will there ever be a dps war?

[Nova_Dresden]

The more significant thing I think here is visuals. A dual wield warrior would need an entirely new suite of animations and effects to work.

That too, but animating a character to hold two weapons will probably come eventually. Introducing two tanking paradigms and the needed calculations for Warrior and Gladiator to use an opposite weapon to tank would take more. For one Gladiator would lose shield blocking which is their primary mitigation and one of the reasons for lower HP than a Warrior. Warrior may be overpowered since their primary mitigation is self-healing HP (and just having a TON of HP as well) depending on how much damage it can do with a one-handed weapon and the job may take a nerf because of it resulting in returning to the actual base weapon (the weapon type of the relic).

[Exstal]

1) Scythe was the defining weapon of Dark Knight in FFXI, so it only makes sense that it exist as such in this game along with great sword since the other defining weapon, a sword, belongs to Gladiator.

I do believe that Square Enix could have cornered themselves with the armoury system possibly locking out certain types of classes from X types of weapons (ie Berserkers / Vikings with 2-handed axes, Calculators with books), however seeing as Dark Knight only used Scythe in a single game in the entire franchise, it's far more likely that it would use a different weapon. Not to mention BTN already uses it.

2) Assassin is just something I pulled out of the air (at work, tired, 12-hour shift, doing 4 things at once, did I mention tired) so yeah, Rogue works better as a class name. I still think the two should spin off the same base class due to some small similarities (usually dual-wielding in most games, use of knives and other small bladed weapons, light armor, will both most likely be DEX based melee DPS, etc) and that 5 abilities can easily separate the Jobs as long as the key defining abilities are provided after 30. Sneak Attack, Trick Attack, Steal, and Mug for Thief. Ninja would need some more definition since the key ability Ninja always had was Throw. Maybe toss in Garrote or other Assassination type abilities. I'm just pretty adamant in my mind that Ninja should NOT be a tank like everyone wants.

The issue with this is jobs, in their current state with only 5 abilities, play almost exactly like their classes. There won't be Ninja or Thief any time in the near future (before expansion) so it'll likely be 10 job skills to differentiate two jobs from each other. Now that runs into a different problem is classes will basically be null and void then. What's the point in playing classes if all you get are new job skills? Then they add class skills inbetween job skills. Well then that just leads back to job just being a extension of the class and it'll be difficult to set them apart.

For example let's take a look at an iconic Final Fantasy job; the Archer. All you know about Archer is learned from level 1-50. Then when you arrive at 30 you obtain your soul crystal for Bard. However, what does that change? All your job skills do not impact your play style. You still spam Heavy Shot, you still keep Bloodletter on cooldown, and other skills. Then what if they tacked Ranger onto the Archer (which is silly I might add). How would you differentiate it? It would play exactly like Bard and would probably need a damage nerf since job skills would be more DPS orientated but it would like playing the same class.

Such a thing is even more true with melee classes who are rooted in their base classes' ability chains. Take Dragoon. Skills lead into chains, the few job skills you have as Dragoon are just jumps. You're just playing a Lancer with some special skills. Tack on DPS Samurai who uses Naginata (which probably won't be true by a longshot). Could you differentiate the play style vastly from Lancer? You'll still do your DPS chains because that's how the class is played. Now back to Thief / Ninja. They'll both be heavily rooted in their base class so the 5~10 job skills is what *has* to define their play style and frankly that's not enough skills to do it.

3) The only thing I'm emotionally attached to is that all currently existing classes should NOT spin off any new jobs, and any new class introduced should only spin off jobs of the same role. I don't logically see any use in allowing someone to level to 50 as a DPS and switch to healer or tank on the same class without any knowledge of what to do in those roles with the job in question nor do I think the playerbase wants to perpetually keep switching their stats around day-by-day for each role.

Personally there are two classes that I would like to see new jobs come from but from a logical point of view, such as lore, cool downs, animation reworkings, it's not feasible. I would like Dark Knight to come from GLA just because of idea of using 1 sword and no shield but since GLA is so heavily rooted in a tanking role, it would just take far too much ontop of removing skills to be worth it. The second is Marauder turning into Berserker for DPS. There isn't much problem with this idea just because MRD from an outside point looking at majority of their CDs are not rooted in tanking. If you didn't know it had emnity modifier attached it would seem that it's a very strong DPS class. Using 2-handed axe would be fine and MRD are savages anyway so the lore could line up nicely.

Where in God's name is a "dislike" button?

I read this forums quite a bit and I can't tell you how often I wanted to hit dislike on people's posts. Some things are just so off-base it makes you wonder if people spend any amount of time trying to research.

Aside: I hate post limit.

[Azullo]

, such as Dark Knight or Berzerker or something like that is both possible and fairly likely. I personally hope for Dark Knight.

oh god, please bring back dark knight!

[matic]

. Switching between a single-handed or two-handed weapon only affects the spell and they're designed to do the same task and provide the same damages. Melee works different since they have an auto-attack and single-handed weapons have lower damages and attack faster while two-handed weapons attack slower with higher damages. .

I don't think delay/damage on AA is going to be that big of an obstacle. You can give the new weapon to both GLA and DRK, or just give it to DRK (someone else figure out how). Either way it won't affect what the Paladins are doing. The only balancing issue is making sure GLA doesn't get broken in a way that make people suddenly start using it. Wait, maybe that would be fun. Too bad.

As for the shield issue, I don't see why they couldn't give GLA the greatsword(or whatever) trait at level 30, when everyone stops being a GLA anyway

[Nova_Dresden]

As for the shield issue, I don't see why they couldn't give GLA the greatsword(or whatever) trait at level 30, when everyone stops being a GLA anyway

Because Jobs are just Classes with a soul Crystal. I technically don't have a level 50 Paladin. I have a level 50 Gladiator with a soulstone. Putting a 2-handed weapon on the class requires they figure out how to be a Paladin with a great sword, or completely restrict the great sword to Gladiator only and require you not use your soulstone. If that were the case then all your level 90 armor from the mythology vendor is useless because it's Paladin only and not useable by Gladiator meaning you have to get ilvl 90 only from Coil or settle for ilvl 80 from Crystal Tower. I just don't see this happening because if they wanted a job to use more than one type of weapon that would have been dealt with in the 2+ years it took to rebuild this game from the abomination it was at first launch.

[Exstal]

I don't think delay/damage on AA is going to be that big of an obstacle. You can give the new weapon to both GLA and DRK, or just give it to DRK (someone else figure out how). Either way it won't affect what the Paladins are doing. The only balancing issue is making sure GLA doesn't get broken in a way that make people suddenly start using it. Wait, maybe that would be fun. Too bad.

As for the shield issue, I don't see why they couldn't give GLA the greatsword(or whatever) trait at level 30, when everyone stops being a GLA anyway

It has nothing to do with speed or look. It has to do with animations. You wouldn't swing a 15 kg greatsword the same way you would a 3kg sword with a 1.5kg shield, would you? So what's smarter from a development standpoint? Add all new animations to accommodate for this new weapon to existing class? Add a brand new class and give greatsword to that class?

[ManaKing]

Look at ACN. For primals books, there is a book that is ACN/SMN and a separate one that is SCH only. SCH and SMN have different casting animations. Both use 'books' but they actually don't use the same books.

I think if they make MRD into a DPS that uses double axes that would be nice, but I'm not really going to hold my breath. That DPSs job specific weapon would only be usable by MRD when they had the soul stone equipped just like SCH books can only be used by ACN as a SCH and not as the base class ACN.

If they do 'dual wield' i kind of hope they do it like they do MNK weapons: a double weapon. It gets rid of a lot of the silliness that goes into main/off hand dynamics and lets you create a set of weapons instead of wondering why you are main handing a dagger and off handing an axe. It just looks weird.

[Exstal]

Look at ACN. For primals books, there is a book that is ACN/SMN and a separate one that is SCH only. SCH and SMN have different casting animations. Both use 'books' but they actually don't use the same books.

I think if they make MRD into a DPS that uses double axes that would be nice, but I'm not really going to hold my breath. That DPSs job specific weapon would only be usable by MRD when they had the soul stone equipped just like SCH books can only be used by ACN as a SCH and not as the base class ACN.

If they do 'dual wield' i kind of hope they do it like they do MNK weapons: a double weapon. It gets rid of a lot of the silliness that goes into main/off hand dynamics and lets you create a set of weapons instead of wondering why you are main handing a dagger and off handing an axe. It just looks weird.

So SCH and SMN have *very few* different casting animations (if I recall correctly it's only one *adlo/succor/leeches* animation). Do SCH and SMN also have different attack (melee) attack animations? Are books wielded differently from each other? Casters are different. The only thing that changes is spell effects. Notice that 1-h BLM weapon and 2-h BLM have the exact same casting animation (pulls weapon behind head then thrusts forward).

Given your example, could you imagine a Berserker or Viking, whatever the DPS option would be, using Butcher's Block with two axes? You know how it looks so would it be the same? The answer, obviously, is no. This is where the work comes into play. You *must* add new animations to account for different weapon type. You must do it for every single skills you have, every defensive proc (block/parry), auto attacks. The issue is not, "it's impossible to give new weapons", the issue is it's far more work to give new animations to existing class rather than make a completely new class.