Extend Classes into full Jobs?

[dday3six]

...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...

Fester, Spur, Enkindle, differing cross-class skills, and the Pet attacking disagrees with Scholar doing the exact same as Summoner when they DPS. Similar yes, the exact same, no. Note the main Healing Spell a Scholar will use is Physick, they learned as an Arcanist. This is done so Scholar will have a Healing Spell, even when level synced in lower level instances.

The mark of any good Scholar or White Mage for that matter, is being able to Heal and DPS. If totally forgoing any sort of DPS, the player has great room for improvement.

Scholar is a special case. It focuses on proactive damage mitigation, over reactive healing. They have their Pet to heal assist, and branch from a DOT centric class kit, which allows them to better DPS and Heal. They are not a solid example to point to for why a Class can branch into more than one Job however. It was the specifics of changing roles, having a Pet to change as well, and being able to stitch support skills in Arcanist, which facilitated Scholar morphing into a Healer Job from a DPS class.

Once talking about a DPS Class splitting into more than one Job, it's completely different. Classes are all built with their intended Job in mind. Using the example of Rogue and Archer: Rogue has higher potency attacks, less positional requirements, and faster movement speed to make up for the downtime of Ninjutsu. Archer has lower DPS, a pseudo-DOT focus, A Healer LB to trade for the utility Songs and attacking while moving grant. If Rogue or Archer had other jobs attached to them, they would need to be drastically altered because they are designed to feed into and balance the Jobs they later become.