Dual purpse classes/jobs

[Duelle]

take for example war tank over pld. warrior is fine it has all the abilities it needs to fullfill its role (tank & dd). pld on the other hand doesn't have all the neccessary abilities to fullfill its role as a (tank & party saver). changing the numbers on pld dps, defense, etc. isnt the true answer, yes its a factor but more imporantly you need the abilities to do your role and when you don't have that more defense, dps etc. kinda sorta won't help out too much.

PLD needs both, IMO. Better DPS and enmity generating attacks as well as more abilities. I'd personally bring back Circle Blade as a PLD-exclusive weapon skill (GLA used to have it before the simplification). Allow PLD to gain more from STR (normal +attack as well as +block value or block rate), and buff sword damage slightly. That would be in addition to the coming PLD buffs.

Holy Succor looks like a good idea on paper, and is one of the cases where SE lifted something from WoW and blended it to their PLD design. Problem is, Holy Succor is basically Beacon of Light, which belongs to the healing paladin spec; not the guy with the shield taking damage for his comrades (prot) or the guy smashing faces with a two-handed hammer while burning his foes with holy light and righteous fire (ret), but the guy that stands in the back with the casters (holy). In short, SE stole the wrong idea from the wrong paladin spec. >.>;

Edit: For argument's sake, if you really want to help the healer side of PLD, I'd first make holy succor 1 second cast time or instant cast. Then we can do one of two things. Turn it into a smart heal (Holy Succor: Heals you for X HP and a party member within 10 yalms of you for 50% of the healed amount. The secondary heal always targets the player with the lowest HP percentage) or a mini group heal (Holy Succor: Heals you for X HP and all allies around you for 25% of the healed amount).

The current implementation doesn't really help because of how the targetting system works. You have to break target, select the party member you need to heal and then let loose. Too much time wasted. Might work if XIV supported mouse-over macros, but even then I'd argue the implementation is not befitting of a front liner.

[stanleyyoung]

PLD needs both, IMO. Better DPS and enmity generating attacks as well as more abilities. I'd personally bring back Circle Blade as a PLD-exclusive weapon skill (GLA used to have it before the simplification). Allow PLD to gain more from STR (normal +attack as well as +block value or block rate), and buff sword damage slightly. That would be in addition to the coming PLD buffs.

Holy Succor looks like a good idea on paper, and is one of the cases where SE lifted something from WoW and blended it to their PLD design. Problem is, Holy Succor is basically Beacon of Light, which belongs to the healing paladin spec; not the guy with the shield taking damage for his comrades (prot), but the guy that stands in the back with the casters (holy). In short, SE stole the wrong idea from the wrong paladin spec. >.>;

pld does need a boost in numbers a bit, but if the ablilities it had were better and some new ones were added thats the key to it tanking well. I see it as now currently holy succor, cover and outmanuevar should be the main tanking abilities behind pld.

improving cover to not only protect an ally and trasfering enimty to pld but regen mp constantly while the target is covered would help with more enimty generation from doing more heals with holy succor keeping himself alive and party members also, thus making pld a desired tank for party survivablitity. outmanuevaer on the other hand needs great improvement on blocking rate and mp regen. warrior would still be desire tank for a parties that have a high outright dps to take down mob fast while pld is the desired tank for long, dragged on fights.

this all comes down to class/job identification and the roles they play & how they go about doing so with the numbers being a big factor but the roles & ID along with uniqueness be achieved via the abilities that the classes and jobs use.

[Frein]

The current implementation doesn't really help because of how the targetting system works. You have to break target, select the party member you need to heal and then let loose. Too much time wasted. Might work if XIV supported mouse-over macros, but even then I'd argue the implementation is not befitting of a front liner.

It'd be a lot easier if you played with sub-targets on. I believe sub-targets off only works well for WHM, BLM and BRD.

[Enfarious]

This is fine and I agree with you. As a whole melee should not be something that's detrimental to bring to an event or boss fight. What I meant was that one should never argue that MNK, DRG and any more melee damage dealers we get further down the line should be the top pick for that role if there are hybrids that can also come as DPS. That line of thinking leads to the hybrids having subpar DPS, which means their other role(s) overshadow what they can do in terms of damage and groups only bring them for those other roles, which then basically pisses on anyone who likes the DPS aspect of the hybrid because they want to play their preferred role but can't because the game and the community don't really support it.
True. All jobs should be balanced around the same goal in their respective roles.
I agree with this. Someone mentioned mechanics that challenge ranged and less focus on punishing melee, which would be a step forward.

Yeah I remember when I started playing FFXI I went Elvaan RDM, I wanted to be able to deal some damage while also being able to toss around the off cure and buff/debuff, lvl10 Dunes I got, "Dude what are you doing, you can't melee on rdm, get back with the rest of the mages.", Now 7/8 years later RDM remains a refresh/haste whore, it's sad that these type jobs fall off into obscurity but they often do. Mostly because the hybrid nature of them means they incorporate things that other jobs specialize in. RDM didn't serve a large enough role as a debuffer to warrant it filling a spot that could be used for a DD or WHM or BLM, depending on the timeframe, SE moved from content that wrecked one job to another over and over in that game trying to find balance and it never happened.

Really want DRG to make a come back, give us back the old Surges, where the melees all benifited from them. Give MNK back the enfeebles it had, if Ifrit's TP attacks get stunned/pacified then with a little hp drain/hit melees can stay in and beat on things far more effectively increasing overall DPS for them, not running away means more hits, it'd make melee viable, make 2/3 of the single purpose jobs serve a "useful" secondary role, it seems like a good way to go imo.

Edit: not abilities that only work after "x" happens, since really when, unless your tank is garbage or your mnk is loopy, is a mnk dodging boss attacks. Not part of a combo since that can't always be hit in the time it takes for a boss to charge it's attack, give em an actual chance to use the thing.

[Enfarious]

It'd be a lot easier if you played with sub-targets on. I believe sub-targets off only works well for WHM, BLM and BRD.

That or <stparty> or <stpc> or <stnpc> in macro's.

[DSTakunn]

Honestly I feel that SE's plan is to leave some of these flaws in on these jobs to leave room for other jobs. (after incorporating the updates to jobs) Say you had a fencer(class) Red Mage, the fencer could sport a Temperance ability that increases melee damage for say, 30 seconds. This could help a PLD out in the long run. It's like how they began with the combo system before 1.21; everything seemed like it was missing something. I think they are leaving pieces of a puzzle unfinished slowly feeling their way around while adding the pieces that are needed.

[Duelle]

It'd be a lot easier if you played with sub-targets on. I believe sub-targets off only works well for WHM, BLM and BRD.

I guess I could give that a try, though if it plays like /focus or defensive targets we run into the issue of having to have a pre-assigned target. I guess if you have an idea of who pulls hate or who is in range of boss AoEs you probably know ahead of time and set accordingly. Mouse-over macros kinda spoiled me, though. Then again, forcing off-healing on the tank is still not exactly a smart thing to do, IMO.

[stanleyyoung]

Honestly I feel that SE's plan is to leave some of these flaws in on these jobs to leave room for other jobs. (after incorporating the updates to jobs) Say you had a fencer(class) Red Mage, the fencer could sport a Temperance ability that increases melee damage for say, 30 seconds. This could help a PLD out in the long run. It's like how they began with the combo system before 1.21; everything seemed like it was missing something. I think they are leaving pieces of a puzzle unfinished slowly feeling their way around while adding the pieces that are needed.

you could be right about them (SE) leaving pieces of the puzzle out for now. what i have been saying about classes having multiple weapons & each weapon makes you play a certain role along with fighting stances for the class. And each weapon in a class branches to jobs thus making jobs use one dedicated weapon only play one speific role only. this could be the final pieces to our puzzle and our current problem with the class/job & armoury system solved.

[Frein]

I guess I could give that a try, though if it plays like /focus or defensive targets we run into the issue of having to have a pre-assigned target.

It doesn't. You use Holy Succor -> click on party memeber. And you're done!

Also, I actually almost exclusively use the keyboard when on melee jobs and switch to full-time mouse + kb for ranged and healing. It's amazing how much the UI forces you to change your settings and the way you play if you want to maximize effectiveness for different jobs.

[Halvaard_Vidan]

I think the real problem here is the lack of classes, this would be a non issue if there were more competing play styles.