Next new job better be heals

[SamRF]

FIVE melee? Don't they complain enough about competing for spots. Five melee to the three casters and three ranged physical. I don't think they will do 2 physical ranged in a row.

Isn't there kind of a melee shortage right now? Suggested group composition is 2 melee and 2 ranged right? We have 4 melee and 6 ranged right now.

[Shurrikhan]

FIVE melee? Don't they complain enough about competing for spots. Five melee to the three casters and three ranged physical. I don't think they will do 2 physical ranged in a row.

But, we have 8 melee and 9 ranged, or 4 and 6 if you want to consider only DPS.

The distinctions between physical and magical ranged are no firmer than, say, between DRG and NIN, the latter of which performs a tiny bit higher during fights with more forced movement away from the boss.

If you want to cut hairs here and treat one group as several, then you should do the same for melee, as they are just as diverse. Where are the 3 Scouting, 3 Maiming, and 3 Striking, to go alongside your 3 Casting and 3 Aiming (not to mention 3 Healing and 4 Fending)?

[BasicBlake]

But, we have 8 melee and 9 ranged, or 4 and 6 if you want to consider only DPS.

The distinctions between physical and magical ranged are no firmer than, say, between DRG and NIN, the latter of which performs a tiny bit higher during fights with more forced movement away from the boss.

If you want to cut hairs here and treat one group as several, then you should do the same for melee, as they are just as diverse. Where are the 3 Scouting, 3 Maiming, and 3 Striking, to go alongside your 3 Casting and 3 Aiming (not to mention 3 Healing and 4 Fending)?

All four melee add the same buff to the party. Casters and ranged physical add separate buffs. Tanks add their own, as well as healers. I went to go check just to make sure. It’s on the main game website for Shadowbringers. So I’m not “cutting hairs” I’m basing it on the bonuses that are added to a group by bringing one of each of the roles.

[Shurrikhan]

All four melee add the same buff to the party. Casters and ranged physical add separate buffs. Tanks add their own, as well as healers. I went to go check just to make sure. It’s on the main game website for Shadowbringers. So I’m not “cutting hairs” I’m basing it on the bonuses that are added to a group by bringing one of each of the roles.

And yet how are raid mechanics formed? Do they distinguish between Physical and Magical Ranged? Is there anything about modern raids that exclusively falls into the domain of Physical Ranged, despite their lower rDPS performance after optimization? We've virtually nothing to bait, and casters are far less disrupted by movement than in past iterations. So, what's the big change that makes a Summoner as distinct from a MCH as from a Monk?

Those categories exist from when Physical Ranged were distinct, required for any party not to wipe to MP or TP depletion in a lengthy fight. At this point, they're vestigial, their distinction of no consequence beyond an excuse to leave Physical Ranged at lower personal rDPS and thereby pushing us away from the option of having a 2nd Physical Ranged in a given party.

That distinction, what little of it remains, exists not to guarantee a single Physical ranged so much as to limit them to a single slot, despite its previous enablers (Refresh stacking, Disembowel, and ridiculous numbers and potencies of rDPS buffs together as to see sizable bonuses in multiplicity atop high potency compression) already being mitigated or removed.

[BasicBlake]

And yet how are raid mechanics formed? Do they distinguish between Physical and Magical Ranged? Is there anything about modern raids that exclusively falls into the domain of Physical Ranged, despite their lower rDPS performance after optimization? We've virtually nothing to bait, and casters are far less disrupted by movement than in past iterations. So, what's the big change that makes a Summoner as distinct from a MCH as from a Monk?

Those categories exist from when Physical Ranged were distinct, required for any party not to wipe to MP or TP depletion in a lengthy fight. At this point, they're vestigial, their distinction of no consequence beyond an excuse to leave Physical Ranged at lower personal rDPS and thereby pushing us away from the option of having a 2nd Physical Ranged in a given party.

That distinction, what little of it remains, exists not to guarantee a single Physical ranged so much as to limit them to a single slot, despite its previous enablers (Refresh stacking, Disembowel, and ridiculous numbers and potencies of rDPS buffs together as to see sizable bonuses in multiplicity atop high potency compression) already being mitigated or removed.

The website itself as of Shadowbringers has the roles broken up as such. This has nothing to do with refresh, baiting anything, etc. this is about the main stat boost that the different roles bring to a party. Nothing about mechanics. Nothing about anyone’s kit. Since this was posted on the Shadowbringers release, most of what you posted isn’t what we are talking about. While I do appreciate the thought you are putting into the responses Square Enix has the roles listed as Tank, Melee, Caster, Ranged Physical and Healer.

[Claire_Pendragon]

Isn't there kind of a melee shortage right now? Suggested group composition is 2 melee and 2 ranged right? We have 4 melee and 6 ranged right now.

for normal duty finder it works that way. but in EX/savage(technically all 8man content), you lose 1% dps for everyone, if one of the ranged isnt magical caster, and 1 isnt physical ranged.
(IDK why they split the DPS role into 3 sub roles like this, nor does it make sense from a sub role perspective, since there should be 4, by that logic, not 3. And the other roles arent broken up into 4 sub roles either)

But, we have 8 melee and 9 ranged, or 4 and 6 if you want to consider only DPS.

The distinctions between physical and magical ranged are no firmer than, say, between DRG and NIN, the latter of which performs a tiny bit higher during fights with more forced movement away from the boss.

If you want to cut hairs here and treat one group as several, then you should do the same for melee, as they are just as diverse. Where are the 3 Scouting, 3 Maiming, and 3 Striking, to go alongside your 3 Casting and 3 Aiming (not to mention 3 Healing and 4 Fending)?

Ive agreed this difference between magical ranged vs physical ranged has been stupid. It should be a difference of playstyle in the DPS role. Not what it contributes to the group (the 1% dmg bonus)
Plus when you look at it as is;
DPS
Physical Melee: 4
Physical Ranged: 3
Magical Ranged:3
Magical Melee: 0

If you use the same logic to break up tanks and healers... then you get similar issues.
So if someone distinguishes a type of ranged DPS as a reason for no 4th healer, just bring up a lack of Physical ranged Healers.
(I honestly feel DNC was designed for the healer role, based on casting animations, and a quest to heal NPCs, etc. But due to over simplification of the healers DPS, DNC couldnt be a healer anymore. So it was either nerf the system they had, despite how simple it is, or give it to the DPS role, and try to think of ways to make it more complex. Which they barely managed to make it more complex than old healer DPS rotations. I also feel this might have been what inspired RDMs design. As it may have been originally a healer, and thats why the black and white gauges arent timers ticking down like all the other DPS jobs)

If another priestly robe wearing magic casting healer is made, its also a waste of time too. As an example, melee have been wanting a more furious hard hitting melee job, that swings a weapon(s) in a more agressive manner. (Commonly a 2hand weapon) but instead, we have 3 precision strike melee DPS (SAM/NIN/DRG) DRGs flashing laser beams being the closest to feeling like a DPS thats not about precision, and midare being a grey area. MNK on the other hand feels like raw power, and fills that niche ALMOST. But attacks like kicks, and not feeling like they use actual weapons to swing at an enemy (still feels like punches, and dexterous martial arts), doesnt truly give that vibe for players who really want that sort of job aesthetic.
So far to get that feeling, you have to play a tank. (Luckily tanks are just now DPS, so some players wont mind as much anymore to play a tank for that aesthetic)

Casters are suffering from a similar identity problem 2.0 tanks mitigation did, where the tanks mitigation was just a bit of everything, and barely had an identity.
PLD has a shield, is it the block tank? Oh it has holy magic from CNJ, is it the healing tank? Oh it can reduce an enemies dmg directly by a percentage, is that its gimmick? Oh it can raise healers healing potency? is that...? In the case of casters, currently BLM SCH and SMN are all the "Evil dark magic casters" Be it literal black orbs of death, or vile miasmas. But then SCH has cute fairies healing, and SMN has a phoenix reigning fire down, while BLM has firestorms, and blizzards going off too.
So should I say there's no "evil dark" wizard/necromancer aesthetic? Since all 3 fit to an extent, but not fully?
Should we consider DRK and PLD magical melee tanks? despite having 0 cast bars at Lv80 dps rotations? And most of their dmg is directly from their attacks with their weapon. (Id say more yes than no, despite being a grey area) But WAR and GNB are identical to these 2, and yet arent considered magical, despite magical barriers popping up, and magical waves of energy coming out of their weapons, etc. (same with other physical jobs) so now we're back to wondering if DRK and PLD are magical melee tanks. DRK doesnt even have a really long range attack, as unmend is only 15yalm, but PLD can actually use holy spirit at full range. before 80, they do have a cast bar on it,but PLD is a hybrid, with more melee than casts, so should it be considered more one, than the other?

EDIT: DRG+SAM should have been Maiming. NIN+MNK should have been striking/scouting in one.

TL;DR
There's still room for things we lack in all roles. This includes Healers, and Melee. Not just "Casters" and "Ranged". (Quotes because ranged either means both types, or should be separated from physical or magical, regardless if melee, ranged, tank, or healer)

[Shurrikhan]

Magical Melee: 0

The problem is that there are some combinations that just seriously do make more sense, such as casters (in the sense of having actual casts) not having to restart their casts if their target moves out of melee range, or have more reason to function more differently as a role, i.e. differently enough to warrant the label.

Ranged and Melee are a sufficient distinction because of how raid mechanics interact. The rest, though?

But now, imagine a Magical Melee. Given what is necessary to function as a Melee, how diverse can that Magical Melee be? How does it keep from just being a NIN (already arguably a hybrid in terms of damage types and casting), a SAM (already a hybrid in terms of casting), a Monk (already has nominally 'elemental' stances), or DRG (which had outright magic damage in HW Geirskogul and has it still in DFD), "but with more of its damage being magic"?

Are mere aesthetics sufficient? And even if so, is it worth forcing all to be predominantly physical or magical? What happens to the jobs that step too much on the toes of "Magical Melee"? Do we remove TCJ from Ninja because it's too "caster-like"? Do we remove Iajutsu from SAM?

Let's consider the historical context as well:

• Lancer/Dragoon's unique armor class fit squarely between standard and tank-level passive mitigation, with none of this Tank Mastery nonsense to make it worth basically nothing. Heck, Lancer was originally Gridania's answer to needing a tank.
• The difference between Bard and BLM/SMN was arguably less about its mobility than the raid sustain it brought.
• Scouting differed from Striking in that, again, it brought unique utility -- recovery (single-target TP regeneration) and capitalization (Trick Attacks), and later enmity control (Shadewalker, Smokescreen).

Now, would the themes in each of those cases have been worth pursuing further?

• Can we even make use of a half-tank armor class, for instance? Raid design and enmity control thus far would indicate otherwise, but it's probably possible with less bloated tank passive mitigation and more defensive tools being allowed to DPS (in particular, Maiming users).
• Ranged's prior distinctions are completely gone, apart from "even more mobility (than is ever needed)".
• Scouting has lost all but one of its unique tools, which has itself been badly watered down.

(All this then leaves the question, if the distinct melee armor classes are vestigial, should we remedy the lack of identity across each armor class or just consolidate the armor classes...?)

Functionally, we have classes with varying degrees of functional reach and mobility, which ultimately amount to just one stat: uptime (including uptime provided for others through positional swaps you enable). (Nominal factors won't do here; one either has enough GCDs of Ranged spam on PLD to allow a melee to continue attacking while you sit where one would otherwise be out of range, or you have some percentage of that downtime filled, to proportionately lesser functional reach.)

That's not going away, but it's quickly becoming a smaller and smaller concern. (Even were it not, you'd see the difference only in progression vs. farming, with the jobs with easiest uptime maximization run earlier and hardest run later, especially where two distinct choices lie in the same armor class.) That leaves only convention, which amounts mostly just to assigning people places to stand on a clockwheel or inside/outside mechanic.

I'm not exactly sure what to do about all that, and while I might seem consigned to everything being blurred together, I'd still have rather Maiming had gone for that half-tank angle and saw another job added to it, Dancer had been added to Scouting (fitting its former half point-support, half raid-support niche, ideally with a bit more melee interaction such as via its Dash), and the numbers eventually evened out across those armor classes such that Ranged and Melee would each get ~2.5 armor classes, but it's all pretty up in the air for me. I just hate this pretending that Ranged is so much more inherently unique across its roster that it should have two guaranteed slots while it'd be a travesty if melee were to do the same, all while Melee is so much less gearing-friendly if playing more than 1-2 jobs among the roster.

[ty_taurus]

Regarding the topic of additions like a melee caster or a physical ranged healer, there is no combination of roles you could create that cannot be done. It's not about the limitations set by that combination, but about your creativity in executing that combination. The caveat in this game's circumstance is that we're largely using Final Fantasy jobs, so there aren't a ton of options that align with every possible combination that fits in this game's mold, but that doesn't mean we can't include new options or options from other Square Enix titles.

Consider something like an Onmyoji as a spell caster that could be designed to use paper seals at melee range, a magical melee DPS.
Consider the Puppetmaster from FFXI redesigned so that the puppet is an extension of the user as a physical ranged Tank, using your HP to maintain the damage the puppet takes.

These are just a couple ideas of course, and would definitely need to be fully designed and prototyped to ensure they work effectively, and that are absolutely problem areas that would need to be considered when designing these jobs. That all said, the main important factor is creativity in the concept and the willingness to put in the work to make it functional.

[Morningstar1337]

I think Bravely Default/Second might also have some good options, but note for melee healers per see.

[Claire_Pendragon]

some combinations make more sense, such as casters (having actual casts) not having to restart their casts if their target moves out of melee range, or have more reason to function more differently as a role, i.e. differently enough to warrant the label.

Having a cast bar is not required for "Magical Ranged". Its a cliche we are used to, and dont question. (Mostly to do with "fairness" arguments, which dont apply to 14. look at physical ranged as an example why) Also, "Casting" as a mechanic, is the playstyle. But this also applies to jobs with short buff durations, that wear off when uptime cant be maintained. Look at RDM in comparison to just about any other DPS that needs a target to hit, in order to keep their buffs up. (RDMs bars dont deplete) No matter if you have cast bars, or not, your "role" is to DPS, while staying further away. (be it due to mechanics to make u get away from the boss, or forcing a melee to ruin uptime to do said "ranged" mechanic) This issue is a result from designing short duration buffs around the requirement to have a target. Not if someone is a caster, melee, or physical ranged.

Ranged and Melee are a sufficient distinction because of how raid mechanics interact.

While I agree, this is mostly true, due to what I just mentioned about how the jobs were designed to require a target for uptime. (You can make alternatives to keep uptime, and it doesnt require giving melee ranged attacks. Simplistic example, a buff they can use that gives a stacking buff, to increase the dmg of the next GCD (on the GCD) if the stack number is low enough, its a waste of a GCD, so its only DPS neutral when the amount of time spent away from the boss was required by the boss.) But Im fine with making savage content require melee or ranged mechanics, which is why my post broke melee and ranged into 2 sub categories.

imagine a Magical Melee. Given what is necessary to function as a Melee, how diverse can that Magical Melee be? How does it keep from just being a NIN (already arguably a hybrid in terms of damage types and casting), a SAM (already a hybrid in terms of casting), a Monk (already has nominally 'elemental' stances), or DRG (which had outright magic damage in HW Geirskogul and has it still in DFD), "but with more of its damage being magic"?

Your statement is correct, but I feel its trying to be misleading. (1) We have no melee who has "no positionals". (Which is a mechanic to prevent them from being too simplistic) (2) Cast bars were made for casters to also prevent them from being too easy.(and HW BRD+MCH for the same reason) To take a page from your book, give a magical melee cast bars for all, or 90%, of their attacks, and remove the positinals. (You can also make an inverted SAM, with a single positional, instead of a single cast bar, for one of these new magical melee jobs) HWs mistake was giving MCH and BRD such a long cast time. They should have had 0.5s cast bars. This was short enough to weave oGCDs easier, and allow them to be extremely mobile. (And like casters, given something equivalent to swift cast, but for maybe the next 2-3 GCDs instead) This of course means they need more multitasking, to make up for the easier to use cast bars. (Similar to how NIN had more multitasking to make up for its lesser amount of positionals at one time.)
Additionally you're saying the other melee jobs are casters due to their magical abilities, and we currently have 0 physical melee? Is RDM a melee for having a burst phase they use WSs in melee range for 3 seconds every once in awhile?Does this also mean that physical ranged are magical too, based on this logic? I know this isnt your point, but its an unnecessary additional bit, as it doesnt help your argument, nor counter mine.
Realistically they are grey zones, and the only way we can measure how to categorize them, is primarily based on "does the jobs mechanics require melee uptime?" followed by "does this raid require you to be in melee or ranged positions?" secondary. Which only has room for "Melee" or "Ranged". Physical or Magical cant be measured in a game that doesnt reward more or less dps based on damage type. They are functionally the same damage type.

Are mere aesthetics sufficient? And even if so, is it worth forcing all to be predominantly physical or magical? What happens to the jobs that step too much on the toes of "Magical Melee"? Do we remove TCJ from Ninja because it's too "caster-like"? Do we remove Iajutsu from SAM?

Aesthetics would be the last way to categorize them atm. But its still a strong and well desired category from players. This ends up being as important to players as glamours, and as important to combat as glamours. For the sake of identity, consideration should be given before giving magic or physical options to any job.
As for your question on NIN. Mudras are more of a mechanical gameplay idea, than a "Lets make a magic melee" idea. But it IS a great method to give "cast bars" to a melee (back when it was oGCD) but wasnt fully implemented in the best of ways, to fulfill this idea. Its current GCD version is as "caster like" as a MRD/WAR is. Comparing the Beast Gauge to MP, in how its used for spending points to cast spells like a WHM uses MP.
As for the spells magical animations being a grey area, those are mostly fine. (Yet again, I'd have to suggest the creators dont go overboard stepping on the toes of other possible classic FF jobs in aesthetics/feel) Unfortunately to answer this question in better detail, i'd have to give a much longer wall of text than I already am, about possible future jobs/roles, along with which features to give each job, to help give them unique identities. (even if that identity is being like another job, such as RDM being a little bit of a few jobs)

Let's consider the historical context as well:

• Lancer/Dragoon's unique armor class fit squarely between standard and tank-level passive mitigation, with none of this Tank Mastery nonsense to make it worth basically nothing. Heck, Lancer was originally Gridania's answer to needing a tank.
• The difference between Bard and BLM/SMN was arguably less about its mobility than the raid sustain it brought.
• Scouting differed from Striking in that, again, it brought unique utility -- recovery (single-target TP regeneration) and capitalization (Trick Attacks), and later enmity control (Shadewalker, Smokescreen).

Now, would the themes in each of those cases have been worth pursuing further?

• Can we even make use of a half-tank armor class, for instance? Raid design and enmity control thus far would indicate otherwise, but it's probably possible with less bloated tank passive mitigation and more defensive tools being allowed to DPS (in particular, Maiming users).
• Ranged's prior distinctions are completely gone, apart from "even more mobility (than is ever needed)".
• Scouting has lost all but one of its unique tools, which has itself been badly watered down.

(All this then leaves the question, if the distinct melee armor classes are vestigial, should we remedy the lack of identity across each armor class or just consolidate the armor classes...?)

Functionally, we have classes with varying degrees of functional reach and mobility, which ultimately amount to just one stat: uptime (including uptime provided for others through positional swaps you enable). (Nominal factors won't do here; one either has enough GCDs of Ranged spam on PLD to allow a melee to continue attacking while you sit where one would otherwise be out of range, or you have some percentage of that downtime filled, to proportionately lesser functional reach.)

Theres a lot said here that I dont feel is completely related to the subject matter, but to lightly address these different subjects, (1) we used to separate "selfish" and "Support" style DPS, Healers, and Tanks. Which I was mostly ok with, but felt some adjustments were needed (mostly in line with how DNC used a single target buff, so its easier to balance out the support difference) but this has nothing to do with "Should we add another physical ranged/magical caster" instead of a "Healer" or "Melee"? Its also not really related to how we separate physical and magical in a nonsensical way. The game currently doesnt recognize support vs selfish, despite the community does. (And i dont blame them, its normal)
(2) Scouting and Striking are gear types, not what each job offers. Those gear types dont effect one job over the other, in any real manor. They are just glamours. Im saying make NIN STR or make MNK DEX (I feel NIN to STR makes more sense based on current trends in the game, despite understanding why they picked DEX) But you also semi address this, so I'm confused as to why this is brought up.
(3) The DRG, Maiming gear, and "can we have a lesser geared tank?" bits are also weirdly placed in here. While unrelated, Ill address them mostly because Im obsessed with tanks, and possible ways to make tanks.
As it currently sits, SE has a VERY weird way of handling tanking and healing. Mostly due to constant bandaid patches to fix problems they didnt have foresight to prevent. Such as tank stance, rampart, sentinel, etc, all using -% dmg taken, rather than being based your own personal stats. Abilities like WARs "Foresight" which was +20% defense, were much more accurate to how mitigation should have been handled. Also, Thrill of Battle would have become broken too, if not addressed properly. This has also lead to SE wanting to allow healers to DPS more easily, but picking the most simplistic of routes to handle it.
So any arguments of tank balance that goes against the normal, is currently pointless. DRGs historically had platemail, and were essentially evasion(jump) tanks who didnt directly protect the group, other than be the last one standing, in which to revive the healers, and then keep the fight going. I also have no idea why they keep giving DRGs "lesser" armor, be it leather/chain, instead of platemail in the MMOs. The current version of 14 doesnt break DRG giving it platemail. (In 1.0 it barely helped me tank as LNC, since i practically died in a second of being hit by multiple mobs. The only reason I survived wasnt because of 2 healers spamming me, but because i was doing the entire groups worth of DPS multiplied by 6. Essentially I was taking out over 90% of the mobs HP in a single hit. The other DPS just had to land a single AoE, and the fight was over, and I was at single digit HP. Later when bosses were made, Id have to be overgeared to barely take the hits enough to be healed. Where as PLD and WAR didnt need anywhere near as much perfect gear.)

On a final side note, i agree that DNC should have been scouting, based on how things were at the time.