Job Suggestions

[Joxac]

New to the whole forum thing, but was mainly just trying to find a thread to share ideas and suggestions. The support classes feel limited; only 3 healers and i believe 4 tanks. I wanted to share some ideas i had to fill out these roles. Won't go too in depth but I'll summarize the basic mechanics and will discuss further if someone is interested:

Healing Jobs:

Time Mage: "reverse" damage done. For supporting this could also apply to reverting mana amount of a party member, and even high level skills reducing cd of skills of teammates. For buffs, have an aoe skill so that players in the zone get an "echo" which would make every skill they use act like it activated twice, maybe not at full strength for balance. Another idea would be to place a debuff on an enemy so that the amount of damage they take in a certain time frame would be reapplied in full at the end of the duration. For damage, time mages have a history of learning Quake and Meteor for supplemental aoe damage.

Singer/Vocalist: Kind of like a support version of dancer. Would have continuous effects in an aoe; Regen, damage boost, defense boost, debuff clearing, and maybe abilities to weaken and drain enemies for an offensive option.

Tinkerer: Rather than spells, would use skills to use/build objects and machines to aid players. Examples would be like a bot that could hover near a player to continuously heal them, or buff stats. These gadgets would be assigned to certain party members, each player can only have one bot. These things would have either a time limit or their own hp with a high enmity so enemies can destroy them. The class could use tinker tools to actively heal, damage, buff, etc.

Tank Jobs:

Green Mage: Green mages are typically a support job, but if the focus is shifted more on ability to grant buffs and debuffs, they could make an interesting magic based tank. Using spells such as protect and shell, passives that double the effect of buffs that affect them, restore mana from taking damage, having abilities that debuff enemies so they take increased magical or physical damages depending on what fits the party. Green mages are also notorious for being able to use blinding, silencing, and poisoning spells.

Soul Knight: This class would specialize in "stealing" a percentage of an enemies stats; absorbing their soul so to speak. At higher ranks how many enemies you could effect with this would increase, so the more you pull the more stats you gain. Passives so that when an enemy dies near you, you are given a heal based on their total health and a "soul stack" that you can use for high ranking abilities.

So these are just ideas, wanted to see what people thought and maybe catch the eye of someone. Really my biggest concern for 14 is that having so little choices for supporting classes would keep people from attempting to use them, especially newcomers.

[hynaku]

From Final Fantasy Tactics S Vampire and beastmaster.

[HyoMinPark]

AST used to have Time Mage aspects to it in old Celestial Opposition (stunned enemies and extended buffs on self and party) and in Time Dilation and Royal Road. I’d rather see these returned to the job so as it doesn’t feel as much like a WHM as it does now. The Time Mage aspects were very popular with career ASTs, and a lot of people disliked their removal.

DNC is already a support (or as close to a support job as this game will allow, since the support role doesn’t actually exist)—they have damage buffs for a single player and the party, damage mitigation, and healing (Curing Waltz and a skill that enhances healing, Improvisation). Singer would be a bit redundant in that sense. And to make a job that focuses on cleansing debuffs would require the developers to make debuffs in higher-end content actually cleansable...which there’s very few now that can be cleansed via an Esuna.

Dark Knight used to have a “Soul Knight-like” move in Soul Survivor: it would replenish HP and MP of the DRK after they placed it on a boss/mob and defeated it (or the timer on the skill expired—they made that the case in SB). The skill was removed going into ShB. I miss it.

[Shougun]

I actually feel tinkerer could be an interesting way to get Chemist into the game as some sort of engineer. That and mechanical healing, especially high tech healing that isn't just aye I shoot you with me gun pew pew see me heals. Potentially a lot of fun with the visuals like they did with the rework of Machinist (big ol gadgets in your pocket), also I feel it could be fun as an ultimate skill to mount some sort of super support magitek walker platform- allowing them to cast and move while giving them upgraded skills at the same time. Armored Core, Healing Edition lol. Building and mixing things, a gadget master- leaving the job a lot of room for spell choices. If they get into building, like turrets and shield generators, I thought it might be cute if they have a sort of garlean roomba that follows them around and has sockets for these constructions.

Also might be fun to have Garlean's lend us a job then- at least I kind of hope we continue to find decent people and are not going at Garleans like it's time to return the genocide favor (they're people, some of them bad, some of them misguided, some of us that way too), like we've that one fairly amiable guy in ShB who seemed like a crafty cookie. Can of course do chemist concepts through other means (spore balls mixed with reacting agents tossed at players, etc).

Three hopes of my own that I've suggested before:

Transforming Job:

Thread: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-Bayonetta-etc

Ideally inspired by Terra Bradford (FFVI), Vincent (FF7/Dirge), Dante's Devil Trigger (DMC), Harmonixing (Shadow Hearts), but it could be other theme'd like druid's. Just personally like the idea of it being a bit monstrous/magical rather than natural like druids (but being a big chonkin bear is still pretty cool). One might think "why didn't you say morpher?" and mostly because I DO NOT WANT THIS JOB TO BE LIMITED and I think morpher is a prime concept to be limited. I'm okay with a transformation job in this game being limited (there could be a good bit of fun there, and FFXI has done some content like this), but I want a main-able/DF-able transforming job first and foremost. The gimmick being of course the transformations and how that impacts your interactions with the enemy, like you might have a bruiser form that has tanky-ish skills but have a bit longer cooldown making them very temporal on bosses (you could take a hit or two better than most, but you're very far from being a tank) but in trash packs the cooldowns would refresh faster (still not as good as a tank but one of the more impressive non-tank tankers while still keeping decent damage while abilities flowed, when in dangerous open world areas or pulling mass monsters in FATEs then this would be a great form). A ravenous slim form that has you darting across the enemy's backside like you're slice and dicing (Tidus FFX/every anime ever lol). A ranged winged form that's like playing those lock on mech arcade games (baby bahamut flare maker). Perhaps even a mage form that takes your base magics (non-transformed basic spells you'd not use as often) and super sizes them by utilizing void gates to cast spells (create a void orb, cast a spell into it, long cast spell is performed by the orb rather than yourself, release on enemy in big boom in combination with other spells for greater effects). Transformation gameplay is pretty open ended, just important that the job transforms and feels at least a bit different based on the form. That and I think a mechanic that encourages form shifting while fighting would be good, such that after completing the "epic" of each form you get some sort of encouragement to shift (could be anything from a punishment to a buff, like after completing the big move of a form you get a buff that allows you to instantly shift and gain bonus damage for a short period).

Geo-knight:


Can be called geomancer I suppose, but I thought the heavier armor might make it fun to twist the name a little (and give greater distance from the school already built in FFXIV, though I'm not saying SE couldn't take that already existing lore and add a lot more to make it the actual school either). Anyway, I've been thinking it could be fun to have a battle mage wear Dragoon group armor (the heavier DD looking gear) and be heavily inspired by Golbez, Ex-Death, and other super tank mages, perhaps also thinking Sauron from Lord of the Rings (and his huge mace, if SE wants give the knight a bell it could be a giant mace with a bell inside it ).

Now the job can actually be a tank (then should use actual tank gear), but I imagined since we've four tanks now that another tank to be released will be unlikely or a very far time from now lol. There are also a few heavy-ish armor looking enemies in the Geomancer temple dungeon to take some inspiration from, and I feel like the character in the Eden storyline has potential to be a Geo-knight. For core design concepts I thought it would be fun if they wielded great pylons for weapons (holstered at the belt like dual wielding long swords would be, could be in addition to a giant mace- so a large mace in one hand and another free for magic and to toss about their pylons.). These pylons acted as scaffolding for elemental magic (think starcraft pylons but with elemental crystal concepts when infused). You could infuse and place these pylons on the battle field and depending on the elements and some minor changes based on your position (minor positional feature of the job like other melee) effects would change. Like if you infused them with stone and kept them on you then you'd gain higher resistance to damage but you could fire one off like a missile into an enemy and then cause it to start pulsing off tremors in the area. Beyond making their own potential fields you could also create triangles with yourself and them creating your own AoE hellzones.


Love-Craft Mage:

Thread: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ecromancer-Etc

A dark sort of healer inspired by mind flayers, void magic, blood mages, witches, etc. The weapon suggested in the thread was to be a chained whip with a scythe tip and a phylactery like bell at the other end (like Kratos's weapon in God of War). Made this concept when I saw a lot of people upset about the 1 button damage dealing healers, as I was occasionally thinking about an aggressive healer and thought I could mix these concepts together. Mostly just a collection of thoughts on turning a healer on it's head (slightly), like instead of healing an ally you curse the monster which prevents X damage from being performed by that monster. In this way rather than healing 1,000 needles off the player that the cactuar does you'd just make it so the cactuar's 1000 needles did however much you "healed" less. That concept probably needs some oGCD / limitations but that's why I said it's a collection of not-as-usual concepts. Like having a "regen" that works based off certain actions you take, which could become interesting when you consider certain spells may interact with that uniquely like I had an idea of an Eldritch hum (suddenly some other worldly heart beat can be heard) which causes the regen to tick on the beat and yet you're also personally ticking the regen at each action (so your play can uptick/downtick the regen). Another concept being gray health and mixing attacking spells, where players you've cast certain buffs on would gain gray health when damaged (think bloodborne) and you can use your attacking spells to heal that gray health very effectively vs healing them via a standard heal spell which would be less effective. This gray health would create a semi-unique thought for the healer role as you'd have to determine the "type" of healing to apply more so than other healers, but you'd be rewarded by the effectiveness/mp management. Other gimmicks in there were things like damage based pets (they debuff / attack, something a bit different for a healer job), auras, and spells that increase the damage the team does while still being fairly balanced (for example you increasing damage taken by the monster's flank UP TO Y damage, meaning it doesn't imbalance itself based on number of players).

[Kazrah]

So I'll go through each of these one by one:

Time Mage: "reverse" damage done. For supporting this could also apply to reverting mana amount of a party member, and even high level skills reducing cd of skills of teammates. For buffs, have an aoe skill so that players in the zone get an "echo" which would make every skill they use act like it activated twice, maybe not at full strength for balance. Another idea would be to place a debuff on an enemy so that the amount of damage they take in a certain time frame would be reapplied in full at the end of the duration. For damage, time mages have a history of learning Quake and Meteor for supplemental aoe damage.

So the biggest issue for Time Mage is that it can't be a healer because it'd be too close in terms of identity to Astrologian, and it wasn't until recently that Astrologian was separated from a number of things that made it appear more like Time Mage (like cooldown time reduction).

I do like the idea, but it'd make more sense putting Time Mage in as a DPS with support functions like recast (cooldown) time reductions and Undo as a "rewind" healing cooldown. For damage, Meteor is the Black Mage 3-bar Limit Break, but Quake is still available as a basic damage spell and could work around a mechanic operating much like a damage repetition effect.

Singer/Vocalist: Kind of like a support version of dancer. Would have continuous effects in an aoe; Regen, damage boost, defense boost, debuff clearing, and maybe abilities to weaken and drain enemies for an offensive option.

Long ago, I did a concept for something like this. I called it Performer, gave it an escalating healing mechanic (heals increase healing received), and the icing on the cake was having all of its spells as Italian musical terms.

Unfortunately, because of jobs being directed more around personal performance within a group, Dancer is the support version of practically any musical art-themed job we'll see in the game, and likely the absolute limit when it comes to being a job so heavily focused on providing support effects.

Tinkerer: Rather than spells, would use skills to use/build objects and machines to aid players. Examples would be like a bot that could hover near a player to continuously heal them, or buff stats. These gadgets would be assigned to certain party members, each player can only have one bot. These things would have either a time limit or their own hp with a high enmity so enemies can destroy them. The class could use tinker tools to actively heal, damage, buff, etc.

This would be an interesting concept just for the lore that would likely be associated with it. I'd like to see more detail for this job concept once you've played the game for a while longer and have more of an understanding of the game's mechanics.

Green Mage: Green mages are typically a support job, but if the focus is shifted more on ability to grant buffs and debuffs, they could make an interesting magic based tank. Using spells such as protect and shell, passives that double the effect of buffs that affect them, restore mana from taking damage, having abilities that debuff enemies so they take increased magical or physical damages depending on what fits the party. Green mages are also notorious for being able to use blinding, silencing, and poisoning spells.

Because of devs shooting themselves in both feet at the start of Stormblood when it came to tanks, we sadly can't really get tank jobs that aren't heavy-armored soldiers due to how tanking itemization works.

That being said, I really do want to see Green Mage in XIV, but I've accepted the fact that it would be some sort of DPS. Something like a "trickster" job that would teleport behind enemies and smack them with a hammer, apply cooldown-based debuffs, and maybe turn into a bilokin-type mob as a major damage cooldown.

Soul Knight: This class would specialize in "stealing" a percentage of an enemies stats; absorbing their soul so to speak. At higher ranks how many enemies you could effect with this would increase, so the more you pull the more stats you gain. Passives so that when an enemy dies near you, you are given a heal based on their total health and a "soul stack" that you can use for high ranking abilities.

As interesting as this seems, there doesn't really seem like there's any reason as to why it has to be a tank. Furthermore, making it a tank would make it a bit too similar to the themes somewhat associated with Dark Knight.

It does bring to mind the Archon soul from Rift, which revolved around buffing stats of its allies at the expense of lowering its own stats, and then applying debuffs to enemies that buff itself to counteract the penalties from their group buffs. It's a fun idea, but I'm not sure how well that sort of juggling would fare in XIV.


Overall, definitely some cool ideas, but also some that either wouldn't work or would get watered down coming into this game. I'd suggest doing what I do whenever I make a bunch of job concepts and play the game a bit more, try to understand the lore and mechanics a bit more, and then revisiting concepts to root them a little more and make them feel like they could really work in XIV.

As for jobs I'd want to see, definitely Green Mage, some sort of mind-themed job like Psychic or Oracle, and pretty much anything that wasn't introduced with FFXI.

[MOZZYSTAR]

I agree with what some of the others said about class correlations (AST & Time, Soul & DRK), but I also want to point out that Bard is a singer/vocalist. They sing strength/vigor/hope/succor/blahblahblah into their teammates and "change the tides of war" or something with their songs. (And before anyone says "bards play lutes, not sing," bards throughout time have told tales of heroes and other feats through singing, so yes. They sing. XD)

I love the idea of a physical healer using magitek to heal, provide succor, etc., but I think tinkerer sounds too much like a crafting job.

A green mage tank would be super, though! I would love to see that.

[BiddyBatnana]

I'd love to see :

-Puppetmaster ! ♥
-Plant/Nature based mage