Quote Originally Posted by Dervy View Post
http://i.imgur.com/QsbcPBu.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/frrKy9c.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/ojvjujc.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/kj6HPgI.jpg

These are all concept art, just in case people start thinking these images will be 100% in the game.
Thanks for posting these.


So while the graphical attachment idea was scrapped there's a number of little ideas here that hint at the sort of weapons and turrets/gadgets that a Machinist might use. Straight up, we have this shot:


It basically indicates that Machinists will have a sort of side-pouch/gadget box where Machinists will pull attachments or turrets from. This is basically similar to a paladin equipping a shield, and Machinists will be the first new combat job to utilize the shield slot since the PLD. Pretty cool, but I wonder if it'll make our weapons a little cheaper to acquire or if it'll be more difficult to get both our weapon slots on the same item level.

Secondly, this shot pretty much confirms the type of gun we'll be using. These are the same type of guns used by Balthier from FF12 a sort-of sawed-off shotgun style gun, rather than the muskets and matchlocks used by the Musketeer guild and the yellowjackets. The Machinist relic weapon appears to be a magitek constructed gun, so in additional to more traditional guns, we'll have magitek weapons too.



This next picture shows off several mock-ups of the various turrets or gadgets we might be using in the game. It's hard to get a good idea if any of these automatons were fully realized in 3D and whether not will be restricted to just using one type or several types at once, but the number of interesting designs here shows a wealth of ideas on how they could operate and what sort of personality we might see from them. The remind me a lot of the mammets found in various parts of the game.

Now, of course, these aren't pets in the traditional mold of the summoner or chocobo, but fire and forget turrets/gadgets. You activate the ability, choose where to place it if it's required, and then the ability does its affect. Because I think these turrets will be more self-contained and automatically controlled, I don't think they'll function like Bard songs, so deploying these guys probably won't adversely affect our damage in the same way Mage's Ballad and Army's Paeon do. Rather, I believe much of the Machinist's damage may be tied to the attachments and we will trade mobility for that extra brunt of power. To this end, I think the Machinist's damage might end up being more bursty than damage over time. Similar to the Dragoon's big chunky damage off a single hit. Attachments may have a cast time or might root us in place. Video footage and screens release some months back show the Machinist leaping in the air firing a shot and the crouching down firing another shot. These may be attachment shots where a Machinist simply can't move until the attack has gone off.

Finally, Yoshi-P did mention something of a reload/quick reload ability. This is probably similar to a Summoner's Aetherflow ability, a limited set of charges to activate special attacks requiring Aetherflow. In the case of the Machinist, these might be something akin to elemental or a special type of shell or bullet that we activate with a button to stock up a set of charges which then unlocks special attacks that we can use and eat up a charge or ammo of the special type of shell or bullet. Like Aetherflow there may be a cooldowns associated with these abilities so we probably can't fire them off all at once.

As for the specifics of our support abilities, I'm at a loss. I'm not quite sure what sort of support a Machinist can provide that another class already has, but this may be a good thing if the Machinist overlaps with other support options. It means that the Machinist could focus on damage while the other class provides the support effect. For example, Ninja's can focus on using Aeolian Edge and drop Dancing Edge from the later rotations if there is a Warrior in the party using Storm's Eye. Likewise, if the Machinist's has a support ability than adds Blunt Vulnerability on an enemy, they won't need to maintain it if there is a monk on the team doing that already.

So what do you guys think?