Cross-Class Skills: The Illusion Of Choice

[Exphryl]

With the patch notes, being a DoM, and seeing Thunder removed I can't help but get irritated. Not because of the skill itself, but because of the concept of Cross Classing abilities being a fallacy for my classes. I can't say much for DoW as I only have a Paladin but for Scholar and WHM it's very apparent.

Come patch, on my White Mage, I will have access to these skills:

THM: Surecast, Swiftcast,
ACN: Physick, Ruin, Eye for an Eye, Virus.

Based on the abilities the only ones even worth taking are (After Patch):

Surecase, Swiftcast, Eye for an Eye, and to a degree, Virus (Even though the recent change makes that relatively useless for groups).

There is absolutely no reason a WHM will ever choose Ruin over Stone; or Physick over Cure so I am not sure why that's even an option. This leaves me with basically an entire empty skill slot for cross classing.

Leveling up pre-30 the system worked well, there were a LOT of abilities to choose from and it made it a unique experience mixing and matching things.

Once you get your job though it seems like it's pointless to even allow us to choose, why not just throw the ones that would be taken anyway and be done with it.

I really hope one day this system with Jobs and Cross Class functions well; because in my opinion right now it's not.

[GilbertLapine]

I've been saying this since beta. However, note that more cross skills are sure to follow (right? I mean, it makes sense... right SE?), so hopefully the choices will be expanded through later content.

[Darkwerk]

While I am happy about the patch ,and the game for the most part. I agree about cross class skills. It is a system that could be interesting if it did not have to be so hamstrung to maintain balance.

As it is we would be much better off if we just had a subjob system from FFXI.

[Grizzlebeard]

As it is we would be much better off if we just had a subjob system from FFXI.

I'd love to see the subjob system in this game. The way classes are now is just so watered down and lacklustre. My paladin feels zero like a holy warrior and more like a melee class who uses a few gimp spells.

[Gooner_iBluAirJGR]

I agree. I wish all of the classes had more skills which would give more cross class skills to choose from.
Even if they aren't part of an optimal rotation it would be nice to see some extra skills. Like what? I'm not
sure but there's something out there!

[Wilan]

Final Fantasy is a game that has NEVER been about choice. It's just not, not in the lore, nor in the story, and let alone in the gameplay. Its philosophy is to put a player inside a ruleset and see what they can within with it. And there's nothing wrong with it.

If you want a game about choices and actual freedom, FF just isn't the game for you I'm afraid.

[Pence]

I see job stone and the abilities they provide as a trade off for the 'choice', and those you do have simply compliment your job. If you want a choice then nothing is stopping you from rolling a class.

[whoopeeragon]

I see job stone and the abilities they provide as a trade off for the 'choice', and those you do have simply compliment your job. If you want a choice then nothing is stopping you from rolling a class.

And people brush me off when I talk about the main differences between Armoury System and Job System with the 'It's just semantics, they're all the same~' excuse. Let's see how similar the two of them are now.

[Wilan]

I see job stone and the abilities they provide as a trade off for the 'choice', and those you do have simply compliment your job. If you want a choice then nothing is stopping you from rolling a class.

The job stones give you necessary skills and pump up your stats by, I think, about 10%. You're just nerfing yourself without one.

[Zfz]

The situation where Physick is available to WHM as a cross class skill is also happening in other jobs.

The MRD skill Skull Thunder is available to the PLD. Skull Thunder is the second main ability of MRD/WAR in their primary enmity combo. Because PLDs don't have access to the previous step in the combo chain: "Heavy Swing", no PLD in his right mind will ever use Skull Thunder.

In fact, there's absolutely no reason why anyone would use Skull Thunder except MRD/WAR.

The only time when cross class skills are a "choice" is early on at lower levels when we are on classes and have too much to choose from. Once we go into Jobs there's really no choice. Not to mention certain skills are so useful they're treated as must-haves.