Weapon of choice for future DPS?

[Wayfinder3]

Red Mages hybrid gameplay style is fairly unique, it's a shame the only "unique or innovative" job ideas you ever see from X player try to replicate it. Being a ranged melee that's more melee means the job will need to be balanced around positionals (something red mage doesn't have) if the job were more gun than melee and fell into the category of Physical ranged like bard or Mch, then the job would be able to live without positionals at the cost of damage and spending more time being a ranged. Hybrid jobs are a nightmare for balancing because mechanics that are generally better dealt with by ranged should be dealt with by

[EdwinLi]

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At this point we basically covered all the basic style of Jobs for their combat gameplay. the major issue now is how to make unique gameplay through mechanics of the Jobs.

For example, the Modern "Assassin" Job (Sword/Gun Job) can be a melee focused Job with the basic combos focusing on the Sword (keeping the basic positioning for combos) and then have the Gun focus on Ranged OGCD skills.

Now at this point it comes to question how to provided a unqiue mechanic for this Sword/Gun combo gameplay style. For a Modern Assassin, the mechanic may focus on building 'Marks" on a target through the basic combos (with positioning stacking 2 Marks, 3 Marks with higher level passive, but 1 if not in the right position) then the Gun skills act as the "Execution"/"Assassination" Skill that does more damage based on how many "Marks" are on the Target or special debuffs (stack amount based on marks) that acts as separate debuffs from the other Job's debuff but stacks with their effects (acting as the Utility side of the Job).

This would follow a concept of a Assassin marking their targets before personally executing/assassinating them with a deadly blow or striking a very vital spot making their target vulnerable to damage.

On a side note, SE really needs to make the debuff of each job separate from each other because it really push certain jobs out of place because the "Job" provided the same debuff as the other "job" already in the party thus their debuff will never stack with each other but override each other instead. This is one reason why SAM has issue fitting in outside their high DPS because several Jobs that already play important roles in groups already provide the same Slash Damage increase Debuff that overrides the SAM Slash Damage increase debuff.

[Shurrikhan]

On a side note, SE really needs to make the debuff of each job separate from each other because it really push certain jobs out of place because the "Job" provided the same debuff as the other "job" already in the party thus their debuff will never stack with each other but override each other instead. This is one reason why SAM has issue fitting in outside their high DPS because several Jobs that already play important roles in groups already provide the same Slash Damage increase Debuff that overrides the SAM Slash Damage increase debuff.

I actually really disagree with this part, at least in the respect that how we see this presently -- e.g. 3 slashing sources (WAR, NIN, SAM, in order of ease of contribution). As long as there are enough sources, it simply turns into a matter of coordination, rather than a matter of composition. WAR is not balanced around the fact that it can apply slashing to the other tank and any SAM or NIN as well; it's simply balanced as a tank among tanks, with its intended advantages. That means that it is advantaged, and even mandatory, until someone else can provide the debuff. Having these redundancies removes that.

Of course, if every vuln strike only affected the player who applied it, that would likewise solve the compositional fixation. But... I like there to be at least a bit of checklisting, and where Slashing is at right now feels right in that regard. I'd argue that given both affecting INT back in HW, DRK's Delirium should have outrighted copied Dragon Kick so that it could at least add Bootshine uses rather than pushing out Monk outright, but we're past that period. The only job made absurdly uniquely strong by its vuln strike now is DRG in a double-ranged comp. The rest is totally sane, and does at least adds a sense of interconnected coordination (such as upon add spawns in decent numbers or HP) where personal vuln strikes could not.

[Kabooa]

At this point we basically covered all the basic style of Jobs for their combat gameplay. the major issue now is how to make unique gameplay through mechanics of the Jobs.

For example, the Modern "Assassin" .

So Witch Hunter from that Warhammer MMO

[Shurrikhan]

So Witch Hunter from that Warhammer MMO

That was the first thing to come to mind for me as well. I'd prefer a more traditional job or something wholly unique and lore-driven within XIV, or even particular to 5.0 or 6.0, etc., therein, but the concept for that job was decently enjoyable, so I've certainly nothing against it.

[EdwinLi]

That was the first thing to come to mind for me as well. I'd prefer a more traditional job or something wholly unique and lore-driven within XIV, or even particular to 5.0 or 6.0, etc., therein, but the concept for that job was decently enjoyable, so I've certainly nothing against it.

Ya but the down side of making a Sword/Gun job work is that it rather a tricky Job to make right due to the Sword and Gun nature. Not many games bother to make a Sword/Gun Job though we have a NPC that does use a "Sword/Gun" comabt style but he use a Axe/Gun instead and his ingame combat is set to Gladiator by default (like many weapon user types that don't have a Job) since there is no "Sword/Gun" Job battle style in this game being Rostnsthal from the MCH job storyline.

Still Yoshi-P did say he wanted to introduce new Jobs unique to FF14 eventually back in 3.X so all options are open.