/r/ffxivdiscussion: What would a successful 8.0 job rework look like to you?

[ArchlordPie]

Add specializations to all the jobs. My ideas for the casters are as follows:

SMN - One "standard" spec that plays more or less the exact same way it currently does. One "big pet" spec that replaces the egis with more demis, extends the duration of the demis, and adds additional buttons to Bahamut and Phoenix. One "small pet" spec that replaces the demis with more egis.

BLM - "Fire" spec that plays the way BLM currently does. "Ice" spec that deals less overall damage than Fire, but extends the Astra/Umbral timer and doesn't have MP to worry about (this is the "beginner" spec). "Lightning" spec that's proc-based like ARR BLM and full of instant casts (this is the "pretending to be a phys ranged" spec).

RDM - "Balance" spec that plays the way RDM currently does, but Verraise has a lengthy (multiple minutes long) cooldown. "White" spec that lowers overall damage while buffing Vercure, removing Verraise's cooldown, and adding additional defensive utility. "Black" spec that increases overall damage while disabling Vercure and Verraise and other defensive utilities.

All the healers get a "DPS" spec (Geomancer for WHM, Chemist for SCH, something else for AST and SGE) with a complex rotation, no oGCD heals, and passives that cause GCD heals to generate the same resources for the big burst buttons that the DPS spells do. Basically, they build resource whether you're DPSing or healing, with the caveat that your oGCD heals are disabled entirely so you HAVE to use GCD heals in order to do your job. They all additionally get dedicated "pure healer" and "shield healer" specs to add more party comp options; the "DPS" specs offer primarily pure healing for WHM and AST, and shield healing for SCH and SGE, same as present.


All the tanks get "self heal", "mitigation", and "DPS" flavor specs, where the self-healer specs have strong self-healing (basically current tanks), mitigation specs have no self-healing but strong cooldowns, and DPS specs have neither of those things and no invuln either, but deal a bit more damage than usual and have a more complex rotation. The intent here is for self-heal specs to be used for dungeons and soloing stuff, mit specs to be used for progression raiding, and DPS specs to be used for offtanking and trivial content. As long as SE tunes bosses right (meaning, attempting 4th-Floor Savage with 2 DPS tanks should result in both of them getting one-shot by the first buster without heavy support from the rest of the party, regardless of their gear situation), it'll work just fine.

Phys range should all get one "standard" spec (basically the way the class plays now), one "selfish" spec (less team buffs, more damage; MCH in particular gets cast times on all its buttons in exchange for its DPS going through the roof), and one "unique" spec based on the class. BRD gets a DoT-based spec, DNC gets a movement-utility spec (basically, lots of dashes + positionals that debuff the target), and MCH gets a permanent pet spec.

No idea what to do about melee DPS. I don't play them much so I have no ideas here.

Basically, if you like your current job, you can keep your current job, and the other specs are supposed to add variety to some of the DPS, fix long-standing issues with others (looking at you healers, resmage, and the perpetually-undertuned MCH), and generally freshen the game up a bit. The DPS specs for tanks and healers in particular have very intentional weaknesses that are supposed to keep them from being 100% meta 100% of the time; if a dungeon party forms with a DPS-spec tank, a DPS-spec healer, and two selfish-specced DPS, the intended outcome is that they either get stuck single-pulling, or someone has to respec, because wall-to-wall pulls in that situation should consistently result in a dead tank from lack of sustain. Alternatively, if the tank goes self-heal spec and one of the DPS is a White-spec RDM keeping Verprotect (just an example) and other mits up on the tank, the healer and other DPS should be perfectly fine doing selfish DPS things for that run. And of course, if all four players are using the "standard" spec for their jobs, they'll naturally wind up with a balanced party and be able to play the game the way they already do today.

(And preferably, players would be able to respec even in instances, as long as they're out of combat.)

[ovIm]

As for job gameplay, this would be nice imho:
- Reduce the dependency on high potency nukes on high cooldowns for the overall damage. Flatten the curve a bit.
- Reintroduce different damage profiles (Rampers, Plate-Spinners, DoT'ers etc)
- Reduce the efficiency of buff stacking (multiplicative damage calculation goes brrrr).
-> this would allow job designers to vary buff timings again, giving every class a distinct rhythm, and combat the current synchronized burst meta.

- Carefully tune potencies so that in the median, all classes of a role perform similar over a fight.


Oh, and also, because fight design and class design go hand in hand:
- Bring more reactive mechanics like Alarm Pheromones, that test a different kind of player skill.
(I very much believe people hating on AP is because this game has shun away from mechanics like that for too long. If those are slowly reintroduced, players will get used to them again.)
- Experiment more with fights similar to Rathalos, where your burst depends more on the boss going down after specific things happened.

[CidHeiral]

1. Delete all the party buffs.
2. Make each job play in a unique and interesting way with mechanics that fit the job fantasy and require some brain activity to do successfully.
3. Ignore everyone who cries about the imbalance #2 causes.

[CVXIV]

I would like if the jobs would resemble more of what they have been like in previous games. That mostly refers to Dark Knight, but I also can't remember a lot of how the other jobs played in older titles as it has been awhile

There are some ideas I have that in theory sound fun to me, but in execution it'd likely be a nightmare. I'm not a developer or game designer, so all I can really say is "I think this would be cool"

Some minor ones that I don't think would cause too much issue:

Gunbreaker having a guaranteed crit on any skills that requires spending cartridges
- This is because in FF8 when you press the trigger right when Squall attacks the gunblade goes off and it deals a critical hit.

Bard and Machinist having the slow walk aiming animation that they use in PvP
- I think it's a nice touch that they actually need to aim their weapons, and would likely give their basic attacks more weight behind them.

The most contentious idea I have would be for Dark Knight, and it's to have HP be used as a resource like in previous games. They would still be able to mitigate as they do now, but the playstyle would become more of a risk vs reward, where you can push yourself and deal a lot of damage and risk death, or play it safe and deal less damage.

To combat this, they would be able to replenish their own health by siphoning it from their enemies so that they can somewhat sustain themselves and make things a little easier on the healer in this scenario.

However it's one thing for that to work in a single player game vs an mmo so I don't see that ever happening, and it's not something I ever seriously push for

Beyond that, I'm not sure
I'd like each job to keep its identity
For example, I'd be disappointed if paladin lost a lot of its party wide defensive capabilities because to me it should be the most tanky of the tanks. So high health and defense with plenty of support

Edit: One thing I just remembered, Summoner
I believe Summoner should have access to more summons, which I know is a very shocking thing to say
How I think it should work:

Bahamut allows you to use the elements aspected to Astral Aether
You would be able to summon: Garuda, Ifrit, and Ramuh
Phoenix allows you to use the elements aspected to Umbral Aether
You would be able to summon: Shiva, Leviathan, and Titan

It could change, as I'm not confident on which aspect Bahamut and Phoenix should give but the point is that it allows summoners to have more variety with their summons, and they would be able to use every element.

For what their third big summon should be, I'm not sure
I've seen Odin and Alexander tossed around, and I'm more partial to Odin myself personally
Basically I don't care for solar bahamut and think it should change lol
Honestly they could have a trait that after one rotation, you can use a skill to advance Bahamut and Phoenix to Hydaelyn and Zodiark, or at least a stand-in for them if it's to prevent any spoilers

So you'd have all elements and then the icon of light and dark

[Sylpharia]

i feel like there's a lot of former wow players coming in and wanting it to be like this and frankly i'd rather have homogenization rather than god comps/only being brought for 1 (one) specific skill you have like bloodlust

You mean like RDM and their rez? And before you mention their buff, picto brings that aswell with alot more damage.
In regards to 'only bringing things with bloodlust' said classes/specs are currently top tier classes in Retail WoW.

[MaxDetroit]

I recently switched from PC to Console (XBOx) and I really like the Controller controls. But, with that said, less skill-bloat would be prefereable. E.g having more actions that automatically changing to the next combo (instead of having three skill-action-buttons) would be nice.

And I would really love some more synergies between the jobs and especilly the role actions. E.g. a role action for magic ranged dps that synergizes with a melee range dps action.

After all this game needs more options to build your character, in this case: customize your job. Give us some decisions to make, e.g. which actions to use and which not, like choose 3 actions out of a list of 6 or something like that. For example it would be nice to customize a healer more into dps or into support othe dps (buffings and debuffing), there needs to be at least some more room to play around with a job.

[Kohashi]

All of these things already exist if you're in the know.

They do? where? I still have 3-4 full hotbars for the healer.

[Connor]

I was thinking but don’t they pull this all this time?

‘Big battle system changes’ *the changes were 2-min meta and job simplification*
‘Dividing healers into separate pure/barrier categories!’ *They failed. Spectacularly.*
‘Healer DPS ability adjustments!’ *it’s 10 potency on Dia*

They love using the promise of ‘big changes’ to rope people in and keep them hanging around until the next expansion where literally nothing changes and they once again double down on all the worst possible decisions they could’ve made

[Inputnamehere]

Remove 120-sec protocol and give fights varying timelines. Let people figure out which jobs are better in certain fights, especially difficult content. If someone's worried about their job not welcomed in a difficult fight, they should go level another job.

Give each job a talent tree with at least two paths, then adjust their toolkits in different ways on each path. Like Warrior can choose to be a tank or pure DPS with a big axe, Black Mage can be something like standard or hard mode with huge movement penalties.

And maybe stop worrying about implementing new designs into old content, which will take forever. Start doing the changes in new patches.

[ovIm]

If someone's worried about their job not welcomed in a difficult fight, they should go level another job.

Personally, I don't think this part specifically is a good idea. Rather, fights should be designed in a way that any job can bring something positive to the table, and different party comps result in some bits being easier, other bits being more challenging. Players should be free to play the job they like without feeling useless in a fight.