The New Job (If Any) Added In 7.0 Will Likely Be Scouting Melee DPS

[Renathras]

Currently Scouting gear is the only gear type to not have two or more associated Jobs to go with it. On that same note, it will likely be the "Selfish DPS" of the Scouting Melee DPS, similar to how Samurai is the "Selfish DPS" of Striking Melee DPS and Reaper is the "Selfish DPS" of the Maiming Melee DPS (though not to the same extent of Samurai).

To be fair, they could just put the ROG/NIN tag on Aiming gear and call it a day. NINs already use Aiming right side. Or they could go the ARR route and put STR and DEX on the Striking gear (and Slaying right side accessories) and solve the problem that way. There's honestly zero reason for Scouting gear (or really Maiming gear) to exist. There's the whole "Job identity" thing, but WHM (combination druid and priest), SCH (academic vaguely combined with Green Caller/Summoner-lite and battlefield tactician/military Junior Officer), AST (combination astrologer and, apparently, geomancer), and SGE (combination wizard, scholar, and doctor) all get the same gear. WAR (berserker), PLD (liege knight with a holy theme), DRK (ronin/master-less hedge knight following their own sense of justice with a dab of dark magic/necromancy-lite), and GNB (basically bodyguards/rent-a-cops) also all get the same gear.

The argument for Scouting and arguably Maiming to still exist as distinct gearsets is just silly at this point, especially with "...of Slaying" already existing and "...of Aiming" already used by NIN on one side.

And before someone says "NIN's don't use ranged weapons/aim at things!", DANCERS don't really, either. Yet here we are.

That said, I suspect you're right. The most likely next Jobs I'd expect would be something that uses Scouting, something that uses Aiming, and something that uses Casting.

Of course, they could just shift NIN into being a "Ranged" Job (a bit counter intuitive, but RDM is a Caster that uses some Melee, so...) and then introduce a 4th Caster. But they may be going for 6 Melee, 3 Ranged, 3 Casters to reflect the 2 Melee, 1 Ranged, 1 Caster paradigm they want for the standard group. Of course, at that point, we'd need 6 Tanks and 6 Healers, and with the mess current healing is, I can't imagine they want to add any MORE (though they could give us Diurnal/Nocturnal again and call that one "new" Job in that sense...)

EDIT:

I can totally see BLU happening as a real job to bring casters to 4.

I'm not quite sure how this would work. The Devs are pretty good about not removing content from the game. Not ALWAYS, but ALMOST always. And a lot of people like BLU as it is today. The only way this would work is if they allowed BLU to level to the level cap of other Jobs, and you had two spellsets you could swap between a set for "normal Job" play, where it would just be something akin to a BLM or RDM with reskinned spells, and then a second set for the Limited Job version, where it's effectively treated in the game code as a different Job branching from the same base (think how SMN and SCH come from Arcanist). When you que for content right now (say as a DPS with a long que), you can swap to other Jobs or even DoH/DoL, but when the que pops, it says the Job you qued as and you have to swap to it to accept the que.

Basically, they'd have to leave in current BLU and just let you shift to a "standardized BLU" to do actual content, and "True BLU" wouldn't be able to que for content above "last expansion's" level.

...I have no idea how they'd program that, but just removing existing BLU is probably not going to work. When they do that with far more standardized Jobs (MCH rework, MNK rework, majorly with SMN rework), every time they do it, it infuriates tons of people to the point they'd be better off just adding a new Job. Like new SMN a ton of people love, but a ton of people hate because of what was taken from them. If new SMN had been added as a new Job with old SMN being a separate Job, even with a new name (e.g. Green Mage), people would have been far less angry about the change.

I can't see them dumping BLU, especially after spending all this effort with new spells, level cap raises, and entire content made just for it/Limited Jobs. They may never add ANOTHER, but...

[Hasrat]

very unlikely they would do 2 melee in a row
but it could be classed as a ranged dps but uses scouting gear

Considering there are 3 classifications of melee DPS, this argument never made sense to me. Avoiding introducing two in a row would mean neglecting one (Scouting) for many years over several expansions.

Also don't understand folks that think we need another physical ranged DPS again when DNC was only just introduced last expansion.

Following the current two-jobs-per-expansion, and given what's been recent, it almost feels obvious the next two will be Scouting and caster.

[Renathras]

Following the current two-jobs-per-expansion, and given what's been recent, it almost feels obvious the next two will be Scouting and caster.

There are several problems with this logic. The typical party "standard" is 2 Tanks, 2 Healers, 2 Melee, 1 Ranged, 1 Caster. By Lucky Bancho census numbers, we know Casters are ridiculously overplayed (to the point the meta should probably be 1 Melee, 1 Ranged, 2 Casters), so if anything, adding Casters (and shifting to where the meta allows both 2 Melee and 2 Caster) seems pretty logical.

Thing is, the last time they did an expansion where they added 2 Jobs and DIDN'T add a Tank or Healer was Stormblood, and that decision was widely attacked by the community. Healers went from something like 2015 to 2021 without getting a new Job. Tanks went from 2015 to 2019ish. Meanwhile, DPS collectively get a new Job every expansion, and even got 2 in ARR, as both SMN (in 2.0) and NIN (in...2.3?) were added for them.

The reason people mention Ranged is that the argument made for DNC being a Ranged by Yoshi P was that there were only two Ranged. Up until then, we as a community thought there were three roles, Tank, Healer, and DPS. But it was in ShB that they even changed up your character DoW/DoM tab from Tanks/Healers/DPS to Tanks/Healers/Melee DPS/Ranged Physical DPS/Caster DPS. So clearly the Devs had begun to, at the latest by when they were developing ShB/5.0 in 2018 or so, designate the DPS subroles.

But this shifts around how to analyze it. Are we looking at Tanks/Healers/DPS in a 1/1/2 or 1/2/5 relationship, or are we looking at Tanks/Healers/Melee/Ranged/Physical in a 2/2/2-/1/1+ relationship where the Devs REALLY want to push for 2 Melee 1 Caster as the standard?

And if we look at that in terms of Jobs, it would suggest there should be 6 Tanks, 6 Healers, 6 Melee, 3 Ranged, 3 Casters. I've seen this argument used to suggest adding another Melee (probably Scouting) since that would even out the Melee/Ranged/Caster numbers (because screw Tanks and Healers, I guess? lol /cryashealermain)

But on the other hand, there are more Melee than anything else. Despite DPS being interchangeable in MOST content and the 1/1/2 standard ratio of Tanks/Healers/DPSers, there are 4 Tanks, 4 Healers, and 11 DPS total, or 5 Melee 3 Ranged 3 Casters. So if anything, it would suggest we have too many Melee.

Then there's their whole "We add what makes sense for the story we want to tell".

And there's also the fact that Caster has been the subrole that has gone the longest without a new addition, with the last one being RDM, or if you want to push it, BLU, but both were introduced in SB.

.

I personally think they may just drop to 1 Job per expansion (they said in HW that 3 was too much and overtaxed the development team), and we already have a ton of Jobs in the game, so adding 2 per expansion will eventually lead to a lot of Jobs. Which is good in one way but...

If they just add 1, Caster would probably make the most sense (longest since the last one) or POSSIBLY Scouting (if the Devs want to even out that ratio - which is probably not how they think because if it was they'd be pumping out Tanks and Healers). Ranged would probably come after Caster (despite people wanting Whip wielding Beastmasters) since we've had DNC more recently and Caster also only has 3, so there's no "need" to give another Ranged first, as there was in ShB.

[Duskane]

Considering there are 3 classifications of melee DPS, this argument never made sense to me. Avoiding introducing two in a row would mean neglecting one (Scouting) for many years over several expansions.

Also don't understand folks that think we need another physical ranged DPS again when DNC was only just introduced last expansion.

Following the current two-jobs-per-expansion, and given what's been recent, it almost feels obvious the next two will be Scouting and caster.

we also got MCH an expansion before SB then got DNC the very next
same with SAM in SB then RPR in EW one expansion apart

[MagiusNecros]

I'd prefer DoT Caster or just a DoT class.

I will die on this hill.

[Lyth]

I'm all for the addition of another caster next expansion, but I really think they should merge down both ranged subtypes into a single 'Ranged DPS' category so that it's obvious that we have 6 Ranged DPS jobs. Otherwise we'll just reach a point where people will argue for having 10 Ranged jobs (5 Magic/5 Physical) before adding the next Melee.

That being said, you know the instant they add another high-performing caster all the BLM players will fly into a jealous rage, and then BLM will get an unnecessary rework into a shadow of its former self after the usual 'my job is oh so much more complex than the new job so it should do more dps' arguments get trotted out. We've already seen that happen this expansion for Melee. Poetic justice or not, it does get pretty repetitive.

[MagiusNecros]

I think each class should be unique and offer something no one else can and all jobs should function this way. BLM should probably be kicked off it's pedestal it's been sitting on it for too long.

[undull1]

The one trend that does follow for all expansions is 1 ranged class (Healer, Magical DPS, Phys ranged) and 1 melee (Tank, Melee DPS).

Because of this and the constant shortage of Tanks in roulettes id put my money on a tank and a magical DPS for the next expansion.

[Teno]

It sucks so much dropping NIN gear, because you know only one job can use it. I wish they'd merge some of the categories into one, with SAM/MNK for instance.

[Aluja89]

I highly doubt they'll do another Stormblood, that was an absolute shitshow. I also clearly remember the devs saying they don't pay attention to which gearset has the least amount of jobs. For now there's a structure: 5.0Tank/rDPS 6.0mDPS/Healer 7.0Tank/cDPS 8.0mDPS/Healer etc.