A design exercise for job changes, come 8.0

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Originally Posted by Sinstrel

Would be nice to see an update to the engine or whatever is necessary to facilitate the addition of some physics that would allow the player to use job abilities that affect the environment and terrain.

- Warrior smacking the ground with their axe creating a crater that you can hide in to avoid AoE attacks (Berserker from Hero's Gauntlet duty)

- Sage creating a matrix cage to trap enemies in effectively acting as a crowd control (having a need for crowd control in battle would be cool)

- Dragoon being able to jump in the air and throw lances down at enemies while airborne and unable to be attacked while vertical distance is too high (currently no matter how high up you are any monster can hit you from the ground)

- Black Mage creating void portals on the ground where voidsent can reach out their hands and slow any enemies walking through it (a portal can have a chance to be proc'ed and open up wherever the black mage hit their biggest darkness spell). It would even be cool if those big damage darkness spells had a chance to open a portal and let a voidsent through that auto attacks for a few seconds

- Astrologian creating a time dimension that separates the AST and the target into an alternate timeline for a few seconds (both not visible to other players; similar to WoW's Sub Rogue's Shadowy Duel ability)

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While those ideas are really neat, I feel that they would require a massive overhaul also in the enocunter design to work well... I just don't see them doing something so massive, especially since they just set in this "upgraded" (up to debate...) formula for the fights in 7.2.

That's why I tried to visualize changes that are realistic in the scope that we know how they operate, but also not way too uninspired like everything we got in Dawntrail (and even Endwalker to some extent).

Give healers Something extra to do inbetween the burst of unavoidable damage that they can do in every content.

Not more 'hit this every 2min under raidbuffs' super nukes. Something shorter to juggle (and potentially optimze).

Like most prior incarnations of AST cards.
Or their second DoTs back for SCH and WHM on preferably a non-30s duration (like say 24 or 15).

Give SGE Something more worthwhile to do with addersting

What overhaul?

Yoshi said he was overhauling Viper. He just removed Noxious Gnash.
Yoshi said Pictomancer is gonna get overhauled. He made hammers useless.
Yoshi said he's gonna overhaul Dragoon. They literally removed one cast of Life of the Dragon, and called it a day.

If Yoshi can't be assed to elaborate further for us on what he's planning then his word can go up the same place.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Their lines of thinking included things like Skill Trees, Talents and Ability Points, so they may end up with multiple ways to play, which would be best because then there can be a default setup for casual players and a more complex version for people that want it.

I assume they are aware at this point of the issue of things being too much the same and jobs not bringing anything even slightly unique to the table anymore.

I think they are also aware of the 2 minute burst being unpopular that helped lead to some of these decisions, so they might change that, we will need to see.

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To be fair, that's one way to add depth to the class without changing too much of the overall base game; however, I would actually like to see something like Ascension.

Example:
Archer -> Bard-> "Rangers", they use songs offensively to do damage/buff themselves. -> Burst-oriented class - Mid range
-> "Force Archer" they utilize their songs to buff the party and debuff the enemies. -> far range
-> Beast Master: They use pets in battle -> They use constant dps -> Far range. Some beasts can taunt (does not work on dungeon bosses), but they can CC dungeon mobs: reducing damage, taking extra damage for a few seconds.

Gladiator-> Paladin-> "Battle Masters": Burst-oriented class: close combat with some tanking ability.
-> "Devout": Support: Aura orientated class which buffs allies passively and heals (can have a couple targeted spells but they can channel some burst AOE spells -> They are close combat. Some of the spells can be used either as AOE or high burst heal solo (Clemency)
-> "Guardian": bread and butter Tanks. Close combat. They use the sword and their shield to keep the enemies taunted + do damage. I would love, actually, paladin in general to use their shield a lot more often and part of their dps rotation.

Sorry for the lack of better names. My mind is DnD infested atm :p.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Their lines of thinking included things like Skill Trees, Talents and Ability Points, so they may end up with multiple ways to play, which would be best because then there can be a default setup for casual players and a more complex version for people that want it.

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While the idea is great for single player games and whatnot, where people have the freedom to play how they want without any pushback. Anytime this sort of thing is implemented in a multiplayer setting, once the meta is discovered, anyone not using the "optimal setup" will be locked out of group content by the community from that point forward.

It will be the same problem we had with those "customizable" stat points we once had back in the day, and the same problem we still have with materia today, but on a much larger scale.

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Originally Posted by Shinku_Tachi

While the idea is great for single player games and whatnot, where people have the freedom to play how they want without any pushback. Anytime this sort of thing is implemented in a multiplayer setting, once the meta is discovered, anyone not using the "optimal setup" will be locked out of group content by the community from that point forward.

It will be the same problem we had with those "customizable" stat points we once had back in the day, and the same problem we still have with materia today, but on a much larger scale.

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We already have that now with differences that barely exist, so they might as well say fuck it and try to make things fun.

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Originally Posted by Shinku_Tachi

While the idea is great for single player games and whatnot, where people have the freedom to play how they want without any pushback. Anytime this sort of thing is implemented in a multiplayer setting, once the meta is discovered, anyone not using the "optimal setup" will be locked out of group content by the community from that point forward.

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1. People will not be locked out of group content (source: they are not currently despite having multiple jobs for each role some of which are sub-optimal). Yes, a tiny, tiny, tiny minority, barely on the radar, will lock them out, but most people will just join statics and PFs without issue on their chosen build provided it's viable and people may not even know they're using a certain build until the fights begin.

2. How I see it being is for the more complex build to simply bring back old aspects of a job, such as transforming the "trait" back into a keep-up system like Greased Lightning 4, Blood of the Dragon, Astral Fire and Umbral Ice. It doesn't have to do much, if any, more damage, it just may be more satisfying for a player that doesn't want their job to be "braindead" as many put it. It could also allow them to influence other players in lots of ways. Then the simpler build just does all that automatically. It's a bit like how playing BLM was always a risk in raids because you knew the player was playing on "hardmode" for no reason, but people allowed it to happen since it's their choice ultimately.

Here to rep (ruin for all bar me) Bard with some ideas:
- Makes songs active again, give them 1.5 cast times and Mp costs/drain. Change the main three from abilities to spells then just make it impossible to sing the same song twice if they’re afraid of Minuet spam.
- Warden’s Paean and Minne are gcds with MP cost/drain.
- Return the icon, the legend, Foe’s Requiem
- More support utility. Regen song or Medica-clone direct healing song, movement speed song (maybe make it single target for balance), single target HP shield. Hell give us a Raise song; Bards can’t use Swiftcast or Lucid Dream so it’s not like it’d invalidate RDM/SMN/Healers. Maybe even give us songs that increase the party’s critical hit rate/dhr/damage etc that are upkept manually instead of being a byproduct of your dps rotation.
- More ‘offensive’ Bard actions like Radiant Finale, like maybe adding a DoT effect to Foe Requiem or creating a new song that’s purpose is directly damaging the enemy (kind of like the main three did at one point).
- Empyreal Arrow charges
- Add an effect to Army’s Paeon that adds a walking cast to Burst Shot / turns it into Powerful Shot. The haste effect should (might?) make the cast time more palatable for people who dislike it.
- Add an MP restoration effect to Sidewinder based on DoTs present on the enemy
- Add an MP restoration effect to Heartbreak Shot.
- Make Radiant Finale available after each song rather than every 120s (and scale potency accordingly).
- More harp-bows. Honestly make them all instrument-bows. Final Fantasy Bards use harps as their primary weapons, get it right YoshiP
- Keep Bard’s dps in the garbage where it belongs lol. I think Bard should be as support oriented and dps-lite as humanly possible within FFXIV. And, by dps-lite, I mean in terms of personal output not overall complexity. Honestly it kinda feels in-character to take longer than other jobs to kill stuff during the ‘section off party from each other’ mechanics they’ve been into this expansion. They’re Poets not Hunters lol

I think without fleshing out the whole battle system enough, making jobs more unique and standing out is doomed to failure. Else everything is just about doing damage but "differently". How do you make this differently enough in system devoid of anything else but dodging encounter DDR and visual cues? Even on healing, saw how TOP WhM healing goes? It's glare and dia everywhere, and TOP is probably the hardest piece of pve content in the game right now.

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Originally Posted by Valence

I think without fleshing out the whole battle system enough, making jobs more unique and standing out is doomed to failure. Else everything is just about doing damage but "differently". How do you make this differently enough in system devoid of anything else but dodging encounter DDR and visual cues? Even on healing, saw how TOP WhM healing goes? It's glare and dia everywhere, and TOP is probably the hardest piece of pve content in the game right now.

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It's one of the main reasons why "glare mages" discourse is bad. However, they could split up/add in variance to bring some identity to a job, by making the combat itself more satisfying.

I personally highly enjoy the raw base idea of the fights we have because I enjoy puzzles/riddles, and I enjoy figuring them out. I view them more like a match of tactical Chess. If you choose the correct or best move, you will win the match.

Also, if you pull back a bit to see the bigger picture, I would say you could view them as a "turn-based" approach that was adapted for an MMO.