Dismantle the Holy Trinity

[Ahrniel]

I’ve been cultivating this idea in a special petri dish lately, and it ended up growing in something quite interesting, at least in my opinion. Not only that, I think that the implementation of it would solve many issues that have been annoying the head of people in this community for so long, mostly related to job designs and dps.

I will list all the suggestions first so you have some idea of what is coming already, and then I will explain them afterwards:

General Changes:
- Remove the Damage Dealer Role.
- Rename the Tank role as Fighter Role.
- Rename the Healer role as Support Role.
- Warriors, Paladins, Dark Knights, Dragoons, Monks and Ninjas are now Fighters.
- Bards, Machinists, Black Mages, Astrologians, White Mages, Scholars and Summoners are now Supports.
- Instances now queue half of the team as Fighters and half of the team as Supports.

Warrior/Paladin/Dark Knight:
- Now Tank stances are 100% responsible for extra enmity. Extra enmity is removed from specific attacks. Tank stance is obtained before Lv. 16. DPS stance is now active whenever Tank stance is inactive. Combos now deal more damage, or mitigate damage based on Tank Stance being active.

Dragoon/Monk/Ninja:
- Get a Tank stance. Monk could have Earth Fist changed to Tank stance, Ninja has two poisons, one can become Tank stance. Dragoon needs new things. It is also obtained before Lv.16.

Bard:
- Gains Healing songs. All the Heavensward skills are removed. Part of the attack skills are dispersed to Heavensward skills, and healing songs are added earlier in the game.

Machinists:
- Gains Healing turrents and healing potion skills, like Cid’s.

Summoners/Scholars:
- Both Jobs should merge completely. Healing and DPSing will be based on pet and skills used.

Ok, now explain. Are you nuts?

Maybe, but I’m quite confident of it. I don’t like how the design of the roles in FF14 are. In other games the roles are very strict. Tanks tank, Healers heal, DPS kill. In FF14 the devs seem to want everyone to do everything, and I believe the Holy Trinity is getting in their way.

Balacing the burden of DPS, Tank and Healer isn’t quite working. The DPS have the easiest job in the game, while Tanks and Healers have the hardest. Despite that, Tanks and Healers are still demanded to do the DPS job as well. And I blame this on the lack of customization.

In other MMOs multiple roles are a common concept. If you want to solo that solo content, just spec to a DPS build so you can actually do things fast enough, if you want to queue for group content, you can then spec to something else, because you have other people to do the DPS job.

Not in FF14.

There is no customization in FF14, so the different roles are either built in the class, or they aren’t there.

So here is the thing. If everyone is a DPS, who needs DPS roles anyway?

Let’s make things easier: Now everyone has the potential of causing as much damage.
We can balance all jobs to cause about 2000 DPS in the endgame, without caring about their roles. Fighters and Support cause as much damage, as long as they are using the right stance.

On Fighters:
Fighters are Half Defensive and Half Offensive. They have a Defensive stance, we call it Tank Stance nowadays. They get the extra enmity, take less damage, deal less damage. Suddenly they can tank, easy. Remember how hard it is to tank in low lvl instances? Gone, now you get Tank Stance from the start, don’t even bother anymore. Done with going defensive? Wanna get that damage in? Turn it off, get the kills.

On Support:
Supports are Half Supportive and Half Offensive. All support can empower party members through buffs, keep them alive through healing, weaken enemies through debuffs. When they are done with applying the things, they turn into DPS mode and kill things. Easy.

On Group Content:
Now MT – OT dynamic is the rule from the very start. MT tanks most mobs, OT takes the weakest. Both start the encounter in Tank Stance, when enough enmity has been put in and the hard hitting enemies are dead, turn off the Tank stance and get the damage in. Dealing with Boss’ ads is OT’s business.

Now MS – OS (Main Supporter – Off Supporter) is a thing. Main Supporter is always alert for damage and tricky enemies who just need to stop being mean, Off Supporter is ready to switch to Support mode if things get too mean for the MS to deal with.

What does all of this mean?
That means that all melee now take damage, deal DPS level damage and the ranged have support and deal DPS level support. That also means we have 2 tanks, 2 healers and they can, at any time, become 4 DPS.

What does any of this have to do with FF?
Final Fantasy series always had this system built in it: Rows.
Characters could be put in the Front Row and in the Back Row. Front row takes more damage, deals more physical damage, Back Row takes less damage, but is able to use ranged weapons to their full potential, melee physical is weakened. Does it resemble something? Aye.

My suggestion is to make FF14 have a Front Row (The Fighters) and the Back Row (The Supports), just like in pretty much the entire series.

Is this for real?
Yes, what do you think about it? Tell me in the comments below.
And thanks for reading.