Difference between classes

Hello!

I was looking at the classes (and jobs) earlier and I got confused.
What is the exact difference between the classes beside slightly different skills/abilities?
I thought they were supposed to have defined roles (I know, I know, took me a while to notice).

Gladiator is focused on defence, that one is easy (lots of defence boosting abilities and shield stuff).
Also easy, the conjurer is a healer (only one with healing magic).

What about pugilist, lancer and marauder? Sure they all have different skills and abilities, but it looks minimal on the paper. They all can somehow enfeeble the enemy, they all have attack power bonus and they all are damage classes. Of course, pugilist relies slightly more on speedy attacks, lancer a bit more on TP stuff and critical strikes, and marauder also has some enmity and defence skills.

The difference is slim, even conjurer has two sets of elemental offensive magic while the thaumaturge has three.

So, even though the difference is slim when only looking at abilities, the role in game is "clearly" defined?

Gladiator: focus on defence so he is a tank? So is Paladin?
Pugilist: focus on quick attacks so he is a fast DD? So is Monk?
Lancer: focus on TP? critical strikes? I remember reading that Yoshi-P wanted Dragoon to be a critical strike DD, is it the case?
Marauder: what is his role? Attack and defence? Raw power and secondary tank then?
Archer: focus on ... accuracy? Not getting in the way of the better DD? Bard is a support job, at least that is clear.

Conjurer: focus on healing so he is a healer. So is White Mage.
Thaumaturge: focus on damage with only 3 sets of elemental magic?! Like, spam thunder spells and occasionally use the others? Same goes for Black Mage.
Arcanist: supposed to focus on debuff, but aren't all fighting classes capable on inflicting debuffs? Are arcanist debuff more power and have a longer duration? The pet is for attack/defence, that's a given. Same goes for Summoner, the summons will also inflict debuffs or attack? Then summoner is a debuff+damage dealer?

The line is blurred, which is ok by me because I enjoy versatility and being able to survive in many situations without having to switch classes all the time (especially since required class/job gear came into the game).

My big question is, simply, what is the supposed role of each class/job and what truly makes them different from one another?

You have to think of the class/job system as specializations. Classes are for solo, or low-man party groups, while Jobs are specifically for large parties. For example, Gladiator is mostly tank oriented, but because of the way the armory system works, the player can customize his Gladiator to fill any specific weaknesses he may have. Such as cure spells, protect, defender, so and so forth. Same goes for any class, like Thaumaturge needing cure, or Pugilist needing protect.

The job system limits the player as to what customization options he may have, but in turn, expands on one specific role. Paladin is only a tank, White Mage is only a healer, ect...

Conjurer may be the only class with access to curing spells, but that doesn't mean it can't be a damage dealer with the help of THM's spells.

That's basically the idea.

Sorry, just to expand a little bit more on your main question.

I believe everything is getting reworked a little for 2.0, but as the moment, I think Gladiator=tank, Mrd=Damage/tank(aoe), pugilist= dot/dd, lancer= critical hit DD, archer=ranged DD/debuff. Their jobs just further enhance their specialties.

If you dig deeper, you could say pug/mnk is like a physical elemental Damage dealer/dot. lol

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Originally Posted by SydeBeheln

You have to think of the class/job system as specializations. Classes are for solo, or low-man party groups, while Jobs are specifically for large parties. For example, Gladiator is mostly tank oriented, but because of the way the armory system works, the player can customize his Gladiator to fill any specific weaknesses he may have. Such as cure spells, protect, defender, so and so forth. Same goes for any class, like Thaumaturge needing cure, or Pugilist needing protect.

The job system limits the player as to what customization options he may have, but in turn, expands on one specific role. Paladin is only a tank, White Mage is only a healer, ect...

Conjurer may be the only class with access to curing spells, but that doesn't mean it can't be a damage dealer with the help of THM's spells.

That's basically the idea.

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Actually most jobs are better for solo than the classes they come off of. Like soloing as a CNJ instead of WHM, you wouldnt have regen, presense of mind, or esuna. You may be able to pick some skills from some other jobs as CNJ, but being able to have skills from pug and gld make WHM good as both a solo and party job.

I can't tell if the OP is asking for the difference between class vs other class, or the difference between class vs job.

the major problem I see between classes and jobs is there is no major stat changes. Some jobs may lose some hp and gain some mp, but theres no other stat changes when changing from class - job. where there should be a difference there is not.

SE added jobs to fullfil 'roles' but nothing changes majorly that changes the role of one class to another. Like cnj for example again can still play the healer role without switching to whm, it would only just be a little harder. gld would still be a tank without switching to pld, it would only be a little harder. I think that is what the op was getting at in the first place.

Way back when classes didn't have any real defined roles. SE's plan to fix this was jobs, but somewhere along the line they decided to define class roles as well, which to me didn't make any sense. Had they have left classes alone, Jobs would for sure be the 'you do this and cant equip all of these skills anymore, therefore you can only do this' and classes would be the 'jacks of all trades' that cant really do any single thing nearly as well as a job could. They never really needed to make certain class spells 'class' specific, but enhance them for the job.

Thats how I feel about their changes at least... There will be more changes in 2.0, and I hope we see a real difference between the class and the job then.

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Originally Posted by SydeBeheln

You have to think of the class/job system as specializations. Classes are for solo, or low-man party groups, while Jobs are specifically for large parties. For example, Gladiator is mostly tank oriented, but because of the way the armory system works, the player can customize his Gladiator to fill any specific weaknesses he may have. Such as cure spells, protect, defender, so and so forth. Same goes for any class, like Thaumaturge needing cure, or Pugilist needing protect.

The job system limits the player as to what customization options he may have, but in turn, expands on one specific role. Paladin is only a tank, White Mage is only a healer, ect...

Conjurer may be the only class with access to curing spells, but that doesn't mean it can't be a damage dealer with the help of THM's spells.

That's basically the idea.

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As it's been said before there's nothing you can actually solo on a Class that you can't solo on a Job. It's not like Classes give anyone the magic ability to solo Dodore like Thaum use to be able to do. 2.0 might change abilities around but with quests being a major source of xp I really doubt anyone is going to go around soloing on Classes (except with leves until they actually do unlock the jobs). I don't mean to nickpick your post but when people defend the Armory System the "solo" aspect is always brought up. Sure you can equip Cure, Stoneskin, and Protect but you can switch to WHM/CNJ before you even do a leve or fight something and pop up a Protect/Stoneskin/Regen.

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Originally Posted by SydeBeheln

Sorry, just to expand a little bit more on your main question.

I believe everything is getting reworked a little for 2.0, but as the moment, I think Gladiator=tank, Mrd=Damage/tank(aoe), pugilist= dot/dd, lancer= critical hit DD, archer=ranged DD/debuff. Their jobs just further enhance their specialties.

If you dig deeper, you could say pug/mnk is like a physical elemental Damage dealer/dot. lol

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That's the kind of answer I am looking for. :D

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Originally Posted by Raldo

I can't tell if the OP is asking for the difference between class vs other class, or the difference between class vs job.

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Class vs class
Jobs vs jobs

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Originally Posted by NoloeTazier

As it's been said before there's nothing you can actually solo on a Class that you can't solo on a Job. It's not like Classes give anyone the magic ability to solo Dodore like Thaum use to be able to do. 2.0 might change abilities around but with quests being a major source of xp I really doubt anyone is going to go around soloing on Classes (except with leves until they actually do unlock the jobs). I don't mean to nickpick your post but when people defend the Armory System the "solo" aspect is always brought up. Sure you can equip Cure, Stoneskin, and Protect but you can switch to WHM/CNJ before you even do a leve or fight something and pop up a Protect/Stoneskin/Regen.

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That's kind of what I was expecting when they first talking about the armoury revamp.
Having the classes truly well defined and isolated in their specialization. Then, being able to pick up some abilities from other specialized classes to become a jack-of-all-trades.

As for jobs, they would simply prevent you from picking abilities from other classes and forces to push the specialization even further (making you extra weak for other tasks).

But it feels like classes are a pot of jack-of-all-trades with slight variations, while the jobs gives you 5 abilities to "define" your role a bit more.

I'm not unhappy about it, I'm just confused as to how adding more classes are going to be implemented without having the armoury system become a cluster-f*ck of abilities wrapped in a different packaging.
That would put the focus on character individuality (I want my character to do this and that, so I select the variation that is closer and complete with cross-class skills -- which was the first armoury before the revamp).
If they truly make classes specialized, then it puts the focus on roles (I want my character to be a lancer because a lancer is XYZ, then select a few complementary abilities for individuality -- wasn't it what it was supposed to be with the revamp?).

Obviously, I started tackling other classes recently and I kept telling myself "You are still low level, keep leveling, it will become clearer at later levels". My lowest class in Discipline of War is level 35 now... and I'm still like: "Well... I don't see much difference between a pugilist, a lancer, a marauder and an archer. It's get in there, spam whatever attack combo you have while not pulling hate and pop in occasional class defining abilities (oh, and the archer, just stand farther)." Each have debuff in their combo, each have healing/support, each have buff, ...

So, I just want to know what the devs are thinking when they assign abilities to classes now. Do they have any particular set of rules or they just go with "oh! that would be nice on this class, let's just do that"?

So, what is the first thing that pops up in their mind when we says "gladiator", "pugilist", "lancer", etc.?
(... and don't tell me it's their weapon!)

Monk and Dragoon are somewhat similar in practice, but other than that I'm not sure what you're expecting. Paladin/Warrior/Whm/Blm/Brd are all pretty different from each other even in just how you have to approach fights. This is a modern game so you're not going to end up with classes that can only debuff or only heal or whatever.

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Originally Posted by NoloeTazier

As it's been said before there's nothing you can actually solo on a Class that you can't solo on a Job. It's not like Classes give anyone the magic ability to solo Dodore like Thaum use to be able to do. 2.0 might change abilities around but with quests being a major source of xp I really doubt anyone is going to go around soloing on Classes (except with leves until they actually do unlock the jobs). I don't mean to nickpick your post but when people defend the Armory System the "solo" aspect is always brought up. Sure you can equip Cure, Stoneskin, and Protect but you can switch to WHM/CNJ before you even do a leve or fight something and pop up a Protect/Stoneskin/Regen.

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Oh okay, well I'm just going off what the original concept presented by Yoshida was. If it actually ended up that way, even I am unsure. Mainly because I don't really play the game too much simply because im just hanging around until 2.0. I do believe it should be that way though to a degree. There needs to be a noticeable difference in classes vs. jobs, or else one day classes will just be overlooked by the player population and they just become a waist of space.

Another thing is, Yoshida said he didnt want us to think of Jobs as advanced classes, but that is exactly how they ended up since the roles of the class to job stay the same.

I just wanted to add, that since the implementation of jobs I have rarely seen anyone use classes for anything...I myself solo'd on jobs extensively, sure for whm and blm it takes some time depending on mob level but it wasn't impossible...I did try to do some testing to see if I preferred using my gld over my pld, and honestly I had more fun as pld than gld...if the classes had something different to offer than jobs...or if jobs had more exclusive skills that truly allowed then to standout from classes then maybe I can see the need to have both, but imo I'll always choose jobs over classes any day. (I will say I do prefer the classes naming style over jobs...they just seem so much more exotic and sexy). My 2 gil.

You have just identified the biggest problem with classes. As it stands, there is little purpose in their existence, because they too closely resemble their job.

But the solution, which many would argue against me, is not to eliminate them. Classes need to be more diversified to allow for varying play styles. Then, and only then, can jobs fulfill their true purpose, which is to add specialization to the class (that is, to pigeonhole them into a role, so to speak). On top of that, it would also allow one class to have multiple job possibilities.

Classes are jacks of all trades, have no major defining abilities that the other classes can't use etc - allowing flexibility.

Advanced jobs have a more defining role. Have advanced job abilities which are usually found in FF lore as fairly specific abilities (such as DRG's iconic Jump, WHM's regen, etc).

I feel classes are more like a baby step before you can truly become a legendary "Dragoon" or "White Mage" as an example. You have to train as a weak Gladiator before you can be regarded an almighty Paladin. Just makes more sense, battle mechanics aside to be honest.

The unique thing about playing a pugilist was MP management (though apparently that's going away in 2.0) and taking advantage of elemental weaknesses. If you ever had a fist action turned off, you were underperforming.

Lancers could use the most weaponskills, marauders could swing between damage and tanking pretty fluently, and archers have the best hate control so they could stand there and just keep shooting.

Gladiators had the best defenses, but that was their only trick -- a poor design choice, in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Altena

Classes are jacks of all trades, have no major defining abilities that the other classes can't use etc - allowing flexibility.

Advanced jobs have a more defining role. Have advanced job abilities which are usually found in FF lore as fairly specific abilities (such as DRG's iconic Jump, WHM's regen, etc).

I feel classes are more like a baby step before you can truly become a legendary "Dragoon" or "White Mage" as an example. You have to train as a weak Gladiator before you can be regarded an almighty Paladin. Just makes more sense, battle mechanics aside to be honest.

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Then if that be the case why have lvls at all...because honestly..as you go up in lvls...you get stronger and access to more powerful abilities and gear...this whole classes as jack of all trades is really a crock...jobs also cross abilities and they do just fine...

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Originally Posted by Altena

Classes are jacks of all trades, have no major defining abilities that the other classes can't use etc - allowing flexibility.

Advanced jobs have a more defining role. Have advanced job abilities which are usually found in FF lore as fairly specific abilities (such as DRG's iconic Jump, WHM's regen, etc).

I feel classes are more like a baby step before you can truly become a legendary "Dragoon" or "White Mage" as an example. You have to train as a weak Gladiator before you can be regarded an almighty Paladin. Just makes more sense, battle mechanics aside to be honest.

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That was the original intent. Somewhere along the way they lost their purpose. They need to return to this.