Which Job, in your opinion, has the biggest identity issue?

Bard/Archer, missing arrows cranks my OCD to the sky.

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Originally Posted by Mostly_Raxus

its one of the most played classes now, the ones happy with it just dont have a reason to come to the forum and scream about it, they to busy playing the game.

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Well now that we know SE's metric for success is activity, SMN is probably a overwhelming success.

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Originally Posted by Mostly_Raxus

its one of the most played classes now, the ones happy with it just dont have a reason to come to the forum and scream about it, they to busy playing the game.

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Man, what a surprise. The class that requires the least braincells to rub together is the most played class, how incredible.

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Originally Posted by Remish

Well now that we know SE's metric for success is activity, SMN is probably a overwhelming success.

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if i sell hats, and a critic says my hats are bad, but they keep selling out, i'm gonna keep making bad hats.

Oh this was just a stealth thread to whine about the SMN rework, I regret looking in here.

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Originally Posted by BaconBits

Man, what a surprise. The class that requires the least braincells to rub together is the most played class, how incredible.

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look out dancer mains,look out MCH mains, look out SAM mains, look out RPR mains, look out healer mains, look out tank mains, a new player approaches.

weird how people like easy classes in greater numbers than harder classes, and yet you try to use this as a reason to look down on them? sorry you lost your raid spot to a class that can out parse you i guess.

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Originally Posted by Mostly_Raxus

if i sell hats, and a critic says my hats are bad, but they keep selling out, i'm gonna keep making bad hats.

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Ironically, this is exactly why so many F2P games remain committed to the lootbox business model.

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

Oh this was just a stealth thread to whine about the SMN rework, I regret looking in here.

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Look at my profile. I'm one of the people who un ironically finds new SMN fun. Braindead, yes, but fun.

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Originally Posted by Aldath

Look at my profile. I'm one of the people who un ironically finds new SMN fun. Braindead, yes, but fun.

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thats the problem, this VERY LOUD minority thinks that easy cant equal fun, they dont understand that some people prefer it..
its generally an ego thing.. early 20s kids that derive their value in life off their parse..
they can hate, but they are a small minority, the people playing for fun and dont care about arbitrary skill caps are the ones that keep the game online, and are the ones that will be catered too first, dont believe me just ask the island sanctuary that got more updates this xpac than any other feature in the game since arr launch.

ff is a series built off of click a box then go make a sandwich before you finish your fight with "tentacle wifu mecha variant" its never been a fast paced skill series, its a slow puzzle solving game that has an intriguing story.

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Originally Posted by Mostly_Raxus

thats the problem, this VERY LOUD minority thinks that easy cant equal fun, they dont understand that some people prefer it..
its generally an ego thing.. early 20s kids that derive their value in life off their parse..
they can hate, but they are a small minority, the people playing for fun and dont care about arbitrary skill caps are the ones that keep the game online, and are the ones that will be catered too first, dont believe me just ask the island sanctuary that got more updates this xpac than any other feature in the game since arr launch.

ff is a series built off of click a box then go make a sandwich before you finish your fight with "tentacle wifu mecha variant" its never been a fast paced skill series, its a slow puzzle solving game that has an intriguing story.

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If it was really all about fun then people wouldn’t care if SMNs dps was terrible, but the fact it does comparable damage (hint it shouldn’t) to rdm is a factor brought up everytime this discussion is brought up

Sorry but you can’t have your cake and eat it too

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Originally Posted by BaconBits

Man, what a surprise. The class that requires the least braincells to rub together is the most played class, how incredible.

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Well there's a bit more to it than that. SMN isn't the most played job in the game for player choice reasons.
Its entirely because of the arbitrary system in place that mandates you have one of each DPS type for an artificial damage boost in your party.
So SMN isn't competing with every other job, its competing with 2 other jobs.
RDM, the worst dps in the game at the moment, and BLM, a clunky yet difficult job thats pretty difficult to do well on, let alone ask someone to flex onto.

SMN is quite literally the path of least resistance for a lot of players

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Originally Posted by Ivtrix

If it was really all about fun then people wouldn’t care if SMNs dps was terrible, but the fact it does comparable damage (hint it shouldn’t) to rdm is a factor brought up everytime this discussion is brought up

Sorry but you can’t have your cake and eat it too

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by who? if you want to scour my post history and tag me where i said smn needs a dmg buff then by all means use that argument against me, but if your trying to take the words of the very crowd i'm criticizing in that reply and state them as my opinion then you have no argument, take your straw-man and go.
also i believe the community as a hole has been asking for RDM buffs all xpax, but as i'm sure your aware the devs fell you exist as a tool to rez dead players and nothing more..
now stop projecting your insecurity on me.

*eats cake with smug satisfaction*

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Originally Posted by Oizen

Well there's a bit more to it than that. SMN isn't the most played job in the game for player choice reasons.
Its entirely because of the arbitrary system in place that mandates you have one of each DPS type for an artificial damage boost in your party.
So SMN isn't competing with every other job, its competing with 2 other jobs.
RDM, the worst dps in the game at the moment, and BLM, a clunky yet difficult job thats pretty difficult to do easily on, let alone ask someone to flex onto.

SMN is quite literally the path of least resistance for a lot of players

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You also get a free healer leveled out of it, a role a lot of people have no interest in, especially nowerdays.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

You also get a free healer leveled out of it, a role a lot of people have no interest in, especially nowerdays.

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i dont know about that, there seem to be more "DPS in need" queues than i've ever seen before here lately..
reguardless to that tho..

i wish they would uncouple scholar from SMN, as it sits your MSQ toon is generally a dps or tank for damage profile, thus SMN will win that fight 9 of 10 time against scholar,
yet scholar is the one healer that doesn't feel like 90% a copy paste of WHM..
its kind of the largest healer learning curve in my opinion, yet most dont even get to have a leveling experience on it.
just food for thought..

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Originally Posted by Oizen

Well there's a bit more to it than that. SMN isn't the most played job in the game for player choice reasons.

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Flavour is also a big factor. It might be why White Mage doesn't get a rework. White Mage, Black Mage, Paladin, Samurai & Summoner will (almost) always have somewhat high player numbers due to players wanting to play as those.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

Its entirely because of the arbitrary system in place that mandates you have one of each DPS type for an artificial damage boost in your party.

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Is there proof of that? I heard the devs want every type of dsp on the team but i didn't hear about that

Dancer. It's a dps class with buff/utility that has minor damage mitigation, minor healing, and minor buffs, none of which do enough to be a real hook. It's ranged and an AOE machine which is nice, but the raw output is super variable thanks to the core mechanics being rng based. The OGCD bursts are nice, if you can set them up, but it's not enough to truly 1:1 keep up with more pure DPS jobs, and the utility not enough to make it feel a fair trade.

And it's basically useless in PVP.

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Originally Posted by Wilhelm_Frost

Dancer. It's a dps class with buff/utility that has minor damage mitigation, minor healing, and minor buffs, none of which do enough to be a real hook. It's ranged and an AOE machine which is nice, but the raw output is super variable thanks to the core mechanics being rng based. The OGCD bursts are nice, if you can set them up, but it's not enough to truly 1:1 keep up with more pure DPS jobs, and the utility not enough to make it feel a fair trade.

And it's basically useless in PVP.

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they should rework it to work like a rhythm game and your rotation needs to be hit in time like that one christmas carol minigame we got a few years ago.

I'm joking of course, of course!!!

....unless!?.....

Gunbreaker 100%. It's the tank that's also there, the one without an identity.

Nobody needs me to explain what a Paladin is, because it's an archetypes that is well-established even outside the FF series. It's a knight that uses the power of light to protect. Generally leaning towards "lawful good", which the job narrative recognizes and sliiightly subverts.

Dark Knights are also well-established outside of FF, but they're more varied and FF puts their own spin on it: they're a good-aligned knight that fights against the oppressive powers of the status quo, and they wield the power of darkness in their quest for unwavering justice. They're sort of the flip side of a Paladin, where Paladins are more hopeful and tend to operate within the establishment, while Dark Knights are more jaded and thus operate outside of the establishment.

Warrior could have just been a dude with an axe, but FF14 provides some great lore on what it means to be a Warrior: they experience a phenomenon known as the Inner Beast, which gives them great destructive power but also makes them a liability if they can't control it. Being a Warrior is about having this overwhelming physical power and the rage to effectively use it, but also finding a sort of balance and inner peace that allows you to channel that power and use it not to destroy, but to protect.

So what does it mean to be a Gunbreaker? I feel like the game has never told me. It's given me the history of Gunbreaker origin, how they fought in a war for a specific purpose, and that's neat, but that's a history, not an identity. If I pick up a Gunblade and put on Dante's coat, I'm not fighting for Bozja. So what does it mean for me to be a Gunbreaker now? As far as I can tell, it just means being a person with a gun that can shoot bullets, and trying to do a protect, but without any substance. And that's disappointing. It's an aesthetic with no soul.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

WAR generates magical barriers and syphons life force from their enemies with a single digit INT score.

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This sounds like it should be how DRK is described, I think something has gone wrong with design here.

I think the bard. Not because I dislike it, but because it is a weird mix between archer and bard. But I understand that a bard-only class may not be possible with the current battle system. probably no one will like to play a non offensive buffer. They would need to dedicate a new role that can give enough support to compensate the lack of DPS. So I guess this is why they decide to make the bard an archer too.

However, that-s is if we take the classic FF jobs. On DnD based games, such Neverwinter Nigths, bard is often a bow user too. So it is not really so weird if we take this into consideration.

But I still like how it is. Just it is weird they decide to mix them. They could give bards DPS skills anyways.

Bard for sure. Half its kit feels redundant or meaningless and its class fantasy flew out the window a long time ago.

Its dots don't even serve a purpose anymore besides some DPS that you don't even notice unless you're logging that sort of thing. In the past, they'd affect how often your songs could proc, so there was a real gameplay enhancing element to using them. Nowadays you just use them for the empty feeling contribution of doing slightly more dps. The way they are now, the dots might as well be removed entirely and simply slip that potency into other skills to make up for it because they feel totally meaningless. And why are there two, but they can both be replenished by Iron Jaws? Why not make Iron Jaws the dot apply button and the replenisher? Like, who even cares at this point. And it's got Sidewinder, which you literally just press when it's up and it does damage and that's it. What a fun class!

Meanwhile, the actual musical elements are like, you tap a button and your allies get a foodbuff basically. And on your end, the "song" manifests as like... once every 3 seconds, you might get a proc that lets you press an additional button (if you're even lucky; one of those songs doesn't even do that, and if you're going on the meta, your funnest song is the one you cut short LOL). This job legit feels disjointed and boring as hell; the only reason I play it is for the aesthetic. Buffing your team should feel good. There should be some good gameplay feeling from being buffed, like you should be able to see it or feel it in your rotation. It shouldn't just be a thing you notice when you check some third party number cruncher later. It's seriously so shitty from the "does this even feel good to play" perspective.

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Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

Gunbreaker 100%. It's the tank that's also there, the one without an identity.

Nobody needs me to explain what a Paladin is, because it's an archetypes that is well-established even outside the FF series. It's a knight that uses the power of light to protect. Generally leaning towards "lawful good", which the job narrative recognizes and sliiightly subverts.
...
So what does it mean to be a Gunbreaker? I feel like the game has never told me. It's given me the history of Gunbreaker origin, how they fought in a war for a specific purpose, and that's neat, but that's a history, not an identity. If I pick up a Gunblade and put on Dante's coat, I'm not fighting for Bozja. So what does it mean for me to be a Gunbreaker now? As far as I can tell, it just means being a person with a gun that can shoot bullets, and trying to do a protect, but without any substance. And that's disappointing. It's an aesthetic with no soul.

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First Paladin's in FFXIV have no connection with 'light', that is things associated with Paladin from outside the game and even most of the FF franchise. All Paladin's are in FFXIV are the Royal Knights that protect the Sultana, nothing more, nothing less. This is why Paladins typically cannot leave Ul'dah and travel as freely as out WoL does. FFXIV just adds the light and magic attacks to make it more inline with what people expect of a Paladin from outside sources, not because of any lore reason from ingame.

However, to then continue onto Gunbreaker, Gunbreakers are the main force behind destroying the enemies frontline and ranged support, going in quickly with their aetheric shields primed from the cartridges in their Gunblade. This is why they have the defensive capabilities they do, to better break through and why they attack quickly, as it is easier to disrupt the front line and make it easier for other units to form a more co-ordinated assault. They are also typically the ones designated as the main protectors of the Queen, the same way Paladin's are the ones protecting the Sultana. So, there is your identity, someone who breaks through enemy lines and quickly destabilises it.

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Originally Posted by OgruMogru

they should rework it to work like a rhythm game and your rotation needs to be hit in time

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"Dance Dance Revolution" - Lv 92 skill: Execute the commands in time to do damage with a potency of 5000 on all enemies within range, gain a 5% dmg buff. If you fail you suffer "stone" for 12 seconds

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Originally Posted by BRVV

"Dance Dance Revolution" - Lv 92 skill: Execute the commands in time to do damage with a potency of 5000 on all enemies within range, gain a 5% dmg buff. If you fail you suffer "stone" for 12 seconds

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hahaha I love this!

The sequence of buttons you have to press could either be synced up to the bgm like Vib Ribbon or vary based on what actions your dance partner takes.

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Originally Posted by Connor

FFXIV’s version of Bard completely misses the mark relative to any other ff, and it’s the only classic ff job to get that kind of treatment.

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I would say there's one other classic FF job that gets that treatment: Rogue, which gets entirely replaced by Ninja halfway into ARR.

I agree RDM needs a buff, what i do not agree with is tearing another class down to get a buff to a personal favorite class. RDM is a unique class and has its own style which is fun to play. I like that I have a rez if needed. Can we please stop the class competition and realize there is always room for improvements on all classes. But the topic of this thread is about identity and I truly believe Bard has that issue more so then many other dps classes.

Join me in the black pill, brothers. The new smn, despite the reasons for its popularity boiling down to "it lets us bypass needing a caster dps", will be seen as a success and all future casters will follow its model. Maybe not blm, we'll see though.

A lot of classes can fit here thanks to pruning.

I'm going with DRK, BRD, MCH.

DRK I don't believe HAS an identity at this point. Or at least, you can't convince me it has one.

BRD and MCH suffer from the same problem: they feel less like their titles and more of a glorified ranger/gunner (respectively) with songs and "gadgets" (read: moar guns) tacked on.

If you want to look at classes that I feel have identity with both playstyles and feel may I point you to the PvP incarnations of the classes?

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Originally Posted by SieyaM

This sounds like it should be how DRK is described, I think something has gone wrong with design here.

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The Dev's blatant favortism of WAR, and the WAR playerbase's endless screeching basically lead to it being the omni-job of all content and the tank thats the best at literally everything, while having access to literally everything.
If it was actually designed like WAR players want to avoid homogenization we would have to remove a looot of skills from WAR to even the playing field.

Enhanced Equilibrium gave WAR a heal over time effect, when that was previously GNB's thing with Aurora
Hell you could argue Equilibrium is just Clemeancy except good because its a no cost ogcd
The less we say about PLD being the holy magic tank, losing in party healing to WAR's Nascent and Shake it Off + Overtime, the better
Bloodwhetting got a personal shield on it, when that was previously DRK's thing with TBN
DRK was the first tank to get a gap closer, yet now WAR is the one with 3 (debatably 4) gap closers compared to DRK's 2 and completely lackluster trait in Enhanced Unmend.

Its less of a "lets not homogenize the tanks" thing and more of a "WAR should literally be the best tank at basically everything" problem.

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Originally Posted by Mikey_R

All Paladin's are in FFXIV are the Royal Knights that protect the Sultana, nothing more, nothing less.

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You're talking about the Sultansworn, which is a specific subset of Paladins. In addition to them, there are also so-called "free Paladins" who don't answer to the Sultana, which is what the Warrior of Light is, as well as Solkzagyl.

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Originally Posted by Mikey_R

First Paladin's in FFXIV have no connection with 'light', that is things associated with Paladin from outside the game and even most of the FF franchise.

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I didn't say they had a special connection with the light, just that they use it. And they clearly do, with their numerous attacks with the name Holy in them that do shiny light stuff.

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Originally Posted by Mikey_R

FFXIV just adds the light and magic attacks to make it more inline with what people expect of a Paladin from outside sources, not because of any lore reason from ingame.

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With respect, I don't understand what point you're trying to make? That's the benefit of using a pre-existing archetype: you don't have to explain every last detail, because people already get it. You say the word "Paladin", I already know what you mean, that's an idea that's been around for hundreds of years and in the fantasy genre for dozens. You don't get that same pass when you make up an entirely new class that nobody has ever seen before. You say the word "Gunbreaker", well, now you have some explaining to do because that's never been done before.

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Originally Posted by Mikey_R

So, there is your identity, someone who breaks through enemy lines and quickly destabilises it.

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Not only does that sound like a wet napkin of an identity, but you've just described something that the player never does as a Gunbreaker, at least not more than any other tank, and in my opinion not more than any healer either.

BLU is a bad one for identity. I lost all interest in it when it gave up its traditional playstyle of 'I do weird things with enemy stats and levels and can access enemy-only debuffs,' and moved to 'I dump a bunch of cooldowns inside a burst-window like other jobs except I get to use boss animations instead (they still just do regular damage)'.

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Originally Posted by Wilhelm_Frost

Dancer. It's a dps class with buff/utility that has minor damage mitigation, minor healing, and minor buffs, none of which do enough to be a real hook.

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It's probably an unpopular opinion but I'll second Dancer, because I find it to have no coherent class fantasy.

I've never been inspired to hit harder or to take less damage by knowing that someone is dancing kinda near me. I have been mesmerized by watching a dance. Indeed I feel like taking your eyes off the enemy to watch a dancer is what gets you killed. So I can't access 14!DNC's apparent class fantasy of 'my hot body and twirly movements will motivate my allies (who are supposed to be looking at the enemy and not me) to fight harder'.

In other FF games, my interpretation is the supported one -- Dances are largely about distracting and draining fighting ability from the enemies watching the Dancer, with a few big damage hits thrown in. Some games have healing abilities on Dancers, but in many of those, it's through blending with another job. Mog is a "Dancer" who mostly just uses Geomancy. Penelo is (eventually) a "Dancer" but uses White Magic. FFX-2 Songstresses are Dancers plus Bards, etc..

FF11 has the broadest definition, where Dancers can main- or co-heal, crowd control, buff, debuff, and do moderate DPS, all using their own Dance skillset without needing a sub-job.

So FF14's DNC could be said to be a successor to FF11's, except... by the time it came out we were well away from complex FF11-style job interactions and role flexing, so 14!DNC's heals are bad, its crowd control and debuffs (the main identity of other FF dancers!) are totally absent, and its trait of historically-middling DPS but great support had to be discarded to make the buff-stacking more predictable and bring its personal output closer to other DPS, because otherwise it'd be perma-locked from PF groups unless the group had a cracked selfish DPS to funnel to.

Were people so desperate for a new fake support in ShB that CBU3 just added +DPS buffs to Dancer to capture that attention and shipped it, class fantasy be damned? It doesn't land.

Bard was already mentioned a few times. I'll add AST because it plays NOTHING like its lore implied, and same goes for ACN and SCH since they're talked about in their quests as being all about "strategy" except ACN is the most simple job in the entire game and SCH lost actions that played more to its original fantasy.
DRK has almost nothing to do with Final Fantasy dark knight anymore. Its identity is now "the edgy tank".

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Originally Posted by Tsiron

- Squall is basically Rinoa's bodyguard (or... well, the knight to her sorceress, a recurring motif in FFVIII), so it's not that far-fetched.
- Gunbreaker weapons aren't meant to shoot bullets, instead they imbue the blade with various effects (consistent with FFVIII lore). That there are numerous actual GNB weapons in-game with seemingly functional barrels is... wrong, they shouldn't, yet they do.
- They do not use "Garlean" technology, not sure where you got that from? Gunbreakers supposedly predate the Garlean Empire by quite a bit, going as far back as the Allagan Empire... somehow...

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What a stretch. Then I suppose rogue should be a tank since Zidane protects Garnet a lot more often than Steiner.

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Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

You're talking about the Sultansworn, which is a specific subset of Paladins. In addition to them, there are also so-called "free Paladins" who don't answer to the Sultana, which is what the Warrior of Light is, as well as Solkzagyl.

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The Sultsworn is the collective name for the Paladins. Free Paladins came after (way way after) the creation of the Sultsworn and whilst they do not answer (necessarily) to the Sultana, they still represent the Sultana in their actions. This is why they take it seriously when a Paladin starts to defy their ideals, as it is a smear not only on them, but the Sultana as well.

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I didn't say they had a special connection with the light, just that they use it. And they clearly do, with their numerous attacks with the name Holy in them that do shiny light stuff.

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No, but you said it was their identity, which should come from the game. The reasonings you gave for Warrior and Dark Knight both relate to the game so you at least agree there, but why do you suddenly deny that the game gives Paladin's no connection to light except for the WoL? No other Paladin's show any signs of using Light in anything, so this is a trait the WoL has picked up on their own, separate from the PLDs ingame.

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That's the benefit of using a pre-existing archetype: you don't have to explain every last detail, because people already get it.

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Because not every game is the same, a Paladin in one game is not a Paladin in another. Considering the fact Paladin, when translated from Japanese is Knight, you are just a knight who uses light, whereas in other games, Knight and Paladin can be 2 distinct classes. This is why is is important to look at the lore ingame.

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Not only does that sound like a wet napkin of an identity, but you've just described something that the player never does as a Gunbreaker, at least not more than any other tank, and in my opinion not more than any healer either.

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Whether you like it or not doesn't matter, that is what a Gunbreaker is. Go and talk to Radovan and find out for yourself. As for whether it fits, their purpose is to defend and disrupt by drawing attention to themselves as someone who is deadly enough to get through the Allagan's guns. They are going to be a higher priority and someone they want to eliminate quickly. That is literally the whole point of a tank. The quick attacks are represented by the cartridge attacks and Continuation.

So, why doesn't it have an identity? Because it is exactly the same reasoning that other tanks have, but for some reason you dismiss GNB for no reason.

BRD is the correct answer but I'm surprised to see people saying MCH.

The class is called "machinist", not "gunner". Most if not all of the machines the machinists are using were used by Edgar in FFVI (who was the first to be called machinist) so there's precedence anyway. I think it fits the class better than what we had before and is a step-up in both flavor and gameplay.

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Originally Posted by SaberMaxwell

Join me in the black pill, brothers. The new smn, despite the reasons for its popularity boiling down to "it lets us bypass needing a caster dps", will be seen as a success and all future casters will follow its model. Maybe not blm, we'll see though.

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This is basically what happened to healers ages ago. WHM got gutted, but when you ask the devs how people feel about it they just say it's a great success because it's the most popular healing job in the game. Forget the fact that it's the only healer you can play right out the starting gate. Forget the fact that "white mage" is like, an iconic FF job that everyone knows about. Forget about the fact that its spell names are just intuitive ("Cure, Cure2, Cure 3" instead of weird shit like benefic or adlo). No, no. The job must be popular because its kit puts people to sleep. Better apply that to all the healers so more people will want to heal, right? So now every expac they make ast a little worse and they gut SCH like a fish. And then SGE comes out and it's just more of the same.

Well anyway, now the DPS are starting to see it. SMN is really bare bones and railroaded, but it's one of the most popular jobs in the game right now. CBU3 only seems to care about engagement numbers (look at their interview about how the tome relics were a success because soooo many people got a relic) without actually looking at the context, so it's reasonable to assume that Dawntrail will be more boring dumbed down dps jobs that do 123 until a resource gauge hits 50 and then they hit 4(!!!) for a big spender with an animation that totally lacks impact and actually you want to save your gauge for your 1-2 minute burst(!!!) so you can maximize your gains but you'd better pray you crit!!! Only this time, it's pirate themed!

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Originally Posted by Silverquick

Actually that's one of them I would NOT list as having an identity problem at this point. The Endwalker changes gave it a very solid identity as an Final Fantasy Summoner that really is on target and fits the bill.
Uninteresting in terms of mechanics and complexity in comparison to how it USED to be... well that may be a fair point. Still at present they did nail the Summoner Identity down very well with the new changes.

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Even the identity aspect still gets complaints. You're ultimately watching the same three colored nukes every minute, each of which deals the same damage. You still summon Egis until 90, which people complained about before EW, and they still want the other three elemental primals to be included in the kit, which seems like a pipe dream by now. Not even the 2D FF games had summons as banal and lacking in variety.

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

Oh this was just a stealth thread to whine about the SMN rework, I regret looking in here.

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Didn't see anyone else say SMN and the other jobs mentioned were stronger candidates anyway. Guess it's the scion death hysteria all over again.

I think they're all pretty shallow, honestly.

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Originally Posted by Oizen

The Dev's blatant favortism of WAR, and the WAR playerbase's endless screeching basically lead to it being the omni-job of all content and the tank thats the best at literally everything, while having access to literally everything.
If it was actually designed like WAR players want to avoid homogenization we would have to remove a looot of skills from WAR to even the playing field.

Enhanced Equilibrium gave WAR a heal over time effect, when that was previously GNB's thing with Aurora
Hell you could argue Equilibrium is just Clemeancy except good because its a no cost ogcd
The less we say about PLD being the holy magic tank, losing in party healing to WAR's Nascent and Shake it Off + Overtime, the better
Bloodwhetting got a personal shield on it, when that was previously DRK's thing with TBN
DRK was the first tank to get a gap closer, yet now WAR is the one with 3 (debatably 4) gap closers compared to DRK's 2 and completely lackluster trait in Enhanced Unmend.

Its less of a "lets not homogenize the tanks" thing and more of a "WAR should literally be the best tank at basically everything" problem.

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Yes, the current state of the Warrior is definitely one of the current balance issues in the game.

It has absolutely everything going for it, and its HP recovery makes no sense at all.

I hate play healers in dungeons with a Warrior because I feel like I hardly have to do anything, given how obscene their healing rates are,
in fact now, one Warrior and three DPS are enough to clear dungeons since the bosses do too little damage in every sense of the term, and the Warrior doesn't need healers at all.

Haven't read through all 8 pages, but from a quick glance I see a lot of Bard, so I'll avoid saying that.

I will say that I think WHM has it bad when it comes to in-game representation vs lore. Going from an elemental druid-like priest to holy priest in ShB, where only 2 of the 3 elements it represents being present at all in the kit pre-ShB, and overall just not caring about the elemental theme as you level.

If we're also going by old FF representation of WHM as well, then WHM is also lacking a lot of potential support and mitigation. We no longer have Protect and Shell and we can't buff via Faith, Bravery, or Haste. The mitigation we do have is locked behind longer cooldowns (and honestly not that great, the other healers run circles around WHM mitigation), and we have no party buffs at all. I get that the games current design won't be favourable to those particular spells, so I'm not asking for them to be back (or at least not as something spammable, Protect could possibly be a GCD with an additional cooldown attached similar to Macrocosmos that charges the blood lily).

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Originally Posted by Mikey_R

The Sultsworn is the collective name for the Paladins. Free Paladins came after (way way after) the creation of the Sultsworn and whilst they do not answer (necessarily) to the Sultana, they still represent the Sultana in their actions. This is why they take it seriously when a Paladin starts to defy their ideals, as it is a smear not only on them, but the Sultana as well.

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I wanted to do my due diligence before dismissing your claim, and I'm glad I did because it helped me to understand why we both have different views on this: the game itself introduces paladins in a manner that is easy to misunderstand. In the very first Paladin quest, Jenlyns kind of says it both ways:

Jenlyns: A paladin swears allegiance to the sultanate. A paladin shall be the sword and shield of the sultanate. A paladin defends the people of the realm.

And then later in that same quest:

Jenlyns: A free paladin has no master. Instead he/she travels all lands, and in every place takes up the cause of the unarmed and defenseless. You swear fealty not to a lord, but to yourself─you are nobility amongst adventurers.

Since free paladins are something that Jenlyns literally just invented, I think the best wait to interpret his two "conflicting" claims is that in the former he was describing traditional paladins, while in the latter he was speaking specifically about the newer free paladins. Because there's simply no way that a free paladin can have no master, serve no lord, and simultaneously serve or represent the sultanate.

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Originally Posted by Mikey_R

No, but you said (light) was their identity, which should come from the game.

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With respect, I don't agree with that. If the game introduces a known archetype and doesn't defy my expectations with it, they don't need to explain it.

I also wouldn't say that light is their identity, though I can understand how you might have interpreted my initial statement that way since I did mix in some aesthetic bits in there; that's my bad.

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Originally Posted by Mikey_R

No other Paladin's show any signs of using Light in anything, so this is a trait the WoL has picked up on their own, separate from the PLDs ingame.

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According to the lore, job skills are learned from the job stone, meaning they would be something other paladins of equivalent level have access to.

And while I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of all the skills paladins in the game use, I do recall that Branden is able to use Clemency before he becomes a Warrior of Light. And while there are some differences between the exact skills jobs use between the Source and the First, we've never seen something so drastic as an entire element being removed or added.