuse on my RDM with a BLM friend. What a fun fight and that job pair is an amazing duo. (This was back in the 75 cap era.) I also duoed Bune numerous times to get an Enhancing Sword with my RDM and a friend on PLD. Guess I agree with at least 3 jobs on your list. lol
I think I'd personally switch RDM and BLM on this list, mostly because of the era where everything was beatable in one chain spell stun from a RDM/DRK. I think for all of BRD's buffs, the often overlooked piece of the puzzle was actually Elegy. I knew tanks that flat out refused to tank anything unless there was a bard for Elegy, especially ninjas. Great list though; brings back good memories.
My Personal Top 5 - 75 Era Jobs #1 BST/DNC - my first job to 75 (also my first job to 99). I admit, the road of BST was not an easy one, but it was the most enjoyable! Finding new xp camps and mastering the timing of gear swaps and re-charms when your pet goes rogue in the middle of a VT fight still makes my palms sweat. But it was exhilarating with a great sense of accomplishment. Succeeding and soloing in a very difficult multipler game was(and still is) the best feeling in the world. I honestly think if there was no BST in FFXI, i might not have stuck around for 15+ years! #2 THF/NIN - Probably the 2nd best puller in the game (BRD wins hands down), SATA skillchains are amazing, 1 less person for whm to heal thanks to hate mitigation and shadows, plus crossbows, i mean come on, swing daggers, shoot crossbow, swing daggers, shoot cross bow, TP gain was super fast! Don't forget Squid Sushi +1!! I wore all DEX/AGI gear all the way to 75, most of it was lvl30-40 gear, but i didn't need the added Def/MDef from the higher level gear, THF/NIN was all about the SATA and never getting hit!! #3 BLM/NIN - If i had a dollar for everytime someone in my party asked me why i have /NIN, i'd have a lot of dollars lol. Anyways I always enjoyed Stat boosting my characters, higher stats, more dmg and BLM is "the" Damage Dealer of FFXI. /NIN gave me the ability to Dual Wield +1 Wands(or +2 if i could afford it), more INT = more dmg. I know i took a loss to MP pool by not using traditional /WHM, /RDM, /SMN, but he was a Tarutaru and with the right food and a RDM in the party, MP was never an issue. Hard hitting and perfectly timed Magic Bursts is the best feeling in the world! #4 RDM/DNC or RDM/WHM or RDM/BLM - Pretty much the same reasons as stated in the video above, survivabilty, endless MP with Refresh/Convert, Best Enfeebles in the game, and all around the Jack of All Trades when it comes to party roles #5 SMN/RDM - Pretty much self explanatory, Summons for MBs or Buffs (Fenrir i'm talking to you!) paired with RDM enfeebling = a fun time! also great off healer as well
I had 3 lvl 75 jobs on my elv. character. BRD, BLM and SMN...with my BLM and BRD completely merited out. While the BLM Tarus would get me on the margins in dmg, on hnms I actually lasted most fights without dying while my little Taru friends were being cleaned up on aisle 5. Classic example was Dynamis Lord and seeing the alliance getting laid out. I saved my re raise, 2hr and when I got up...I hit with a Thunder IV and dropped it. Giving our LS its first win in that fight. Eventually things like Niddhog and Genbu alter ego became burn fests, and King Behemoth but a early morning run around the track.
Last time I played which was back in 2004 I played Ranger with E-bow and man the damage I did was one shotted exp mobs I would get a lot of invites to parties because I built a reputation of being a good DD. Those were the days...
NIN/WAR was some of the funnest tanking I ever did, it was all about timing and hate management. I would pull to get the aggro started, and throw in ninjustu between attacks, provoking, weapon skills, and shadow casting, hopefully weakening to an element that a BLM was right about to burst into. It was a lot to juggle, but that's what made it interesting. Though having a THF for the trick attack dmg was always nice. PLD, THF, and NIN were my mains, so I'm partial to THF but I wouldn't say I needed one to hold aggro or switch it.
Man that part about NIN took me back. When I started tanking it was barely popular as a tank and I had to convince everyone around me that I could tank. We used to get so much shit and holding hate was a pain (until you got some proper eminity pieces around lv 64?) but holy shit was it rewarding!
Holding enmity was a pain if you didn't build and play nin correctly. Shurikens and Ele Ni MBs with a MAB set and actually using your insane DD gear availability to push 1k+ Jins made tanking on NIN a breeze in almost any group. Because you were basically the highest DD in the party that also happened to be tanking. ...seriously, I synced down on my nin for an e ron s party at one point because someone else wanted to level brd and my shurikens were hitting for about 75% of any other DD's wses. E Ron S is level 36-44.
One time in 75-cap I ended up in a low-level party with the leader of a big HNM shell. We had outside healing from a 75 WHM and they kept swapping a 75 BRD in and out of the party for songs.
i loved warrior i wish i had leveled it more it ended up getting stuck at like 66 , but great axe was so amazing. my favorite 3 jobs would be sam , blu , and brd , black mage was always fun thought too.
SAM, BLU, AND DRK during the 99 era were just crazy OP. When those new weapon skills came out... wow. A DRK with Ragnarok was just frightening. When I finally got my Amano on my SAM and was literally spamming Tachi: Kaitens for 8k to 10k a pop... I lost it lol. In Abyssea it was easily double that. Besides that, SAM is just so much fun self skill chaining. Makes me miss this game haha, I need to resist the urge to come back. I'll never get anything done!
Shoha > Kaiten. No, seriously, it was and probably still is. When it first came out I straight outdpsed a relic sam with min-maxed BiS gear in a half geared SAM just because I was spamming Shoha and he wasn't. I think I was averaging something like 14-15k with basically a half built SAM. Could've easily broken 20k back then if I'd been able to gear SAM instead of NIN prior.
Huge fan of the underdog. After the release of ToAU, all the "lolpup" inspired me to become the premiere PUP on Fairy (in my opinion) and won my Linkshell's PvP "Fight Club" league with it.
I remember unlocking smn as I liked the idea of using those avatars like leviathan and Shiva got my 1st party ready to go at lvl20....main healer because smn has so much mp people back then tried to use it as just whm because you couldn't find healers for party's I remember getting so frustrated because the party leader got mad at me because I couldn't pull of healer role my cure 1 healed less hp then the mobs where hitting for.
Where would White Mage rank? As the best healer in the game, it's pretty useful and I cannot remember a time when it was not needed. Btw, what server are you on?
While Black Mage was my main towards the end, I finally ended up retiring from the game due to lack of interest and lack of getting into events to get better gear after Seekers of Adoulin hit. My main endgame group had pretty much disbanded after the main leader left due to health concerns from her Doctor and... My friends honestly were the main reason I kept playing the game. Oddly enough I didn't really enjoy playing the game nearly as much at that point from just playing it for so long and being fairly burnt out. I think I had difficulties logging on, which was the final nail though. I just quit at that point. If I had one more chance though I would have given all my expensive gear ( Novio earring, stuff like that ) away to friends who stilled played.
My list of favorites DRG - Why? because I am badass with it. Always good for a light or darkness skill chain and can provide an occasional emergency heal. RUN - Very powerful survivable job. Solo's WoG with it. DNC- My friend is as badass with DNC as I am with DRG
So I had a mental list and I'm really surprised BLU and SAM didn't make the cut (I know its a jokey list but I'm playing along). I feel like SAM can do everything WAR can do but do it better. There was a period of time during ToAU, where SAM was clearly SE's golden child and the best DD in the game. The abilities they added to SAM were INSANE. BLU on the other hand was just such a powerhouse of versatility during the 75 era and was bar none the best job in the game at 119.
I remember when Manaburn was a thing and bards were always invited to those... I'm a bit basis in that regard because I got perma stuck as Bard in Dynamis since I had the Dynamis Horn.
When you said BLM I was slightly hesitant, mostly because after 60 I don't remember BLMs being in any party I was in. However, for story content they were awesome. My fav jobs, as well as the ones I got to 75 (not saying these are the best) were: MNK, WHM, BLU, and COR. You mentioned Operation Dessert Swarm and how a BLM could solo it, but I believe MNK could solo it as well.
As a brd main, I can assure you, BLMs simply leveled in their own parties. And those parties were utterly broken and arguably better than the non-blm parties in almost all cases. Colibri simply reflected magic so bringing a blm to a colibri party was suicide, and once blms discovered how broken all-blm parties were, they just never went back to anything else.
Was a two-handed WAR since NA launch. Ragnarok server. Miss the game, but can't afford the time sink into the game anymore. I haven't played since level cap increase from 75.
I guessed all the job but Warrior. My personal list would be based of my time playing the game. 5. SAM 4. BLM 3. RDM 2. BRD 1. NIN I was main RDM and then I tried BRD and switched back. I was like a celebrity back then. I had to be /anon for almost of the time because the nonstop resquest for parties
Funny you rag on smn and yet I found it rather useful. Being lone healer from high 20s to mid 30s in bibiki bay with Sam's tanking. Smn party with bard and cor bluffs/mp refresh. To end game with an alliance with two party of smns and a tank party. With dmg smns did and near zero hate was easy for tank to hold hate and allow ease for healers to focus on tanks. Smn could be very useful they just became more dangerous when you got more of them together.
Hmm...I'd go with either white mage or thief. Can't go wrong with the ultimate healer for parties or end game...though soloing got interesting (DD whm, yes please lmao). Still remember having to sneak into The Shrine of Ru'Avitau to raise a party member surrounded by weapons...fun times :D And thief because...treasure hunter lol...not to mention thieves could pull some sick damage out of their rear ends without drawing hate...and their insane evasion allowed them to survive some seriously nutty situations...the amount of times I heard "How are you still alive?" was ridiculous lol
WHM probably should have earned a slot, I just remember sneaking through so much stuff without one around. They're definitely one of the top jobs out there though. I ALWAYS...wanted to play a soloing DD WHM lol, get that hilarious hauby thing. THF is one of my favorites but it was alwyas like...1 THF for TH and then the rest can stay behind. Plus Elvaan moving just an inch in the wrong direction and ruining TA.....
I love my PLD but holy crap did it take a lot of gil and time to make viable. PLD is a gear-based job, and if you ain't rocking Aegis in this day and age, parties just laugh.
How did you get a Top Job list out with out even mentioning BLU!? BLU in all eras ever since ToAU was a solid Job that could be whatever you wanted, and could do that role well. It had great DPS, could be a solid off tank (or even main tank if you geared it right), and was very much a serviceable healer. It had survivability that could rival some of the tankier Jobs, and it's solo ability was through the roof (I remember getting to 40 solo in less time than a party could, fighting off mobs that would wreck a party, in the ToAU era where soloing IT mobs if you weren't a BST was a death scentence)! As for being in parties, it was a powerhouse to be reckoned with. It could open or close just about any skillchain, and even magic burst off of it as well, and for later levels, it could self-skill chain all day every day! In missions and objectives, it's capable of hitting just about every trigger, covering just about every scenario, and pretty much be the master key to open any lock. BLU had everything you needed to get the job done, and get it done well, and all it asked is you go out and farm your spells and earn all the power it had to offer! Once that is done, it's on player skill and knowledge of what you're going after to know what spells to set! Also, yes, I know this vid is 2 years old, but that doesn't change how BLU should have been on the list haha!
Totally fair, BLU got robbed. Probably my 75 era stigma because there were so few BLU in TOA that really took it where it could go. Awesome job and one of my strongest now for sure
@@Huntin4GamesChannel I loved playing BLU back then, and once I picked it up after messing around with COR when ToAU hit, I never put it down. Mained the hell outta it forever! I came back to 11 a couple of years ago after being off the game nearly a decade, and BLU was still as awesome as I remembered it. Got it to 99 and saw the kinds of spells it had access to now, and was floored at how much more powerful it got. It's a shame how it's XIV version isn't anywhere near as cool as XI's is...
how is Warrior just "average'? in Abyssea Warrior was A MACHINE. had like 90% weaponskill procs and Ukko's Fury before it got nerfed into the ground was BRUTAL. also, let's not forget every leeches favorite Weaponskill FELL CLEAVE. if you can't tell, i was a War main for a long time and i fully admit my bias.
Because MNK and NIN and BLU arguably provided more during Aby, and both before and after Aby it was behind most other dedicated DD jobs, especially SAM. Personally wouldn't have even put it on the list.
War still reigns supreme for cleaving, only thing that comes close at times is a correctly geared BLU. Sad Ninja has fallen so far from how it used to be. Just a sub job now, and Dnc was better for support. RDM isn't a master of none and in XI can be a jack of all trades but the fact they don't get staff kinda ruins it. But they're amazing, I main it and always have. RDM/NIN was THE best solo configuration in the 75 days if not that, it was /dnc. In this day and age thanks to things like Temper they can easily smack shit around. Depending on the situation you still want one even now, be it for flurry or as you mention Distract and Frazzle 3. Bard is soo broken if only for its buffs and the fact that Lullaby will actually consistantly sleep vs. repose. I cannot say it's better then having a rdm, it's on par with a geo in role useage. They are NOT always invited unfortunately not now at least, if you're not a 4 song...you'll likely get turned away now. There was that awesome update to weaponskills where Bard's could out dps a thf and that was fun.
Well for RDM my #1 tip would be to sub BLM. Even though as a career solo RDM until they raised level cap and BST just because stupid, I actually solo-ed anything hard as RDM/WAR purely for the Defender skill.
i was in a linkshell that required having 5 jobs to 75 (i quit when they raised the level cap) but 1 of those 5 had to be blm and or bard. To celebrate our linkshells first relic we had a 64 man dynamis with 1 party of thf rdm whm pld and 10 parties of 5 blm and 1 bard. thf pull everything all blms aga3 everything and kite if you had hate. We had full clears on everyone of the first 6 zones. During this stretch we had the unthinkable for the time 1200 coin dynamis sandy. Blm was broken and we used it to that end. Oh with this in mind we also gave preference to people who set up drk knight zerg builds when that was still a thing, because everyone loves a 23 second kirin.
Genbu moved at like half of your movement speed (even without crimson pants), and his spells took forever to cast outside of poisonga3. It was extremely easy to kite him and keep bio2 on him til he died, you could even spam all your MP nuking him with no fear. You just needed antidotes, or you could sub WHM for poisona. It wasn't like Seiryu, where if you got bad luck on bind during hundred fists you died, or Suzaku that you had to straight tank a lot and gigas scream took 3 shadows. Genbu... you could do naked with any subjob, so it kind of makes me sad you would mention him when talking about crazy solos RDMs did. One time I even held Tiamat solo for 45 minutes (he had tons of regen, you couldnt solo him)
It all came down to knowledge, skill, and gear. In the current ilvl 119 era gear is even more important, but it was in the 75 cap days as well. I remember learning to use macro swaps for weapon skills and enfeebling magic along with other things. Knowledge of when spells need mnd or int, what ws modifiers were needed etc. HQ elemental staffs, and other expensive items could drastically increase the success of bind, sleep, and gravity. This allowed Red Mage to dominate strong NM's that weren't immune to them.
I'd like to see any videos of rdm soloing the other sky gods, but behemoth (not the king) and other nm's a party of 6 could easily kill should be killable by rdm if they aren't immune or highly resistant to bind / gravity
Fun topic.... if i were making an all time list for jobs, i would probably rank them in order of their importance. I also won't account for jobs that didn't exist in the 75 era. As such, my top 5 from top to bottom: 1) paladin- simply put, a tank is the most important role in ffxi, and probably most mmos period. At ffxi's core fundamental principles, it was a game that required you work together as a community to achieve anything, and when you did you were going to need someone who could mitigate damage efficiently. Without that, you weren't going to get very far, and paladin was bred for this. Ninja certainly has its place in history, but the way i see it, ninja could tank most things while paladin could tank all things which is why it stood the test of time. Plus, paladin had built in abilities and spells meant to control enmity whereas ninja did not. Even as the game matured and developers balanced jobs making it so some content could be managed without a tank, the most valuable content almost always required a good tank. 2) white mage- now that we have established that tank is the most important job, you need a white mage to keep them alive. Nobody is better at keeping the tank and other party members alive than white mage. They are also the best at removing status ailments. I was tempted to make whm the #1 job, but was reluctant to do so because even though healing magic is the most important magic ingame, i rationalized it by imagining, if you put a whm in front of vrtra he would be dead in 2-3 hits. A paladin could survive a lot longer and heal himself a few times in the process. 3) black mage- now you can worry about dishing damage back out. Blm is the most prolific damage dealer in ffxi, and the weird part is nobody ever mentions it. I think most of us are accustomed to thinking of DDs as well geared frontline melee characters, but in reality blms are easily responsible for the highest dmg % of all dmg ever dealt in ffxi and its been that way since day 1. 4) bard- this guy/gal could make life easier for everyone. They could debuff mobs, buff the party, enhance melees, refresh mages, and more. They could even pull mobs back in the old school xp parties! Just think of the sheer joy you felt when you got invited to a party and realized they had a bard. 5) warrior- i had to give this one a lot of thought because there were a lot of tempting options. I went with war for mainly one reason: provoke. Ironically, warriors are the only job with the provoke job ability, but they aren't the ones who need it. Provoke is one of the most valuable job abilities in game, and without warriors you dont have provoke. Its pretty much the only sub jobs paladins and ninjas will ever use, and pretty darn good for most frontline melee jobs. It also helps that warrior is the most versatile job. You can fine tune them to be pretty devastating melees dd, or serviceable tanks, and they are the only job class that can use all melee class weapons with decent ratings. The sheer utility value of warrior commands a spot in the top 5.
I like it! PLD I struggled with a lot because there are so many things taht like...required one, it was just sort of a weird job sometimes. Very cool list though, I agree with almost all of your points
WAR was somewhat 'required' in abyssea years for the utility of having access to so many red procs, especially in lower man groups, RDM (and PLD) also fell VERY out of favor in abyssea and RDM didnt completely recover compared to its pre-abyssea status.. even now most if not all content can be done without a rdm with a geo in the party
veeery true, totally forgot about procs. Yeah while I do agree that they've adjusted the game to not really require RDM any more at 119, I still think its incredibly powerful and useful to have one around
Too bad RDM's "must have" status got replaced by GEO. Even COR and BRD have been somewhat replaced in low many if you have GEOs.. Have a GEO? Add another one!
RDM recovered it's use again with Haste2/Refresh3, and a good one could pick up in a place where GEO really lacked: adapting. I loved playing RDM during difficult fights because I was always doing something, and the times I spent getting every little bit of enfeebling/healing/nuking/idling out of my gear really felt worthwhile. You had to really be good at making quick decisions, but the adaptability and being able to actually land debuffs on Adoulin/Rhapsodies NMs was key in our group. The RDM adaptability is probably why I could never really get into FFXIV after the first set of coil since it was too much about the song and dance rather than knowing your job.
1. (perfect 100) RDM, 2. (90) BLU, 3. (88) PLD, 4. (85) SAM, 5. (84) BRD WAR required way too much high end gear to actually perform higher than sam throughout pretty much the entirety of the 75 cap, and DRK performed straight up better in 99% of content if you considered access to stuff like relics and K. club. Both WAR and DRK were outclassed by half the other DD classes during Aby, and has only barely come into the #1 DD position in 119 content. SAM 100% gets the place because it was way more accessible, had way more use throughout 75 cap (solo SCs, sam/rng, mythic sam, soboro not /rng, off-tank w/ seigan, better solo abilities due to seigan, some of the best 75 era ultimates), extreme viability and near requirement for aby content, Tachi: Shoha was UTTERLY BROKEN AS [redacted] when it first released (Day of shoha's release, I went into WoE on my non-relic, non-max geared SAM, and straight up outdpsed a maxed out relic sam because Shoha was doing 3x the damage of Kaiten.), and is now easily top 3 DDs yet again with Jinpu, and it's also historically been the single best subjob option. DRK has always required way too high end of gear to be super viable, and at 75 cap was a legit resource drain due to MP management being as bad as it was. RDM is self-explanatory. If anyone disagrees with RDM being the #1 job in FFXI, you never played FFXI at any point, and definitely never played RDM. Avesta, enough said. BLU has been a top job in all content since it's release. If RDM wasn't a launch job, and still overall performed better, it might be a closer argument between RDM and BLU. But BLU is pretty tied with PLD, instead. PLD is the single best tank in the game, always has been, and doesn't suffer the same issues NIN has. It works universally against anything. PLD is a GOD TIER solo job, albeit slow. And this has only gotten better and better with each expansion, rather than ever getting worse. PLD/DNC during WotG was probably the height of the job's solo ability, but it's still absolutely god tier. PLD can, surprisingly, do a [redacted] stupid amount of damage if you actually gear it for it... just no one really ever does. Access to multiple relics, a god-tier mythic, one of the best current empyreans and one of the best at-release-of-them empyreans, PLD has always had access to stupidly good damage output abilities, it's just that almost no one really ever does anything with it DD-wise, not that it can't. This was especially true back at 75 cap, when Burtgang pld literally 100% of the time outdamaged almost any job's WSes due to how Atonement actually works. BRD. BRD is a job no one played correctly for years. It's by far the most slept on 75 cap job. BRD/NIN, Mandau or Mythic mainhand, Joyeuse offhand, Byakko's to easily cap haste during an era where 25% gear haste was hard for any job not on byakko's, K.O. for one of the single best WS pieces in the game, Eventually a freaking haste% harp to cap haste even more, Gjallarhorn removed any need to swap instruments so you could melee, access to one of the most easily stacked WS mods in the entire game in the form of their mythic WS due to the stupid amount of chr on brd AF/Relic. The best party buffs period until Geo came out, and still arguably comparable in many regards for melee parties. One of very few jobs where you could bring multiple of them to stack even more unique benefits. Rarely actually needs to even be in the party so can literally exist as an extra stat buff without even taking up a party slot, making 90% of non-instanced encounters even easier. The job that allowed a level 36 party to compete with a level 75 party for exp/hour gains. (No, I'm not kidding, optimal E.Ron (S) parties compared with bhaflau thickets colibri merit parties back in the day. I'd know. I was the one that MADE E.ron S parties a thing, and got about 50% of the asura population's sub jobs up to level 44 with my 12 hour long brd + cor e ron s parties.) The worst job is easily BST, as it only has certain specific strats to it's name. RDM solos better. PUP cheeses content better. SMN was always more useful vs things that spammed death or similar. BLU, THF, DNC, WAR, DRK were always pretty similar for AoE strats, if not straight up better during most updates. (aby blu, anyone?) RDM is the best job in the game, period. Strongest solo, highest utility, one of the best subjobs. PLD is the best tank, and thus the best group job. Even today RUN doesn't even come close to comparing as far as actual tanking is concerned. BLU is BLU. It's RDM 2.0. Different strengths, but easily just as broken. SAM is, was, and always will be the general best overall damage dealing job in the game. No other job has the consistency SAM has always had. BRD is BRD. It has a WAY higher cap than anyone ever utilized, but it's party utility is simply busted, and always has been. A few other jobs come close, but I'd honestly say there's at least a 5 point gap between BRD and the next best job, if you consider the entire game's history. GEO would definitely be up there if only considering post-SoA, probably straight up replacing BRD and surpassing SAM and possibly even PLD. But... most of the game's lifespan didn't have GEO. so... it gets a point reduction for that. The only other job I'd place over an 80 would maybe be NIN if considering /nin as somehow being part of what makes the job good. Otherwise, it drops down to like a 76. I say this as someone who used to main NIN, and who now duos almost everything with a relic nin friend. NIN is nowhere near as good of a job as people think it is. It was simply the fact most healers were falling asleep and sucked at their job that made people think NIN was good. NIN's only real spotlight was Abyssea. Where yeah, it was busted. There's a reason that despite having REMAs, maxed out gear, maxed out merits, BiS optimal gear sets, etc. etc. for so many top jobs during Aby, that I went as NIN to about 85% of LS events. But... that had honestly nothing to do with NIN being good, and everything to do with Abyssea being stupid. Abyssea removed the downsides of NIN, added a hard requirement for NIN spells and Katana/Great Katana WSes, and somehow had 80% of endgame boss type fights completely and utterly incapable of hitting through or removing shadows. That's not NIN being good. That's Abyssea being dumb. Of course a -DT capped job with hundred fists attack rate, infinite shadows and 4k+ HP is going to be busted. SO WAS MONK. MONK.
My wife and I used to play this together. I found my favorite jobs to be PLD and DRK and hers was RDM. Our accounts got hacked and while dealing with SE they went through the first server merge and Remora was merged with Leviathan. We gave up at that point. Most of our friends had already quit or moved servers and I had figured we lost everything when merged since the accounts were on lock down. Nostalgia is making me want to go back to Vana'Diel though.
Oh Avesta, those RDM videos were so fucking impressive.
+ghamlund dude right, that was totally him. Insane stuff
FF11 is just the best game period.
facts
Bard was my first 75 and man you weren't kidding about the invites. There was a time back in the day when just logging into the mog house you'd immediately start recieving /tells inviting you to party. Nothing was more fun for my party life than pulling multiple mobs to the party, sleeping them, and having them just waiting there for the party to kill at their leisure.
+Charles Surber ya I always thought I'd enjoy BRD at 75, but didn't think I could get there without going crazy haha
As a old school brd myself /anon was my best friend or I would log out on other jobs
Yeah BRDs were awesome! As someone who mained a RDM I envied the hell out of aoe buffs particularly an aoe refresh. Honestly something he didn't touch on was how badass BRDs were in ballista. I tried so many times but got mopped by them!
Ahh those were good days! Still remember my favorite BRD his name was Jukeboxhero XD
i was the type of party leader who would spam world searches for bards and rdms and immediately /tell and invite ... sorry but i levelled hella fast XD
BRD wasn't my main....but was my fastest job to 75😂😂
But once end game LS found out you were BRD....Good luck trying to be any other job lol
Moooore ffxi vids pls. Don't let the dream die.
+Ubaldo Pineda haha never, have had a ton of FFXI stuff recently, but I realized after this video it was mostly on Twitch
This game got me through some hard times when it came out. I stopped for years but would always do the return home campaign so they didnt delete my character. Recently, a friend started streaming it and got me back into it. Feels good man.
The Red Mage he mentions is Avesta (JP) of Asura -> Remora.
He was the first to solo many high level NMs, 75-era circa '05-07 on PS2, and his videos were legendary. No Windower plugins either, which make the game significantly easier for solo players, whether those people want to admit that or not.
Hakutaku
Lord of Onzozo
Charbydis
Big Bomb
Cactrot Rapido
Zipacna
Ungur
Operation Desert Swarm (BLM)
ZNM16
Automaton Assault
Seiryu
Suzaku
Genbu
Byakko (2010 @ Lv. 80)
Many of these and a few others are on UA-cam in full. Sadly, some of his later stuff isn't available.
Also, don't believe the nonsense when other people say what he solo'd was "easy". Most of those people are talking out of their ass and don't take the context of the eras he performed many of these solos in. His Cactrot Rapido solo is also hilariously underrated.
he was so damn good they named bangles after him with enfeeb on it lol. I "game" idolized that cat lol, i was always trying to do shit like him but was not even close haha.
watching Avesta soloing is what got me into rdm. and really changed my thoughts on ffxi and how to play it. after seeing his stuff, i was trying to solo everything i could. im not saying i was as good as him, but watching him really helped my own solo game.
Avesta inspired me to switch to rdm main just saying. He was an absolute badass
One of the greatest heroes Vana’Diel has ever seen.
I still have no freaking clue how he ever soloed Cactrot. It's the one solo he did where no matter how many times I watch it, I just can't understand it.
Genbu was the only notable solo he did that would ever be considered "easy", because outranging genbu w/ max rdm gear and whatnot isn't actually that hard. It just takes forever.
Yes, I did it at 75 cap once. A bit later (post-wotg, I think) but with the same general gear. So I do get to say that.
i retired FFXI. long ago. I play 14 now. But I miss my RDM tarutaru. I miss my chainspell lol will never miss the 70-75 RDM Maat level cap fight lol shantotto was my favorite NPC in this game.
sadly stop playing when my mom got sick. we used play FFXI since COP came out, with each other. sadly she passed away 3 years ago. it been hard for me go back and she not there anymore.. But FFXI was my very first MMO game and always my favorite. even though I move on to FFXIV. FFXI will always be my #1
BLM main for 15 years ;) I like the way you think!
Man after years, YEARS of hovering around lv 40-50 as a young boy playing this game, BLM ended up being my first lv 75. And I did it because the option to solo was discovered. Soloing BLM to 75 was so fulfilling. I have had many triumphs since, some that I consider much greater, but boy I just wont ever forget solo levelling BLM.
Started playing 14 years ago. Soloed Red Mage to 75, never partied, took years. Then started Summoner and Carby was so bad, I left it at level 3 where the job still sits today. Winkkin-Sylph:119, RDM. BLM, WHM, WAR, MNK, NIN, THF, PLD, DRK Others are making progress. Still play everyday.
currently going for a RUN/RDM playthru, loving the whole idea of parrying everything with a one handed or two handed sword, no shield, and throwing solid magic around. reminds me of Kratos Aurion in ToS.
I don't know whether I should be surprised or not that Corsair isn't on the list. I guess undervalued but ultimately superior jobs still have that stigma and rarity around them. Aside from the extremely rare mobs that could be quick draw kited, I guess it's inability to solo hurt it too much. That being said....being able to dps slightly below a rng, while performing the same role as brd (or even in tandem with brd), Corsair was fucking amazing on levels that were never truly appreciated because of how few of us there were.
I mean I payed a cor more times than I can remember to reset a Savage smn burns 2hrs. But bard beat for as a support and rng by far beat it as a dps
@@RichardC1285 RNG rarely truly beat cor as a dps, there was just almost no built cors.
I can confidently say this as my main duo partner was the best built cor on asura for like a decade. The difference between him and an equally geared RNG was EASILY made up for by rolls on any group content. And completely outclassed RNG once Aby came out and Wildfire was as broken as it was.
i miss playing this game so much, played it from like... 05-10 HARD. Im shocked its still going, I miss it so.
Monk was always my favourite but I can at least recognize it didn't even have a chance of sniffing a list like this. Honestly I expected Blue Mage to be on it.
+Sabateini loved MNK! Honestly it sorta just got screwed by piercing damage camps with colibri and then 119 it literally being one of the least liked options haha. BLU was a tough one for me but at 75 no linkshells wanted to bother with it. Besides cannonball, it was super flexible and one if my favorites though, and at 119 it's just nuts
MNK had one spotlight.
Abyssea.
MNK during Aby was absolutely busted, and arguably tanked most content better than a pld could if you had a whm in the party. ...was also the only time I ever played whm.
Brd/whm is the goat. I had no issue getting parties when I logged in on that class.
I'm not sure if I'm biased, but I feel like iLevel, Master, Full Apoc DRK is one of the strongest overall in terms of survivability and damage output. With +2 Ambuscade gear, the damage reduction helps. But what puts it in my top 5 is the ability to self SC (or follow a shit-ton of other jobs for a darkness SC), and then MB Drain III, which lasts about 4 minutes if I remember correctly. This can immediately give DRK the most HP in any party or alliance (I've drained 9999 before). This is perfect for using Souleater, Berserk, Warcry, and Last Resort with wild abandon, ESPECIALLY when using an Apoc. The drain effect of Catastrophe, Dread Spikes, plus rapid TP gain has enabled me to effectively tank should the ACTUAL tank need a break. I haven't even touched on the Absorb spells or 1-hours.
I 100% agree! A 119 apoc drk is a force to be reckoned with, they're absolutely insane.
Great video.
The RDM name that soloed stuff was "Avesta" in case you get bored and want to look it up.
yes! thank you!
Wow, there's a name from FFXI's glittering history.
Red Mage is nr 1 in my book. I remember back in the day in high level parties, I would main heal, constantly rotating refresh on all party members who had mp, as many as 4 sometimes, while making sure to cast 2-3 enfeebles on every mob at the beginning of each fight, erasing stuff, sometimes magic bursting. I remember relying on regen a lot. Regen is very mp efficient, but mainly it frees up time. RDM doesn't really ever have problems with mp. They're mp tanks who can go on for hours non-stop.
In exp parties, rdm was the best healer. I know a fair number of them weren't comfortable or willing to fill in that role, but atleast for me, I could do it very easily.
For more casual stuff, like quests, they were even more amazing. When shit hit the fan, they were great at dealing with the situation. They had great crowd control and could even tank additional mobs, as they generally subbed nin. And they were the best soloing job in the game, although a bit slow. But the end result is what matters.
They could also sneak and invis your entire party and replenish everyones mp on the go.
The only major negative was that it was a very skill-based job, and a lot of rdm's weren't willing to put in that extra effort, or didn't rise to the occasion when under pressure, but that's not the fault of the job.
Also, they weren't really amazing at the high end of things, when you had full alliances, but because of their great abilities in exp parties, and casual stuff, as long as you accepted that it was the most advanced job in the game, and was willing to put in an extra effort to take it close to its full potential, you were so well respected by others that they couldn't really reject you.
Bard is amazing. Situationally they were better than Red Mage, but they couldn't fill in as an extra healer, and they couldn't really hold their own, the way a rdm could.
Blm is probably the best damage dealer, but any dmg dealer is more or less replacable. Situationally, a blm is a must, or atleast a huge asset, but it's kind of like with bard. If you can find one, you always get them, but you can do just fine without them in most situations.
Although I remember in the early days, blm almost being a requirement for mid range exp parties, but in the upper levels, you could get on fine with just a melee party. Blm also always had major issues dealing with hate, both in terms of avoiding and surviving it. The melee dmg dealers all had pretty decent defense by comparison, and a really nice health bar on top of that.
Rdm is pretty fantastic, not gonna lie. Most of my memorable moments have been along side my Rdm friend agha
Dark Knight was my main. I havent played in probably 10 years but it left a lasting impression on me. I remember being so we'll geared and just smashing it in merit parties when people thought a DRK Couldnt do damage.
Heh, only job I've ever seen break 2k damage with a ws at level 58. Yeah, the "WTF"s from the party chat were great when I just 1-shot a lesser colibri.
Fun fact: DRK/NIN dual weilding axes and spamming rampage was actually stronger than using a scythe or great sword for the vast majority of 75 cap content, especially pre-guillotine.
I leveled very slowly, and I hit 60BLM riiiight around that Aht Urgahn range. it was my first 75, and I remembered HAAAATING playing Black Mage, which is why I took up SMN.
PLD, SAM, BLM, BRD, RDM in the 75 Days.
id trade blm for thf
I played this for the first time tonight and after a few hours I feel like I'm gonna enjoy this. Playing with my brother who is a white mage while I play a warrior and it's been fun. The brown puzzle chests, discovering that different weapons have entirely separate skill lines and just chilling out on an mmo that's so different to the modern tab target or action mmo is just nice.
I have a pretty bad attention span admittedly but I'm gonna work hard not to drop this one.
I use to play since it's arrival on PS2 up to the time they stopped it on the PS2. (Sad Day) I say: Blue Mage. After some months of playtime, I was able to chain and burst for myself and my party. Along with setting up my moc, I help defeated all the world bosses with a burst set-up.
COR was always my favorite support their buffs were always OP. Especially if you have that party member in the party with you and with double up you can always get rid of a bad roll but more importantly. You can actually pour on some damage with a proper setup.
When I decided to level BLM for Warp, I was already a PLD main with 3 points in +enmity!
I couldn't even cast level one spells without ripping agro from tanks! I only could cast one spell per fight in xp parties LMAO
What's your graphics setup (card and settings)? Seems like everything is ultra clean and smooth in your videos.
My mastered WAR (Asukalangley, Siren) does SO much DPS with a one-handed sword that it's like I'm holding a Kraken club at all times. It's so far the only job I can bring to Apex crabs and not either run out of MP fighting or get painted into a corner ability or HP-wise.
Ahhh I was basically RDM and only RDM throughout my time playing. Loved every second of it.
+Voorhees3388 def! RDM was sweet!
When I came back to play and finish the last expansion, it was BLU that made it possible for me. It's a job that I had Fell Cleaved up just for completeness back in the Abyssea days when chocobo blinkers made gil flow like water. It wasn't until my last time back that I got the experience of really going on spell hunts, and it was a highlight of my FFXI experience. I doubt I would have finished the last expansion without the power of BLU in a Trust party on mission content. Not to mention the solo potential in Zi'Tah.
My top 5 favorite jobs:
BST
:P
Kidding. It was more like BST, THF, RNG, RDM, NIN, in that order. That's just me though. Milestones in those jobs brought me joy. Dang I miss this game.
gutspraygore go BST!
Dragoon was always one of my personal favorites, ability to solo AND great damage and super jump to drop agro when you need.
Suprised you didn't pick BST as most useful job. They were the masters of cleaning up a zone after some party trained a whole zone worth of crawlers into the zoning area :)
My top 5 FFXI jobs -
RDM (basically necessary at all stages of the game from solo to groups to end game)
BST (best soloer in the game, under used in parties, really fun to play)
NIN (reasons you stated, one of the greatest mmo jobs ever)
DNC (Changed the game when it was released, made more options for sub jobs and made sustainable soloing on other jobs possible)
THF (Amazing, TH makes it an auto choice. Funny that no one actually knew how it worked for like 5+ years, do you let THF last hit?! Do you take more than one THF?! hilarious. Its hate control was a really awesome concept and the dmg it put out was great)
Best party i ever participated in (lvl 75 era) consisted of THF/NIN (me), THF/NIN, NIN/WAR, NIN/WAR, WHM/SMN, RDM/BLM. We literally stayed together for over 12hrs of mob grinding, SATA every fight with double MB's coming from whm/smn and rdm/blm, completely broken and amazing!
Sounds awesome thief is incredibly underrated, people who complain about having to setup for sata usually don't know how to best utilise all the abilities of thier party members.
Btw had a great party in GC with nearly the same setup with myself as rdm/blm and a blm/rdm instead of the smn. I main healed, but mostly just mb because lets be honest, how many heals do two NINs need lol.
I had a set group of people I leveled with daily and among others it was me (PLD) THF and BLM...The RNG would pull hate with his broken (at the time) sidewinder weapon skill, then the THF would skillchain onto me w/ SATA.
Gave me so much hate that I could hold aggro while magic bursting with ancient magic casually to keep our chains up.
THF made me feel like id never lose hate
I duoed Charbydis for my Joyeuse on my RDM with a BLM friend. What a fun fight and that job pair is an amazing duo. (This was back in the 75 cap era.) I also duoed Bune numerous times to get an Enhancing Sword with my RDM and a friend on PLD. Guess I agree with at least 3 jobs on your list. lol
Remember when I first got a scorpion harness haha
I feel like WHM could have been #1, but at the same time being disqualified from contention as well
I think I'd personally switch RDM and BLM on this list, mostly because of the era where everything was beatable in one chain spell stun from a RDM/DRK.
I think for all of BRD's buffs, the often overlooked piece of the puzzle was actually Elegy. I knew tanks that flat out refused to tank anything unless there was a bard for Elegy, especially ninjas.
Great list though; brings back good memories.
My Personal Top 5 - 75 Era Jobs
#1 BST/DNC - my first job to 75 (also my first job to 99). I admit, the road of BST was not an easy one, but it was the most enjoyable! Finding new xp camps and mastering the timing of gear swaps and re-charms when your pet goes rogue in the middle of a VT fight still makes my palms sweat. But it was exhilarating with a great sense of accomplishment. Succeeding and soloing in a very difficult multipler game was(and still is) the best feeling in the world. I honestly think if there was no BST in FFXI, i might not have stuck around for 15+ years!
#2 THF/NIN - Probably the 2nd best puller in the game (BRD wins hands down), SATA skillchains are amazing, 1 less person for whm to heal thanks to hate mitigation and shadows, plus crossbows, i mean come on, swing daggers, shoot crossbow, swing daggers, shoot cross bow, TP gain was super fast! Don't forget Squid Sushi +1!! I wore all DEX/AGI gear all the way to 75, most of it was lvl30-40 gear, but i didn't need the added Def/MDef from the higher level gear, THF/NIN was all about the SATA and never getting hit!!
#3 BLM/NIN - If i had a dollar for everytime someone in my party asked me why i have /NIN, i'd have a lot of dollars lol. Anyways I always enjoyed Stat boosting my characters, higher stats, more dmg and BLM is "the" Damage Dealer of FFXI. /NIN gave me the ability to Dual Wield +1 Wands(or +2 if i could afford it), more INT = more dmg. I know i took a loss to MP pool by not using traditional /WHM, /RDM, /SMN, but he was a Tarutaru and with the right food and a RDM in the party, MP was never an issue. Hard hitting and perfectly timed Magic Bursts is the best feeling in the world!
#4 RDM/DNC or RDM/WHM or RDM/BLM - Pretty much the same reasons as stated in the video above, survivabilty, endless MP with Refresh/Convert, Best Enfeebles in the game, and all around the Jack of All Trades when it comes to party roles
#5 SMN/RDM - Pretty much self explanatory, Summons for MBs or Buffs (Fenrir i'm talking to you!) paired with RDM enfeebling = a fun time! also great off healer as well
I remember during 75 lvlcap, hasting a samurai is like "good luck keeping hate, tank" xD
Should give haste to tank too
I had 3 lvl 75 jobs on my elv. character. BRD, BLM and SMN...with my BLM and BRD completely merited out. While the BLM Tarus would get me on the margins in dmg, on hnms I actually lasted most fights without dying while my little Taru friends were being cleaned up on aisle 5.
Classic example was Dynamis Lord and seeing the alliance getting laid out. I saved my re raise, 2hr and when I got up...I hit with a Thunder IV and dropped it. Giving our LS its first win in that fight.
Eventually things like Niddhog and Genbu alter ego became burn fests, and King Behemoth but a early morning run around the track.
Good channel man. Youre a real gamers gamer!
Last time I played which was back in 2004 I played Ranger with E-bow and man the damage I did was one shotted exp mobs I would get a lot of invites to parties because I built a reputation of being a good DD. Those were the days...
static / linkshell > fake ass people irl
A good Ninja tank was always miles better than any other, and I'm talking about those NIN's that didn't require a THF in party.
NIN/WAR was some of the funnest tanking I ever did, it was all about timing and hate management. I would pull to get the aggro started, and throw in ninjustu between attacks, provoking, weapon skills, and shadow casting, hopefully weakening to an element that a BLM was right about to burst into. It was a lot to juggle, but that's what made it interesting. Though having a THF for the trick attack dmg was always nice. PLD, THF, and NIN were my mains, so I'm partial to THF but I wouldn't say I needed one to hold aggro or switch it.
Man that part about NIN took me back. When I started tanking it was barely popular as a tank and I had to convince everyone around me that I could tank. We used to get so much shit and holding hate was a pain (until you got some proper eminity pieces around lv 64?) but holy shit was it rewarding!
Holding enmity was a pain if you didn't build and play nin correctly.
Shurikens and Ele Ni MBs with a MAB set and actually using your insane DD gear availability to push 1k+ Jins made tanking on NIN a breeze in almost any group. Because you were basically the highest DD in the party that also happened to be tanking. ...seriously, I synced down on my nin for an e ron s party at one point because someone else wanted to level brd and my shurikens were hitting for about 75% of any other DD's wses. E Ron S is level 36-44.
I'm about to cry you didn't mention blue mage
One time in 75-cap I ended up in a low-level party with the leader of a big HNM shell.
We had outside healing from a 75 WHM and they kept swapping a 75 BRD in and out of the party for songs.
i loved warrior i wish i had leveled it more it ended up getting stuck at like 66 , but great axe was so amazing. my favorite 3 jobs would be sam , blu , and brd , black mage was always fun thought too.
SAM, BLU, AND DRK during the 99 era were just crazy OP. When those new weapon skills came out... wow. A DRK with Ragnarok was just frightening. When I finally got my Amano on my SAM and was literally spamming Tachi: Kaitens for 8k to 10k a pop... I lost it lol. In Abyssea it was easily double that. Besides that, SAM is just so much fun self skill chaining. Makes me miss this game haha, I need to resist the urge to come back. I'll never get anything done!
Shoha > Kaiten.
No, seriously, it was and probably still is.
When it first came out I straight outdpsed a relic sam with min-maxed BiS gear in a half geared SAM just because I was spamming Shoha and he wasn't.
I think I was averaging something like 14-15k with basically a half built SAM. Could've easily broken 20k back then if I'd been able to gear SAM instead of NIN prior.
Huge fan of the underdog. After the release of ToAU, all the "lolpup" inspired me to become the premiere PUP on Fairy (in my opinion) and won my Linkshell's PvP "Fight Club" league with it.
Beastmaster must be number 1!
Every time I watch your videos I activate my game again, thanks for the nostalgia. Lol
Would love to go back to FFXI but I haven't played for 10 years and think I'd be completely lost if I went back now.
I used to solo Operation Desert Swarm on BLM all the time! I was Elvaan, too. :P
One of the best parties I was in, in FF 11, was paladin, black mage, dark knight and 3 red mages. The spells were everywhere. Lol
I remember unlocking smn as I liked the idea of using those avatars like leviathan and Shiva got my 1st party ready to go at lvl20....main healer because smn has so much mp people back then tried to use it as just whm because you couldn't find healers for party's I remember getting so frustrated because the party leader got mad at me because I couldn't pull of healer role my cure 1 healed less hp then the mobs where hitting for.
Ahh, the nostalgia is real! I’m getting a laptop soon and I’m going to reactivate my account.
What server are you on?
RDM/NIN in early days were the BOMB :)
Where would White Mage rank? As the best healer in the game, it's pretty useful and I cannot remember a time when it was not needed. Btw, what server are you on?
i used to duo or trio pretty well as a dd whm using a hammer.
@@twitch_tv_pat mmk with a Devine breastplate... Ppl joked but it was good
What server are you on?
While Black Mage was my main towards the end, I finally ended up retiring from the game due to lack of interest and lack of getting into events to get better gear after Seekers of Adoulin hit. My main endgame group had pretty much disbanded after the main leader left due to health concerns from her Doctor and... My friends honestly were the main reason I kept playing the game. Oddly enough I didn't really enjoy playing the game nearly as much at that point from just playing it for so long and being fairly burnt out.
I think I had difficulties logging on, which was the final nail though. I just quit at that point. If I had one more chance though I would have given all my expensive gear ( Novio earring, stuff like that ) away to friends who stilled played.
Fantastic video. I'll paraphrase the SquareEnix's take on Bard, "nailed it."
I liked this a lot. By all means, do worst jobs as a follow up.
+Nikki Seven haha thanks, ya will do, it's going to be like list of Favorites for me
Will never be a game like this again, once in a lifetime experience those 75 days
BeastMaster ...
My list of favorites
DRG - Why? because I am badass with it. Always good for a light or darkness skill chain and can provide an occasional emergency heal.
RUN - Very powerful survivable job. Solo's WoG with it.
DNC- My friend is as badass with DNC as I am with DRG
I soloed all of WoG on BST pre-ilevel. Good times.
Nothing makes my night like a good stretch of exp PT with a Bard in it.
So I had a mental list and I'm really surprised BLU and SAM didn't make the cut (I know its a jokey list but I'm playing along). I feel like SAM can do everything WAR can do but do it better. There was a period of time during ToAU, where SAM was clearly SE's golden child and the best DD in the game. The abilities they added to SAM were INSANE. BLU on the other hand was just such a powerhouse of versatility during the 75 era and was bar none the best job in the game at 119.
Nice video man thanks.
anytime! just a goofy one to have fun once in a while
What class should I pick to basically be Auron?
I remember when Manaburn was a thing and bards were always invited to those... I'm a bit basis in that regard because I got perma stuck as Bard in Dynamis since I had the Dynamis Horn.
Good stroll down memory lane. I think the current best jobs in retal have changed to brd cor geo rdm with a toss up for the last spot as war,whm,sch
DRK/SAM for life!!!
Ugh... I really hated Nin. As a tank main, I hated Nin.
I loved my BLU, but I was always salty that people wanted my BRD instead. Still made doing story missions a breeze :D
I agree with your list 100%.
When you said BLM I was slightly hesitant, mostly because after 60 I don't remember BLMs being in any party I was in. However, for story content they were awesome.
My fav jobs, as well as the ones I got to 75 (not saying these are the best) were: MNK, WHM, BLU, and COR.
You mentioned Operation Dessert Swarm and how a BLM could solo it, but I believe MNK could solo it as well.
Actually I think I duo-ed ODS not soloed. It's been a long time.
As a brd main, I can assure you, BLMs simply leveled in their own parties.
And those parties were utterly broken and arguably better than the non-blm parties in almost all cases.
Colibri simply reflected magic so bringing a blm to a colibri party was suicide, and once blms discovered how broken all-blm parties were, they just never went back to anything else.
Can you do a class overview of the rdm class in ffxi. I can't find one anywhere on UA-cam.
Was a two-handed WAR since NA launch. Ragnarok server. Miss the game, but can't afford the time sink into the game anymore. I haven't played since level cap increase from 75.
I guessed all the job but Warrior. My personal list would be based of my time playing the game.
5. SAM
4. BLM
3. RDM
2. BRD
1. NIN
I was main RDM and then I tried BRD and switched back. I was like a celebrity back then. I had to be /anon for almost of the time because the nonstop resquest for parties
Funny you rag on smn and yet I found it rather useful. Being lone healer from high 20s to mid 30s in bibiki bay with Sam's tanking. Smn party with bard and cor bluffs/mp refresh. To end game with an alliance with two party of smns and a tank party. With dmg smns did and near zero hate was easy for tank to hold hate and allow ease for healers to focus on tanks. Smn could be very useful they just became more dangerous when you got more of them together.
Hmm...I'd go with either white mage or thief. Can't go wrong with the ultimate healer for parties or end game...though soloing got interesting (DD whm, yes please lmao). Still remember having to sneak into The Shrine of Ru'Avitau to raise a party member surrounded by weapons...fun times :D
And thief because...treasure hunter lol...not to mention thieves could pull some sick damage out of their rear ends without drawing hate...and their insane evasion allowed them to survive some seriously nutty situations...the amount of times I heard "How are you still alive?" was ridiculous lol
WHM probably should have earned a slot, I just remember sneaking through so much stuff without one around. They're definitely one of the top jobs out there though. I ALWAYS...wanted to play a soloing DD WHM lol, get that hilarious hauby thing.
THF is one of my favorites but it was alwyas like...1 THF for TH and then the rest can stay behind. Plus Elvaan moving just an inch in the wrong direction and ruining TA.....
I've soloed genbu as a rdm back in the day was a blast did take forever tho but great
PLD for life, yo.
I love my PLD but holy crap did it take a lot of gil and time to make viable. PLD is a gear-based job, and if you ain't rocking Aegis in this day and age, parties just laugh.
How did you get a Top Job list out with out even mentioning BLU!? BLU in all eras ever since ToAU was a solid Job that could be whatever you wanted, and could do that role well. It had great DPS, could be a solid off tank (or even main tank if you geared it right), and was very much a serviceable healer. It had survivability that could rival some of the tankier Jobs, and it's solo ability was through the roof (I remember getting to 40 solo in less time than a party could, fighting off mobs that would wreck a party, in the ToAU era where soloing IT mobs if you weren't a BST was a death scentence)! As for being in parties, it was a powerhouse to be reckoned with. It could open or close just about any skillchain, and even magic burst off of it as well, and for later levels, it could self-skill chain all day every day! In missions and objectives, it's capable of hitting just about every trigger, covering just about every scenario, and pretty much be the master key to open any lock.
BLU had everything you needed to get the job done, and get it done well, and all it asked is you go out and farm your spells and earn all the power it had to offer! Once that is done, it's on player skill and knowledge of what you're going after to know what spells to set!
Also, yes, I know this vid is 2 years old, but that doesn't change how BLU should have been on the list haha!
Totally fair, BLU got robbed. Probably my 75 era stigma because there were so few BLU in TOA that really took it where it could go. Awesome job and one of my strongest now for sure
@@Huntin4GamesChannel I loved playing BLU back then, and once I picked it up after messing around with COR when ToAU hit, I never put it down. Mained the hell outta it forever!
I came back to 11 a couple of years ago after being off the game nearly a decade, and BLU was still as awesome as I remembered it. Got it to 99 and saw the kinds of spells it had access to now, and was floored at how much more powerful it got.
It's a shame how it's XIV version isn't anywhere near as cool as XI's is...
how is Warrior just "average'? in Abyssea Warrior was A MACHINE. had like 90% weaponskill procs and Ukko's Fury before it got nerfed into the ground was BRUTAL. also, let's not forget every leeches favorite Weaponskill FELL CLEAVE. if you can't tell, i was a War main for a long time and i fully admit my bias.
Because MNK and NIN and BLU arguably provided more during Aby, and both before and after Aby it was behind most other dedicated DD jobs, especially SAM.
Personally wouldn't have even put it on the list.
War still reigns supreme for cleaving, only thing that comes close at times is a correctly geared BLU. Sad Ninja has fallen so far from how it used to be. Just a sub job now, and Dnc was better for support. RDM isn't a master of none and in XI can be a jack of all trades but the fact they don't get staff kinda ruins it. But they're amazing, I main it and always have. RDM/NIN was THE best solo configuration in the 75 days if not that, it was /dnc. In this day and age thanks to things like Temper they can easily smack shit around. Depending on the situation you still want one even now, be it for flurry or as you mention Distract and Frazzle 3. Bard is soo broken if only for its buffs and the fact that Lullaby will actually consistantly sleep vs. repose. I cannot say it's better then having a rdm, it's on par with a geo in role useage. They are NOT always invited unfortunately not now at least, if you're not a 4 song...you'll likely get turned away now. There was that awesome update to weaponskills where Bard's could out dps a thf and that was fun.
if I ever try this game, I'm probably going to try RDM and RUN
any tips?
Well for RDM my #1 tip would be to sub BLM. Even though as a career solo RDM until they raised level cap and BST just because stupid, I actually solo-ed anything hard as RDM/WAR purely for the Defender skill.
i was in a linkshell that required having 5 jobs to 75 (i quit when they raised the level cap) but 1 of those 5 had to be blm and or bard. To celebrate our linkshells first relic we had a 64 man dynamis with 1 party of thf rdm whm pld and 10 parties of 5 blm and 1 bard. thf pull everything all blms aga3 everything and kite if you had hate. We had full clears on everyone of the first 6 zones. During this stretch we had the unthinkable for the time 1200 coin dynamis sandy. Blm was broken and we used it to that end.
Oh with this in mind we also gave preference to people who set up drk knight zerg builds when that was still a thing, because everyone loves a 23 second kirin.
Soloing Genbu on RDM was easy, RDMs solo'd Seiryu, Suzaku, Cassie, Vivian, Behemoth, Ash Dragon, Fenrir, Serket, King Arthro, Charybdis, etc, etc, etc, etc...
+r5n waaaait a sec, what's this easy talk. RDM was nuts but I don't remember seeing all this a easily soloed stuff haha
Genbu moved at like half of your movement speed (even without crimson pants), and his spells took forever to cast outside of poisonga3. It was extremely easy to kite him and keep bio2 on him til he died, you could even spam all your MP nuking him with no fear. You just needed antidotes, or you could sub WHM for poisona. It wasn't like Seiryu, where if you got bad luck on bind during hundred fists you died, or Suzaku that you had to straight tank a lot and gigas scream took 3 shadows. Genbu... you could do naked with any subjob, so it kind of makes me sad you would mention him when talking about crazy solos RDMs did. One time I even held Tiamat solo for 45 minutes (he had tons of regen, you couldnt solo him)
It all came down to knowledge, skill, and gear. In the current ilvl 119 era gear is even more important, but it was in the 75 cap days as well. I remember learning to use macro swaps for weapon skills and enfeebling magic along with other things. Knowledge of when spells need mnd or int, what ws modifiers were needed etc. HQ elemental staffs, and other expensive items could drastically increase the success of bind, sleep, and gravity. This allowed Red Mage to dominate strong NM's that weren't immune to them.
I'd like to see any videos of rdm soloing the other sky gods, but behemoth (not the king) and other nm's a party of 6 could easily kill should be killable by rdm if they aren't immune or highly resistant to bind / gravity
Yah, RDM was nuts. Some NIN could solo a few of those. Serket and Charybdis come to mind especially, but RDM could do it a LOT easier.
That redmage that solo'd genbu also solo'd Seiryu and or szaku and he was the blm that solo's operation desert swarm
The mighty Avesta ;)
I was pretty sure it was the same as the desert swarm blm! But I never knew about seiryu and suzaku at the time haha that's nuts
+Huntin 4 Games either of them was Rough though! trying to drop a bind on that 2 hour! oh and I'm sure he solo'd one of the jailers too!
Top 5 jobs, Run,Cor,geo,Nsmn,Nsmn.
Ugg..Ninja, I never loved tanking as that. I loved Paladin though...seriously, rediculously good and fun tank.
it was certainly rough, and a bit of a money sink, but such a unique concept and great for leveling. PLD was a badass though, so amazing in FFXI
I was hoping to see Dancer but I get why it isn't here and respect all of your decisions sir.
Fun topic.... if i were making an all time list for jobs, i would probably rank them in order of their importance. I also won't account for jobs that didn't exist in the 75 era. As such, my top 5 from top to bottom:
1) paladin- simply put, a tank is the most important role in ffxi, and probably most mmos period. At ffxi's core fundamental principles, it was a game that required you work together as a community to achieve anything, and when you did you were going to need someone who could mitigate damage efficiently. Without that, you weren't going to get very far, and paladin was bred for this. Ninja certainly has its place in history, but the way i see it, ninja could tank most things while paladin could tank all things which is why it stood the test of time. Plus, paladin had built in abilities and spells meant to control enmity whereas ninja did not. Even as the game matured and developers balanced jobs making it so some content could be managed without a tank, the most valuable content almost always required a good tank.
2) white mage- now that we have established that tank is the most important job, you need a white mage to keep them alive. Nobody is better at keeping the tank and other party members alive than white mage. They are also the best at removing status ailments. I was tempted to make whm the #1 job, but was reluctant to do so because even though healing magic is the most important magic ingame, i rationalized it by imagining, if you put a whm in front of vrtra he would be dead in 2-3 hits. A paladin could survive a lot longer and heal himself a few times in the process.
3) black mage- now you can worry about dishing damage back out. Blm is the most prolific damage dealer in ffxi, and the weird part is nobody ever mentions it. I think most of us are accustomed to thinking of DDs as well geared frontline melee characters, but in reality blms are easily responsible for the highest dmg % of all dmg ever dealt in ffxi and its been that way since day 1.
4) bard- this guy/gal could make life easier for everyone. They could debuff mobs, buff the party, enhance melees, refresh mages, and more. They could even pull mobs back in the old school xp parties! Just think of the sheer joy you felt when you got invited to a party and realized they had a bard.
5) warrior- i had to give this one a lot of thought because there were a lot of tempting options. I went with war for mainly one reason: provoke. Ironically, warriors are the only job with the provoke job ability, but they aren't the ones who need it. Provoke is one of the most valuable job abilities in game, and without warriors you dont have provoke. Its pretty much the only sub jobs paladins and ninjas will ever use, and pretty darn good for most frontline melee jobs. It also helps that warrior is the most versatile job. You can fine tune them to be pretty devastating melees dd, or serviceable tanks, and they are the only job class that can use all melee class weapons with decent ratings. The sheer utility value of warrior commands a spot in the top 5.
I like it! PLD I struggled with a lot because there are so many things taht like...required one, it was just sort of a weird job sometimes. Very cool list though, I agree with almost all of your points
Yes to WHM being up there. We are always forgotten because we don't make scoreboards (same with pld). But we are doing the core work lol
WAR was somewhat 'required' in abyssea years for the utility of having access to so many red procs, especially in lower man groups, RDM (and PLD) also fell VERY out of favor in abyssea and RDM didnt completely recover compared to its pre-abyssea status.. even now most if not all content can be done without a rdm with a geo in the party
veeery true, totally forgot about procs. Yeah while I do agree that they've adjusted the game to not really require RDM any more at 119, I still think its incredibly powerful and useful to have one around
Too bad RDM's "must have" status got replaced by GEO. Even COR and BRD have been somewhat replaced in low many if you have GEOs.. Have a GEO? Add another one!
RDM recovered it's use again with Haste2/Refresh3, and a good one could pick up in a place where GEO really lacked: adapting. I loved playing RDM during difficult fights because I was always doing something, and the times I spent getting every little bit of enfeebling/healing/nuking/idling out of my gear really felt worthwhile. You had to really be good at making quick decisions, but the adaptability and being able to actually land debuffs on Adoulin/Rhapsodies NMs was key in our group. The RDM adaptability is probably why I could never really get into FFXIV after the first set of coil since it was too much about the song and dance rather than knowing your job.
75 era smn/rdm I could solo IT....lol you know they could solo skillchain/magic burst right?
1. (perfect 100) RDM, 2. (90) BLU, 3. (88) PLD, 4. (85) SAM, 5. (84) BRD
WAR required way too much high end gear to actually perform higher than sam throughout pretty much the entirety of the 75 cap, and DRK performed straight up better in 99% of content if you considered access to stuff like relics and K. club. Both WAR and DRK were outclassed by half the other DD classes during Aby, and has only barely come into the #1 DD position in 119 content.
SAM 100% gets the place because it was way more accessible, had way more use throughout 75 cap (solo SCs, sam/rng, mythic sam, soboro not /rng, off-tank w/ seigan, better solo abilities due to seigan, some of the best 75 era ultimates), extreme viability and near requirement for aby content, Tachi: Shoha was UTTERLY BROKEN AS [redacted] when it first released (Day of shoha's release, I went into WoE on my non-relic, non-max geared SAM, and straight up outdpsed a maxed out relic sam because Shoha was doing 3x the damage of Kaiten.), and is now easily top 3 DDs yet again with Jinpu, and it's also historically been the single best subjob option.
DRK has always required way too high end of gear to be super viable, and at 75 cap was a legit resource drain due to MP management being as bad as it was.
RDM is self-explanatory. If anyone disagrees with RDM being the #1 job in FFXI, you never played FFXI at any point, and definitely never played RDM.
Avesta, enough said.
BLU has been a top job in all content since it's release. If RDM wasn't a launch job, and still overall performed better, it might be a closer argument between RDM and BLU. But BLU is pretty tied with PLD, instead.
PLD is the single best tank in the game, always has been, and doesn't suffer the same issues NIN has. It works universally against anything.
PLD is a GOD TIER solo job, albeit slow. And this has only gotten better and better with each expansion, rather than ever getting worse.
PLD/DNC during WotG was probably the height of the job's solo ability, but it's still absolutely god tier.
PLD can, surprisingly, do a [redacted] stupid amount of damage if you actually gear it for it... just no one really ever does. Access to multiple relics, a god-tier mythic, one of the best current empyreans and one of the best at-release-of-them empyreans, PLD has always had access to stupidly good damage output abilities, it's just that almost no one really ever does anything with it DD-wise, not that it can't. This was especially true back at 75 cap, when Burtgang pld literally 100% of the time outdamaged almost any job's WSes due to how Atonement actually works.
BRD.
BRD is a job no one played correctly for years.
It's by far the most slept on 75 cap job.
BRD/NIN, Mandau or Mythic mainhand, Joyeuse offhand, Byakko's to easily cap haste during an era where 25% gear haste was hard for any job not on byakko's, K.O. for one of the single best WS pieces in the game, Eventually a freaking haste% harp to cap haste even more, Gjallarhorn removed any need to swap instruments so you could melee, access to one of the most easily stacked WS mods in the entire game in the form of their mythic WS due to the stupid amount of chr on brd AF/Relic.
The best party buffs period until Geo came out, and still arguably comparable in many regards for melee parties.
One of very few jobs where you could bring multiple of them to stack even more unique benefits.
Rarely actually needs to even be in the party so can literally exist as an extra stat buff without even taking up a party slot, making 90% of non-instanced encounters even easier.
The job that allowed a level 36 party to compete with a level 75 party for exp/hour gains. (No, I'm not kidding, optimal E.Ron (S) parties compared with bhaflau thickets colibri merit parties back in the day. I'd know. I was the one that MADE E.ron S parties a thing, and got about 50% of the asura population's sub jobs up to level 44 with my 12 hour long brd + cor e ron s parties.)
The worst job is easily BST, as it only has certain specific strats to it's name. RDM solos better. PUP cheeses content better. SMN was always more useful vs things that spammed death or similar.
BLU, THF, DNC, WAR, DRK were always pretty similar for AoE strats, if not straight up better during most updates. (aby blu, anyone?)
RDM is the best job in the game, period. Strongest solo, highest utility, one of the best subjobs.
PLD is the best tank, and thus the best group job. Even today RUN doesn't even come close to comparing as far as actual tanking is concerned.
BLU is BLU. It's RDM 2.0. Different strengths, but easily just as broken.
SAM is, was, and always will be the general best overall damage dealing job in the game. No other job has the consistency SAM has always had.
BRD is BRD. It has a WAY higher cap than anyone ever utilized, but it's party utility is simply busted, and always has been.
A few other jobs come close, but I'd honestly say there's at least a 5 point gap between BRD and the next best job, if you consider the entire game's history. GEO would definitely be up there if only considering post-SoA, probably straight up replacing BRD and surpassing SAM and possibly even PLD. But... most of the game's lifespan didn't have GEO. so... it gets a point reduction for that.
The only other job I'd place over an 80 would maybe be NIN if considering /nin as somehow being part of what makes the job good. Otherwise, it drops down to like a 76.
I say this as someone who used to main NIN, and who now duos almost everything with a relic nin friend.
NIN is nowhere near as good of a job as people think it is. It was simply the fact most healers were falling asleep and sucked at their job that made people think NIN was good.
NIN's only real spotlight was Abyssea. Where yeah, it was busted. There's a reason that despite having REMAs, maxed out gear, maxed out merits, BiS optimal gear sets, etc. etc. for so many top jobs during Aby, that I went as NIN to about 85% of LS events. But... that had honestly nothing to do with NIN being good, and everything to do with Abyssea being stupid. Abyssea removed the downsides of NIN, added a hard requirement for NIN spells and Katana/Great Katana WSes, and somehow had 80% of endgame boss type fights completely and utterly incapable of hitting through or removing shadows. That's not NIN being good. That's Abyssea being dumb. Of course a -DT capped job with hundred fists attack rate, infinite shadows and 4k+ HP is going to be busted. SO WAS MONK. MONK.
My ninja has a bit more then a touch of magic damage.