Give me your most unhinged Job take that you still genuinely believe in.

[fulminating]

The addition of new jobs starting with ninja has been only a detriment to the game.

[Brightamethyst]

The original cleric stance was great and people complained too much because of their lack of understanding of skill queuing so they had to nerf it, and eventually just remove it.

I don't know. While I appreciate stance dancing as a concept, and thoroughly enjoyed the original Cleric Stance, now that they're gone I don't miss them in the slightest.

Stance dancing was fun and a risk:reward situation needs to be embraced, not shunned.

Risk/reward systems on that level only work when the game is designed around them as a concept, and FFXIV is very much NOT designed that way.

In theory you could either take the risk or take it slow and safe, but in practice it didn't play out that way. People came to expect the risk as the standard anything else was "/fc O... M...G..., this tank is the worst. Why is he staying in {Defiance} the whole time!?"

[Turnintino]

My unhinged take is Square Enix made a serious mistake when they came up with the design of white mages. There is no reason we should have holy spells.

It's just because white magic is tantamount to holy magic in most FF titles, and Holy is one of the job's signature spells in that same context. So, historically speaking, the elementalist bent in FFXIV is the real outlier. They didn't want to completely do away with WHM's broader identity despite the reimagining, though, and what we got here consequently lacks coherence because of it. ┐(￣ヘ￣)┌

The addition of new jobs starting with ninja has been only a detriment to the game.

I don't think we can count NIN, since it was intended to be included from the start. Development just lagged.

[Equitable_Remedy]

NIN is fun and well-designed, and the mudra system does a good job of capturing the aesthetic of Naruto-style hand signs within the framework of this style of MMO (EQ/WOW-style).

(Liking anything about the game de facto counts as unhinged on this forum.)

[TheMightyMollusk]

(Liking anything about the game de facto counts as unhinged on this forum.)

[VeyaAkemi]

It's just because white magic is tantamount to holy magic in most FF titles, and Holy is one of the job's signature spells in that same context. So, historically speaking, the elementalist bent in FFXIV is the real outlier. They didn't want to completely do away with WHM's broader identity despite the reimagining, though, and what we got here consequently lacks coherence because of it. ┐(￣ヘ￣)┌

I always interpreted it as Elementals being sore losers.

They didn't choose us, A-Towa-Cant decided to us to be his successor without their input, I imagined that they don't like this, to the Elementals, we are still nothing but a Conjurer, as a result they refuse to convene with us the same depth they do with the Padjals... but we surpassed them, we do not need the Elementals anymore, the Calamity made it so they are nowhere near as powerful as they once were, and perhaps because of experiences with the First's Primordial Light, we learn to wield Light from the modicum of Light magic that was already there from Holy, and we completely cast out the Elements from our magic and make it our own.

Yeah it's just a headcanon, but it lines up shockingly well with the MSQ, you learn Glare and Dia at level 72, and Holminster Switch happens at level 71, meaning we learn the spells immmediately after the WoL absorbs the first chunk of Primordial Light.

[Turnintino]

I always interpreted it as Elementals being sore losers.

They didn't choose us, A-Towa-Cant decided to us to be his successor without their input, I imagined that they don't like this, to the Elementals, we are still nothing but a Conjurer, as a result they refuse to convene with us the same depth they do with the Padjals... but we surpassed them, we do not need the Elementals anymore, the Calamity made it so they are nowhere near as powerful as they once were, and perhaps because of experiences with the First's Primordial Light, we learn to wield Light from the modicum of Light magic that was already there from Holy, and we completely cast out the Elements from our magic and make it our own.

Yeah it's just a headcanon, but it lines up shockingly well with the MSQ, you learn Glare and Dia at level 72, and Holminster Switch happens at level 71, meaning we learn the spells immmediately after the WoL absorbs the first chunk of Primordial Light.

I really dig that. And if nothing else, I wouldn't be surprised if the timing at least was something the game designers actually considered.

[Vyrerus]

Let's see, unhinged takes, hmm...

Tanks and Healers both suck right now, and they have sucked since Stormblood. Particularly tanks. The expectation that people manage their enmity in the cooldown environment made tanks into divas during Stormblood who would actively refuse to do their job, and this divadom made SE dumb tanks down further. Tanking is barely a job in XIV atm, with the only thing true about it being that tanking is strictly the tanks job at this point, uncontrollable by anyone else. It worked fine in Heavensward. I've always felt like the ability Shirk was an in joke the dev team had preempting this.

Cleric's Stance never should have left. In fact, they should have doubled down on it. We should have had it upgrade and straight up lock out healing during Cleric's Stance being active, rather than allow it at highly reduced potencies. Instead they phased it out and gave into the Healing Puritans, who they expressly called out through the little girl in the Conjurer's questline. Healers DPS in this game, DEAL WITH IT. They should have never comprised healer kits in the way they have.

Kaiten and original Hagakure gave Samurai a lot more depth than it has now. They should have made its kenki management even more complex by adding in more and similar skills to them, instead of removing one and making the other a whoopsie switch.

Execution skills like Mercy Stroke, Ageha, Sole Survivor, and the BRD one should have stuck around. They added some nice DPS to the last 20% of fights and the concept of execution hits makes people think about ways to increase DPS as a fight is closing out. There's generally some way on a lot of jobs to just do more damage if it's going to be your last/last few GCDs.

BLU should not be changed. It should be given more content that takes advantage of its insane level of power.

[VictorSpoils]

Gone but not (entirely) forgotten.

[VentVanitas]

You want unhinged? I'll give you unhinged.

- WHM should be a powerhouse with multiple different spells. It's White Mage after all.
- WAR should be half fighter again and SE is leaning too much into the berserker identity.
- RDM isn't a Red Mage. It's just a musketeer duelist that shoots spells.
- SAM should have been a tank.
- Thief and NIN should have been separate jobs.
- Most MNK artifact gear is garbage. I want to look like a disciplined martial artist, not a hobo.