Future new Physcial Ranged DPS Job

[Connor]

Honestly I struggle to see how they possibly can do a phys ranged when devs thinks Bard (of all jobs) has an absolute monopoly on Archery/Hunting ( lol ) So that’s basically every potential Hunter/crossbow/forest Ranger type design completely out the window.

Likewise with Machinists and guns/cannons/projectile shooters. Magitek themed jobs? Machinist ( yes I am aware it’s not literally magitek ). Dual gunner? Machinist.

The only way it works -given their system where apparently it’s impossible to have any kind of job identity overlaps - is if they go completely out of the blue with an FFXIV exclusive job using an entirely novel weapon, design and aesthetics. There’s really no space for anything ‘Final Fantasy’ anymore in phys ranged since we already have one job covering everything ‘Hunter’ related and one job covering everything ‘gun/tech’ related.

At least Dancer occupies its own unique ‘identity niche’ in that it’s…a Dancer that dances lol. Not really any room for overlap with Hunters or Snipers or the like there lol. But Bard and Machinist are so entirely confused about what they want to be that they’re literally stealing the identity from other jobs to make their own (i.e Bard is also Ranger)

[MikkoAkure]

Honestly I struggle to see how they possibly can do a phys ranged when devs thinks Bard (of all jobs) has an absolute monopoly on Archery/Hunting ( lol ) So that’s basically every potential Hunter/crossbow/forest Ranger type design completely out the window.

Is this something the devs actually said though?

Before NIN came out, Gladiator and then eventually Paladin had daggers and shortswords that were changed to be NIN only later on. There's no full on monopoly on a certain weapon-type, but if all the aesthetic has to go on is the weapon, then there's not too much room. There's only so many ways to shoot a bow or a gun and when the devs shook it up with the heated weapon skills for MCH people said they looked goofy and it was kinda jarring how you had jumping and shooting animations with magic bullets appearing and stuff and then go back to boring stand in one place animations.

PLD, NIN, DRK, SAM, RDM, VPR all use swords but they at least use them in unique ways or have other things going on aesthetically to differentiate them. If there's going to be another phys-ranged, it will need to find a similar way to differentiate themselves from the others, especially if it uses a weapon already used by another job like a bow or a gun. It's likely that if they went down that route, that some other novel mechanic like traps or something would end up being the actual aesthetic focus of the job rather than "shoot bow, but slightly different from that other guy".

Likewise with Machinists and guns/cannons/projectile shooters. Magitek themed jobs? Machinist ( yes I am aware it’s not literally magitek ). Dual gunner? Machinist.

MCH is literally magitek. All of the MCH's machines, the aetherotransformer (MCH lunchbox), and even the "ammunition" they use are technology that uses magic and were even designed in cooperation between Ishgard's Skysteel Manufactory and the Garlond Ironworks, using Garlean technology. In several places the word "magitek" is even used to refer to the job.

What separates it from pure Garelan magitek is that it is all powered on the aetherotransformer which is converting the user's aether into lightning energy to power everything so pure-blooded Garleans wouldn't be able to actually use any of it.