Idea: Split Archer into Bard and Ranger

[Eloah]

Why is everyone still debating the whole Thief Ninja discussion, I actually made a list as to why they were combined. Did anyone read it, lol. Thieves and Ninjas are "basically" cut from the same cloth, and not just in FF games in a lot of games. Assassin's Creed, Thief, hell the original Final Fantasy did the same thing with the Thief job turning into the Ninja job.

I only really see the logic behind not understanding Bard extending from Archer, that is the oddity.

But someones idea for a crossbow user was cool. Beastmaster with a crossbow sounds awesome.

Also here is that list again, lol, maybe people will look at it and drop, the thief/ninja debate, nah, lol.

EDIT: Here is the post I made in the other thread regarding Thief and Ninja within the FF Universe.

While the idea sounds nice, I doubt it would work. A Theif just wouldn't fit I a game like this. Most of the time Ninja is an upgrade to Thief, or they are just merged together.

I had some time so I compiled this list, lol?

Games where Ninja is an upgrade for Thief
Final Fantasy I
Final Fantasy V (Because the abilities can be customized)
Final Fantasy XI (Though it was optional, the common thing to do was sub Ninja onto Thief to aid them with the skill base they already had, similar to XIV now)
Final Fantasy XIV
Final Fantasy Dimensions (Both jobs have their usage, but because of customization, Ninja will be used more than Thief; though it should be noted that only half of the playable cast gets Ninja)

Games where they are seperate but equally viable
Final Fantasy III (mostly because the abilities couldn't be customized)
Final Fantasy VI (Locke and Shadow both have value to the party because of customization)
Final Fantasy XI (Because this game had no gathering/crafting classes Thiefs provided the additional out of combat skills to aid in those kinds of tasks)
Final Fantasy Tactics [every game] (Thiefs and Ninja each have different usage, though it should be noted, Ninja is unlock by using Thief)
Bravely Default (Each job has its purpose and each one can use the others moves.

Games that have only one, usually combining them
Final Fantasy IV (Edge is a Ninja but has Thief skills)
Final Fantasy VII (Yuffie is classified as a Ninja, but is played as a Thief, though because of customization anyone can be a "Thief")
Final Fantasy IX (Zidane is a Thief, and while technically a Monk, Amarant has some classic Ninja/Samurai moves)
Final Fantasy X (Rikku is the only Thief, though anyone can learn Steal, Mug, and Use, she is the only one who can steal from machines to kill them)
Final Fantasy X-2 (There is no Ninja Dressphere only a Thief)
Final Fantasy XII: IZJS (The Shikari job mimics a Ninja)
Final Fantasy XII: RW (The Ninja is a class available only to Sky Pirates, ie this games Thieves; though it should be noted they are only classified as thieves, its not the Job they hold in battle.)

[Shaddai]

Ladies and gentlemen, prepare to have your minds blown......
Why not make bard a support bow healer and ranger the dps branch. Making bard more support than healing and songs with regen/heals. In terms of healing it would probably be the weakest, but in terms of support it would be the strongest.
Other mind blown ideas:
Make marauder branch. Heavy hammer user into a tank and make war a dps. Have pug branch into mnk as dps and wrestlers as tanks. Have mnk instead of "fist of" moves why not make them triple stance dance with moves particular to each stance. Have gladiators branch into tanks being Pld and Red mages into dps. Have rogues/ drg branch into 2 dps each. Nin would be a single sword so the other branch would be dual swordsmen. Lancers can turn into drg and Holy lancermen?Have conj branch into 2 healers. Whm and bishop. Leave astro, drk, and mch but add samurai as an extra job. these will be the unique of each healer, tank, melee, ranged.

Wanna a cigarette?

[RiceisNice]

Why not make bard a support bow healer and ranger the dps branch. Making bard more support than healing and songs with regen/heals. In terms of healing it would probably be the weakest, but in terms of support it would be the strongest.

Like an astro. And you saw how that went before they had to buff their heals to be on par with WHM/SCH.

Make marauder branch. Heavy hammer user into a tank and make war a dps.

Deliverance says hi. Warrior can fulfill the role of dps just fine tthe way it is. You'd only end up making more carbon copies by adding a tanking/dps branch to marauder.

Have pug branch into mnk as dps and wrestlers as tanks. Have mnk instead of "fist of" moves why not make them triple stance dance with moves particular to each stance.

Have fun trying to do pugilist positionals while tanking.

Have gladiators branch into tanks being Pld and Red mages into dps. Have rogues/ drg branch into 2 dps each. Nin would be a single sword so the other branch would be dual swordsmen. Lancers can turn into drg and Holy lancermen?Have conj branch into 2 healers. Whm and bishop. Leave astro, drk, and mch but add samurai as an extra job. these will be the unique of each healer, tank, melee, ranged.

Wanna a cigarette?

There's a difference between meaningful ideas that have concepts behind it, and ideas that are thrown out for funies. Yours are the latter and really doesn't spur much of a discussion relate to the topic to be honest.

I still stand by this; jobs like red mage and the like should honestly be their own class rather than a branching one; having only 10 skills does the entire job no justice to give it it's own identity. They'd look herp a derp doing things like rage of haloney.

[Shaddai]

No type of creativity

I'm limited to 1000 characters per post. If you want more depth, I can provide. For your first point I don't think things are super great among healers. I like the idea of having main healers and support healers. People will always complain so that does not matter. Deliverance means nothing. It is just like monks have fist of fire. Jobs make the class what it is. You are severely underestimating the effect of changing jobs from a base class. It also will helps because you technically are lvling 2 jobs at once to provide variety. Level a tank and tell me what's the deference between before 30 and after 30 for example. Your third point makes sense I accept that I suppose a hand to hand tank would be difficult off pug unless they remove positional with lets say a lvl 30 tank stance which could remove positional req's. Try to be a little creative here. Extra jobs already provide new bases. Give SE a break in that regard.

[Noelzzz]

provide variety.

Finally someone that understand the potential of branching jobs

[RiceisNice]

I can provide. For your first point I don't think things are super great among healers. I like the idea of having main healers and support healers. People will always complain so that does not matter.

It's not even that people were complaining. It was an actual problem because you'd never see astros in cutting edge savage progression. Objectively, trying to have an astro heal in savage was detrimental to your party, because their healing output (which is their role) was lower than that of WHM and SCH, and their support abilties did not outweigh that.

Deliverance means nothing. It is just like monks have fist of fire. Jobs make the class what it is. You are severely underestimating the effect of changing jobs from a base class.

A warrior plays the same in delvierance as they were in defiance. A warrior plays the same in defiance as they were as a marauder. You are severely underestimating how far rooted the jobs are to the base class.

Level a tank and tell me what's the deference between before 30 and after 30 for example

.
There is quite literally no difference. At level 30 all they get is a stance, but they use the same pre-level 30 abilties as they were before. How am I supposed to make an argument that they would play any more different with a role change, using nothing but maim-extension combos (which is rooted to marauder, mind you)

Your third point makes sense I accept that I suppose a hand to hand tank would be difficult off pug unless they remove positional with lets say a lvl 30 tank stance which could remove positional req's. Try to be a little creative here. Extra jobs already provide new bases. Give SE a break in that regard.

Extra jobs provide new bases. Branching jobs do not, because they're sharing move sets with the base class. I'm all for adding new jobs, but making them branch off an existing class is literally shooting themselves in the leg in regards to what they can add. Arcanist has only one healing spell. Trying to branch any jobs off an existing tanking class (gladiator and marauder) is sticking them with all the defensive cooldowns and enmnity combos that comes with said classes. Not only do they not thematically match the branching jobs, it creates balancing issues because you don't want a dps or healer having access to powerful tanking cooldowns.

Because, for some jobs, thief and ranger specifically but there are others, devs used iconic weapons or abilities belonging to iconic jobs, doing some kind of mixed classes. What if my favorite weapons are daggers but at the same time i dont like mudra system? same goes for bow, what if i like the bow but i dont like the bard-ish play style? Doing branching jobs they would give me the option to choose. This doesnt mean that extra jobs will not considered imo. Not all jobs can come from branching, this apply just to some of them

Then it honestly does not sound like final fantasy is catering to your sense of aesthetics. They'd be far better off making weapons like longbows and dual swords for new jobs than trying to squeeze in branching jobs and limiting the amount of options the new job has. Otherwise you're essentially trying to force a certain gameplay onto a class/job because you personally do not like the original gameplay ("I like using a staff but I hate cast times", for example)

[Aiselia]

it creates balancing issues because you don't want a dps or healer having access to powerful tanking cooldowns.

Not to mention the nightmare of attempting to balance that it would take to make them do enough DPS to be comparable to the other classes without being able to use the class' base skills. A DPS branching off a Gladiator would have to do comparable damage to the other three melee to warrant actually using, but only within 10 skills. A DRG has 10 skills in their normal GCD rotation alone, so not counting their various buffs and OGCD attacks. A DPS doing comparable damage limited to only around 10 (okay, maybe they could use Riot Blade to refill MP or something) skills from their Job would pretty much need to be the simplest of all the DPS classes because you'd either have very few OGCDs and cooldowns to manage in order to have a lengthy GCD combo or a really simple GCD 1-2-3 combo with a few OGCDs to squeeze in.

[Shaddai]

Stuff

Stopped reading after you said their is little difference before and after 30. Both oaths, Dragon kick, Jumps in general. Sorry I'm no long paying attention to you.
Ok so a couple things. First enimity needs rework in general. Second people have already gone back BECAUSE of the extra jobs, so third times the charm? I do not agree with middle grounds, so I think either make entirely new classes with similar things is more of "carbon copying", or the hybrids people ask for are skill tree which is branching. I'd prefer branching. As far as savage is concerned it was made as an option. If you get eso's then challenge savage then its not as big of a deal. You dont have to go in with bare minimum available gear but no one waits to get stronger to challenge the hard mode of a raid. I suggested and evolution of the game, not adding new stuff of a poor foundation. Fix old stuff then add new to make things smoother.

[Aiselia]

If you want variety, why would you ever want branching jobs? If you're really after variety, you'd want a completely new one because that would be... y'know, more varied, rather than being the same thing with a handful of different skills.

Branching jobs stifles variety.

If I put ketchup on one burger and mustard on the other, it doesn't change the fact that I'm still eating a burger. Some of us would rather they give us a rack of ribs and a burger than two burgers with different sauces. Because some of us prefer actual variety.

Red mage DPS branching from Gladiator, for example, is a bad idea in itself. Rampart is a tank skill. Flash would be useless. Convalescence is a tank skill. Provoke would be useless. Shield Swipe would be useless. Awareness is a tank skill. Bulwark is a tank skill. Sentinel is a tank skill. They'd be missing out on a lot of skills that are defensive skills that are useless to them because they're DPS and need offensive skills.

It's faster to list the things that ARE useful from GLD for a DPS. Fast Blade, Fight or Flight, Riot Blade, Shield Bash (assuming they have shields). Everything else is either defensive or has increased enmity.

Not to mention that the extra threat of Savage/Halone would work against them. Because remember, scaling is a thing. A RDM scaled below 30 in a low level roulette would be no different from a PLD. That means they'd need to completely redo how threat works in low level dungeons just to make it work somehow that the RDM wouldn't just be ripping everything off the tank. The only other way would be to literally have your RDM play as "Fast Blade, Riot Blade, Fast Blade, Riot Blade, Fast Blade, Riot Blade" for anything below 30. Which isn't much of a mage, now is it?

Or they could just create new jobs that don't branch, giving more variety and not having to rework the entire game.

[Shaddai]

Negativity

It's true that things would need re-balancing and reworked, however that's easier than having to start from scratch like your suggesting from a technical stand point. SE is generally very lazy so branching seems the better choice. Having to go back to lvl up extra jobs also seem like a waste of time IMO. After investing time in your class After a certain point ppl don't want to go back a re grind. That's insanely boring and repetitive. Base classes can be reworked to support branching. They were originally single jobs so lets be fair here and give some slack. SE already announced that they are willing to rework some things. I thought this idea would be neat because it gives new player options and old player new stuff without going so far back to grind. I understand where your coming from. I just think my idea is more forgiving to all players both new and old.