Idea: Split Archer into Bard and Ranger

[Duelle]

ACN has half of the necessities that would make for a healer; a basic healing spell, a Resurrection, mp regen and utility buff/debuffs. You also need to keep in mind on what they have to work with and the restraints of recovering a game from 1.0.

I've given SE a pass on a lot of things because of the amount of time spent on developing ARR. This is where it was nearing the breaking point for me.

This said, I don't think the whole of ACN (all 18 abilities) need a complete remake. For example, Bio and Bio II could have become HoTs under the effect of the SCH crystal. Bane could have become a way to spread HoTs to other party members. Sacred Soil could have become the "alternate" version of Shadow Flare. When Yoshida talked about SCH being focused on healing over time, that's what I was expecting, not a singular HoT cast via the Fairy and a bunch of shields.

[DestinovaTrueblade]

That would have left sch with hardly any dps abilities

[Shirobi]

That would have left sch with hardly any dps abilities

Its a healer. Whats the problem with that?

[Shurrikhan]

I've given SE a pass on a lot of things because of the amount of time spent on developing ARR. This is where it was nearing the breaking point for me.

This said, I don't think the whole of ACN (all 18 abilities) need a complete remake. For example, Bio and Bio II could have become HoTs under the effect of the SCH crystal. Bane could have become a way to spread HoTs to other party members. Sacred Soil could have become the "alternate" version of Shadow Flare. When Yoshida talked about SCH being focused on healing over time, that's what I was expecting, not a singular HoT cast via the Fairy and a bunch of shields.

At this point though, WHM would require Geomancer to strip away nearly all its dps abilities, and all three would likely be scratching their heads wondering why they only have significantly fewer abilities than every other job in the game. ...Would have to nuke AST dps too... And with healer off-role participation being so demolished, tanks would probably use tank stance even more sparingly.

I'm all for making SCH more different from its counterpart, but stripping away SCH dps to make an already high-control healer even better tooled in its healing does not sound like the solution. (Admittedly even the loss of Bio I and Bio II would not 'utterly condemn' SCH dps outside of raid settings, and their further improved control may then make them the dedicated main healer -- but that kind of re-balance would then need to be made on every healer job, not just the dual-job SCH.) It won't change that if you want their to be any variance in damage taken rates there will be downtime during which dedicated healing output is mostly wasted. I like being able to contribute during periods of less intensive healing. I don't like to be a role that essentially exists/acts only two-thirds or less of the time with almost nothing else to offer. I like to be a SCH/WHM/AST, with every tool they have at their disposal, non-healing included. If not dps, then support.

Take all this with a grain of salt though. To be honest, I'd probably have a lot more ideas for how to pull off a uniquely SCH skillset if the ACN skillset and its contribution to SMN didn't already seem to come so far out of left field. What little lore it has (a certain NPC's obsession with tactics, etc.) doesn't actually seem to fit its abilities, and connects only to the vague lore of SCH (especially via Japanese ability names), hardly if at all to SMN. That makes it really hard to form ideas on for me. I know how I would like ARC to split for the most part, given some revisions to how XIV handles job-splitting, but ACN/SCH...

[Duelle]

At this point though, WHM would require Geomancer to strip away nearly all its dps abilities, and all three would likely be scratching their heads wondering why they only have significantly fewer abilities than every other job in the game. ...Would have to nuke AST dps too...

Not necessarily. ACN happens to be built around DPS, so making the transition to healer would require certain abilities changing to better-fit that role via the SCH crystal. Conversely, CNJ is built as a healing class, so the GEO crystal would likely change Cure, Cure II and Cure III into Water I, II and III. GEO would get Aero III and Stone III, and could be designed around a natural flow between water, air and earth (headcannon would call this the "Geomancer's Parable"). The wrench in the gearworks would be, incidentally, Cleric Stance.

I'm all for making SCH more different from its counterpart, but stripping away SCH dps to make an already high-control healer even better tooled in its healing does not sound like the solution. (Admittedly even the loss of Bio I and Bio II would not 'utterly condemn' SCH dps outside of raid settings, and their further improved control may then make them the dedicated main healer -- but that kind of re-balance would then need to be made on every healer job, not just the dual-job SCH.)

Correct on both accounts. SCH would still have Ruin I/II and Miasma I/II from its parent class. And who's to say the job abilities (remember that Sacred Soil is no longer a lv50 job skill but a skill you'd gain from learning Shadow Flare) wouldn't include maybe 1 DPS skill? Broil would have been a good candidate to replace Sacred Soil as the lv50 quest reward.

It won't change that if you want their to be any variance in damage taken rates there will be downtime during which dedicated healing output is mostly wasted. I like being able to contribute during periods of less intensive healing.

You still would. Your DPS relative to the DPS would just be less.

The intent is not to kill off SCH DPS, but to reduce it while also making the job crystals bring about a bigger change to gameplay. This way one job crystal becomes a sort of extension to the parent class, while the other changes aspects of the parent class to become its own thing. I admit it's easier to do this with caster jobs than it is to do with melee since you can recycle casting animations. Melee jobs would likely require brand new animations and more.

And with healer off-role participation being so demolished, tanks would probably use tank stance even more sparingly.

Not if you were to tie enmity and survivability directly to the tank stance and adjust post-30 scaling to make it required to stay in tank stance to hold the mob and live through its attacks. Note: this would require some ability reshuffling, such as making PLD get Shield Oath at lv30.

[RiceisNice]

This said, I don't think the whole of ACN (all 18 abilities) need a complete remake. For example, Bio and Bio II could have become HoTs under the effect of the SCH crystal. Bane could have become a way to spread HoTs to other party members. Sacred Soil could have become the "alternate" version of Shadow Flare. When Yoshida talked about SCH being focused on healing over time, that's what I was expecting, not a singular HoT cast via the Fairy and a bunch of shields.

You'd have to give a citation on that because the current SCH has no resemblance of HoT Healing (Which was given to WHM again who has emphasis on hp restoration, which breaks down into HoTs). And even then it'd all have to come into place thematically and composition wise (WHM already fills that meta, unless you want them to be the shield oriented healer instead of a job whose lore is centered around planning ahead and military tactics). I'd also take everything that yoshida says with a grain of salt, since not all of them either comes to pass or as we expected (such as MCH ammo usage and the two ranged classes in general).

Correct on both accounts. SCH would still have Ruin I/II and Miasma I/II from its parent class. And who's to say the job abilities (remember that Sacred Soil is no longer a lv50 job skill but a skill you'd gain from learning Shadow Flare) wouldn't include maybe 1 DPS skill? Broil would have been a good candidate to replace Sacred Soil as the lv50 quest reward.

Lustrate is the level 50 job skill. Shadowflare is a level 50 class skill, sacred soil is a level 45 job skill. This sort of approach would take a lot more work on a job whose already functioning well in the current set up.



You still would. Your DPS relative to the DPS would just be less.

The intent is not to kill off SCH DPS, but to reduce it while also making the job crystals bring about a bigger change to gameplay. This way one job crystal becomes a sort of extension to the parent class, while the other changes aspects of the parent class to become its own thing. I admit it's easier to do this with caster jobs than it is to do with melee since you can recycle casting animations. Melee jobs would likely require brand new animations and more.

Job crystals in a sense act as the "second half" of the class that it's being added onto in the way they add onto it. Like you said, it'd require changes to the class abilities to make each job crystal more feasible, but if we're going that route, is it necessary to force a job into that soul crystal anyway compared to giving them a new slate to work with? In regards to scholar there's a plethora of redesigning and balancing just to make it work (and in this case, for the sake of doing so since SCHs are pretty well off at the moment)

Not if you were to tie enmity and survivability directly to the tank stance and adjust post-30 scaling to make it required to stay in tank stance to hold the mob and live through its attacks. Note: this would require some ability reshuffling, such as making PLD get Shield Oath at lv30.

That'd actually sounds really really boring from a tank perspective outside of a raid environment. Not to mention if the enemies are that strong, then dps/healers would die if they even got breathed on.

The end question is what sort of role do you want the job crystals to be. I see it as something that just adds onto the class to complete it, rather than a "promotion" system of sorts that some MMOs have. Branching would work a lot better if it was done eariler in the levleing process (at say, 15) to diverse the abilities some more, rather than changing existing skills this late into the game.

[Duelle]

You'd have to give a citation on that because the current SCH has no resemblance of HoT Healing (Which was given to WHM again who has emphasis on hp restoration, which breaks down into HoTs). And even then it'd all have to come into place thematically and composition wise (WHM already fills that meta, unless you want them to be the shield oriented healer instead of a job whose lore is centered around planning ahead and military tactics). I'd also take everything that yoshida says with a grain of salt, since not all of them either comes to pass or as we expected (such as MCH ammo usage and the two ranged classes in general).

It was shortly after SCH was revealed that Yoshida talked about SCH being focused in healing over time over raw/burst healing like WHM.

This aside, I'm not sure why people think that Regen and Medica II's HoT somehow give WHM a monopoly on HoTs. Resto druids put WHM to shame in the HoT department; they were also known for manipulating HoTs by making them stack or detonate into burst heals as needed.

Lustrate is the level 50 job skill. Shadowflare is a level 50 class skill, sacred soil is a level 45 job skill. This sort of approach would take a lot more work on a job whose already functioning well in the current set up.

Whoops, got the skills mixed up.

Job crystals in a sense act as the "second half" of the class that it's being added onto in the way they add onto it. Like you said, it'd require changes to the class abilities to make each job crystal more feasible, but if we're going that route, is it necessary to force a job into that soul crystal anyway compared to giving them a new slate to work with? In regards to scholar there's a plethora of redesigning and balancing just to make it work (and in this case, for the sake of doing so since SCHs are pretty well off at the moment)

Depends on how well the jobs mesh with the parent class. I wouldn't dream of sticking, say, oracle/mystic on pugilist or conjurer because that'd make no sense. The base classes in-game are somewhat open to second jobs concept-wise (mechanics-wise is another story).

Going back to the topic of the thread, if you had told me ARC was going to split into two jobs three years ago, my first thought would be "one will probably be longbow that stands still and aims, the other will be mobile and use a shortbow". My suggested approach could have worked for ARC by making the BRD crystal add cast times where appropriate and replace Swiftsong and Windbite with appropriately-themed songs/skills. Conversely, Ranger would be an extension of ARC as it was designed in ARR and go from there. Maybe BRD having the benefit of additional range while RNG would have to stand closer to the mob. And thus the crystal helps define the job while also dealing with the sameness that would have otherwise made itself known.

I won't deny it would have required more work and balancing. But class design is such an important part of gameplay that I say it would be worth it.

[Noelzzz]

I won't deny it would have required more work and balancing. But class design is such an important part of gameplay that I say it would be worth it.

Totally got the point.

[RiceisNice]

=
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Going back to the topic of the thread, if you had told me ARC was going to split into two jobs three years ago, my first thought would be "one will probably be longbow that stands still and aims, the other will be mobile and use a shortbow". My suggested approach could have worked for ARC by making the BRD crystal add cast times where appropriate and replace Swiftsong and Windbite with appropriately-themed songs/skills. Conversely, Ranger would be an extension of ARC as it was designed in ARR and go from there. Maybe BRD having the benefit of additional range while RNG would have to stand closer to the mob. And thus the crystal helps define the job while also dealing with the sameness that would have otherwise made itself known.

I've mentioned a while back that if they wanted to do alternate job paths for the same class (such as archer and bard/ranger, or rogue and thief/ninja), you need to introduce a polarizing ability at level 30 and onward that completely gives the class their own identity since they will still share base job classes. From every perspective (balancing, differentiating, etc), that's a nigh impossibility if they're both dps routes, or a dps/healer coming from a tank class.

Even if you were redoing their skills that change from the job crystal, their traits will have to be changed as well to accommodate or otherwise it'll be a half-assed fixture (in your example, ranger would be losing one of their DoTs to proc river of blood). And my perspective is, if we're doing that much to impement a way that a skill changes depending on your job crystal, why not just do the new jobs from the ground up as they have done with the 3.0 jobs? It gives them much more room to work with from a design perspective, it gives the job the attention it needs from a developmental stand point so it has it's own identity, and it avoids the risks/problems that come from having job crystals (especially if you aren't going to change all the skills and traits).

Sometimes you need to work smarter and not harder. And with how some of the new jobs came out on release and the glaring performance problems they have, I'd rather them not go over the top with making a relic of 1.0 work (when they have expressed multiple times that they have wanted to move away from it anyway, and it shows with the lack of crossing from ROG, and the absence of classes all together in 3.0). What is the advantage of shoving in extra jobs into a single class that gives it a better perk over a new job entirely?

[Shurrikhan]

Sometimes you need to work smarter and not harder. And with how some of the new jobs came out on release and the glaring performance problems they have, I'd rather them not go over the top with making a relic of 1.0 work (when they have expressed multiple times that they have wanted to move away from it anyway, and it shows with the lack of crossing from ROG, and the absence of classes all together in 3.0). What is the advantage of shoving in extra jobs into a single class that gives it a better perk over a new job entirely?

Mostly just that as long as they keep weapon types mostly limited to a single job each (exception: THM/CNJ), there may often be someone who wishes to their use of a given weapon in a different direction. And each ability that seems an obvious choice for that weapon (e.g. Heavy CD-dependence in bows - both because combo-ing makes less sense with such little variance or momentum in weapon motion and because that ranged classes commonly tend towards the more tactical, stored and release-on-demand deployment of their strengths) composes the class. Granted, that first bit is just another relic itself. I definitely think that XIV ought to constrain itself to far fewer rules when it comes to Class-Job relationships and Ability and Trait acquisition for each, but there is a small part that would likely like within "Class" that seems almost unavoidable for Jobs exactly like these two. Paladin vs. Commander could be another such example, or Warrior vs. Berserker. On the whole I'd prefer new "from scratch" jobs over any job touched by the current Class-Job system, but I can't deny that a revised version of that system would really make sense for a lot of my favorite job opportunities.