Final Fantasy 14’s phenomenal Shadowbringers expansion is an unforgettable addition to the main game. Alongside a raft of top-drawer story content and two new jobs, Shadowbringers introduced a vast number of improvements to existing jobs, making many of them more effective, user-friendly, and fun to play.
Many roles have seen small tweaks to potency and skill speed, and a couple have undergone a more substantial rework, while a few of them feel like they need additional rebalancing. With that in mind, let’s rank all the main DPS classes in Final Fantasy 14 5.0 from worst to best based on how fun they are to play, as well as their damage-dealing potential and party utility.
Updated December 4, 2021 by Jerrad Wyche: Final Fantasy 14 continues to be an extreme success with hundreds of gamers booting up the game and diving in every single day. With each new expansion the beloved Final Fantasy MMO releases content that satiates its hungry player base. The Endwalker expansion is the fourth one for the game and brings with it plenty of new updates, changes, and content.
11 Blue Mage
Blue Mage was a fully-fledged job in Final Fantasy 11, but in 14 it is the first in a new line of roles called "limited jobs." As a limited job, its level cap is 50 and it can only take part in duties with other players if the party is pre-formed or undersized, and even then there are restrictions.
Additionally, Blue Mage cannot be used to progress the main scenario, nor can retainers take on this role, but on the plus side, it does earn more experience points for battling in the open world compared to other jobs. Similar to Blue Mage from 11, players must go around and battle specific monsters in order to learn their attacks.
10 Monk
While the other classes have been nicely streamlined in 5.0, the Monk still feels needlessly complex. Rather than a simple 1-2-3 combo, the Monk uses a range of skills that can be chained together in several different orders. Furthermore, to get the most out of its DPS, certain skills need to be executed from the target’s rear and others from the side.
Memorizing all these combos and directional requirements while keeping the Monk’s damage buff and damage-over-time debuff active is a real headache. It may have a high damage output and some decent utility, but Monk has always been a little dull, and it simply isn’t much fun to play in its current state. With Endwalker, the Monk class will see the removal of First Stances. Additional changes include Meditation being learned at level 15 instead of 54, as well as multiple of its attacks being turned into AOE moves with improved damage potency.
9 Ninja
Despite its relatively low damage, Ninja was the golden child of the 4.0 meta thanks to Trick Attack and its defense-denting capability. However, for the skill to be effective, it needs to be used properly, which tends to elude many players. In addition, Mudra techniques require several fast inputs that are all too easy to mess up in the heat of battle.
Thankfully, in a recent live letter, the developers announced there are some adjustments coming to Ninja in a forthcoming patch. Exactly what these changes are, remains to be seen, but we know they will affect the way the Trick Attack and Mudra skills work. Ninjas, upon the release of the Endwalker expansion, will lose the ability Shadowfang, but many of its abilities were streamlined to make the class much easier to use and understand. They've also been given more options for damaging opponents.
8 Samurai
Something is up with the Samurai. Previously, it was the melee equivalent of the Black Mage, the so-called “selfish DPS.” Samurai has zero utility, but with so much damage-dealing potential, nobody really minds. As of Shadowbringers, Samurai feels strangely weak.
Some of the new finishing moves are welcome additions, particularly against single targets, and filling the Kenki gauge is easier now. However, the new Shoha skill ties in with the Meditation mechanic, making it difficult to implement, even under the best battle conditions. We haven’t yet heard of any changes coming to Samurai, but it seems it could benefit from a potency boost. The Samurai class is the DPS class that seems to see the least amount of change within the Endwalker expansion. Outside of minor changes Samurai mains should have little to adjust.
7 Red Mage
Red Mage has been a fun class ever since it launched with the Stormblood expansion. With a mix of black and white magic as well as melee weapon skills, its user-friendly rotation provides a great entry point for new casters. However, of all the magical DPS jobs, the Red Mage’s damage output is by far the weakest.
It also has some questionable utility. The Red Mage’s ability to raise fallen comrades can save a raid party from an impending wipe, and it also has a decent healing spell, but these aren't necessary if everyone’s doing their job. Additionally, the Embolden skill boosts the user’s magical DPS but only buffs the physical DPS of party members which is `utterly useless in a group full of casters then. The big change with the Red Mage class in Endwalker is that it will have a new mechanic pre-level 80 called Mana Stack which is granted for each enchanted weapon skill used. The stack caps at 3, which turns Verthunder into Verflare and Veraero into Verholy.
6 Bard
Previously a favorite class of any ranged DPS player who valued raid synergy, the Bards of the past combined reasonable damage output with a battalion of support skills, including self-buffs, party buffs, and enemy debuffs.
Despite still being fun to play, Shadowbringers has stripped many of the Bard’s support skills away and handed them over to the new Dancer job. Now, it’s more of a simple damage dealer. Thankfully, the developers saw fit to provide the class with a significant base damage increase to make up for its drop-in utility. Overall, Bard is still viable, even for the most difficult, top-tier content. Since the Bard is focused on the benefit of the party and not the individual, it's no surprise that it's getting a new party buff in Endwalker. The Bard will benefit from playing its songs, but outside of that not much is changing.
5 Summoner
Summoner has always felt like a great balance of damage and utility. However, to optimize their DPS, Summoners previously needed to micro-manage the abilities of their pets, rather than leaving them to their own devices, which made it a more difficult class to play to its full potential.
In 5.0, pet instructions are blended seamlessly into the Summoner’s main kit, which has massively simplified its rotation and makes it more effective in battle, even for casual players. The class is still reasonably complex and requires the use of several different mechanics to get the most out of it, but Summoner is more accessible now than it’s ever been. The Summoner class is seeing a big mixup as the list of changes in Endwalker are far too extensive to go over here. In short it lost the use of DoT spells, Fester does direct damage, and Tri-Disaster is now an AoE spell. It seems as if a brand new class was summoned in its place.
4 Dancer
One of Final Fantasy 14’s newest jobs, Dancer is as much a support class as it is a damage dealer. For that reason, its output is the lowest of all the DPS classes. However, if used correctly the party buffs in its toolkit make up for its poor base damage.
By level 70, the Dancer can not only constantly buff the damage of their chosen “dance partner,” but they can also temporarily boost the DPS of the entire group, providing the perfect window of opportunity to unleash their most potent attacks. Add in a party-wide protection buff, a weak but fast healing spell, and some of the best area-of-effect skills of any class, the Dancer is pretty awesome. Dancers saw a neat alteration in Endwalker in which the procs on its spells now rely on same effect combo action grants. This is a change from the single-target and AOE weapon skills it previously operated under.
3 Dragoon
Dragoon has always been the top of the pile when it comes to melee DPS, and not much has changed. Its damage output is superb, and its Battle Litany as well as Dragon’s Eye buffs are invaluable. Shadowbringers has done away with the Dragoon’s Heavy Thrust skill, implementing a base damage buff into its Chaos Thrust combo instead for a slightly smoother rotation.
The Dragoon’s jump skills have been tweaked a little too. Spineshatter Dive no longer provides the Dive Ready buff, making it a little trickier to activate the ultra-powerful finishing move, Nastrond. Despite that, the Dragoon feels as strong as it ever was, if not stronger. With Endwalker, Dragoon's Blood of the Dragon changes to a passive, but still holds its same functions in Life of the Dragon. Players no longer have to worry about activating it numerous times as it will now trigger automatically.
2 Black Mage
The caster equivalent of Samurai, the Black Mage is the only magical DPS class that can’t buff, heal, or resurrect teammates. However, while its melee counterpart seems to be languishing, the Black Mage is now head and shoulders above the rest in terms of raw damage.
The Black Mage’s rotation, which hinges around its Enochian mechanic, is more forgiving now thanks to a couple of useful additions to its toolkit. Throw in new, super-potent spells like Despair and Xenoglossy, which respectively are single-target versions of Flare and Foul, and you’ve essentially got a walking, talking turret, capable of decimating anything in their path. Black Mage has always been a divisive class, with many claiming it to be slow and methodical until the higher levels. With Endwalker, nothing drastic is changing that would affect that thought process, but Enochian does become a passive trait. You'll also be able to now unlock Enhance Freeze at level 58, which helps grant three Umbral Hearts when using Freeze.
1 Machinist
Shaking off its reputation as a dull, clunky “Bard with a gun and about 10 percent of the utility,” Machinist has basically been rebuilt from the ground up for Shadowbringers. Now, it’s not only one of the biggest damage dealers, but it’s an absolute joy to play too.
Some of the new gadgets like Bioblaster and Auto Crossbow are pure fan-service, inspired by the tools used by Edgar Roni Figaro back in Final Fantasy 6. The Heat Gauge and turret mechanics have also undergone a huge overhaul, and upon reaching level 80, Machinists can deploy their very own robot sidekick to fight alongside them. Whether it’s single targets or large packs, the Machinist makes short work of whatever’s in its way. Most importantly, it is outrageous fun. On the surface it may not seem as though the Machinist class isn't changing much with the upcoming release of Endwalker, but that's not entirely true. For starters there's a Spread Shot upgrade at level 82 and the Automaton Queen receives a new finisher at level 86. Everything great about the changes seems to be happening between levels 80 and 90, so plan accordingly.