Does anyone else feel that the cross class skills aren't really amazing options?

[Eren_Falenas]

Now before you go "Play the game more" or "You haven't tried everything", let me preface this with this: I have every Discipline at 32 or higher, so I have a large portion of the cross class skills.

The cross-class skills that we're given are either not that useful, or redundant and some classes come out far better than others. For example (Since this is my main class) Paladins receive the following from their tertiary classes: Foresight, Skull Sunder, Bloodbath, Fracture, Mercy Stroke, Resurrection, Cure, Protect, and Stoneskin. Of those the only ones that cross class specifically for Paladins are: none. That's right, you get nothing extra special from being a paladin for either of those classes, and yes this happens a lot. You do get the Job skills which yes, they're awesome but you only get one every five levels of advancement and yes, you get a huge stat bonus increase.

[Eren_Falenas]

However, Gladiators/Paladins give Flash, Provoke, Savage Blade, Awareness and Convalescence. This means three of the powers that make a paladin so awesome are easily carried over to other classes. Granted yes you have to level up to unlock them but who doesn't?

My problem here is the redundancy and lack of upward mobility. Why would you give a Gladiator/Paladin the option to get Skull Sunder instead of Overpower when the Warrior gets both of the Paladins best threat gaining tools in Provoke and Flash. Why does a Paladin only learn Cure I and not Cure II?

The developers have already shown that they know there are errors in the cross-class skills with the change from Thunder being cross class to Blizzard II so its obvious that they know there are bugs in what they originally put out.

[Eren_Falenas]

This doesn't go for just Gladiator/Paladin either. Why give Surecast and Swiftcast instead of one of the other DPS spells from the Black Mage? I know there are going to be added classes, but that's just going to add more to the pool to dilute the problem.

TLR Version = The Cross-class skills for both regular classes and Jobs are defunct and need to be reorganized.

[Danbo05]

Cross-class skills could always get fixed in the future, that's what patches are for. As for now, its really more so for balancing reasons.

[Eren_Falenas]

I know they can be fixed, I'd like to see it be a bit sooner than say the expansion. They already gave SCH Cleric Stance and swapped the Thunder for Blizzard II

[Moqi]

As a WHM I love all my cross-class skills. I would never trade Swiftcast or Surecast for a dps spell.

[Odd]

I mainly play as WHM and BRD.

As WHM, I love Swiftcast, Surecast and Eye For an Eye.

As BRD, I love Internal Release and Blood For Blood.

And as for the OP's assertion that PLD has no useful cross class skills, Stoneskin is INCREDIBLY useful. As a WHM main, I love a PLD who will put Stoneskin on himself before the big hit comes. Or a PLD who will put it on the WAR tank in a tank swap scenario. Sure, the rest of PLD's cross class skills are lacking, but don't under estimate the importance of Stoneskin. Mercy Stroke is a decent one too. In lvl 50 dungeons, it can be a self heal for 1000+.

[Eren_Falenas]

Its not really that they're lacking, its that the skill you take away from them are so much better. Flash and Provoke are both really, really good and you get Awareness which makes you immune to crits for a short time plus the option of Convalescence to increase healing done to you. So it doesn't feel like they're getting much in return for what you get out of them. Stoneskin is very useful but if something better came along it wouldn't be as used, and so is the ability to just heal yourself in some areas, but the cross-class skills aren't balanced. You get far more utility out of leveling some classes than others.

[Eren_Falenas]

As a point of contention, just so you know I wont just single out my class. Dragoons give Blood for Blood, Invigorate and Feint. So they give a damage increase, a TP restore and a slow effect, in return they get: one self heal on damage (Bloodbath), one cd to increase crit (internal release) two defensive cooldowns (Featherfoot and Foresight), one straight heal (Second Wind), a slow effect that has a trigger (Haymaker), a threat generator (Skull Sunder) and a DoT (Fracture). Now most of those are extremely useful in single player scenarios, but many of these get tossed off a cliff when it comes to group play. They also may see far more utilization in PVP encounters. Having Pugilist as a cross class gives very little wiggle room as many of their abilities only have additional effects if you can assume a form, but the Marauder has quite a bit to play with. Such instead of Skull Sunder give them Brutal Swing which gives them a much needed stun.

[Eren_Falenas]

You can dissect each bit of a class and say: This doesn't really fit in. Such as why do BRDs still get Keen Flurry when the chance of them being in melee combat to require a parry is extremely limited or why does a BLM pick up Ruin when he already has elemental and untyped spells allotted to him?

I do enjoy the cross-class skills and the job system, but I think I preferred Square's original job system of FFT where you would gain job points and buy abilities and then transfer them to any other job that you wanted to play, but you would have A. a limited number of slots to use (Which we have) and B. Had to spend a super long time grinding to learn each skill (Which fits an MMO game that wants longevity)