New Class/Job in 2.2?

[Nahara]

So, apparently they don't have "support" as an explicit role planned, but they *do* have "hybrid" planned, which is, in all likelihood, going to be implemented with RDM as the archetype (similar to how PLD is the tank archetype and WHM the healer). I'm very curious as to how they'll do it though, especially since, to make the role justifiable, they'd need to change a lot of content to require someone who can bounce between roles from fight to fight (or even phase to phase).

I'm not sure if I like this, as I've currently got a lot of thoughts about this in my head right now, so I'm going to try and make this as coherent as I can.

I'm worried that any class/job that fills a "hybrid" role is going to cause the same problem as what happened in WoW with it's classes, specifically power creep. The cost of hybridization, the downside to the jack-of-all-trades, is that while they can fill multiple roles, they are inferior in those roles compared to the people who specialize (willingly or otherwise). In WoW, the Rogue, Mage, and Warlock were the kings of DPS because that was all they were capable of doing. The classes that could DPS and some other second role (Warrior, Priest, and Shaman), didn't have viable damage, thus they could only reliably perform their second role. Paladins, who could do all three roles, sucked at tanking and damage dealing, and where thus shoved into being healers (and even then, I don't think they performed well).

That wasn't to last, though, and eventually the classes that could fill more than one role began to catch up to the others. Rogues, Mages, and Warlocks weren't king of DPS anymore, so people were less inclined to bring them along. After all, why bring a Mage when you can bring a Shadow Priest, who could deal damage just as good, but could also heal for you if you needed a healer? When I left, there was still discord among the Rogue, Mage, and Warlock community because the desire to have those classes in parties was still pretty low because they couldn't diversify.

The point I'm trying to make is that, is it possible that any introduced "hybrids" could cause the same problem? That their lack of power gets them buffed later on, but the buffs are so good that people stop wanting to bring the specialized jobs? Why bring the Paladin if the Mystic Knight can tank just as well, but also go DD? Now, I know people can switch jobs in a heartbeat, that the Paladin could easily have a DRG secondary job that he could DD with, but why level two jobs when leveling one nets you the same two roles in half the time?

In addition, how viable would a "hybrid" role be in terms of abilities and gear? If you have a job that can tank and heal, do you have to carry around multiple sets of gear so you can fill both roles, or do you only need one set, but it has so many stats it needs to hit that it runs it's budget out too quickly?

How many abilities and traits do you need in order to be successful at your role? Sure, Scholar comes off a DD class, but with the exception of those DoTs and the INT boosting traits, everything else is still viably useful to a healer. Would these hybrid jobs have to come off specialized classes that are build from the ground-up to let it comfortably fit all its roles?

[OmegaNovaios]

The point I'm trying to make is that, is it possible that any introduced "hybrids" could cause the same problem? That their lack of power gets them buffed later on, but the buffs are so good that people stop wanting to bring the specialized jobs? Why bring the Paladin if the Mystic Knight can tank just as well, but also go DD? Now, I know people can switch jobs in a heartbeat, that the Paladin could easily have a DRG secondary job that he could DD with, but why level two jobs when leveling one nets you the same two roles in half the time?

In all honesty I feel all jobs specialized in only 1 role should be at minimum 10% more effective than a Hybrid Role able to switch roles mid-combat. At the same time there are already classes/jobs that aren't equal in pure DPS, but classes/jobs that have to ramp DPS are the highest (SMN and MNK) because they start off fairly slow. It only make sense that a class/job that starts off slower will be able to surpass other DPS after a certain point of time otherwise you wouldn't want to bring class/job for lack of burst (start of fight) w/o any benefit at the other end.

When it comes to the player choosing a class for himself/herself, sure a Hybrid Role may appeal to someone more than leveling 2 separate classes to perform 2 different roles (however I assume most people will still choose the single job that fits their ideal play style in mind over that convenience, as it will still be very viable in use), but keep in mind in the future all classes will eventually be able to perform multiple roles not on the same job but on the same class via a job for each role. So in essence you only level 1 class and whether that class has 1 Hybrid Role or 2-3 Specific Roles you still can perform different roles with 1 class.

In addition, how viable would a "hybrid" role be in terms of abilities and gear? If you have a job that can tank and heal, do you have to carry around multiple sets of gear so you can fill both roles, or do you only need one set, but it has so many stats it needs to hit that it runs it's budget out too quickly?

Most likely. As for classes that have separate roles like ACN you have to carry a set of gear for both SMN and SCH if you want to play both. On my SMN I do more than just DPS, sometimes I support tank or solo tank (for fun) with Titan-Egi. Sometimes I just throw out some support heals if I feel it's needed. But I choose to wear i70 crafted jewelry with 9 INT, 9 MND, 9 VIT, 6 PIE over i90 INT slots. All Egi's have increased HP (they die less often and Sustain is more effective in keeping them alive). The character has more HP (great for PVE and PVP). I heal 450-470 with SMN cures (works pretty well with Crit Rate too). PIE affects both MP pool (also increases MP gained from Aetherflow) as well as MP regen (and both are very important for SMN sustaining dmg in longer fights while saving Aethers for burst mechanics).

What does SMN lost from -20 INT if compared to full i90 jewelry? About 5% dmg. Considering SMN is the #1/#2 DPS in most situations losing 5% dmg is still going to leave SMN at #1/#2 and even if it did slip down to #2/#3 then so what, but also at the same time if the fight is super long then SMN will actually gain dmg from a boost in PIE which also helps prepare for burst mechanics (IMO is far more important to deal with than pure DPS).

How many abilities and traits do you need in order to be successful at your role? Sure, Scholar comes off a DD class, but with the exception of those DoTs and the INT boosting traits, everything else is still viably useful to a healer. Would these hybrid jobs have to come off specialized classes that are build from the ground-up to let it comfortably fit all its roles?

Pretty much. This is going to be the #1 issue for both Hybrid Roles and multiple job roles for any class, but it's still not too difficult to achieve and can be done on classes already released as Yoshi P stated mutliple times with the example of DRK job for the GLA class. But in comparison to the gear it can pose an issue to players not wanting to meld gear with attributes just to be super effective at multiple roles. SE needs to release JSE (job specific equipment) AND new specific role sets of gear (IE Fending for Tank, Healing for Healer, Caster for Mage) with multiple stats that the job will need, much like how healing sets have VIT, MND, and PIE (which replaces 1 secondary stat) instead of just 2 attributes.

The trade off for Hybrid Roles can be the loss of Secondary Stats for the benefit of Primary Attributes (which will benefit them overall far more). Hitting an ACC cap may become an issue though if they need 4 attributes unless those jobs do not require as much ACC like how DoM classes/jobs do not require as much ACC as DoW classes/jobs.

[Kitru]

I'm worried that any class/job that fills a "hybrid" role is going to cause the same problem as what happened in WoW with it's classes, specifically power creep.

The way that WoW had hybrid classes and the way that Yoshi-P is describing their intention for hybrid classes are completely different. WoW's hybrids (at the start) had multiple different roles that they could specialize in by using different skill trees: Shaman was hybrid healer/damage but could only choose one of those roles to fulfill at a time, Paladin was hybrid tank/damage/healer but could only choose one of those roles to fulfill at a time, etc. The "hybrid cost" was added under the assumption that a tank with heals, a healer with survivability CDs, or a DPS with heals would provide some substantial advantage over single role classes (and, yes, Warrior and Priest were designed as single role classes). The devs realized just how stupid this idea was very quickly because it didn't take long for the player base to realize that your spec determined your role and that, because of gear with specific stats and talents specifically designed to augment certain capabilities, effects that weren't part of your actual spec'd role were effectively worthless. Hybrid, in this sense, would mean that PLD, SMN, and BLM are all hybrid classes because they have access to Cure/Physick; this isn't really any advantage because the healing they net from Cure/Physick is so pathetic (thanks to not having the MND to actually heal effectively) that there's no real reason to use it so they don't really have hybrid functionality in any meaningful way. It would be like punishing SMN and SCH because they're both jobs based off of the same class.

The way that Yoshi-P described it, hybrid is intended to fulfill multiple roles at different times, likely by explicitly swapping forms so that they're not doing all simultaneously, akin to Druids in WoW (cat for DPS, bear for tank, neither for healing) so that you can only perform one at a time while also being inferior to those jobs that are specifically designed for it. I fully expect them to be *intended* to act as DPS a majority of the time (seeing as they're going to be "taking up" DPS slots and it's not like you really need an extra tank or healer in 4 man content) and simply be able to swap to tank or heals for either emergencies (a healer just died) or specifically designed cases (top 2 enmity targets get CCd so one hybrid swaps to tank to keep the boss from ripping apart the DPS and the other swaps to heals to make up for the increased damage taken until the tanks get freed) that are put there in order to justify the hybrid role. In this sense, the hybrid would likely be dealing about 80-90% damage in "normal" stance (noticeable but not worthless) and be about 75% effective as a tank or healer in those relevant stances (more effective than a DPS at that role but not enough to actually supplant it). Because they're likely supposed to swap mid-combat to adapt to changing circumstances, I doubt they'll be required to have multiple gearsets or high complicated stat allocations; I'm pretty sure they'll just use DPS gear (tank stance would be just like the WAR and PLD tank stances: effective damage taken and damage dealt decreased while enmity generated increased; the fact that they're using non-tank grade armor would be enough to make them noticeably inferior to real tanks; heal stance would be like the inverse of Cleric Stance: swaps INT and MND or attack power for healing power, which would increase healing while dropping damage; the lack of a full healing suite would prevent them from actually supplanting a healer, especially if they're lacking something fundamental like an AoE heal and/or cleanse).

I see less problem with the actual development and implementation of the hybrid role and more of a problem with modifying existing content to accommodate them. You *could* just leave the content alone completely and either buff the existing DPS to make up for the relevant DPS loss (i.e. hybrids are 90% of current DPS while DPS become 110% of current DPS), reduce the hp of all of the group content by 4-6% (the loss of group DPS accrued by reducing one DPS's damage by 10-15%), or leave it alone and just accept that the loss in total is negligible and that the hybrids will act like DPS instead of hybrids in anything but new content.

How many abilities and traits do you need in order to be successful at your role? Sure, Scholar comes off a DD class, but with the exception of those DoTs and the INT boosting traits, everything else is still viably useful to a healer. Would these hybrid jobs have to come off specialized classes that are build from the ground-up to let it comfortably fit all its roles?

Less than you think, especially if they're not supposed to fully supplant that role. To be an emergency tank, all you really need is a taunt (to put you at the top of the enmity table when you swap over; likely only usable in tank stance) and a tank stance (to keep you alive while getting beat one); you're still squishier than a real tank thanks to lower armor and are missing the full tank CD suite, but you can act like one in an emergency. To be an emergency healer, all you need is a couple heals (maintenance, *maybe* burst, and *maybe* AoE) and something to make those heals actually effective (since your heals shouldn't be appreciable except when you're healing, just like BLM, PLD, and SMN get no real use out of their heals). Force the heals to operate in a severely resource limited manner by preventing some mp regain mechanism or having them use mp when DPS relies upon tp and, even if their heals are just as effective while they're healing, they can't maintain it for long enough to replace a healer.

Tanks just need 2 abilities and Healers need 3-4. The "standard" allotment is 17 class with 5 job abilities (which is completely arbitrary; ACN has 18 class abilities so it's not set in stone; the only constant is the levels in which abilities are gained). If you make the *job* the hybrid role (i.e. RDM is a job of the hybrid role that grows out of FNC DPS class), you can have it provide the relevant stances and throw in a couple stance dependent abilities to round out the minimum functionality (i.e. attack that acts like Provoke only if you're in tank stance and another heal, since the heals would only be useful with the heal stance active). The remaining job ability could be some kind of mega-cooldown that either acts like all stances are active at one time without any of the penalties (i.e. you get the DR of the tank stance and healing potency of the heal stance without either of the penalties) or provides some big buff for whichever stance you happen to be in. This leaves you with only requiring only one "non-DPS" ability for the class (i.e. the baseline heal) with, nominally, 16 abilities to distribute like a perfectly normal DPS class (the survivability/utility suite would be exactly the same; imagine DRG if you removed Feint, MNK if you removed Howling Fist, BRD if you removed Swiftsong, or BLM if you removed Lethargy: they'd still have everything needed to be a DPS class).

It's important to recognize that a true hybrid role (not a hybrid *class*; one that is supposed to be able to swap on the fly and not just out of combat or outside of content) isn't supposed to have the full suite of abilities that the other "pure" roles get. Just like a tank, they would need to have fully fleshed out combat abilities (the damage "nerf" would be derived from the class abilities themselves; if they get a DPS job in addition to the hybrid job, they could simply get a stance or job ability that has the job make up the difference), but they wouldn't need (and shouldn't be provided with) the full healer suite (combat rez, maintenance heal, cheap heal, big heal, AoE heal, cleanse), or a full tank CD suite (at least 60% total uptime) because they're not supposed to be doing those as well as the pure jobs.

WoW did hybrids completely and totally wrong so you're only going to have a problem with balancing hybrids if you try to do things exactly like they did. If you actual understand how hybrids are *supposed* to work and build around that concept rather than the failed notions of a completely different game, it's not problematic at all.

[Hiroradius]

A while ago, back in October, I remember reading Yoshi-P saying that he wanted to bring Red Mage, Blue Mage, and Ninja out very quickly, those were the jobs he was unhappy that could not be brought in in time for launch.

As for the key term Maelstorm.. That is probably going to be because of the new primal Leviathan

[MPNZ]

I really want to see the assassin and dancer show up as ranged dps classes, but I'd rather see those show up when Shiva does. Oh, and musketeer sounds very interesting.

[Warrlordd]

By everyone you mean people who played FFXI and thought it was a good game which evidently, through mountains of contrary evidence, stated the opposite and those who played FFX-2. Now those who actually liked Dark Knight in any other Final Fantasy game is perfectly content with 1-hand sword and shield or 1 hand spear with shield, etc. Scythe is a glaring shame of Dark Knight not to mention it looks ridiculous. You're supposed to be a wielder of death not a damn farmer.

Grim Reaper. enough said about scythes, farmers, and how DRK would not look lame with one.

[OmegaNovaios]

You're supposed to be a wielder of death not a damn farmer.

I didn't realize farmers were this badass, maybe I should consider a career change IRL.

[Kitru]

I didn't realize farmers were this badass, maybe I should consider a career change IRL.

Yes, because caricatures of warriors wielding absurd weapons automatically translates into "badass". If your only requirement for "badass" is that an artist is able to make a decent rendition of it, there's really no limit on what could be used by a class.

The only reason that people seem to assume that Death Knights should use a scythe is because of the traditional western view of Death as a Reaper. What people seem to forget about this is that scythes are not, nor have they ever been, weapons. They're farm implements, and Death carried one ("wielding" isn't really an appropriate term) because of the idea of reaping souls in the same manner that one reaped grain. Actual scythes were never used in combat, for good reasons: they're terrible weapons. The scythe that Death carried was purely symbolic. Using a scythe in combat is ludicrous; the only times they *were* used in combat, they were specifically modified to not be absurd by reforging the blade such that it was no longer perpendicular to the haft, at which point it is less of a scythe and more of a traditional polearm.

The only way for a scythe to not be a completely absurd choice for melee weapon (not to mention completely without precedent in the series outside of FFXI, which, as plenty of people are wont to tell you, is one of the absolute worst possible games to bring up as an example of good game design) would be for it to be wielded by a caster. I could see a *necromancer* class using a scythe, as a purely symbolic apparatus similar to the ACN books, CNJ wands/staves, and THM scepter/staves, but an actual class that gets into melee and wails on things with its weapon needs to use an *actual* weapon, not some absurd notion that got picked up and mutilated by popular/goth culture.

[odin02215]

Tanks.

We NEED more tank classes before we need anything else. I say this while I would absolutely love to see a thief class and would gladly trade all of the classes I have leveled so far for just that one. But tanks before any more dd's

I agree that it is likely that we will see Muskateer as a class in 2.2. Corsair will probably be the DPS job that you get from Muskateer, as classes in FFXIV are made up and jobs emulate classic jobs from previous Final Fantasys. My hope is that Muskateer comes with two jobs by default, like Arcanist, and the second job is a Tank, like Cannoneer.

[Exstal]

I didn't realize farmers were this badass, maybe I should consider a career change IRL.

You know you can only use that weapon in one direction right? When you slash from side to side.