Which Job, in your opinion, has the biggest identity issue?

[LioJen]

I enjoyed the way FF3 had the enemy encounters encourage a more puzzle-like design with the jobs, where there was clearly an optimal party composition and you needed to figure out which one it was (although they basically just told you anyway). I don't mind changing jobs or leveling other jobs for certain content if they make the jobs interesting and unique to use.

[Snorky]

Which I have always found to be a poor decision, it’s an MMO in which you can play any class on the same character, I don’t think DRG having a debuff that WAR can also take advantage of is bad design, communicate, change jobs or raid with someone else, it’s not like these interactions mattered in anything besides savage (except in very niche cases where you had like the dragon kick b****** in alliance raids for other MNK’s)

The pursuit of any comp being able to clear any content has led to this samey job design, and P8 shows they still can’t get it right

I agree, they don't have to design every fight around synergy between jobs. But it would peak interest for those players who do chase meta. In order to not lock jobs every job would have to be viable to complete the harder content. I just musing that it's a way for lateral progression which is important because you can not keep increasing power on jobs vertically a ceiling will be reached and you will need to figure other ways out. This is the way of MMOs even loot centered MMOs reach a peak at some point.

[Silverquick]

Any of these:

1. SMN - Nothing interesting about the job now. Don't see how it was hard to use in ShB either.

Actually that's one of them I would NOT list as having an identity problem at this point. The Endwalker changes gave it a very solid identity as an Final Fantasy Summoner that really is on target and fits the bill.
Uninteresting in terms of mechanics and complexity in comparison to how it USED to be... well that may be a fair point. Still at present they did nail the Summoner Identity down very well with the new changes.

[Bonoki]

I swear I'm in the small percentage of people that thinks new SMN is superior to old SMN.

[Silverquick]

I swear I'm in the small percentage of people that thinks new SMN is superior to old SMN.

Well I should be clear then, I don't see it as inferior either... I think it's just fine.

But being a long time summoner player... I cannot the deny criticism that the complexity of the mechanics have downgraded significantly which honestly did contribute an element of fun and challenge to the old summoner.

[ty_taurus]

I find it ironic that, in a game where blue mage isn't allowed to be a real job and is condemned to a life of not being allowed to engage with 95% of the game because giving it a fixed selection of spells gained via level up and not having a skillset comprised of only the most extremely situational gimmick spells wouldn't be authentic to the identity of blue mage. Yet bard is so disconnected from the identity of a bard that it may as well just get renamed and no one would likely bat an eye if it did.

[Mostly_Raxus]

I swear I'm in the small percentage of people that thinks new SMN is superior to old SMN.

its one of the most played classes now, the ones happy with it just dont have a reason to come to the forum and scream about it, they to busy playing the game.

[Ivtrix]

I don’t think anyone argues SMN is a miss thematically

Only mechanically

[Larirawiel]

Umm, IMHO all jobs have massive identity issues. What is a job in FF14? A rotation. And nothing more.




Cheers

[VerdeLuck]

White Mage, the idea behind the class seems to be that it has big heals on GCD and a simple setup, but the fight design in FFXIV is entirely at odds with that.
Every healer can heal any duty easily so having larger heals just means you do more overhealing. Having very little mitigation and shield abilities compared to others means some checks and mechanics are much harder if not impossible without another healer job to cover for you.
This really isn't an issue other jobs in the healer lineup have.

It just is in a weird place where it's stuck in the past and either the shield healers need their heals nerfed so having a high burst healer is actually useful in most content, or WHM needs to be brought up in line with the others to be able to do most things by itself like the other healers.
Plus I'm incredibly salty that in Asphodelos there was a heal check that WHM could have actually been useful for, where consistent high heals needed to be pumped out, and then AST had a single button that trivialized the mechanic.