Comparing All Casters in FFXIV Dawntrail - Job Picking Guide

In this video, I'll tell you all you need to know about each of the four casters in FFXIV Dawntrail - Pictomancer, Summoner, Red Mage and Black Mage - to help you pick one to play. We'll go over some key actions, playstyle, difficulty and quirks that make each job unique. This video is not a tierlist that's ranking the jobs by how strong they are, but simply a comparison of their playstyle.

00:00 Introduction
00:15 Pictomancer
03:45 Summoner
07:20 Sponsor
08:50 Red Mage
12:45 Black Mage

[RatKingRussian]

Leveled blm: "I adore this i am now a BLM main"
Leveled pictomancer : "I am a caster main"

[Gemini_Godhand]

Red Mage. I rezzed too many raid groups to forget that healers OWE ME A DEBT!

[sjaak]

I think it's a shame they went with Solar Bahamut instead of something like adding Shiva, Ramuh and Leviathan for the inbetween phases to switch it up or something.

[icykuikinu]

Quick tip about picto and their paint lines
You can get rid of them super quickly by using all of your subtractive palette casts + Comet in Black + Star prism first, and then you can use the rest of your hammer strikes and rainbow drip for the rest of the burst with ease and no stress of having to sit and cast in them while the boss is doing mechanics.
Conversely, if the boss is doing big mechanics while you're doing your burst, you can delay getting rid of the paint lines a bit by using your hammer strikes first.

Hope this helps all you painters :D

[paysonfox]

I have a random little poem for these casters.
I met a pictomancer, who was a necr-o-mancer...
And when I ask about POD, I found they had the answer!

For the 4 winds, I wondered at ag-en
The broadness of black mages' hat
and from the fire in his staff,
I felt the suns' heat and had to laugh!

And when I looked to raise to peerage
Ver mage of red's pers-on-age
I found Ver Holy spells of light
and zombies dancing in delight
as ver raise ver cured the deathly sight
Of fallen comrades in sa-va-ges!!!

Then when I needed companionship
on this life's all rocky ship
I looked to the dating simulator
from whom there is one non-hater
when you need a companion "Summon her"
So I ran to the local summoner, now not LATER!

[TheArnoldification]

A video like this containing actual good information and isn't just extreme surface level slop mixed with bad jokes is rare, good job

[raarasunai]

I like the black mage changes, especially now that Ice Paradox has been added back in. Fire Paradox being instant, not having RNG on whether it gives Firestarter, thunder not being RNG, and yes, I even like the changes to the mana Regen that ties it to spells instead of timer. I know Black Mage mains absolutely hate that, and I say to each his own. The new changes have made the job friendlier towards casual players, especially giving Umbral Soul within ARR and making it just freeze the Umbral Ice timer

[ridoranalighthouse]

i've gone from being a shield healer main (with physrange being my secondary pick) in endwalker to being a full-time caster main in dawntrail. when pictomancer was revealed as the 2nd new dawntrail job i was intrigued, and when early access started i picked picto up first thing. love at first cast. pictomancer is such a wonderful job with a plethora of cheeky little optimisations that all comes together to make it an incredibly fun job to play!

the beauty of casters is that they truly all shine in different encounters. in valigarmanda ex i've loved playing summoner and red mage for their movement tools, but in zoraal ja ex they're less exciting while picto and blm are just brilliant with their sporadic burst movement. m2s was annoying to plan bursts on as rdm while progging, but it was no problem while playing picto. in m4s on the other hand i have my movement and bursts for rdm in a mental spreadsheet, but with picto i'm still a bit lost despite it being the job i cleared on. the dash is an absolute godsend in (almost) any encounter though, and i've only managed to zoom myself off the arena with it a few times, while on rdm i've sent myself verflipping just one ilm too far a bit more often than i'd like to admit ^^

i have a lot more i could say about casters, but in conclusion i think i've found my true calling in spellslinging <3

[TheSqueezey]

I noticed that your solar bahamut is still default huge size while the other 2 are not. Sorry if you already knew but you have to re-apply the command to decrease its size, too! lot of peeps do not know that :)

[Kyolt_tsu]

As a SMN main who's lvl 100, I didn't know that I could enkindle other party members till just now, I thought it just sent out the raid wide everlasting flight, make sure to read what your abilitys do 😅

[Reohz]

Pictomancer confused the heck out of me until I spent some time on a training dummy.

But once I got it, it is indeed a lot of fun.

[jereboy]

I have played almost solely summoner sice i started when endwalker hit. And i liked its looks and flow, but definitely wanted more and the solar bahamut is not it.

I decided ti branch out and start trying the other casters. Leveled up blm to 70, and just unlocked pct. I definitely think caster is for me even thiugh ive not even unlocked any melee or tanks haha. Red mage seems fun.

I would have loced ti stay smn but they just kinda didnt make it any more fun this expansion

[raishinshah]

I am a RDM main since stormblood. Not because i love the job, but because it is necessary for oh shiet moment during raids. I have lost count of how many raids i have saved by ress-ing healers when both of them f-ed up. Truth be said, RDM playstyle is so boring regarding the need to balance the mana.

[hasseo]

Black mage.
It feels the best for me.

Summoner is ok.
Red mage feels something weird. Its spells doesnt look as impactfull as the others.
Its gimmick to ignore casting time each second spell is nice. But can bring you out of flow sometimes (and was usefull, when i needed to do mass ressurection in the raid, a few days ago)

[Lukaz]

Have gotten Picto, Black Mage, and Summoner to level 100 of the caster DPS so far. Mained Picto for MSQ and love it to death. Summoner is the same as it was in Endwalker. Enjoyed it then and enjoy it now. I just wish that the Demi summons had a bit more uniqueness to them. Black Mage is in quite a sad state. Like, it isn't unplayably bad after some of the patch changes, but it is so sad. Still need to levek Red Mage from 90 to 100, but I don't expect it to have changed much from Endwalker so it should be a good time.

[TheLunarLegend]

Rdm is the most fun to play for me, but blm is my favorite. I like the big numbers

[DeathDragon]

ngl, i think this video showed me how reliant i am on guides. i just spent the last 10 minutes staring at your hotbar in the pictomancer part because i have no idea what i'm doing when it comes to keybinds. i have no regrets, though a good amount of shame.

[icykuikinu]

Regarding summoner tho, I still think tho that Dancer is still easier than Summoner, it is really hard to mess up Dancer, as opposed to using the wrong rotation and summoning ifrit in bad times can easily kill you in quite a lot of high end fights.

Tbh I wish they gave Solar Bahamut and the 3 summons after it, along with phoenix and it's 3 summons, were all casting focused, while Bahamut 1.0 was the movement focused one. Would make the job feel more interesting imo. I still enjoy the job, and I find the hidden lore about Solar Bahamut REALLY cool, but just want to play a *caster* and not a physical ranged haha
(And before you say just okay Picto, I already do and it's my favorite caster, but I started this game as Arcanist and i have a soft spot for it)

[IzzetNilson]

I loved this video.

I most certainly identify as a caster main, though the only job I don't have up is RDM - mostly for personal character flavor. (I don't see my character using rapier, so someone else can have that lol) I think Lunar Bahamet, while cool, does feel really redundant. I initially wasn't thinking I'd play SMN cuz blue eyes white luster dragon felt a little out of place, and would have been happy to have some other summon instead. Mostly, I thought lunar bahamet was supposed to be an upgraded version of regular bahamet, and not some other summon entirely.

But then again, I also roleplay as a dragon worshipper so I am living the best life right now lol

[jeteriksen-gaming]

Who snuck the phys ranged and Melee DPS into this video?