Deciding Your Job and Race in Final Fantasy XI

When you first start off Final Fantasy XI, you can choose from five different races and six basic jobs. While you have to select from one of the six basic jobs to start off with, you can change at any time without worry of losing your current job level and you can also unlock 14 other "extra" jobs in Final Fantasy XI. For now, we're going to concentrate on what you will be starting with: The Basic Six.

First off, deciding what race you want to be will determine how your stats will roll out for your jobs. Again, there are five classes with no difference between male and female characters stat-wise.

Hume
A human-like race who have average stats. This race is perfect for those who want to be the "Jack of All Trades" as this race is not the worst nor are they the best in any job or situation.
Meant for players who: Wants to experience all jobs on a balanced ground.

Elvaan
A race that resembles elves from other fantasy lore. They lack Mana Points (or MP) but they make up for it with brute strength boosts. While not the most preferred class for mage jobs, they excel in damage dealing jobs.
Meant for players who: Wants to play melee jobs and hit hard while doing so.

Tarutaru
A race that resembles little children. While they may be small, they pack a huge amount of Mana Points and intelligence for nuking. However, they lack the stats to do well on a melee job... but that doesn't mean they can't play them well either.
Meant for players who: Wants to play mage jobs and have a large MP pool to support it.

Mithra (Female Only)
A cat-like race that can only be played as a female. Their main focus are the supportive melee classes that specialize in dexterity and agility. They lack a bit of charisma (for whatever reason) and vitality but can handle melee and mages job just as well as hume. Note that if you pick this race, you will be hit on by every male that plays this game... you have been warned.
Meant for players who: Want to play specialized jobs and want to have something decent to look at on screen for the long periods of time they will be playing this game.

Galka (Male Only)
A large and brute race that can probably punch a train off the tracks if they wanted to. However, don't be confused by their large size: they actually have the second highest strength in the game compared to elvaan. They have a huge lack of MP but they can take hits like a champion with their increased vitality and health points (or HP).
Meant for players who: Wants to be able to take a few more hits and be large and in charge.

While there are some huge racial differences (almost 10 STR difference between Tarutaru and Elvaan for example), for the most part, it will be your play style that will change based on race. So, if you want to play a Tarutaru Samurai (like myself), you'll keep up with an Elvaan Samurai based on your gear and aggressive play style compared to the Elvaan. With that in mind, there are ways to adjust your stats outside of gear such as food items and the merit system. To put it simply, pick whatever suits your play style.

With races out of the way, lets get into the basic six jobs. In Final Fantasy XI, there are six jobs that are initially unlocked for you to pick from. These jobs are the bare basics and while they might not appeal to you, some of these jobs you might want to consider leveling to use them as a support job (or subjob). Also note that you will need to level at least one of these jobs to level 30 to unlock the extra jobs.

Warrior (WAR)
Warrior can use almost any weapon-type in the game and has decent stats for a damage dealing job and even a tank job in certain situations. However, what sets WAR up is that they have some nice abilities that makes it excellent for a subjob and have a lot of options for equipment as a main job. While WAR can equip dual axes with Ninja subjob (Ninja has a Dual Wield trait), with an update to two-handed weapons, Great Axe has been a great option for WAR. Note though: people will expect you to tank at times. Concentrate on being more of a tank being able to take hits rather than a tank that can do a large amount of damage and you should be fine.

Monk (MNK)
Why get an axe or a sword when you can just use your own fists? Monk is the perfect example of a high DPS (damage per second) job where their multiple hit rounds make up the majority of their damage. They have access to some great gear as well if you were to pursue an end game career. Otherwise, the job is mainly focused on dealing damage and sometimes tanking in some situations.

Thief (THF)
Thief is one of the specialized melee classes in the game. While its own melee hits are fairly weak, they can attack really fast. What makes them shine is the ridiculous amounts of damage they can do with Sneak Attack. Stack up Sneak Attack on top of a weapon skill and you got yourself pure damage. However, what really makes THF a great party member is that they can "plant" the hate gained from the damage dealt to a monster onto another party member using Trick Attack, making them great when paired up with a tank. They are highly evasive and can solo rather well at the later levels. Not to mention that they have passive abilities to make item drops more frequently.

White Mage (WHM)
White Mage is your basic healer job. Fairly straight forward and simple yet hard to master as mana point conservation is key to playing the job well. Don't even think about pulling out a club and whacking monsters over the head, they are quite too weak to do so for the most part in any experience point party (XP Party) and you would be quite pressed to do so with all the responsibilities you have in front of you. Thankfully, there are quite a few things you get as a white mage to make your job easier in Final Fantasy XI but remember that a white mage's job first and foremost is to heal and support the party.

Black Mage (BLM)
White Mage is for healing as Black Mage is for causing damage by using elemental magic (or nukes). Nuking in Final Fantasy XI can deal a lot of damage and can be very lethal... to both the monster and the black mage themselves. Because black mages can deal so much damage, it can cause the monster to turn their attention to the black mage and when a black mage gets hit, it gets hit HARD as it lacks a lot of equipment and stats that would allow it to survive a lot of damage to themselves. We will be covering the concept of enmity and hate in Final Fantasy XI in a later article but take note from Stan Lee: "With great power there must also come great responsibility."

Red Mage (RDM)
This is one of my favorite jobs to talk about, mainly because it is a job that is extremely powerful but is also the object of many misconceptions. First of all, the original concept of Red Mage was that it is a job that can do a bit of everything from meleeing to nuking to healing to support. For the most part, yes red mage can do all of those things in Final Fantasy XI. As time went on, red mage has been focused more towards a support and healer job, along with the excellent ability of being able to enfeeble (or debuff) the monster with variable ailments. There are many things a red mage can do and to call it the "jack of trades" jobs right now would be far from the truth as it would imply that it is not a master of any concept, which surely red mage has mastery in a few areas. Note one thing though: meleeing isn't one thing they're great.

Once you decide both your race and your job, you will also need to select a nation of allegiance. This is all purely for starting position and storyline purposes and can be changed under certain conditions if you prefer to move to another nation. There is one advantage you can get though depending on your race and what nation you pick. If you pick the following combinations, you will get the following items.

Hume or Galka in Bastok = Bastokan Ring
Tarutaru or Mithra in Windurst = Windurstian Ring
Elvaan in San d'Oria = San d'Orian Ring

While the stats of these rings are nice for when you start off, these rings will soon be replaced at around level 14. You can also obtain these rings after increasing your nation rank to 3 and purchasing it with conquest points.

But what in the world of Vana'diel are conquest points, nation rank, and so on? They aren't anything you should be worrying about at this very moment if you start the game but in the next post, I'll be covering your leveling journey from 1 to 30. Along with this, I'll be tossing out some shortcuts that will help you along your way, especially with making gil in Final Fantasy XI and some resources to look up for when you need some help.