Thief>Ninja/Dancer Class/Job

Everyone keeps thinking the new jobs/classes will be based off how they worked in Final Fantasy 11. Which is why it's assumed that Dark Knights will use Scythes, and Dancers will be healers, etc etc etc

You have to look at final fantasy as a whole, not by just one game. Dancers in all the other final fantasys were melee/front lines debuffers. Bards were always range/back row buffers. Look now at FF 14.. Bards are technically Back room/range buffers. I think dancers will be just like the genre uses them as in the past, melee debuffers. They will probably be based off monk, use fists as their weapons (again remember they used fists, fans, and purses as weapons in other games) and have the ability to enter dance steps/forms (like greased lighting and others monk does) and those forms will effect the monsters in a certain range from the dancer with debuffs, maybe slow, or 10% less damage, or paralyze.. and they only get these benefits if they can stay in the form.

Dark Knights, in 11 used scythes, in final fantasy x-2 used 2 handed swords, in final fantasy 4 sword and shield, final fantasy 3 (ds version) also sword and shield, I can't remember the remake of FFT what they used, but I know it wasn't scythes. So why is everyone so sure it HAS to be scythes. Odds are, dark knights will be sword and shield based off gladiator so they are opposite of paladins which is what the class is always represnted as, the opposite of light(paladin) and will be the gladiator dps class.

As for thief, I see it coming out in the next expansion as a new base class (probably from Ul'dah) as a dagger melee/stealth class (Yoshi stated he wants a stealth class), now remember WoW, their Rogue class can and does steal, but it's usually tidbits of gil and other worthless items, so odds are the thief will do the same here, they will probably also be a class does bleed effects, dual-wield daggers, raises evasion and party evasion, and maybe increase party drop/loot rate by 1%. They will probably also has the job class ninja based off them, and still be a dagger/short dagger/short sword fighter but now have access to some ninja spells, probably a range attack/immoblize attack (like say a smoke bomb for cc), but for a 2nd job, I haven't thought of one yet (possibly Samurai, but not sure how that will work out just yet)

There is of course other jobs, like Red Mage, Blue Mage(sorry I don't see them using Blue Mage), Sage, Time Mage(which actually could be 2nd job to Con, but make it a hot healer or even a dps healer? I had an idea of how to make it work based of Conjuror dealing with casting cure spells on the mob to do damage and the amount of damage you cause with them directly heals a party member, but haven't figured out how to make it work without making it overpowered.) and let's not forget Geomancers.. there are a lot of classes and jobs out there.. it's just how to make it work in this game in a 4 person party system without making another job obsolete... they need to make sure that the next healing class doesn't make sch or whm worthless.

if it had to come down to it, i'd much rather see a thief job and never see ninja since i just prefer the aesthetic of being a thief

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Originally Posted by Kitru

It's pretty apparent that the developers want the melee "gimmick" to be positional DPS, given how MNK and DRG, both classes that have *never* been positional in any other game or FF series, are positional DPS. The rogue/thief type has almost always been positional so I think it'd be really weird if they went away from that. As to the DoTs and DoT manipulation, I tried to do that with Eviscerate (it's a lot like Fester), though I think it might be interesting to see some further manipulation with Master Thievery (possibly regaining 1 stack of Ill-gotten Gains for each of your DoTs on the target; it fits with the "thievery" part of the name as well).

I think it should be mentioned, on top of this, that I'm adding an extra resource to juggle/manage, which is something that neither MNK nor DRG has to deal with.

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I didn't explain what I meant very well, that's on me. After some finetuning of the suggestion I figure I'd put them together in a way that makes a bit more sense for what I was trying to say.

3. Quick stab - 150 potency

4. Flurry - Flurry: 100 potency
Flank bonus: increase attack speed by 10% for 12 seconds
Combo Action: Quick Stab
Combo Bonus: 190 potency

6. Cheap shot: 100 Potency
Combo action: Flurry
Combo Bonus: 275 potency, X% chance of adding 1 Ill gotten gains
*What I wanted to do here was have a "main solo" combo which feeds into a way to apply DoTs at your desire.(see gil toss) when playing solo.

5. Backstab: 100 Potency
Back Bonus: Damage over Time, 25 Potency, Duration 18 seconds

7. Ambush: 100 potency
Flank Bonus: Reduce Target's resistance to piercing dmg by 10% for 18 seconds

8. Eviscerate: 100 potency
Back bonus: 75 additional potency for each Ambush, Backstab, and hemorrhage on the target. 20 sec cooldown.

9. Hemorrhage: 100 potency
Flank bonus: 35 potency, 18 second duration

12. Hamstring: 50 potency
Back bonus: 50% heavy, 15 potency, 18 seconds duration

*I've moved the DoT applications into being positionals, but not combos. I increased the durations to work more with solo play, but it's depending on the Ill gotten gains/Gil toss mechanic if they need to be tuned. I also think that upping the DOT potency and decreasing the combo potency may be valid.

10. Gil Toss: Off-GCD, doubles the duration of the next attack performed, consumes ill-gotten gains (1). Binds the target in the direction it currently is facing for 5 seconds.
*big deal right? The idea is that the gil toss is a distraction. It, similar to holmgang, locks the target in one direction allowing the thief to move to the flank or back for a positional.

Hope that makes what I was saying make a bit more sense.

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Originally Posted by Tzain

7. Ambush: 100 potency
Flank Bonus: reduce target's resistance to periodic damage by 10% for 30 seconds.
*I didn't think the overlap/compound effect of Thief + Lancer was healthy for balance. So upping the DoT dmg of anyone who uses one is a similar, yet different approach.

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The issue I see with this is that it benefits *too many* classes. The current resistance debuffs work because they only affect 2 classes: WAR only affects PLD and WAR, DRG only affects BRD and DRG, MNK only affects MNK, BRD only affects BLM and SMN (and, even then, it's of limited uptime), though this could *feasibly* be modified by adding "bleeding resistance" to the existing physical damage type suite that affects abilities like Fracture, Chaos Thrust, and Phlebotomize in addition to the THF DoTs. If the resistance weren't added, because there isn't a resistance attribute to tweak, it would need to be reworded as "increases damage the target takes from periodic effects by 10%".

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8. Eviscerate: 100 potency
Back bonus: 75 additional potency for each Ambush, Backstab, Katon, and hemorrhage on the target. (trait: Enhanced Eviscerate - Eviscerate has a X% chance to refresh DoT effects on target. Replaces Enhanced Hemorrhage)

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I wouldn't include Katon in the list (because it's a magic/fire DoT, not a bleeding DoT so it's not thematically appropriate) and including Ambush was actually a typo. I meant to put Cheap Shot there, since it was basically supposed to be a physical version of Fester. I have mixed feelings about duration reset procs which is why I didn't include it.

Also, I put Eviscerate as a t3 combo ability for a reason. The way you've got it written, all you'd do is apply DoTs (do t2 combo up to Flurry) then spam Eviscerate.

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*I've moved the DoT applications into being positionals, but not combos. I increased the durations to work more with solo play, but it's depending on the Ill gotten gains/Gil toss mechanic if they need to be tuned. I also think that upping the DOT potency and decreasing the combo potency may be valid.

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DoTs as positionals would render those abilities basically worthless while soloing which I was explicitly trying to avoid. None of the combos would be forbidden while soloing (because you can't do positionals while you have aggro on something). Your set up would basically have THF spamming your Cheap Shot combo over and over and over again because they wouldn't be able to actually *get* value from anything else. It's important to have positionals act as *bonuses*, not gatekeepers, because, if you have them act as gatekeepers, it simply isn't fun. Positional benefits should be a bonus for good play, not a requirement to actually get to play the class in the first place.

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10. Gil Toss: Off-GCD, doubles the potency of the next attack performed, consumes ill-gotten gains (1). Binds the target in the direction it currently is facing for 5 seconds.
*big deal right? The idea is that the gil toss is a distraction. It, similar to holmgang, locks the target in one direction allowing the thief to move to the flank or back for a positional. The double potency is to really crank up those positional DoTs. The effect is not subject to diminishing returns, but rarely works on group boss content depending on balance. The Double Potency on the other hand, works regardless.

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That would basically render Katon redundant while also being insanely powerful. It's set as an off-GCD attack for a reason: it's the *simple* Ill-gotten Gains consumer. It has a vanilla effects because it's supposed to have a vanilla effect. It's like Bane for ACN: it's not the ultra-amazing one that you have to wait until you get your job to get.

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The only remaining piece that I'd really like to see is a self heal. Melee DPS does well to have some recovery option. I think a way of turning DoT periodic dmg into a source of self healing would be fitting. like a counterpoint to Bloodbath. Maybe on Master Thievery?

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NIN would get Second Wind from PGL (it's a level 8 ability so you can't *not* have available). I don't see loading more functionality on Master Thievery as a particularly good idea. It's supposed to be a (big) burst damage IGG consumer (should probably increase it to 150 potency per, since, right now, it's no different than just chain dumping 3 Gil Tosses in a row). I could feasibly see reducing the baseline CD on Flee to 45 seconds and having Improved Flee heal you for 20% of your max hp or something similar. If it's *absolutely* needed for NIN/THF to have some kind of self-heal function natively, I could see getting rid of Fuujin (since Spinning Strike already serves as an acceptable AoE) and replacing it with a self heal (with an appropriate ninjitsu name) or adding a self-heal that consumes a stack of IGG (since the class should probably have 18 abilities so that you get 2 abilities at the level you get Pilfer such that it's not a worthless ability until you get your second).

I do think that an 18th ability is needed thanks to Pilfer basically *needing* to be provided at the same level as Gil Toss, but I'm not sure what is needed. I'd be open to ideas, possibly something on a long CD instantly provides you with 3 stacks of IGG immediately or an outright crit buff so that THF/NIN doesn't have to rely *solely* upon a CC ability for its +crit functionality.

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When looking at Ninja, I don't think any major changes are needed, though I also think that it's going to be constantly starved for ill gotten gains depending on how fast they generate. It may be worth exploring increasing the number of ill gotten gains you can store. Say it starts off with 2 and works it's way up to 6? Something to consider.

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I think you're underestimating how valuable Mug is going to be. DoTs and auto-attacks are both capable of scoring a critical hit. Given the sheer number of DoTs applied and the super fast auto-attack rate that THF/NIN is going to have (1.5 sec base attack speed brought down to 1.2 with Flurry), you're going to get a *lot* of chances at Mug proccing. With 3 DoTs ticking (Katon, Cheap Shot, Hemorrhage) every 3 seconds, a 2 sec GCD (2.5 * .8), and a 1.2 sec auto-attack speed (1.5 * .8), you're going to be averaging 5.83 attacks per (normal 2.5 sec) GCD. With a 20% crit rate (which is likely going to be higher with endgame stacking of crit rate) and Mug's 20% proc rate, you're going to be averaging one "free" IGG stack every 10.7 seconds. NIN also gets access to Internal Release, which is a 25% uptime 10% crit chance increase. Pilfer is only intended to provide "starter" stacks, and I've debated having it not trigger combat so that you can "preload" yourself with 3 stacks if you take the time. Mug is going to be your real IGG generator.

Edited previous post to keep things tidy.

I decreased the base duration of the DoTs (which I had previously extended) and changed Gil Toss to extend the attacks duration rather than double the potency. Should balance it out. (I still think an off GCD 120 potency has the potential to be crazy overpowered).

I reverted my change to Ambush, and removed the refresh effect from eviscerate. You're right. It's not needed. I did add a cooldown to it to avoid spamming. (which may be a bit on the long side)

I personally want Ninja to be a ranged DD job that throws kunai knives and other bladed weapons kind of how Thancred does in that one cutscene, and Thief to be a melee dagger backstab/steal job. I usually see Ninja's throwing things more than fighting close up in FF games, and their specialty in many games was the "Throw" ability (and sometimes their most powerful).

http://youtu.be/l7hPoZYv8qE?t=4m10s

This cutscene in FFXIV in particular. After seeing this I was hoping Ninja would be a agile ranged Job with awesome blade throwing animations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IT12DW2Fm9M

More high flying ninja throwing blades from FF IV's opening cutscene.

Plus it would add another ranged DD job while allowing those who do enjoy the Thief to continue to play their favorite Job in the series. I personally like Thief aesthetically and visually and would be pretty sad to not see it become a job.

Not very many games have a throwing knife job either, it's a pretty unique archetype.

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Originally Posted by Calypsx

I personally want Ninja to be a ranged DD job that throws kunai knives and other bladed weapons kind of how Thancred does in that one cutscene, and Thief to be a melee dagger backstab/steal job. I usually see Ninja's throwing things more than fighting close up in FF games, and their specialty in many games was the "Throw" ability (and sometimes their most powerful).

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That would be kinda interesting, actually. Not sure what kind of class would focus on throwing daggers, but having NIN be a ranged DD like that would be rather interesting.

I always found their (Ninja's) melee attacks to be more effective than Throw more often than not. Less wasteful for sure.

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Originally Posted by Exstal

I always found their (Ninja's) melee attacks to be more effective than Throw more often than not. Less wasteful for sure.

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I feel otherwise, maybe because my favorite FF game was FFIII, Ninja's throw decimated Cloud of Darkness at lower levels, it's also pretty effective in a few other games. In that game you also have to buy arrows and shuriken for both Ninja and Archer though so it didn't really feel wasteful once you were used to buying arrows before getting Ninja.

Though in some games like VII, throw is incredibly wasteful. I guess it depends on the game.

I feel like if it was added in XIV, I doubt they would make it spend actual resources and just make it a staple ability thing they do. Kind of how Bards don't need to buy arrows.

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Originally Posted by Calypsx

I feel like if it was added in XIV, I doubt they would make it spend actual resources and just make it a staple ability thing they do. Kind of how Bards don't need to buy arrows.

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Exactly this. SE removed the arrow market specifically because they did not want to tie a class's entire value to a consumable. If a class came out that fought with throwing daggers/needles/shuriken/whatever, the "weapon" players would actually be equipping would be some kind of ammo pouch on their waists/hips (and the design of the daggers/needles/shuriken/whatever would change depending on what ammo pouch you equip).