Alternate role jobs

I think new jobs are the best way to increase replayability. An idea of mine, not that SE would ever go anywhere near this. These would be unique to the original and practically treated like their own individual separate job from any other.

So this would be like creating a "new" job, of say, healer bard, or dps white mage.
They would share basic abilities, but the majority of abilities should be new and unique with unique playstyles different from the derived job and other jobs in the role.

-Healer Bard: Easy, healing and buffs based on songs, maybe a strong emphasis on AoE, auras and HoTs. Different set of songs that provide healing or support related buffs.
Utility can change based on the current song playing. They can have access to utility themed arrows. The possibilities are endless really, there's so much to work with.

-DPS White Mage: Smiting things with badass holy magic. Id think, AoE dots of consistent damage with high spikes for that smiting the heathens feeling as you rain down pillars of light upon them. Utility blind, and naturally a little access to supplemental healing (take pictomancer's). Maybe an inverted type of white mage lilies.

-DPS Scholar: They're never going to bring back DoT summoner, so make DoT Summoner again but with Scholar. Bring back DoT gameplay.

-Tank Reaper: I don't know anything about current reaper but I don't have to to say that a theme of a scythe wielder who bides their time focusing on blocking attacks while occasionally countering is a unique theme that could fit it, if you consider it building up to doing fun nuclear execute attacks in exchange.

-Healer Red Mage: An inversion of sorts might do the trick. Might also be a sort of opposite of Sage too, where you heal to deal damage and balance mana in that way.

-DPS Sage: Let people have laser mage.

Also let me just add:

-Fix healing

-Nerf tank sustain, especially Warrior

-Fix Dark Knight

-DPS Geomancer that builds out of Conjurer

-Melee Healer: Cleric- Not my idea but apparently a class from an old FF game. Probably would have ranged heals, maybe just shorter range, and some melee heals too. Shield and mace wielder. Probably builds itself up to stack up on something that gives it range to apply to its abilities that you want to use sparingly, but allows healing to remain responsive in large arenas with lots of players like raids. It could have a massive sort of sacred soil type of aoe that helps it passively heal at a huge range as a baseline safety net to manage.

-Melee Healer: Monk- Healing hands type of theme, mantras, maybe you immobilize yourself meditating to gain healing abilities, but are otherwise highly mobile and fast.

-Make a normal job version of Blue Mage that could probably work fine for both DPS and Healer versions.

-Make a normal job version of the upcoming Beastmaster. Easily workable into a DPS and a Tank that tanks by proxy of its pet which would be very cool and unique.

You're basically asking for a Talent Tree system, as used in certain other MMOs.
But seeing the current state of FF14 I doubt that will ever happen.

You forgot the most important one : Dual gunblade wielder : Gunbreaker melee damage edition :3

Square wants the classes to similar, so people are not excluded. Adding talents will make balancing the classes a lot harder, games like World of Warcraft is fine example, balancing is a issue there resulting in some builds being OP and others a lot worse.

I like your idea, but I don't think SE will do it.

I'll add healer redmage to the list.

i don't think it will happen, but i'd welcome some sort of customizability

They clearly can't balance anyway so there's nothing to lose xD
But no not something customizable at all whatsoever because the technology doesn't exist for that.
Practically their own job. The only thing shared is the name and a few abilities.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Laerune

Square wants the classes to similar, so people are not excluded.

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The problem is their hardest content is only 8 players. Granted, they probably never thought the game will last this long or get this big. But when you have only 8 players in a group, and yet the game has lasted so long with 2 new job per expansions, they're basically in a corner right now.

You can criticize SE's decisions and reason all you want, but they have a task that I'm glad I'm not doing. It would have been much easier if the hardest content have 16, 20, or 24 people, classes wouldn't have to be in locked step of each others.

That's why I had so much fun in the (savage) relic raid dungeons, they're challenge enough that you don't face role like the 24man Alliance, but it's big enough that job variety is not a big deal balance wise.

Give Red Mage Medica 1 and 2, maybe a method to recover a little bit more MP than just Lucid Dreaming, and it could very well be a full time Healer.

Fell cleave for healers:

- Scholar - books have sharp edges
- Astro - it's like an axe but with a handle made of starshine!
- Sage - lots of pointy sharp things
- White mage - no lube on that stick

I'd rather just have each job carry more tools that aren't mere reskins of a role template.

Let CNJ have an assortment of elemental spells, give SCH back a fuller suite of pure/non-affinitive magics, let Warrior choose to go far more offensive at cost to durability, let PLD go far more "Sword Oath", GNB pick very different styles through what ammo its puts into its weapon (charging a given cartridge over time and through actions while using another cartridge of different type, capable of detonating said energy within the cartridge for burst effect), AST go big on curses, gravity, and/or time magic, etc., etc.

Let the alternatives be a part of gameplay, rather than mere menuplay and additional grind requirements.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Laerune

Square wants the classes to similar, so people are not excluded.

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I feel like this is a problem best fixed by not allowing any jobs in a role to outclass each other, rather than making classes similar.

In a vacuum, one DPS role shouldn't be able to put up better numbers than another, one healer shouldn't be better at healing than another, and one tank shouldn't better at tanking than another.

I had the same idea years ago. I want a DPS astrologian.