Honest question: If every player/class/job is equal,who is unique? (Gameplay topic)

[Prototype909]

Tanks with low threat, but high survivability.
DPS that can transfer hate.
A melee DPS with cast times that root them in place.
A healer that can damage themselves or party members to cure others (lol, imagine a Raise that required the player to use *all* their HP)
A pet job where the player does very little damage and their pet will die to a couple of hits, but does massive damage.
A pure support class
A pure debuff class (debuff resistance/immunity on bosses kinda negates this, though)
Evasion Tanks
Debuff Tanks
Drain Tanks
A DPS that does more damage the more enmity they have.

I actually like a lot of these ideas but let me take a moment to pick them apart just to see what your responses would be

Tanks with low threat, but high survivability - The game is presently centered around aggro being generated at a very specific, pre-designed level where holding it should never really be in question. If you're suggesting that the tank be forced to do something akin to FF XI's Paladin aggro rotations which were ability centric rather than weapon skill centric then you're playing a very cautious game of cooperation with your DPS where you're going to be entering periods of lull where you may not be generating any aggro at all relative to your DPS in certain periods of time (I also have to question how effective your cooldowns/abilities would really be if they're being used to gain aggro rather than survive hits). Though you could mitigate this by actually making your weapon skills be what generates your defensive cooldowns rather than abilities. I dunno I'm skeptical about this.

DPS that can transfer hate - Due to the way aggro skills work (Or Paladin's entire rotation basically which consists of only 3 abilities) this class is basically wholly unnecessary, aggro is not a problem in 99% of encounters because it's not particularly designed to be one. In FF XI you could actually challenge your tank's "aggro rotation" by doing Beastly DPS and seeing if they could hold on, not really the case in this game because holding aggro isn't designed to be a "test". The only way this job works if you create other specialized roles for it to work with, which is sort've against the design philosophy of the game which is very much "Insert round shape into round hole, insert square shape into square hole, etc."

Melee DPS with cast times that root them in place - Given the fact that so many AoEs in this game originate or exclusively target around the boss/enemies and people already die in swarms while Dragoon Jumping this could be potentially disastrous, but it also could be fine since we already sort've have the precedent in Dragoon (Though the combination of lots dodging PLUS cast times might destroy their DPS in some encounters whereas something like Turn 8 might make them godly).

Pet job where the player does very little damage and their pet will die to a couple of hits, but does massive damage - Goes against SE's philosophy of "It's hard so we won't do it". Other than that it's fine

Pure Support Class - No complaints

Pure Debuff Class - No complaints but basically impossible to implement for the reason you brought up

Evasion Tanks - Break the game when they're strong (ie can dodge a lot), are worthless when they're weak (when they don't dodge). The best mitigation in the game is not taking damage which is what dodging is.

Debuff Tanks - We sort've already have this? Kinda.

Drain Tanks - They already sort've tried this with 2.0 Warrior and failed really bad before reworking it to resemble Paladin. Not sure how round 2 would go or differentiate itself from current Warrior. Drain tanks are strong in prolonged battles because they get their HP back over time and can recover from small sustained damage on their own. The problem is in this game 100% of the time when you die it's because you didn't properly mitigate the one big hit, Landslide, Death Sentence, Ravensbeak are all examples of this. The Drain tank has to not only recover after the big hit, they need to find a way to actually survive through it to begin with.

DPS that does more damage the more enmity they have - See my comments on Tanks with low threat, but high survivability and DPS that can transfer hate.


Jobs like these worked in older MMOs like FF XI because the game wasn't designed around the "Square shape into Square hole" mentality. I don't see how most of them could work in the game's current approach without some global mechanic changes which is unlikely.

[Canadane]

Scootaloo, according to your profile, you have one tank, one melee dps, and acn (so 1 magic dps and 1 healer) levelled to 50.
How are you able to say everything in each category work the same if you aren't experiencing them all to their fullest?
Not to mention you have no crafts at 50, so you cannot see that benefit either, I suppose.

Like I don't mean to call you out, but you should really try things out completely before complaining about them.

[Scootaloo]

Scootaloo, according to your profile, you have one tank, one melee dps, and acn (so 1 magic dps and 1 healer) levelled to 50.
How are you able to say everything in each category work the same if you aren't experiencing them all to their fullest?
Not to mention you have no crafts at 50, so you cannot see that benefit either, I suppose.

Like I don't mean to call you out, but you should really try things out completely before complaining about them.

Complaining? I'm pointing out facts about them, big diff. If I was going to complain, I'd make a post about how unoriginal the gameplay is,how the current state of the game reminds me a lot of WoW, and how tedious it is to farm solidery tomes.

Oh wait, I just did. See the diff?

[Fyce]

Complaining? I'm pointing out facts about them, big diff. If I was going to complain, I'd make a post about how unoriginal the gameplay is,how the current state of the game reminds me a lot of WoW, and how tedious it is to farm solidery tomes.

Oh wait, I just did. See the diff?

So, what do you want exactly? You say that, for you, all DPS are ultimately the same, minus "few differences".
But that's a very subjective thing and, as you are now well aware after 4-5 pages, people don't have the same opinion as you do about this.

You can't argue with people on a subjective point, trying to bring logical arguments, that makes no sense.

As I said in my previous post, which still remains unanswered, it all comes down to the way you percieve the differences between some key-points of the gameplay between each class. But still, this is highly subjective and you can't form any logical argument with that.

[Canadane]

Complaining? I'm pointing out facts about them, big diff. If I was going to complain, I'd make a post about how unoriginal the gameplay is,how the current state of the game reminds me a lot of WoW, and how tedious it is to farm solidery tomes.

Oh wait, I just did. See the diff?

Perhaps "complain" wasn't the right choice of words.
How would you give each class it's fair assessment if you haven't played them all?

[Scootaloo]

Perhaps "complain" wasn't the right choice of words.
How would you give each class it's fair assessment if you haven't played them all?

It doesn't take grinding a job to 50 to get a clear picture of how it plays.

Reacting in real time is another story but this isn't about the reaction mechanics.(That's a whole other thread)

And for the record, I plan to have all jobs to lvl 50 before 2.4. Hell, I bet even when I have them all to 50 people will still try to argue these things.

idk, maybe its just because I hail from FFXI and am used to being able to look at a dragoon and a monk and immediately see the differences between them that I'm seeing so little.

Lord knows us FFXI players get hate just for existing in FFXIV due to all the WoW players flooding in this game. WoW players hate us for wanting a challenge and we hate WoW players for wanting everything to be "easy mode".

Anyways, enough of me derailing this topic.

Point I'm trying to make is, I've played each job to know them in and out, I don't need to be level 50 to know how one job works... This is actually sad in itself that I can learn and master a job before I even get all the skills because they really don't make any difference in the end when the end result is just dmg output and that's it.

[Hurlstone]

I do not feel I have played all the classes enough yet to have a full scope on just how unique they are (Only played my main Summoner, White Mage and Scholar at 50) but from what I have played, they seem unique enough to be called worthy.

idk, maybe its just because I hail from FFXI and am used to being able to look at a dragoon and a monk and immediately see the differences between them that I'm seeing so little.

Lord knows us FFXI players get hate just for existing in FFXIV due to all the WoW players flooding in this game. WoW players hate us for wanting a challenge and we hate WoW players for wanting everything to be "easy mode".

I cannot help but say that not every form FFXI player feels this way. I feel it is a shame sometime when FFXI players seem to 'mock' newer games just because they are not like the old. I used to play FFXI religiously (From around 2004 to 2007) and personally speaking, I far prefer the classes we have here in FFXIV. The main problem I had with the FFXI classes were actually the players. It became clear that only 'certain' classes were going to be acceptable, and you could forget about having a sub job which was not the same as everyone else. There was such scope for creativity, but few ever embraced it.

Still, each to their own! It is a very subjective subject!

[Alkimi]

Lord knows us FFXI players get hate just for existing in FFXIV due to all the WoW players flooding in this game. WoW players hate us for wanting a challenge and we hate WoW players for wanting everything to be "easy mode".

Name any boss or HMN in XI and I'll give you a WoW boss that was a lot harder. Absolute Virtue doesn't count. XI was an easy game.

I've played each job to know them in and out, I don't need to be level 50 to know how one job works... This is actually sad in itself that I can learn and master a job before I even get all the skills because they really don't make any difference in the end when the end result is just dmg output and that's it.

The fact that you haven't even touched first coil leads me to believe you haven't mastered anything. Any job is easy to half arse, and they might seem similar if you play them that way, but getting the absolute most out of them is a different matter.

[HakuroDK]

Equality does not necessarily mean that no classes are unique. The only two jobs in the game that play almost identically are Scholar and Summoner, and that's only because they branch off of the same class, and even then, they have enough difference in playstyle to be unique.

[Aegis]

Equality does not necessarily mean that no classes are unique. The only two jobs in the game that play almost identically are Scholar and Summoner, and that's only because they branch off of the same class, and even then, they have enough difference in playstyle to be unique.

I think what this thread is showing is a difference in scale.

Some posters see the Greased Lightning mechanic, for example, making the MNK play differently to DRG.

Others see both jobs as a case of maintain rotation, get into the correct position for each hit. Repeat. DPS jobs can be far more varied than this.

It may be a heritage thing. People coming from the older MMORPGs have experienced wide varieties of jobs that have been streamlined in the newer MMOs.