Remaining Niches to Fill?

[Jaykos]

I think you are exaggerating and inflating the numbers by counting the skill trees as separate classes.
And to stay on topic, I think Beastmaster could serve a different niche by making them what SMN should have been, more emphasis on the pets rather than the character.

lol I didn't know that a protection pally (tank) holy pally (heals) and retribution pally (melee dps) played in anyway similar.

Face facts there's sweet fa playable specs compared to other mmos. Thankfully more is coming.

[Empressia]

High HP, two-handed reactive tank.
Standard sword and board proactive tank.
Reactive and AoE healer.
Proactive healer with shields and mitigation. +Pet
Physical fast paced DPS that excels in long fights.
Physical spike DPS.
Physical DoT sneaky DPS.
Ranged physical DoT/Crit DPS. Party buffer.
Magical spike DPS.
Magical DoT DPS. +Pet

Tank playstyle wise : Conservative non RNG mitigation Tank (PLD) , RNG Mitigation Tank, Offensive Tank (WAR), Disruptive Debuffer tank, Healer hybrid Tank, Party Buffer Tank
DPS playstyle wise : Alpha burst DPS (DRG/BLM), Sustained DoTs DPS(SUM/MNK), Skill Spammer DPS(BRD), Ward/Totem/Horde of minions puppetmaster DPS, Debuffer/Buffer DPS
Healer playstyle wise : Alpha healing burst healer (WHM), Mitigation healer (SCH), Zone specific - whatever static object or mobile bouncing healing projectiles- healer, HoTs Healer, Battle Healer

Pretty sure we still got a lot of niches to fill eh?

[Mimilu]

Niches that can still be filled:
Avoidance Tank: A tank that avoids the damage, whether through evasion, dodging, parrying, blocking, a special counter mechanic, barriers/clones that absorb the damage, etc. Think Ninja tanks from XI.
Regenerative Tank: A tank that heals themselves. Warrior is a standard Meat Shield with a sprinkle of this.
A Physical Ranger that focuses on DPS
A Buffer (Bard could be this in the future IF they focus more on support and less on DPS)
A Debuffer (Not a DoT master)
A Mezzer: Crowd Control that incapacitates enemies by controlling who they can act or cannot act, versus Debuffer, who incapacitate enemies by weakening them.
A class that focuses on pet DPS
A Physical Pet Class
A Minion Pet Class (Swarm of weak pets versus one strong pet)
A Magic/Physical Hybrid

[Dreufo]

I still feel like we should get a hybrid gunner class.

Pistol in one hand and a sword in the other..or two-handed gun-blade.

Otherwise..a gunner that can heal??

[Duelle]

I'm not sure how a HoT healer would work in this game.
The dangerous damage comes from large spikes that need to be healed up quickly. If the HoTs can cover this, then the class would be overpowered and extremely easy to play. If the HoTs can't cover this, then the class would suck.

Use resto druids as a base. They had a HoT that could be "detonated" for burst healing on demand.

Being easy to play is not a bad thing, by the way. It'll mean more people may be willing to play that type of healer, which then means more people available to heal.

[MartaDemireux]

Some of these suggestions aren't very realistic for FFXIV. I'm not asking personal preferences or what X game has. I'm asking what can realistically work within FFXIV based on the knowledge we have so far paired with what already exists.

Notes on pet jobs:
-Yoshi has said he doesn't want to make SMN any more complicated. This prevents future multiple pet/horde styles.
-Yoshi has said he doesn't want the pet to take the focus of the class. He's happy with 70% player 30% pet and doesn't want to change that. This prevents future pet-centric styles.

Notes on tanks:
-Many have mathed out the complications of RNG/Avoidance tanks on these forums. General concensus is that it would be OP or worthless on fights that matter and incredibly difficult to balance. Healers will still have to prep a heal for an incoming heavy hitting attack since there is no way to tell if RNG will be in your favor and that can eventually be a detriment.

Notes on support:
-With this being a trinity game we can't have a pure support character - be that a pure buffer or a pure debuffer. Support is worked into all classes to an extent but more heavily on DPS.
-Yoshi wants all content to be clearable with any job combination and not to have one class fall into must-have. This prevents FFXI BRD styles from happening.

The final piece of the puzzle is fitting each niche to an existing, popular/well-known job in the FF series and making sure that won't cause much of an uproar. Also can't forget to exclude overlap/toe-stepping existing jobs. It really doesn't leave us with a bundle of options with the current game construct (which we should assume will stay in place at this point). And don't forget FFXIV's unquestionable motto: "Balance!"

[Marxam]

A tank that can block or parry magic but not physical (basically a reverse of the current tanks).

Picture this guy but instead of his shields being physical he uses magic barriers to deflect and even transform it into weapons to attack.

[Mimilu]

Pets
He said that for SMN, he didn't say it couldn't be for another class/job. I'mtottalygraspingatstrawshere. >w>
I think a minion styled class could still be achievable, as long as they did NOT make it so you can/had to micromanage each, individual pet.

Tanks
I still think we could have an avoidance tank that doesn't need to use RNG tactics, like one that focuses on Damage Absorbing mitigation tactics.

Support
I agree, we can't have a class/job that's 100% support but we could still have one that is focused on it.

[Altanas]

I'd quite like to see

1. A true Ranged Tank

2. A hammer/mace wielding Breaker

[Akiza]

Summoner should be a Pet Focused job anyway not a sustained DoT dps. Summoner is High Bursts, AoE and Crowd Control with high cost mp not a sustained DoT and they primarily summon.