New Class Idea! Strategist!

With all of this FFXIII stuff going on, and being a fan of the FFXIII games myself. I was thinking about the neat paradigm shifting gameplay, and started to think of a way for it to be implemented in the game somehow.

Strategist - A multi-purpose class with the ability to "Paradigm Shift" into different class roles MID COMBAT. With different abilities available while in respective paradigms. The paradigms would work much like they do in the FFXIII games. I will list for those unfamiliar with the games.

• Sentinel - The tank role, major damage mitigation abilities with devastating counters.
• Ravager - Damage dealing role, fast elemental based magic damage attacks. Possibly including a passive Limit Break gauge boost for the party.
• Synergist - Support role, powerful buffs for the party. Including abilities such as haste, berserk and other damage increase buffs, and refresh for mp regeneration.
• Commando - Damage dealing role, specializing in powerful physical damage with area of effect attacks and massive damage on mobs with low health.
• Saboteur - Support role, focuses on debuffing the enemy. Paralyze, confusion, magic defense reduction, and possibly even Death?
• Medic - Healing role, self explanatory.

Thought it would be a nice spin on things, and add more depth to the game. This could also help with the shortage of tanks and healers. Possibly adding an option to choose which type of role in the party you can queue up as in the duty finder (also a good idea for low level ACN who want to heal dungeons before they unlock SCH)

Think of this as a specialized Red Mage from FFXI. Instead of just copy and pasting abilities from cnj/whm and thm/blm, make them a bit more unique while also adding a unique strategy element to party setups.

Follow up idea, if not used as a new class then maybe adding a paradigm shift mechanic for everyone with multiple classes leveled? Something akin to a subjob system, however the abilities would be exclusive to those classes and you would need to paradigm shift (possibly costing some kind of resource? or all tp/mp?) to use those other abilities, so essentially you would be able to switch classes mid combat. This would help with advance raiding free companies who like to switch party composition for different encounters, or when you just get unlucky in dungeons and people disconnect.

Duty finder tweak, like stated previously, include an option to choose your role in the party but also include an option to set your paradigm shift class role as well. Which would help the duty finder match people according to their backup class as well.

I'm sorry, but FFXIII was ridden with some of the most horrible idea's and battle systems in all the history of Final Fantasy games. I really dont want to see this in XIV... ever...

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Originally Posted by Surian

I'm sorry, but FFXIII was ridden with some of the most horrible idea's and battle systems in all the history of Final Fantasy games. I really dont want to see this in XIV... ever...

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I disagree, the paradigm system was a very well thought out mechanic. Most people dismissed it because of the, seemingly, lack of party control and others opted to just zerg attack and win the easy battles. But as serious FFXIII players know, during the harder battles it was crucial to plan your strategy and paradigm shift constantly. Don't knock it because you didn't understand it, or you were not willing to understand it more in depth. And no, we all know your not sorry lol.

Another one of these multi-purpose class threads... When will people get it through that Duty Finder will only allow you to que as the role your class is intended to fulfill. WHM/CNJ's will never be able to que as a DD, WAR/MRD will never be able to que as a DD, GLD/PLD will never be able to que as a DD, ACN will never be able to que as a Healer.

Thus SE will most likely never add a multi-purpose job/class.

when in a team of players..this would rather be difficult to master.
it's really something to only fully work in singleplayer.

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Originally Posted by Ravij

Another one of these multi-purpose class threads... When will people get it through that Duty Finder will only allow you to que as the role your class is intended to fulfill. WHM/CNJ's will never be able to que as a DD, WAR/MRD will never be able to que as a DD, GLD/PLD will never be able to que as a DD, ACN will never be able to que as a Healer.

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I am sure that wont stay like that forever. ACN can heal just fine, I queue up as SCH for low lvl dungeons and can heal with no sch abilities other than having eos out. I am confident that SE will eventually go this route and let us play our class/jobs how we see fit, especially if they ever decided to add something along the lines of talent trees.

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Originally Posted by coffeeking

when in a team of players..this would rather be difficult to master.
it's really something to only fully work in singleplayer.

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A difficult challenging class? Sign me up lol.

I too came to enjoy FFXIII's combat by end-game (or really once I learned how to indirectly manipulate movement and interrupts, maybe chapter 9...), but I don't think this really has a place in an MMO, especially not as a class. (As a party-wide feature befitting the game around it, sure, but that's not likely to happen now.)

Each class has utility and strengths, and our total (party) composition, more than individual (often somewhat lackluster in ostensible gameplay) classes, is what makes our endgame interesting. You can run WP with a PLD and 3 SMRs, skip the heals altogether in favor of a sprinting threat-holder while slowed or bound mobs melt away between Bane crosses. You can have a warrior kite partially and skip heals altogether on boss fights, having the Warrior self-heal. Or there's the WHM Holy and BLM nukes with a PLD and a Bard battery. There are already quite a few options, but they're all in the interest of the armory system, and its multiple jobs available. What can and cannot be done is more subtly defined than as in XIII roles.

Atop that though, I think the main obstacles this faces is the 'bare-bones' mindset. If our tanks could already have devastating counters, they wouldn't be that different from our dps, and if our dps could, say, interrupt via damage, that comes "too close" to the role of tanks. Right now PLD has a single-target combo and an AoE combo. Endgame BLM fires, and then refreshes (mana and back to AFIII) and re-debuffs to do more Fires. And Bard probably has two dots in order to manipulate its damage flow and give level variance. Everything thus far is very, very... purposed. Plain, sure, but purposed, such that seeing the classes across spreadsheets generally gives a feeling of being very "polished" while individual gameplay is far from exciting on most classes. It's a design philosophy difference. A design philosophy like that (though enveloping the whole game) would likely come up with 3x the possible ways to do something that SE finds efficient to create, and those different ways will probably seem to very only in aesthetics. More fun, maybe, but much less manageable.

Tldr: That ship, or anything like it, XIII-based or not, has probably already sailed.

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Originally Posted by Sam-urai

A difficult challenging class? Sign me up lol.

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Monk's decently active. Maybe you should give it a shot. It won't live up to these sorts of expectations, but, it might be worth playing around with. The only fun of this sort I can really think of though is knowing every class in your party well enough that you feel like you're playing (via complementation at least) all of them at once. And do something oddball once in a while, like an all-tank AK run or something. I'd recommend 3 Warriors, though; you'll need at least some healing. A PLD will also let you speedrun via tank-death-and-rez and open up a few more tricks for you.

Lore-wise, SCH are strategists from the former nation of Nym, but your system of switching roles on the fly based on FFXIII's universally panned Paradigm system just wouldn't work in FFXIV due to the Armoury System and classes/Jobs based around specific roles. Having a Job that can switch such roles on the fly not only would be ridiculously overpowered, how would it be classed in Duty Finder? Healer? DD? Tank? Hence, it wouldn't work I'm afraid.

Besides, I'd rather SE tweak the classes and Jobs we already have than add new ones which just compound the problem further.

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Originally Posted by Ravij

Another one of these multi-purpose class threads... When will people get it through that Duty Finder will only allow you to que as the role your class is intended to fulfill. WHM/CNJ's will never be able to que as a DD, WAR/MRD will never be able to que as a DD, GLD/PLD will never be able to que as a DD, ACN will never be able to que as a Healer.

Thus SE will most likely never add a multi-purpose job/class.

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SE already mentioned that they are looking into allowing ACN to select to be a healer pre-30. If they can do it for one I'm sure they can do it for another.

You do realize that class would just turn this into an even easier and more casual form of GW right? People would just super DPS while sprinkling stuff from the other classes.