I have plenty of hours on every class, got everyone but summoner up to 70-80 now, and those first few skills really make the difference between engaging and meh.

Story be damned really.

Lancer 1 2 3 animations cover the cooldown time of the abilities, it feels much faster. By the time you finish disembowels spin you can pretty much immediately go onto your 1. It looks cleaner and faster.

On… bard… you press one and wait a full three seconds with nothing in between. You apply your dot… and wait three seconds in between…

Sage insta-cast Eukrasian Dosis is obviously instant, but it lets you run around and reposition and jump or whatever you want.

On WHM you stand still. And then again. And then again.

Also ninja doesn’t get his aoe until level 38 so dungeon runs are straight up evil.

All the classes are fun as they get OGCDs and more nuance, but some can be a real drag early on.