I have recently come back to the game through the 4-day re-introduction event, and picked up my character.
I've got my Lancer up to level 30 now, and have Marauder at level 8. So I just have 7 levels of Marauder to go before I can take the Eye of the Dragon quest.
Is it worthwhile me getting my Lancer up to 50 before taking Dragoon? Are there advantages to having a Lv50 Lancer when working on Dragoon? Such as cross-over abilities.
Or do I level up Dragoon and Lancer as separate jobs, just like all the other jobs.
Best Answer
In Final Fantasy 14 there are base classes and advancement jobs, your base classes include classes such as arcanist, archer, marauder, and lancer just to name a few. Each of these base classes have a job associated with them, with exception to arcanist which has two, summoner and scholar, that require you to level a second base class to 15 to unlock. When you unlock your job you are leveling up your base class since the only thing that says you are your job is the equipable soul you obtain during the job quest. So this means for the oddity that is arcanist leveling up either scholar or summoner also levels up the other job.
Unlocking your job also unlocks more skills specific to your job that your base class will not unlock. By not taking your job when you first can unlock it you're essentially gimping your character since you will not be able to perform your role as well compared to a character with their job, which might be a great hindrance to your party in dungeons and trials and there are many players who get extremely angry over seeing people with no job in dungeons that are level 30+.
Another advantage of having your job is that at level 45 and 50 you get a free set of level 50 class armor specific to your class, so if you are struggling with gear this is a great freebie.
However there is one tiny advantage to going jobless and that is the cross class skills (which may not be a thing anymore come Stormblood). When you are playing as a base class you are able to use any cross class skill on any base class so if you wanted to throw healing skills on a lancer you could if you wanted.