Musketeer class idea

[Kitru]

There's a reason bard buffs were changed to raid cooldowns rather than perpetual buffs like what your COR has, and why (within the context of modern MMOs, understandably broken) things like Madrigal, March et al are not in their arsenal..

It should also be mentioned that none of the BRD's songs are universally useful, like a straight +det, +dam, or +crit buff would be. BRD either helps out healers (with Ballad, since BLM and SMN are both effectively infinite mp), caster DPS (with Requiem; BLM damage is pretty much all elemental and all SMN pet damage is elemental even if all of the SMN's damage is unaspected; it buffs BRD damage a bit, thanks to Windbite and Flame Arrow, but that's not a huge amount), or DoW classes (with Paeon).

The only other class that could be labelled as "support" is SCH, when they elect to use Selene instead of Eos. Selene can buff *either* skill speed or spell speed at any given time (if you're good, you can make sure that one of those two is up at all times) so it's not universally useful either. On top of this, just like with BRDs, using Selene decreases your healing output (Eos packs the +healing buff and Whispering Dawn) so it comes at a cost to your primary effectiveness when you opt to use it.

Using the existing examples of "support" that we've got, there are 3 criteria that it needs to follow: limited uptime, benefit to a subset of total classes rather than all, and it must come at the cost of your primary functionality when it's active. There's kind of a fourth pseudo criteria which is that support isn't a primary role so you must still be a fully functional tank, dps, or healer.

If you really wanted to play up the random aspect as part of Corsair (not entire sure I think that the piratical, gun-using job should lead into what has classically been "Gambler" but whatever), you could have each of the effects provide a static buff to a random subset of classes. The "cost" could come as the dice applying a debuff to you that reduces damage by 20% for 10 seconds after it's used. If you wanted to go the route of multiple types of dice, you could have...

Restful Dice: throws 2 dice that have half of their faces as the DoW symbol and half as the DoM symbol; restores 100 TP and 10% MP to everyone if one of each face is shown, 250 TP if it's double DoW, and 25% MP if it's double DoM
Debillitating Dice: throws 2 dice that have one of the elements symbolized on each of their faces; reduces target's resistance to the damage types shown by 10% and reduces resistance by 25% if they both show the same damage type
Corsair's Dice: throws 2 dice that have each of a sword, a shield, a wand, a starburst, a tree, or a lucky 7; sword increases attack power by 15%, shield increases defense and mdef by 10%, wand increases attack magic potency by 10%, tree increases healing magic potency by 10%, starburst provides a small but visible increase to the limit gauge; if 2 faces show, they increase the benefit by 150%; lucky 7 only works when you get 2 of them but it provides the benefit of all faces as if 2 of that face had been shown
Extra Die (Lv. 50): A long CD ability that causes your next Dice ability to throw an extra die (3 dice of the same face provide no greater benefit than if there were 2 dice showing that face)
The 5th job ability would likely need to be an actual attack.

The BRD construct (which this follows: 3 support, 1 long CD ability that improves those support abilities, and 1 attack) is a pretty good one. You'd need to give the abilities pretty substantial costs (like consuming 75% of your max mp) and/or long CDs, but the randomness of the benefits means that you could get away with them providing more than the other support jobs are able to provide.

[Nahara]

not entire sure I think that the piratical, gun-using job should lead into what has classically been "Gambler" but whatever

That, however, is entirely what the Corsair is.

It's quite possible my memory has failed me in the past several years, but the Corsair of FFXI is/was SE's answer to the desire for a gambler job without actually introducing a gambler job, because apparently the negative connotations of gambling was something SE wanted to get away from without loosing the luck-based combat style. In FFXI, they are what Bard is in XIV, a ranged damage dealer that had party-wide buffing abilities, though the mechanics of their Phantom Dice meant that their support abilities could be stronger or weaker depending on the player's luck. I think the biggest problem we have here is that... there's really not as many options for group-wide buffs without getting into ones that cause the "we must have this in the party" issue. Especially since Bard is already providing Ballad, Paeon, and Requiem.

I'm still a firm believer that Corsair should make a return for XIV as the ranged damage dealer and support job it is, though what buffs they could give the party without stepping on the toes of Bards is something I, unfortunately, don't have an answer for.

[Kitru]

That, however, is entirely what the Corsair is.

Well, the Corsair was only ever implemented in a single game so it's hard to say, explicitly, what defines the Corsair as opposed to the Gambler (which exists in multiple iterations, of which Corsair is one).If you look at Corsair as simply a synonym for the eponymous "pirate"s that has actually gotten a bit more play, it's a theme as opposed to a class. As such, it's entirely possible to use the term Corsair while completely abandoning the Gambler trappings since there isn't really a historical limitation beyond what FFXI players would expect out of the shared name. The devs did the same thing with Scholar (though Scholar actually had reasonable historical precedence but it was defined by Scan, which isn't much to build on).

I'm still a firm believer that Corsair should make a return for XIV as the ranged damage dealer and support job it is, though what buffs they could give the party without stepping on the toes of Bards is something I, unfortunately, don't have an answer for.

I fully believe that Corsair (which is what I fully expect Musketeer's job to be) will be a ranged damage dealer with support capabilities, much like BRD (part of it is derived from how Limit Breaks separates "ranged" from "caster" and give "ranged" the healer LB). My contention is that it's wrong to force the Gambler aspect upon the class/job simply because that's what FFXI did, especially whenever Gambler mechanics aren't really going to fit well into ARR's balance/content design (imagine if the existing support abilities were twice as strong but only functioned half of the time; they'd be seen as a helluva lot less useful because you use them because you want them and not vice versa). Within the confines of the entire series, "Corsair" has only one data point so you can't really say what defines it because what defines it, in that single data point, is actually the definition of Gambler. FFXI's Corsair is simply a Gambler by another name.

Because of this, I feel it's wrong to force the Gambler construct upon Corsair. Focus on them being pirate rather than turning them into Gamblers with guns. You could envision them as picaresque naval commanders so that they use speeches and rallying cries in much the same way that Bards use their songs; Merlwyb would be a *great* example of this kind of Corsair design (the Gambler model doesn't really work with her, as I see it, since I don't really think she would be one to leave things to chance). Another option would be to focus upon how Limsa Lominsa and her pirates are the chosen people of Llymlaen, which could provide them with various wind and storm themed abilities.

Corsair doesn't *have* to be a reskinned Gambler just because that's what FFXI did. Corsair doesn't really have anywhere near a long enough history within the annals of the series to really define them in any way so it's fertile ground for exploration of the piratical theme.