Speculation on how jobs will change

[Altena]

In one of the early live letters Yoshi said that many jobs will be changing dramatically, and noted that MNK will be seeing the biggest change, and joked that the battle team are angry with him because he wants to change so much!

So what do you think is changing ? What would you like to see ? I would love to see a very creative discussion on this topic.

MNK:

What has been mentioned is MNK will be more focused on chaining skills. The more abilities you chain, the higher the damage bonus. Personally I like this concept as the idea in my mind is that MNK is a fast, consistent attacker. However in saying this I would also like to see MNK in more of a light tanking role, by bringing back a blocking/counter system that XI saw, perhaps something like a "Counter stance" (which is good against fast hitters), a "Guarding stance" (blocks / reduces heavy hitters), a "Flurry stance" (or something similar, which increases attack speed), and "Lightfoot" stance which increases evasion (good against mobs with high accuracy).

In saying this of course I don't want to steal some of the PLD fire, but I don't have enough experience on the job to comment (perhaps a PLD vet can chime in here).

DRG:

I would like to see a heavier focus on the "flamboyant" fighting style that DRG has always had. Over the top weaponskills, a larger focus on "Jump", along with augments/enhancments that come with the ability. DRG being probably my main job in 1.x I wouldn't ask for it to be changed an aweful lot. I do hope they hold themselves as crit hit beasts.

WAR:

Since I see WAR as a hybrid tank/DD/Crowd control, I would prefer to see war in a more specific role. Personally I would like to see a heavier focus in DD war's now that they have defined PLD a little more. To me "Warrior" has always had a huge weapon, slow attack speed, heavy hitter, solid DD. I would personally prefer this, and for them to become more of a traditional WAR in the series.

BLM:

To be brutally honest I hated 1.x spell casting.. 1...2....3....1...2... etc. I would like to see a higher focus on chaining magic with melee weapon skills, or more variable casting options with things like DoT's, elemental weakness triggering etc. I am not much of a mage player to be honest but when having to step in the shoes of a BLM in 1.x I found myself lying back in the chair spamming 123.

I will leave it at that for now as they are the jobs I ended up playing the most in 1.x, however I would love to hear where people would like to see their favourite jobs going in ARR. We already know some very basic things, and quite a few of you probably had a play around in alpha so you probably already know the direction some jobs are heading (please don't break your NDA's).

[Yrusama]

Would be nice if THM could bestow elemental attributes to melee party members, like Vivi in FFIX or the Lalafell in the original opening movie fight against the malboro.

[Altena]

Would be nice if THM could bestow elemental attributes to melee party members, like Vivi in FFIX or the Lalafell in the original opening movie fight against the malboro.

Yes this as well! I was looking forward to being able to cast fire on my friend's arrows after watching that CS... I was utterly disappointed.. I think it should be only short and temporary though, as I would like to see RDM (as a proper melee elemental mage) make an appearance with en- spells eventually..

[Mjollnir]

Would be nice if THM could bestow elemental attributes to melee party members, like Vivi in FFIX or the Lalafell in the original opening movie fight against the malboro.

Yeah! Perhaps somewhat akin to The Last Story rather than with en-spells.

[Aion]

Seeing how much they changed the "alpha" classes (lancer/arc/conjurer) I have faith the rest will be interesting..cant wait for beta!

[Solace]

I would like to see more team work..
I would like for mages to have more assist spells with cooler effects.
Similar to Cutscene effects for adding fire to an arrow, or a barrier over an entire party, in an AOE.

I would also like for melee to have more abilities, to save those mages, if they end up pulling too much hate.
There is never a shortage of team mates, willing to push the healer out of the way and take one for the team.
Sometimes that is the most honorable sacrifice and it can allow a team who was going to die, one last chance.
It would have to be timed properly to make it fun.

Say you see the mob readying an ability on a party member and you know it will kill or seriously hurt them.
You use that ability on that member and you take the effect of that next ability, onto yourself.

In AOES you might be able to use this strategy, to cover half the team, using the other halves bodies as shields.
So only half of you take damage, or wipe, etc.
Might be nice for an ultra powerful move.. Like say oh idk... Megaflare....

We need more tech as well.
I would love to see a "Barrett" class, with more accessibility to tech.
This is FF, not knights of Camelot and I think we forget that way too much.

[Feln]

I'd like to see some more exotic weapons, similar to what the guy above me mentioned with Barret. Don't get me wrong, I love the sword, shield, greatsword, polearm, HAND TO HAND, and all of that.. but where are the unconventionally mastered unconventional weapons? Gimmie a swallow. A whip. Deck of cards. Flail. Shotgun. Vial of corrosive ooze. Pogo stick. Broken beer bottle. Something out of the normal, man!

[Radacci]

MNK:

What has been mentioned is MNK will be more focused on chaining skills. The more abilities you chain, the higher the damage bonus. Personally I like this concept as the idea in my mind is that MNK is a fast, consistent attacker. However in saying this I would also like to see MNK in more of a light tanking role, by bringing back a blocking/counter system that XI saw, perhaps something like a "Counter stance" (which is good against fast hitters), a "Guarding stance" (blocks / reduces heavy hitters), a "Flurry stance" (or something similar, which increases attack speed), and "Lightfoot" stance which increases evasion (good against mobs with high accuracy).

In saying this of course I don't want to steal some of the PLD fire, but I don't have enough experience on the job to comment (perhaps a PLD vet can chime in here).

DRG:

I would like to see a heavier focus on the "flamboyant" fighting style that DRG has always had. Over the top weaponskills, a larger focus on "Jump", along with augments/enhancments that come with the ability. DRG being probably my main job in 1.x I wouldn't ask for it to be changed an aweful lot. I do hope they hold themselves as crit hit beasts.

WAR:

Since I see WAR as a hybrid tank/DD/Crowd control, I would prefer to see war in a more specific role. Personally I would like to see a heavier focus in DD war's now that they have defined PLD a little more. To me "Warrior" has always had a huge weapon, slow attack speed, heavy hitter, solid DD. I would personally prefer this, and for them to become more of a traditional WAR in the series.

BLM:

To be brutally honest I hated 1.x spell casting.. 1...2....3....1...2... etc. I would like to see a higher focus on chaining magic with melee weapon skills, or more variable casting options with things like DoT's, elemental weakness triggering etc. I am not much of a mage player to be honest but when having to step in the shoes of a BLM in 1.x I found myself lying back in the chair spamming 123.

Only reason for monks to do endless combos, is if there's no TP cost for their skills or if their TP regain is faster than others.
Fast hitters...there's no such thing in XIV ^^ except maybe other monks, but it wouldnt make sense to have a counter stance vs your own class...
your evasion stance sounds odd. if it was aimed at countering high-acc mobs, then no other mobs with low-mid acc would ever be able to hit you, so it would counter everything else. and you'd basically never get hit by anything else but high-acc mobs....OP much.
Your ideas turn monk into a Overpowered hybrid of everything ^^ block, high eva, DD, counter, atk spd...really? Maybe monk should be prime tank, and paladin Holy-DD ^^

BLM cant even use any weaponskills, and they are a caster class, so they should cast spells, not whack mobs with wand anyways.
I think what you're talking about is closer to what other jobs do. They should add another job for debuffs, dots etc instead. I think they wanna keep the 16 skills/class, and 5/job; so they cant start adding a bunch of new stuff to each class/job.

DRG: well with just GCD, you can jump every 4sec, but the only reason to jump a lot, would be if there was some combo involved with it. Or turn more skills into jumps; but that would be absurd

Seeing how much they changed the "alpha" classes (lancer/arc/conjurer) I have faith the rest will be interesting..cant wait for beta!

They barely changed anything...only removing CD, and using GCD. Some combos are different too.

I would also like for melee to have more abilities, to save those mages, if they end up pulling too much hate.
There is never a shortage of team mates, willing to push the healer out of the way and take one for the team.
Sometimes that is the most honorable sacrifice and it can allow a team who was going to die, one last chance.
It would have to be timed properly to make it fun.

Say you see the mob readying an ability on a party member and you know it will kill or seriously hurt them.
You use that ability on that member and you take the effect of that next ability, onto yourself.

In AOES you might be able to use this strategy, to cover half the team, using the other halves bodies as shields.
So only half of you take damage, or wipe, etc.
Might be nice for an ultra powerful move.. Like say oh idk... Megaflare....

Uhm no, people should just learn to manage their aggro more that's what the aggro bars are for.
And you got tank, that should aggro mobs to get them off mages.
It may be appropriate for PLD to have cover, and Sentinel buff, that reduce damage to party, like in FF13; but not melee in general. PLD already do have cover though, but dont know how it works exactly.

I'd like to see some more exotic weapons, similar to what the guy above me mentioned with Barret. Don't get me wrong, I love the sword, shield, greatsword, polearm, HAND TO HAND, and all of that.. but where are the unconventionally mastered unconventional weapons? Gimmie a swallow. A whip. Deck of cards. Flail. Shotgun. Vial of corrosive ooze. Pogo stick. Broken beer bottle. Something out of the normal, man!

Broken beer bottle...you planning to kill Bahamut with that? ^^
You should already be aware that classes are tied to weapons, so you'd need a new class for your beer bottle; that's a big no no. I'm sure they will add new classes/jobs with new weapons as we go along. there's plenty of unused classes/jobs.
If you look at other FF games, there's something like 100 different classes/jobs, and we have 25ish.

[Zoloe]

PLD already do have cover though, but dont know how it works exactly.

It works pretty much exactly how Solace would want of an ability for other melee classes. When you use cover on another player any attacks they would take end up on you instead. I know in FFXI, you had to actually stand in front of the player you're trying to protect, but I think in FFXIV you didn't have to... I forget. ^^;

I agree with you though, just manage the aggro. The tank should be the one doing the saving if he or she can with cover.

[Altena]

Only reason for monks to do endless combos, is if there's no TP cost for their skills or if their TP regain is faster than others.
Fast hitters...there's no such thing in XIV ^^ except maybe other monks, but it wouldnt make sense to have a counter stance vs your own class...
your evasion stance sounds odd. if it was aimed at countering high-acc mobs, then no other mobs with low-mid acc would ever be able to hit you, so it would counter everything else. and you'd basically never get hit by anything else but high-acc mobs....OP much.
Your ideas turn monk into a Overpowered hybrid of everything ^^ block, high eva, DD, counter, atk spd...really? Maybe monk should be prime tank, and paladin Holy-DD ^^

Yeah sorry in my OP it does sound like I am listing all of those stances.. I am also not talking about a huge evasion boost, but lets face it - evasion really doesn't do a lot (due to dLvl) on anything worth it, so this would more be for trash mobs. I am also not talking about a huge boost, just a boost.

As for varying attack speeds - there are indeed quite a few. MNK just has a seemingly faster attack speed since they are effectively the only dual wield class. Single handed weapons hit a lot faster then 2-handed weapons (look at PLD vs WAR/DRG). MNK just has the feeling of a faster attack speed due to their attack round containing 2 hits not 1.

BLM cant even use any weaponskills, and they are a caster class, so they should cast spells, not whack mobs with wand anyways.
I think what you're talking about is closer to what other jobs do. They should add another job for debuffs, dots etc instead. I think they wanna keep the 16 skills/class, and 5/job; so they cant start adding a bunch of new stuff to each class/job.

I think you misunderstood my comment on weapon skills. Staff/club weapon skills ended in the early 1.x days, and for the better. I would like to see a "magic burst" style system introduced. If you didn't play XI - Magic Bursts were basically forced crit hits if the spell landed after 1-2 melee performed a skill chain (combo) and was tied to the element of the skillchain.

I am not talking about paralyze, slow, bind, gravity etc.. I am talking about Burn, Frost, Shock etc. That is more of a BLM spell tree. Also I would like to see Spike spells (such as Ice Spikes/Shock Spikes).

DRG: well with just GCD, you can jump every 4sec, but the only reason to jump a lot, would be if there was some combo involved with it. Or turn more skills into jumps; but that would be absurd

More skills into jumps? Absurd? Why? Have you played a Final Fantasy game before? Jump is pretty much the one iconic DRG ability. It should be expanded on.

They barely changed anything...only removing CD, and using GCD. Some combos are different too.

Skills / playstyle / battle system seems pretty different to me according to the released videos..

Broken beer bottle...you planning to kill Bahamut with that? ^^
You should already be aware that classes are tied to weapons, so you'd need a new class for your beer bottle; that's a big no no. I'm sure they will add new classes/jobs with new weapons as we go along. there's plenty of unused classes/jobs.
If you look at other FF games, there's something like 100 different classes/jobs, and we have 25ish.

Technically they are not tied. Using THM and CNJ as examples. Both can use 2 handed staves. Both can use 1 handed wands/clubs. The difference is in the description stating which class they belong to. i.e. "Conjurer's Arm" etc..

edit~
On a side note, did you come in here to disagree on everything people post in here? Speculation / wishful thinking is not an expectation. It is used to initiate creativity, and if you are here to deny that of people, or do not wish to input your opinion on the direction the jobs you enjoy are heading, then you are not welcome.