Job Design Contest

[ty_taurus]

I hate limited jobs. It's such a waste of job design potential to quarantine BLU into the barren wasteland that is BLU content. I get that there are some people who like BLU, but I guarantee you if we made something else instead, we could have very similar content without sacrificing BLU or BST for that matter.

And you know, I think this limited line of thinking where jobs like BLU, BST, and PUP can't be made into real jobs because they're too gimmicky is ridiculously narrow-minded. There are countless ways you could reimagine those jobs or others that works within the confines of FFXIV's combat system, and we know this because RDM is a real job. If RDM was designed like a traditional RDM from past titles, it would be game-breaking, and yet strangely it isn't because being creative with its gameplay allowed the design team to create something that feels respectful to the identity of classic RDM while still working within FFXIV's combat system.

Something I've said before was that BST could very easily have been designed using Rinoa as a source of inspiration as a physical ranged DPS. In Dissidia, she's half BST half Sorceress, but if you took the BST half of her kit and expanded upon that, you could have something both creative and effective within FFXIV. No reason to condemn the job to an empty corner with barely any content just because the Pokemon aspect of specifically FFXI's BST doesn't work in FFXIV's design model.

[Shougun]

I hate limited jobs. It's such a waste of job design potential to quarantine BLU into the barren wasteland that is BLU content. I get that there are some people who like BLU, but I guarantee you if we made something else instead, we could have very similar content without sacrificing BLU or BST for that matter.

And you know, I think this limited line of thinking where jobs like BLU, BST, and PUP can't be made into real jobs because they're too gimmicky is ridiculously narrow-minded. There are countless ways you could reimagine those jobs or others that works within the confines of FFXIV's combat system, and we know this because RDM is a real job. If RDM was designed like a traditional RDM from past titles, it would be game-breaking, and yet strangely it isn't because being creative with its gameplay allowed the design team to create something that feels respectful to the identity of classic RDM while still working within FFXIV's combat system.

Something I've said before was that BST could very easily have been designed using Rinoa as a source of inspiration as a physical ranged DPS. In Dissidia, she's half BST half Sorceress, but if you took the BST half of her kit and expanded upon that, you could have something both creative and effective within FFXIV. No reason to condemn the job to an empty corner with barely any content just because the Pokemon aspect of specifically FFXI's BST doesn't work in FFXIV's design model.

Definitely how I felt at release of blue. I mean I'm still annoyed that blue is limited, but at least it has more cool stuff now (though I also 'still' think that it could be better if it HAD to be limited). Personally I am more fine with the idea that they go all out and make advanced jobs (limited & normal married together) where they just get extra content (which might be a serious of character / world building mini-games, or it might be an entire solo mechanic). This game is multi-class, it's fine .. imo, if a class has more content. Just play it. Suggest advanced content for your own if you want it.

So Beastmaster would be advanced, puppetmaster, morpher, etc. Extra content cause it made sense and felt cool. Normal and 'extra'. Like how Druid gets their forms and all roles because Blizzard thought it would be cool, or Hunter get's a whole catch animals mechanic, adding extra cause it'd be cool (but not forcing it into corner called limited). Definitely my take away if they make generic beastmaster skills under the limited system would be "wow WoW does that and it doesn't cost you a whole normal job.... /slow clap SE" (bit cruel but would definitely be my feeling).

I "hope" they learned their lesson from release of BLU and since BLU isn't as bad as it was, I'm not in complete dread, but I am definitely not looking forward to their next limited. If they announced a job first limited, and then advanced I'd be okay with that cadence (especially if it meant we got three jobs an expansion). But yeah anyways, while I'm not in complete gamer rage (first world issue) I am not 'in love' with limited either.

Though I did feel I suggested two limited ideas with low 'idea' cost and could justify their existence. That being Magitek Operator (Armored Core, G-Warrior, Gundom, Xenogears), where you pilot a mech that you built, and the other being Onion Knight which is a legendary drop it and forget it meme job, but certainly could be interesting limited if it became more like a blank slate for you. The Demiurge off shoot was simply because FFXI had a monster morpher like mechanic and people keep asking for that here as a limited job, and MAN do I really want a morpher that isn't limited lol. So its your 'here have your bone, but please dont ruin transformation on me' (and if it was done well under 'advanced', win win for me).

On the other hand sure maybe spending resources on them when it could have been something else would have been better, but I don't really like feel like I know what they can and can't do with resources. If you asked me more interesting jobs or a great limited job, I'd say "work on the normal jobs". But I worry if we act too much like we know their resources, when we don't, it taints potentials (up or downwards).

[ty_taurus]

Definitely how I felt at release of blue. I mean I'm still annoyed that blue is limited, but at least it has more cool stuff now (though I also 'still' think that it could be better if it HAD to be limited). Personally I am more fine with the idea that they go all out and make advanced jobs (limited & normal married together) where they just get extra content (which might be a serious of character / world building mini-games, or it might be an entire solo mechanic). This game is multi-class, it's fine .. imo, if a class has more content. Just play it. Suggest advanced content for your own if you want it.

I don't see it. The Blue Mage challenge log is nice, but also very specific and not content most people are interested in tackling. I don't really see the appeal in 'old content but with a team of only Blue Mages.' I don't think content build around a mono-job team comp does anything to compliment a game with a job system at all. It's certainly something, and I do think there is a place for it, but I don't think that alone justifies the existence of a job that literally cannot do anything else worthwhile. Now you can use it to farm bicolor gems I suppose in Shadowbringers zones, which is slightly easier than with real jobs, but beyond that, what else is there? One-and-done spell collection and One-and-done puzzle fights that we don't even get anymore.

At the very least, Blue Mage should be included in PVP, because PVP is already an environment that plays with a different set of tools than PVE. There's 0 reason why Blue Mage couldn't just have its own PVP set and limit break like every other job.

So Beastmaster would be advanced, puppetmaster, morpher, etc. Extra content cause it made sense and felt cool. Normal and 'extra'. Like how Druid gets their forms and all roles because Blizzard thought it would be cool, or Hunter get's a whole catch animals mechanic, adding extra cause it'd be cool (but not forcing it into corner called limited). Definitely my take away if they make generic beastmaster skills under the limited system would be "wow WoW does that and it doesn't cost you a whole normal job.... /slow clap SE" (bit cruel but would definitely be my feeling).

I really cannot bring myself to understand why Beastmaster and Puppetmaster are almost universally seen as jobs that cannot be real jobs, because presumably no one believes the source material for Beastmaster and Puppetmaster is humanly possible to be interpreted in a way that works for FFXIV without hurting the integrity of those jobs' identities despite those identities being defined exclusively by FFXI and nowhere else. And yet that appeal to the sanctity of job integrity got yeeted out the window for Bard who is nothing like any Bard in any other RPG ever made, let alone Final Fantasy, Dancer, a job traditionally associated with random magic and debuffing has not a single unique debuff on its hotbar, Summoner who has never used dark magic or wielded books ever in Final Fantasy, Scholar who was never a healer or a pet job before FFXIV, Sage which has literally nothing in common with any Sage from past Final Fantasies, Warrior which is really just Berserker, or Red Mage who's more accurately a Mystic Knight wearing a Red Mage's outfit. This game's dedication to faithful job identity has less consistency than a McDonald's ice cream machine.

[Shougun]

Name: Radiants
Role: DD
Weapon: Whips and accessory (rosary, cross, whatever artifact)
Gear: Striking
Appearance: Belmont / Holy DD, but not the graceful type of holy, if holy magic was used in a violent and dark universe (so no snowflake explosion like Paladin). Like you might take your artifact attached to the end of your whip and whip bash it into the enemy for a giant holy explosion more akin to a nova (not the blue white used for holy normal, but like fiery sun white), may even be the job has access to both holy and fire and so the motif of effects is fiery holy. So one of the spenders might be clutching the artifact and throwing it towards the enemy, radiating light, and creating an exorcist like circle, where then you can smack any enemy in the sphere causing the sphere to pulse fiery chains upon the enemies, and illuminate a sphere at the end bounds, as you strike the whip passing through the orb creates fiery ('holy) chains that pass through the sphere and smash into enemies (imagine as the whip passes into the sphere the whip itself changes it large chains that then bludgeon and tangle enemies inside), meanwhile the skill itself that created the sanctified zone is replaced with a flurry attack which you can unleash to end the field effect, the flares from flurry will hold in position for a second before rupturing (like they were frozen in time, picture Alexander Savage time stop but on holy fire ).
Gameplay: Dark arts from Dark Knight except not spammed between every attack, building up your fervor (faith gone mad), the prayer mechanic allowing you to switch up imbuements with a minor cycle system in place to encourage not always picking the same one (like SMN or Reaper with their alternating attack choice). While the effects might be minor they would be far more accessible than other DD's in the sense you're more consistently buff an attack or offering support, rather than just sometimes, and all of these actions build up the gauge to allow you to make greater effects. The whip would have medium range so you would actually be able to attack at a greater distance than melee but not as far as ranged. Part of this would play into your effects having auto target to nearby (perhaps marked with optional UI, so you can see what the game considers the target), moving from ally, granting them a buff or heal, moving from enemy to enemy to inflict debuffs or improve the rate of your big spenders currency. You'd have decent mobility with multiple abilities that could move you in or around the enemy and allies, perhaps via press and holds built in for movement like your 1 2 3 combo might double over as movement skills simply by holding them rather than tapping (does the effect + adds movement). Add some proc abilities when smacking stuff with imbued skills.

I don't see it. The Blue Mage challenge log is nice, but also very specific and not content most people are interested in tackling. I don't really see the appeal in 'old content but with a team of only Blue Mages.' I don't think content build around a mono-job team comp does anything to compliment a game with a job system at all. It's certainly something, and I do think there is a place for it, but I don't think that alone justifies the existence of a job that literally cannot do anything else worthwhile. Now you can use it to farm bicolor gems I suppose in Shadowbringers zones, which is slightly easier than with real jobs, but beyond that, what else is there? One-and-done spell collection and One-and-done puzzle fights that we don't even get anymore.

At the very least, Blue Mage should be included in PVP, because PVP is already an environment that plays with a different set of tools than PVE. There's 0 reason why Blue Mage couldn't just have its own PVP set and limit break like every other job.

Personally Blue Mage's value to me is only to handle solo content that is awkward to do on normal jobs (which is also limited, though imo easier to 'maintain' than flash in the pan, flavor of the month, type multiplayer content they've given Blue Mage- which is one and done). Fair to say you don't see it, I try to give it the safety quint and I guess I'm just less disappointed than I was originally.. but that doesn't mean pleased greatly lol. Which was like "wow this is hot dodo turds, and should not have been released as such" and now its just a dull ache where I can point at neat spells or niche uses, but still think "it could have been better, it shouldn't have been like this". I'm glad some people have fun with it, and I'm at that point where I'm glad others like it.. Originally when someone liked release blue I was like "wow. your opinion is just bad" lol... I was not impressed XD

PvP Blue could be quite fun! Would like to see deep dungeons and exploratory content too.

I really cannot bring myself to understand why Beastmaster and Puppetmaster are almost universally seen as jobs that cannot be real jobs, because presumably no one believes the source material for Beastmaster and Puppetmaster is humanly possible to be interpreted in a way that works for FFXIV without hurting the integrity of those jobs' identities despite those identities being defined exclusively by FFXI and nowhere else. And yet that appeal to the sanctity of job integrity got yeeted out the window for Bard who is nothing like any Bard in any other RPG ever made, let alone Final Fantasy, Dancer, a job traditionally associated with random magic and debuffing has not a single unique debuff on its hotbar, Summoner who has never used dark magic or wielded books ever in Final Fantasy, Scholar who was never a healer or a pet job before FFXIV, Sage which has literally nothing in common with any Sage from past Final Fantasies, Warrior which is really just Berserker, or Red Mage who's more accurately a Mystic Knight wearing a Red Mage's outfit. This game's dedication to faithful job identity has less consistency than a McDonald's ice cream machine.

Same boat there mate. When people were like "it has to be this way because" there was NEVER an answer that I was even slightly impressed with logically speaking, even now. "BUT BLUE IS ALWAYS BROKEN".. like seriously no, all jobs have always been broken at different points of the game. It made me feel like people didn't play the sRPGs very well lol. "but you can one shot the boss after 10 failed casts!" .... woowee "I killed the boss in 3 moves with normal jobs, what is your point?". SMN, BLM, WHM, SAM, etc, etc they all had some sort of tool that was like O_O;;;; HOLY THAL once you got the combo- honestly in some FF blue was just underpowered in comparison and more of a meme, and certainly SE delivered on meme on release XD. So many bad arguments related to blue, and at release especially it only made me more annoyed because, imo, SE did a bad job making release blue feel good at all in a way that was like "lol so broke, this is awesome". Ultravibration would be an example of where they did much better in that regard.

Even thinking about how I felt back then I get a little miffed in present time lol. One of the few times I felt lied to by SE xD, which could have just been bad marketing but /shrug still quite upset at that time.

Agreed on the other element too though "got to be original, except when we're not". I am still a bit sad that Bard was eaten by Ranger, and as you might have seen from my other gameplay roleplay thread generally think SE's ability to represent the thematic elements of the roles they allow us to be is .. shakey and could use a lot of improvement. That said I'm okay with them trying new things but just need to be confident it's a good idea, for example I cannot honestly think that company wide they thought the most epic (visually) job in the franchise (Summoner) would be a good idea to give it some of the most ridiculous presence in the game via chibis. The chibis were cute, but they screamed anything but summoner. That's got to be like a one person choice lol, or bowing to a system limitation at the time rather than figuring it out or holding off until it was do-able. I'm fairly certain it was one person's given Yoshida mentioned in 1.0 era FC being able to summon primals in the world, and there would only be one primal available (which is interesting, but at the cost of SMN being cool I guess lol).

If the limited job is Beastmaster, puppetmaster, or morpher *(for personal reasons), I'll not be impressed out of the gate, and I'll certainly be annoyed if it just feels generic on top of that. No 20 different colors of the same potency blue mage thanks. Will still be unfortunate to lose cool jobs to 'we can't make jobs have character in normal content' but it'll be worse if they can't even give it good character in limited situations either lol. *Morpher, how FFXI did it, could be a bit logical as limited, but I really would like to see a proper transformation based job as it's just a thing I find cool (huge fan of Harmonixer from Shadow Hearts, Vincent from FF7 and dirge, and Illidan from Warcraft 3 was my go to hero in ladder and custom games).

Here's to hoping it's not going to cannibalize a cool idea and turn out into a very niche okay existence. . .

[TheDustyOne]

This was something I had already done on the healer forums, but may as well repeat the idea here, although I'm not fully happy with the design so far. The idea started as a "occasionally melee" healer similar to RDM having a melee phase. The design still needs a lot of work, but I like the concept at least.

So because I apparently have too much time on my hands, I came up with a proof-of-concept for a new healer idea.

We have the edgy tank in Dark Knight, the edgy DPS in Reaper, well now I have the edgy healer in Oracle. I came up with the overall kit from mixing bits and pieces from Red Mage, Sage, and looking at old 1.0 Thaumaturge information for inspiration.

Overview:

Oracle
Weapon: Warhammer
Magic: Umbral and Astral spells
Playstyle: Empowers spells with Astral or Umbral Knowledge to grant barriers and regens, an Oracle uses its hammer to smite its foes and uses Foreknowledge to spread beneficial effects to the party. It also has access to sacrificial abilities, dealing partial damage to itself in order to gain an increase in healing after a short period.

I haven't decided on a naming convention for spells and abilities, I'm mostly just getting out the idea for the playstyle and theme I wanted for the job.

Damage Spells:

Astral Sight
--- Spell -- 300 MP -- 1s Cast time --
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 250
Grants Astral Knowledge, removes Umbral Knowledge

Umbral Sight
--- Spell -- 300 MP -- 1s Cast time --
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 250
Grants Umbral Knowledge, removes Astral Knowledge

Revelation
--- Spell -- 300 MP -- 2s Cast time --
Deals unaspected damage to target and all enemies with a potency of 200 for the first enemy and 50% less for all remaining enemies
Astral Knowledge: Increases potency to 350, increases damage dealt to target by 10%, 30s
Umbral Knowledge: Applies damage over time to target with a potency of 60, 21s
Grants a stack of Judgement upon consuming Astral Knowledge or Umbral Knowledge, up to a maximum of 5

Veil
---Spell -- 300 MP -- 2s Cast time --
Deals unaspected damage to target and all enemies with a potency of 200 for the first enemy and 50% less for all remaining enemies
Astral Knowledge:Increases potency to 350, grants Astral Veil, a barrier equivalent to a heal of 400 potency, 30s
Umbral Knowledge: Increases potency to 350, grants Umbral Veil, restoring HP over time with a potency of 150, 12s
Grants a stack of Judgement upon consuming Astral Knowledge or Umbral Knowledge, up to a maximum of 5

Smite
-- Spell -- 3 stacks of Judgement -- 0s Cast time --
Deals unaspected damage to target and all nearby enemies with a potency of 500 for the first enemy and 50% less for all remaining enemies
Reduces recharge time of Strike-1 by 5s

Astral Vision
--- Spell -- 300 MP -- 1s Cast time --
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 120 to target and all enemies nearby it
Grants Astral Knowledge, removes Umbral Knowledge

Umbral Vision
--- Spell -- 300 MP -- 1s Cast time --
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 120 to target and all enemies nearby it
Grants Umbral Knowledge, removes Astral Knowledge

Weaponskills:

Strike-1
-- Weaponskill -- 40s Recast time -- 2 Charges --
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 300
Shares a recast timer with Conal Strike-1

Strike-2
-- Weaponskill --
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 370
Combo Action: Strike-1
*Cannot be placed on the hotbar*

Strike-3
-- Weaponskill --
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 450
Grants 2 stacks of Foreknowledge, up to a maximum of 3
Combo Action: Strike-2
*Cannot be placed on the hotbar*

Conal Strike-1
-- Weaponskill -- 40s Recast time -- 2 Charges --
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 150 to all enemies in a cone before you
Shares a recast timer with Strike-1

Conal Strike-2
-- Weaponskill --
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 200 to all enemies in a cone before you
Grants 2 stacks of Foreknowledge, up to a maximum of 3
Combo Action: Conal Strike-1
*Cannot be placed on the hotbar*

Healing spells:

Astral Whisper
-- Spell -- 400 MP -- 1.5s Cast time --
Restores target's HP with a potency of 500
Grants Astral Knowledge, removes Umbral Knowledge

Umbral Whisper
-- Spell -- 400 MP -- 1.5s Cast time --
Restores target's HP with a potency of 500
Grants Umbral Knowledge, removes Astral Knowledge

Declaration
-- Spell -- 1000 MP -- 2s Cast time --
Restores target's HP with a potency of 200
Astral Knowledge: Grants a barrier that nullifies damage up to 300% of the amount of HP restored
Umbral Knowledge: Reduces MP by 400, grants healing over time with a potency of 200, 15s
Grants a stack of Judgement upon consuming Astral Knowledge or Umbral Knowledge, up to a maximum of 5

Astral Voice
-- Spell -- 800 MP -- 1.5s Cast time --
Restores HP of self and all nearby party members with a potency of 300
Grants Astral Knowledge

Umbral Voice
-- Spell -- 800 MP -- 1.5s Cast time --
Restores HP of self and all nearby party members with a potency of 300
Grants Umbral Knowledge

Prophecy
-- Spell -- 1300 MP -- 2s Cast time --
Restores HP of self and all nearby party members with a potency of 100
Astral Knowledge: Grants a barrier that nullifies damage up to 300% of the amount of HP restored
Umbral Knowledge: Reduces MP by 300, grants healing over time with a potency of 150, 15s
Grants a stack of Judgement upon consuming Astral Knowledge or Umbral Knowledge, up to a maximum of 5

Miracle
-- Spell -- 2400 MP -- 8s Cast time --
Resurrects target in a weakened state

Abilities:

Offering
-- Ability -- 1 Foreknowledge -- 1s Recast
Dispel Astral Veil from self to Restore the HP of target party member with a potency of 350
Dispel Umbral Veil from self to restore the HP of target party member with a potency of 350

Damnation
-- Ability -- 1 Foreknowledge -- 1s Recast --
Mark a target with 5 stacks of Damnation, restoring 400 MP as you deal damage, 15s

Penance
-- Ability -- 1 Foreknowledge -- 30s Recast time --
Dispel Astral Veil from self to restore HP of all nearby allies with a potency of 250
Dispel Umbral Veil from self to restore HP of all nearby allies with a potency of 250

Initiation
-- Ability -- 1 Foreknowledge -- 90s Recast --
Spreads Astral Veil and Umbral Veil to all nearby party members

Sacrifice
-- Ability -- 60s Recast time --
Remove 10% of your current HP to grant Sacrament to a target party member, restores HP with a potency of 800 upon expiration, 10s

Passion
-- Ability -- 90s Recast time --
Remove 10% of your current HP to grant Sacrament to all nearby party members, restores HP with a potency of 600 upon expiration, 10s

Azazel
-- Ability -- 180s Recast --
Place a totem on the ground, the totem absorbs 50% of incoming damage from all allies in range, 10s
Once damage has been absorbed, the idol dispenses the absorbed damage 4 times at 20% potency to all allies that were affected, 10s

The general flow for both damage and healing spells is to use an Astral or Umbral spell to empower a second spell, altering its effects like increasing output or applying statuses. The melee combo gives stacks of Foreknowledge, similar to Aetherflow or Addersgall, it provides the bulk of your oGCD healing, spreading effects or dispelling them for larger heals.

So why did I make this? Not sure honestly, mostly because I could and it sounded like a neat idea. It at least shows that there is room for interesting healer concepts, even if it's unrefined and potentially very dumb.

I want to make the melee combo a bit more involved with the rotation itself rather than being just another cooldown, and also to make the sacrifice style skills a major part of the playstyle rather than as cooldowns you sometimes use.

[CaptainLagbeard]

I don't have a name, I suck at coming up with them... But for it but for the rest...

Role: Tank
Weapon: Gunshield
Gameplay: Ranged Tank, for most part it wouldn't matter but for Trials and Raid fights where the boss doesn't actually move it would be much more open for positioning.
Mostly shooting the gun from the gunshield for attacks, with Magitek Missiles from Rhitathyn for AoE, and a lot of the shield related attacks can be taken from him and Varis from Memoria Misera.
Could steal MCH's old Reload mechanic for powered up shots.


Also for Limited Job, sort of bringing back the G-Warrior from Werlyt, somewhat miniaturized into a suit of Power Armor rather than a full on mecha.

Role: Everything
Weapon: The laser sword that the G-Warrior had, it can stay at Level 1 much like how BLU's sticks do.
Gear: The suit itself would be the armor, either in 5 pieces or just 1 piece that counts as a full set of armor. It would get upgraded through quests every few levels.
Gameplay: Have the base skillset you had in the one fight where you used the G-Warrior, with the addition of some attacks from the 4 weapons you fought against and some healing spells and turn the Barrier into a tank mode. Maybe even a mini-Ultima as an LB if used in a group.

[RitsukoSonoda]

Name: Templar
Role: Tank
Gear set: Fending
Weapon: Tower Shield + 1handed Polearm
Gameplay: Tank job that drops sustain and self healing for heavier mitigation. Features multiple types of damage mitigation abilities that require a higher degree of awareness and timing of use than other tanks which provide very strong mitigation provided they're used against the correct types of attacks, situations, and timed correctly as some will have CD's and active windows similar to the SAM skill Third Eye.

Name: Shaman
Role: Healer
Gear Set: Healer
Weapon: 1 Handed mace/warhammer + Fetish/Totem
Gameplay: Features a few basic GCD cast healing spells +cleanse/esuna. Majority of gameplay revolves around executing various melee combos in order to build gauges and charges for it's OGCD skills. Will likely require a higher level of player skill than current healing jobs due to need to be in melee range as much as possible to build resources while also managing multiple different resources along with the actual CD's

Name: Armamentalist
Role: DPS
Gear Set: Caster
Weapon: Mystic Sword
Gameplay: Those familiar with the Dragon Quest series will recognize this job. It's essentially that franchise's answer to Red Mage. However since RDM in this title is primarily a long range caster that sometimes hits things with it's sword I would have the Armamentalst be the other end of the spectrum being very heavy in magical melee combo's and abilities and light on long range spell casting having all of it's damage output including melee auto attacks deal magical damage scaling off INT.

*Edit* on thinking on Armamentalist further. They could tie it into a permanent crossover like they did with Monster Hunter. With Dragon Quest it would be easier since it's also an SE franchise. The Job's skills could literally be skills from that game using the element names as well. (Krack, Frizz, Sizz, Bang, Woosh, Zam, etc...) Specifically a majority of the magic melee attacks utilizing DQ's name tiering style for the periodic upgrades while also finding a way to utilize some of the endgame abilities like Gigaslash, Gigagash, Gigacross, Big Banga, Lightning Storm, etc.. and utility skills like Heal/Remiheal, and Miracle Slash.

[Tsiron]

Reminded me of the "Fusion Sword" Job I thought of a while ago

I posted this in another thread originally to... not much fanfare, but I think the idea has potential! More specifically, what I'm suggesting is a job based around Cloud's weapon(s) and fighting style in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children!



For those unfamiliar, AC Cloud fights with 6 swords of various shapes and sizes that can be combined into the aptly named Fusion Sword, in that form not too dissimilar to the Buster Sword. If I remember correctly (it's been a while), the fully assembled Fusion Sword only really makes an appearance towards the end of the film, which was a neat detail, and similarly I'm thinking assembling your weapon is something you would work towards as you went through your rotation?



I debated back and forth whether this idea would work best as a Tank or DPS but ultimately decided Tanks have enough of a monopoly on cool weapons already, damnit! it feels less defensive and more of an offensive sort of job? I don't really have the know-how to come up with full skilltrees or etc. but mostly I was thinking maybe you had different paths (combos) you went through to slap more components on, with the intermediary stages having different benefits. One example I used originally was if, at one such stage your weapon had a serrated edge, it could apply DOT (Bleed)? This... sounds a lot like a reskin of Samurai, doesn't it? W-well, I'm sure the devs could come up with a way to make it distinct (besides aesthetically)!

I don't really have a name for it, I briefly considered calling it "Sword Saint", a recurring job in (mostly spin-offs of) the series, and I think it could work as kind of a unorthodox take on the idea since... can't get more skilled than simultaneously fighting with 6 swords (or weapons in general, in which case you could toss some Dissidia Firion into the mix, too!), right? but ultimately I'm not too hung up about it...

I revisited the idea some time later, mostly just as an excuse to try coming up with a weapon, taking further inspiration from Dissidia Firion this time around by having it involve more than just swords.



If Gunbreaker hadn't already taken the -breaker suffix I could've seen Riskbreaker (of Vagrant's Story fame) work as this hypothetical Job's name? Seeing as it's equipped with a weapon for (almost) every occasion (in retrospect it could've probably used a ranged option or two to complement its melee arsenal), which matches how they're portrayed in that game

[Shurrikhan]

Name: Mirage

Role: Flex (Yup, went there) [Alternatively, just DPS, I guess]

Gear: Scouting*

Weapon: Regalia, composed of a chain-blade, a magicked shawl, of sorts, that can stretch, reshape, etc., or even stand apart, and a bracelet that can expand and contract, hover in the air to focus mana or act as a mirror or portal. These together form the "Master", "Cloak", and "Ring". The uptime of each is wholly separate, except in combo skills (two or more parts of the regalia -- master, cloak, and/or ring -- working together), such that the Mirage's 'oGCDs' don't even have animation locks.

Appearance: Sort of a combination of DNC, AST, NIN, and RPR's, Mirage's gear is light and loose, clearly meant for to be unconstraining, but decorated with small beads and gems here and there, and a belt from which small mirrors appear to dangle. It would blend fairly well into the desert, but also looks vaguely regal.

Elements/Themes: Sand (and its adjacent themes in crystal, glass, sandstorms/wind, and time).

Idiosyncrasies: The Mirage uses Int, Dex, and Mind. Though it benefits most from Scouting gear, it may trade out its accessories to specialize towards physical attacks, the health and continuous effects of its illusions, or the strength of its offensive mirror skills and detonated illusions.

Gameplay: The Mirage works almost as a trio in itself, with each of its two weapons able to stand or act apart for a time, providing the telegraphs and set-up that help to keep an otherwise excessively versatile job in check. In PvP, it excels in stalling action and initiating or supporting ambushes. The Mirage is itself a physical attacker with slightly extended melee range, but through its cloak it is able to greatly extend that range and enhance its relative mobility or defense while its ring allows for MP-consuming more elaborate actions involving duplicating attacks through mirrors (with damage bonuses based on angular deviation, in place of typical positional bonuses), the summoning of illusions (who can be detonate themselves for damage after pursuing enemies within your line of sight or that of your regalia [think Ying from Paladins], and ranged attacks. The Mirage is, on the whole, something of a "gigabrain" skirmisher with a fluid net of weaponskill flows in place of rigid "combos", and a multi-pathing macrorotation formed out of combo attacks across two or more among Master, Cloak, and Ring that depends heavily on knowing where things will occur later; the Mirage therefore may perform worse than most in taking new ground rapidly, as it would have to set up in advance and has minimal stealth ability. Mirage cannot reach the personal damage of pure DPS, but it will often exceed their all-things-considered party-DPS contribution if the team is able to play well around its sustain and other utilities provided (none of which are mere direct increases to others' damage).

[RavLandslide]

I got nothing, but I am happy that others also think we should get that Garlean dual-shield job.