New Class Idea

[Kill3rkoi8082]

Maybe like botanist dealing with nature maybe Geomancer might be perfect for a great scythe class as a dps melee caster. Using aura like spells dealing damage.

[Elexander]

What I think about scythes in this game:

The only time I've seen one, at least in FF XIV, being effectively used as a weapon, had it in the hands of a Necromancer.

What am I suggesting?

Having played FF XIV for about two months now, I can't say anything as an "expert FFXIV Player", but I've seen other games of the franchise and I've seen Necromancers here an there.

Necromancer was even meant to be a class to FF XI - they just discarded it to give birth to Puppetmasters.

Necromancers, at least in FF XIV, have a lore that goes stray from the common Black Magick line of though. While Black Mages were mostly users of void magick - which would be something like occultism in our world - Necromancers would be, in fact, twisted White Mages in being.

How so?

As you go through the lore, you face a handful of effectively important Necromancers (aside from your everyday cultist lunatic). One of them even use a scythe as a weapon, even though it's barely used to melee swipe someone, rather being used to focus a grim white cast.

The other one practically twists the white elements in order to manipulate the flux of life into things that shouldn't be really alive anymore.

What then?

Differently from your everyday Black Magick, Necromancers in FF XIV are quite a warped thing, and could fit easily as a support class (damage conversion mechanic). They could use scythes (as some sort of warped staff) as their main weapon, even without the need of ever using it to swipe anything on range, it's thematic, and completely clean design imo.

Other than that, my narrow creativity can't really imagine any other classes wielding scythes as effective weapons.

If you want darkness, have a DRK.
If you want black magick, have a BLM.

If you want plain madness, add NCR to the game.

[Kazrah]

Necromancers, at least in FF XIV, have a lore that goes stray from the common Black Magick line of though. While Black Mages were mostly users of void magick - which would be something like occultism in our world - Necromancers would be, in fact, twisted White Mages in being.

Look up Mhach. That's where both Black Mages and the concept of Necromancers come from. Yes, White Magic is found in creation of animations, but of constructs rather than corpses. If anything, Puppetmaster would be closer to White Mages in FFXIV than Necromancer would.

Other than that lore bit, at least the proposed mechanic premise is something.

[kikix12]

Its not necessarily logic but for 3.0 we did see a tank and a healer released.

Um...For 3.0 we had tank, healer and DPS released...Dark Knight, Astrologian and Machinist...The reason why they released only DPS in Stormblood and why two have zero to do with patterns.
1) They came to the conclusion that adding more tanks or healers won't make more players play one of these roles.
2) Adding more healer or tank jobs would make it harder to fix them, which they wanted to focus on for now.
3) They have been so busy with the overhaul and other content that they shafted a new job instead of doing half-assed work in another field.

[Mycow8me]

Um...For 3.0 we had tank, healer and DPS released...Dark Knight, Astrologian and Machinist...The reason why they released only DPS in Stormblood and why two have zero to do with patterns.
1) They came to the conclusion that adding more tanks or healers won't make more players play one of these roles.
2) Adding more healer or tank jobs would make it harder to fix them, which they wanted to focus on for now.
3) They have been so busy with the overhaul and other content that they shafted a new job instead of doing half-assed work in another field.

Are we basing these off guesswork or are we basing these off developer comments cause I know for a fact I remember reading that releasing 3 classes in an expansion was too much dev strain and they likely wont do it again.

[kikix12]

(...)doesn't work due to the fact that it was never used historically as a weapon of war(...)

Actually, this is not entirely true. For two reasons.
1) Scythes were used in wars as tools that are...well...deadly. By those that had them and didn't have means of getting any decent weapon. Uprisings etc. used normal scythes which were no less deadly than any other weapon out there. Drawbacks were there, but fighting with a scythe still gave a farmer much higher chance of victory against a sword user than just about anything else they could have. Heck, that farmer had better chance than the sword-using guy!
2) War-scythes were "evolved" from normal scythes, and in fact, very many of the scythes used were in fact remodeled tools. Hence those scythes were technically used in war one way or another.

There were war scythes, but those were closer to some polearms you'd see on Dragoon.

I hope you do know that a scythe, even the farming tool version of it, when used in combat, IS a polearm. A polearm is basically every single weapon that uses a long shaft to hold. Yes, even if that shaft is the weapon itself, like quarter-staff. That means that both conjurers and black mages also use polearms. Hence this is little reason to dismiss it. Dragoons use polearms that are dominantly piercing (though there are halberds etc, which are both piercing and slashing), but scythes are dominantly slashing (heck, most of them are only slashing). And even for those that have spikes, they can't exactly be "thrown" in any way, shape or form. Not effectively anyway (yes, yes...I know halberds aren't ideal javelins either...). So scythe user could very well be reasonable.

Still, I prefer some more details to suggestions like that. Saying that you would love it and that it could have this or that is just not a suggestion. It's more of a plea. Is that fine?! Most certainly. But it's just different than what the thread starter is making it to be.

Are we basing these off guesswork or are we basing these off developer comments cause I know for a fact I remember reading that releasing 3 classes in an expansion was too much dev strain and they likely wont do it again.

Eh...Yeah, that's pretty much what I said...They shafted the third job cause they relocated the resources to a different field...I just limited it to Stormblood, not expanding it to further expansions.

And points 1 and 2 are the reasons for why there are only DPS jobs...Those were in the very same interview in which the reason for two instead of three was given.

[Kazrah]

Actually, this is not entirely true.

Does this look like a farming implement to you?



Heck, if it wasn't for the text saying it was a war scythe, you'd think it didn't even come from a farming tool. That's what I meant when I said that: farming scythes were never used as weapons of war. Once they became modified for war, they were no longer suitable as farming implements compared to scythes that were still made for that purpose. Yes, some weapons evolved from farming tools, that doesn't mean they're the exact same thing with the exact same functions.

I hope you do know that a scythe, even the farming tool version of it, when used in combat, IS a polearm.

....except again, farming scythes were NEVER used in combat, hence why they were modified to something more practical, more specifically against the cavalry units most likely to be found terrorizing rural areas. Also by your definition, BLM and WHM staves are also polearms, which is why the game specifically describes polearms as shafted weapons with a metal point that is usually bladed or has one or more blade for non-thrusting strikes. With that in-game definition, war scythes would be considered polearms and would be most likely be given as a DRG weapon.

Are we basing these off guesswork or are we basing these off developer comments cause I know for a fact I remember reading that releasing 3 classes in an expansion was too much dev strain and they likely wont do it again.

It was actually four jobs since they started work on the Heavensward jobs while Ninja was still being made and finished up. Hopefully this time around, it means better quality off the bat compared to the Heavensward jobs.

[Wolfysbane]

I would play a reaper class if the scythes we're like Deaths Scythe in Dante's Inferno. Historical accuracy be damned, I would eat that shit up.

this would be great haha and they could incorporate a life steal factor to this class for better soloing haha

[Niwashi]

That's what I meant when I said that: farming scythes were never used as weapons of war.

But it would be more accurate to say that professionally trained and equipped soldiers didn't use farming scythes as their weapon. Farmers, on the other hand, certainly did use farming scythes, as well as pitchforks or whatever other tools they had at hand, as weapons of war. Wars don't generally stay neatly contained to a battlefield where only soldiers are at risk.

....except again, farming scythes were NEVER used in combat, hence why they were modified to something more practical, more specifically against the cavalry units most likely to be found terrorizing rural areas.

The other way around. The reason why they were modified to be more practical in combat is because they were being used for combat (which their original form wasn't particularly well suited to, hence the modifications). If the originals were only being used for farming, there would have been no reason for such modifications to them. It was people who had to fight wars with farming tools as their only weapons who worked out how to turn those tools into more effective weapons.

[Jonnycbad]

War Scythes were hardly 'scythes'. Look at the angle. It's more like an awkward halberd. If anything that would be a new skin for a DRG weapon, as you can slash or poke with it. They were technically polearms/poleaxes.