Make Classes Multifaceted

[Tzain]

Well they can do Geomancer with Conj, and the reason for that is Stone and Aero, both of those are considered a norm part of a geomancer. Cleric stance will allow them to concentrate on dps spells, and they can get other skills and abilites like Flood and Tornado and Quake from their soul crystal, also they can make it so the Geomancer, like Summoner, could help healing but won't be effective due to stat build and traits given to them.

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.

As for Gladiator, they can become Dark knight, they can get a trait to remove enmity off their attacks, and it can work with some life draining attacks, and poisones and things like that attached to their soul crystal which will change certain combos to do something else.

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)

Thaum, why not make them a healer with their secondary job? And how do you do that, a Sage. Their crystal gives them access to cure spells, but to make them a different kind of healer.. make them a dps healer.. meaning they get their heals and mana according to astral fire and umbral ice, so they will still need to cast fire and ice spells. Ice will increase their mana restoration, while decreasing the potency of their heal spells, fire will reduce mana restoration while increasing the potency of their heal spells, so they will become a class that needs to know balance.

I tried this design as a lark a while back. It's "possible", but highly unlikely simply because of the umbral ice mechanic offering "infinite mana" and setting up a "cycle" of healing that will result in a functionally less effective healer than the existing two. It's close, but ultimately it falls out of reach (believe me, I tried!)

While Archer, yes it would stay as a range dps, but you can make them maybe become Ranger, a pet class archer? or maybe give them elemental arrow shots and in essence a caster? There are plenty of different things that can be done to change up how the archer works.

Now, here's something I can totally agree with. See, Bard is "Support". Absolultely nothing in their job skills is about increasing their DPS, in fact it does the opposite. Plenty of room for a DPS job to offer more focused on dealing direct damage.

Puglist, well Dancer does work due to the different forms with their attacks, but a tank dancer? How about instead a melee support class. Basically Bard is range support with songs that help increase party performance, maybe dancer can while in different forms for attacks cause certain debuffs to the mobs or even a form for tp restoration?

Read my mind here. In fact I've been toying with a mock-design for just such a melee support. There's quite a few ways to play Dances against Greased Lightening. Unfortunately, the proto design is still HORRIBLY overpowered.

Marauder, well Besereker kinda works with them. Give them an ability to remove enemity, and attacks and stuff to increase their damage output, but while damage output gets increased, they lose defense or certain abilites cause enrage in which they lose the ability to move... things like that.

I hinted at this before when I connected Dark Knight to Marauder, Marauder has a ton of HP even as it's baseclass, in addition it comes preequipped with ways to restore that HP. Both those things play perfectly against a job that consumes it's own HP to deal dmg, I usually equate that sort of behavior with Berserkers and, from what ive been told, it applies perfectly to the Dark Knights signature ability.

Lancer, in my opinion is the hardest, and that is because there is no other job in final fantasy lore that uses a lance/spear. I've heard people keep saying dark knight and sam.. but the limitation is the weapon. to use a different weapon other than the lancer/spear, it will need to change the animation of attacks, and that is something I don't see happening.. so I'd be interested in seeing a 2nd lancer job.. but if I had to create one.. Pikemen.. basically a tank with a spear and shield.

I'd peg Lancer as most likely to get a Tank job. It's going to look quite a bit like Warrior, a "Tank Stance" at 30 to decrease their dmg and increase their enmity/defense and then an ability every 5 levels to fill in the blanks. My guess is a focus on the "Parry" mechanic. The only ability that get's "dropped" is "Blood for Blood". Technically you could use it....but honestly that's a pretty bad idea. However, it does come equipped with a pull move just like tomahawk/Shield Lob and a stun that is a carbon copy of the one that Marauders use.

As far as a healer. We already have a DPS that turned into a healer. What would be next would be a healer class that is DESIGNED from the get go to function as a DPS secondary job.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Sunbrary]

Yeah but with ACN it was more balanced, since you only receive only 1 healing spell and 1 support spell leveling from 1-50 (Not including sustain for pets or Resurrection). The 1 healing spell doesn't become useless after either job because it's still effective with both SMN and SCH, but more so with SCH for obvious reasons, where as CNJ has even more spells catering towards a Healing only job, since you get Cure I, II and III, not to mention Medica I and II. Waay too many healing spells to become useless. Soooo how could this be fixed without making too many drastic changes, and i'm not going to reference how CNJ USED to be because it's not how it was...... sorta

[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.