Suggestion: Limited Job Concept: Freelancer

[Xairou]

Freelancer

JFFXIV Limited Job Concept

Intro:
A lone adventurer stands before a group of angry Amalgaa. Dressed in robes and armor, a battle axe strapped to his back. He ignores his axe, and pulls out a small bright crystal, then with a smirk grows on his face.

“Knowledge is power, and in my adventures, I have accumulated much knowledge,” Says the adventurer, his bright crystal morphs into a bright aetherial rod, as he quickly rises from the ground for a Triple Cast. The rod turns into an astrolabe as he let’s lose a vortex of Gravity, charges into battle with a leaping Plunge, now holding a bright greatsword, which suddenly turns into a cane, reaches up and releases to the sky a luminous burst of Holy light, stunning all around him. Followed by an Overpowered smash of a bright ethereal axe, a Demon Slaughtering slash of an ethereal gun blade, which morphs into bright gloves and stomps the ground in a Rock Breaker shockwave. He quickly Reassembles his now ethereal carbine, which turns into a bright rod, and unleashes a Flare of explosive energy, decimating all around him, leaving nothing left of his attackers.

Not far off, a fashionable rogayden observes. “So this is the famed Freelancer, who’s taking over Eorzea’s fashion world by storm?”gasps Rodelent Rose, jaws dropped, and face in horror “Never have I witnessed… such devastation…such a travesty… Who would ever… wear THAT!?”

Like classic Final Fantasy jobs, the Freelancer is a very basic Job that grows in power and potential the more Classes/Jobs the Warrior of Light learns, and advances in. Able to wear any and all kinds of weapons, armor, and accessories, as well as use any Weapon Skill, Spell, and Ability they already learned from another Class/ Job.

Soul Crystal:
Clear Soul Crystal of the Freelancer
“An unaspected, clear crystal, ready to be filled with many memories and deeds of the bearer.”

Weapon: Crystals
The Freelancer can equip any weapon from any Job/Class (excluding Job specific / Relic weapons/armor), but when the Warrior of Light equips the Clear Soul Crystal of the Freelancer, the soul crystal dictates the Job, skills, and abilities as the Freelancer, not the weapon. The weapon is purely for its glamorous appeal.
In short, equipping the Soul Crystal makes one a Freelancer, not the weapon.
Similar to Blue Mage, the crystal can have no stats and the class is dependent on their armor stats.

Armor:
Freelancers can wear all kinds of armor and accessories, from Fending, to DoH. The only armor they cannot wear is Job specific artifact armor, like Evoker’s and Seventh Hell sets. They have a special level one trait that lets them benefit from Strength, Dexterity, Mind and Intelligence equally.

[Xairou]

Battle Style:
The battle style of the Freelancer is fluid, connecting moves they learned from other classes/ Jobs, to create their own, personal, and unique battle style. (Think back to Noctis’ combat cutscene against Garuda) In combat their crystal weapon takes on the Aetherial shape of the class/job that the move is taken from. The crystal aether changes to appear like the Padjali weapons from the Palace of the Dead. This is for consistency and ease of programming.

Special Log:
Freelancer’s Spellbook
Similar to the Blue Mage’s Spellbook, this is a record of all available moves to the Freelancer.
Filling out the Spellbook: As the Warrior of Light learns a new move on another Class\Job, the move is “Learned” in the Freelancer Spell Book.
There are several pages to the Spell Book: Abilities, Role, Spells & Weapon Skills.
Using the Spell Book: Similar to the Blue Mage, the Freelancer can select up to 24 moves from the spell book to create up to 4 pre-saved Move Sets.

Limit Break: (optional)
Ungarmarx 1,2 & 3.
Deals single-target damage with potency of 1650, 3600 or 6150, and grants Damage Up to the entire party for 15, 25, or 35 seconds respectively. (Only “Learned” if used with Squadron, NOT listed in Spellbook, until Learned)

Available Skills:
1: All Weapon Skills, Spells, and Abilities already learned by the user’s other Disciple of War & Magic Classes/ Jobs. As the user learns a move on another Class/Job, it becomes “Learned” in the Freelancer Spell Book. Moves are also “Learned” when the source job has leveled enough to gain that required trait. (Ex: Stone IV into Glare.)
2: Role Actions: Like previous Freelancer classes, this job does learn some moves as they level up, but only Role Actions, and 2 Freelancer only Abilities.

Not Available Skills: Freelancers do Not learn some moves.
1: Any move that requires or generates a job specific currency or gauge. For example: No Midare Setsugekka, as it requires Sen. No Afflatus Misery as it requires Lilies.
2: Excludes the tank stances. No need as the Freelancer learns their own tank stance at lvl 10.
3:Other Limited Job moves, no Blue Magic, ect.

[Xairou]

Moves Learned By Level:
1: Crystal Shock: Spell, 15 Yalm Range. 2.5 Second cast. 2.5 second recast. Deals unaspected damage with the potency of 120. (Basic starting attack)
2: Leg Graze
4: Repose
6: Second Wind
8: Rampart, Esuna
10: Crystal Hardiness: Ability. Significantly increases Enmity Generation. Reduces damage taken by 20%. Furthermore, grants a bonus to maximum HP based on your vitality attribute. Lasts until deactivated. (This ability combines the other tank stances and the Tank Mastery Trait)
12: Low Blow, Leg Sweep
14: Bloodbath
15: Provoke
16: Swiftcast
18: Interject, Head Graze
20: Peloton
22: Reprisal, Feint, Addle
24: Lucid Dreaming
32: Arm’s Length
34: Foot Graze
44: Surecast
46: Rescue
48: Shirk
50: True North

Traits:
Level 1: Late Bloomer: Increases all stats by 1% for every Class / Job the Warrior of Light has leveled to the current level cap. (Like previous FF Freelancers, this job gets better and better as the Warrior of Light advances and matures.)

Level 1: Crystal Balance: The freelancer benefits from Strength, Dexterity, Intellect and Mind equally. (With this, the Freelancer can wear and utilize any gear from any role.)

Level 1: Combo Mastery: Allows the Freelancer to tie together Weapon Skills in Combos that typically don’t belong together.

Weapon skill Combos:
Freelancer Weapon Skill Combos are broken down into Combo Action 1,2, & 3, and Area Effects 1,2, & 3. The freelancer benefits from all secondary effects that these combo actions provide, granted the Freelancer performs them in a combo action. It is up to the Freelancer to come up with the combos they like the best and fit their style. Weapon Skills that do not have combos, cannot be combined together. (Ex, cannot combo string together Heavy Shot to Riot Blade)

Combo action example:
1: The Freelancer starts a Melee Combo using the Gladiator’s “Fast Blade”. For this attack the Crystal would appear as the Padjali’s Blade
2: The second attack in the combo moves to the Pugilist’s “Twin Snakes”, the crystal now appears like Padjali Knuckles, gaining the damage boost.
3: The combo finishes with the Dark Knight’s “Souleater”, the crystal now appears like the Padjali Greatsword, recovering some HP.
4: The Freelancer returns to the default battle stance, with a floating crystal in their hands, which could easily resemble the Astrologian’s stance or something similar.

[Xairou]

Pro’s:
90% of the programming for this job already exists in game, as they only learn two new Abilities and no new armor is needed. In combat, they wield the already in-game weapons that change with each move: Padjali, Kinna or Empyrean.
Able to wear all kinds of armor, the fashionable players in FFXIV would be able to come up with amazing new glamours, when able to wear a maiming helm, healing gloves, and fending pants, etc.
A classic Final Fantasy job that gets better and better the longer the player plays FFXIV.
Allows players to mix and match abilities, weapon skills, and spells for some very interesting combos for the different roles .

Cons:
Still a Limited Job, and not everyone is a fan of Limited Jobs.
Freelancers are “Technically” already in game, but only in PvP when not playing for a certain GC faction, which option was removed a few patches ago.
Starts out very rough, as they only naturally learn one offensive spell, and the Role Actions as they level up. But if the job is only available at level 50, like the Blue Mage, then the player will have at least one level 50’s class worth of actions.
Action animations may not be as smooth looking as other classes, as all action animations go back to different default combat idle animations.

[ItMe]

Maybe I'm missing something, but, like... what do you do with it?

BLU has the Carnival.
This... doesn't have a unique space that puts it to task.

BLU has to do special thing to get spells and fill its log.
This... is progressed by levelling other jobs, something we could already do, and it brings nothing new to this experience. And that's also weird because you get more skills by not even playing the job.

Is this just... another unique way to experience old content? Cuz I can't imagine they'd keep BLU out of current content but give this an OK.

I don't really understand what this offers that BLU doesn't. I understand on a literal level that BLU doesn't let you make a crazy kit out of existing job actions, it doesn't let you make a monster that uses MCH's Reassemble before SAM'S Midare, but we already have a job that Frankensteins together it's own crazy kit and I don't see how this brings anything new or exciting to a space already occupied by BLU.

[Xairou]

BLU has the Carnival.
This... doesn't have a unique space that puts it to task

BLU has to do special thing to get spells and fill its log.
This... is progressed by levelling other jobs, something we could already do, and it brings nothing new to this experience. And that's also weird because you get more skills by not even playing the job.

I can definitely understand where you are coming from and for the most part you are absolutely correct.

I did not include content like the Carnival because I wanted to leave that up to the Dev team. Something like a combat version of Fashion report? Sure. A new Freelancer combat log? Sure. Here’s the basic concept of an old classic FF Job and how it can work in FFXIV.

As for the progression by leveling other jobs, you are absolutely correct again. As mentioned this is a reiteration of a classic FF job (FF III, V, X-2, 4Heroes of light, Bravely Default, etc.) where that is exactly how the job worked. A very basic, almost nothing to it job, that you progressed by leveling your other jobs, then later on, you “Frankensteined” (hehe I liked that) together moves and armor combinations to make insanely overpowered attacks. The job never had much lore, no real quests to unlock, and in all aspects, was more of a placeholder class than a crystal Job, but turned out to be one of the best jobs, after leveling the other jobs, way later in the games.

[ItMe]

I did not include content like the Carnival because I wanted to leave that up to the Dev team. Something like a combat version of Fashion report?

Yo, that's actually a real clever and cool idea~
I can dig it.