How important is it to switch classes?

[jlenoconel]

I'm currently in the Gladiator class right now, but am at the level where I can switch classes? How necessary is it to switch classes within the game?

[Mirage]

Pretty necessary. You need certain abilities from other classes just to get the most out of your main class.

[jlenoconel]

Pretty necessary. You need certain abilities from other classes just to get the most out of your main class.

Really? I thought maybe this was the case, but am not entirely sure what you mean :s I mean, how does it work?

[Mirage]

You can borrow abilities from other classes. Which ones can be borrowed depends on which class wants to borrow it. I think. You don't need to start doing it right away, but expect people to get bitchy if you come to a high level dungeon without things in order.

[jlenoconel]

How many classes should a person have typically? I wouldn't be against doing working on two classes simultaneously, but more than two might be excessive for me.

Thanks for the advice.

[Mirage]

You can probably get away with just two. Perhaps level a third to a certain level. You don't need to max out the other classes to borrow skills from them. You typically don't need all the skills, just a few, and many of them are available without leveling them to the top, or anywhere near the top.

[Loony BoB]

Gladiator can absolutely get away with only borrowing from Marauder. As a Paladin (the job associated with Gladiator), I can say that the only borrowed skills I actively use are all borrowed from Marauder. I do have Raise and Cure (both borrowed from Conjurer), but I never use them in serious situations.

[Tarantio]

You mentioned not being sure about how to switch - and this has ended up really long lol - but hopefully at least some of it will be useful!

Once you hit level 10, you get access to the Armoury System. And basically all you need to do is equip a different class' weapon, and you will switch class. When you switch class, you start back from level 1 as if you had never been another class. So if you have allocated any stats (Strength/Vitality), they do not count on your new class - so you can allocate them more effectively on that class (I.e. for Gladiator go VIT and for LNC go STR).
But there are certain abilities that you can use without being on that class - called cross class abilities. You can tell what these are in the ability screen - they're available for a lot more classes than just GLD & PLD (which is what most of yours will say). And they are usuable at any level. So for example, if you are a level 8 GLD, you get Flash. If you then change weapon and go to a level 1 MRD - you would be able to set Flash as one of your cross class skills - and you do that by going into your Abilities screen.

As a class (Gladiator, Marauder etc), you get access to an extra cross class slot every 5 levels - to a maximum of 10, and can draw from anything. Whereas jobs (Paladin, Warrior etc), only get a maximum of 5, and can only draw from certain ones - Paladin is Marauder and Conjurer?.

The joy of FFXIV is that you can play any and all classes in the game without any penalties (expect perhaps Summoner/Scholar). In fact you get a bonus if you have many classes. And you get to experience from lots of different points of view (Tank/Healer/Damage Dealer). But there aren't many skills that you absolutely require to do your job, but a lot help, and more are expected at level 50.

An absolute minimum of levelling another class will be your requirement for your Job - to unlock Paladin you need to have Gladiator to 30 and Conjurer (I think?) to 15. But you probably don't need to worry about that until getting close to 30.

[Mirage]

And when you are at like level 30, leveling another class to 15 doesn't feel like that much work anyway. Of course, I haven't leveled low levels since v1 so I might not know everything there is about it now.

[The Summoner of Leviathan]

XIVDB - Skill Tree

Useful link for looking at cross class skills available to each class/job.

[jlenoconel]

I think I will wait till I level my current class to at least 30, and then start leveling a new class. I want to get the most out of the class I'm currently in, and level 30 seems like pretty reasonable level to be at.

Thanks again for all the advice.

[o_O]

As a fellow gladiator/paladin, I STRONGLY recommend getting conjurer and marauder levelled up:
Conjurer:

• Cure at level 2
  
  • Very weak, but can get you out of some sticky situations when used with convalescence)
• Protect at level 8
  
  • Equally as good as a scholar's protect, handy when the healer isn't paying attention or when someone needs to be raised in battle, losing the buff in the process. Leave the protect to the white mages if you have them in your party though.
• Raise at level 12
  
  • Limited uses for this, as you can't raise while engaged in battle, but kinda handy if you need to raise the healer after battle or if you spot a random dead person while wandering about.
• Stoneskin at level 34
  
  • Definitely the best CNJ skill you have access to, super handy when you're off tanking and have a spare moment to stoneskin the main tank. Great for when you're tanking anything in general, and have a decent amount of hate established.

Marauder

• Foresight at level 2
  
  • Another super useful skill to have. You don't get the MRD trait which shortens the cooldown time so rampart will still be your go-to cooldown, but it's still another defensive cooldown for your list, and 20% damage mitigation is great to have.
• Bloodbath at level 8
  
  • This one's great too, even though you don't do a lot of damage as GLD/PLD, it's really good if you wanna throw shield oath on or put Fight or Flight on and can take a little bit of strain off of your healers.
• Mercy stroke at level 26
  
  • This will give the enemy a good thump, and can make the last 20% of an enemy's life drain just that little bit faster. It's not as powerful as Spirits Within, and has no added status effect but it is off-GCD, so you might wanna grab this one early on and use it up until you get Spirits Within at level 45.

There are some others, but imo they're pretty useless. I personally have foresight, bloodbath, stoneskin, protect and cure on my cross-class skills and I use them in that order of frequency, the most frequent being foresight.

[jlenoconel]

...won't I? Not sure where they are honestly.

[o_O]

All you need to do is go to the guild headquarters for each class. Conjurer is in Gridania, and Marauder is in Limsa Lominsa. At level 10 you don't need to worry about it just yet though, you'll get missions that allow you to travel between the cities soon.

[jlenoconel]

...but am going to wait till I'm level 30 before I start working on my other class(es). Great advice from everyone though. I've noticed quests in my current class seem to be drying up. Maybe its just me thinking that and I'm not looking enough for new quests.