A design exercise for job changes, come 8.0

So, is a known fact that jobs are supposedly getting rework with their identities in 8.0. What this actually is or even the extent of the changes are widely unknown, as CBU3 didn't share any kind of design philosophy yet.

So, I'd want to know, especially for the more experienced players, what kind of changes you'd do to your main job, considering:

a) No more excessive homogenizing;
b) Not a complete 'job implosion', as we don't know if any job will get into that area;
c) But also not the bland uninspired features like most jobs got in Dawntrail (e.g. follow up of a follow up action that just does plain aoe damage);

No need to detail potency changes or overall balancing, more a brainstorm of ideas, and preferably trying to keep your expectations realistic, but not overly pessimistic.

I'll put mine here, for Dancer:

(old)
- Fixing Tillana's esprit issue, and just giving some sort of "DotD Ready" treatment, to be on par with other similar changes;
- Remove Closed Position's recast time, essentially making it like its PVP version, where you can freely swap;
- Improvisation once again generates Esprit alongside its effects;
- Finishing Move Ready is now tied to Technical Finish instead of Flourish. It feels great that we have it instant cast for our burst windows, but feels kind of odd not to dance every other SS during downtime.

(new)
- Closed Position II (added to early levels): meant for the solo DNC player to make up for the lack of the outsourced damage. Not optimal to use when you're in a party;
- Saber Dance gets a visual upgrade;
- New oGCD 90s utility that replenishes 1 charge of a movement action for the party, or reduces 30s of its recast time if it does not have charges;
- Standard Step and Technical Step are upgraded: Each step now has a small AoE damage component (25yd radius);
- Flourish now gives 4 Fourfold Feathers when used under Technical Finish. This means we have more freedom and flexibility to use Fan Dances outside of burst windows;
- A new dance that is unlocked after the Technical Finish buff: It has 4 dance steps but no finisher meant to spice up your downtime phase. Those steps are slightly stronger than the buffed filler combo and after you successfully complete them you gain... (see below)
- One "Phoenix Feather" that changes your next Standard Step into "Phoenix Step" (2-step dance), fire animations and all. Upon successfully performing this, your Dance Partner gains a Reraise buff, to ressurrect without sickness when they die (or have the debuff cleansed if they're recently raised. This applies a 6min debuff on the dancer that keeps them from applying another Reraise.

*Basically the "big new thing" would be something to make the DNC rotation less boring during downtime.

(role related)
- Addle and Feint are removed from the other dpsers and given to the Aiming jobs. Both share a recast time and have names/animations/appearances unique to each job (like how Shield Samba works);
- Palisade is back as a tank backup defensive, also having animation/appearance unique to each job;
- Peloton remains working only outside of combat, but now it gives the same effect as a second Sprint. 60s recast time.
- MP economy action added to help healers - In the situation of MP management becomes an important point for them again.

(all jobs related)
- Light Party Limit Break can go to level 3 now.

As just an overall thing, I personally feel like it would be best if jobs were rolled back to Stormblood, in terms of how they play; and, the jobs that came after Stormblood should be restructured to fit that mold.

First step would be to remove the 2-minute meta, and remove 99% of the group buffs this game has. Unless that happens, any other changes to the jobs will be meaningless otherwise.

Healers heal
Tanks tank
Dps does Dps

Bosses are designed accordingly.

It's not rocket science, but dodge simulator keeps dodge simulating and everyone is dps

It isn't my main job but I'd make the following changes to Dark Knight:
- Bloodspiller and Quietus now generates 200MP naturally, Delirium buff no longer gives MP restoration.
- Oblation is learned during ARR and it gets upgrades and second charge as you level up. It's final form is 2 charges, 40 sec CD and grants a weak shield to the target.
- TBN's CD has been increased to 60 seconds. It grants Dark Arts upon getting hit and resets it's CD when the shield is completely absorbed.

- Dark Knight can hold up to 3 Dark Arts at a time. This menas that TBN becomes your only way to spend MP if you have Dark Arts active and want to save it for your burst.
- Delirium (After level 86), Living Shadow, and Disesteem now grants Dark Arts
- Shadowbringers no longer has a CD, instead it costs Dark Arts to use.

While this doesn't change that it is still a 2 min job I'm fine with some of the jobs still having a 2 min rotation. However I think with these changes Dark Knight's kit becomes more interactive with each other

IMHO, they just need to make big enough changes that everyone has to relearn how to play their favorite jobs in 8.0.

Would be nice to see an update to the engine or whatever is necessary to facilitate the addition of some physics that would allow the player to use job abilities that affect the environment and terrain.

- Warrior smacking the ground with their axe creating a crater that you can hide in to avoid AoE attacks (Berserker from Hero's Gauntlet duty)

- Sage creating a matrix cage to trap enemies in effectively acting as a crowd control (having a need for crowd control in battle would be cool)

- Dragoon being able to jump in the air and throw lances down at enemies while airborne and unable to be attacked while vertical distance is too high (currently no matter how high up you are any monster can hit you from the ground)

- Black Mage creating void portals on the ground where voidsent can reach out their hands and slow any enemies walking through it (a portal can have a chance to be proc'ed and open up wherever the black mage hit their biggest darkness spell). It would even be cool if those big damage darkness spells had a chance to open a portal and let a voidsent through that auto attacks for a few seconds

- Astrologian creating a time dimension that separates the AST and the target into an alternate timeline for a few seconds (both not visible to other players; similar to WoW's Sub Rogue's Shadowy Duel ability)

Their lines of thinking included things like Skill Trees, Talents and Ability Points, so they may end up with multiple ways to play, which would be best because then there can be a default setup for casual players and a more complex version for people that want it.

I assume they are aware at this point of the issue of things being too much the same and jobs not bringing anything even slightly unique to the table anymore.

I think they are also aware of the 2 minute burst being unpopular that helped lead to some of these decisions, so they might change that, we will need to see.

Machinist would simply be 'stop making it such a bottom-of-the-barrel DPS class that it's literally a detriment to everyone around you to play it.'

No offense to the machinists out there, I'm sure some of you do amazing work, but you've all suffered long enough. I don't even play the job, this is a support post. You should not need to play at the 95th percentile to do as much (factoring in the phys ranged tax) as a pictomancer playing at the 50th percentile.