Why Make Jobs useless ?

[Bubeeky]

I've seen every job be useful...it's not SE's fault that the players create unwritten rules that <insert thought-to-be-useless job here> can't be helpful in some way...in low-manning content, my friends and I have included a ton of various jobs, including smn, most of the time to great effect

[Greatguardian]

There has never, in the history of FFXI, been a single Endgame event that was equally accessible and beneficial to every job in the game at the same time. Are some events more accessible to Summoner than others? Definitely. For a long time, they were the ideal DD on Odin and things like ToAU HNMs before they were totally figured out. Does that mean we should be changing Abyssea for them just because they're not necessary? No way.

Also, 4k damage every 45 seconds is not the least bit impressive and pretty much every DD on the planet should be doing tons more damage. It only looks impressive because most pickup DDs are absolute trash, don't grab Cruor buffs, and don't even have Razed Ruins.

[Delsus]

This isnt SE making the jobs useless its the playerbase 90% of the time. SE has visions for what they want jobs to do then the players dont see the same for example a DRG with decent gear and merits can be a good DD however the gear (at 75) was hard to get, they needed things like homam and askar, because not many had this gear (and with the nerfs) people were saying DRG was a bad DD.

Another example of the players making unwritten rules was with NIN, SE intended NIN to be a DD, but the players found out that using both utsusemi ichi and ni and haste (gear and spell), they could keep shadows up easily, there became the unwitten rule than NIN is a tank.

I do feel your pain because my lvl 90s are DRG SCH and COR, which these days arent that great in abyssea, people dont want DRG cos it cant proc much, they feel they dont need COR buffs and its not great at DD, and SCH is the exeption because its SE not giving em c5 that makes people not want em, also they can only proc on T3 and 4 spells naturaly so people think they should just get a BLM for those procs.

In short yes there are problems with SE making some jobs useless but the main problem is the players wanting to do as much as possible with a smaller group, they just think if you are dead weight (not a WAR, SAM, NIN, WHM, BLM) then GTFO and lvl somthing useful, when in SE's eyes all jobs have uses.

[Sparthos]

This isnt SE making the jobs useless its the playerbase 90% of the time. SE has visions for what they want jobs to do then the players dont see the same for example a DRG with decent gear and merits can be a good DD however the gear (at 75) was hard to get, they needed things like homam and askar, because not many had this gear (and with the nerfs) people were saying DRG was a bad DD.

Another example of the players making unwritten rules was with NIN, SE intended NIN to be a DD, but the players found out that using both utsusemi ichi and ni and haste (gear and spell), they could keep shadows up easily, there became the unwitten rule than NIN is a tank.

I do feel your pain because my lvl 90s are DRG SCH and COR, which these days arent that great in abyssea, people dont want DRG cos it cant proc much, they feel they dont need COR buffs and its not great at DD, and SCH is the exeption because its SE not giving em c5 that makes people not want em, also they can only proc on T3 and 4 spells naturaly so people think they should just get a BLM for those procs.

In short yes there are problems with SE making some jobs useless but the main problem is the players wanting to do as much as possible with a smaller group, they just think if you are dead weight (not a WAR, SAM, NIN, WHM, BLM) then GTFO and lvl somthing useful, when in SE's eyes all jobs have uses.

So it's not SEs fault that RDM/SCH can't heal in Abyssea because they inflated HP without giving these classes the tools to properly operate? Theres a reason they gave WHM Cure VI and it was to make the often disputed purist healing class unquestionably the best option.

SE knew exactly what they were doing when Abyssea was designed. The goal was to make an endgame where anyone could win the game and that meant chipping away at the old establishment - which meant BRD/COR/RDM/PLD among other classes had to fall from grace.

Atma were intentionally designed to downplay the importance of buffers, HP levels were inflated to give DD the opportunity to "tank" with proper atmas, azure lights were designed to increase popularity of the often shunned mage classes (BLM, BLU), ruby lights were designed to discourage zerg tactics and amber designed to reward people for using the oft-ignored elemental weaponskills.

SE's vision was to shatter the old idea of endgame and replace it with a world where small groups could dominate and so the proc system was born. The only problem stems from the fact that the system wasn't completely random and had a clear-cut pattern to it. Once items like discernment were released, things became mechanical. You proc, you get drops.

Once the pattern was figured out well....... it's as you see now. WAR/NIN/BLM/BLU/WHM/MNK and you've got the game beat.

On NIN and DRG? Nin wasn't that good of a DD at inception so the playerbase fashioned the job into a tank because well... PLD was the only option back then. In that case, SE had no idea what they wanted to do with NIN cause it was clear from the highly expensive throwing items that the job wasn't supposed to be throwing anything often.

DRG? It's only since Drakesbane that the job has soared into the upper echelons of DD though one could argue that the adjustments did alot of break the stigma of DRG being a subpar DD. In addition, TOAUs piercing weak endgame made DRG a logical option in addition to the 2hander patch.

The problem with DRG is that the class has never been wanted at endgame barring an Angon.

[DebbieGibson]

SE should have made them more useful in abyssea

[Covenant]

what your talking about is the old "elitist" mentality..and your better off playing your summoner and not getting sucked into that mindset. Are you or aren't you having fun playing summoner? That's the only test in my book. Whether or not you have 100%tricked out summoner, or follow the very cookie cutter formula of any job.
I've been in this game since day one of American release and sure I can follow the forums "suggestions" but I have even more fun playing quirky job combos that people tend to overlook whether they are bad or good.
I'm not going for some award for most clone-playing skill. And trolls don't necessarily stay in the forums they play FFXI as well.

[Byrth]

I wouldn't say that the jobs are useless, events just call for certain types of jobs.

SMN, RNG, and COR can't get the time of day in Abyssea, but they're awesome in Voidwatch.
BLU is useful (for grellow proccing and Charged Whisker farming) in Abyssea, but they're pretty shitty in Voidwatch.

There are some jobs that seem to get the lion's share of usefulness (Black Mage, Warrior, White Mage), but that's generally because they're strategically fundamental. Things like having BLMs proc in Abyssea are a little excessive, but the job would have been as unloved there as the COR/RNG/SMN if they hadn't.

If I were to name a job that has no real strategic uses at the moment, it would be Dragoon. Dragoon's strategic usefulness at the moment hinges on Angon and Ryunohige (aka, bring one for a zerg and Ryunohige DRGs will eat your DD-land cake). Outside of those two things, they kinda have no niche.

[Malamasala]

I still think too many people think the only way to be popular is damage. Summoner is perfectly fine with their damage, and they are far behind all other jobs. The thing is that we have wards to make up for it... just that SE still haven't fixed them.

It is such an insult that SE went around and added COR "to have more support jobs" than just BRD, but never fleshed out SMN to be another support job. The signals SE keep sending are "You are not DDs", "You are not support", "You are not melee", and it leaves us that we are apparently white mages with cure IV from sub.

2003 to 2011... and we are still treated as a subjob class by the people who made the game. Might as well rename the job to "healer slave" so nobody gets the wrong impression and thinks we can take a DD slot or anything.

[Alhanelem]

They don't "make jobs useless." The community decides that. Summoner isn't useless, it just overlaps with specialists, which makes them picked only when the specialist isn't avialable; it also doesn't have enough about it that is unique that can be put to good use on a consistent basis.

Also they err too heavily on the side of caution with pet jobs for fear of making them too powerful, as pets automatically have many inherent advantages. PUP eventually did become a pretty decent DD, BST has gotten better, as has DRG, SMN has only gotten sidegrades (e.g. new stuff that's cool but doesn't really increase its power much) and niche powers (e.g. 2hour summons). Splitting BP attacks and non-attacks to seperate timers was nice, but it wasn't enough- SMN is always playing catch up. As much as I disagree with some people about how inferior it is, it really does need some love.

[DebbieGibson]

They don't "make jobs useless."

How do they not? Smn can't do damage like the DDs, smn can't proc like blm and blu and nin, smn can't heal like whm, smn can't support like brd. How is that not useless?

If SE would make smn BP do 50k damage every 45 seconds then people would use them for DD.
If SE would make smn proc like blm then people would use them to proc.
If SE would give smn cure 5 then people would use them to heal.
if SE would give smn TA+30% BP people would use them for buffing.

Unfortunately they have none of that, so how is that the community deciding they're useless?