Make Classes Multifaceted

[Ultimatecalibur]

Except the Gladiator uses reductive defense rather than recovery. The moment they are no longer getting hit or intending to get hit 12 of their 17 abilities are rendered useless. (However, the idea of a Dark Knight does work for the HP driven Marauder in a much more acceptable fashion, so you're not far off)

Only 9 (or 7 depending on your perspective on Convalescence and Tempered Will), not 12, would be "useless" (some of the others would be underpowered but not useless) as they currently are. In comparison a Lancer, a class with a surprising number of abilities that parallel marauder and gladiator, has 6 abilities (all of them attacks) that would be useless as they stand if it switched to tank and Doom Spike is gained far to late as a potential aoe threat generator for low level tanking purposes. It would take potentially the same amount of work to change the Gladiator into a dps as it would to Change a Lancer into a tank.

[Nahara]

It would take potentially the same amount of work to change the Gladiator into a dps as it would to Change a Lancer into a tank.

That's kinda the problem with the current classes, aside from Arcanist. They're all very single-minded in how they were built and it would take a LOT of tweaking in order to give them a second role. Unless SE decides to heavily revamp the classes later on in order to make them more flexible (or SE if VERY liberal with the changes that can happen to a class when a soulstone is equipped), we may not see any new roles added to the current classes.

[Tzain]

Only 9 (or 7 depending on your perspective on Convalescence and Tempered Will), not 12, would be "useless" (some of the others would be underpowered but not useless) as they currently are. In comparison a Lancer, a class with a surprising number of abilities that parallel marauder and gladiator, has 6 abilities (all of them attacks) that would be useless as they stand if it switched to tank and Doom Spike is gained far to late as a potential aoe threat generator for low level tanking purposes. It would take potentially the same amount of work to change the Gladiator into a dps as it would to Change a Lancer into a tank.

I assume you're talking about the 2 positional attacks.

Heavy Strike: It's a pure DPS increase. Thus, low priority to tanking. The follow up is level 46, which means 4/5 job skills are available.
Impulse Drive: Utterly useless until level 38. The combo attack it leads to doesn't require positioning. So it's currently feasible to do a Leg Sweep > Impulse Drive > Disembowel > Chaos Thrust without any modifications/additions.

I've had to Lancer Tank pretty much every dungeon up to and including haukke manor due to vanishing tanks. Which means we end up with only a 3 player team. I cross classed Flash, Skull Sunder, Bloodbath, provoke, and every Defensive Cooldown I could fit and cycled through them much the way I would on a paladin/GLA. Worked fine, although I admit I ran into some longevity problems on longer fights. One of the first things I noticed was the Doctore Gear from Halitali, All my tanks wore that armor due to it having the best stats at that level range, when my Lancer wore it he was nearly as tanky. As I replaced it with higher level DoW gear I was comparatively less comfortable. So opening a lancer job to the heavy armor use-list would go a long way with keeping things under control. If I had actual job skills to go with the cross class ones I brought in I'm positive it would work.

[Velox]

But the presence of Medica II being 1 click away makes it crazy unbalanced. Imagine a 8 man group with 1 tank, 6 Geomancers, and a White Mage. That's 7 Medica IIs every 30 seconds split between that many sources. Completely overpowered.

This has already been done. 7 WHM and 1 Tank is the same thing with 6 of the WHM in Cleric Stance. WHM has plenty of DPS potential in Cleric Stance to pass a lot of the DPS checks in-game. Stone II is something like 500+ (non-critted) and they have access to 2 DoTs that stack.

FFXIV is a casual game, not some hard-core MMO where only certain class combinations can achieve victory. This game has a lot of room for fun group set-ups to allow for some creative strategies to accomplish the same goals. Is it overpowered? Sometimes it is, but at the same time it isn't because these kinds of set-ups are situational. There's a video on youtube of a WHM tanking Titan HM. I mean, all kinds of crazy things can be done in FFXIV. That doesn't mean it's optimal though, as these things come with inherent risks and the possibility of low returns.

[Gamemako]

I seriously doubt that will ever happen simply because some classes are simply incapable of developing into a well-formed version of a given role without monumental changes.

Yoshi has implied that there can be much greater changes from class to job.

We created the system, but we do not necessarily need to follow it all the time. For example, let’s say that the Dark Knight is the second Gladiator job, when you get its job stone at level 30, all acquired Gladiator skills will certainly be modified to better fit the image of the Dark Knight.

In their current incarnations, I would agree that a second job out of those four classes you mentioned are pretty unlikely. Everything will depend from there on just how much they are willing to change.

GEO (Geomancer) would be a very good fit for CNJ as a result, allowing them to concentrate on attack magic at the expense of healing potency and spells (maybe they could have a trait that boosts attack magic potency even further if under the effect of Cleric Stance, or something).

You have 4 damage spells and 1 damage ability plus a whole lot of stuff that is useless to a DPS. CNJ is the absolute worst class to make a second job for. Mechanically, you will have to completely redo the class to turn it into anything. If any class gets no second job, CNJ will be it.

This has already been done. 7 WHM and 1 Tank is the same thing with 6 of the WHM in Cleric Stance. WHM has plenty of DPS potential in Cleric Stance to pass a lot of the DPS checks in-game. Stone II is something like 500+ (non-critted) and they have access to 2 DoTs that stack.

Actually, you don't see that very frequently because WHM is around 70% of a DPS, much like a tank. WHM gets 10% from Cleric Stance; BLM gets 80% from AF3. Both average 170 potency in ST spam mode. BLM is not a top-tier single-target DPS, either; it's fourth in line (MNK > DRG > SMN > BLM). What people actually are doing is monumentally overgearing for content and then doing silly things because the game doesn't sync gear like it should. I hate to tell you, but the designers didn't intend for players to never see sisters spawn in Garuda HM. It happens because a group of ilvl90 players will deal so much DPS that she has no escape, no hope, none.

[Enkidoh]

You have 4 damage spells and 1 damage ability plus a whole lot of stuff that is useless to a DPS. CNJ is the absolute worst class to make a second job for. Mechanically, you will have to completely redo the class to turn it into anything. If any class gets no second job, CNJ will be it.

We do also cross class Blizzard II from THM after all (and originally Thunder), not to mention spells like Virus from ACN. And before you pass judgement, GEO in FFXI is virtually a rip off lore wise from CNJ.

Also considering CNJ as originally designed did have spells from the entire elemental wheel, they can easily add new spells as part of the upgrade. GEO would be a Job upgrade, so therefore it could easily adjust the healing-based abilities into DD-focused ones, like how SMN and SCH are handled.

[Ristin]

Lancer could branch into the Templar Knight from Tactics Advance. Heavy armor with a spear and some white magic.

[OmegaSinX]

[QUOTE=Kittty_Cat;1844495]When I started on Archer .....QUOTE]

I believe SE hint on that are moving to hybrid classes in the future. Meaning classes will be able to fill multiple roles.

[Mardel]

I know people want ARC to become a ranger eventually... but I don't see it happening unless ARC/BRD gets a massive nerf. Consider this, I would dare say atm SMN/BRD crap all over any other DPS classes. Brd is part support already... so imagine if it gained MORE dps. Why take another class? LB build? Then just BRD, RNG, SMN, RNG for your dps.

Now onto tanks, I could maybe see LNC becoming a tank of sorts but not really. The class currently would end up just like Warrior because as we have learned sub healing (whm) on PLD blows. I would say most pld I know probably use stoneskin from whm otherwise them 400 cures isn't doing anything for you >.>;

THM is stuck, unless it become a SAGE (another dps) it is too heavily vested in "elemental magic", elemental magic that doesn't even exist. (Lore should change this to reflect that tbh because fire killing fire is kind of derp, what I'm saying is that blm/thm should be considered to manipulate aether/mana to use spells that LOOK like elements but aren't elements.)

CNJ, it could be a geomancer... but you will have to lock it out of medica II or make it so weak that there is no reason to heal. However making it have bad mnd to lower the healing it can do... why use cleric stance lol?


The absolute easiest solution to this is one people probably don't want... making each class = 1 job. Meaning either sch/smn will have to take a hit and be re-vamped. Otherwise what will end up happening is that when you change into a job it will have to get abilities that replace class based ones. The issue is they have a 5 ability model right now... that HEAVILY hinders what they can do. Anyways it will be interesting to see what they come up with, but don't set your hopes high.

[Gamemako]

We do also cross class Blizzard II from THM after all (and originally Thunder), not to mention spells like Virus from ACN. And before you pass judgement, GEO in FFXI is virtually a rip off lore wise from CNJ.

Oh, I'm not arguing lore. The problem is that existing mechanics do not support a second job at all without extreme modification. They DPS abilities they lack are too great in number while the healing ones they do have are too powerful to leave alone.

Also considering CNJ as originally designed did have spells from the entire elemental wheel, they can easily add new spells as part of the upgrade. GEO would be a Job upgrade, so therefore it could easily adjust the healing-based abilities into DD-focused ones, like how SMN and SCH are handled.

SCH is an entirely different beast; the class was designed with the healer role in mind from the start. SCH adapts existing mechanics for healing, like Aetherflow, Summon, and Rouse. CNJ doesn't have any unique mechanics to co-opt to fill a damage role, nor does the class have a spell repertoire suitable to attacking. You can't use Cure 1/2/3, Medica/2, Raise, Stoneskin, Protect, or Esuna to attack. The only way to get around the problem with CNJ is to completely replace spells rather than adapt.

I know people want ARC to become a ranger eventually... but I don't see it happening unless ARC/BRD gets a massive nerf. Consider this, I would dare say atm SMN/BRD crap all over any other DPS classes. Brd is part support already... so imagine if it gained MORE dps. Why take another class? LB build? Then just BRD, RNG, SMN, RNG for your dps.

Moreover, you'd have two jobs that play identically.

Now onto tanks, I could maybe see LNC becoming a tank of sorts but not really. The class currently would end up just like Warrior because as we have learned sub healing (whm) on PLD blows.

I have no idea how you got from Lancer to healing or why.

CNJ, it could be a geomancer... but you will have to lock it out of medica II or make it so weak that there is no reason to heal. However making it have bad mnd to lower the healing it can do... why use cleric stance lol?

You would use it to hit 80% of a WHM's Medica II. You have to completely delete one of the two abilities or your job is going to be broken.

The absolute easiest solution to this is one people probably don't want... making each class = 1 job.

You don't have to unify everything. Some jobs get two, and some don't. Remember that one of two jobs is effectively locked out due to bonus point distribution in the first place, so it's not much of a loss.