Speculation on how jobs will change
In one of the early live letters Yoshi said that many jobs will be changing dramatically, and noted that MNK will be seeing the biggest change, and joked that the battle team are angry with him because he wants to change so much!
So what do you think is changing ? What would you like to see ? I would love to see a very creative discussion on this topic.
MNK:
What has been mentioned is MNK will be more focused on chaining skills. The more abilities you chain, the higher the damage bonus. Personally I like this concept as the idea in my mind is that MNK is a fast, consistent attacker. However in saying this I would also like to see MNK in more of a light tanking role, by bringing back a blocking/counter system that XI saw, perhaps something like a "Counter stance" (which is good against fast hitters), a "Guarding stance" (blocks / reduces heavy hitters), a "Flurry stance" (or something similar, which increases attack speed), and "Lightfoot" stance which increases evasion (good against mobs with high accuracy).
In saying this of course I don't want to steal some of the PLD fire, but I don't have enough experience on the job to comment (perhaps a PLD vet can chime in here).
DRG:
I would like to see a heavier focus on the "flamboyant" fighting style that DRG has always had. Over the top weaponskills, a larger focus on "Jump", along with augments/enhancments that come with the ability. DRG being probably my main job in 1.x I wouldn't ask for it to be changed an aweful lot. I do hope they hold themselves as crit hit beasts.
WAR:
Since I see WAR as a hybrid tank/DD/Crowd control, I would prefer to see war in a more specific role. Personally I would like to see a heavier focus in DD war's now that they have defined PLD a little more. To me "Warrior" has always had a huge weapon, slow attack speed, heavy hitter, solid DD. I would personally prefer this, and for them to become more of a traditional WAR in the series.
BLM:
To be brutally honest I hated 1.x spell casting.. 1...2....3....1...2... etc. I would like to see a higher focus on chaining magic with melee weapon skills, or more variable casting options with things like DoT's, elemental weakness triggering etc. I am not much of a mage player to be honest but when having to step in the shoes of a BLM in 1.x I found myself lying back in the chair spamming 123.
I will leave it at that for now as they are the jobs I ended up playing the most in 1.x, however I would love to hear where people would like to see their favourite jobs going in ARR. We already know some very basic things, and quite a few of you probably had a play around in alpha so you probably already know the direction some jobs are heading (please don't break your NDA's).