Giving each job a second spec: would it work?

What exactly would a BLM have as a second spec. Healer makes no sense whatsoever. It is literally the opposite of what Black Magic does. Tank? A BLM tank? Further, if a SCH was dps how would it differentiate itself from a SMN. Either the Fairy would be rather useless or it would share most of a SMNs gameplay minus Dreadwyrm Stance.

What about a NIN? NIN healer doesn't sound like it would work. NIN tank?

This is all ignoring the fact that such an overhaul would require such a massive reworking of the system that it would come at the cost of much in the way of new class features and content. I prefer new over reworked old.

Or make classes useful by adding more class abilities/traits restricted to class. Job trainers give traits and abilities for the job, classes learn them through lvling. Jobs can't access class-only traits and vice versa. Make those new abilities cross-class able. SE just doubled the number of specs and options without having to come up with new jobs.

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Originally Posted by Belhi

What about a NIN? NIN healer doesn't sound like it would work. NIN tank?

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Weren't Ninja evasion tanks a thing in FFXI? I prefer the dual spec system to eventually having 20-30+ classes in the game, as long as they're different (I hear DRK is very similar to other tank classes, so... that doesn't really matter either I guess). But as we've seen Scholar and Summoner, they don't want to do that.

A branching path system would be nice I suppose, at least on paper. It worked okay in other FF games, but it would be tricky to introduce here. First, it would require rebuilding the classes from the ground up which also means if it's to be done it would have to be during the next expansion. You can't make such a major change like that smack in the middle of a current xpac. Second, not every job could have a feasible secondary role that would make sense. For example, it would make sense for Paladin, Warrior, and Death Knight to have a damage dealing branch. It would make zero sense for Bards and Black Mages to have a healing or tanking branch.

We already sort of have the support job system from FFXI in the form of cross-classing. Instead of branching paths I would really like for them to just expand the cross-class system so you can make actual meaningful choices.

Specs are kind of pointless IMHO.

They really are just another class.

Look at WoW. Frost, Fire, and Arcane Mages play completely differently. They might as well be completely different classes. Same with Warlocks.

Specs would work in this game if they add another spell line to your job.

They would have to rework how each jobs handle each role.

An easy solution is to abolish the holy trinity, therefore making way for all kinds of classes and jobs. This would require the game to lean more towards mechanics rather than checkpoints. This would also mean freeing up gears (like what Cabal did) into gears that need certain amount of attribute points to be worn or some other system. But it cannot be connected to tank, healer, and DPS specs. This solution will offer personalization but not for long until people figure out the best optimal builds.

A more difficult approach is to keep the holy trinity and implement skill trees and playstyle. You would have differing skill sets for each tree and different playstyle, including tank DPS, healer Tanks, DPS tanks, even DPS healers. This would really open up for a lot of combination of parties. But it requires extensive amount of time to design and implement, and testing. Then, the balance of each class has to be done as well as changing raids and content and set them to another difficulty.

Implementation of sub-classes are viable only if contents would also revolve around possibilities of sub-classes. People are already running things with 2 PLDs, 2 WAR because of the use of Clemency and Equilibrium. There are already Tank Healers. Or healtanks. As they are already Healer DPS. Savage counts Healer DPS as contributing DPS, that's why DPS checks in Savage are a lot higher. As for DPS sub-classes? You can possibly tank with LAN but to a lesser degree.

In conclusion, job personalization would require time and commitment, as well as mountains of testing. It's hard to cater towards everyone at the same time.

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Originally Posted by KaedrianLiang

Then we would have 0 tanks for the DF and PF, thus all activity ingame grinding to a halt.

"Second specs" would have to come in the form of "same role different style." Drks could have the option to be more raw defense or more lifesteal, Plds could go more steel and shield or more holy capability, like adding damage to the flash effect etc.

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I took it as meaning as DCUO has it set up, where each class has its utility stance and a dps stance. You still queue in as the role you want to play, not as a tank who does more damage. The system has its own bag of worms, balancing a huge one.

I think it would take a hell of a lot more than a litter bit of thought, also dps armor for all classes, plus their utility armor. Pretty much a full rework of the game.

i think the current build of the game will never allow for different class specs.
since we're pretty much being pushed into our roles by the strict holy trinity system and the job skills/equipment there is almost no room for customization.

in 1.0 before jobs like paladin etc. came out there were only classes.the good thing was not only could those classes cross-equip every equipment (that was only possible during the very early stages of the game) besides their designated weapons, they also had way different skills and also could share those skills with other classes.
Take Thaumaturge for example.instead of being a fire/ice/thunder mage, he used to be a Umral/Astral mage (or in other words, a mage using dark and light elemental magic) while the conjurer was the one handling the elemental work.
thaumaturge had a big amount of drain/absord skills, aswell as healing magic and various buffs/debuffs.

there has been alot of things that have been simplified over the course of development from 1.0 alpha to 1.23 to 2.0, making the game easier to adopt by new players, but also harder to give players a feel of costumization.
things like elemental weakness, cross class skilling and the huge amount amount of stat choice also often led to the result that some groups have been forced to overuse a class or job in favor of the easy win.
like multiple monks to zerg down the aurum vale boss, multiple black mages or archers for king mog, or lancer in favor of bigger distance to bosses like ifrit.
jobs now have defined roles and all play alike, making none of them better or worse than others so noone will be excluded from specific content.

as much as i loved the freedom 1.0 gave its players i also sometimes really hated it because most players usually want to go the easy route and therefor missuse the system that was given to them.

if you want to find out more about the old skill system, you can check it out here - http://www.final-fantasy-14.org/abilities/main

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Originally Posted by Belhi

What exactly would a BLM have as a second spec. Healer makes no sense whatsoever. It is literally the opposite of what Black Magic does. Tank? A BLM tank?

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While I generally agree with you, I have tanked as a BLM in fates before. My chocobo was my off tank, and two-three healers buffed us/healed us like they would normal tanks. Warrior is basically a DPS melee tank. BLM would just be the magic version of that. We generate so much enmity anyway that once something locks aggro on us it's pretty difficult for anyone to get it off us. Which is what you want a tank to be able to do.

So the idea in general isn't far-fetched. It's just how would you implement it that becomes the tricky part.