Your primary job (main) and preferred changes

Let's just say you had the opportunity to sit with Yoshi P. In that, he only had time to hear you out about what your main job/class is and ways you'd like to improve it before Endwalker hits. What would you tell him?

I main WHM and the main thing I want is another on demand aoe attack. I liked Aero 3 but that got removed. Give me something like that again and I'll be happy. Sure there are other small things but that is my main issue.

We have a thread like this here:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...for-Endwalker?

Please consider contributing in the more robust thread.

hmmm, WHM and maybe a little bit faster. I guess another attack would be nice, but I am more on the healing side of things than a desire to dps side of things

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Originally Posted by ItMe

We have a thread like this here:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...for-Endwalker?

Please consider contributing in the more robust thread.

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(1) It's from months ago. Why necro a different thread?
(2) I kind of asked different. I asked what changes would you make, They did ask that but then they also went on about things like "what skills would you like to see in 81-90?""
(3) You'll notice people went off topic. Like newest comment was "So was the Shadowbringers plot and its arguably understandable villainous motives supposed to mirror the job changes, or the inverse?" I hate when people derail posts, kind of like you're trying to do by redirecting instead of contributing to the topic.
(4) They decided to post that in the thread/forum about classes. I decided to have it as a general topic. It gives conversation in each area. I mean, I haven't gone to that forum in general. I just scroll through General. I'm sure other people are the same, just hitting certain areas of the forums. Don't get why we need to redirect when there's a perfectly good conversation either way.

I mean, I appreciate what might be good intent, but yeah....

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

hmmm, WHM and maybe a little bit faster. I guess another attack would be nice, but I am more on the healing side of things than a desire to dps side of things

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Yeah. I'd like to see WHM have more of a damage mitigation ability, like where had Protect and all in FFXI. Maybe a better version of a barrier? On dps side, kind of like others have mentioned, would be nice to see another damage skill. I mean, Holy is awesome but sucks that it's limited to right around your character. I like the idea of things like Gravity on Astrologian where it can be hit from a distance.

But when you say healing side of things, no specific idea of how you'd do it?

The only thing I don't like about DNC is having to stare at my hot bars constantly.

But, I mean, if it weren't a heavily proc-based RNG class then it would be a different class so...

Scholar....and I don’t know exactly what I’d say....I’d just look at him and say scholar.

I want him to change GNB to a dps job or give it a toggle so it can switch to a dps job. The toggle can convert defensive cooldowns into offensive cooldowns :) Squall Leonhart is my fav FF protagonist lol

delete tank invulns and knockback immunity

Give us Aero 3 back ! Add Lost Seraph Strike as well. Make us true green DPS.

WHM: More blood and lilies!

For Dancer i would have liked if the GCD for the core rotation was reduced to sub 2 seconds, and cut the cooldown of dances in half.

And a throw book skill for arcanists.

I’d like to see more support on whm actually. Like a skill to make your next spell aoe. Can be used for divine benison, presence of mind etc. I’d really like that. I don’t like the idea of selfish dps for healers. All healers should have forms of support not just mitigation. Because if you think about it will just be a replay of stormblood where rdps is king and once a savage fight is learned then Astrologian and scholar will be what people want since supposedly they will be more party support.

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Originally Posted by Ultaniku

Scholar....and I don’t know exactly what I’d say....I’d just look at him and say scholar.

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yeah scholar remains just an empty shell. i‘ll probably make the switch to sage...

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Originally Posted by Dragonblanco

Yeah. I'd like to see WHM have more of a damage mitigation ability, like where had Protect and all in FFXI. Maybe a better version of a barrier? On dps side, kind of like others have mentioned, would be nice to see another damage skill. I mean, Holy is awesome but sucks that it's limited to right around your character. I like the idea of things like Gravity on Astrologian where it can be hit from a distance.

But when you say healing side of things, no specific idea of how you'd do it?

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I have friends who either run sch or ast, and they are by far faster. mind you I could just be slow too lol. I mean over all, its a trade off, I have a generally deeper toolkit for heals than they do so I guess it balances out

one thing to keep in mind though, is with sage, not sure if we would get anything new to be honest, same with new dps moves with reaper coming. its a tough call, I am generally happy where whm is right now, but thats just me and my playstyle. I know for the really high end content, more dps is usually wanted

SAM, only real change I want is for tsubame-gaeshi to "save" the last executed iaijutsu, instead of a weapon skill removing it.

Would make the job a lot more friendly. It could have the same time as a gcd combo still being active, but would be much more forgiving for rotation drifts during mechanics.

My MAIN main is AST, but it's been in such a weird place this expansion that I haven't mainlined it for everything. I would like for them to give AST an identity and then leave it alone and stop trying to reinvent its wheel every expansion. Give CO its stun back. It makes no sense to me that they removed a stun from a CD ability yet WHM gets to keep a spammable GCD stun. The amount of mitigation Holy spam gives in a lot of content is just head and shoulders above a lot of what CO gave for its single stun cast. If they can't do that, then give us something comparable. Make gravity inflict slow on enemies. If they are going to turn AST into a "Pure Healer" then give us something akin to Benediction or just a Benediction reskin.

My main this expansion though has been BLM and I don't know what I would like to see changed. Maybe a way to save enochain outside of panic transposing. Another option that lets us have a little more movement. Overall I feel like BLM is in a good spot.

DRK main for 4 years from HW and SB until SHB changes ruin it for me.

- I want you to use HW DRK mechanics to build DRK on it again, fix his issues and adapt the new skills on top of that gameplay identity to make it unique again.
- I want them to rework delirium and repurpose the whole blackblood system and his skills so is no longer a copy of WAR rage system.
- I want you to look at the Darkside mechanic and make his management interactive and not going in to auto mode.
- I want you to make resource management a real part of the job again, rise the MP generation and fix the pace of the job by spreading his oGCD usage across the entire rotation and not have it mega compressed on a small optimal window.
- Delete rampart and bring back Shadowskin.
- Rework Living dead or add skills that help to apease the huge healing check it puts on healers shoulders.
- More combos and more APM please, HW levels of APM.

Basically apart of this poins to fix DRK i would telll him i was a real fan of the job, i loved so much how DRK was before SHB turn it in to a WAR copy with a few more oGCD, i would tell him to please work on tanks more and make the job unique again, HW was the best version of the job and it should take that gameplay identity again and no job should feel like it's a cheap copy of another specially in the same role.

SMN. Merge the trance and demi summon skills together. Make them maintainable like enocian/huton/blood of the dragon, rather than being something to use on cooldown.

please let me throw my chakra at enemies

Give me back Aero III, I don't care if you want to call it Dia II

DNC, drop the RNG aspect.

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Originally Posted by Ayuhra

The only thing I don't like about DNC is having to stare at my hot bars constantly.

But, I mean, if it weren't a heavily proc-based RNG class then it would be a different class so...

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I haven't taken Dancer far at all but when I was toying with it I noticed I tended to proc almost any time I crit. So definitely adding crit and using (can't think of the skill, but one to increase crit rate) does help. I mean, need people to test and verify that if not done already, but was something little more promising. But I do agree it would be nice if it wasn't so proc heavy. I also wish it had a little more personal dps.

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Originally Posted by Alaray

delete tank invulns and knockback immunity

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lol, why's that?

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Originally Posted by StarRosie

My MAIN main is AST, but it's been in such a weird place this expansion that I haven't mainlined it for everything. I would like for them to give AST an identity and then leave it alone and stop trying to reinvent its wheel every expansion. Give CO its stun back. It makes no sense to me that they removed a stun from a CD ability yet WHM gets to keep a spammable GCD stun. The amount of mitigation Holy spam gives in a lot of content is just head and shoulders above a lot of what CO gave for its single stun cast. If they can't do that, then give us something comparable. Make gravity inflict slow on enemies. If they are going to turn AST into a "Pure Healer" then give us something akin to Benediction or just a Benediction reskin.

My main this expansion though has been BLM and I don't know what I would like to see changed. Maybe a way to save enochain outside of panic transposing. Another option that lets us have a little more movement. Overall I feel like BLM is in a good spot.

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Hmm, maybe let you keep Leyline buff for a few seconds if you move out of it so you can avoid mechanics but not take the dps hit? Hell, maybe let you have a skill to let you cast while running? lol. I never have been able to understand why games require casters to just stand still to cast...

For RDM, I really just want a more fulfilling AoE combo. I really think the single target rotation pays off really well and just feels great, but the AoE just feels so flat. There's more they could do and tweak overall but that might require more of a rework, which could just ruin the class, so I'll settle for better AoE.

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Originally Posted by Dragonblanco

lol, why's that?

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Invulns don't make for compelling gameplay in my opinion, and tend to take something that could be interesting to execute as it's designed and provide more party engagement to basically a non-matter. E10s busters are a lot more interesting without an invuln, than with one, as one example, and might require some teamwork between the tanks and healers to find a comfortable response to it. Or titan's buster, and while it wasn't complicated without invulns, it was at least a bit more fun to do than hitting LD/Hallowed/Holmgang/Superbolide and forgetting about it. There's some interesting niche uses, though I feel like the invalidation of a mechanic is more important to consider than the few niche uses that don't consistently exist. Mostly, I don't find it interesting from a tanking perspective or a healing perspective. Maybe it's more that there's so few busters in fights that you can cover them reliably with invulns, or partly just how simplified the roles became overall with SHB that it stood out a lot more when playing any of those jobs.

Knockback immunity is either forced to be unable to work on mechanics when the fight design team really don't want them used on, or they invalidate a mechanic and make you wonder why the mechanic is even there to begin with. Removing them and leaving it up to players to utilize their dash abilities at least, to an extent, provides a layer of skill expression to managing uptime while dealing with knockbacks in fights. Granted, SMN/MCH/BRD + Healers would be the ones without the ability to do that, though changing surecast to allow a cast while moving, or allow the current cast to complete despite displacement, would alleviate it somewhat. For MCH/BRD I'd feel so long as the actual pushback isn't lethal, provided you position yourself well, should technically be enough. Since, to me, it feels like knockbacks don't really have a place when you can just hit a button to negate them almost every single time they happen in an encounter (With Diamond EX being the one exception I can think of out of the current set of fights).

But, ultimately, I just don't like buttons that feel like they're only there to negate a mechanic and not handle a mechanic. That's why I'd choose to remove them.

As a WAR main I would like a second axe and the ability to launch and place my axes at range in order to cleave at range/uptime. I would also like more hand to hand strikes, but this would just be for visual flare.

I main WHM and I would ask for more necessary healing and being able to take on more of a support role. We know things like the En-spells are in game. The Amalja'aa use Enfire at the very least.

I dislike having to become green dps because we aren't doing things like shielding, buffing/debuffing, and crowd control.

Bard seriously needs bloodletter charges, and I want wide volley and foe requiem back so badly. Shadowbite also needs to become a dot spreader, and it can stay on the 60s cd if anyone wants to whine about that being "too broken." Some way to "store" pitch perfect procs would also be nice, because overcapping on that one is painful. Other than that I just want more damage support options. Foe requiem being one of them, maybe soul gauge could be repurposed as something depleted on a party buff and apex arrow can be put on a different resource or use condition.

tl;dr overcapping prevention (like bloodletter charges, pp storage), dot spreading, damage support

SCH and healers in general:

More things to do beyond one button spam. I don't mind being green dps but at least give us proper and interesting tools to fill healing downtime if you're going to make healing requirements so sparce.

This was issue was raised at the very beginning of shadowbringers. We saw our kits cut down in favor for more healing tools we don't actually need ti use.

Ima attack all the Ranged DPS rn starting with the easier ones to fix:

BRD

Apex arrow, ok it’s fun to aoe with it and a singularly bar for all songs is nice but either work it in so it can be ST more frequently, give us a ST variant, or have a skill like manaficafion that refills our Soul gauge. While we are at it can we get a skill like Improvisation/Anatman with our songs and halt them so we don’t lose vital numbers doing a transition? And yes the BRD support needs a tune up literally take anything. Also give us the trait of EA wayyyyyy earlier! getting procs pre 68 is a slow boil that kills the job for most and Straight Arrow sucks for 69 levels that is all

DNC

If DNC was a 30 job like god intended it would be the most boring job to level. It has some variant of Old-Style MCH and RDM in there with flourish acting like Reload and Accelerate but you get flourish at 72! And devilment at 60s+ So the job lacks control and structure for the majority of content. The jobs so shallow and straight forward and the support is so passive it hardly makes up for it. A lot of people like it cuz it’s safe and that’s cool but the little dance minigame is hardly engaging due to the lack of threat level. This is a me thing DNC is fine just not for me but it needs some depth


MCH

I’ve gone to so much detail on why I hate this job that I find myself kinda feeling bad for it. A job with the fewest skills in the game with a identity issue, that has extra fat to shave off ontop of all that and has a hyper fragmented approach for accessibly is somthing I wouldn’t color as a improvement for a Ranged support, with no support nor a selfish dps with lax gameplay. Rework it any literal other way and it’ll be much better than the malnourished beta job we have now. So much so I can’t pinpoint any way to improve it

Despite everything, I still main AST. I would like to see more emphasis on astrology and fortune telling.
I put this in another thread in the healer forums, but, if I could, I would suggest changing our "Draw" ability into "Astrology" to allow us the ability to do an astrological reading for either "Life" (targeting allies only, provides a random healing effect), "Death" (targeting enemies only, provides a random damaging effect), or "Fortune" (target either alllies or enemies, provides a random buff (allies) or debuff (enemies)), depending on the Astrological sign we get for our reading (we have 6 currently). I would have us learn to do these different readings at different levels, starting at level 30 with Life, then Death at 40, and Fortune at 50. I'll skip giving examples in this thread.

In anticipation of the upcoming (unfortunate, imo) removal of shields, the removal of sects would also keep things clean, and maybe help to push AST into a healing identity.

Aside from Divination, which I believe should just be on a strict cooldown (and that we should just drop the seals and split the diff to make it a 5% buff), I would also like to drop damage up buffs from our repertoire (we should have other, weirder effects), and give them to WHM (on whom, I believe, it would make more sense to have something more direct and deliberate, and they need utility anyway), perhaps as an enhancement to their Asylum ability or an additional ability/spell (Bravery?), or both.

Finally, though this one's just frivolous, I would have them change the way Malefic deals damage to be a number of tiny attacks, represented as small shooting stars, dealing 10 (or maybe more as they increase in level) potency each, equaling the total potency of the current level of Malefic (e.g., Malefic IV potency is 250, if the potency of each hit was 10, it would be 25 tiny hits).

Ninja remove bushin and turn shikuchi into shadow clone that you can swap with and the mirror your jutsu only also give back my dang crit katsu(I know i spelled it wrong) and my double dmg ten chi jin i don't understand why it was removed.

This is probably gonna be wildly unpopular and I doubt it'll ever happen, but I'd get rid of the positionals entirely. I've never found them fun, and there's enough BS to keep track of in this game already that I really don't think they add much. They kept me off playing any melee at all for years, which is a shame because I actually love just about everything else about nin. Otherwise idk. Maybe make less things interrupt mudras?

Warrior.
Okay so you know how Inner Beast got upgraded to Fell Cleave, and then Fell Cleave got upgraded to Inner Chaos, and we can further expand on that with an Inner Release window of unlimited Inner Chaos'?

Well what if we were to go... further?

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Originally Posted by GrimGale

SCH and healers in general:

More things to do beyond one button spam. I don't mind being green dps but at least give us proper and interesting tools to fill healing downtime if you're going to make healing requirements so sparce.

This was issue was raised at the very beginning of shadowbringers. We saw our kits cut down in favor for more healing tools we don't actually need ti use.

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Yeah, I kind of get curious about all that. I think developers intent vs player base really is completely far apart when it comes to healers. The main purpose healers had the dps skills they had was so quests could be completed. Sure, weave in dps rather than sitting there doing nothing, but I really don't think they ever intended there to be such a heavy push for healer DPS as people expect. I know everyone says it's "necessary" for harder content, which I can't say either way due to not experiencing it myself. That said, I have watched raids and all that I have participated in and those healers trying to get that dps going often end up letting a lot of people die. The dps loss from that death far surpasses anything the healer can do.

I ran into similar situations in other games where a lot of so-called elitists who went by theorycrafting swore by ABC, Always Be Casting. Yet me, who often watched mechanics and did pause casting, ended up getting Realm First and a lot more progression much faster than they did. The reason is as good as ABC is on paper, people don't factor in human error. That's a long discussion in itself.

And to reiterate an earlier point, you do know Yoshi P himself said in an interview that they don't expect healer dps, right? You can check it out at https://youtu.be/5la_nyC5BO0?t=287 from one of the streamers who had the interview a while back. The answer was :

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First of all, we do not expect healers to contribute to DPS. However we know a lot of the cutting edge players enjoy this aspect about the job and that those progressing in the raids early on use it to help clear the fights. We decided to make it so that the idea was more approachable and less punishing so that if a player wants to try it, they aren't sacrificing all of their healing capabilities to do so like they were with the old Cleric Stance. We didn't like seeing healers doing entire dungeons in Cleric Stance, especially if they forget to switch back and heal!

That being said, I want you to really reinforce this with your viewers, I firmly believe it shouldn't be mandatory and we do NOT have the expectation of them to DPS."

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I'm going to trust those words from the staff over the years to say that it's not required and people who push it and say it is just are going too hard on min/max and need to enjoy the game, learn mechanics, and pay attention.

I just want slow on Gravity. I want to be a real time mage, not a tarot buffer. :(

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Originally Posted by Dragonblanco

I haven't taken Dancer far at all but when I was toying with it I noticed I tended to proc almost any time I crit. So definitely adding crit and using (can't think of the skill, but one to increase crit rate) does help. I mean, need people to test and verify that if not done already, but was something little more promising. But I do agree it would be nice if it wasn't so proc heavy. I also wish it had a little more personal dps.

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I mean it's not a completely unpredictable rotation or anything it's just not a set rotation you can do with your UI turned off.

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Originally Posted by Dragonblanco

I'm going to trust those words from the staff over the years to say that it's not required and people who push it and say it is just are going too hard on min/max and need to enjoy the game, learn mechanics, and pay attention.

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The point is, healers (mostly WHM and SCH) spend long stretches of time spamming their single target damage spell. The new healing tools they were given in SHB, when needed at all, actually free them to cast even more damage spells. The devs didn't design a game that requires constant triage and sustain healing, as the damage to the party comes in seldom and predictable bursts. AoE healing blankets the whole raid and enough potency as to not usually be needed anymore after each unavoidable AoE.

So healers often find themselves with little to do afterwards.

It doesn't matter that "dps" isn't required for progression. Healing in this game is a situational need. Overhealing has no benefit whartoever. Damage is always useful. Does that mean healers should not heal and focus on dps? Absolutely not, but if they do the opposite, they will often sit idly for long stretches of time.

It doesn't matter that some healers tunelvision and don't heal the party. Some DPS also don't make effective use of their tools, would the solution then be to cut each DPS job skill kit to three buttons? They wouldn't possibly mess up then!

WHM and SCH, and at a lesser degree AST, who has the card system to fill healing downtime, either need more interesting tools to fill their downtime, or see the healing requirements go up so they can use their healing kits most of the time. As it is, its about 70% damage and 30% healing in most content. (E12s being a notable exception)