Ideas for jobs beyond whm/ healer?

[Nahara]

I know I can't be 100% sure about this until level-cap is raised, but I'm willing to bet money that the 'Ancient Magics' all 6 elements, will be Black Mages to cast. That yes, while THM only naturally has access to the Fire/Ice/Thunder chains, that within the BLM's whole bag of tricks they will gain the other 3 Ancient Magics. (Afterall, THM can't actually cast Flare or Freeze, only BLM can) So my assumption is that, 'Ancient Magic', ALL Ancient Magic, is what is 'special' about Black Mages.

Case in point: White Mage didn't get Quake as their big DD spell...they got 'Holy'

Quake, Tornado, and Flood should be given to whatever DD jobs gets attached to CNJ (likely Geomancer). Yeah, Black Mages have Ancient Magic, but their expertise is now in the Fire, Ice, and Lightning spells. Leave the Earth, Wind, and Water spells to the Conjurer, since that's their domain.

[Mcshiggs]

Pugilist -> Dancer
Fists of Water, kind of like drain samba, heals people that hit the enemy
fists of Lightning, TP drain for people that hit the enemy
and go from there, but I would be highly upset if they introduced dancer without the disarm ability "Drop it Like it's Hot"

Any new job they add it seems will need to have a different Primary stat than the already existing job, so archer branching into another ranged DD I don't see happening since it would rely on dex.

[Gamemako]

...but THM deserves a special mention here. I really don't think THM could realistically become a healer without making major changes to the way Astral Fire and Umbral Ice work. Because if Square Enix were to just give THM some healing spells, there would probably be no reason to bring in ANY other healer. One quick cast of Blizzard 1 to refresh the timer on Umbral Ice and you have a healer with pretty much infinite MP.

...but limited burst healing duration. It's not the infinite MP that makes a THM healer hard to balance. There are songs and potions for that in any encounter of sufficient length (there aren't many), and either healer will already last pretty much indefinitely against opponents who aren't making you burn your healnukes (CureII, Adloquium) or AoE (Succor, Medica/2, CureIII). The tough part is balancing your burst resource (AF MP) without gimping your healer against tough opponents. It would be easy to run out of MP and need to fall back into UI when your tank is getting hammered. You'd also have to contend with the long cooldown on Transpose as well as the need for non-damage AF/UI procs. A lot of abilities would go into that, and I don't really see much you can hijack in the class skill set to fill out the abilities needed to become an effective healer.

I'm not a fan of sticking the healer into melee range.

I don't see a whole lot of reason to avoid shorter-range healers. Titan doesn't really care where you're standing; Tumults hit you just the same. Most random-target effects are long-range. Only potential issues you'd ever run into are instant PBAoE like Batraal's Grim Halo, which would really just reduce DPS potential when not healing. Going through dungeons in my head, that's really the only major example of an instant PBAoE attack which would put a melee healer in any danger, and that can be addressed by not doing DPS -- that opponent isn't giving you a whole lot of free time to DPS in the first place with how much it can burst on your tank.

Now, if you're thinking that it would all be touch-range heals, then I can agree that it would be a total failure. Cone/column attacks would gib any such design in an instant. That's not how you'd design it, of course. Heals have to be ranged, but the the rest of the job needn't be.

Once again you have that "healer in melee range" problem, because of the master goes down, the automaton goes down with it.

Nothing says a puppetmaster has to be melee. Could be a musketeer job. You could just as well consider Lulu a puppetmaster-mage -- take that setup and run with it.

the concept steps on the toes of the Scholar, who is already the healer with the healer pet.

...which I already said. No pet will ever compare to the master; it's bad design. The closest opportunity to a pet-heavy job was DoT-focused Summoner, where time could be afforded to res without completely crushing DPS. That didn't happen, so every pet job will be two-thirds player.

Chemist would be a better potential healer, IMO. Could have it coming from Musketeer or something (but that's secondary to bringing Corsair back).

None of this is relevant. Unless ARR falls apart and subs abandon ship en masse, there will be more than 1 new healer coming, and Corsair is not a healer (nor is it really anything other than another name for the generic Gunner job).

//EDIT:

Any new job they add it seems will need to have a different Primary stat than the already existing job, so archer branching into another ranged DD I don't see happening since it would rely on dex.

While it is unfortunate that you'd have only one given stat selection with one DPS and one support job from a class, I don't see it as particularly viable to enforce stat changes. That would effectively demand that all classes have DPS/support as one job and tank or healer as the other. ARC and THM can't tank, so they'd have to heal. CNJ can't tank, so it would have to DPS. LNC would obviously tank. The dearth of tanks would force a PGL tank -- that would give 4 tanks, 4 healers, and 8 DPS (BLM, SMN, BRD, MNK, DRG, CNJ2, GLA2, MRD2). DPS/support are generally pretty easy to make, but you'd be doing some serious shoehorning to meet that design requirement. ARC healer and PGL tank would be a total mess.

[Kitru]

So my assumption is that, 'Ancient Magic', ALL Ancient Magic, is what is 'special' about Black Mages.

The only constant for BLM has been Fire, Thunder, and Blizzard. The Wind, Earth, and Water spells tend to be wild cards. Given that BLM doesn't have *any* Wind, Earth, or Water spells at all and CNJ *does*, I expect that, if they *were* to add Flood, Quake, or Tornado, it would be given to a CNJ DPS job (i.e. Geomancer) rather than BLM.

Case in point: White Mage didn't get Quake as their big DD spell...they got 'Holy'

WHM != CNJ. WHM got Holy because Holy has *always* been the WHM token nuke. Giving them any attack *except* for Holy would just be absurd.

[Mcshiggs]

While it is unfortunate that you'd have only one given stat selection with one DPS and one support job from a class, I don't see it as particularly viable to enforce stat changes. That would effectively demand that all classes have DPS/support as one job and tank or healer as the other. ARC and THM can't tank, so they'd have to heal. CNJ can't tank, so it would have to DPS. LNC would obviously tank. The dearth of tanks would force a PGL tank(BLM, SMN, BRD, MNK, DRG, CNJ2, GLA2, MRD2). ARC healer and PGL tank would be a total mess.[/QUOTE]
Don't say anything is impossible, conjurer to geomancer could tank, just give their level 30 ability a buff like warcraft did with druids and bearform, only call it strength of the earth, or some other hippy nonsense, increasing their defense and Vit by a certain multiplier or something, monk into dancer could be a healer, or monk into puppetmaster, give the puppet only ranged weapons, and since the puppet gets stats from master, dex could be viable.

[Gamemako]

Don't say anything is impossible, conjurer to geomancer could tank, just give their level 30 ability a buff like warcraft did with druids and bearform, only call it strength of the earth, or some other hippy nonsense, increasing their defense and Vit by a certain multiplier or something

That's not a geomancer, that's a shapeshifter. There are a few shapeshifters in the FF series, like Morpher in FFTA and Vincent's LB in FF7. If you're going shapeshifter from CNJ, though, you've completely thrown out the class and every ability within it. It's possible, but it's not really something you couldn't do with any class. Give any generic excuse to change forms, leave everything behind, call it a "job". Worse, the WoW copypasta would be palpable. Just add Templar as holy-warrior tank for Lancer and you'd have all WoW tanks represented in ARR.

monk into dancer could be a healer

Many ways to make PGL into a healer. I pointed out White Monk as one. That's not really such a problem, it's the jobs which don't lend themselves to alternatives. ARC is a terrible healer and terrible tank both. You could try an alternative transformation into PIE as a support job, but you've already got BRD for support -- you'd end up with two support jobs in one class and no alternative.

or monk into puppetmaster, give the puppet only ranged weapons, and since the puppet gets stats from master, dex could be viable.

That wouldn't work. As I said already, pets will never overtake the master, and your PGL is still getting damage out of punching. You could put points into DEX, but you'd be better off sticking with the class stat of STR.

[Mcshiggs]

I didn't say they would shapeshift, I said give them a buff, and the buff work like the buff granted while in bear form, then have other geomancy abilities, tree hugging and what not. I wouldn't go so far and say there is anything SE will or won't do.

[Kitru]

Many ways to make PGL into a healer.

I am *seriously* curious as to how you'd do this, given the fact that PGL has absolutely *nothing* to do with healing beyond a self heal and an AoE healing buff. It doesn't even have anything, including fundamental mechanics, that could be converted into support/healing capability without completely and utterly changing the entirety of it (including name and likely resource consumed).

It doesn't help that the healing job that you're suggesting, White Monk, is just what FFTA and FFTA2 call what every other FF games just calls "Monk". PGL into healer makes absolutely *no* sense. Monk/unarmed fighters in the FF games get nowhere *near* being healers. Some of them get minor healing support capabilities (Monks get Chakra and Revive in the FFT games; Sabin gets Sacrifice and Chakra; Amarant gets Aura, Chakra, and Revive) but a vast majority of Monks are just straight up unarmed damage dealers.

Trying to turn a PGL into a healer is just ludicrous on the face of it, from both a historical perspective as well as a mechanical one.

[Kinseykinz]

Quake, Tornado, and Flood should be given to whatever DD jobs gets attached to CNJ (likely Geomancer). Yeah, Black Mages have Ancient Magic, but their expertise is now in the Fire, Ice, and Lightning spells. Leave the Earth, Wind, and Water spells to the Conjurer, since that's their domain.

All I am saying is this:

If Black Mage is really getting 'Ancient Magic's and that's what set's it apart, then it very well might get all 6 Ancient Magic Spells. Otherwise, you just end up with a Flare II/Freeze II/etc chain happening and that seems kinda bland.

I can see how a DD Mage stemming from CNJ would also make sense to have these spells...but as BLM is supposed to be the 'spike DD' Mage, it is hard to give traditionally Spike DD spells to another mage and expect both jobs to remain viable within the game.

Example:
WHM and SCH are both healers, but they heal very differently, WHM being a Spike Curer and SCH being more subtle/defensive in curing.

So if CNJ gets an DD mage, that DD mage is likely NOT a DoT/Debuff mage (ACN/SMN has that role) nor would it likely be a Spike Damage DD Mage. So it'd have to be something different, Time Mage, Reflective Mage, Skill boosting Mage...due to this, I just see it less likely that if the remaining 4 Ancient Magics make it in game, they belong to any role other than BLM.

The only constant for BLM has been Fire, Thunder, and Blizzard. The Wind, Earth, and Water spells tend to be wild cards. Given that BLM doesn't have *any* Wind, Earth, or Water spells at all and CNJ *does*, I expect that, if they *were* to add Flood, Quake, or Tornado, it would be given to a CNJ DPS job (i.e. Geomancer) rather than BLM.

WHM != CNJ. WHM got Holy because Holy has *always* been the WHM token nuke. Giving them any attack *except* for Holy would just be absurd.

I KNOW WHM traditionally gets Holy...but it also traditionally by your logic can have either Aero or Stone spells...but really, that wasn't my point. My point was they DID give it its 'Iconic Spell' and NOT the Big DD spells that matched it's classes nukes. That instead of giving it Quake, Tornado, Flood which would have matched the Stone/Aero/Water spells CNJ naturally gave them, they instead went with the more Iconic WHM spell of Holy.

You keep assuming that because CNJ has the Stone/Air/Water Spells it HAS to have the DD Mage that would learn their AM equalivants. I'm pointing out that is not necessarily the case. Lastly, each 'job' storyline is basically finished at level 50....so when level cap is raised, it'll be interesting to see how they expand the current jobs/classes and their stories, let alone speculate about what potential jobs are down the road.

[Kitru]

I can see how a DD Mage stemming from CNJ would also make sense to have these spells...but as BLM is supposed to be the 'spike DD' Mage, it is hard to give traditionally Spike DD spells to another mage and expect both jobs to remain viable within the game.

You're operating under the assumption that they'd be big spikes. Freeze most definitely isn't: it's only potency 20. They've already deviated from the traditional mold of the "Ancient Magicks as big spikes".

Furthermore, the BLM schtick is not "spike damage dealer caster". The BLM schtick is the resource management: BLM is all about Umbral Ice, Astral Fire, and the waxing and waning of your mp pool governing what attacks you're using and how much damage they do. On top of all of this, the 3 abilities that a CNJ DPS job would be using as their baseline start (Stone II, Aero, Aero II) already prevent it from playing like a BLM: BLM has a single DoT with a regularish reapplication time frame; Aero lasts 18 seconds and Aero II lasts 12 seconds, so there is existing conflict in maintaining their DoTs while also bringing more DoT focus into play than BLM has.

I KNOW WHM traditionally gets Holy...but it also traditionally by your logic can have either Aero or Stone spells...but really, that wasn't my point.

It's not my logic that gives WHM Aero and Stone. It's the game's own logic. CNJ needed some damage spells so that it could solo and they based it off of the druid archetype so it got Aero, Fluid Aura, and Stone because those are the "natural" damage spells that are iconic within the game that hadn't already been taken by other classes.

That instead of giving it Quake, Tornado, Flood which would have matched the Stone/Aero/Water spells CNJ naturally gave them, they instead went with the more Iconic WHM spell of Holy.

Once again, I'll reiterate, CNJ != WHM. WHM provides Holy because it's *WHM providing the spell*. WHM does not have anything to do with Aero, Stone, or Water. CNJ, on the other hand, *does*. If there were a nuke provided by CNJ, I fully expect that it would have been Tornado, Flood, or Quake because those 3 elements are part of the CNJ's schtick.

You keep assuming that because CNJ has the Stone/Air/Water Spells it HAS to have the DD Mage that would learn their AM equalivants. I'm pointing out that is not necessarily the case.

I'm not saying that it *has* to be a DPS CNJ job that gets the 3 nontraditional Ancient Magicks. Hell, most of the FF games don't even *have* most of the Ancient Magicks you listed: they're satisfied with Flare, Meteor, and Ultima as the uber-spells (and we're not getting Ultima or Meteor since those are lore locked, a one also happens to be a limit break). If they *were* added, I would expect them to be added as part of a CNJ DPS class because no other existing class has the "prereq" spells that would make it so that those spells actually make sense, and I doubt that a different class's job would get access to them because the devs aren't likely to double up classes that get certain spells.

If anything, I expect that, if they extend the level range, that BLM will get a Thunder epic (an AoE that applies the Thunder DoT with a 12 sec duration to everything nearby) and maybe some weakened regular use version of Meteor (like Meteo) and Ultima. As for new abilities that aren't attached to jobs as levels increase, I don't really see the need for actual attacks rather than CDs and utilities. I could see them getting something like Doom, which would act as a DoT rather than an outright death spell, but, since they already have a fully fleshed out rotation and it's not as if there are different talent trees to be reworked, you don't need to add new major abilities.