New Job Ideas

[Nu-Hir]

How did I prove your point? Dancers are not Thieves or Ninjas. Warriors are not Beastmasters, Dark Knights, or Rangers. Each job, while having overlapping skills, have other skills that define them. They have more than just subtle differences to set them apart. Beast and Necro would be the same job, different damage source.

You cannot argue that since Dancer and Thief share daggers they are the same job. Dancers are front line healers. They can deal damage while healing other players and debuffing the mob. Thieves are front line hate control. They are able to change enmity levels for other players while dealing a consistent amount of damage.

Dancers and Ninjas are not the same as one, again, is a front line healer, while the other is an evasion tank. While it's true that Dancers can also tank, they do it via a different skill set. Ninjas evade damage and cast elemental (damage, not elemental type) magic and debuff mobs via Ninjitsu. Dancers tank by hopefully evading damage, and healing what damage they do take. They also debuff but it's via job abilities and not magic.

Warriors the jacks of all trades. They can fill in for all damage types, whereas a Dark Knight or Ranger (the two examples I used) excel in two different weapons that pertain to their job. Dark Knights have job abilities and spells to compliment their damage, making them a pure damage dealing melee job. Rangers excel in the use of ranged weapons, and have abilities to increase their damage, making them a pure damage dealing ranged job. Warriors have damaging dealing abilities, and damage mitigation abilities. They also have hate control abilities. They can do it all. All three jobs have abilities that separate themselves from each other. They're not clones.

I'm making supposed baseless assumptions because you're not even trying to prove your point that they'd be different from each other. Looking at the above text that I've typed, I've left plenty of words left in my mouth, and I have even more to defend my side. I'm not proving any of your points.

There are several jobs in the game that have overlapping abilities (WHM, RDM, BLM, and SCH especially), but each job has something that separates them from each other, each job has something unique that separates them from other jobs. Even Puppet Master is more than just a Monk with a pet. You still have not answered this question, what would Necromancer have that would separate them from Beast Masters, aside from a different type of damage source?

[Vortex]

Necromancer would do nothing more then just charm and control undead, which are honestly, very few in number and none are even that impressive over the "living" beings you can charm.

Not really my cup of tea

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Necromancer would do nothing more then just charm and control undead, which are honestly, very few in number and none are even that impressive over the "living" beings you can charm.

Not really my cup of tea

It'd be a DRK with the combat ability of a SMN.

[Yawn]

That is not relaly true. Undead are strong versus many types of damage-- especially ghost (which have a ton of HP). Ghosts' high damage resistance could easily be used to solo NMs, should you find a decent-sized group of them. I still think the job is a bit too limited to be a viable job, however.

[Zyeriis]

How did I prove your point? Dancers are not Thieves or Ninjas. Warriors are not Beastmasters, Dark Knights, or Rangers. Each job, while having overlapping skills, have other skills that define them. They have more than just subtle differences to set them apart. Beast and Necro would be the same job, different damage source.

You cannot argue that since Dancer and Thief share daggers they are the same job. Dancers are front line healers. They can deal damage while healing other players and debuffing the mob. Thieves are front line hate control. They are able to change enmity levels for other players while dealing a consistent amount of damage.

Dancers and Ninjas are not the same as one, again, is a front line healer, while the other is an evasion tank. While it's true that Dancers can also tank, they do it via a different skill set. Ninjas evade damage and cast elemental (damage, not elemental type) magic and debuff mobs via Ninjitsu. Dancers tank by hopefully evading damage, and healing what damage they do take. They also debuff but it's via job abilities and not magic.

Warriors the jacks of all trades. They can fill in for all damage types, whereas a Dark Knight or Ranger (the two examples I used) excel in two different weapons that pertain to their job. Dark Knights have job abilities and spells to compliment their damage, making them a pure damage dealing melee job. Rangers excel in the use of ranged weapons, and have abilities to increase their damage, making them a pure damage dealing ranged job. Warriors have damaging dealing abilities, and damage mitigation abilities. They also have hate control abilities. They can do it all. All three jobs have abilities that separate themselves from each other. They're not clones.

I'm making supposed baseless assumptions because you're not even trying to prove your point that they'd be different from each other. Looking at the above text that I've typed, I've left plenty of words left in my mouth, and I have even more to defend my side. I'm not proving any of your points.

There are several jobs in the game that have overlapping abilities (WHM, RDM, BLM, and SCH especially), but each job has something that separates them from each other, each job has something unique that separates them from other jobs. Even Puppet Master is more than just a Monk with a pet. You still have not answered this question, what would Necromancer have that would separate them from Beast Masters, aside from a different type of damage source?

Sigh, is is really so complicated. Every point you just made about the actual differences between the current jobs, is exactly what I was trying to point out to you. Your very argument against Necromancer is that it'll be like Beastmaster, just because it also controls other creatures. Thieves and Dancers both use daggers, does that make them the same? No, they have different abilities to complement their uniqueness, which you clearly know and understand from your post.

You want me to go into specifics? I will but, these are merely ideas. I didn't want to do so because it would make my argument similar to yours under the fact that these are all mere opinions of what Necromancer would be like. You don't have to like the ideas but, at the very least, they are drastically different from Beastmaster. First off, Necromancer would likely be capable of commanding multiple undead creatures but would have far less in terms of commands, as they would mostly be mindless killing machines. Necromancer would also have mp and be magically based. It would have primarily dark skill spells (like a Drk, no argument there but that's not what your main problem seems to be). Bio, Drain, Aspir, etc. I would also like to think it would have some form of dark based raise spell (perhaps giving a buff of some sort but with a longer weakened state following it). It wouldn't be able to control creatures equal to or greater than it's power, perhaps no higher than easy prey, as to not overpower it since it would be capable of controlling multiple monsters.

Need I go into more differences?

[Nu-Hir]

Sigh, is is really so complicated. Every point you just made about the actual differences between the current jobs, is exactly what I was trying to point out to you. Your very argument against Necromancer is that it'll be like Beastmaster, just because it also controls other creatures. Thieves and Dancers both use daggers, does that make them the same? No, they have different abilities to complement their uniqueness, which you clearly know and understand from your post.

Yes, I made it abundantly clear. The difference is, you didn't show anything to support your side. You just said that I was wrong.

You want me to go into specifics? I will but, these are merely ideas. I didn't want to do so because it would make my argument similar to yours under the fact that these are all mere opinions of what Necromancer would be like. You don't have to like the ideas but, at the very least, they are drastically different from Beastmaster. First off, Necromancer would likely be capable of commanding multiple undead creatures but would have far less in terms of commands, as they would mostly be mindless killing machines. Necromancer would also have mp and be magically based. It would have primarily dark skill spells (like a Drk, no argument there but that's not what your main problem seems to be). Bio, Drain, Aspir, etc. I would also like to think it would have some form of dark based raise spell (perhaps giving a buff of some sort but with a longer weakened state following it). It wouldn't be able to control creatures equal to or greater than it's power, perhaps no higher than easy prey, as to not overpower it since it would be capable of controlling multiple monsters.

Need I go into more differences?

So you want to make it less effective than a Beastmaster in terms of mobs it can charm, give it the ability to control more pets than the game allows, and give it similar spells to a Dark Knight, while being not effective, damage was, as one (although I'm going to make an assumption that it will be A+ in Dark Magic Skill). Even if it had a dark based raise, dark based damage spells (Similar to Banish/Holy), this would still be a very sub par Beast Master, sub par Dark Knight, and even a Sub Par Red Mage (Because i"m going to assume you'd want it to debuff mobs similar to a Necromancer in Diablo II).

To make your zombie hordes not game breaking, even with an EP army you'd need to either give them low reanimation time, or low HP. They would need something to balance them out. Kirin could be killed by 18 mobs that were conning Too Weak to him. In either case, you'd either be better served by something with more HP (another PC or a BST pet), or something that might last longer (PUP Automaton with the right Atmas and Attachments, or another PC).

You would have to invent new dark based spells to make them even useful. The spells you listed, along with the Tier 2s for Drain and Aspir, all the sleeps, and Stun just wouldn't be enough. Giving them elemental magic would move them along the line of a gimp Dark Knight with a Pet, and you're trying to differentiate them from another job, aren't you? Maybe give them AoE debuffs, Bioga, Paralyzga, Slowga, Bindga, Bioga, along with AoE Drain and Aspir. You're starting to move them away from Drk and Bst. Give them Dark based damage spells would really help them along, but they'd still be missing an edge over why you'd choose them over a Rdm/Sch or Sch/Rdm (who can AoE the above spells), Dark Knight, or Beast Master.

Now if you move it down to just one pet at a time (like the game allows so they don't have to rewrite code that could potentially give me a Wyvern every 20 minutes, which I'd love), how much HP would you reanimate with? Full life? Half Life? Critical Life? Would they be slowly dying over time, as a shambling corpse would be? How much control would you have over anything other than Sic, as they do have a rotting brain? Which mobs would you be able to reanimate / Charm?

While yes, I will concede that your ideas would make it different than a BST, but why would you want to use it aside from fleeting moments of "I am the Lich King!"? There's no way Squenix would introduce it because your version of it would need to make a complete overhaul of game mechanics in the form of controlling multiple pets and reanimating dead mobs. The addition of spells wouldn't be a problem. Another thing hindering it is that it would be a mash of three different jobs, excelling in neither of their abilities. It would be less effective at damage dealing than a Bst as it could melee along side it's pet. It would be less effective at debuffing than a Rdm or Sch as each would have a larger library of spells to chose from. It would also be less effective overall than a Drk as its spells would be likely limited to a similar selection and a few EP pets wouldn't have the same Accuracy or Attack vs a level 90 Drk against the same mob.

Overall it just begs the question, why?

[Zyeriis]

Yes, I made it abundantly clear. The difference is, you didn't show anything to support your side. You just said that I was wrong.



So you want to make it less effective than a Beastmaster in terms of mobs it can charm, give it the ability to control more pets than the game allows, and give it similar spells to a Dark Knight, while being not effective, damage was, as one (although I'm going to make an assumption that it will be A+ in Dark Magic Skill). Even if it had a dark based raise, dark based damage spells (Similar to Banish/Holy), this would still be a very sub par Beast Master, sub par Dark Knight, and even a Sub Par Red Mage (Because i"m going to assume you'd want it to debuff mobs similar to a Necromancer in Diablo II).

To make your zombie hordes not game breaking, even with an EP army you'd need to either give them low reanimation time, or low HP. They would need something to balance them out. Kirin could be killed by 18 mobs that were conning Too Weak to him. In either case, you'd either be better served by something with more HP (another PC or a BST pet), or something that might last longer (PUP Automaton with the right Atmas and Attachments, or another PC).

You would have to invent new dark based spells to make them even useful. The spells you listed, along with the Tier 2s for Drain and Aspir, all the sleeps, and Stun just wouldn't be enough. Giving them elemental magic would move them along the line of a gimp Dark Knight with a Pet, and you're trying to differentiate them from another job, aren't you? Maybe give them AoE debuffs, Bioga, Paralyzga, Slowga, Bindga, Bioga, along with AoE Drain and Aspir. You're starting to move them away from Drk and Bst. Give them Dark based damage spells would really help them along, but they'd still be missing an edge over why you'd choose them over a Rdm/Sch or Sch/Rdm (who can AoE the above spells), Dark Knight, or Beast Master.

Now if you move it down to just one pet at a time (like the game allows so they don't have to rewrite code that could potentially give me a Wyvern every 20 minutes, which I'd love), how much HP would you reanimate with? Full life? Half Life? Critical Life? Would they be slowly dying over time, as a shambling corpse would be? How much control would you have over anything other than Sic, as they do have a rotting brain? Which mobs would you be able to reanimate / Charm?

While yes, I will concede that your ideas would make it different than a BST, but why would you want to use it aside from fleeting moments of "I am the Lich King!"? There's no way Squenix would introduce it because your version of it would need to make a complete overhaul of game mechanics in the form of controlling multiple pets and reanimating dead mobs. The addition of spells wouldn't be a problem. Another thing hindering it is that it would be a mash of three different jobs, excelling in neither of their abilities. It would be less effective at damage dealing than a Bst as it could melee along side it's pet. It would be less effective at debuffing than a Rdm or Sch as each would have a larger library of spells to chose from. It would also be less effective overall than a Drk as its spells would be likely limited to a similar selection and a few EP pets wouldn't have the same Accuracy or Attack vs a level 90 Drk against the same mob.

Overall it just begs the question, why?

1) No elemental spells.
2) I never specified a number of total mobs. Perhaps I'll dive more into my idea of shared hp and say that for each mob that you summon you lose a % of health that becomes the mob's total hp, thus limiting how many you can have up at any given time by causing an hp down debuff upon you.
3) More Dark spells is a given. Tier 3's and some more variations.
4) As for damage, you're right it wouldn't/shouldn't be able to DD close to a Dark Knight, that's where I came in with the tanking thoughts. I'm talking about a serious third tank not a quasi tank like Dancer. Using his own hp to summon undead creatures and using them as shields (essentially turning his own hp into a shield for the party).
5) The mobs would be summoned (mostly) not charmed. The mobs would be dependent upon the region you are in or something along those lines. There would of course be a more permanent alternative where you would be able to take over something that you kill but the recast on that would be relatively long.
6) As I said before, you wouldn't have much control over their actions, they would merely be pawns rather than the usual relationship of a pet job. They'd act like a Wyvern in terms of attacking (that's all they'd do, unless it was a a "charmed" one from something you killed, then you might have a slight degree of command, perhaps a tp move), they may get a command for it though. This is where I minimize the need for coding overhaul, as they wouldn't really have an AI at all.

I could add more but it's nearing 4am.

[Nu-Hir]

Even with your additional fleshing, the job still seems to be less effective than every other job in the game. Even PUP had advantages over MNK when it was released, not many, but it had some. It would be almost impossible to balance the job without breaking too many mechanics of the game. I personally think that the job would either be too weak to even consider levelling, or too over powered that would cause everyone to level it. It would be just too damn hard to balance it out to a middle ground between the two.

engineer or mathematician.. w/e the dude in ff tactics was that rained hell down with his calculator >_>

Umm... Calculator. The most broken job in that game.

[Zyeriis]

Even with your additional fleshing, the job still seems to be less effective than every other job in the game. Even PUP had advantages over MNK when it was released, not many, but it had some. It would be almost impossible to balance the job without breaking too many mechanics of the game. I personally think that the job would either be too weak to even consider levelling, or too over powered that would cause everyone to level it. It would be just too damn hard to balance it out to a middle ground between the two.



Umm... Calculator. The most broken job in that game.

At the very least you've accepted that can certainly be unique. I would leave the actual balancing to SE. Regardless, it's not even the job I truly want, which is Geomancer. /sigh Now that would actually cause a major overhaul in the coding, which is why I think it was part of the WotG expansion but got scrapped (due to ps2 limitations ).

[Cryptic]

You still have not answered this question, what would Necromancer have that would separate them from Beast Masters, aside from a different type of damage source?

Interesting how you compare the overlap, and yes I agree with what you say. If you leveled a job high enough without a subjob , you would clearly see how unique each job really is without having the use of other jobs. If Necromancer was to come out, i would hope that the necromancer would be magic based [almost like a blm] while being able to charm the undead. That would distinguish enough of a difference between BST and NMR.