Predictions for job(s) in the next expansion?

[MariAmaranthine]

This is more of speculation over the entirety of the game, as I see FFXIV going for at least a few more expansions if they keep going strong like ShB. FFXIV has limitations for healers and tanks that they keep saying they are having issues working around so lets use those limitations but add some flare.

TANK:
Viking - uses one-handed maces and shared shields with the paladin. Uses lightning attacks that slow an enemy's attacks. In general, the viking is much tankier with slower but powerful hits. You could add some pirate aesthetics to it too with cannons and balista as in FF3 they were essentially pirates. Imagine pulling a cannon out of your pocket and blasting the target. That would be super cool! They could have an ability that takes a portion of the damage another player takes similar to their provoke ability in FF3 remake. (The viking places the buff on the other tank and takes a portion of the tank buster) Make them have no self-healing but have them take less damage or ignore a % of damage either through blocking with the shield and taking hits less often through their lightning abilities. (IE a warrior gets hit for 10k damage a viking 8k) This gives the tanks a bit of a difference. Effectively it's the same but it feels different. LB3 lightning crashes down blasting a bunch of rocks into a wall in front of the party.

Maiming Melee:
Mystic Knight / Rune Fencer etc - One handed axe with a magic focus similar to Red Mages offhand that turns into battle-axes, sword, spears etc, and a shield for the element they are casting. Since their main benefit in FF5 was exploiting elemental weaknesses and that doesn't exist in FFXIV, their class abilities could be basically debuffing the enemy so they can get a big chunky hit after their combos. These debuffs are for themselves only making it more of a selfish DPS. Their job gimmick is empowering their combos from fire/lightning/ice to get better spell blades (flare, freeze, break, tornado etc) think Red mage like with a lot of melee/mid attacks. Give them a drain and osmose weapon to sustain hp and mp. Also give them an ability to earn 'Wall' through play, to lower physical and magical damage of the party by a small amount using the shield form of their focus. LB 3, all their elemental weapons combine into an Ultima weapon attack.

Ranged Physical:
BST - Whips/Doggo - Have their attacks be different creatures that launch themselves at the enemy. It stops it from bad pet AI if the pet is just an animation and the BST gets a whole variety of pets to fling at the enemy. Have some pets that leave bleeds on the target and some with magical and physical attacks that enfeeble the target (Think bad breathe). A bestial roar that buffs speed. Their 'auto attack' could be a beast like Interceptor from FF6 that joins you from the beginning of the class quest. LB3 All your pets stampede the target.

Gambler - Dice/ coins - Their theme could be cheating luck with a slot machine based job gage that you 'rig' to do certain attacks. They could have elemental dice abilities and rolling dice for damage buffs or magical buffs to the party. Buffs that add bonus healing, mana, or damage reduction. Too much RNG would be bad similar to AST with cards so make sure they can lock in the buffs and spend it. (Hence the cheating luck aspect) this would be the lowest DPS job with the highest buffs, a true support job. With their combos they can get coins that they flip or put into their slot machine that further buff party members. LB3 kick the slot machine to get all lucky 7's and a giant Cait sith falls on top of the target.

Healers:
Chemist - Vials / Philosopher stone - Make this the alternative to SCH with high dps like WHM. Shield with stoneskin potions and use morphine to "ignore pain" essentially creating beefy shields. They can have some sort of mechanical alchemic station (like Asylum) they plop down that chucks potions at teammates within the range. The potions have a small heal and a big chunky shield. To make them feel a bit different all of their potions could add a temporary shield (effective health) then a heal that is a bit delayed replacing the leftover shield. This adds to the theme of medicine taking a moment to work. Over heals would be added as a shield to a certain %. Damage wise they could have multiple dots with acid, phosphorus portions. Explosive potions with fire patches on the ground. Their job gage could be a set of ingredients needed to be combined to either heal, shield, or buff a party member to do more damage. LB3 chuck a large potion on the ground that is a mega elixer.

Necromancer: Ritual knife or floating skull- To make this healer feel different have it channels spells with minions. It is basically a hot but there is a beam coming from a ghastly creature that smart heals like Eios. These minions are created from using dps abilities. Have this job be the gunbreaker of healers and play like a DPS. DPS on the targets that channel healing into your team. Give them a Buff (debuff?) they place on team members to make them 'slightly dead' this is how they get the heals from the dps done. They have to reapply it every 30 seconds to a minute. Larger heals (Cure, Cure 2 level) that come from 2.5 second casts on the target. To further the difference have emergency heals (Think medica) that are cast when not attacking the target drain a small percentage of the caster's HP and have the abilities that attack the target drain HP to replenish the casters hp. Alternatively, you can sacrifice your minions to get HP back when there is nothing to attack. Give it a high skill ceiling rewarding it with high DPS ( Slightly below lowest dps). Let's shake up the healers a bit. Nothing beats the idea of a "Dark" healer too when the current healers are all light-based, stars and glitter, or pretty with fairies. LB3 is a gigantice black circle that raises everyone from the dead with the undead scream like in hero's gauntlet, places the slightly dead buff on everyone for further heals.

Casters:
First off if possible make BLU a playable class and not limited. If not then:

Geomancer: Bells and chimes - Go back to the FF3 big nukes implementations. Floods, quakes, avalanches, falling rocks, typhoons and tornadoes. Lets get another caster that plays similar to BLM with huge hits that move that HP bar and make your laugh maniacally - but do lower dps because they buff team members. Have them set up totems to buff dps and have them use rain to add a weak aoe heal to the party. Wind totems to speed up party members and ice to slow the enemy attack speed / cast speed. have totems that pull enemies or stun them in an area to help with large pulls in dungeons. LB3 splits the ground causing lava to erupt.

Shadow/void/dark Mage: Let's get a dot class that uses shadow/ascian magic. Assuming SMN gets reworked as is tradition- remove fester and dots from their tool kit and have them focus on their cycle of summons ie dreadwyrm trance, Bahamut, phoenix, shiva, titan etc with additional egis being summoned with egi assaults that automatically happen after the summon (Example: You summon ifirit egi it pulses fire around it 3 times then disapates).

Then add that mechanic to a class that focuses on dots using shadow/void/darkness. Put up all your dots then explode the target with the fester magic. And please have festers replacement not be a ping sound it should sound brutal. This class would have the usual dot class long set up for super high dps, while being able to quickly place dots on multiple targets and consume them instantly for burst aoe in quick encounters. make all their spells look shadowy and evil giving some duality to being the warrior of light. LB3 summons the void crushing the target similar to the end boss of ShB

All in all that would give 5 of every class type. Not every job needs a job gauge that fills the meter to spend it, or get a stack of something to use it. Make a job gage that gives a 30 second DPS buff if you play right, or get empowered abilities for a new combo. Obviously, these ideas extend to the lifespan of the game and not just 6.0, but some of these could be used for 6.0

[Lauront]

Necromancer: Ritual knife or floating skull- To make this healer feel different have it channels spells with minions. It is basically a hot but there is a beam coming from a ghastly creature that smart heals like Eios. These minions are created from using dps abilities. Have this job be the gunbreaker of healers and play like a DPS. DPS on the targets that channel healing into your team. Give them a Buff (debuff?) they place on team members to make them 'slightly dead' this is how they get the heals from the dps done. They have to reapply it every 30 seconds to a minute. Larger heals (Cure, Cure 2 level) that come from 2.5 second casts on the target. To further the difference have emergency heals (Think medica) that are cast when not attacking the target drain a small percentage of the caster's HP and have the abilities that attack the target drain HP to replenish the casters hp. Alternatively, you can sacrifice your minions to get HP back when there is nothing to attack. Give it a high skill ceiling rewarding it with high DPS ( Slightly below lowest dps). Let's shake up the healers a bit. Nothing beats the idea of a "Dark" healer too when the current healers are all light-based, stars and glitter, or pretty with fairies. LB3 is a gigantice black circle that raises everyone from the dead with the undead scream like in hero's gauntlet, places the slightly dead buff on everyone for further heals.

Casters:


Shadow/void/dark Mage: Let's get a dot class that uses shadow/ascian magic. Assuming SMN gets reworked as is tradition- remove fester and dots from their tool kit and have them focus on their cycle of summons ie dreadwyrm trance, Bahamut, phoenix, shiva, titan etc with additional egis being summoned with egi assaults that automatically happen after the summon (Example: You summon ifirit egi it pulses fire around it 3 times then disapates).

Then add that mechanic to a class that focuses on dots using shadow/void/darkness. Put up all your dots then explode the target with the fester magic. And please have festers replacement not be a ping sound it should sound brutal. This class would have the usual dot class long set up for super high dps, while being able to quickly place dots on multiple targets and consume them instantly for burst aoe in quick encounters. make all their spells look shadowy and evil giving some duality to being the warrior of light. LB3 summons the void crushing the target similar to the end boss of ShB

Add an Ascian Prime type power up form for the caster, and spells like Megiddo Flame, Blight and Dark IV, plus the shadowy aura, and you can take my money. Would love to see both of these jobs.

[ADVSS]

Maiming Melee:
Mystic Knight / Rune Fencer etc - One handed axe with a magic focus similar to Red Mages offhand that turns into battle-axes, sword, spears etc, and a shield for the element they are casting. Since their main benefit in FF5 was exploiting elemental weaknesses and that doesn't exist in FFXIV, their class abilities could be basically debuffing the enemy so they can get a big chunky hit after their combos. These debuffs are for themselves only making it more of a selfish DPS. Their job gimmick is empowering their combos from fire/lightning/ice to get better spell blades (flare, freeze, break, tornado etc) think Red mage like with a lot of melee/mid attacks. Give them a drain and osmose weapon to sustain hp and mp. Also give them an ability to earn 'Wall' through play, to lower physical and magical damage of the party by a small amount using the shield form of their focus. LB 3, all their elemental weapons combine into an Ultima weapon attack.

Ranged Physical:
BST - Whips/Doggo - Have their attacks be different creatures that launch themselves at the enemy. It stops it from bad pet AI if the pet is just an animation and the BST gets a whole variety of pets to fling at the enemy. Have some pets that leave bleeds on the target and some with magical and physical attacks that enfeeble the target (Think bad breathe). A bestial roar that buffs speed. Their 'auto attack' could be a beast like Interceptor from FF6 that joins you from the beginning of the class quest. LB3 All your pets stampede the target.



Chemist - Vials / Philosopher stone - Make this the alternative to SCH with high dps like WHM. Shield with stoneskin potions and use morphine to "ignore pain" essentially creating beefy shields. They can have some sort of mechanical alchemic station (like Asylum) they plop down that chucks potions at teammates within the range. The potions have a small heal and a big chunky shield. To make them feel a bit different all of their potions could add a temporary shield (effective health) then a heal that is a bit delayed replacing the leftover shield. This adds to the theme of medicine taking a moment to work. Over heals would be added as a shield to a certain %. Damage wise they could have multiple dots with acid, phosphorus portions. Explosive potions with fire patches on the ground. Their job gage could be a set of ingredients needed to be combined to either heal, shield, or buff a party member to do more damage. LB3 chuck a large potion on the ground that is a mega elixer.

Necromancer: Ritual knife or floating skull- To make this healer feel different have it channels spells with minions. It is basically a hot but there is a beam coming from a ghastly creature that smart heals like Eios. These minions are created from using dps abilities. Have this job be the gunbreaker of healers and play like a DPS. DPS on the targets that channel healing into your team. Give them a Buff (debuff?) they place on team members to make them 'slightly dead' this is how they get the heals from the dps done. They have to reapply it every 30 seconds to a minute. Larger heals (Cure, Cure 2 level) that come from 2.5 second casts on the target. To further the difference have emergency heals (Think medica) that are cast when not attacking the target drain a small percentage of the caster's HP and have the abilities that attack the target drain HP to replenish the casters hp. Alternatively, you can sacrifice your minions to get HP back when there is nothing to attack. Give it a high skill ceiling rewarding it with high DPS ( Slightly below lowest dps). Let's shake up the healers a bit. Nothing beats the idea of a "Dark" healer too when the current healers are all light-based, stars and glitter, or pretty with fairies. LB3 is a gigantice black circle that raises everyone from the dead with the undead scream like in hero's gauntlet, places the slightly dead buff on everyone for further heals.

Geomancer: Bells and chimes - Go back to the FF3 big nukes implementations. Floods, quakes, avalanches, falling rocks, typhoons and tornadoes. Lets get another caster that plays similar to BLM with huge hits that move that HP bar and make your laugh maniacally - but do lower dps because they buff team members. Have them set up totems to buff dps and have them use rain to add a weak aoe heal to the party. Wind totems to speed up party members and ice to slow the enemy attack speed / cast speed. have totems that pull enemies or stun them in an area to help with large pulls in dungeons. LB3 splits the ground causing lava to erupt.

I like these ones the most

[Archwizard]

TANK:
Viking

My understanding is that Viking is a pretty heavy influence behind the Marauder that we have, being an axe-wielding tank job with a pirate background.

Maiming Melee:
Mystic Knight / Rune Fencer etc

I think that's pretty much the only option left for Maiming Melee, really. Dragoon's armor suits only plate-wearing Knight-type melee jobs, of which Spellblade/Mystic Knight/Rune Fencer/etc is the only untapped one remaining, save for an entirely new invention of XIV's team.

As a nitpick, axes seem an odd choice. I could see the job cycling between elemental enchantments on their own weapon that influence their rotation, instead of debuffing enemies.

Ranged Physical:
BST - Whips/Doggo

Unfortunately, Bozja stuff has pretty much shot BST as a ranged job down, with the Garlean Beastmasters (thus far the only representation of them in the game) generally sharing one-handed axes and shields.

My expectation is either BST will be a Limited Job focused on taming and training a wide assortment of pets with various roles not unlike XIII-2's system, or a full job with a number of Lyon-inspired melee abilities and a focus on 2-3 specific predetermined pets (with possible skins) much like SMN. Based on your commentary on BLU I expect you're highly averse to the former, though I would happily see it go either direction.

Gambler - Dice/ coins

So on the one hand, your description comes off a lot like old AST, and I fully expect that wouldn't happen.

That said, there's a precedent for a similar type of job with the pirate-inspired Corsair from XI. We've still got an opening for a dual pistol job like Merlwyb herself or whatever Rostnstahl was before, and it could take some of the elements you proposed for Viking, like pulling out a cannon or calling down storms.

Healers:
Chemist - Vials / Philosopher stone

Necromancer: Ritual knife or floating skull

Chemist (or some type of potion healer) seems to be the general consensus for the next healer, given that it was heavily hinted in 5.3's main story.

My main concern with Chemist really is that I've heard very few suggestions for what a raw Chemist could bring to the table that isn't offered by other healers; for instance, the proposal you have here is very in-line with current Scholar, just without the fairy.
That being said, I don't think it's impossible for a potion-based healer to be unique or work as long as the devs are willing to step away from the "Chemist" archetype of former games, similarly to how they folded Time Mage themes into Astrologian. I've previously proposed a Witch Doctor inspired job that could combine the aesthetic of potion-throwing with the mechanics of a dark magical healer like Necromancer, like leeching health from enemies to heal allies.

Necromancer: Ritual knife or floating skull

Shadow/void/dark Mage:

Much as I LOVE the idea of Necromancer as a healer and have even backed the idea many times in the past... going off of The Heroes' Gauntlet, the inclusion of a Necromancer would probably be as exactly the kind of Dark Mage proposed, with spells like Absolute Dark and Dark Deluge confirming the use of Ascian-esque magic.
And given how much pushback there is towards Necromancer not being "heroic" enough, I expect that wouldn't go over too well either.

To be clear though, I do agree with the next caster lifting the DoT-focused weight off of SMN to be reworked into a more pet- and summoning-focused caster, including the summoning of Egis or Demi-Primals for one-off attacks like you proposed for BST.
The only caster candidate I could see being strictly DoT-focused is Time Mage, however, which overlaps a lot with AST and is famous for tools that Yoshi-P already said we're never getting (ie Haste).

Geomancer: Bells and chimes

This seems like a pretty strong contender for next caster, given how much we've seen in Stormblood with things like Swallow's Compass and Heaven-on-High, or discussion of "geomantic currents" for the Four Lords battles. A caster focused on using Water, Wind, Earth and possibly Fire magic, which could fold-in Y'shtola's Spiritual Ray as a Limit Break?

[Sairys]

This seems like a pretty strong contender for next caster, given how much we've seen in Stormblood with things like Swallow's Compass and Heaven-on-High, or discussion of "geomantic currents" for the Four Lords battles. A caster focused on using Water, Wind, Earth and possibly Fire magic, which could fold-in Y'shtola's Spiritual Ray as a Limit Break?

Thinking about Geo recently started me thinking about the Eden raid series, which lead into the elemental cycle (lightning, fire, earth, ice, water, wind, and around again) along with the conquests (earth, lightning, water) and submissions (fire, wind, ice).
Now I'm kinda wanting to see Geo with a mechanic based on those concepts heh.

They could have the elemental chart as their class gauge, their rotations could have them actually rotate through those elemental loops ending with totems or geo-/indi- spells based on the cycle you complete. Given the links between the astro cards and the elements you kinda have that same yet different concept.

[Lauront]

Much as I LOVE the idea of Necromancer as a healer and have even backed the idea many times in the past... going off of The Heroes' Gauntlet, the inclusion of a Necromancer would probably be as exactly the kind of Dark Mage proposed, with spells like Absolute Dark and Dark Deluge confirming the use of Ascian-esque magic.
And given how much pushback there is towards Necromancer not being "heroic" enough, I expect that wouldn't go over too well either.

I believe that's down to their creativity/ability to frame it (much as with Emet-Selch/Elidibus, championing the dark to restore the ancient world), in the end, and that such pushback can be defeated - Necromancer is a popular RPG class and I've seen it do pretty well over numerous polls conducted over the years. Darkness is not 'evil', per se, and counts in its repertoire some very potent spells. Most of the doubt towards it that I've seen is in terms of the developers knowing how to make it fit, not so much against the concept itself.

If not a Necromancer, then a darkness based caster of some other flavour would make sense. There is at least a partial association with time magic and darkness (Gaia, Nabriales), so they could perhaps make something out of Time Mage, especially if it focused its "time" based spells on the DOTs themselves, and perhaps single-target (rather than mass) haste buffs.

At this point, it's about the only job addition they could make that would excite me much, I suppose.