Final Fantasy XIV Jobs Tier List

Looking for information about how jobs are performing after the 7.05 patch in Final Fantasy XIV? We’re here to help you decide which job to pick for the upcoming Ultimate, or if you’re new to the game and want to tackle the savage content but are unsure which job to play. We have played every job in BiS gear with an experienced static and can share our expert opinion on the changes that came to every job in Dawntrail.

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We’ll begin by discussing support roles before moving on to the DPS section. We aim to cover all the positive and negative changes, quality of life improvements, and DPS rankings rather than focusing on overall job rotation or abilities. Please note that this FFXIV Dawntrail Meta Tier List reflects the personal opinions of veteran players who have a deep love for this game and possess a high-level understanding of the jobs and game mechanics. For every role, we will use the M4S encounter as a comparable example, along with statistics from fflogs. So, let’s start.

Tanks

The current tank balance is very solid, with no significant disparity in damage output between the top and bottom picks across most percentiles in every fight. This is largely due to the recent Dark Knight and Paladin buffs. Gunbreaker stands out as the strongest in terms of damage, but the other tanks are closely matched depending on composition, kill time, and crit rate. This balance allows players to choose their tank based on defensive and uptime options, as the differences between the tanks are minimal. Overall, the developers have done a great job balancing the tanks. However, there was one rework that didn’t sit well with the community, causing one tank to go down in our FFXIV Job Tier List as it has been left behind despite needing attention.

Warrior (WAR): A-Tier

SE nailed it in this expansion! The Warrior still has the best sustain, and it’s now more fun with the addition of new heavy-hitting abilities for burst damage. This job is very beginner-friendly, with an easy rotation and almost no weaving, making it very comfortable to move the boss across the entire arena without losing dps or clipping GCD. The warrior has the shortest cooldown for their invuln Holmgang, making them perfect in MT in extreme, savage, or ultimate content. They don’t need healing after using their invulnerability because they can fully heal themselves to full HP in 2-3 global cooldowns. However, despite all this good sustain and an easy rotation, there should be some drawbacks. Their damage is the lowest among all tanks, but not by much.

Gunbreaker (GNB): S-Tier

This is a great example of QoL improvements in Dawntrail. Previously, there was a problem with a burst window because we had to save three cartridges for a burst window, and if you don’t have three of them, then your burst window will have a very low impact. But now we have 3 new GCD combo finishers on 100 lvl that don’t require your ammo.

The Gunbreaker playstyle is akin to a DPS role because you often need to weave 2 oGCD abilities between GCDs, which can lead to the common issue of clipping oGCDs. Another downside of this tank is the challenge of moving the boss while needing to weave at the same time. In terms of sustain and party utility, it’s “OK.” Every second GCD of your 1-2-3 combo applies a shield to you, and the 25-second Heart of Corundum defensive oGCD heals you for a good chunk of HP. Overall, this job deals the highest damage among all tanks, but this also comes with a more difficult rotation.

Paladin (PLD): S-Tier

Paladin has always been fantastic but lacked damage. We think that PLD is the most useful progression tank when it comes to utility and survivability. It possesses an extra raid mitigation that no other tank has in the form of Passage of Arms. It also has access to Clemency on demand at the cost of Mana. While using it sacrifices damage and is not something you’d use unless the group is in a recovery situation, it is an incredibly powerful sustain button in those situations and one that no other tank can do without an associated cooldown.

A significant portion of Paladin’s rotation, including half of its burst window, is made up of instant cast abilities, allowing Paladin to safely disengage from the boss with only the loss of auto-attack damage. Paladin can simply line it up with Holy Spirit. It has received a bunch of damage buffs as well, and through a combination of those and its ability to easily deal with disengages, it has placed itself firmly in the second-highest DPS spot within the role, beating out Warrior by just a tiny bit in all but the most perfect runs.

Dark Knight (DRK): B-Tier

Now we’re getting to the sad part! This tank was not great in previous expansions, but at least it was fun and could deal significantly more damage than others. But what about now? We have less weaving, which makes it feel like you’re playing WAR without any sustain. There are questionable abilities still in the game, like “Abyssal Drain,” which can only be used in dungeons. It’s completely useless in any other content and just sits on your hot bar, taking up space. “The Blackest Night” (TBN) still costs mana, while the other three tanks can use their short cd abilities to heal and mitigate damage for free.

Yes, we have good changes, like replacing “plunge” (the gap closer) with non-dps oGCD like Gunbreaker has, but GNB still has its fun weaving aspect. Invulnerability still sucks… You literally need a healer who can babysit you if you use “Living Dead,” and if he doesn’t, well, You’re in the GRAVE! In the end, we have a tank with the defensive utility, unable to heal but dealing the same damage as other tanks. This is only because they are very balanced in terms of damage. But why would you pick DRK when there are three better options available?

Healers

Dawntrail is the perfect example of how you need to balance Healing jobs. The people responsible for healers knew exactly what to do with every single job and didn’t ruin it. We can place all four Healers in the S-Tier, but obviously, healers with a party buff will have more damage than healers without. So, two of them have significantly lower damage and therefore belong to lower positions in our Dawntrail Best Jobs Tier List. Let’s see what each healer can offer.

White Mage (WHM): A-Tier

Let’s start with the most iconic and recognizable job in the Final Fantasy franchise – White Mage. The “Glare-Mage” still does what he did the best in the previous expansion – spam glare while watching your team die slowly and then heal the party to full hp in 2-3 GCDs. The new movement ability is a welcome addition to the kit, but overall, it plays very similarly to before.

The White Mage offers much less damage compared to the other healers, has lower damage reduction and shielding, less tank and spot healing, and less free movement if we only consider the volume of GCDs with that free movement. However, it does have a very simple kit and is a great choice for players who want to focus on pure healing.

Astrologian (AST): S-Tier

The next healer we’ll discuss is the Astrologian. For every expansion, this healer and its card system get reworked. So, it’s no surprise that we have a rework in Dawntrail as well. However, this time around, the job is performing amazingly well, even though it wasn’t that good in patch 7.0. Square Enix listened to the players and made some slight changes that have saved this job.

The AST is the healer with the highest damage among all healers, thanks to its card system and the most powerful movement ability, “Lightspeed,” which now has 2 stacks allowing the use of GCDs without cast for 15 seconds. It’s very powerful in terms of healing single targets or a party. It can handle solo situations, but the gameplay is very intense and challenging compared to other healers. It’s not a beginner-friendly job because you’ll need to weave oGCDs with every GCD.

Scholar (SCH): S-Tier

Moving up to the barrier healers, we will look at what Scholar can bring to the party. The scholar is now the healer with the least available DPS during movement, but there aren’t too many mechanics in this tier that require prolonged running around. If you plan your abilities carefully and use Swiftcast for movement, you can perform very well in almost every mechanic. Scholar’s kit has always been a mix of components that don’t quite fit together perfectly but reward masterful play with high performance.

The SCH is currently the second-highest DPS healer, sitting behind Astro but ahead of the others at high percentiles. Chain Stratagem is still incredibly strong, and “Baneful Impaction” was a lovely addition to the burst window strength, even if it is weaker than the burst potential of all three other healers in terms of what they can output in a short space of time. In summary, it’s a really good job.

Sage (SGE): A-Tier

Let’s talk about Sage. Sage is a valuable asset to your party and is a direct competitor to Scholar. In our opinion, Sage is easier to play, faster to optimize, and learn to a highly efficient level. It possesses tools that can speed up your progression through a raid. However, once you have a level of comfort and knowledge about the fight’s timeline and overall damage contribution with an optimal party, it often falls behind Scholar. SGE brings consistent shielding and a stronger ability to burst heal the raid via “Pneuma”, and no damage cost on “Kerachole” and Ixochole, allowing you to use them regularly without worry. The new addition “Philosophia,” allows you to bridge the gap between Sage and Scholar’s shielding capabilities.

In terms of damage contribution in an optimal scenario, it usually falls in third place, ahead of White Mage but below the others. It also has much more damage-neutral mobility than Scholar. However, when encounters are designed around being clearable consistently and efficiently, the easier or faster job doesn’t equal much in the long term. However, we do believe that Scholar is definitely better. Sage is at the bottom and will stay there, whereas Scholar is at the top.

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Casters

Previously, we only had one Big D*ck Damage caster in our lineup. However, with the release of Dawntrail, everything changed with the introduction of the Pictomancer. Now, we can categorize our casters into two types: selfish DPS turrets and support casters. Without further ado, let’s see what DT has brought us for the caster and where we can place them in our FFXIV Tier List.

Pictomancer (PCT): S-Tier

Let’s talk about the new job, Pictomancer, which was designed to rival Black Mage but has surpassed it in every aspect. Pictomancer is currently the strongest DPS in the game, excelling in every role and earning a spot in the S-Tier meta. Despite its power, it’s simple enough to play and offers an enjoyable and straightforward experience. In comparison to its direct competitor, Black Mage, Pictomancer brings party-wide mitigation and a raid buff.

The most important thing is that Pictomancer is easier to play and perform well with, which is quite surprising. Both of the new Dawntrail job entries are top-tier choices that any raid group would be thrilled to have. What’s most intriguing about Pictomancer is that we haven’t even seen it at full strength yet. Other than a crucial moment during the M4S Phase 2 transition, where it can use two paintings for free, there hasn’t been much downtime in the current content. Pictomancer thrives on downtime, as it can prepare more paintings whenever the boss becomes untargetable. The more this occurs outside of burst windows, the stronger Pictomancer becomes.

Black Mage (BLM): B-Tier

The current state of Black Mage is quite unusual. When Dawntrail was released, it was unbalanced and not worth using. It struggled to surpass other casters, especially those with resurrection abilities and required a lot more effort and resources. This disappointment followed a poorly received job overhaul, which upset dedicated Black Mage players. Now it has gone from being an S tier job to something forgettable.

However, after receiving significant damage buffs and having some beloved spells, like Ice Paradox, reintroduced, BLM is now in a unique and interesting position.

At lower skill levels, its damage is still subpar, if not outright bad. That being said, at higher skill levels where players have mastered the new playstyle and fully utilized the job’s potential, well-played Black Mages can deal very good damage. In high-end gameplay, it currently ranks fourth, trailing behind Pantomancer and the top two melee DPS jobs, but still outperforming the rest. In our opinion, BLM isn’t bad right now, but it feels like it’s just one more buff away from becoming a really strong choice.

Summoner (SMN): C-Tier

The next job we need to discuss is the Summoner. In our opinion, it hasn’t shown much improvement since Endwalker and has become quite boring. Despite any previous gameplay issues, it used to be a solid choice. However, in the current state, there are only two reasons to play SMN: either you really enjoy it, which is perfectly fine, or you’re using it as a crutch. Compared to Red Mage, its direct competitor, Summoner consistently deals the lowest damage among all casters. It also lacks the ability to provide quick successive resurrections or a second raid defensive utility. Its only strength seems to be that it’s easy to play and allows for a lot of movement. Performance-wise, this is the weakest Summoner has been in a long time, and as a result, it ranks at the lower end of our FFXIV Job Tier List.

Red Mage (RDM): A-Tier

The Red Mage has undergone a reverse experience compared to the Summoner. In the previous expansion, it was weak and didn’t have many opportunities to showcase its unique job strengths, making it the worst pick within its role. Despite being harder to master than the Summoner, it did less damage. However, in the current expansion, it does more damage. The value of its ability to raise fallen allies has increased significantly, and the Red Mage is uniquely positioned to chain-cast this ability. It also excels in providing a Magical Barrier and has gained extended movement options thanks to the addition of “Grand Impact”.

Additionally, playing as an RDM is a lot of fun. While it’s easy to play at a basic level, there are hidden layers of interesting optimization for those willing to seek them out. Jobs that offer this level of complexity are more interesting to stick with over time. It’s fair to say that the Red Mage is currently in a solid spot. While it may not be the top choice for damage compared to other casters, it excels in its role and is the best at what it does.

Melee

Moving on to our melee jobs FFXIV Tier List, which offers a strong variety of gameplay and playstyle choices. We also have a new addition to this class – Viper, which immediately became an S tier job and a favorite pick from the player base upon release. Let’s take a look at what Dawntrail can offer in the melee jobs class.

Viper (VPR): S-Tier

It’s fair to say that during the design of the challenges in this raid tier, the encounter design team had a picture of Viper up on the wall next to them the entire time. It feels like every moment that was meant to be difficult for most of the other melee DPS is just another walk in the park for Viper. A big part of this is his ability to stockpile and use three GCDs of melee downtime freely without much loss. This raid tier is full of moments that either force one or two GCDs of downtime every now and then or make you work really hard to keep uptime. VPR just doesn’t really need to worry about that so much and is unique in being able to keep uptime fully and easily. Most jobs can prep maybe one GCD of range there or two at a push, but Viper is just ahead.

Viper is also the top melee DPS in terms of overall damage contribution, though not by a large margin. Monk and Samurai, especially in CR, are very close at times, with Monk even having a higher possible ceiling. But unless you’re like a top-three player on a fantastic run, Viper’s better. Viper is also relatively easy to understand, and it’s usually immediately obvious once you’ve done an encounter once or twice where those optimization points are. Positioning it as what we consider a best-in-class DPS for light-heavyweight, it’s going in the meta for sure because it’s just the best at what it does right now.

Ninja (NIN): B-Tier

Now, moving on to Ninja (NIN). Ninja is one of those jobs that, aside from one or two niche instances, has always been an incredibly desirable pick ever since Heavensward and Stormblood expansions, where it was one of, if not the strongest melee jobs. This was thanks to its game-changing raid buffs and party utility combined with insane damage output, along with the relative ease of recovering from momentary disconnects thanks to “Raiton” and “Shukuchi”.

Unfortunately, right now it’s the weakest melee job in terms of damage, though only by a tiny amount. Dragoon is just slightly ahead, but the difference isn’t huge.

We believe that, as the tier progresses and especially as the expansion grows, NIN will end up pulling ahead, even without any more balance adjustments. This is because it’s such a spiky burst job that it will improve as full parties attain better gear and more groups are able to place it in optimal scenarios. So, Ninja still has a lot of potential moving forward, but he will drop to the B tier for now in patch 7.05 in our Final Fantasy XIV Job Tier List.

Samurai (SAM): A-Tier

Let’s talk about the changes made to the Samurai job in the Dawntrail expansion. First, there were some very underwhelming alterations in patch 7.01. Then, alongside the release of Savage content in 7.05, it got much more sweeping and comprehensive changes – bigger, in fact, than those introduced with the expansion release itself. Now, SAM can perform their follow-up Shoha after every Midare. More than that, you can now stock “Shoha” charges, as it operates on a flat timer rather than being a “use-it-or-lose-it” follow-up. This opens up interesting optimization opportunities and adds moments of downtime management. It’s easy to play at a base level, but it also offers several small optimization opportunities that make it really fun to master.

In terms of damage, SAM currently ranks in the middle of the melee DPS role, making it a great pick and placing it in the A tier in our FFXIV Tier List. Its placement shifts depending on the skill level of the player wielding it. At the high end, it’s typically behind Monk and Viper and occasionally falls below Reaper – though the differences between these jobs are so small that the overall balance is quite good.

Monk (MNK): S-Tier

We have talked about the Monk job multiple times when discussing other jobs, so it makes sense to include it here. The Monk is basically a top-tier performer in almost every aspect. It is currently the second-best melee DPS job in the game and has the highest overall potential, even surpassing Viper. However, the amount of effort required to reach that potential is significantly higher.

Additionally, the Monk offers Mantra, which provides a party-wide AoE heal when combined with “Riddle of Earth”, giving it additional utility. It also has solid disengagement tools, such as “Six-sided Star” and three stacks of Thunderclap, allowing it to move out of melee range for multiple GCDs at a moment’s notice. On top of that, MNK is genuinely fun to play, which made us decide to give it the highest S tier ranking in our FFXIV Jobs Tier List. Right now, MNK is incredibly powerful and holds a top spot in the melee DPS meta.

Dragoon (DRG): B-Tier

Let’s talk about our fifth melee job, Dragoon. It’s definitely not in the best place it’s ever been. It’s funny because we mentioned something similar about Ninja, and the same applies to Dragoon. These two traditionally were S tier in previous expansion melee jobs—known for being super strong and versatile—but have been knocked down a peg in Dawntrail and aren’t as powerful at most levels of play.

Dragoon’s damage isn’t bad, but it ranks slightly lower than Samurai, placing it at fifth among melee DPS and in the A Tier in our Tier List. However, on a good run, Dragoon could easily surpass both Samurai and Reaper. The damage output among these melee jobs is fairly balanced. The issue is that DRG doesn’t offer much beyond its damage. It lacks unique raid mitigation and doesn’t have tools to easily manage disconnects or downtime. As a result, when compared to some of the stronger melee options, DRG can feel like it’s slightly left behind. For now, it’s a solid mid-tier option.

Reaper (RPR): A-Tier

At last, we come to Reaper. Reaper appeared very strong when the expansion was first released, especially before many DPS jobs received 1–3% damage buffs with the launch of Savage content. At that time, it seemed like Reaper was going to be one of, if not the strongest, melee DPS in the game. However, that’s not quite the case anymore. It’s still a very good job, but both Monk and Viper consistently perform better and offer more overall utility. What Reaper does bring to the table, though, is an easy-to-manage rotation, high burst damage, “Arcane Crest” which adds some unique raid utility, and very respectable overall damage output. In our assessment, RPR is considered an A-tier job in our Dawntrail Tier List for Final Fantasy XIV. It’s a strong choice, although not the absolute best.

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Physical Range

And here we are, almost at the end of our Final Fantasy XIV Job Tier List for patch 7.05. The physical ranged DPS role is currently the weakest in the game, lacking a clear identity or any core strengths that set it apart. There’s little to make players want to pick these jobs. People usually have only two opinions on this class: either they love it and enjoy playing it, or they hate it and try to avoid it. So let’s see what we have here for dessert.

Machinist (MCH): C-Tier

We will begin with the Machinist, a selfish version of the physical ranged DPS role in Final Fantasy XIV. Many casual players enjoy playing as Machinist due to its cool appearance and enjoyable gameplay rotation animations, making it a favorite job within the role. However, Machinist only provides a 1% role buff to the party, and other phys ranged DPS jobs can also provide this buff while offering higher damage output and utility. Additionally, Machinist is considered the weakest DPS job in the game, which places it in the C tier in our Tier List for FFXIV.

Bard (BRD): A-Tier

Bard, on the other hand, is currently the best physical ranged DPS. It offers solid personal damage and an utterly insane contribution to raid DPS. The better your group is, the more Bard scales in power, as the party can efficiently capitalize on its powerful damage buffs. So, even though its personal damage is on the lower end due to the physical ranged DPS debuff, you still feel like a valuable asset to the team.

From a gameplay perspective, Bard is still fun to play. Its three distinct songs provide varied gameplay styles, and the micromanagement involved in carrying those songs through downtime phases can be quite engaging. However, outside of some quality-of-life changes and even fiercer burst windows, Bard hasn’t changed much since Endwalker.

That said, Bard can be placed into the A-Tier or slightly lower on the ranking scale in our FF14 Job Tier List. While we feel a bit guilty giving the best-in-class physical ranged job a mid-tier placement, that’s just the unfortunate reality of the role at the moment.

Dancer (DNC): B-Tier

Dancer is the final job in this role and in this Dawntrail Job Tier List, and it’s getting a B-Tier rating. Usually, Dancer feels like one of the strongest jobs in the game because it operates in a symbiotic relationship with the top DPS, assisting them in achieving success and benefiting from increased raid DPS in return. Its ability to perform exceptionally well in 2-minute burst windows, along with the fact that it doesn’t require as much gear to scale effectively, gives it a unique strength.

However, in Dawntrail, DNC isn’t able to reach the same heights as Bard. And while it’s not struggling as much as Machinist, its standing isn’t as high as it’s been in the past. We didn’t spend too long discussing the physical ranged roles because, to be blunt, it hasn’t changed in any meaningful way since at least Shadowbringers – maybe even earlier. Hopefully, we’ll see more improvements in the future.

Conclusion

And remember, there are no good or bad jobs in Final Fantasy XIV. Even if you gather a party of the worst-performing jobs, you can still clear any content, whether it be Savage or Ultimate raid, on any job. While there may be some meta-party compositions for speed kills or higher logs in Savage, for new players and casuals who want to try out Savage or Ultimate, just pick the job that you like the most and that you’re comfortable with. Don’t chase the meta and enjoy the game.

And if you’ve decided on which job you will play, check out our guides from LepreStore for the savage tier AAC Light-Heavyweight:

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