1. My biggest fears when it comes to this system is that if in the future they add a job I really want to play like Samurai, I would be so very dissapointed if its just MRD with 5 new abilities, that would ruin the job a million times more than creating a pointless class just to turn it into

2. XI solved this by having parts of the crafted gear be hard to come by (Damascus Ingot forthe Haubergeon) and I'd like to see that in FFXIV, as for the new Darksteel based items, they're an attempt to make classes relevant again and can't be used for JOBs and when that didn't work they added them to relic quest. as for materia, a slot system would be much better than blind luck. (Relying completely on luck kills my drive)

3.Ah well I guess we didn't have enough AoE power to shoot down the plumes before they brought down the pillars, which is in itself an issue... too much reliance on crowd control in our content.

It should be balanced in a sense that you don't NEED cookie cutter setups to succeed, even if I don't have a single class in the run capable of oneshotting the plumes the party should still be able to win if they know when to hide behind the pillars and understand how the fight works. What I'm trying to get at here is that content should be balanced enough that WAR MNK DRG BRD would be just as effective as BLM BLM BLM BLM.

4. Speedruns are unnecessary you can measure your sync/gear/teamwork with optional bosses, extra areas in the dungeons or harder difficulty setting, not by how much mobs can you skip on your way to boss.

5. Luck should only work in your favor, just like Garuda battle, you get a token guarnteed and you get s weapon if you're lucky, not work against you like Ifrit where only if you get lucky do you get anything. they can make it work for Darklight since you'll be doing 100 runs anyway amarite?
1. Cant really say anything since its all assumption for now.

2. The class weapon works exactly like that, hard to make and strong. Its one step towards right direction, i am sure we will eventually jobs gears, cant have everything in one patch, you see.

3. Um Garuda is probably most balanced fight ever, just because people in your server doesnt want to use non cookie cutter doesnt mean its not balanced, its just people do not know any better. Here i will link you my garuda fight with me on MNK, then DRG, PLD, 2 BRD, 2 WHM, BLM.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PPUs...e_gdata_player

Its a PUG too, and we dont really have much crowd control in primals, Ifrit/Moogle/Garuda all have diff mechanic.

4. If you have done the new dungeons you dont really skip mobs..... So...

5. Yes. I agree Garuda is the way to go, one loot system i really like is from FFXI ground HNM, you get very high droprate abjurations that is highly sought but still keep RNG on few very strong loot like Defending Ring, ridill. This helps keeping the item rare and prestige to have. Also abit of luck i suppose. But stuff wont be rare if its tokenized nc everyone will have one eventually.