The new melee job and its weapon, theory time!

The new melee job may be wielding a Zaghnal/Zaghnol?

It's a merge between a hammer and a scythe, an ancient Indian war hammer. Indian traditions mostly inspire Radz-at-Han, hence the connection.

In FFXI, only DRK, WAR, and BST can wield it, and the developers decided to categorise the Zaghnal as a Scythe but with elemental properties. It's a blunt weapon from one side and a slashing one from the other. Zaghnal in the Final Fantasy Series appeared in FFXII (as a boss), FFXI, FFIX.

I have attached an image related to the weapon.

Speculations about Zenos's new job:
Zenos isn't a magic-oriented character, but in Endwalker, he might have decided to tinker with magic because of his newly found weapon. Assuming it was Zaghnal or a (Scythe) as SE categorises it.

Taken from D&D, a Cavalier is a sub melee class that can also fight while mounting; it's a heavy-damage dealing class that can hinder enemies based on the damage taken by the party members aside from their own.
It can lock the target in place, mark it with a magic debuff and force a damage tracker on its allies. The more damage allies receive from the enemy, the higher the job damage becomes. So, staying in melee range is the best strategy this job can do to track everything then charge ahead dealing massive blunt or slashing damage.

I could imagine the new melee class having two stances if Zaghnal was the weapon of choice, a slashing stance and a blunt stance based on the type of debuffs applied. In FFXIV, we can also assume that this job can operate another way, having a partner (like how DNC performs) as your targeted ally to track their damage received, your damage will increase the more damage your partner gets, while you provide them with some benefits in return.

Cavalier wears heavy armour and can wield a variety of weapons; a war hammer is an option.

It's also worth noting that this subclass usually serves royalty or comes from a royal background and stays as far as they can from the "divine", unlike PLD, their motives come from the pure thrill of battle, another connection to Zenos (the thrill of competition).

It is all assumptions for now, but I tried to speculate the same as everybody else.

Thoughts?

https://i.imgur.com/FSzVd7V.jpg

Refresh me please... why are we so sure the next job will have something scythe-like?
Because of the grim reaper on the T-shirt?

Not just the T-shirt (which I didn't want to mention because Yoshi-P is known to do tricks), however, an easter egg in the trailer were Zenos was sitting on a throne waiting for something; from the back of the throne, you see what appears to be a part of a scythe next to him.

Ah, wonderful.
Thank you for the refresher.

I'd rather wait for the announcement of the next live letter, the date of which is known, than go on fantasmed delirium.

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Originally Posted by Naoki34

I'd rather wait for the announcement of the next live letter, the date of which is known, than go on fantasmed delirium.

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Go ahead and do that, no one is asking you to be part of it.

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Originally Posted by Vyy

Go ahead and do that, no one is asking you to be part of it.

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May as well close out the topic then if they're not going to participate.

I wouldn't call that "participation", nothing was added.
To each their own.

I always like speculation, but I've said it to others too with similar theories, that I doubt Yoshi-P would wear a shirt as hint without there being any real chance of people figuring out what he's referring to.

I don't want to start an argument over it, like others have done when I point it out, but the fact that you had to create a completely new Final Fantasy job based on a D&D class, just doesn't make much sense to me.

All other jobs that has been introduced to the game, has either just straight up been announced (like Sage for example), or we've gotten a shirt hint that points directly do an existing Final Fantasy job. In fact, every single job in FFXIV, are either directly taken or heavily inspired by a job/character from another Final Fantasy game. I could be wrong, but I very much doubt they will be moving away from that any time soon, since there is a lot of jobs and characters they could pick from.

What I'm trying to get at, is that while it's possible that they just suddenly shifted to creating a completely new job, based on D&D, and the shirt hint being almost impossible to predict... Why wouldn't it just be the more easy answer? The easy answer being that they are once again hinting at an existing job or character in Final Fantasy. It just so happens that there does exist a character that fits it perfectly.

Sice from Type-0 is very much an interpretation of a reaper. She uses a Scythe, absorbs hatred of the dead, has an ability called grim reaper and was designed to be kinda like a grim reaper in combat. We also have Ran'jit, who they for some reason decided to add a form where he uses a scythe. He isn't using it in the way most would consider using a scythe, and they added specific animations for it. Is it really a coincidence that he attacks using the scythe one-handed, and using a scythe one-handed just happens to be something Sice does.

I'm not saying I'm 100% correct, but I just feel like the theories are getting a little far-fetched now. Especially since, if his shirt hints are only pointing to the weapon, and it's a completely new job, then the shirts doesn't really have much meaning, since nobody could predict it. Doesn't seem very Yoshi-P like

yes, yoshi expects people to speculate on what the shirt hints at but the hints haven't been as blatant or direct as this would be if the new class is reaper. only time will tell.

Watch Zenos be the new class but it's frickin PUP : D

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Originally Posted by Craiger

I'm not saying I'm 100% correct, but I just feel like the theories are getting a little far-fetched now. Especially since, if his shirt hints are only pointing to the weapon, and it's a completely new job, then the shirts doesn't really have much meaning, since nobody could predict it. Doesn't seem very Yoshi-P like

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On one hand... occam's razor.
On the other... Yoshi's shirts have given pretty elaborate hints before so who knows.
I do agree that the D&D connection is probably searching in the wrong direction though, and that the shirt is probably hinting to the job itself and not the weapon, if only because we have precedent with his previous shirts to think this way.

Not sure if you all know that the first Final Fantasy was actually inspired by D&D

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Originally Posted by Vyy

Not sure if you all know that the first Final Fantasy was actually inspired by D&D

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Yeah... and Ultima.
Are things from any of the franchises inspirations on the table?
That seems a bit much.

Well I wouldn’t go as far as to say he’s not a magic user already. He was trained as a child as a Mage Knight in Corvos before killing his instructor.

From there he goes into his vacation into elemental attacks with his katana, I’d say he’ll probably always be some form of aether imbuing magic melee.

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Originally Posted by ItMe

Watch Zenos be the new class but it's frickin PUP : D




On one hand... occam's razor.
On the other... Yoshi's shirts have given pretty elaborate hints before so who knows.
I do agree that the D&D connection is probably searching in the wrong direction though, and that the shirt is probably hinting to the job itself and not the weapon, if only because we have precedent with his previous shirts to think this way.

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To be fair, all of his shirt have been incredibly simple in design up until this most recent one, with the most elaborate one the Bugs Bunny one. It’s always been one logo, or a face of a character.

With Sam Raimi being the real elaborate track for hinting.

Yeah the shirts go from a simple word synonym (Scarlet Witch -> Red Mage) to an dumb pun based on something indirectly related to what he's wearing.
So it could be a Reaper if we have a Scarlet Witch case, or something super convoluted that leads to Templar or Mystic Knight.

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Originally Posted by Vyy

Not sure if you all know that the first Final Fantasy was actually inspired by D&D

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Yeah it was, but now we have countless number of final fantasy games, and so far Yoshi-P and the rest have taken pretty much all design and inspiration from those Final Fantasy games. So with most content, you can pretty much say "this was inspired by X character/creature/job..." etc.

Of course there a lot of original content in the game, but jobs is not one I see them straying away from that formula any time soon. It can be very different to whatever inspiration they have, like Sage's weapons, but it still is very much connected to Final Fantasy. Kinda like going to the moon, WoL changing from DRK to PLD etc etc has Final Fantasy IV inspiration.

That's also the reason I don't think it will be just a job called Reaper without any connection to some final fantasy character or job, like many have speculated.

If there wasn't a pretty obvious candidate from Final Fantasy that fits the hints perfectly, then maybe I would be more open to some of the ideas I've heard others have, because at that point, it would just be completely impossible to guess.

I would like to see a job using a whip/string-weapon or something like Razor Floss, since it would be unique and different from the jobs and weapons we already got.

We have 0 evidence of new job's weapon (skeleton tshirt is the same proof as spiderman tshirt), so every guess is baseless. But if it's melee, I want to believe in some form of mystic knight. We don't have magical melee dps, and we don't have any DPS that uses sword.

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Originally Posted by Cetek14

We have 0 evidence of new job's weapon (skeleton tshirt is the same proof as spiderman tshirt), so every guess is baseless. But if it's melee, I want to believe in some form of mystic knight. We don't have magical melee dps, and we don't have any DPS that uses sword.

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RDM and SAM would like a word

Lol i guess in his defense RDM isn't melee and isn't a magical melee dps sadly..
But SAM on the other hand is a melee dps that uses a sword lol.

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Originally Posted by Sorzai

Lol i guess in his defense RDM isn't melee and isn't a magical melee dps sadly..
But SAM on the other hand is a melee dps that uses a sword lol.

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To be fair in the case for RDM They only said dps not specifically a melee dps that uses a sword. Semantics I know.

I feel like they are heavily leaning towards a scythe because of all the shirts, and before someone says the reaper shirt was during a LL Yoshida had no reason to switch to another shirt and we only are getting two "fanfests" this time so they might be doing something different this time. I also personally don't think a traditional mystic knight would work well in ff14 (lest they meant essentially a reverse rdm)

If the new melee weapon turns out to be a scythe can we please, either for artifact gear or some random gear set for it and drg, get a grim reaper glam.

I'd like the skull to be part of the hood or if no skull face then a really good grim reaper glam.

I been trying for years to do a grim reaper glam but can't find anything that looks the part.

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Originally Posted by Cetek14

We have 0 evidence of new job's weapon (skeleton tshirt is the same proof as spiderman tshirt), so every guess is baseless. But if it's melee, I want to believe in some form of mystic knight. We don't have magical melee dps, and we don't have any DPS that uses sword.

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I get what you’re saying. A more DoM flavor melee would be a great addition.

Though we do have ninja and samurai, who by the nature of what they are, are magic melee.

I would love a sword melee, but we already have so many sword variations. One handed, 2 handed, rapier, technically katana.

A blunt weapon user would be my personal dream.

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Originally Posted by Rymi64

RDM and SAM would like a word

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RDM is ranged so this rapier is there but it's not really used that often (and thats ok, but we need new spellsword).
SAM has katana, while tanks have "real manly european sword". DPS needs that too.

I can see the logic of the Radz-at-han connection. But I feel like if we are getting a scythe user, the Radz-at-han variation of the weapon would be as described.

But the odds are currently in favour of a 'reaper' type I think. Yoshi P said it would be something new, so I'm ruling out ones that exist in the FF universe. But given AST takes cues from Time Mage, Geomancer and Corsair and GNB takes Squall's weapon and formalises a job out of it, I think it's safe to say it'll probably still take cues from existing jobs in the universe. I feel the most likely candidate of that is FFXI's DRK because I think that's the closest we've got to a "reaper" type and would be a good fit for a maiming melee job.

Evidence I feel in favour of a Reaper-like job is:
- The Grim Reaper T-Shirt
- The follow up Children of Bodom T-shirt, who have "Follow the Reaper" and the Grim Reaper is a common theme for Children of Bodom.
- The trailer detail showing could /could/ be a part of a scythe, but not detailed enough to be a guarantee
- The pretending to not know what a necromancer is, feeling like there is a tie, death & scythes are a common theme between necromancers and reapers.
- The fact it's a maiming melee job (although it doesn't specifically mean reaper, it's an argument for reaper over necromancer)

Looking at FFXI's DRK I know we can dismiss as "but DRK exists" but I think FFXI's DRK takes on two identities. DRK in the Final Fantasy universe has often been about internal dark forces that you draw upon to use your own life force to empower yourself. Normally thought Souleater/Darkside.FFXI added the reaper aesthetic through a scythe, its weapon skills and it series of drain abilities. This did not carry over into FFXIV's DRK, except in Abyssal Drain.

So this could be an opportunity to take that part of the aesthetic and make it entirely into its own thing, where the emphasis is on stealing life energy and executing your foes. Maybe handling the "drain" aspect of it differently and in a way more appropriate to FFXIV.

And thinking to weaponskills, FFXI's scythes played more to a reaper aesthetic in the weaponskills, to list a few:
- Dark Harvest
- Shadow of Death
- Nightmare Scythe
- Vorpal Scythe
- Guillotiine
- Cross Reaper
- Infernal Scythe
- Spiral Hell

Given quite a few of the game's skill names are lifted straight from FFXI, I feel like some of these would be recycled.