Job variants idea

I don't know if suggestions are taken seriously or if this has been tossed out there before (I can't imagine it hasn't) but I think it would be really cool if jobs had variants. The game and lore introduce job stones but after each base job changes to the advanced version (Marauder > Warrior), the job stones kind of lose meaning. But what if they could be used to start branching out jobs into variants? It would be a fairly simple and cheap way to introduce a lot more variety into the game.

The biggest example of this I can think of is Tanks getting DPS variants. Perhaps, for example, Marauder has a Warrior stone and a Berserker stone that gives different skills. Maybe like removing all mitigation skills in favor of damage skills. This would also help in situations where players might love their characters with a tank job glam and stuff but maybe their current group doesn't need a tank. Me personally, I love everything about Gunbreaker. Unfortunately, since my extreme/savage groups tend to already have tanks picked out, I normally end up going DPS to flex. Having a DPS Gunbreaker would be the coolest thing ever imo. I think a system like this could work well, as already proven with Arcanist branching off to Summoner and Scholar.

I'd like it. We already have some precedent for it with Arcanist branching into Scholar and Summoner, too. Personally, I would love if Rogue could become a more western fantasy, DnD-like Rogue instead of ninja. That transition has never made any sense to me.

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Originally Posted by PercibelTheren

I'd like it. We already have some precedent for it with Arcanist branching into Scholar and Summoner, too. Personally, I would love if Rogue could become a more western fantasy, DnD-like Rogue instead of ninja. That transition has never made any sense to me.

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Hate to break it to you, but Arcanist splitting into a DPS & Healer job is from my knowledge often cited as a mistake they will never repeat again due to all the headaches it had caused on a technical and balancing level.

Furthermore, the community at large has shown time and time again that even a less than 5% difference between damage numbers and interactions unique to individual jobs will cause them to start screaming and demanding for justice within a role or until the favourite job is back at the best-at-everything position. (NOTE - the sweet irony is that after reaching the sterile point of balance we then see the lamentation of how homogenized the roles have become)

Even if we had two variations (i.e. specs) for each job or even half of the jobs, three issues:

• This would not automatically make them more unique or fun to play
• Going with the first one, it would take a lot of effort to create 150% or 200% of the jobs we currently have
• Speaking of effort, just having new jobs is already difficult to balance - imagine having multiple specs.

they would rather put the effort into making entirely new jobs anyways.