New Class/Job in 2.2?

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Originally Posted by Kitru

Because, when WoW did it, those new classes had just as many, if not more, DPS options compared to the tank options. ARR is different because jobs serve a single role. The only way that adding a new tank class/job in ARR *wouldn't* result in more tanks would be if *only* people that played WAR/PLD decided to play it.

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But you forget that when the Death Knight class was introduced, it's not the fact that it had a DPS tree that kept the ratio of DD to Tanks the same. Two of the three trees were used for tanking, and the DK was completely overpowered in regards to tanking. Blizzard handed players a ready-made, high-level, ready to tank class to anybody that bothered ... and who were vast majority of players that rerolled as DK tanks? Warrior tanks switching for greener pastures. Who were the next most type of players to pick up DK tanks? People that wanted a fast queue as a tank and usually couldn't hack it and later turned to the DPS tree.

This may be off topic a little (or not) but would it be hard to imagine an extension per say to existing classes/jobs. For example a paladin requires 30 gladiator and 15 conjuer. In regards to that if they introduced say a Black Knight/Deathknight/etc... would it be too much in thinking it *could* require say lvl 50 gladiator, 30 conjurer, 15 (whatever, maybe lancer)? Just a thought and also in the sense they wouldn't need to introduce entire new classes.

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Originally Posted by Stormseeker

Two of the three trees were used for tanking, and the DK was completely overpowered in regards to tanking.

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Blood wasn't actually meant to be a tank tree. It was a DPS tree originally with Frost acting as the actual tank tree. Blood could tank in an unintentional manner thanks to the amount of lifestealing it had access to. It was only later, when they nerfed down certain aspects of DK (keep in mind, the devs explicitly wanted DK to be overpowered at release to draw players to the class even if they were already invested in another; they outright admitted this when asked why DK was so borked at the start), that Blood became the tank spec and Frost stopped.

WoW could never manage to balance out the role population because the only single role classes were DPS. In ARR, however, because the game uses single role class/jobs, if anyone continues to play whatever new tank or healer class/job is provided beyond the initial experimentation/investigation phase, it will always end up being a net increase to the tanking/healing population, just as adding any new DPS is going to end up increasing the DPS population.

The devs have explicit control over how players use classes in ARR: a PLD is a tank and can never be a DPS or a healer. In WoW, because they forced themselves to provide 3 options and to never provide more than 1 tank or healing option, the control was flimsy, which is why WoW never managed to normalize their role population to any appreciable extent. Their solution, therefore, was to provide tanks with greater rewards to make tanks more active rather than to try and get more people to play tanks.

Also, Storm, it was mentioned earlier and you apparently missed it: you can circumvent the 1000 character posting limit by editing the post. Write up whatever you're going to say, cut whatever is making it excessively large, hit post, hit edit, and then paste back in the remaining portions. Making 4 posts because you couldn't is annoying as hell to read, not to mention more work as well.

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Originally Posted by h0neybadg3r

Just a thought and also in the sense they wouldn't need to introduce entire new classes.

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I highly doubt that they'd make a new job require 50 in the class and 30/15 in two other jobs (it doesn't even make sense for Death Knight to have CNJ anyways) since it would simply cause the character to skip right through any and all class story because they'd qualify for it right off the bat. If it were stronger than the other jobs (which it would kind of need to be to justify the increased requirements), it would render the other jobs for the class redundant (important note: class can't be rendered redundant because you still keep all traits and abilities from your class when you get a job; there are only 5 job abilities and they are unique to the job) while also potentially rendering other jobs in the same role redundant due to the increase effectiveness.

It's much more likely that, if the devs add new jobs without adding a new class, they'll simply tack it on to an existing class while changing the subclass requirement (e.g. DRK off of GLA requires 30 GLA and 15 LNC).

The problem with this, however, is that a class really needs to be built around the central idea of being able to branch into two separate roles at level 30. GLA doesn't have enough attacks to really create a compelling playstyle at 50, much less 30 (it's got a single t3 combo, a t2 combo that restores MP, a stun, and a block retribution attack), while also having all but one of the abilities in the PLD CD suite attached to the class instead of the job (which could *potentially* be turned into DPS CDs). It would take an incredible amount of revision of the class to make GLA into a class that could serve as a viable springboard for a DPS job.

The only reason that ACN can branch into jobs that fill 2 separate role in a viable and compelling manner is that it was built to do so: the base class is a DPS that gets a heal, a combat rez, and a DPS mechanic that can be quickly and easily coopted to become healing functionality (the pets) that also turns what used to be DPS CDs into healing CDs (Rouse, Eos and Selene's "special attacks" compared to the other summons'). The only things that SCH had to bring were a cleanse, a big heal, and an AoE heal.

DPS needs a relatively complex rotation and a substantial suite of DPS CDs (it could be argued that they also need some kind of enmity reduction capability, but MNK doesn't have it even though everything else does); tanks need a substantial suite of survivability CDs, a relatively simple rotation, and a tank stance (provided by the job); healers need a big heal, a maintenance heal, an AoE heal, a cleanse, and a rez. The class/jobs will have *more* than that, but those are basically the minimums for them to be balanced and compelling (it doesn't matter if it's balanced if it's too boring/hard/easy to play; it doesn't matter how fun it is to play if it's broken). As such, some classes just don't have what they need in order to turn into a different role: ARC and THM aren't going to be anything other than DPS, GLA isn't going to be anything other than a tank (with the 2.1 changes, the same could potentially be said for MRD with the buffs to the CD suite), and CNJ isn't going to be anything other than a healer. For all of those, the roles for the class are simply too heavily ingrained into the class itself.

It's because of this that the general consensus is that they'll most likely add new jobs along with new classes (as a further "benefit", a new class also prevents players from instantly reaching the end of a given job because they leveled up the base class months before). It's not *impossible*, since the devs can break whatever rules they have said or we interpreted that they have, but it's damned unlikely. Even those 3 classes that *could* act as springboards for jobs with different roles (LNC and PGL into tank jobs; MRD into a DPS job), there are still problems inasmuch as the classes already bring suites from their class that would be exceptional capabilities in their potential other roles (MRD has *way* more tank CDs than any other DPS and PGL/LNC both have a lot more +DPS than any of the tanks do).

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Originally Posted by Katchii

If there's one thing I learned from WoW it's that adding more tank classes does not magically create more tanks and adding a healing class does not magically create more healers. So adding more tanks or heealers will not fix the shortage of tanks or healers, a few more might crop up, but the vast differene in population between DPS, Tanks and Healers will always be there.

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And? That doesn't mean that afew people won't try it. That doesn't mean... a tank bored with the two options that already exist won't try new option and stay to tanking rather than becoming yet another dps because hey New shiny also works on Tank players(and healer players) its not a DPS only thing.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

The problem with this, however, is that a class really needs to be built around the central idea of being able to branch into two separate roles at level 30.

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Truly, I wouldn't be surprised if SE did some restructuring of each class as new jobs were added on to them. Paladin is one example of the class being way too focused on it's given role, but Conjurer is another good one; it's focused way too heavily on healing that any DPS option for it (eg. Geomancer) would have almost nothing to benefit from it's traits and most of its abilities.

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Originally Posted by Nahara

Truly, I wouldn't be surprised if SE did some restructuring of each class as new jobs were added on to them.

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The problem with restructuring the existing classes is that you'd have to shift the functionality around without impacting current performance. PLD is currently balanced with WAR and WHM is balanced with SCH; if GLA got "restructured" to make it more dps job friendly, it would basically require removing tank CDs from GLA and replacing them with DPS CDs and new attacks, which is going to diminish PLD tank capability (there are only 5 job abilities, 4 of which are absolutely set in stone and the 5th of which is actually a DPS ability); if CNJ got restructured, WHM would take a hit to its healing capability as well, especially since the biggest obstacle to a CNJ DPS job is the healing proc traits and sheer number of healing abilities that WHM gets (Presence of Mind is pretty much a joke, so it could go and be replaced by one of the CNJ heals, but that still leaves CNJ with about half of its abilities basically "wasted" on healing).

Honestly, I think it's just much more likely that certain classes just aren't going to get new jobs. It's not as if every class *needs* to have multiple jobs stemming off of it and, honestly, you can design better jobs by building them from scratch with a relevant class instead of trying to turn an existing class into something that it wasn't originally intended to do. I honestly think that single job classes will be the norm and that multiple job classes, like ACN, are going to be the exception and only because they were expressly built around being capable of it.

Gladiator could be made more "Dps friendly" if it moved a couple of the Gladiator abilities to Paladin(Bulwerk, sentinel) and moved a couple Paladin abilities to Gladiator(Spirits within, Sword Oath). White mage would be a bit trickier since alot of the heals are baked into CNJ

Yes CNJ would be hard just like THM will be hard, but that was why I thought of a possible Sage class (remember Tellah and FuSoYa?), someone suggested they do Sage and Seer instead, which also to me makes sense.


Basically say Seer for CNJ, and it's abilites and spells would be combo'd in with Stone and Aero, like saying as long as Aero is present on the mob, you can cast Tornado and (insert another wind spell) and as long as Heavy from stone is inflicted then you can cast things like Stone 3 and Quake. And as for healing, that is where cleric stance will come in, since Seer will become a Int based class, you would need to use cleric stance to increase your healing spells output (without it your kinda like a summoner casting physick, and with it you can make a decent back-up healer, not main but maybe like a raid healer or something)

And Sage would be the healing version of THM, basically it's 30, 35, etc give it healing spells, say like Cure 1, cure 2, medica 1, medica 2, regen, and they would still keep their thm healing including umbral ice to help with mana regen, but work it in a way that they can't regain mana while healing (kinda like astral fire) so they would need to occasionally pop out a blizzard spell (probably 3) to get mana back or tranpose. Basically make umbra ice still refill mana, but astral fire increase healing output without the increase in mana.. idk something along those lines.

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Originally Posted by Anatha

We really don't need another dps at this point in time, adding in musketeer will only make a serious problem worse. DPS can just plain forget about using duty finder without a tank or healer in tow, because you aren't getting in. Game seriously needs a desirable tank class.

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On the other hand, a musketeer would complete the 2x2 look they have going right now (2 tanks, 2 healers, 2 melee, 2 casters.... 1 ranged)

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While it won't *fix* the problem, it will address it to some extent. As soon as you add a new class, people tend to flock to it to check it out (novelty). Even if only a small number of people stick with it, you're still getting more tanks (a tank that swaps classes is still a tank, but a DPS or healer that swaps is now a tank).

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That's the hope, but I honestly can't think of any time I've seen this pan out in an actual MMO.

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Originally Posted by Sylari

On the other hand, a musketeer would complete the 2x2 look they have going right now (2 tanks, 2 healers, 2 melee, 2 casters.... 1 ranged)

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Depends on where you are looking. Class wise, this isn't true so the imbalance exists before endgame with 2 tank, 1 healer, 2 melee, 2 casters and 1 ranged. Also SE sees both Magic and Ranged DPS as the same thing so based on SE's standards we have 3 Ranged DPS.

When you extend to jobs then you get your numbers with one of the Magic Ranged DPS turning into a healer as well.

No matter how you look at it, an imbalance of character class types will exist, so honestly there is no way to balance out what we have right now, at least not with adding only 1 class/job at a time. If we were to get a large expansion with a few classes/Jobs these are possible to balance, but a patch addition possibly not.

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Originally Posted by XanderOlivieri

Also SE sees both Magic and Ranged DPS as the same thing so based on SE's standards we have 3 Ranged DPS.

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No, they don't. DPS is divided into 3 categories: ranged (BRD), caster (BLM, SMN), and melee (MNK, DRG). You can tell by looking at the limit breaks: BRD shares its LB with healers, not with casters. Even if you want to talk "role", SE only sees DPS, which means that it lumps melee with magic and ranged. As such, there's never a case where you have Magic and Ranged considered together without the inclusion of Melee.

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No matter how you look at it, an imbalance of character class types will exist, so honestly there is no way to balance out what we have right now, at least not with adding only 1 class/job at a time. If we were to get a large expansion with a few classes/Jobs these are possible to balance, but a patch addition possibly not.

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Except that the devs don't have to fix the ratio all in one swoop. It's perfect fine to attempt the fix in increments (e.g. adding a new healer, then a new tank, then a new ranged DPS).

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Originally Posted by Kitru

No, they don't. DPS is divided into 3 categories: ranged (BRD), caster (BLM, SMN), and melee (MNK, DRG). You can tell by looking at the limit breaks: BRD shares its LB with healers, not with casters. Even if you want to talk "role", SE only sees DPS, which means that it lumps melee with magic and ranged. As such, there's never a case where you have Magic and Ranged considered together without the inclusion of Melee.

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With their change to the Wolves Den, Summoner, Arcanist, Thaumaturge, Black Mage, Archer, and Bard are all lumped together as "Ranged DPS". That's where I'm pulling the SE Standards. My Summoner has a healing LB. I used it when I did Haukke Manner some time back.

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Originally Posted by XanderOlivieri

My Summoner has a healing LB. I used it when I did Haukke Manner some time back.

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No, it doesn't. It never had it. It has the DPS LB, just like BLM.

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Originally Posted by Sylari

That's the hope, but I honestly can't think of any time I've seen this pan out in an actual MMO.

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On the other hand what MMO hasn't had tons of DPS choices vs very few Tanking options. I am not saying adding new tanking options is going to suddenly make Tanks more common than DPS but PLENTY of people pick classes based on themes rather than just role. I mean there's a reason people want to say Thieves/rogue/ninja are a needed class when they'd just be another melee dps.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

No, it doesn't. It never had it. It has the DPS LB, just like BLM.

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I've used it more than once, first time was right after I had gotten Summoner cause I was using Ifrit in Haukke Mannor. I was told to use my LB because the other DPS was an Archer. The two guys that were originally helping me were a bit confused by it too cause when I used my LB I healed those in the targeted area. It was a level 1 LB.

This was some time ago mind, and the Archer was KIA.

^ Then you either interpreted something you saw incorrectly or experienced some sort of extremely bizarre bug. Summoners (and arcanists) have a DPS limit break and have had a DPS limit break.

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Originally Posted by jomoru

On the other hand what MMO hasn't had tons of DPS choices vs very few Tanking options. I am not saying adding new tanking options is going to suddenly make Tanks more common than DPS but PLENTY of people pick classes based on themes rather than just role. I mean there's a reason people want to say Thieves/rogue/ninja are a needed class when they'd just be another melee dps.

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Oh I know theme definitely matters, I'm just saying my anecdotal observations have been that even when a game starts dumping out new tanking classes frequently it doesn't significantly fix the problem long term. More often than not the people who switch to the new tank because they prefer the style were people who were playing the old tank anyways. Maybe I'm just unlucky though.

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Originally Posted by XanderOlivieri

I've used it more than once, first time was right after I had gotten Summoner cause I was using Ifrit in Haukke Mannor. I was told to use my LB because the other DPS was an Archer. The two guys that were originally helping me were a bit confused by it too cause when I used my LB I healed those in the targeted area. It was a level 1 LB.

This was some time ago mind, and the Archer was KIA.

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The Summoner is classified as magical DPS class, and as such is given the caster LB, the same as the Black Mage. I can vouch with very clear memory going into Ifrit Hard Mode as summoner (and a few times the ONLY magical DPS job during the run) and using the Rank 3 caster LB to destroy the nails. I don't know what happened in that Haukke Manor run of yours, but a Summoner does not and has never had access to the healing LB.

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Originally Posted by Sylari

Oh I know theme definitely matters, I'm just saying my anecdotal observations have been that even when a game starts dumping out new tanking classes frequently it doesn't significantly fix the problem long term. More often than not the people who switch to the new tank because they prefer the style were people who were playing the old tank anyways. Maybe I'm just unlucky though.

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The problem with your anecdotal evidence, however, is that in all of your experiences, the developers never adds *just* tanks; in every situation you've talked about, they added DPS *in addition* to tanks and, in fact, more often than not, they end up adding more DPS options than tanking options.

That is *not* the same with ARR. If WoW were using the same classes as ARR, if you didn't like tanking on MRD/WAR, you'd just go and use one of the two DPS specs that they provide. In ARR, if you don't like tanking on MRD/WAR, you'd have to go play something else because that's all MRD/WAR does.

That's a *huge* difference and renders whatever anecdotal evidence you might be able to conjure up irrelevant. Anecdotal evidence is *already* incredibly flimsy, but when it's anecdotal evidence about a system that has a glaring difference from what is being discussed, it's basically worthless.