/r/ffxivdiscussion: Would you be excited for a top-to-bottom rework of all jobs?

I thought this was an interesting discussion to copy and paste over from the ffxivdiscussion subreddit to give it more visibility, and I'm curious to hear what other players have to say.

Full title: Would you be excited for a top-to-bottom rework of all jobs, even if you enjoy the current job design of your "main" job? Also, should 8.0 skip new jobs in favor of the rework?

Original Post: I'm coming at this as a Red Mage main that really enjoys the way Red Mage feels to play. With 8.x being the timeframe for a job rework would you be excited to see what they come up with or would you be trepidatious they might ruin the thing you like to play?
In addition should 8.0 skip new jobs entirely so the team can focus on rebalancing and refreshing older jobs instead? What are your thoughts?

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Notable comments:

"Yea I don’t really have a “main job” and I play whatever I feel like. So I’m not really attached to a certain job.
What matters the most to me is how different each job plays, so I’m excited for a rework."

"Burn it down and build it back up from scratch, if that's what it takes.
I tend to swap classes in other games around at my leisure as well, provided the systems permit it. What usually draws me back into those I could remotely consider my "mains" is their unique and engaging gameplay loop and XIV really doesn't provide that type of motivation for me as of right now."

"I just don't feel like the XIV design team has it in them. It's philosophically at odds with how they want jobs to interact with content. They want them to have deterministic rotations, have bursts at 2 minutes to align with buffs and mechanics, and to effectively the same DPS over the course of a protracted fight. There's just no way to have all that and have a deep, interesting job system on fundamental level.
The homogeneity between jobs is just going to be a fact of the game, going forward. 8.0 isn't going to change anything."

"Yes on being excited for a top-to-bottom rework for all jobs. We definitely need more flavor for the jobs, especially since all points of even potential friction get removed from jobs."

"Absolutely don't skip new jobs for it though. Selfishly, I'd be happier about reworks, but for the sake of this game's existence, new jobs are the selling point of a new expansion for most casuals. More main story is cool, but you play through it once for 20-30 hours and that's it. After you see that story, whether through you playing it yourself or seeing it played by a friend or streamer, that's it. The story has been experienced.
The new jobs though? Now that is something that could change how you interact with the game for forever. A new favorite job is a reason to keep playing the game and want to experience new content with. Sure, we can argue with recent job design that that becomes less and less the case and I wouldn't disagree, but this is in the hypothetical world that hopefully all jobs will get their uniqueness back for a big part with reworks."

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Personally, I'd be excited for it. I think it would be a great opportunity for SE to add in the much needed job identity that many players have been asking for. It would be nice if SE were able to both add in new jobs and rework current jobs for 8.0, however if they didn't have the resources/time to do both I'd be happier if they'd prioritize job reworks.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxivdiscus...tom_rework_of/

Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves below. Cheers.

SMN could use a rework, though it's more aesthetics. So far the reception seems luke warm as they're expecting Shiva, Ramuh, Leviathan, Odin, Alex, etc and not so much cyber Bahamut.

What if they gave SMN a stance to toggle to swap out the three summons with their aetherical counterparts? So where say Ifrit, Titan, Garuda shared actions with Shiva, Leviathan, and Ramuh respectively? They toggle an OGCD called say "Astral/Umbral Eikonstance" and they could swap primals without too much hassle, no cooldowns would be reset. Only concern is that it may result in them doing less damage over time for that extra millisecond to swap Eikon stances. They can keep the Phoenix/Bahamut in the latter part of the rotation though.

The swap would work like so:

Ifrit - Shiva
Titan - Leviathan
Gardua - Ramuh

These would be lateral swaps, so one rotation would go Ifrit < Umbral Eikon Stance < Leviathan < Ramuh (followed by Phoenix/Bahamut) then it resets to Shiva since we're still in Umbral Eikon stance. We then use Shiva < go back to Astral Eikon stance < Titan < Garuda. Players could toggle between Astral/Umbral Eikon stance to have whatever primals they choose. Their moves would be similar to their opposite counterparts, including damage. This gives SMN more aesthetic choices and feel more complete having the original six primals at their disposal.

Just a thought.

Samurai, maybe they should put Kaiten back as a passive buff that lasts 15 seconds or something.

Give healers some more damage moves, DOTs, something to help move battle content along. Even if it's a spell that leaves a Doton like pool that ticks health away from enemies.

Absolutely not. I main DNC. Why? Anyone with a negative IQ can master the rotation. I don't play the game for the dungeons, trials, etc. I do them for the MSQ or needed for things, but I mostly play for story, crafting, gathering, etc. So, no. I don't want a job rework. I enjoy not having to think.

All jobs? No.
Some jobs? Yes.
Most jobs? Possibly?
The job and encounter design philosophy as a whole? Absolutely.

Every job needs skills that are more mechanically significant rather than existing solely to fulfill their role duty.

Crowd control, mobility, group utility, hell, mechanical rp expression (Yes I like bard perform, yes I think it should give things like sub rank 1 FC buffs to the audience, yes I think other jobs should have that kind of fun, yes I liked dancer in SWG). Things that don't directly interact with which direction an HP bar is moving.

This isn't just on the job design team though, but on the encounter design team as well.
Did you know casters got the sleep role action? Why??? Not a single raid encounter had an instance where I was presented with a pack of monsters that I had to take out of the fight for a period of time.


Being tested for how well you can execute your rotation under pressure is fine and good, but WASD and my buff bar should not be the only tools I can use when a boss asks me to apply myself mechanically. Choosing a job should impact how you solve some mechanics that are charged to you just as much as it impacts your strategy for dealing damage.

Pardon my obsession with a corpse here but whipping out titan egi in a pinch to control a rampant boss while the healer gets the tank spatula'd felt cool as hell back in the day! Is that something that I want to do literally every pull I'm in? No! But the ability to apply my job mechanics in unconventional ways just feels good to do!


Oh and the 2 minute meta needs to go. It has compounding problems for balance and individual performance, where lower skilled players need to have their rotations practically automated for them, which leads to job design without player agency, and high skilled players can only compare their performances by how lucky they got with their crit placement which leads to automatic direct crit skills which makes crit a boring and less interactive stat. And it means that players who thrive in more sustained performance oriented niches are left out of having classes they can enjoy without being awkwardly stuffed into a burst niche. It also creates encounters that are either frustrating because "damn it this phase is happening during our burst!" or boring because "wow it's just gonna sit there and let us do our burst". And while every class in every game has a "Correct" way to play it, FFXIV's combat really feels prescribed vs the rest of the genre.

I can only describe my feelings as mixed. I'm not arguing for or against anything here, just rambling out some thoughts and feelings.

Flavor is cool and often has interesting consequences. If a community is ready to collectively accept those consequences, then it's fine. I am however not convinced that the 14 community in its current shape is ready or able to deal with those consequences in a healthy way.

When my main job had more 'flavor', I was repeatedly told I was "griefing" just by choosing to play it in certain content. I loved that iteration of my job, and am still endlessly bitter about its removal, but the community tended to make the consequences of its uniqueness frustrating. Why did it matter if my job was ever-so-slightly hampered by its design in content where the outgoing damage is non-existent and the boss was 'dying' a full trio before it enraged? it didn't matter, but I certainly ran into plenty of people who were convinced it did.

The truth is, many 14 players only pretend to like friction performatively because it's a buzzword. They'll post essays on twitter/reddit about job design and this and that, but turn around and immediately automate all of the friction out of the game using QoL plugins or outright cheating programs. I think people would be shocked to learn just how few of the people supporting 'flavor' and 'friction' in the game actually played the game during times where it had those things. A massive portion of the games player-base started playing the game in SHB, and are simply band wagoning onto streamer takes and parroting things they don't really understand. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying those streamers are wrong, just that a large portion of the player-base genuinely isn't equipped to know where they're coming from.

I think if I am trying to make a point, it's that the community in 'solved' games like 14 tends to kind of suck, and it makes having nice things hard.

No need for complete reworks, some jobs have solid foundations, which you can see expanded upon in pvp. Just remove YoshiP from having any say in pve gameplay design, and let the devs that did pvp do pve too (even should they be the same).

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Originally Posted by LittleImp

I can only describe my feelings as mixed. I'm not arguing for or against anything here, just rambling out some thoughts and feelings.

Flavor is cool and often has interesting consequences. If a community is ready to collectively accept those consequences, then it's fine. I am however not convinced that the 14 community in its current shape is ready or able to deal with those consequences in a healthy way.

When my main job had more 'flavor', I was repeatedly told I was "griefing" just by choosing to play it in certain content. I loved that iteration of my job, and am still endlessly bitter about its removal, but the community tended to make the consequences of its uniqueness frustrating. Why did it matter if my job was ever-so-slightly hampered by its design in content where the outgoing damage is non-existent and the boss was 'dying' a full trio before it enraged? it didn't matter, but I certainly ran into plenty of people who were convinced it did.

The truth is, many 14 players only pretend to like friction performatively because it's a buzzword. They'll post essays on twitter/reddit about job design and this and that, but turn around and immediately automate all of the friction out of the game using QoL plugins or outright cheating programs. I think people would be shocked to learn just how few of the people supporting 'flavor' and 'friction' in the game actually played the game during times where it had those things. A massive portion of the games player-base started playing the game in SHB, and are simply band wagoning onto streamer takes and parroting things they don't really understand. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying those streamers are wrong, just that a large portion of the player-base genuinely isn't equipped to know where they're coming from.

I think if I am trying to make a point, it's that the community in 'solved' games like 14 tends to kind of suck, and it makes having nice things hard.

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All you have to do to see this is what a certain ultimate raider had to say when they thought the game was getting optional pvp like combos in pve. Went off the rails on how bad a decision that was and how it was too much simplification. That same raiders team used plug-ins to make the game easier.


QoL for me, not for thee.

No thank you.

Lets listen to the damage centric crowd and be sure everyone has to be like them. You guys never stop. It doesn't matter what they do. I got news for you if they reworked every job you would still not be happy and that's a guarantee.

I wouldn't be excited for a complete rework because big reworks are risky and can make a job not good.

They shouldn't skip new jobs entirely either. That's a strange thing. Adding a new job isn't going to prevent changes to existing ones. Yoshi-P dared to say creating a specification document for a dragoon action takes 1 hour or something really short like that and given they have 2 and a half years, I really don't think they need to give up new jobs just to make adjustments.

The part about the team wanting bursts at 2 minutes does ultimately stem from players wanting to align them in raids. They want to balance everything because they get attacked for them not being balanced and even slight differences in DPS get attacked by the players. When a job is less viable than another, people who main that job come to the forums and complain. So yes, they want to balance everything, because it's literally what players have asked for consistently going back to the start of the game when things were imbalanced.

I agree that with balance it becomes difficult to have a significantly different and interesting job system, but you can at least have subtle differences (such as achieving the same thing but in slightly different ways, such as shields vs heals vs raw mitigation vs regens) and gap closers that function differently.

Job by Job basis
Start with not making Drk a War with a sword for example.

I'd ask for a rework for the healer jobs, but all SE would hears from that is "they definitely want to bottom"

I think they should concentrate on a core engine overhaul. Great they're doing a graphics update in 7.0, but there's no reason with today's modern game engines that the models in FFXIV should have octagonaly rounded legs. Also, the UI is in serious need of an update.

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Originally Posted by Gaiinahat

I think they should concentrate on a core engine overhaul. Great they're doing a graphics update in 7.0, but there's no reason with today's modern game engines that the models in FFXIV should have octagonaly rounded legs. Also, the UI is in serious need of an update.

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It's hard to look at any character that's sitting down in this game with how low poly the upper thighs are. It's like I'm looking at a ps2 game or worse; like Zelda 64.

The only jobs that don't need a rework ar this point are Dancer and Black Mage.

Everyone else needs work, some more than others. Tanks and healers need a complete rework from top to bottom.

A top-to-bottom rework would be the only way to flush out the cancer that is this 2-minute gameplay. Most, if not all, jobs need to be torn down and rebuilt with a new foundation.

There should only be 3 jobs at MAX that have any kind of party wide buff such as Scholar, Astrologian, and Bard. And then there should only be a few jobs that have buffs that they can be shared with a partner such as Dancer, and Dragoon (and Pictomancer if need be).

Every other job should have their own personal buffs with various cooldowns, 30 seconds, 45 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, that are not reliant on other jobs. Let them be greedy.

Bring back skill expression, let players fail, and allow jobs to perform better on some fights and under-perform on others. Stop with the homogenization in the sake of balance that didn't even prove successful: p8s.

A top to bottom rework done by who exactly? The same people that are currently designing the jobs now?

I would be more excited for an original post from the OP that wasnt copy pasted from a subreddit.

I am happy playing the game now, I would not be excited to wait for at least a year for them to rework all the jobs.

No, I think most of the jobs are fine as is. I just want another short cd dps button on a healer while increasing healing requirements and I want them to stop giving all the tanks a reason to push the same button 3 times in a row, I don't need broad reworks.

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Originally Posted by Boblawblah

A top to bottom rework done by who exactly? The same people that are currently designing the jobs now?

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Realistically, they would have to hire on a dozen or two more developers to work on 1 to 2 jobs each.

But we have a producer/developer who "fires" a job tester for being too good at the job they're playing, so can't exactly expect them to make smart decisions for this game.

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Originally Posted by MisterNublet

A top-to-bottom rework would be the only way to flush out the cancer that is this 2-minute gameplay. Most, if not all, jobs need to be torn down and rebuilt with a new foundation.

There should only be 3 jobs at MAX that have any kind of party wide buff such as Scholar, Astrologian, and Bard. And then there should only be a few jobs that have buffs that they can be shared with a partner such as Dancer, and Dragoon (and Pictomancer if need be).

Every other job should have their own personal buffs with various cooldowns, 30 seconds, 45 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, that are not reliant on other jobs. Let them be greedy.

Bring back skill expression, let players fail, and allow jobs to perform better on some fights and under-perform on others. Stop with the homogenization in the sake of balance that didn't even prove successful: p8s.

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The reason for the 2-min meta is because when jobs had more varied timers, groups tended to prefer those whose timers all lined up for higher bursts. The problem is that damage is king. This is probably why we now have body checks over just enrage timers. That didn't change the problem though, as we still have said enrage timers. More damage can allow you to skip mechanics.


The whole design of encounters would have to change for them to remove the 2 min burst windows. Because changing how job buffs work before changing encounters would just lead to the problem we had before.

I would even be okay with no new jobs (I know it wont happen) so they could have more time to focus on rework of the current jobs.

What we had before wasn't a problem outside savage/ultimates. It made content outside there funner.
Keep the hurrendous 2 minute meta in savage/ultimate and give us fun/varied jobs in regular pve.

Huge reworks are always risky, like SMN showed us. I like it, but many don't. I would be more excited to see some changes reverted for many jobs, like bringing back removed skills/mechanics/interactions. Like for example, BRD's Sidewinder doing more damage if you manage your DoTs, WHM's Aero III, SMN's DoT's/Bane to spread them/Fester doing more damage if you have them applied and so on. That, or sprinkling similar actions fitting the current game throughout the leveling process so not everything is locked beyond lv90.

I started playing around the early patches of ShB so I don't have much experience on how the game used to be or why these changes were made (and why people hate DoTs and push for their deletion), but at least on paper many of those past things sound nice.

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Originally Posted by Delis

I would even be okay with no new jobs (I know it wont happen) so they could have more time to focus on rework of the current jobs.

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I agree. more jobs into the same mush we have now accomplishes nothing except further dilution.New jobs are "easy" artificial content and the gloss quickly falls off once it is realized how empty they really are. they need to concentrate on fixing what they have now and better the uniqueness and stop watering everything down.

I would be excited for a complete rework of most or all jobs on the condition that either there's a new team to handle it (the PvP team at least knows how to make jobs unique), or the current team reassesses their design paradigm and realises the problems they've made over the years.

I would also give up new jobs to allow the devs time to think out how to make the 20+ jobs we've got unique and interesting rather than adding to the mush we currently have.

The other condition I would add is to still use the older designs as inspiration, especially for jobs that have been reworked. I still want Scholar to be a primarily DoT focused mage with a fairy companion, Summoner to be able to control their pets (even if they're adamant on not bringing back DoTs, at least let us send commands to the primals and carbuncle beyond just Radiant Aegis), etc.

Honestly, they don't need to change much. The blueprints on how to rework/change/add to each job that will bring their heart to the foreground exists in their PVP versions. The Devs just need to be brave enough to take those risks.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

The reason for the 2-min meta is because when jobs had more varied timers, groups tended to prefer those whose timers all lined up for higher bursts. The problem is that damage is king. This is probably why we now have body checks over just enrage timers. That didn't change the problem though, as we still have said enrage timers. More damage can allow you to skip mechanics.

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That is why group buffs need to be rare, limited in its use, and require a prerequisite, while making it difficult to align personal buffs with without losing out on dps. Scholars could require charging and the use of their faerie gauge, and Astro can lower the cooldown each time they play a card. DPS can charge their personal buff by having to hit positionals to unlock it, or similar to Astro, lower the cooldown of their personal buff by a percentage each time they successfully hit a positional. Those are just some ways to go about it.

Or just pull a WoW's Bloodlust. But that would be a lazy idea just as it was with designing every job with a 2 minute rotation in mind.

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The whole design of encounters would have to change for them to remove the 2 min burst windows. Because changing how job buffs work before changing encounters would just lead to the problem we had before.

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Changing the design of encounters would only be a good thing. The current design of having big mechanics every 2 minutes to try to interrupt players burst phase has become so predictable and boring, it has made this game extremely stale.

i wish at this point i was.. but the dark reality is i simply wouldn't trust them to rework these jobs. they make so many promises and let me down every single time by being afraid to make massive changes that the players are begging for. if they dont fix it in 8. im gone for good... this company is hopeless

Considering how recent job changes miss the mark most of the time, No.
Unless they hire new/more Job design people, actually learn what people want for those jobs ect.

I mean I can "hope" 8.0 magically makes job design all better, but realistically I'm expecting another devolution and taking more away from jobs.

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

I agree. more jobs into the same mush we have now accomplishes nothing except further dilution.New jobs are "easy" artificial content and the gloss quickly falls off once it is realized how empty they really are. they need to concentrate on fixing what they have now and better the uniqueness and stop watering everything down.

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I'd go so far as to say every job should have an advanced job added. The advanced job doesn't change the rotation at all, but reskins it, possibly with new animations. An example could be a Black Mage, specializing in fire/thunder/ice, swapping to a Geomancer, specializing in Earth/Wind/Water.

You end up adding variety, can change animations, it literally doubles the animation work on classes, but doesn't require rotational changes so it's mostly about making sure the paired skills are otherwise identical (and I fully expect this to be more work than it seems like it should be.)

That said, the devs can definitely make it so each role can have 6 unique jobs. It would require a lot of work, but it is doable. Though the biggest problem is the devs need to change their encounter and class design philosophy away from busters and towards something like WoW's triage. Tanks and healers have been carbon copies of each other in practice since SB, and the biggest driver of this is the buster meta. Break that meta and suddenly things can slowly dehomogenize. That combined with killing the 2m meta and so forth would work wonders towards fixing the game.

Prooobably not. Considering the last major playstyle changes made to bard gave us bow mage for one expansion and then immediately removed that lol
I mean i liked bowmage but im fairly certain that many did not. It was very jarring and odd.

Anyway it would strongly depend on what exactly was getting reworked.

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Originally Posted by Taranok

I'd go so far as to say every job should have an advanced job added. The advanced job doesn't change the rotation at all, but reskins it, possibly with new animations. An example could be a Black Mage, specializing in fire/thunder/ice, swapping to a Geomancer, specializing in Earth/Wind/Water.

You end up adding variety, can change animations, it literally doubles the animation work on classes, but doesn't require rotational changes so it's mostly about making sure the paired skills are otherwise identical (and I fully expect this to be more work than it seems like it should be.)

That said, the devs can definitely make it so each role can have 6 unique jobs. It would require a lot of work, but it is doable. Though the biggest problem is the devs need to change their encounter and class design philosophy away from busters and towards something like WoW's triage. Tanks and healers have been carbon copies of each other in practice since SB, and the biggest driver of this is the buster meta. Break that meta and suddenly things can slowly dehomogenize. That combined with killing the 2m meta and so forth would work wonders towards fixing the game.

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major issue is I do not believe ANYONE on the dev team actually plays a healer.

its not just carbon copy its downright ignoring the job grouping. why they give tanks and dps so much self healing is because they have no clue about the healing jobs... period. they can talk about FF14 having a trinity all they want, but when they do not understand how 1/3 of that trinity should work... thats how we end up where we are today. thats how we end up with todays Warrior.

I think it depends on the job. Some would benefit from a total rework, others have a good base and just need a bit more depth to go with it.

The problem is that I'm not sure if the current team is up to the task. There doesn't seem to be a lot of creativity running through the team at the moment.

Yes. After 2 expansions of just adding a finisher onto RDM and DT looking like even less than that. Yes please. Even though there are several jobs I thoroughly enjoy, the way CBU3 has structured FF14 jobs is not tenable with future expansion releases. They need to shake things up. Yes, sometimes change is not always well received, but I’d rather have change than stagnation. And from what we’ve seen of DT so far, that’s where we’re at.

Change is historically one of the core tenants of MMOs. If people don’t want things to change either play WoW classic or pick another genre of game.

Why would they need to completely rework ALL jobs? I'm always interested in fresh ideas, because there's always room for improvement. But it really depends what job we're talking about, and where they want to take it. Is the change actually significant? Is it for the better? And what about all the players who enjoy the job as it is?

One dream feature I'd like to see is the opportunity for customization within a job, like talent trees or specializations. In that case, I think jobs would probably need to be rethought from the ground up, but the new system would really need to be worth it, and carefully designed. Or if they brought back the idea of cross-class abilities, but made it actually good this time. Of course, I know nothing like that is going to happen.

I'd appreciate one at this point if it means every job has a distinct identity/gimmick instead of feeling derivative from one thing or another.

Like...I can't get excited for Viper when its gameplay is easily comparable to a weird blend of SAM and RPR with the emphasis on maintaining buffs through different combo chains then going into button spam mode after building enough resources.

Depends from jobs to jobs but overral, not all jobs needs a rework.

I'd say DRK & MCH would need a rework on PLD's level as well with a complete redesign of LS&AQ.
I don't know what SMN needs but it need a lot.
Red mage suffers from an outdated design from Stormblood where it used to be the most mobile mage but ended up being the least mobile today.

Healers needs a complete rework, the philosophy around ress should evolve in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I'd appreciate one at this point if it means every job has a distinct identity/gimmick instead of feeling derivative from one thing or another.

Like...I can't get excited for Viper when its gameplay is easily comparable to a weird blend of SAM and RPR with the emphasis on maintaining buffs through different combo chains then going into button spam mode after building enough resources.

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Interesting from what I could see of VPR it looked more like melee DNC than anything else to me

Still PIC seems to indicate that they still have at least some creativity. I guess it’s closest analogue is NIN given it looks like the motifs are kinda like ninjutsu while you do the filler rotation in the background but unlike NIN it seems like the burst plays into the filler rotation rather than just being something you constantly weave around your 1-2-3

What is most lacking is identity, imo.

Each job needs to be more and more unique. This tactic they use of standardizing jobs according to roles is really sad. They should completely change this direction and give each job a greater sense of identity. Even though a job has skills/spells common to others in the same role, it MUST be different in execution, sequence, effects and feeling of use. It needs to have its own exclusive mechanics in addition to its visuals. In my opinion, the developers should redo them all with this in mind. The standardization of jobs according to roles should reduce its intrusion on the identity of each job itself.

The game could have more combat elements, the return of DoTs, field/ground control, support function, new types of damage and resistance, etc. Along with the revamp of jobs, there could be a revamp of combats as well. I often find myself thinking about "fire damage, electrical damage, ice damage..." and similar resistances and vulnerabilities... This would make the game a little more tactical and more fun (but, I understand that such a change would need to bring revamp of all enemies, dungeons, raids, etc...).

Regarding new jobs, I believe they will not stop doing them and I think it would be wrong if they did. New jobs always add players wanting to log in to enjoy the stories and the feeling that such jobs bring. If you make the changes I mentioned, this feeling will be even more enhanced and enjoyed by players with each new future job.

Another thing I imagine is that we will have some kind of "job specialization" at some point in the future. It would be awesome! A point at which a Ninja, for example, can become either a "Shadow Blade" or an "Assassin", for example. While the Shadow focuses on support and area damage, the Assassin focuses on single target and massive damage. And also the possibility of changing specializations at the click of a button (which makes preparation for each raid or extreme more interesting for each job). new builds could be included in this (like, a fire enhanced BLM or a lightning one, or something like that). For each hard boss we would find, a set of skills/spells focused on him could be discovered for each job to use. :D

I wouldn't be excited, because I don't trust the team to do it right.
Even asking them to just make each job in a role have varying degrees of complexity for their rotations to appeal to different flavors of players is asking too much since they've been axing that aspect as well.