My “Next job” predictions: “Scouting” and “Fending”

[Ishe-P]

I predict the new sets will be 'Erping.' Only Erpers will be the most interested in equipping such sets. Shall they be scandalous? Shall they be benign? Only SE could know!

[Rymi64]

And it's been 9 years since we got a Scouting job, which remains the only sub-role with only a single job therein.

Moreover, is recency really worth making the primary criteria here?

I mean, let's look at the job distributions for each expansion:

(Bold marks the roles most recently added to.)
(Underlines mark roles with relative job-scarcity.)

• ARR: 2 tanks, 2 healers, 3 melee, 3 ranged
• HW: 3 tanks, 3 healers, 3 melee, 4 ranged
• StB: 3 tanks, 3 healers, 4 melee, 5 ranged
• ShB: 4 tanks, 3 healers, 4 melee, 6 ranged
• EW: 4 tanks, 4 healers, 5 melee, 6 ranged

Sure, melee and healers were added to most recently, but only because they were the roles with the fewest options compared to their intended slots. You'd still have to add 1 more just to reach a balance point.

I could see why we'd want Role X to be the last to get another job if the distribution were already balanced, but it isn't; we're still 1 melee short of even that.

Given that there's only one role and sub-role each (Scouting, within Melee) that have disproportionately few options, it's fine for Scouting to be among the jobs added to next expansion.

Recency is huge since people that tend to play that role like having a new toy to play with. Remember we would have gotten a healer in SHB rather than EW if they knew what they wanted to do with them at that point.

I didnt say that it would be wrong to get a scouting job next expac just that it shouldn't be a phys range that uses scouting gear. It's 50/50 to me if we get phys range or scouting as a second job (if we get one) since casters have gone a bit without one and us just getting a melee. Also i wouldn't call melee's scarce

[Shurrikhan]

Recency is huge since people that tend to play that role like having a new toy to play with. Remember we would have gotten a healer in SHB rather than EW if they knew what they wanted to do with them at that point.

If recency is the basis for denying a role any further jobs, then you even a single increase in imbalance (such as in adding a 6th ranged opposite only 4 melee) will be maintained forever.

Imagine if there were 5 tanks but only 3 healers. Should healers be allowed a 5th only after tanks get a 6th or 7th, maintaining that imbalance?

I didnt say that it would be wrong to get a scouting job next expac just that it shouldn't be a phys range that uses scouting gear.

We have no reason to believe that Phys Ranged playstyles will overlap into Scouting; that possibility was denied when Dancer (often a better aesthetic fit with Scouting than Aiming) was added to Aiming instead.

Also i wouldn't call melee's scarce

No matter which way you cut the role pie, Scouting is scarce. There are already fewer melee jobs (MDPS + Tanks) than ranged jobs (RDPS + Healers) and fewer melee DPS jobs than ranged DPS, but more importantly, there is literally only one Scouting job.

To be clear, my position is and will pretty much always be that they should just add whichever job seems like it'd generate the most fun across the game.* But if we're looking at what's "deserving" among the roles as they are, there's really only one good answer.

*Granted, I tend to look at that as using a job as an opportunity/excuse for larger beneficial systemic changes or shake-ups, such as by saying that the new job "needs" some new undermechanic... from which every job then benefits (such as if Ninja required line-of-sight/obfuscation checks, Astrologian required manipulable enemy Mass and the ability for units to hold a mana table for its 'theoretical suns' [that might in turn allow for a more interesting version of SCH's Aetherpool], Gunbreaker required a return of element types through its ammo [this time with actual element effects, rather than just a PokeWheel], etc.).

BLU was one such opportunity (for customization and horizontal progression, among other things)... that went entirely wasted by not even half-assing its implementation. DNC was arguably another, an opportunity to bring back more variable and high-agency means of support (especially, at cost to personal throughput via shared resource expenditure).

[VeyaAkemi]

And it's been 9 years since we got a Scouting job, which remains the only sub-role with only a single job therein.

Moreover, is recency really worth making the primary criteria here?

I mean, let's look at the job distributions for each expansion:

(Bold marks the roles most recently added to.)
(Underlines mark roles with relative job-scarcity.)

• ARR: 2 tanks, 2 healers, 3 melee, 3 ranged
• HW: 3 tanks, 3 healers, 3 melee, 4 ranged
• StB: 3 tanks, 3 healers, 4 melee, 5 ranged
• ShB: 4 tanks, 3 healers, 4 melee, 6 ranged
• EW: 4 tanks, 4 healers, 5 melee, 6 ranged

Sure, melee and healers were added to most recently, but only because they were the roles with the fewest options compared to their intended slots. You'd still have to add 1 more just to reach a balance point.

I could see why we'd want Role X to be the last to get another job if the distribution were already balanced, but it isn't; we're still 1 melee short of even that.

Given that there's only one role and sub-role each (Scouting, within Melee) that have disproportionately few options, it's fine for Scouting to be among the jobs added to next expansion.

I just feel the need to add that you are perhaps looking at it from a different angle than the devs, because while it's true that Caster and Phys Ranged are all ranged, they are still considered separate role groups, so the devs likely don't look at it like 5 melee and 6 ranged, they look at it as 5 Melee, 3 Casters and 3 Phys Ranged, this perspective is very likely why EW is the first expansion without either a caster or a phys ranged, and why we got DNC when we only had 4 melees, because under that perspective we also only had 2 Phys Ranged.

I want to make it abundantly clear that it's not a perspective I agree with, but the way new have operated indicate towards it.

[Shurrikhan]

I just feel the need to add that you are perhaps looking at it from a different angle than the devs, because while it's true that Caster and Phys Ranged are all ranged, they are still considered separate role groups, so the devs likely don't look at it like 5 melee and 6 ranged, they look at it as 5 Melee, 3 Casters and 3 Phys Ranged.

Alright, but if that's to be the case, such that GearType=Role, then there should only be one gear type across those 5 melee. There is no point in forcing a single role to farm 3x the armor of any other.

Of course, Maiming, Striking, and Scouting were all originally as different as Bard is from Black Mage. Maiming began as a half-tank role, the Gridanian version of a tank, in fact, that focused on being more of a strike leader than one able to consistently take hard hits. Striking was your sustained but variable hitter that functioned almost opposite to Maiming. Scouting was a support type.

ARR had 2 casters because they still wanted to have two healers, and Yoshida had changed THM from dually a healer and caster (as CNJ was) into a pure DPS, and so they double-dipped ACN into both SCH (healer replacement for THM) and SMN (SCH's addendum / caster replacement for THM, now that BLM would function almost nothing like THM did in 1.x [an Oracle using Blood, Poison, Umbral, and Astral magics]).

But for all other DPS roles in ARR? 1 Aiming job. 1 Maiming job. 1 Striking job. 1 scouting job. There were 2 casters only because a healer job double-dipped into it, giving us 2 Fending, 2 Healing, and 2 Casting (with only 1 pure caster therein). And those were each very distinct. A Ninja wasn't much more a direct replacement for a Monk or Dragoon back then than a Bard was for a SMN.

So, if this homogenizing approach we've increasingly taken since StB would otherwise just screw over a single role (1 set for Tanks, 1 set for Healers, 1 set for PhyRng, 1 set for Casters, 3 sets for Melee), then that old vestige should be rooted out.

That or, better yet, that approach needs to be reversed.

I want to make it abundantly clear that it's not a perspective I agree with, but the way new have operated indicate towards it.

Aye, and I get that. I just wish people would look at what that concept then leaves hypocritical.

For my part, I'd much rather have either seen a 3rd type of ranged distinct from the others (e.g., putting RDM in a separate group, putting DNC in Scouting, and then adding another Spellfencer job in 7.0 such that we'd have 2 jobs each across those 6 sub-roles). Or, better yet, I'd take a massive rework whereby all jobs can flex into other roles based on their stats and can use virtually all gear types (a Mind-heavy supportive Monk, and Int-heavy elemental-burst Bard, a Dex heavy Warrior using dual axes instead and more focused on maintaining stagger on enemies than on breaking their guard, if either were ever somehow a thing, etc.).

But whatever the case, there's just no excuse for calling 3 sub-roles all effectively the same and yet charging that combined "role" 3 times the armor as if each sub-role were still distinct.