Which Job, in your opinion, has the biggest identity issue?

[Rithy255]

Gonna have to go with Dark Knight, Obviously people will go "dark knight has always been dps!" but I feel like reaper is what "dps dark knight" would be like, just more themed differently.

More or less it doesn't even feel like a "magic tank" despite using mp and being a "magic user" it just really lacks any sort of magic looking animations outside of aoe and your "flashy DOT". Even though stealing hp hasn't always been a dark knight thing, theirs been cases where it has I'm pretty sure, I think a lot of people would expect dark knights to have some form of draining the enemy as sustain.

If I could say second choice it would be warrior as it's identity should have been a more selfish "big dps" tank but it's more or less known for being the party healer tank (even over paladin at this point lol)

[vetch]

Unironically imagining them turning BRD into another 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3 with heat sink gauge in response to the complaints of what it feels like now. Because heaven forbid XIV doesn't turn more jobs into more of the same.

Same, BRD is the only DPS I can stand at 80+ and this thread is making me twitchy.

I’d also delete the skill that makes you straight shot ready since it’s been power crept to hell, the personal damage up buff could be baked into battle voice then you even have some free buttons in order to maybe add another support skill

If you're talking about Barrage, I kind of like it for how it has an inverted interaction with Shadowbite procs. 'Dungeon-only skills lol' and so forth, but it's more entertaining than button bloat crap like Orogeny.

[Supersnow845]

Same, BRD is the only DPS I can stand at 80+ and this thread is making me twitchy.



If you're talking about Barrage, I kind of like it for how it has an inverted interaction with Shadowbite procs. 'Dungeon-only skills lol' and so forth, but it's more entertaining than button bloat crap like Orogeny.

I agree orogeny is about the worst skill design of an oGCD possible I just don’t think barrage justifies a button, like I said BRD should stay a job that attempts to prioritise procs in a particular order, I just think that they could delete a bit of its bloat and redistribute the damage to its actual impactful skills so that the proc balancing actually feels rewarding

[VentVanitas]

it is way too late in the game's life for a Ranger/Bard split, the best they can do is downplay the archer elements because it is not putting down the bow anytime soon. sorry harp lovers.

personally speaking, I actually like XIV's take on Bard, they managed to tie in the archer side in a very cool way lore-wise. realistically speaking, it's "identity crisis" didn't really start until they made DNC to steal its role as the support DPS, Stormblood BRD was an incredibly popular and widely liked job, after all.

[Renathras]

Hm, in terms of lore or gameplay?

Lore:

Paladin. The Job quests can't make up their minds on whether you're still a GLD or not. Even the HW "Free Paladin" story was based on the Job stones flexing their e-peens to determine who was the dom, which is way more "gladiatorial combat" than it is "holy knights, protectors of the innocent". Not to mention the non-"Free" Paladins are specifically the royal guard of the Sultana of Ul'Dah specifically, despite them appearing in other cultures (the SGE quest giver is a PLD, not just a GLD, I believe). IMO, PLD has the worst Job quests in the game. You're a GLD to level 30, then a PLD to level 50, then a PLD with an ego to 60, then a GLD again (like literally, it's just a GLD tournament) to 70. What is even going on with this Job in lore?

The rest all seem to have a clear theme and identity in terms of lore.

Gameplay:

DRK can't seem to decide what it wants to be, and so changes each expansion. Right now, it's a WAR that is more edgy and less angry, and didn't minor in healing magic.

AST...is it a pure healer? A barrier healer? A buffer? How is Synastry still in the game? WHY is Undraw still in the game? It has party shields, frequently available party mitigation (1 per min), but then pure heals that are both as or more powerful than WHM's while costing less MP, despite AST having the best MP regen with Astrodyne being effectively a second Lucid Dreaming. What's with the Seal system and Astrodyne at this point anyway? Seriously, how is SYNASTRY still in the game that shrugs off GCD healing? Especially since AST has tons of oGCD healing including two charges of Essential Dignity? Why would you ever Snyastry + change target + Benefic 2 when you could just Dignity both targets? Is it a Time Mage or a Diving Fate Twister or a White Mage with a different outfit? Why does it get Pro/Shell when WHM does not (bubble)? The Cards are simultaneously boring and annoying, and the APM is spastic from insane in burst to ez-mode Malific spam (which is worse than WHM and SGE's nukespam since they have fewer other GCDs they use). Seriously, what is going on with this Job? I guess I can see why it's getting the rework...

MNK's change seems well received, but it's jumbled the Job's identity. Instead of a bobbing and weaving fistfighter, it's a spiritual unlocking seals DBZ fighter without a ranged attack and trading its smooth "infinite 2:2:3 combo" for a stutter step thing that has record skips when you get and use the Nadis.

NIN much less than most of these, but it was pretty consistent until level 60 as centered around Ninjutsu (its main Job mechanic, so this is as it should be) and an upkeep buff to shifting to gauge management and absolute burst unloading. It also is one of the most removed from its base class, Thief/Rogue, which especially sucks since Rogue is a popular archetype and class fantasy, and we won't get it as a full Job while it's NIN's ---ch proto-form.

BRD has lost so much focus on its songs, it's really unclear what it's supposed to be. It doesn't even get all the songs of its basic clean rotation until after level 50 for some reason. It has DoTs, but has lost most of the kit interactions with them it used to have, making them seem vestigial and awkwardly out of place. It has a lot of crazy magic arrow attacks, but they don't really do anything special in most cases other than "more damage", and the songs aren't a major part of your rotation other than "keep them going at all times in the correct order". There aren't any situational things like using Mages Ballad back in ARR to give taxed healers more MP, for example. The songs going from toggles to "always on upkeeps" was a bad decision, imo. Probably the single most damaging thing to the Job, with the second most being the DoTs being stripped from the kit. The Archer + Bard thing works fine, just they've dropped the Bard part mostly while gutting key parts of the Archer part, then tacking on some flash magic arrow effects.

MCH is in a bit of a weird place since it doesn't really fit its subrole. It's a Ranged Physical but has a 1-2-3 Melee-like combo. Its in the "shoehorned Support" subrole, but doesn't have nearly the party support that BRD and DNC does, instead being a "selfish DPS" in a role that isn't supposed to be selfish. Where BLM and SAM are selfish DPS that bring the DPS, MCH is a selfish DPS that doesn't. Dismantle has helped with this, mind you, but it still seems to be on thin ice. It also has some weird things in the kit that just aren't practical or need some tweaks like Flamethrower. Seriously, what is going on with this thing? And why doesn't Autocrossbow do the CD reduction thing that Heat Blast does?

Some others have issues, but those are the worst offenders, I think.

.

Maybe for 8.0 because they could make Bard into a healer and Archer stay DPS. How should archer be called then?

Fire Emblem has Archer upgrade into Sniper. I'm sure they could think of something if they did this. I doubt they'll do this, though.

Except that would require actual effort and admitting they were wrong, so yeah, crappy Barcher that nobody wants to play is here to stay sadly

I was with you up until this statement. This is one of those "leave that part out next time" things. Not to mention incorrect; they can change it without ever "admitting they were wrong".

[PercibelTheren]

I feel like it might be Scholar. The fairy and the whole "war tactician" thing don't mesh together. I would much rather have a nature-themed healer with a fairy and then split SCH into something else. Though that might be harder to do now that we have Sage.

[ForsakenRoe]

I agree orogeny is about the worst skill design of an oGCD possible

It's even weirder given that Expiacion doesn't have this issue. Might be 'but homogenization!!!!' but I think they should have just done the same as PLD and made Upheaval upgrade to have an AOE component to it. Make it a move where you stomp the ground so hard lava erupts or something (the axe disappearing for Orogeny's animation looks very bad)

[Hopebot]

MCH: I think they need to scrap a lot of the measly gun stuff and go full in on the crazy gadgets and technical stuff, Mustadio has always been my go to, but even he's not really far off/ is exactly what MCH is now. Just needs a push in the right direction. maybe a bit more Alagan.

If we're talkin about mass overhaul which his what I really want, I wanna see full on DoF/Elsword Rose type Machinist full of AoE Airstrikes, mines, tiny robot summons, turrets, lasers, Much Bigger focus on Mechanical Robot (to make it better than it is now), maybe even a perm little flying robot thing that does a tiny bit of damage, but upgrades to the full on mech for cooldown.

But in terms of gameplay, We have three drills which is boring af, the three combo is meh but everyone has it to some degree (although I'd still like to see it be different), I like heat blast but it could be a little different and I wouldn't mind, Integrated with things above, we could have better buttons to press and more combo follow ups. Also flamethrower could be literally anything else. Literally any kind of movement ability would be nice, and I still lean into the full on selfish Ranged, its little support defense things can either be for itself or just remove dismantle.

[Connor]

Not to mention incorrect; they can change it without ever "admitting they were wrong".

How?

Keep in mind that Bard needs to balanced so it has less support than Dancer, less personal dps than Machinist, entirely passive support that can’t use gauges, MP, or any form of management system (cuz dps need to dps), along with maintaining several gameplay relics (DoTs left but have no interaction with anything, Paeon is there because they didn’t want to delete it and not because of the gameplay it adds, Ballad kinda sucks because of Bloodletter changes but the song itself wasn’t adjusted in any way), it’s not allowed to heal because Dancer, mitigation is essentially a ranged role skill, the ‘musical’ aspect of the job is literally interrupted by you knocking an arrow mid-pirouette, Minne is negligible as actual support, Paean is functionally redundant because Esuna-able debuffs are almost never unavoidable (and thus it’s extremely rare for them to ever actually to be applied). A significant portion of the job is literally just hitting the same button over and over until you get a proc. That’s not even getting into how massively penalised Bard is for misaligning song timing due to death etc because of the cool downs, which completely contradicts their ‘easy and laid-back’ gameplay style they’re supposedly trying to create. You literally can’t even sing Ballad for the full duration because it’s so bad, you need to cut it at 15 seconds because of raid buff alignments

Personally I don’t see how they’re ever going to make Bard a satisfying job to play unless they admit ‘we’ve got this job totally wrong and need to start from scratch’. I mean, they can’t even feasibly add any more skills to level it for level 90-100. In the devs eyes, if it gets high potency dps it overtakes Machinist, if it gets valuable / useful support it overtakes Dancer. What even can they do with Bard anymore?

[Supersnow845]

^i suggested removing radiant finale. Redistributing that potency to refulgent arrow and upping refulgent arrow’s proc chance, then baking army’s ethos into all songs, deleting army’s paeon and returning foe’s requiem as the third song, foes requiem could be a thirty second song so the songs more properly like up rather than just cutting army’s paeon short, then they could make mana regen on BRD interesting as a proxy gauge for foes requiem acting as BRD’s burst song, they could add it to DOT procs or if they want to delete the DOT’s then bake it into say “slight regen on mana every time you use a skill that repertoire procs (so bloodletter in mages Ballard, pitch perfect in wanderers minuet or apex arrow at any time), you could even add a bonus to each song so that proc order differs between each song (say ephemeral arrow gets a potency boost if used after sidewinder in mages Ballard but the reverse is true under wanderers minuet)

Then they could delete barrage, bake raging strikes into battle voice (or alternatively up foes requiem’s effect and delete both) wardens paean and natures minne giving you 6 new skill slots to play with for DT, make all songs do an effect similar to what radiant finale does now so it feels like you are actually playing an instrument and then the job might start to feel rather interesting