Quote Originally Posted by dday3six View Post
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All the specs in WoW (differences only when it comes to min/maxing) were feasible in performing their respective roles, at least it was after TBC.

The problem here is that the game treats job advancements as just that, an advancement. Not an actual class change or anything. A ninja is just a rogue with ninja skills in design. A DRG is a Lancer with DRG skills, etc etc. You have the matter of
>The job advancement being well representative of the job. Dragoons fit this perfectly since they get mostly jumps which is a standard for FF dragoons. Ninjas also fit this with the concept of ninjitsu and having different animations from their class (rogue).
>Then you have jobs that do a piss poor job of representing what they are. I feel bards and paladins fall into this; I just feel like an archer who knows how to sing (especially when you learn a song before getting bard...) than being an actual bard.

Aesthetics aside, all the jobs are playing identical to their class counterparts, provided they (trying) to perform the same role. A SCH will do the exact same thing as a SMN when trying to dps, because all of SMN's dps abilities come from being an ACN. You cant particularly say the same for the opposite (SMN doing the exact same thing as a SCH when trying to heal), because SCH's healing abilities come from the job advancement, on top of that they're usually forgoing their dps that they won't use their class abilities anyway.

Now let's try that with something like Rogue to either ninja or thief. They're both going to be dps, and the only way you can differentiate them is through job skills. A thief is still going to use the same class skills as ninja, which serves as the foundation for how the class plays. If you wanted them to play differently, the job advancement would have to overhaul the class skills, or job advancement giving them an entire set of new skills that would outweigh using the class ones.

In the end, I wouldn't mind branching job advancements that would fit different play styles (similar to the talent spec system in WoW), such as an Archer becoming Bard or Ranger, or if they hadn't mentioned dark knight being job only... Marauder being Warrior or dark knight. It's just that in the current design of the game, it really disallows for branching job advancements within the same class that allows for diversely different playstyle.