Why physical (DPS) jobs cross-classes lancer? & Implications

Looking towards 3.0 classes jobs and reflecting on 2.4 ninja + other melee you to have wonder why so much LNC cross class?

Well even though SE loves to lore us, even when it shouldn't be used (LOOKING AT YOU GC-FRONTLINES), it couldn't get around one blaring issue, TP. Though it would make more sense for jobs to, at times, use another job for X-Class support skills; the current armory system hinders this. Each class is forced to learn the same amount of abilities at the same levels, white mage recently got SSII which changes it a bit, which limits the "creativity" of each job's abilities but at the same time allows them to "save resources" by not having to remake essentially the same skill for each job.

What this means is, cross class skills aren't necessarily there to give us choice/variety. They are there so SE doesn't have to recreate a the same job skill in a different flavor for each job. Thus, each DPS that needed to regain TP was given lancer sub for invigorate and monk for recovery options, second wind. Mages have a similar issue when you look at them all having swift cast but that is impart due to the lack of caster jobs.

This effects us going into 3.0 because each job will not have a base class. (Though they didn't say it couldn't access cross class skills? *check this someone*) Meaning that if they need invigorate or swift cast will they end up with that ability in a new flavor? Could this lead to SE slowly removing "cross class" by just making each dps/melee learn invigorate as they level up ((idk around lv 30?), tanks provoke, and mages swift cast at that level? Will they change it so once we hit lv 60 we get a new job stone that takes away our ability to cross class and specialize further?

What are your thoughts on this?

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Originally Posted by ErzaScarlet77

I thought only the new jobs that wont have classes? People in 3.0 that wants to play drg/mnk will still have to do lnc/pgl

Theres no way theyd just remove the existing classes

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It's not about removing, it's about phasing them out so that the current structure remains. Like imagine if SE gave lancer a new skill to replace invigorate, replaced pld's provoke, and thm a new skill to replace swift cast. Then they gave each DoW invigorate, Tanks Provoke, and DoM swift cast. Later on we get an advanced job crystal that completely remove all the cross class abilities and grants us more job skills. See where this is going?


P.S I'll proof read this more later as I am at work, on break, and doing this mobile.

I thought only the new jobs that wont have classes? People in 3.0 that wants to play drg/mnk will still have to do lnc/pgl

Theres no way theyd just remove the existing classes

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Originally Posted by ErzaScarlet77

I thought only the new jobs that wont have classes? People in 3.0 that wants to play drg/mnk will still have to do lnc/pgl

Theres no way theyd just remove the existing classes

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It's not about removing, it's about phasing them out so that the current structure remains. Like imagine if SE gave lancer a new skill to replace invigorate, replaced pld's provoke, and thm a new skill to replace swift cast. Then they gave each DoW invigorate, Tanks Provoke, and DoM swift cast. Later on we get an advanced job crystal that completely remove all the cross class abilities and grants us more job skills. See where this is going?

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Originally Posted by Mardel

It's not about removing, it's about phasing them out so that the current structure remains. Like imagine if SE gave lancer a new skill to replace invigorate, replaced pld's provoke, and thm a new skill to replace swift cast. Then they gave each DoW invigorate, Tanks Provoke, and DoM swift cast. Later on we get an advanced job crystal that completely remove all the cross class abilities and grants us more job skills. See where this is going?

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So you're saying all Physical DPS should learn invigorate @22 / all tanks learn provoke @22 / all casters learn swiftcast @22? Makes sense when you consider everyone worth their salt will be doing that regardless.

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Originally Posted by Gooner_iBluAirJGR

So you're saying all Physical DPS should learn invigorate @22 / all tanks learn provoke @22 / all casters learn swiftcast @22? Makes sense when you consider everyone worth their salt will be doing that regardless.

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Something to that extent. This way SE does less work, in terms of "fixing" the armory system and allow themselves to eventually funnel all jobs into a singular format where there isn't any X-Class skills. While, I like the IDEA of cross class skills the reality is that the current system doesn't give us variety in our skills so why bother with it?

Who's to say that the new jobs won't have special skills they learn through quests that can't be cross classed but still have other "cross class/job" abilities in order to meet the current structure? Just because they removed the word class from the equation doesn't mean we won't still have some abilities from other jobs to use. Personally, with the lvl cap going up to 60 I'm hoping they open it up more and allow for some more hybrid customizations.

I'll try and keep my whole spiel on how cross-class skills could be better out of this and focus on 2 points.

First, I don't see Square changing the ability lists of all classes at a low level to insert swiftcast, provoke, and invigorate. This is mostly based on the fact that since 2.0 launched, they have only added one ability to one job at level 50, stoneskin II, and even then it's mostly a QoL change (even more, I have a sneaking suspicion it was already planned for 3.0 but they pushed it up for various reasons). I believe they are trying to have as little effect on low-level content as possible, and keep the pattern of only gaining abilities/traits on the 2's and in class/job quests. So, I don't think they'll go changing the pre-50 ability lists.

However, if they go along the lines of adding an "upgraded job crystal" which removes cross class skills altogether, I could see them adding new abilities to replace swiftcast/provoke/invigorate in the 10 levels before obtaining said "upgraded job crystal." It wouldn't necessarily be the same ability or an ability with the same effect, it could be better or worse. For example, if they added a GCD 10y skill that cost 120+TP but had provoke's effect to WAR at lv54 (or a job one at 55/60) then gave a better job crystal at 60 that removed cross class skills, they might feel that will work for the direction of the game. This may sound weird, but I don't see them simply then giving WAR provoke at lv54.

Which leads to the second point. With the addition of NIN, they added dancing edge which has the exact same effect as storm's eye, but is a separate ability and has a separate debuff. If they were to move away from cross-class skills, then I feel they would more likely move in this direction, ie. adding new abilities with the same effect. They're not saving any development time by duplicating skills if they keep making new ones with the same effect.

I think they'll probably keep cross-class skills as they are now for this expansion, and the new jobs will just gain 1 cross class skill slot per 10 levels. Although if those 3 only pull from the current classes and don't add any new cross class skills in the next 10 levels, that'll be a pretty big nail in the coffin of the cross class skill system. Don't get me wrong, I don't want the cross class system to go away, but I do hope it improves in the expansion.

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Originally Posted by DoctorPepper

Who's to say that the new jobs won't have special skills they learn through quests that can't be cross classed but still have other "cross class/job" abilities in order to meet the current structure?

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If anything they should destroy that structure. All 3 meelee dps has b4b, inner release, invig for cross class and have almost the same upkeep for class actions (2 dots, 1 resistance down and at least 1 self buff). Blm and smn almost have the same cross classes but at least their underlying class mechanics is different enough. I am gonna be pretty disappointed if drk is going to have the same cross classes as pld and war and have the same tanking structure (1 base aoe enmity generator, 3 hit single target enmity generator, 1 20% mitigation equivalent, 1 40% mitigation equivalent, etc)

I think they finally decided this horrid cross-class thing limits their options.

No base class for the new jobs is indeed a step closer to a world w/o them. I for one, obviously, hope they will get rid of 1.0's horrid remnant.

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Originally Posted by abzoluut

I think they finally decided this horrid cross-class thing limits their options.

No base class for the new jobs is indeed a step closer to a world w/o them. I for one, obviously, hope they will get rid of 1.0's horrid remnant.

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I agree. I felt like almost all of the classes or jobs play the same. If they get rid of this stupid cross class garbage, maybe we will have more unique jobs, which will have more variety. i think they might me going the route of WoW, but with the jobs being interchangeble instead of being stuck with one job the entirety of your characters life.

Maybe they'll give us ability trees that can be re-specced on the fly for different content. They could either remove cross-class skills entirely that way, or just add in cross-class slots from specific classes to the tree.

Maybe they remove the limits and let us equip again every skill we learned with another class (except quest skills). Let the amount of cross-class skill slots be the only limit.
The armory need a "back to the roots" update.

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Originally Posted by Felis

Maybe they remove the limits and let us equip again every skill we learned with another class (except quest skills). Let the amount of cross-class skill slots be the only limit.
The armory need a "back to the roots" update.

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If they don't do something along the lines of what I have mention (the phase out) I wouldn't mind what you have mentioned. Again this could be done with another job crystal that changes the parameters of the X-class skills allowing us to select from all or more. This would be useful because tanks even need invigorate at times and yet they have to rely on goad / tp song. Now I'm not saying every job should be able to do everything, but the middle ground (which we are right now) is pretty lame. I don't think I've seen a single person who is legitimately content with the current cross class set up. Most reside on the "make it useful or get rid of it" opinion.

Stoneskin is my favorite ability and If they remove it from Paladin I will be incredibly sad. If they give Paladin a replacement skill for Stoneskin that has the same exact effect I wouldn't mind though.

There are development problems coming should SE remain married to the original games weapon/job change system. For instance the calls for more jobs such as dancer, thief, bluemage, redmage among other favorite previous game jobs, these jobs utilize weapons already in use and there are only so many existing weapon types you can lock a job/class to. Future development requires more flexibility or the game will stagnate and lose subscriptions it's not about ability redundancy naming an ability one thing or another does not matter the players will not lose interest over that.

Removal of the base class is inevitable and essential but not just that. It will become essential soon to remove the weapon lock and switch to using the crystal/soul stone to change jobs. Most already ignore the base classes and use equip sets to automatically bypass the base class. 3.0 presents the prime opportunity to make this switch permanent.

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Originally Posted by TThibi

SNIP

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Right I think I mentioned this before in a thread I created some time ago. It was along the lines that SE will have to change the jobs to only switch using a soul crystal. The issue was that we start off as a class, but that could be resolved by giving classes a Class Crystal (that get permanently replaced by the soul crystals later on)

They need to loosen restrictions on cross-class skills, NOT move away from them. One of the most disappointing things with the system from the very start is how absolutely limiting it is simply due to the choices. We have a finite number of skills we can choose to cross-class with.

As a Warrior/PLD, I find myself constantly spamming Alliance/Party asking ninjas to Goad me (which barely helps half the time). I'd much rather have Invigorate & Goad (so i can Goad another tank/dps) than any worthless skills from Monk. The 15% avoidance is essentially the only interesting skill for a Warrior from pug, but even then there's not enough information on that skill as to how it actually works in combat.

I hope they change that information for 3.0 and have the DarkKnight based on the Gladiator, or a new base class, and allow more cross-class skilling. We need MORE complexity, NOT less!!!

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Originally Posted by ThatSneakyRussian

SNIP!

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The new jobs will not be based on current classes sorry to burst your bubble. So no dark knight based on gladiator or anything like that. Also, the reason why most of us mention getting rid of the class system is because there really isn't anything worth cross classing except maybe 2-3 skills per class (given our current choices). What this implies is that... most of what we can X-class SUCKS.

I think the useful skills are as follows: Provoke, Invigorate, BfB, Raging Strikes, Internal Release, Swift Cast, Invigorate, Cleric Stance, and Second Wind. Yep... 9 skills out of what, 40 possible skills? That's a pretty terrible ratio considering that jobs typically only get like 2-3 of these that can be set.