Extend Classes into full Jobs?

[Isala]

I've actually been messing around with classes, now that I'm out of the Job only 90s gear. It seems like the better our gear gets, the less that measly amount of points from the Soulstone even matters.

Conjurer especially, is an interesting beast. In current gear, I lose about 75 HP per Cure. I also lose the healing CDs, Regen, and Holy. What I gain in exchange doesn't actually help my healing that much. Inner Release, and that's about it. And Mantra, but that's a nerfed Divine Seal, really. I even lose the OMG AOE that is Holy spam.

HOWEVER. When it comes to single target burst phases, the CNJ blows WHM away. Having BFB, RS and IR allows me to hit a lot harder than the WHM can. On average, my WHM crits for 700 on a Stone II. And that's all I will ever crit for, as I have no DPS CDs to do anything but 700. CNJ can crit for 1100+, and even non crits are still significantly higher under CDs. Even without CDs up, it's still a minimal damage loss, maybe 50 or so.

The rest of the classes have similar outcomes. Loss of role specific abilities, and a slight nerf to overall performance for their role, but increased out-of-role performance.

Frankly, if we got rid of the stat boost on the Soulstone, or merged that boost into the actual class, there might be a shift to using classes as well. Replacing your few Job skills with 5 more crossclass CDs might actually be a gain in performance for some classes.

Or, like others have already stated, if we got class specific abilities like Jobs get theirs. Instead of halting at 30 to become the job, why not continue out the class line until 50 as well?

Of course there is a large counterargument for this. This is Final Fantasy, after all. Since FFI, we have always started off as a lower class, and eventually earned our higher Job. White Mage to White Wizard, for instance. So this is actually a natural progression. Allowing us to still have access to the initial class however, is a curiosity.

[Bishop81]

Frankly, if we got rid of the stat boost on the Soulstone
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Replacing your few Job skills with 5 more crossclass CDs might actually be a gain in performance for some classes.

IMHO many Jobs are pretty much "carried" by the stat boost and the lack of the stat boost is what makes many/all Classes "non-viable".

I think SE wants to move away from cross-Class skills. The more choices in cross-class skills, the more variation in player "builds", the harder it is to balance. The fact that cross-Class skills are shared by many Classes/Jobs, makes any kind of alteration to them difficult, as changing one cross-Class skill will impact multiple Classes/Jobs, further increasing the difficulty of balancing.

It depends on how hard up SE is for Class/Job balance. It's a fine line to walk. When balance becomes an all consuming pursuit (at the expense of everything else), like in WoW, it can be detrimental to the game as a whole.