Originally Posted by
Katchii
Hard to say honestly. In my experience, at max level, yes there's a little less buttons to press, but if you plan on doing roulettes that can put you in content from level 16 to level 60, your bar will be filled to the brim. IMO BLM is the most annoying class to do roulettes with because of how profoundly the rotation and abilities used changes depending on what level you are so unless you want to spend 2-3 minutes (at least) every time you sync to rearrange your bars, they'll be filled up.
Of the jobs I've played more, Bard and Machinist are the ones with the least amount of button bloat though Summoner doesn't feel bad either. That said, if you enjoy playing a class, even if it has button bloat you don't really notice it since you're having fun with it. The one class that I feel it the most is Warrior because it has SO MANY abilities and cooldowns and combos...if you don't play it often and know the stuff frontwards and backwards it's rough to get a handle on but when I was "maining" it when leveling it exclusively it felt great but I can't go back to it on a whim because it's so complex.
As to the button bloat and complexity, I'm fairly sure that SQEX didn't purposely design it to be this way just for the sake of complexity as they've acknowledged that it's a problem. Every MMO with a system like FFXIV has this problem over time as the level cap increases and you add new abilities, and it needs to be addressed when it crops up but to say that it's purposeful to have bloat for the sake of complexity is stretching it a little I think.