Has SE screwed itself?

im ALL for DRK coming from NEW CLASS

And Scythe please, or at least Great Sword, but i would see Great Sword coming from new class as well

Why diminishing posibilities by making jobs coming from 1 class ...

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Originally Posted by Meleena

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Pretty much this. Had a discussion today in my FC where they tried to work out how they'd put a Red/Blue Mage in, and the general thought was "just use THM!" which was great and all, except then at 50 they'd be BLMs with 4 different job skills, and when i said as such, it clicked for them.

The thing is, theres nothing wrong with adding Base Classes to go with new Jobs. Hell, even making new classes that Sub 2 different Classes is a possibility.
Especially since we can *already*sub skills from 2 classes.
We have the one class we need at lvl 15 as the Subclass, then the second Class we can draw skills from. As an example, my Lancer needed PGL-15 to make Dragoon, but as a DRG I'm capable of also drawing skills from MRD.
Scholar needed CNJ-15 but also draws skills from THM.

I'd much rather every new job also came with a new class, so that all the new Jobs feel unique the way our current 9 jobs do.

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Originally Posted by Sylve

I'd much rather every new job also came with a new class, so that all the new Jobs feel unique the way our current 9 jobs do.

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The one major problem here then is you end up much like XI with a ton of base classes to choose from and level up independently. With the game catering a lot to the casual crowd, I don't see this working too well. The major draw for ACN for example is having the ability to fill 2 roles when you get to 50. ACN's jobs also have entirely unique feels to them. The way to go about this is to either change some effects of base class abilities (like my idea of turning flash into darkness for GLA>DRK) in the same way ACN did or to give the second job abilities that will shape it entirely the way SCH did. SCH's base mechanic is the same as ACN with Aetherflow but they won't use very many ACN abilities over their own SCH abilities.

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Originally Posted by MartaDemireux

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They only dont use the ACN skills because the ACN skills dont heal.
I really don't see how new base classes equates to a problem of any description. How would the "casuals" be a problem for new classes?
A new Base class for a Red mage, would let it have its own completely unique abilities and story chains explaining how it came to be.
Otherwise, you'd have a core of Fire/Blizzard spam, with a sprinkle of random special skills.

Red and Blue Mages use very different kinds of Magic compared to a THM/BLM. the THM is all about destructive magics and personal fragility in its story, and the BLM continues that concept. Where does the Blue or Red Mage mechanics allow it to come from a class thats dedicated to pure destruction?

It might work for some classes, but many others will need whole new classes to function properly.

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Originally Posted by Sylve

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Exactly. My point was that just because 2 jobs come from the same class they don't have to be similar. SCH and SMN are both unique while still coming from the same class; SCH is different because of its job abilities. They use primarily their job abilities while SMN uses primarily their class abilities.

I wasn't arguing anything about RDM or BLU in my last post as I was only directly replying to what I quoted. If you took a moment to glance at my signature you'd see that I have nothing against adding new classes for future jobs while also seeing that I advocate giving each current class a total of 2 jobs, each class getting 2 different roles to play at 50.

New base classes however does mean that casual gamers will have to level yet another class to 50 to participate in events. Before 2.0 if you wanted to be a magic DPS and a Healer you would have to level WHM and BLM. Casually playing in today's game that could probably be done in 4 weeks or less so you'd need 8 weeks or less in total. But now we have ACN, level that up and bam, you cover both roles taking half the time. You'll still have to gear both if you want to play both but the total time investment is lowered by a large amount. I know someone that has leveled a tank up and has said "I really want to have a DPS available in case the group doesn't need another tank but I just don't have the time to invest in leveling it from scratch." I know a DPS in the same situation that wished they chose ACN so they could be a healer too.

The same can be done in the future. Add DPS or Healing roles to current tanks (like DRK and BRS), DPS or Tank roles to current Healing (like GEO), Healing or Tank roles to current DPS (like DNC or TMP). For example: My idea for FNC>RDM+MST makes the Fencer a DPS class, Red Mage its DPS job and Mystic Knight its tank job. However, if RDM DID end up coming from THM, they could have job abilities that make it differ greatly just like SCH does.

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Originally Posted by Mars_Feroshia

I like the idea of two jobs combining to become an advanced job, WAR+DRG=DRK possibly;however you don't actually have jobs, theyre still technically classes. Jobs are just the soul crystal that equips to that class giving you new JS abilities. So in that sense how would they do advanced jobs because technically your white mage isnt 50, your cnj is 50 and your soul crystal is making you a whm.

So what good would combining two soul crystals do? There would be no new classes to attach it to unless they'd mean to throw it on an already existing class, and in that case you'd already have it level 50 (depending on the level of the class they'd stick it on) So it would basically just be, do job quests/get af, change to darklight a few hours later, then the next day do your relic and done.

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One thing that occurs to me and i feel your post is good to quote for it is to maybe have us use weapons to swap to certain jobs instead of crystals.

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Originally Posted by MartaDemireux

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I used the Red/Blue Mages as example to why jobs like that need their own base classes.

My point is that certain Jobs can be added to existing classes to give them new Roles, example: Gladiator gets Soldier allowing it to dual wield the sword or use it one handed.

Another issue is that if you're going to add enough new skills and modify existing ones to make a new job feel like a completely different Job than its base class, why didn't you just make a new class in the first place?

And finally, why on earth would casual players have trouble with new classes to level? The only thing that makes a casual player casual, is the time they expend on the game.
In your own example, you claim your friend wished he was an ACN for the dual nature of the Job, ok fine, now if they added a Job to 6 other classes he didn't level... that helps him how?

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Originally Posted by Sylve

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A job, at the current level cap, will only ever add 5 new abilities. Tweaking the effects of some class abilities for a new job is less work than creating an entire class worth of abilities (on top of animations, gear and general balancing); adding one extra job per existing single-job class will be significantly less work and time for SE. SCH added 5 skills to ACN's repertoire and changed ACN's pets while giving the pets entirely different abilities. It's completely different than its base class as it's a healer coming out of a DPS. SCH's only really use 6-8 of ACN's 16 abilities in a group setting (not counting Summon I and II). Are you saying you think SCH should have came from an entirely different class? I think it functions perfectly with the skills it has and its uniqueness comes straight from its job.

And that's exactly my point again. Casual players spend less time on the game and therefor will take a longer time to level up one class. The majority of players are casual, playing for 1-3 hours a day. If they're playing so little and finally get their BLM to 50 only to realize that by the time they do their friends/FC really need a healer they'll have to level either CNJ or ACN all over again taking almost as long as the first time and by then new content could be out and he's off having to find people to do old events with to gear up for the new ones. If he leveled ACN to start, he could have just put on a different job stone.

It's not that adding 6 other jobs to the existing classes helps my friend but that it helps the people that leveled one role to do content that they wouldn't ordinarily get invited to. If every class can have 2 roles at endgame it not only opens up options for themselves but also for the group. Most endgame FC's want you to have several roles covered in case one person can't fill a given role due to absence. If you have a casual FC with a missing healer and only a bunch of tanks/DPS due to time restraints on leveling, you're in trouble and will have to fill the slot with a pug. But if one of those DPS was ACN, problem solved! They switch job soul and are good to go, now there's room for a DPS which is easily pugable or possibly filled by reserve members in the FC.

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Originally Posted by MartaDemireux

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Since we keep going back to the ACN, A Summoner utilizes 12 of its 18 base skills from ACN in general play, with 5 spells from the Job side, you have 17 skills as a Summoner to use. A Scholar utilizes 6 of 18 spells, with all 5 Job skills bringing the total to 11.

Now, as a Warrior, i use all 17 skills from MRD, and all 5 skills from WAR to a total of 21 skills.
As a Monk, i utilize all 17 skills from PGL, and all 5 skills from MNK to total 21 again.

What I'm saying is, to give the ACN its dual role ability, you literally have to cut away half the class to give it the Healer aspect. Yet with 'pure' role Jobs, theres a greater variety of skills to use.

Changing an MRD to have a DPS Job works, because you can apply small modifications to Enmity generation from the Tanking skills so they have purpose in the new DPS role. No skills lost, just skill purpose changed.
Classes like PGL make it hard to give a second role to, because it has a unique mechanic (Forms) that wouldn't make any sense on a different class.
Giving a DPS Job to the CNJ would gimp it in the same way the SCH is gimped on skill selection. You would have to cut away the Healing aspect of the CNJ and you're not really left with much to work with, almost half the spells you get on a CNJ are dedicated healing spells a DPS wouldn't use.

So i'll say it again, since you've missed it every time, I'm not against adding Jobs to existing classes, provided there is a basis for it (GLA->Soldier or MRD -> Berserker).
Just cramming new jobs onto classes for being in a similar category (War/Magic Disciple) just so the 'casuals' don't have to level new classes would be terrible, and give no identity to those new Jobs.
You can't use the 'casuals' as a reason to never add in new classes to level.
The 'casuals' will do whatever is fun for them, be it leveling new classes or only ever playing the one they started with.

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Originally Posted by Sylve

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Well if you're going to count all 18 ACN abilities: SCH utilizes 9-10 (pending on if there is a SMN to Res. 11 if applying Bio when applicable in the same manner where a WHM should be applying Aero). SMN utilizes 17 of them (as Virus, EfaE and Res. should be used on big fights) not sure how you got 12. And to be entirely honest, while clearing trash or a boss which everyone is over-geared for the SCH could/should use all of ACN abilities to get it done faster. And, if the healer DC's a SMN could do minor healing to keep the tank from dying as fast until the healer returns. So really even though they're entirely different, they are still ACN's at heart.

As a MNK I'm sure you at least don't utilize Haymaker (have to be evading attacks that shouldn't be directed at you in the first place) and rarely FoE (outside of almost dying or before a special attack). Those two abilities alone could be the bread and butter for a tank job coming out of PGL. The new job's abilities could even have one use a special technique depending on the form you're in. I could see DNC coming out of PGL in this manner due to forms being similar to dances. A dance could apply a 20s evasion bonus when in raptor form, defense for coeurl and magic defense for opo-opo. They could even change the skin of fisticuffs to fans and it would work well without needing many animations. Other abilities could have synergy with existing ones too in the same way that MRD abilities are altered due to WAR's Defiance. A new stance such as Fan Dance in FFXI's rendition could change Greased Lightning's DPS properties to tanking ones, increasing enmity and decreasing incoming damage per stack.

I haven't missed that you're not against adding jobs to existing classes but you are arguing that they shouldn't be or at least couldn't be. You however seem to miss that I'm not against adding new classes even though I've said as much above. I just think new classes should/will come with 2 roles each and existing classes should/will be given 2 roles each. Never once did I say they should "never add in new classes to level." I very much do believe RDM and BLU will need their own classes such as: Fencer for RDM(dps) and Mystic Knight(tank), Flayer for BLU (probably dps but maybe able to fill different roles with different mob abilities) and BST (possibly a tank or ability to fill multiple roles with different pets) utilizing a similar mechanic to FFTA's Morpher/Beastmaster where you at say level 6 can learn "Bug Soul" which you can then set a bug-type pet to for BST or a bug-type monster ability you've learned for BLU (actually in the process of pitching the idea).

You may not want to admit it but there are more casual than hardcore players of XIV and that is what pays SE's bills. SE will look towards keeping the majority happy as well as being able to cut costs. Since jobs are much cheaper than classes to create and would be pleasing to the majority to not have to level up a whole new class just to be able to get a group as a different role, I was giving a realistic view on the situation at hand.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

Honestly, I don't expect "support" to become a true role. If they do DNC, I see it as either a DPS/support class, like a melee version of BRD, or a straight up healer. I expect that, rather than trying to create a support role and redo the entire balance structure, they'll go the route of just tweaking the vision of the class to fulfill a role within the trinity: it's simpler, just as effective for bringing the class into game, and doesn't require a reworking of so many other things.

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Must...climb...wall of text...must...organize....thoughts!

1) Back End - I don't see any problem with this at all. My ability to tank depends on the SCH's ability to keep me alive, a Dragoon's dps depends on my ability to keep Enmity, it would make the game more fun if more collaboration was needed. This seems like something we disagree on in a non-mechanically fashion. You said "Performance being solely contingent upon the play of others" (paraphrasing)...isn't that the definition of a support role...? Am I crazy? It sounds like you don't like support roles, lol.
2) Solo Play - Every class has some dps abilities to it, even CNJ, you can easily create a cleric-stance like ability to compensate for this. My vision of Demi would do that just fine. Fire potency "Y" would turn into Fire potency "Y"x2 within demi's circle if you are soloing. For Dancer...I dunno give it the stance "Break Dance" where auto attack potency is tripled, couple that with pure dps songs playing and you get competitive solo-style play with any other class. I don't see an issue with this at all. Easy to fix. Next.
3) % based buff/debuffs: Uhhh....Rage of Halone, Butcher's Block, Haymaker, Fight or Flight, Featherfoot, Blood for Blood, Mantra . . . all of those are % based, so its fine. I get your point of gear needing to make a different in the main aspect of the job, so fine, make them hard wired to weapon value, I don't care. Its completely irrelevant to the main point.
4) Multiple support characters: What? If you ran 6 support chars, 1 tank, 1 healer, who would do the dps? It sounds like they just made the support chars OPed in the game you were talking about. That argument has no substance, I feel like you are just trolling now. I have played several MMOs with *explicit* support characters, and stacking them together didn't do anything because it didn't offer enough benefit. You have literally no ground to stand on with this. Everquest 1 has 2 (arguably 3) *explicit* support roles, and has been balanced and around for 13 years, and those classes are not stacked in raids.
5) On your last paragraph that I quoted, I suspect you are right. It would certainly be possible and fun, but they probably won't do it. I will concede that it would be problematic if you used DF and got DNC DNC WAR SCH for a dungeon, or TMM TMM PLD WHM

What about redmage doing something similar to arcanist? Split into either bluemage or redmage. Maybe arcanist and BLM makes redmage and arcanist and whitemage makes bluemage.

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Originally Posted by Raziel7777

What about redmage doing something similar to arcanist? Split into either bluemage or redmage. Maybe arcanist and BLM makes redmage and arcanist and whitemage makes bluemage.

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Seeing that neither job has anything to do with the other, that would not work.

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Originally Posted by MartaDemireux

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You still haven't given a convincing argument on why Jobs should be a priority over Classes because of 'casuals'.
I have friends who only play a few hours on weekends, both have one class at 50, and are currently working on multiple new classes.

We do agree at least in part, that some Classes could get alt role Jobs, But some classes, In my honest opinion, should not. PGL, LNC, CNJ being notable ones. Giving a DPS Job to Marauder is fine, they can just use DRG style gear with tweaked traits/skills, thats fine.
But a Tank Job for PGLs? Please no! They would be required to either wear heavier gear (which goes directly against the PGL lore), or have weird percentile buffs to make them on par with the existing Tank classes, which as seen in many other MMOs, leads to massive overscaling/underscaling and in some cases, breaks boss encounters.

Another reason I'm wary of giving certain Classes some of the Jobs found in previous titles, is the weapon they use. So far, all 9 Jobs continue to use the weapon the base class is built around, as well as the core spells/skills, even the SMN/SCH as you pointed out use the same spells when healing isn't intensive.
If a new Job's iconic weapon is NOT the same as the class it's coming from, Then how do you switch to it? Equip the weapon? But its the Soul Crystal giving the class the Job, So you equip the Crystal? Now the weapon is wrong!
Even the SCH can be a little weird in sub 30 Dungeons, they just become ACNs with a Fairy.
So this again limits which Jobs can be applied to existing classes, as we currently have no changes to equipable weapons when moving from Class to Job.
I do believe Yoshi at one stage pointed out that Classes were better suited to solo play with the wider cross class pool, where Jobs were more specialized and better utilized in organized play (Parties etc).

Jobs aren't actually any easier to create than Classes, because to create a new Job for an existing class, they would need to first pick a Job that is similar to the class it's coming from, modify all the existing skills for the new Role, then add new Job specific skills and then create a story for the Job to work through and gain its Job skills from.
From what I've seen of the Class/Job structure, the ACN was built from the ground up to have 2 Jobs. None of the other Classes were built that way. The CNJ is a prime example of that, given how many of the skills learned are straight up Healing spells.

I would very much like to see more multi-job classes, If only because i like variety.
But i do very much feel that any multi-job classes should be created new, from scratch, to be multi-job, the way the ACN was.

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Originally Posted by Sylve

But a Tank Job for PGLs? Please no! They would be required to either wear heavier gear (which goes directly against the PGL lore), or have weird percentile buffs to make them on par with the existing Tank classes, which as seen in many other MMOs, leads to massive overscaling/underscaling and in some cases, breaks boss encounters.

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Actually, giving PGL a tank job wouldn't be too hard. There is a constant ratio between the defense of PLD/WAR gear and MNK gear: 1:1.9. It's not always *exact*, but it's close enough that it wouldn't matter. It, honestly, wouldn't be that hard to turn PGL into a tank: remove the positional requirements, add some high enmity additional effects, add a stance that increases defense and mdef by 90% and changes Greased Lightning to an evasion buff instead of a +dam buff (so that they get 22.5% +evasion and 22.5% less damage than they "should", which is a good balance against the 20% DR/dam debuff that PLD gets with Shield Oath), and you're most of the way there. All you'd really need to add would be a 30 sec off-GCD stun and a couple reliable tank CDs, all of which could be done through the job; it even has a decent "baseline" CD suite in Second Wind, Featherfoot, and Mantra. There's even a model job that's existed in other games that could be used *easily*: Berserker. In most of its iterations, it's an unarmed/fist weapon class with high evasion and a lot of durability. It even plays off of the "animal stance" thing that PGL already does. The only "weird" thing that you'd end up with is PGL gear having completely wrong itemization, though that could be solved by having crits increase parry chance or something similar so that you get some mitigation benefits from DPS gear.

Honestly, PGL could *easily* be given a tank job, more easily than LNC, imo, since LNC has a weird ratio on def/mdef compared to MAR/GLA (1.45 for def and 2.7 for mdef), though it does have the advantage of a lot of LNC gear having parry on it.

The hardest secondary jobs to add really are healers, mainly because you either have to have a heal naturally (like ACN does) or expect the class to bring in as an additional (which is possible; have CNJ or ACN as one of the requirement classes and build the job around them bringing Cure/Physick since they would *have* to have it; they already assume that WAR is going to bring a half of its CD suite from additionals). Turning a healer class into a DPS isn't *too* hard since you're just adding abilities that provide an interesting rotation through the job (CNJ gets 3 useful damage attacks and could add Thunder from THM; job adds 5 more, which would provide a full 9 attacks for the full DPS suite, which is pretty much what BLM relies upon). Tank into DPS just requires removing the enmity additional effects (which the devs have said that they're capable of doing) and providing some +dam (possibly something like adding a portion of Defense to STR or Detemination) and damage CDs to boost up. DPS into tank just doing the reverse of the tank to DPS: add enmity modifiers, a tank stance, and some tank CDs.

I don't think that a *lot* of new jobs should be added to the existing classes, mainly because people are already hitting 50 in multiple jobs and adding new jobs to existing classes would be giving them entirely new jobs that they'd be jumping into right off the bat. The first new jobs I expect to be brought in with entirely new classes with a few others added to current jobs that don't change the playstyle *too* much (tank job for PGL, DPS job for MAR, DPS for CNJ). I do expect them to start adding them reasonably quickly, mainly because tweaking leveling content when people aren't really going to be leveling much isn't really an efficient use of resources.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

Actually, giving PGL a tank job wouldn't be too hard.

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Evasion does not a tank make. You cannot RNG your tank into oblivion. To make PGL into a tank, you would need to increase HP by 150%, increase defense by 100% or increase eHP further to account for the reliable boost to burst damage. That's not touching the positioning issue, the enmity issue, or anything else obviously missing. PGL as tank will not happen, period.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

Honestly, PGL could *easily* be given a tank job, more easily than LNC, imo, since LNC has a weird ratio on def/mdef compared to MAR/GLA (1.45 for def and 2.7 for mdef), though it does have the advantage of a lot of LNC gear having parry on it.

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What kind of stats does this armor have? I'm pretty sure they're tank stats.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

The hardest secondary jobs to add really are healers, mainly because you either have to have a heal naturally (like ACN does) or expect the class to bring in as an additional (which is possible; have CNJ or ACN as one of the requirement classes and build the job around them bringing Cure/Physick since they would *have* to have it; they already assume that WAR is going to bring a half of its CD suite from additionals).

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The assumption of cross-class is already there for Protect. That's not really the problem. The problem is that for level 15 jobs, you have to do something to account for the ability to queue into 15-30 without proper abilities. SCH gives them all to the pet right off the bat for AoE heals, but for others, you'd have to make some concession for making it work.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

a few others added to current jobs that don't change the playstyle *too* much (tank job for PGL)

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The squishiest melee, numero uno of the dead-meat clan, and you really think it's going to be a tank? I'll tell you what. 10,000 gil. 10,000 gil bet.

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Originally Posted by Sylve

Jobs aren't actually any easier to create than Classes, because to create a new Job for an existing class, they would need to first pick a Job that is similar to the class it's coming from, modify all the existing skills for the new Role, then add new Job specific skills and then create a story for the Job to work through and gain its Job skills from.

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But they really really are easier.

New Job entails:
Creating 5 new abilities and their animations
Adjusting some class abilities (no need to modify all of them)
Create 5 quests and a storyline

New Class entails:
Creating a new weapon type which requires new base animations.
Creating 17-18 new abilities and their animations
Creating 1-2 new jobs (5-10 new abilities) and their animations
Balancing 11 new traits
Create 9-10 class quests and storyline
Create 5-10 job quests and 1-2 storylines

A new job does not need to be similar to the base class either. Again with ACN/SMN/SCH. The role they gave SCH is nothing like the role they gave ACN/SMN. They even changed SCH substantially from how it is in other titles in the series. It never once had pets/fairies and was only given healing magic roughly half of the time and even then rarely could function as the sole healer. They've usually been and played better as a debuffer or damage dealer (similar to how SMN is now). On that note, SMN also has taken an entirely different approach than it has in the series.

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Originally Posted by Gamemako

The assumption of cross-class is already there for Protect. That's not really the problem. The problem is that for level 15 jobs, you have to do something to account for the ability to queue into 15-30 without proper abilities. SCH gives them all to the pet right off the bat for AoE heals, but for others, you'd have to make some concession for making it work.

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Jobs unlock at level 30. Even for jobs that are the same as their class if they sync down to 15 they are much less effective than if they were to go as their class. I joined my friend as a DRG in a low level instance only to notice I would have been much better off going LNC because the job abilities were locked out and I only had like 1 cross class available. As LNC I would have had 2 or 3 cross class abilities. Easy solution and one I can see them implementing is the inability to sync a job under level 30.

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Originally Posted by Gamemako

Evasion does not a tank make.[/i]

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Passive evasion does not a tank make.

If you give them abilities to actively evade attacks, something like a 10s CD ability that will evade the next attack (100% chance) and a stance that must be upkept that reduces incoming damage by A LOT and reduces incoming healing by A LOT would do the trick. You just need to make their evasion very powerful and active, and have mistakes be absolutely damning. Note the operative word is "just". : D

Just saying its totally possible, you are making it seem way harder than it actually is.

My money is on SAM or Mystic Knight being the next tank though.

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Originally Posted by MartaDemireux

Even for jobs that are the same as their class if they sync down to 15 they are much less effective than if they were to go as their class... Easy solution and one I can see them implementing is the inability to sync a job under level 30.

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You can bring a SCH to TTD and it will work out just fine. I have actually done so; you actually don't need to heal at all and can just sit around mashing DPS. However, other potential healers from non-healing classes might be fully unable to function at level 15, which means SE would have to actively prevent queuing as pre-30 for that job, something they have not previously needed to do.

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Originally Posted by Ehayte

Passive evasion does not a tank make.

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A one-off 100% evasion ability would not be particularly useful because of autoattacks. You could do it with spells, but not melee, and all of the toughest opponents are melee attackers. Also, a stance that reduces incoming damage would extend eHP -- that would be addressing the problem how I said it would have to be addressed.

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Originally Posted by Gamemako

To make PGL into a tank, you would need to increase HP by 150%, increase defense by 100% or increase eHP further to account for the reliable boost to burst damage. That's not touching the positioning issue, the enmity issue, or anything else obviously missing. PGL as tank will not happen, period.

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As I said, you only have to increase def/mdef by 90% and the hp increase it would require would be nowhere *near* 150%. The only time you'd need any more hp than what you get on DPS gear would be at 50, when you start getting gear that's designed for specific classes and roles. Tank PGL gear would just have more Vit on it. There would be some issues with eHP for burst damage, but nowhere near insurmountable. The same 25% increase to hp that the WAR gets could be copied over since, honestly, it's not like there's a lot of options to increase eHP than DR and +hp.

The positioning, enmity, and "anything else obviously missing" (like... what? tank CDs? PGL already gets 3) aren't even really issues. The devs have explicitly said that they can change the secondary effects of abilities with job changes. All it would require would be removing the positional requirements (possibly swapping them over to form bonuses if it's absolutely necessary) and adding additional effect increased enmity (or just doing something like "increased enmity based upon your current form: Raptor x3, Coeurl x5" to keep with the 100%>300%>500% model that the other tanks use).

Seriously, PGL is nowhere near as insurmountable as you're making it out to be.

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What kind of stats does this armor have? I'm pretty sure they're tank stats.

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And those are actually pretty rare. As far as current gear is concerned, it's the exception, not the rule. Look at actual LNC/DRG gear. It's got the wonky def/mdef ratio that I was referring to. Unless you expect to devs to go through and add a whole new slew of LNC gear to 20-50 with tank stats for everything *except* for the 3-4 chest/head pieces that just so happen to have tank loadouts (because you're going to actually need tank gear to tank).

They could make a LNC tank job in multiple ways (simply allowing them to equip the WAR/PLD armor or going through and removing the LNC/DRG tag from the miniscule number of items that they can use atm and giving them a stance that increases def/mdef), but it requires just as much, if not more, work than what I suggested for PGL. You are *vastly* overestimating what it would require to get a PGL into a tank class. Hell, PGL actually has a better native CD suite than LNC does which gives them a leg up right off the bat.

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The assumption of cross-class is already there for Protect. That's not really the problem. The problem is that for level 15 jobs, you have to do something to account for the ability to queue into 15-30 without proper abilities. SCH gives them all to the pet right off the bat for AoE heals, but for others, you'd have to make some concession for making it work.

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You don't have to make a concession for anything for the 15-30 dungeons when they level sync down. Whispering Dawn has a 60 sec CD so it's nowhere *near* Medica on effectiveness. You can run all of those with just single target heals so it's not even an issue. The only thing you'd really have to do is order the job abilities properly, such that you get the AoE heal and big heal asap and a cleanse soon after.

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The squishiest melee, numero uno of the dead-meat clan, and you really think it's going to be a tank?

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Because, you know, the "squishiest melee", as you call it, (which isn't really; DRG takes only slightly less than MNK and DRG actually takes *more* because MNK has better mDef, which happens to be a majority of the AoE damage that goes out) would still stay squishy if given the proper tank changes. It would completely *impossible* to give them increased hp and a def/mdef multiplier to bring them up to what the existing tanks already get. If you actually look at the comparative loadouts that LNC and PGL get, PGL really does end up having a lot less that would need to be tacked on to make them as effective as the existing tanks:

LNC would require reworking or adding a large amount of gear thanks to existing inconsistencies.
LNC and PGL would both require tank stances, neither of which is particularly difficult to determine from a mathematical perspective.
LNC has a *much* weaker tank CD suite compared to PGL (Keen Flurry v. Featherfoot, Second Wind, Mantra) which means that more would have to be drawn from additionals or through the job itself.
LNC and PGL both have positional requirements that would have to be revised, not that it would be all that difficult to just remove the positional requirement and make the positional bonuses baseline.
LNC and PGL both have to have high enmity modifiers added, which is, once again, not a difficult prospect.

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I'll tell you what. 10,000 gil. 10,000 gil bet.

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10k gil is nothing so I'm not even sure what you were trying to say with that bet. Also, I never said that PGL would be guaranteed to get a tank job, simply that I believe that it would be much more likely to get one than LNC. If you want to make a bet that PGL will get a tank job before LNC, I'll take you up on that, mainly because I honestly think that they'll bring in a light armor tank before they bring in another heavy armor tank. The fact that, from a developmental standpoint, PGL also presents an easier target for "tankification" is just icing on the cake.

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Originally Posted by Ehayte

Passive evasion does not a tank make.

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Passive evasion *alone* does not a tank make, not because evasion is somehow worthless for a tank but because it doesn't increase eHP. The provision of regular absorb shields or a +hp bonus would provide all of the burst survivability needed, which WoW demonstrated pretty well with Druid tanks. Over time, increased evasion is just as effective at the role of increasing healing efficiency as DR and +healing. It's only over the short term that evasion becomes worthless because it isn't reliable.

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Originally Posted by MartaDemireux

Easy solution and one I can see them implementing is the inability to sync a job under level 30.

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As mentioned above, I really hope they don't do this. For one, SCHs do just fine sync'd down to level 15. Secondly, there is already an issue in the game about the number of healers available to do lower level dungeons. Reducing the possibilities from 2 to 1 would make the problem that much worse.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

As I said, you only have to increase def/mdef by 90% and the hp increase it would require would be nowhere *near* 150%.

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You're 1000 base HP behind plus 25% of total. At level 50, that's at least a 50% advantage, plus equipment discrepancy.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

The positioning, enmity, and "anything else obviously missing" (like... what? tank CDs? PGL already gets 3) aren't even really issues. The devs have explicitly said that they can change the secondary effects of abilities with job changes.

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So all it would require is a complete design 180, removing all positional and combo requirements (can't have stance requirement on enmity generation), completely redoing Greased Lightning (can't have warm-up on enmity generation), vastly boosting HP, giving an boosted AoE enmity generation (50 potency means you'll be permanently reliant on cross-class Flash), adding ranged enmity somewhere (not enough ability slots), adding a tanking stance (not enough ability slots), etc. All this so you can what, use 25% Featherfoot against trash mobs and still get stomped by every single opponent of consequence?

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Originally Posted by Kitru

And those are actually pretty rare.

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Full sets at 23, 32, 38, 46. Rare compared to what, now? You can't even get any asymmetric pants until ilvl40 Paladin set. There's no pre-15 tank gear, so if we neglect the ilvl8-12 asymmetric stuff, then you have all of 10 pieces of pre-30 asymmetric armor. If you wanted to extend up to ilvl50 (excluding DRG AF), you have:

Feet -- 4 tank, 3 asymmetric
Legs -- 4 tank, 2 asymmetric
Waist -- 0 tank, 2 asymmetric
Hands -- 4 tank, 9 asymmetric
Body -- 6 tank, 9 asymmetric
Head -- 6 tank, 10 asymmetric

Total: 24 tank, 35 asymmetric

If you exclude pre-30 equipment, the count would be 18 tank, 25 asymmetric. I would hardly call that "rare" in any case. You're really just not paying any attention. Better still, it's the asymmetric sets which are random as hell. Leg and foot pieces are rare -- there are all of 3 pieces which are not random dungeon drops (Boarskin Skirt on legs, Mythril and Cobalt Sollerets on feet). Tank stuff mostly comes in complete and craftable sets, with just two chestpieces (ilvl40 Kokoroon and ilvl50 Mosshorn) and two helmets (ilvl22 Doctore's and ilvl44 Reinforced Mythril Elmo) orphaned. The only reason you think that asymmetric equipment is "LNC" is because of endgame DRG equipment. That exists because DRG is a DPS job and is the only job from the class at this time.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

Hell, PGL actually has a better native CD suite than LNC does which gives them a leg up right off the bat.

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Featherfoot vs. Keen Flurry, Second Wind vs. Life Surge. Not really compelling. So what does PGL have? A gimped version of Convalescence for itself (20% over 15s compared to 30% over 20s) that comes at level 42 and is pretty much useless before 48? That's your killer cooldown?

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Originally Posted by Kitru

You don't have to make a concession for anything for the 15-30 dungeons when they level sync down. Whispering Dawn has a 60 sec CD so it's nowhere *near* Medica on effectiveness.

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AoE isn't a frequent need, but that doesn't suddenly make it a non-issue. As for the "big heal", that's level 30 for both existing jobs, and cleanse is level 40 for SCH (Leeches).

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Originally Posted by Kitru

Because, you know, the "squishiest melee", as you call it, would still stay squishy if given the proper tank changes.

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Changing that requires a fundamental class design change. You call flat-out redoing every single ability such that it bears nothing at all in common with the base class. Snap Punch combo has to lose all positional bonuses and all combo requirements, making it... well, absolutely nothing like the original. Greased Lightning goes out the door completely, replaced with an entirely separate mechanic. Arm of the Destroyer needs a redo to fix balance -- can't have Silence on primary enmity generator, potency is far too low. Steel Peak requires a redo just as Brutal Swing does (though this issue is shared between LNC and PGL), but Steel Peak comes way too late for a tank. What do you have left? Twin Snakes, Demolish, and Touch of Death as random and irrelevant damage abilities, and then everything else is completely and fundamentally changed. The class has an even weaker CD suite than MRD, meaning key survival mechanics have to be stuffed into job abilities. WAR does this at level 35, throwing everything into 1 ability, while coming with a tank design out the gate (HP, enmity, defense, appropriate abilities). PGL not only needs some absurd stance which increases HP, defense, and enmity by huge amounts, it also needs a ranged pull ability just to have the most basic of functionality. This can't be cross-classed, either. So now you have to grab something like Touch of Death and turn it into a completely unrelated and new ability as well. There's nothing left of PGL at this point except for a few animations.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

LNC would require reworking or adding a large amount of gear thanks to existing inconsistencies.... [etc]

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• LNC gear is, as I showed previously, fine already. Only thing you'd need to do is add AF and endgame stuff, plus a belt or three.
• Yes, both require tank stances -- no way to avoid it for any DPS-turned-tank.
• Your claim about PGL CDs is still rubbish.
• LNC positional requirements apply only to two DPS-boosting abilities (Heavy Thrust and Impulse Drive) and could be handled a number of ways -- a one-off ability or a stance or whatever. PGL requirements apply to every attack in the main combo plus Twin Snakes and have no way to be addressed except to be completely thrown out and a new, unrelated potency number assigned to each attack.
• LNC has a normal combo in Full Thrust. PGL does not. PGL will need to boost the potency of attacks to keep up with enmity needs as well as boost potency of DoTs to address damage issues.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

10k gil is nothing so I'm not even sure what you were trying to say with that bet.

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Mitt Romney joke.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

Also, I never said that PGL would be guaranteed to get a tank job, simply that I believe that it would be much more likely to get one than LNC. If you want to make a bet that PGL will get a tank job before LNC, I'll take you up on that, mainly because I honestly think that they'll bring in a light armor tank before they bring in another heavy armor tank. The fact that, from a developmental standpoint, PGL also presents an easier target for "tankification" is just icing on the cake.

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You're on.

For the record, I'm pulling for PGL healer.

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Originally Posted by Starfox71rt

As mentioned above, I really hope they don't do this. For one, SCHs do just fine sync'd down to level 15. Secondly, there is already an issue in the game about the number of healers available to do lower level dungeons. Reducing the possibilities from 2 to 1 would make the problem that much worse.

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They could always add another healing class later on though. SCH is the exception when it comes to this but its only because of the fairy really. Every other job currently seems to benefit from doing pre-30 content as their class as it is so might as well just make it a rule. I do agree it'd be terrible in the current game to drop the amount of healers but if they ever add another healing class I think they should do the restriction in the same patch.

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Originally Posted by MartaDemireux

But they really really are easier.

New Job entails:
Creating 5 new abilities and their animations
Adjusting some class abilities (no need to modify all of them)
Create 5 quests and a storyline

New Class entails:
Creating a new weapon type which requires new base animations.
Creating 17-18 new abilities and their animations
Creating 1-2 new jobs (5-10 new abilities) and their animations
Balancing 11 new traits
Create 9-10 class quests and storyline
Create 5-10 job quests and 1-2 storylines

A new job does not need to be similar to the base class either. Again with ACN/SMN/SCH. The role they gave SCH is nothing like the role they gave ACN/SMN. They even changed SCH substantially from how it is in other titles in the series. It never once had pets/fairies and was only given healing magic roughly half of the time and even then rarely could function as the sole healer. They've usually been and played better as a debuffer or damage dealer (similar to how SMN is now). On that note, SMN also has taken an entirely different approach than it has in the series.

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Here is where your argument falls flat.
They would need to come up with a way to change an existing class, to become something new. So you are automatically limited by what the existing class uses. The existing skills would need rebuilds anyway, since they need to fill a different role now.
I'll use Conjurer as an example here.
Conjurer gets 2 Damage spells, Stone and Aero. Yes, we have Stone II and Aero II, but its basically the same thing. In order to have the Conjurer gain a DPS job, the 5 new skills gained from the Job would have to be main rotational buttons, or your brand spanking new DPS Conjurer Job is spamming Stone II. Sounds fun.
So ok, you have your 5 new shiny buttons and have 7 DPS spells now, awesome! Except for one thing. You still have access to virtually every spell a WHM uses to heal. So now you have a DPS Job that can heal almost as well as a WHM, and has all the traits of a WHM.
Nope, cant even use a SMN or BLM as an excuse here, because spamming Physick won't get you far. Since you would have Medica, Medica II, Cure III, Graniteskin and every other tool a CNJ has without becoming a WHM. You would also have Cleric Stance.
Oops, can't use that in your new DPS Job, a blanked out button, something we currently do not see. No Job prevents the use of a skill gained from its base class. And what happens when you try to do Sastasha -> Toto-rak runs? Congrats, you may spam Stone / Stone II from start to finish. Exciting stuff.

Any new jobs to be attached our existing classes NEED to be continuations of what the base class currently is. Otherwise, You're trying to make unique jobs out of half a class. It wont work and will feel awkward and bland.

The Archer is a class i can see getting a new Job. Sniper, no songs except that learned as an Archer, with a very heavy focus on dealing big burst hits.

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I would very much like to see more multi-job classes, If only because i like variety.
But i do very much feel that any multi-job classes should be created new, from scratch, to be multi-job, the way the ACN was.

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Originally Posted by Sylve

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Your CNJ example doesn't really work. A job's stats are dependent upon the job soul equipped. If you look at ACN/SMN/SCH you'll see SCH has a ton more MND and SMN has a ton more INT before gear is even taken into consideration. This is including SCH getting INT traits. When gear comes into play the difference is quite high.

If a CNJ equipped a DPS job soul they could get vast amounts of INT and their MND could drop to double digits rendering their heals as useful as a SMN or BLM's Physick, nice to have in a pinch but useless otherwise.

As someone stated before the dev team has come right out and said that they can simply remove an enmity trait to a skill and replace it with another trait for any job. Your CNJ example could see a DPS job getting a passive that changes the effect of Cleric Stance to negate the swapping of INT and MND. Then the CNJ DPS could fulltime Cleric Stance, freeing up a job ability for an attack or a job ability that facilitates attacking.

Using my GEO idea in my signature: Casting Nature's Fury>Nature's Wrath>Geomancy>Aero>Thunder>Aero II>Stone II(spam) honestly isn't too different than a SMN's Shadowflare>Bio II>Miasma>Thunder>Bio>Fester>Ruin(spam) or a BLM's Thunder III>Fire III>Fire(spam)>Blizzard III>Scathe>ThunderIII. Essentially they're the same amount of "fun" button presses. SMN get's a pet thrown in for more things to do, BLM gets a proc system for more things to do and a DPS CNJ like my GEO could toss in a Medica II after taking off Cleric Stance real quick and use its group MP restore in a similar fashion to how a BRD is a DPS but still gets some support.

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Originally Posted by Gamemako

You're 1000 base HP behind plus 25% of total. At level 50, that's at least a 50% advantage, plus equipment discrepancy.

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Equipment discrepancy doesn't actually exist, since the left side gear for MNK gets *the exact same amount of VIT as the tank gear*; the gear discrepancy only exists on the right side (there's a *slight* discrepancy on weapon, but it's tiny). Furthermore, going entirely off of MNK base stats means nothing because, as SCH already proves, the devs can easily have the jobs tweak the base attributes immensely: naked and without attributes, my SCH gets 20 less INT, 71 more MND, and 30 more PIE. It's a safe prediction that a PGL tank would get a similar difference in base stats compared to MNK what with the *completely different role*. The only hp tweak that would be needed *at all* would be an hp increase equal to what the WAR gets and that's only for eHP purposes.

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So all it would require is a complete design 180, removing all positional and combo requirements (can't have stance requirement on enmity generation), completely redoing Greased Lightning (can't have warm-up on enmity generation), vastly boosting HP, giving an boosted AoE enmity generation (50 potency means you'll be permanently reliant on cross-class Flash), adding ranged enmity somewhere (not enough ability slots), adding a tanking stance (not enough ability slots), etc.

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Care to explain why the combo requirements have to be removed because, you know, it's not like WAR and PLD don't already use them? The form cycle that PGL gets would work perfectly fine for a tank. Redoing Greased Lightning makes no sense either since WAR already proves that the devs have no problem with minor damage build up (recognize that I said that Greased Lightning in tank stance *wouldn't get the +dam buff*, which equates to the -dam debuff). As I've pointed out before, it wouldn't need any more of an hp boost than WAR. I'm also curious why you think that Arm of the Destroyer wouldn't get additional enmity added to it; it's not as if it's magically not allowed to have that but everything else is. Furthermore, how is the addition of a tanking stance a problem? That's like saying that Defiance doesn't exist because there isn't space.

The only problem you brought up that doesn't exist purely within your own mind is the issue of not having a ranged attack, which I don't think is a *massive* issue, since it's only really used as a pulling mechanism. Having one tank lack a ranged attack doesn't really penalize it appreciably.

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The only reason you think that asymmetric equipment is "LNC" is because of endgame DRG equipment.

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No, the reason I think that the asymmetric equipment is "LNC" is because the "LNC" gear is itself rare and, even according to your own numbers, tank distributed LNC gear is in the minority. For a *vast* majority of the game, a LNC is going to be wearing the same gear as a MNK. When it starts getting its own specific gear rather than just random leveling pieces, it's all asymmetrically distributed. On top of that, if you check, you'll notice that even the tank distributed LNC is still itemized for DPS. To get a LNC tank class, you have to overhaul/add an impressive amount of gear, unless you really want the class to have less than a quarter of the tank gear options that the other tanks get.

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Featherfoot vs. Keen Flurry, Second Wind vs. Life Surge. Not really compelling. So what does PGL have? A gimped version of Convalescence for itself (20% over 15s compared to 30% over 20s) that comes at level 42 and is pretty much useless before 48? That's your killer cooldown?

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Featherfoot is 25% evasion for 15 seconds. Keen Flurry is 80% parry for 20 seconds. Both are on a 90 sec CD. Assuming a baseline 5% dodge rate, Featherfoot is a 21% decrease in damage taken while active and 3.5% decrease in damage taken over time (it goes up to 34.5% and 5.75%, respectively, if you apply the 22.5% increased evasion with the PGL tank like I suggested). With a 20% base parry chance and 20% parry value, Keen Flurry is a 16.67% decrease in damage taken while active and a 3.7% decrease in damage taken over time (and it can't really get appreciably better since you're already capping off the chance of getting a parry).

Second Wind is based off of attack power so it's unaffected by debuffs and Life Surge is based off of damage dealt. Tank stances apply a 20% reduction in damage dealt so we can make the reasonable assumption that a tank will get only 80% of the comparative value between Second Wind and Life Surge that currently applies to DPS. At level 40, with equal attack power, my DRG was critting for 320 with combo'd Full Thrust and my MNK was healing for 440 with Second Wind (not crit). With tank stance factored in, assuming that the ratio remains the same, Life Surge would provide 240 healing once per minute when used with your strongest attack ; Second Wind would provide 440 every 2 minutes, off GCD, whenever you need it. When you factor in that Second Wind can crit, they provide the same amount of healing over time but Second Wind actually allows you to heal when you need it rather than being contingent.

As for Mantra, PLD doesn't get Sentinel til 38 and Enhanced Sentinel til 48, and it's exactly as strong for MNK as Convalescence is for WAR with the same CD and only a slightly shorter duration (15 v. 20). Unless you're willing to say that the strongest CD that WAR gets is utterly horrible, you can't really badmouth Mantra.

Furthermore, look at their DPS CDs: Blood for Blood couldn't be used by a tank effectively; Internal Release is already used by one (and would actually end up being a tank CD if there were some mitigation bonus for scoring a crit, as I suggested in my first post).

So, yes, if you actually look at their CD suites, the PGL CD suite is definitely better for tanks. The self heal is more useful, the DPS buff can actually be used, the mitigation buff works better with tank gear (since Parry Rating increases frequency not value; that 80% is going to be pretty redundant at higher gear ratings), and there's one more tool in their toolbox.

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AoE isn't a frequent need, but that doesn't suddenly make it a non-issue.

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Before you hit 30/35, yeah, it's a non-issue: there just isn't that much AoE damage before then. The only time you need an AoE heal before Cutter's Cry is when multiple people stand in bad shit or people explicitly screw up a simple mechanic, like the fire adds in Halatali or the lanterns in Haukke Manor. Before Succor at 35, SCH just has Whispering Dawn has a 60 second CD. If AoE healing wasn't a non-issue pre-30/35, SCH would be impossible to play most of the time. You can manage to heal anything that you might have to level sync for with a single heal *easily*.

[quote]As for the "big heal", that's level 30 for both existing jobs, and cleanse is level 40 for SCH (Leeches).

That was kind of my point. When SCH syncs sub-30, they can still heal fully effectively because you don't really *need* an AoE heal or cleanse until your late 30s, and, even then, you can most non-50 content no issue without the cleanse (and I've met more than a few healers that don't use the cleanse on anything except for the Titan gaol debuff). The AoE heal and cleanse are *nice* to have sub-30 or even sub-35, but they're nowhere *near* necessary.

My issue is that you're bringing up sub-30 level syncing as if it were some kind of major issue that needs to be balanced around when, honestly, you don't really need to. As long as you know that they'll have Cure or Physick, which was agreed upon as an acceptable baseline assumption, they can heal the low level dungeons just fine. Hell, a THM or BLM with Physick can heal the low level dungeons just fine thanks to all of the Mind on caster gear before gear "specializes" in the late 30s/40s.

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Changing that requires a fundamental class design change.

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No, it doesn't unless you're simply coming up with massive modifications that wouldn't be needed in the least. Adding the Wrath stack generation to all of the WAR combos didn't necessitate flat out redoing every single ability. It's modifying a single tag. I'm still not even sure where you're digging up the removal of all combo requirements; you just kind of came up with that entirely on your own out of nothing.

Removing the positionals wouldn't completely change the feeling of the class either: you're still using the attacks in the same order; the only difference is that you're not bouncing from flank to back and back to flank, which you do the same on DRG (unless your issue is simply a problem with DRG only doing it for 2 attacks rather than 4, at which point your setting kind of an arbitrary difference in positional importance based upon how many abilities apply the given benefits) so, unless you think that removing positionals for DRG would completely change the feeling of it as well (especially since you don't even get to access the second LNC combo if you don't get a back attack with the starter; front or side attacking with Impulse Drive doesn't trigger the combo), the feeling is being preserved just as well. The only thing changing is the massive movement aspect, which is present for all mDPS (and likely will *continue* to be the mDPS schtick) and completely absent from tanks.

Greased Lightning would be *exactly* the same with the exception that the Greased Lightning benefits are now 7.5% evasion and 5% attack speed instead of 7.5% damage and 5% attack speed; I'm not entirely sure how you can get "entirely separate mechanic" out of that.

Arm of the Destroyer wouldn't need a massive fix either. It only gets the silence when you use it on Opo-opo form, which means that you have to use it after you use a coeurl form attack, and it puts you into raptor form by using it so you couldn't silence spam with it either. All *it* would require is an additional enmity tag. The silence on it is entirely controllable so there's no tweak needed.

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What do you have left? Twin Snakes, Demolish, and Touch of Death as random and irrelevant damage abilities, and then everything else is completely and fundamentally changed.

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Have you even *played* MNK? Unless you're hiding a completely different character somewhere else, you've gotten as high as 13, which explains why you really have no idea what you're talking about. Boot Shine and True Strike would be pretty much entirely untouched by removing the positional bonuses. Twin Snakes would actually be affected more than either of those, though it's affected less than Heavy Swing, which fulfills the exact same purpose, so arguing about *that* getting screwed by removing positional bonuses while saying that LNC isn't is just blatantly ignorant. It doesn't even change the actual *feel* of Snap Punch either, since it's an attack with no secondary effect regardless of what you do.

Hell, if you refuse to get rid of positional requirements, *DRG* is going to be the one that changes how it plays and feels completely because, unlike DRG, MNK can actually use all of its attacks while in front of something; DRG is restricted to a single completely vanilla combo. If you actually played the combat classes rather than spending all of your time crafting you might actually understand that.

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The class has an even weaker CD suite than MRD, meaning key survival mechanics have to be stuffed into job abilities.

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Really? Do you have *any* idea what you're talking about? MAR has Foresight, which is a complete and utter joke; Bloodbath, which is just as much of a joke; and Thrill of Battle, which is laughably weak given its 3 minute CD and 10 second duration. PGL actually has a *stronger* CD suite than MAR by a *huge* amount. Hell, that's the entire reason why MAR has to borrow 2-3 of those PGL CDs: the MAR CD suite *sucks*.

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PGL not only needs some absurd stance which increases HP, defense, and enmity by huge amounts

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So PGL needs an "absurd" stance that does the exact same thing that Defiance does? Seriously. What are you smoking?

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, it also needs a ranged pull ability just to have the most basic of functionality. This can't be cross-classed, either.

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Explain to me how a ranged pull ability is "the most basic functionality". You don't *need* a ranged pull ability. Hell, 90% of the time, I don't use Tomahawk or Shield Lob because they're not needed. They're nothing even remotely *close* to "basic functionality"; at best, they're secondary functionality that you'd notice not having a few times in the entire game, especially since PGL already gets Howling Fist for those times when you *absolutely* have to have a ranged attack.

I also find it amusing that you say that it can't be gotten through additionals because, you know, you say so (additionals are assigned arbitrarily; the devs could make Rage of Halone an additional for a PGL and *only* PGL if they wanted; it's just adding that class to the ability's affinities). Tomahawk or Piercing Talon could be put on the additionals list with no problem; the name would be kind of weird, but no stranger than a BLM using Quelling Strikes or a LNC using Straight Shot.

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So now you have to grab something like Touch of Death and turn it into a completely unrelated and new ability as well.

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Wait, what? Is your entire argument here "refuge in audacity" or do you just have no clue what you're talking about? Touch of Death wouldn't need to be touched at all. The mere suggestion of this is so ludicrous that it boggles the mind that you would even suggest it.

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There's nothing left of PGL at this point except for a few animations.

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Except, you know, everything that wouldn't be touched if the person doing the changes weren't a complete and utter *idiot*. The attack string/rotation and playstyle would be preserved with the exception of not having positions. Greased Lightning would be tweaked *slightly*. Everything else would remain *exactly as is*. You're acting as if removing the positional requirement on an attack and adding a high enmity modifier completely and utterly changes everything about the ability. Using that logic, WAR is *completely and utterly* different from MAR because, when you turn WAR, some of your attacks start generating Wrath stacks. Are you even *reading* what you're saying here or just trying to come up with any feasible change that might be required and then blowing it monumentally out of proportion and decrying it as the end of world on purpose?

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LNC gear is, as I showed previously, fine already. Only thing you'd need to do is add AF and endgame stuff, plus a belt or three.

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Except that it's not. Hell, the very fact that LNC gear is so schizophrenic about its defense/mdef allotment (it can be low symmetrical, asymmetrical, or high symmetrical) means that the itemization for it would be even *wonkier* than I already suggested.

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Your claim about PGL CDs is still rubbish.

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Unless you actually *look* at their CDs rather than just counting them, ignoring the most powerful, and calling it a day.

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LNC positional requirements apply only to two DPS-boosting abilities (Heavy Thrust and Impulse Drive) and could be handled a number of ways -- a one-off ability or a stance or whatever. PGL requirements apply to every attack in the main combo plus Twin Snakes and have no way to be addressed except to be completely thrown out and a new, unrelated potency number assigned to each attack.

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Have you actually looked at what the positional bonuses actually are or did you do another "I counted but didn't actually look at them"? It's an increased crit chance on the first attack and second attack and increased potency on the other 2. All secondary effects are entirely preserved. With DRG, you miss out on your entire second combo and get none of the much more important secondary effects. While PGL has *more* positional requirements/bonuses but DRG is impacted by those positional requirement/bonuses just as as much. If you actually look at what the positionals do rather than just counting them, it's pretty evident that they're both positionally dependent.

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LNC has a normal combo in Full Thrust. PGL does not. PGL will need to boost the potency of attacks to keep up with enmity needs as well as boost potency of DoTs to address damage issues.

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Unless you, you know, just remove the positional requirements and fold the effects into the baseline performance of the ability. I find it amusing that you seem to think that the entirety of a tank's rotation is perfectly fine with a single combo with no secondary effects, though. It's like you honestly believe that PLD isn't painfully boring to play.

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Mitt Romney joke.

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Not really. You get more than that by running AK/WP 2-3 times. If you've got a character in full DL, a second 50, or a reasonably high crafting class, you can't really claim that 10k gil is anything resembling an impressive amount of gil unless you're just bad at money management; it takes less than an hour to get that. Hell, you can make more than 10k with a gathering class in your 20s in less than an hour if you're remotely market savvy.

I'm nowhere *near* top 1% or even top 10%, but 10k isn't really all that much. It's like betting lunch at a diner.

Holy

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Originally Posted by Kitru

Wall of text

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Batman.

I still don't see the point of classes

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Originally Posted by Sylve

Conjurer gets 2 Damage spells, Stone and Aero. Yes, we have Stone II and Aero II, but its basically the same thing.

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That's like saying Bio and Bio II are the same thing (here's a hint: they're not). The DoTs stack and Aero II just so happens to have a cast time and shorter, higher potency DoT (40 for 12 instead of 25 for 18). Ignoring Stone I (since it does less damage and is only there for the Heavy application), that's 3 attacks that CNJ brings to the table. If you add in Thunder from THM, that's 4, all of which are entirely viable attacks. Toss in 3-4 rotational DPS abilities from your job (the others would go to an AoE and a damage buff, methinks) and you've got a full 7-8 abilities that can be used to form a pretty effective rotation (the WAR and PLD rotations are composed of 5 attacks primarily, so 7-8 is plenty).

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Except for one thing. You still have access to virtually every spell a WHM uses to heal. So now you have a DPS Job that can heal almost as well as a WHM, and has all the traits of a WHM.

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As Marta has already said, just because you have a heal doesn't mean it'll be useful. Medica and Medica II aren't going to heal for *shit* when you've got next to no MND. It's for this exact reason why Physick on a BLM is so flippin' terrible *and BLM has the same 30% increased healing from traits that WHM has*. All it takes to turn those heals into laughable side benefit heals is a drastic reduction in MND, which is easily possible with the job changes.

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You would also have Cleric Stance.
Oops, can't use that in your new DPS Job, a blanked out button, something we currently do not see. No Job prevents the use of a skill gained from its base class.

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Why do you think that Cleric Stance wouldn't be allowed to use just because the class is DPS? There's no reason *not* to allow it to be used, since it wouldn't really provide any benefit whatsoever. Activating it would be a nerf to your damage since it swaps you MND and INT, increases damage dealt, and reduces healing. Turning it on would end up decreasing your damage by a crapton (since a safe bet would be that MND is half of what your INT would be) even with the 10% increase and likely leaving your healing exactly where it was before thanks to the 20% reduction in damage dealt. It would just be a stupid vestigial ability that doesn't get used, just like Energy Drain for SCH.

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And what happens when you try to do Sastasha -> Toto-rak runs? Congrats, you may spam Stone / Stone II from start to finish. Exciting stuff.

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Have you played a SCH when you level sync down to those dungeons? Your life is Eos and Physick spam, if you're healing. For damage, you've got Bio, Miasma, and Ruin so it's not like there's that much of a difference. Level syncing isn't really an issue in the least.

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Any new jobs to be attached our existing classes NEED to be continuations of what the base class currently is. Otherwise, You're trying to make unique jobs out of half a class. It wont work and will feel awkward and bland.

The Archer is a class i can see getting a new Job. Sniper, no songs except that learned as an Archer, with a very heavy focus on dealing big burst hits.

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The problem with this idea is what's the point of even having it? It would be exactly the same with 5 abilities different and 5 abilities isn't going to change. At best, you'll have 2 classes that are so similar in performance that the choice doesn't matter and, at worst, you'll have one job that is explicitly *better*, which renders the other redundant. Any second jobs that happens are pretty much *guaranteed* to be of a different role than the first job, mainly because jobs need to be different enough to actually have a reason to exist. Why would you bother adding Blue Mage to Thaum if it's plays just like BLM with Freeze and Flare replaced by Flamethrower and Aqua Breath? Different jobs on the same class *need* different roles to prevent the jobs from just being effective duplicates of one another. The only way to appreciably differentiate jobs based off of the same class is to have them perform completely different roles.

Seriously, how would you add the "very heavy focus on big burst hits" to ARC in 5 abilities without making it broken as hell? How are you going to get rid of all of the ARC abilities that focus on craploads of little hits through free attacks and DoTs? The only way you're going to get a completely different style of DPS is to create an entirely different class built around that construct, with the abilities and traits to support it. The way the classes/jobs are set up now, you're too heavily invested in the class to have the job make enough of a difference to support 2 separate DPS jobs.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

snip

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Thats funny. Didn't know i could cast Stone and Stone II at the same time. If Aero and Aero II function in the same way Bio and Bio II work, then grats you have 3 spells. Still only 2 if you sync down.


The SCH retains the Fairy as it replaces the Carby completely. You still have the Fairy to alter your mechanics so that you can heal properly since the ACN wasn't built as a healer on its own.

A Conjurer using a DPS job, syncing down to do sub 28 Dungeons is just a Conjurer taking up a DPS slot, pretending to DPS.

Of the 8 Classes we have now, how many of them feel the same as the next one? Hint: none.

Alright, heres an example, lets say we get Dark Knight. Now, in FFTactics (Last time i used a DRK anyways) Their skills revolve around draining life to fuel their attacks. We do not have a class in the game right now that is even close to that, thematically.
Theres also the issue of these new Jobs needing new weapons to reflect their Jobs theme.
A Ninja would be dual wielding. We don't have a dual wield class.
Musketeer/Corsair uses a Gun, no class we have uses a Gun.
A Dancer would need special animations for every single skill, and what the hell would it come from anyways? PGL is about closest thing, but a Dancer (AFAIK) doesn't use Fist weapons.
Then you have other classes with skills and themes that do not even come close to an existing class.

My Monk feels like a Monk because of its Pugilist roots.
My DRG feels like a DRG because of its roots as a Lancer.

In short, the Jobs feel the way they do because of their base class, it's not something you just change the effects on a couple of skills, tack on a couple more and call it a day.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

Seriously, how would you add the "very heavy focus on big burst hits" to ARC in 5 abilities without making it broken as hell? How are you going to get rid of all of the ARC abilities that focus on craploads of little hits through free attacks and DoTs? The only way you're going to get a completely different style of DPS is to create an entirely different class built around that construct, with the abilities and traits to support it.

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Wait... Wait just a moment. Let me get this straight. You think we should just change up skills, skill effects and traits, essentially the entire structure of a class so that a class like CNJ can have a DPS Job, or PGL can have a Tank job, but then attack and deny the idea of changing the Archer to have a burst DPS Job alongside a Support Job?

Bolded, underlined and italicized for emphasis. This, right there, is my entire god damned point.

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Originally Posted by Sylve

Wait... Wait just a moment. Let me get this straight. You think we should just change up skills, skill effects and traits, essentially the entire structure of a class so that a class like CNJ can have a DPS Job, or PGL can have a Tank job, but then attack and deny the idea of changing the Archer to have a burst DPS Job alongside a Support Job?

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Your reading comprehension is *terrible*. The statement your quoting refers to having multiple jobs with the same role attached to the same class, not different jobs for the same role attached to the same job. To get CNJ to play like a legit DPS you don't actually have to *change* any of the existing abilities. You simply *add* new attacks while altering the stat allocation to prevent role crossover. It's really not that hard, unless you have absolutely no clue what's going one.

And, before you bring it up, Support isn't a role. It's a secondary functionality. BRD is a DPS class. When you queue up for DF, you don't get a "Support" slot; you get a "DPS" slot. Calling it a support class is like calling MNK a support class because it brings Mantra or SCH as support instead of healer when it brings Selene. When you queue up as a BRD, you're not joining as a Support; you're joining as a DPS because that's what BRD actually is. It has some support functionality (which, interestingly enough, multiple classes actually have), but it's still a DPS.

Furthermore, you never said how exactly you're going to make it so that your second DPS ARC job doesn't play *exactly* like BRD 99% of the time. If the two jobs play *exactly* the same except that one has some songs that it can throw up and the other has some new damage buffs and/or attacks on a long CD, you're not really creating an appreciably different playstyle. They're still going to be doing the exact same thing pretty much *all* the time so there's no real difference between the two.

Changing *role*, however, even if the basic attributes of the class remain, fundamentally changes the playstyle because it completely and utterly shifts the focus of the class. Going from DPS to tank would have you hitting largely the same buttons in the same order but, because you're now worrying about avoiding damage and using tank CDs to mitigate bursts rather than just pumping out numbers, it will play *completely differently*.

BRD doesn't change how ARC plays because they're both DPS. None of the jobs really do, with the exception of SCH because it's forcing a role change, because there isn't much you can do to change how a class performs its existing role with 5 abilities. You're Sniper wouldn't be a unique job; it would be a BRD that doesn't use its songs and gets some tweak to its damage profile while still using all of the same attacks/rotations.

I still find it interesting that, rather than describing how you would bring about this fundamental change in playstyle for the ARC/BRD to justify the presence of the Sniper, you elect to completely misinterpret what I'm saying and *also* remain oblivious of how the game actually operates. I challenged you to explain how you would have Sniper play different enough from a BRD for it to have a reason to exist: they're both DPS and having redundant DPS jobs isn't really a worthwhile expenditure of development resources. Just adding a couple cooldowns isn't going to accomplish anything because you're still relying upon the ARC abilities for everything, which is exactly what BRD does; adding some new attacks that do more damage isn't going to fly because BRD is already balanced against the other DPS *as a DPS* and increasing its damage would make your new class overpowered. Explain to all of us how you would *fundamentally change* how ARC deals damage in those 5 abilities. Please. Show us.

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Bolded, underlined and italicized for emphasis.

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The next time you try to single out a statement, make sure you understand what the hell it's saying. All you accomplished by doing that was demonstrating how absolutely incapable of understanding my point you actually were.

Based upon your logic, it's impossible to have a job for a class different from its base role. We already know *that* is impossible because of SCH. What *I* am saying is that it is impossible to have a job for a class that is the *same* as its base role because it's not going to be appreciably different from the job that already exists. A different role will use those abilities in a different way because that's what role does: it completely changes the focus of the class. If it's the same role, it's doing the *exact same thing*. It's like coming up with a new healer job for CNJ: it would still end up healing the exact same as WHM with 99% of the time because the only thing you're really losing is Regen (which is really just the lazy healer's maintenance heal; it does what Cure does when you don't feel like exerting yourself at all). Change it to a DPS job, however, and it plays fundamentally differently because it's focusing on an entirely different aspect of the class.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

Rubbish

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I could rip apart this post, but I've had it with the ad hominem. You can't even be arsed to look at the equipment lists before raging about it, and that tells me all I need to know about the value of a response.

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Originally Posted by Sylve

A Dancer would need special animations for every single skill, and what the hell would it come from anyways? PGL is about closest thing, but a Dancer (AFAIK) doesn't use Fist weapons.

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As I recall, Dancer almost exclusively uses knives, which are (oddly enough) already taken by GLA. If you ask me, push daggers are as good a replacement as any. However, I'm not sure how much I would like PGL Dancer in that it would likely have to be designed in such a way that is basically BRD-esque DPS+buff design. You could take the Fists abilities in a different direction, like make them preliminary steps to form dances, but I think that might be a bit ham-handed.

A while ago I recall hearing that apparently Yoshi acknowledges the GLA dagger issue and is intending to remove them from that class (it was a holdover from 1.0's original battle system), so that shouldn't be an issue introducing a hypothetical 'rogue' type class (besides, the Armoury System doesn't even actually list weapons or tools by their specific 'type' like 'swords' or 'guns' anyway - instead they're listed as the class's name's 'arm'/'two-handed arm', or 'primary/secondary tool', like Gladiator's Arm for sword or Conjurer's Two-Handed Arm for a two-handed staff, meaning even if daggers weren't removed from GLA, they could easily be given to another class as well, but just listed as '<insert hypothetical class name here>'s Arm').

As for Dancer, I can definitely see it coming off PGL ironically enough, as only FFXI gave them knives (and even that was an afterthought - they could also equip MNK h2h weapons as well - only later was the Job given Dual Wield and hence became more adept at using blades). I can't remember what weapons exactly they used in FFV though.

However in FFT took they took the cake though for unique and unusual weapons - they used pieces of fabric! So maybe they might end up off an entirely new class which utilizes something similar (Acrobat maybe?).

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

besides, the Armoury System doesn't even actually list weapons or tools by their specific 'type' like 'swords' or 'guns' anyway

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Yeah, there's nothing stopping them from duplicating weapon types except the awkwardness of doing it.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

As for Dancer, I can definitely see it coming off PGL ironically enough, as only FFXI gave them knives...

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FF5 was knives only. Knives were an option for pretty much every other release as well (except X-2's Songstress). Knives are definitely the most common Dancer weapon type, though that's probably because they're also the general weapon type that any job can use for any reason.

If you can't figure out how something can be tweaked to fit thematically or stemming from other jobs, you're not creative enough.

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Originally Posted by Gamemako

Yeah, there's nothing stopping them from duplicating weapon types except the awkwardness of doing it.

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I had this same thought this weekend. We already have 2 classes (3 if you count PLD and dagger/sword) that use two different weapon types: WHM (wand/staff) and BLM (cudgel/cane). Furthermore, wands/cudgels and staffs/canes are essentially the same thing with different stats.

Going to be interesting to say the least on how they address this. All I really want to know is why they kept daggers on GLA of all things.

Dual wield is simple to introduce, instead of having a weapon in each slot, make it a pair, so gladiator can use a brass dagger, but not brass daggers, like how fist weapons work, one pair equipped in main hand slot. If you did have a dual wield class, ninja could easily come off it, just that the weapons they can equip would be ninja only, and you could make them, you know ninja style weapons, this is already in the game in a way. Look at the primal books, Scholar books can only be used by scholars, while the summoner book can be used while just a mere arcanist. Ninja I think it would be funny if they just gave a big "FU" to the XI crowd and made ninjas a ranged dd class, I think in earlier games their specialty was throwing weapons, they could always toss in ninjitsu to make up for it, but all utsusemi would end up being is a featherfoot with a mystical animation. Lancer could easily have a tank class, let's call it Tankinglancer(TLR). Tankinglancer's spears would be one handed, TLR only, and that would free up a spot for a nifty Spartan like shield, but out of respect for 300, their AF armor would need to have then men's ab show, not the ladies.

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Originally Posted by Mcshiggs

Dual wield is simple to introduce, instead of having a weapon in each slot, make it a pair, so gladiator can use a brass dagger, but not brass daggers, like how fist weapons work, one pair equipped in main hand slot.

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Yeah, that's pretty much a given. Equipping one in offhand slot would make a right mess of things due to stats. Would have to be an entire new class, of course. Provided ARR lasts, I suspect we'll see a dual-wielding job eventually. They're too damn popular in video games.

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Originally Posted by Mcshiggs

Tankinglancer's spears would be one handed, TLR only, and that would free up a spot for a nifty Spartan like shield

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Swapping from a two-handed to a one-handed setup would require completely redoing the animations for every ability in the Lancer's arsenal. That is pretty unlikely, especially when there's no reason to add blocking specifically to the class.