7.0 We need new caster and ranged dps balance the score

[Sequora]

No we do not. Ranged jobs are actually the most prevalent role right now if you consider that casters and physical ranged are actually subsets of that role.

• 4 tanks (PLD, WAR, DRK and GNB)
• 4 healers (WHM, SCH, AST and SGE)
• 5 melee (DRG, RPR, MNK, SAM and NIN)
• 6 ranged (BRD, MCH and DNC + BLM, RDM and SMN)

I expect the limit on full jobs is something like 20 total jobs as we are already seeing them run into the limit on their ability to create new weapons for 17 jobs. We do not really need any more casters or physical ranged full jobs. At most we might see 1 more melee job .

Why would we see one more melee job before another caster or ranged DPS? Melee DPS is literally the most bloated category and we just got one.

Caster is next. Get over it

[Beddict]

And even in this case, the devs would be wrong and out of touch, as the distinction between ph. ranged and casters is just formal at this point, especially after SMN basically becoming a caster without casting times and RDM not casting anything for like 70% of the time thanks to dualcast and their melee combo + finishers.

Now if they want to turn casters into actual casters and introduce magical/physical resistance/weakness in boss fights in 7.0, there might be some room for argument.

No argument there. SE is doing their best to blur the lines between Caster and Physical Ranged, especially with Endwalker. SMN is looking like it'll have a lot of short casts and instant casts, and RDM is getting even more utility in Magick Barrier. They keep this shit up and the only thing differentiating the two Roles will be the shape of their Limit Breaks. But despite that, SE is absolutely stubborn enough to keep saying the Roles are totally different, even if the community is calling bullshit. I don't agree with them, but that is unfortunately their stance on the matter.

[Grimoire-M]

We do not need a new caster. Due, to as you point out, Full party content being intended to be done by 8 players made up of...

I said SE designs content with 2 melee DPS in mind. I did not say they -require- two melee DPS in their compositions. You can clear content at min-ilvl with triple ranged + WHM/WAR and whatever other tank/healer/dps trio does the least DPS out of the rest in any given patch if you wanted. Hell, I've cleared Savage content with Triple Caster + Melee, as the Summoner filling in the 'physical ranged' slot, including being the mana battery of the group (RIP Mana Shift). These things are not hard and fast rules.

The physical/magical ranged split is actually one of the best examples of proper sub-role balance to the point most players do not realize that they are acually sub-roles.

That's because they are not actually sub-roles. Are two mechanics in game that call out our roles explicitly. The Party Stat bonus, and Limit Break generation. You can run Sage/Scholar and White Mage/Astrologian and still get the full benefit of those buffs because the only thing nebulously defining healer 'sub-roles' is having specific GCD spells with a secondary bonus. There are Limit Break generation penalties for not filling out the Party Bonus sheet as well as for taking duplicate classes. There's also the potential conflicts that come with specific compositions, like how Red Mage needs to be in melee sometimes and therefore doesn't play nice with Double Melee, how Multiple Ranged kinda suck at baseline DPS and therefore really need to play well at lower item levels. Meanwhile Black Mage, Ninja, Monk, and White Mage all have mechanical strategies built around them in some cases (Some openers have only been optimal with a NIN), or how Summoner, Paladin, Dancer, and Red Mage each offer specific utility that makes them more popular by default.

The only differential within roles is playstyles, in which all healers and tanks overlap fairly significantly with a core toolset with minor nuances. SGE/SCH will overlap heavily like WHM/AST do right now. Melee DPS and Tanks have suffered from Combo spam adding significant button bloat since ARR. Meanwhile Ranged DPS only really share cosmetically different raid actions. All caster DPS have Fire and Flare spells but otherwise play completely differently. They're actually the most diverse roles of them all.

My reason for saying all three DPS roles need another job was simple: Every Role needs at least 4 non-limited jobs represented, and every Gearset needs at least two jobs to change between. As a result, NIN needs a friend, and we have a caster and ranged slot that need a fourth job. That's fairly simple to understand. Ordering suggests Caster > Ranged > Melee because Casters haven't gotten a non-limited job since Red Mage in Stormblood and Reaper means we can delay the Scouting melee DPS a bit longer.

That said, again, I do not think we need two jobs next expansion. The only reason I'd even want that is if they were planning on adding more tanks and healers, and I do not think we have room for any more of those without dipping into frankly strange territory. Seriously, what Tank and Healer job concept do we -really- have left that isn't already covered at least as a sub-theme within the current ones? Freelancer??? Honestly that would just be a limited job for a universal glamour experience, including being able to use any other job's animation in the game. Only getting one DPS job for the next three expansions is perfectly fine while they figure out how to get the other two roles right and it leaves SE plenty of time for them to rework other beloved DPS jobs into the ground, and Summoner again, probably.

[Shurrikhan]

Idk what you are all on about. 4 Fending, 4 Healing, 4 Casting, 3 Aiming, 2 Striking, 2 Maiming, 1 Scouting. Clearly we most need 1 more Striking and Maiming each and 2 more Scouting. After all, in-game categories, even if in excess of how they actually play out in or are taken for content (now that physical ranged provide no unique value outside of rarely useful bonus mobility) are definitely how we should decide what jobs are worth having. /s


That being said, a more reasonable 1 job per expansion, as is almost certain to happen soon enough (if we're not to gut existing jobs in the process, per post-Stormblood tradition, of giving their 'fun bits' over to the new), added to Scouting would finally balance us out at 4 Tanks, 4 Healers, 7 ranged dps, and 7 melee dps.

Or maybe the whole question of where to draw the lines will finally put us in such a tizzy that we are forced to stop treating jobs as a role template plus at most two shallow gimmicks. Alas, one can only dream.

[Sequora]

I just think it comes down to which jobs and how long ago we got them. The last real caster we got was red mage back in storm blood. We’ve now had two expansions since then.

Melee DPS already has the highest number of jobs. This obviously makes sense for several reasons. I don’t however think they need to have twice the number of the other jobs.

[AndieEldritch]

14 is a relatively well balanced game, adding more for the sake of having more may well just end up in issues - They should slow down now and make sure the game is as tightly tuned as possible and avoid homogenisation (especially in tanks and healers).

But just for the laughs for the most part it's been pulling from previous entries in the series for jobs (as expected).

Most I can come up with would be maybe;
-Thief in a SCH/SMN situation with Ninja as a second Scouting job - (Might be a little late for that though) - Actually make use of and build out from the stealth mechanic from Rogue which isn't super important on Ninja - more time spent in and attacking from stealth.
-Puppet/Beastmaster as a old-summoner replacement dots and pet job with a ranged weapon instead - 11's programable automatons would be fun, not sure how BM would work, maybe gain more powerful creatures through job quests.
-Tactics style Geomancer (as 11 style would have some spells that would be confused with pre-glare WHM) - Different buffs depending on some elemental stances like Avatar (TLAB) or something ahah?

[Ultimatecalibur]

Why would we see one more melee job before another caster or ranged DPS? Melee DPS is literally the most bloated category and we just got one.

Caster is next. Get over it

No, Melee is not bloated; Ranged are and you need to accept that. You do not need another ranged magical or ranged physical job. The game can not handle over 1/3rd of its full jobs being ranged dps while all 4 healers are also magical ranged casters.

The best actual solution would be to add a "magical melee" job. A dervish style mystic knight armed with something like Zidane's thief swords and sharing Scouting gear with ninja.

I just think it comes down to which jobs and how long ago we got them. The last real caster we got was red mage back in storm blood. We’ve now had two expansions since then.

Melee DPS already has the highest number of jobs. This obviously makes sense for several reasons. I don’t however think they need to have twice the number of the other jobs.

The last real caster we got is Sage and it is in the newest expansion. It may be a healing caster and not a dps caster but it is a caster.

We have 2 half caster tanks (PLD and DRK), a half caster melee dps (NIN), 4 caster Healers (WHM, AST, SCH and SGE) and 3 caster ranged dps (BLM, SMN and RDM). In effect half the jobs are casters.

[VictoriaLuv]

About scouting gear. it can be used as ranged dps as well. it has a dex into it. there for they could make ranged dps job that uses scouting set. i mean scouting set jewelry at some levels they some range dps use too

[Cithaerias_pyropina]

SMN becoming a nigh unrecognizable job essentially means we got 3 new jobs this expac. So I don't think we really need a new caster next expac. And judging by how some jobs are right now I suspect up to 3 jobs getting reworks in 7.0.

Viking dual axe-wielding-scouting-armor-using melee for 7.0 though. DPS version of Warrior like Reaper is a DPS version of Dark Knight. /s

[Taranok]

No argument there. SE is doing their best to blur the lines between Caster and Physical Ranged, especially with Endwalker. SMN is looking like it'll have a lot of short casts and instant casts, and RDM is getting even more utility in Magick Barrier. They keep this shit up and the only thing differentiating the two Roles will be the shape of their Limit Breaks. But despite that, SE is absolutely stubborn enough to keep saying the Roles are totally different, even if the community is calling bullshit. I don't agree with them, but that is unfortunately their stance on the matter.

I wouldn't call it blurring the lines so much as: "The encounter designers are forcing heavy amounts of movement, and without making casters also capable of heavy amounts of movement, they break in our current encounter design." It's the same reason all tanking mitigation and healer toolkits are almost literal carbon copies of each other. The encounter design forces the class designers to do silly things, which in turn is forcing encounter designers to continue doing silly things. If this is kept up, eventually BLM will literally need to be mostly instant cast spells and won't be that far removed from MCH. They also maybe threw the baby out with the bathwater on SMN design. SMN was about 20-33% free movement in ShB, and it's going to be closer to 85% free movement in EW. They might reign it in later.