Out of combat job actions for fun

[Roda]

Honestly xiv has a hard time conveying class fantasy outside of job quests (rip), doing your rotation in battle (usually instanced) content, and like mentioned bardic performances (though I wish they were a bit more numerically useful, like say, massively increased rest exp generation when listening to a performance).
I really think this game could take some notes from games like WoW where:
- a mage could open a portal to a major city (in a game where aetherites don't exist) for people, give them slow fall (in a game where falling CAN kill you out of combat) to make a risky jump less risky, or create a stack of food items to speed up healing out of combat
- Death knights and shaman can give people a buff to walk on water (in a game where swimspeed is VERY slow)
- a priest could give you levitate for both slow fall and water walking.
- rogues can pick pocket mobs, and lock pick found lockboxes
- hunters have that whole pet taming thing
- Warlocks can generate a temporary healing consumable and can create convenient portals from point a to point b
- Druids have multiple travel forms for ground, sky, and sea. (they can even be a mount for their party!)

There's probably a bunch more, but they have a lot of tools that make it feel like your character is using a specialized set of tools to interact with the game's world.

I could see something like

PLD: Purifying Aura - Bless the target with holy light turning them into a weapon against voidsent. Boosts defenses and damage against voidsent enemies and gives the target protection from voidsent spells such as petrify, death, slow (basically any enfeeblement a voidsent will cast at you)

WAR: Bloodlusting beast - Charge foreward at mount speed. foreward motion cannot be stopped unless the skill is toggled off, player enters combat, or player collides with obstical. AoE occurs when stopped, potency ramping up with duration of the charge. (can't be used in an instance)

DRK: Guardian Wraith - Places a mark on a target, if target is about to die (~1% hp)Esteem is summoned and provokes all enemies engaged with the player, on top of that all the threat the player had is also transfered from them to esteem. As Esteem snaps hate the player gets a ~5 second invulnerablility buff and has down for the count applied to them for ~1 second. Esteem does zero damage, and only pulses threat on the enemies. Esteem will disappear if a player engages with the enemies (if it was the player who triggered esteem the aggroed monsters will reengage as if esteem hadn't fought them. If it was another player, the monsters reset), or if the player de-aggros the monsters (resetting them). The buff is dispelled upon the use of Esteem, or entering an instanced area. This skill of course cannot be used within an instance.

GNB: Gunhildr's Revenge - Boosts damage and defence against garlean enemies and garlean constructs. Hits have a chance to stun or slow garlean constructs. (has no effect in an instance)


WHM: Elemental sight - Allows you to see Eureka elementals around the open world. Each element gives you a resistance buff of that element, and a small stacking exp buff & stacking out of combat regen buff.

SCH: Fey step - Sets up entry portal on first cast, and exit portal on second cast. Can set up 4 (two separate a->b conduits) short range portals that can be used by anyone for a set amount of time, max distance should be around the size of a monster spawning area in the open world, and limitless in cities)

AST: Farsee - set up a table to tell the fortune of others. (Randomly selects a 1 hr buff for players that interact. Plyers have a 30 minute cooldown before they can get their fortune told again)
- Bole - Boost to gathering exp (if omni gatherer, small boost to HQ gathering)
- Balance - Boost to fate participation generation
- Arrow - Boost to out of combat run speed
- Spear - Boost to monster material drop rate & quality
- Ewer - Boost to out of combat HP and MP regen when sitting
- Spire - Boost to Crafter exp gain (if omni crafter, small boost to, i don't know, proc chance?)
(Basically if you're sitting around going "idk what to do" get an ast to tell u :>)


MNK: (God I really just want it to be Spar: challange a fellow mnk to combat and this opens up, you both get longer GL timers and no positionals in the open world at the end, winner gets a longer buff, but these servers wouldn't allow it DX) So instead...
MNK: Meditation circle - Sit on the ground and start meditating on martial strategies, adventerers can join in by right clicking you, players meditating gain a buff that eliminates positional requirements in the open world, the more people in the circle, the longer the buff lasts (up to 2 hours). Buff is dispelled when zoning into an instance. (cannot be used in instanced content)

Dragoon: Dragonet scout - call upon a dragonet to scout ahead for you. Gain control over the dragonet for a limited distance, and the ability to see through its eyes. Have the dragonet call for the dragoon to instantly jump to the dragonets location. Effect is broken if the dragoon enters combat while controlling the dragonet.

NIN: Pick pocket! (of course!) - pluck an item from your target, can only be used in stealth on targets not in combat. Items can range from potions, to items on that target's drop table, a small amount of currency (gil, wolfmarks, beastmen currencies, depending on the target), an item the target currently has equipped (if the target is humanoid. Doesn't disarm/disrobe them, unless...?), to pickpocket exclusive minions and mounts! (Untradeable at first, but can be taken to a npc to make them tradeable)
NIN: (Two knives, two skills!) Disguise - Take the appearance of a target and render all related enemies passive to you. Effect is dispelled upon entering combat. Cannot take the appearance of higher difficulty enemies. Spoken targets only. (friendly npcs are fair game)

Samurai: Tranquil kata - Perform a step-based kata to release your agressive aura (greatly increasing your agro range during the kata). Once completed the agro detection radius is greatly reduced for you and any viewers (like mnk, right click to view, etc etc). The first hit on an enemy guarentees a direct crit. Buff persists 30 minutes and direct crit effect refreshes once combat ends. Kata cannot be executed in combat and is canceled if combat starts. Buff is lost upon entering an instance. (Basically don't use this in an instance or you will die immediately for nothing)


BRD: Performance! (duh!) - Same as it is now, but by right clicking and selecting "listen" you can greatly increase your rested exp generation (say, 3 minutes of listening = 10% of a level in rest exp in a rest area, 5% in a non-rest area.)

DNC: Energising performance - Perform a step-based dance for viewers (blah blah blah right click etc) granting an out of combat run speed buff for a duration (more steps, longer the buff, up to 30 minutes). If chocobo companions are present, grant the chocobo an attack speed buff, and a mount speed buff for the same duration.

MCH: Pawn Auto-refresher - Summons a stationary merchant-bot that sells general goods as well as food and other consumables (level tiers depending on the zone they're in), all at a higher than average vendor sale price (convenience tax). Where does the gil go? Where do the goods come from? Who knows! Robot magic!


BLM: Ley-tap - cracks open a small ley line and generates a font of mana that users can interact with to acquire 3 crystals that will fully restore their mana on consumption. (Crystals disapate when character logs out) (probably wanna not have them consumable in combat 'cause HOO BOY that could break things)

SMN: Summon VII - summons party to caster. 8 second cast time out of combat, can't be swiftcast, brings up a dialogue box of party asking of they want to be teleported, if yes they are spawned around the caster, party members outside of map can be teleported.

RDM: Dualist's agility - a long-range targetted leap that can utilize verticality (ezmode a jumping puzzle) Has a moderately long cooldown.


These are my favorite types of spells and skills to have in games since it adds so much personality to the classes and interaction with the world, on top of being bananas bonkers easy to balance since they don't interact with more rigid content adn rewards. This game really does need a lot more horizontal progression with our characters 'cause as a smn I can tell you that these classes can't really take "make number go biggerer" progression each expansion.