Class Trees

[Mikey_R]

Considering the trouble they had balancing Summoner and Scholar while they were attached to each other, I really do not see it happening at all, especially since they have said they will never do it again and the way the 2 jobs are handled now, it wouldn't surprise me if they were fully split next expansion.

What I believe most do not realise is that by adding another job to a class, that job is stuck with that classes abilities to work with. Taking your example with Gladiator. DRK would be stuck with all the Gladiator abilities, including Fight or Flight, Iron Will and Circle of Scorn. Add to this that any adjustment to any Gladiator ability would also affect both PLD and DRK. Just by changing one thing it could throw the balance out. This is essentially why SMN and SCH were so hard to balance. A change in a DoT or ruin affected both, which often made them see saw between which one was too strong. This is ultimately why the current iteration of SCH literally only takes Resurrection from Arcanist, everything else in the SCH kit is classed as a SCH ability, even if it has the same name as the SMN equivalent.

This also doesn't address the issue of different weapons for different jobs and how the animations play out. If you notice, the same ability is used the same regardless of weapon, every tank uses Interject/Low Blow/Reprisal etc. the exact same way. The same is true of Scholar and Summoner, they use spells in the same way. So, even if you go the route of, you equip a DRK Job Stone, you can use great swords, how would the animation for something like Fast Blade look when used with a great sword. It probably wouldn't look good at all. Not to mention that weapons are tied to classes and not jobs, hence Summoner and Scholar using the same weapon.

You could say, well, when you equip the DRK Job Stone, you update the animations. At this point, you might as well make a whole new job and not tie it down with the added restrictions imposed upon it by having it be tied to a class that already has another job attached to it. Bear in mind, since you used 2 tanks as an example, I used 2 tanks. The situation gets weird when you try and make a Healer/DPS or Healer/Tank. their class kit will be based mostly on healing, leaving no room for a comprehensive dps/tanking style to fit without completely reworking all the level up abilities for the class anyway.

All in all, I really do not see how it could be beneficial to have 2 jobs off of 1 class. They tried it, realised how much of a nightmare it was to balance, and have all but scrapped it since. This same logic could in theory give an insight into why skill trees are hard to balance, but that is a different challenge altogether.

And this is one of the things I wrestle with. In designing a tree/spec it's hard to balance identity with balancing the endgame. I want each class to be useful, but not turn into a exclusive endgame. While trying to move away from the only usefulness in DPS classes to solely be KILL THE THING.

Others have mentioned SMN being the best example of job identity, and I completely agree with this. Compare that with Monk and you have some large differences, as monk hasn't really evolved as much as SMN. You bring up some good points and it truly is hard to balance.

Don't worry I feel the pain with monk. It was the second job I levelled after Paladin and after Heavensward it has been a struggle to continue to use it. Which is a shame, because I enjoy the freeform combos and positionals, that's why I tried it in the first place, but with essentially no evolution through the expansions...yeah.

[AceofRains]

Considering the trouble they had balancing Summoner and Scholar while they were attached to each other, I really do not see it happening at all, especially since they have said they will never do it again and the way the 2 jobs are handled now, it wouldn't surprise me if they were fully split next expansion.

Jobs don’t need to share anything other than EXP for this to work. The problem with Summoner and Scholar was not their nature of binding to Arcanist- that’s their greatest strength, that you have a 2 in 1 role swap. The problem was that they tried to share so many abilities instead of letting them be their own unique things but still come from Arcanist’s level.

Sharing Bio and Ruin doesn’t seem to prove problematic. there almost the same as how almost melee job has a 3 step combo. Those were the “Weaponskills”. It was other things like Aetherflow, Shadowflare, Bane, and other DPS things that made Scholar far superior to the other Healers when it came to DPSing. So they ended up gutting them, a decision that I wholeheartedly agree with.

They could even revamp the pre-30 levels of each class that give you a taste of both paths, but you lose them when you specialize. For example, Arcanist has access to Physic, which is neat early on, but we know when it becomes Summoner it’s absolutely useless and therefore should no longer exist on Summoner. Or even Summoner losing access to Ressurection. (If they wanted to be thematically cool about it, Phoenix should be able to Raise only while it’s Summoned.). Scholar lost access to bane and fester. Idk. It’s common sense to me.

[Eliadil]

For example, Arcanist has access to Physic, which is neat early on, but we know when it becomes Summoner it’s absolutely useless and therefore should no longer exist on Summoner.

They could just give a trait to SMN to make Physick scale with Intel instead of Mind, just like with RDM's VerCure. Then the spell would look suddenly much better, and SMN would be nerfed accordingly while keeping its identity.

[AceofRains]

They could just give a trait to SMN to make Physick scale with Intel instead of Mind, just like with RDM's VerCure. Then the spell would look suddenly much better, and SMN would be nerfed accordingly while keeping its identity.

I guess that’s an option too, but now that Summoner would heal it takes away from what makes Red Mage special, and even more away from the Healers responsibilities. The reasonable option is just to remove the useless action from the job and possibly replace it with something more useful.