Obscure Classes

[Kazrah]

So I'm gonna pick apart at what the OP's suggestions were and try to bend them in a way that I think would work more for XIV since some jobs in the series don't exactly translate as well (amirite Blue Mage fans).

Mediator- Utilizes linguistics to aid allies and enfeebled enemies. Basically this is a class that uses speeches as spells. We currently have bards and dancers, we got the singing and the dancing, how bout the speaking? The way it could work is you use scrolls as weapons, and your rotation could be chaining speeches together to make powerful statements.

So when I think of a job like this, I sorta see them as the ultimate abjurers (shielding spellcasters) moreso than Scholar. It could also work off a mechanic like a Verse gauge, where one spell grants one Verse and a number of Verses can be used for various stronger spells. It's like Orator from FFT if it made slightly more sense for this game.

Also a bit on the fence about scrolls as weapons, but that's just me. Maybe a massive tome or libram as a weapon and the cast animation being the character holding their hand out as the pages fly across.

Calculator- Wields the numerics of war. Someone who uses math to fight. As lame as math can be I think Calculator could be a powerhouse of a class. It can use an abacus as a weapon and the rotation can vary depending on percentage of HP, MP, and TP of allies and enemies.

So this one has always traditionally been a big fat "no" just because percentage-based heals used to be a thing with Scholar via Lustrate as a "25% of max HP" heal, and was later changed to a flat potency total in Heavensward because it was just too much of a pain to balance and wound up either being far too powerful in circumstances where healing may be limited in some way or far too weak in circumstances where heavier healing was required.

As cool as it is, it's sadly just one of those ideas that just doesn't work outside of FFT without extreme mutilation or getting the Blue Mage treatment.

Evoker- Glorified Summoners. You may be thinking well we already have summomer what more could evoker do? Well it can open up an opportunity to utilize summons for more diverse class options. Bismark for Tank, Unicorn for Healing, Tonberry for DPS, with the evoker class you can have summons that take on roles of main classes.

Setting aside the fact that the word for "Summoner" and "Evoker" in Japanese are nearly the same (both versions translate to "summoner"), this is another idea that just wouldn't work at face value without either getting the Blue Mage treatment or something to more adequately distinguish it from Summoner (translation: it can't use pets unless it's vastly different from how Summoners can use them).

That being said though, Evoker I'd argue is about as close as we'd ever get to a "non-limited Blue Mage", as the "evocation" bit could be bringing out monsters not as pets, but rather as personas with various attacks changing depending on which monster you have "evoked". Unfortunately though, any real attempt to make it multi-role would wind up in the job being limited because of how players would use (or more likely abuse) the system.

Lanista- Soul Sappers. Again essentially glorified Dark Knights but I feel that Lanistas can be heavy users in Drain spells. Osmosis, STR Sap, DEX Draw, and the classic HP Drain Etc. Lanistas can operate as extremely ferocious healers. Drain enemies of needed stats for your party members

The "drain" theme could actually go into a different job entirely, and I could see something like that working like the Archon soul from Rift, where you provide group buffs at the expense of your stats while applying stat drain effects to enemies to regain the stats lost from your group buffs.

As you say though, Lanista as a job really just is a glorified Dark Knight. We also already have role skills that provide stat debuffs, but they have to be kinda bleh in order for them to be balanced.

Chocobo Knight- We have chocobo companions we can fight with. Why not take it a step further? Become a full fledge chocobo militant. Tame Yellow, Black, White, Red, and rare chocobo breeds to take on mainline roles. Combination of a Warrior/Summoner but very Chocobo focused.

As much as I'd REALLY love to play this, I know it would only happen as a limited job and the dev claim would just be an image of a roegadyn on their chocobo standing in front of a mob with a confused character in the foreground of the image with the tagline "where's the mob?" alongside an argument that having such a giant character would be too obscuring in a regular fight. The only way I could see this working as a standard job is if the chocobo was a cooldown and it was turned into the chocobo equivalent of Dragoon in FFXI, which you'd likely agree that it just wouldn't be the job we know and adore.

I'm also going to say something that even sickens me, but it will make sense: Chocobo Knight would be better off as a limited job. I say that because by making it a limited job, it would instead provide a more personal story using your own chocobo, and because you already can't bring your chocobo companion into dungeons, it would allow for building off of mechanics already in place with the chocobo companion system and thus providing a more adequate solo gameplay experience.

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With all of that out of the way, I would love to see jobs that break stereotypes commonly associated with fantasy roles. Psychic is a great example of this as a caster DPS or a healer that isn't quite a traditional spellcaster. Grenadier as a healer, or something like Chemist using a more tech-themed means of providing heals as another example. How Dancer will be implemented is a step in the right direction, but I think this is probably the best way we could get a puppet-themed job (as in not FFXI's Puppetmaster). While I'm curious about Gunbreaker, unless the tank stat changes of Stormblood are reversed, the only tanks we can realistically get are the stereotypical heavy-armored tanks, meaning that we'll likely wind up with more heavy-armored jobs new to the series; that's not a bad thing.

[Fukuro]

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With all of that out of the way, I would love to see jobs that break stereotypes commonly associated with fantasy roles. Psychic is a great example of this as a caster DPS or a healer that isn't quite a traditional spellcaster. Grenadier as a healer, or something like Chemist using a more tech-themed means of providing heals as another example. How Dancer will be implemented is a step in the right direction, but I think this is probably the best way we could get a puppet-themed job (as in not FFXI's Puppetmaster). While I'm curious about Gunbreaker, unless the tank stat changes of Stormblood are reversed, the only tanks we can realistically get are the stereotypical heavy-armored tanks, meaning that we'll likely wind up with more heavy-armored jobs new to the series; that's not a bad thing.

i can't agree more on this. i'd love to have a non magical job like chemist as healer, going so far letting them use daggers or guns as weapons. that would be so nuts!!!!
i'm sure if healers wouldn't be so darn similar to each other, they'd be more popular in general. i don't feel as big of a difference between scholar/astro/whm compared to blm and brd for example.
but i also don't see them doing anything against this in the near future, since they always bring up the same excuses. i know the healer jobs are difficult to balance - but then finally do something about it. they already told us exactly the same in 4.0, and i'll expect them to do the same for 6.0

[Kazrah]

i'm sure if healers wouldn't be so darn similar to each other, they'd be more popular in general. i don't feel as big of a difference between scholar/astro/whm compared to blm and brd for example.

While that is a bit of a faulty comparison given that Black Mage and Bard are two completely different types of DPS, healers ultimately need a particular base kit of spells in order to function as healers in this game. Yes, some things can be changed or tweaked here and there, but they still need to have the basic healing kit or else they tend to fail at their role.

On the other hand, since there won't be a new healer, this may give the job devs a chance to test the waters a bit on what they can and can't do with healers. Any information gained from what they do with healers for 5.0 can go into whatever the next healer will be.

[TThibi]

Would rather the complete dissolution of the class/job system and just make them all into full Jobs, don't even have to unpair the experience, Take archer at 30 the archer class becomes Ranger, and splits from bard as 2 full powered jobs that don't share certain characteristics. Ranger could even become a Limited job so they don't have to balance it for major content and it can be overpowered for fun and enjoyment. Same with Rogue, at 30 it becomes thief, and splits from ninja, also limited and unbalanced. Pugilist = Boxer/Monk, whatever the base class becomes is a limited job strictly for fun and creates a whole new unbalanced and fun division of the game while still leveling alongside the parallel job. For instance at 30 Thaumaturge becomes limited job Sorcerer and regains the full elemental wheel, White mage splits from cleric and cleric becomes Exorcist with a full battery of uncontrolled light aspect magic to burn, Arcanist becomes limited job Elementalist and summons greater summons and elementals.

SE could have so much fun with this idea with Limited jobs allowing them to take off the kid gloves and make these new class jobs redonculously overpowered, but fundamentally separate from traditional group content. Eventually it would be possible for SE to implement the kind of batshit insane hard content they've always wanted to but with the Limited jobs taking point and focus in that content. So you'd have the safe traditional game with balanced content and cooperative groups then the insanely hard and fun content with the unbalanced limited job system in play exclusively.

My list: Main / Limited
Lancer = Dragoon / Judge
Thaumaturge = Blackmage / Sorcerer
Arcanist = Scholar:Summoner / Elementalist
Cleric = Whitemage / Excorcist
Pugilist = Monk / Boxer
Rogue = Ninja / Thief
Archer = Bard / Ranger
Gladiator = Paladin / Champion
Marauder = Warrior / Berserker

[Reimmi]

They specifically said it wouldn't just use chakrams. So expect things like shuriken and boomerangs too

But blitzballs might be a bit of a stretch, unless they release some joke weapons, like a mop for DRG, a baseball bat for WAR/DRK, etc.

I see what you did there.

[Yurenai]

My choices (now that Dancer is almost what we wanted) are Berserker and Mimic.

Berserker would work differently than Monk, in that the natural attacking is automated and rather than chain together abilities, they would have skills that instead affect the upcoming rounds of combat. They could alter they way they fight, rather than simply performing damage abilities. Eventually, they could gain a permanent Haste status and resistances to certain forms of control. For gear they would wear animal hides and fight with clawed gauntlets, and this is different from Monk since it looks better and because I said so.

Mimic is one of my favorite classes in FF and I've been trying to think of how it would work in an MMO setting. Maybe you could gain a few abilities based on the other members of your battle party, or perform the action of the last targeted member, disregarding basic attacks and minor skills/role abilities. Or it might be based on class, so if you targeted a healer and cast Mimic, it would throw out a group heal, or a large single cure to the lowest party member. Targeting a mage would get you a random element spell, and so on. I like the bright, flashy clothing and the masks. Maybe they could use a variety of weapons, or get their own (Bell, Marotte, Scepter, whatever random item might be appropriate).

In case those are lame, I have an idea for a hybrid healer to add another to the game and to make it feel different, like everyone wants. This class would use two-handed hammers and fight alongside the DPS, charging their power with successful attacks. That power could then be expended to heal wounded party members, perhaps building up a personal shield while they fight as well. I see them wearing leather style armor and having some defensive abilities that target members of their party. I think something similar to this would be a great addition since there's really nothing like it in the game currently, and people want something that plays different than regular mage healers.

[WhiteArchmage]

We already got DNC, and so my favorite classes are already in the game (WHM, SCH, BRD & DNC).

That said, I can get behind Psychic since it brings something really new to the game and its animations and powers are really cool.

Templar is another one I'd like to see, but seeing as how it's usually a glorified Paladin with buffs/debuffs instead of outright heals, it'd need to be heavily reworked.

[Fukuro]

While that is a bit of a faulty comparison given that Black Mage and Bard are two completely different types of DPS, healers ultimately need a particular base kit of spells in order to function as healers in this game. Yes, some things can be changed or tweaked here and there, but they still need to have the basic healing kit or else they tend to fail at their role.

Why is this a faulty comparison? Yea they are completly different types of dps, it's exactly that- healer roles are in need for variation - even when u compare the caster dps roles, redmage and black mage feel and play much more different. there are tons of other mmo's doing it already. Maybe rework healers into def/off healers for example? just make them a tiny bit more interesting. the healer roles just feel like a copy past of each other.

[ADVSS]

Why is this a faulty comparison? Yea they are completly different types of dps, it's exactly that- healer roles are in need for variation - even when u compare the caster dps roles, redmage and black mage feel and play much more different. there are tons of other mmo's doing it already. Maybe rework healers into def/off healers for example? just make them a tiny bit more interesting. the healer roles just feel like a copy past of each other.

I mean if all it takes to balance healers is to go "main healer/off healer" just like with tanks, which will probably be what happens. Not even joking. But yeah most definitely yes. One thing before these new changes, was alot of want for a TP based healer, namely chemist in the idea that they didnt have to rely on magic, but TP. Being able to perform as well, but using a different resource. Now that TP will be gone, well IDK. Was a missed opportunity imo

[Kazrah]

Why is this a faulty comparison? Yea they are completly different types of dps, it's exactly that- healer roles are in need for variation - even when u compare the caster dps roles, redmage and black mage feel and play much more different. there are tons of other mmo's doing it already. Maybe rework healers into def/off healers for example? just make them a tiny bit more interesting. the healer roles just feel like a copy past of each other.

DPS need far less mandatory things to be effective at their role. They just need things that do damage or things that briefly make what damage they're doing better. With that, you can get far more variation visually between each DPS role, while having more limited variation across all DPS roles. Ultimately, the end result is at least one damage type in each role: the handgun (red mage, dragoon, dancer in ShB), the machine gun (summoner, monk/ninja, bard), and the shotgun (black mage, samurai, machinist). So trying to compare Black Mage to Bard isn't so much apples-to-apples so much as apples-to-duran in that they're both fruit, but that's all they have in common.

Meanwhile, healers have a lot more things they need to be mandatory like....

a basic single-target heal (Cure, Physic, Benefic)
a basic aoe heal (Medica, Succor, Helios)
a strong single-target heal (Cure 2, Adloquium, Benefic 2)
a strong aoe heal (Medica 2, Indomitability, Aspected Helios)
an offhand heal (Regen, Embrace, Aspected Benefic)
an instant heal (Tetragrammaton, Lustrate, Essential Dignity)
a cheap aoe effect (Asylum, Sacred Soil, Earthly Star)
a basic damage spell (Stone, Ruin/Broil, Malefic)
a secondary damage spell (Aero, Bio/Miasma, Combust)
a basic damage aoe (Holy, Miasma 2, Gravity)
a raise (Raise, Resurrection, Ascend)
an excluse MP generator (Assize, Aetherflow, Ewer card)
a general cooldown (Presence of Mind, Spur, Lightspeed)

a general healing theme (HoTs, shields, alternation) and a supplementary feature (raw healing, extra damage, card system)

Yes, healers are very similar, but they need all those types of spells and abilities in order to function at higher levels. However, you can still get different playstyles, and good healer mains will never play all healers the exact same way despite how much of the healer toolkit is mandatory.