Job Design Contest

[mallleable]

Name: Juggernaut
Role: Tank
Weapon: double gunshields
Appearance: A marriage between Garlean engineering, and Hannish ingenuity, Juggernauts use heavy magitek armor with ornate patterns, and shapes influenced by Hannish culture. The achievement mounts would be war elephants.
Gameplay: Juggernauts cycle though three defensive maneuvers to gain access different attacks. If damage is taken when under the effect of a maneuver, it procs a new attack. These attacks can combo into each other. Procced attacks can be made even stronger by loading additional aether charges into their shields.

[Shougun]

Name: Demiurge
Role: DD
Weapon: Living Garb, particularly Cloaks, Sashes, Scarfs, and similar concepts.
Gear: Scouting
Appearance: The living garb would move while in combat, think like Dr. Strange's cloak meets Vincent like visuals, and would be part of the transformation process. Picture Bayonetta with their hair makes their suit / attacks concept, or Spawn (comic hero) and his, or Voldemort's cloak when they use it in the last movie. When transforming the form and garb would determine some visual impact onto the transformation like if you imagine transforming into a Dullahan and your cape is present. An offhand could be cloak clasps, which might be statless and less common item to earn, but would also have an impact on visuals. Like if you had a Fenrir clasp when you transform into your transportation form you might look like Fenrir, meanwhile your Dullahan might have some more wolf warrior like appearance akin to Blaidd (Elden Ring). Relics potentially having SFX impacts as well.

Gameplay: Multiple forms with cycles that encourage changing, but may not be as forceful as say SMN. Where proper form shifting could be a skill that leads to skill ceiling, but unlike SMN if you ignored it you wouldn't be aggressively mopping the skill floor with your face (because there might be a reason you didn't shift). Bruiser form able to take a beating temporarily (perhaps due to skilled timing, and cooldowns, with decent damage IF you're taking a beating- and may be the form you take when big long spectacle boss attacks go), DD mage-like damage and support ('can' support, like RDM and SMN you use offense opportunity to do so), DD melee (aggressive), DD ranged. Each form wouldn't be a 'complete' job, would have unique gimmick and playstyle, but also would have some living garb skills that carry into each form as a layer between all the layers (so you don't only have 5 buttons tops).

Ideal play would be shuffling through at least three of the forms.

/* Limited (advanced job): Demiurge (to be in addition to the normal form, not an alternative) */

FFX monster collecting like mechanics, a bit of FFXI monster mechanics, may unlock glamours for your primary content forms, your cloak skills might get remixed for limited content. You can use these forms and skills in any space that is not within current expansion. Perhaps lore wise the more beast specific forms require you to consume their aether (so you cannibalize right there lol), and while powerful are less reliable (wont be represented in gameplay...) making it less safe for articulate activities with friendly fire, and so you use the aether soaked garbs and your own aether more to maintain a higher standard of safety.

Related thread:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-Bayonetta-etc

----

Name: Geoknight
Role: DD (or tank)
Weapon: Two handed mace, clubs, and other bludgeons, weapons can ring (and so they may have a bell built into them, though the ideas on how that works can vary greatly)
Gear: Fending or Maiming
Appearance: Golbez, Ex-Death, Sauron (Lord of the Rings), big boi mage. Wields 'weighty' magic, so basically any element when it forces a nice crunch visual. That could be astral / gravity magic, earth, or meteors. Visually might be something like punching the ground with your fist, knee to ground, other hand holding mace handle (head on ground), then smashing that same spot so your target location erupts into a giant column of fire and rocks, clenching your hands together to lift enemies into into the air with a torrent of water and then crushing your hands together causing gravity magic to rupture and squish the bubble inwards (moving all enemies into a neat ball, that can be moved by CC at least).
Gameplay: Some area control represented by large crystals (akin to Fenrir's boss attacks) that can be infused by some of your crunchy magical aoe attacks (like you might slam the ground with fire, naturally hitting the enemy but also infusing your crystal), other abilities relate to manipulating them around the battlefield to use their elemental fountain effects and naturally to send them into your enemies lol. Had suggested this before with crystals floating behind his back as part of the unique weapon but that's kind of a sage thing now.

----

Name: Eldritch / Blood Mage
Role: DD (or healer)
Weapon: Multiple phylacteries that fill through combat
Gear: Mage / Healer (although honestly I'd like to break the mold and say Aiming)
Appearance: Blood / essence magic, and eldritch themes (lovecraft / otherworldy). A dark mage that is less reliant on blacks and purples.
Gameplay: Large area effect inducing fields that other spells play part in, like you set down a red sea that grows and swells as you cast other attack spells and then can be exploding into an evaporating mist that deals further DoT damage (and may have it's own interactions with other spells). In the healer thread (link below) I discussed damaging enemies to heal allies, or even using damage enemy spells 'on' allies. Curses that would significantly increase damaged received up to X value. I picture it a little bit like mage Samurai in that you can move a lot except for some specific spells that give oomph. Like if you cast red sea you might get the ability freely dash within the sea. Abnormal good movement, like one idea was to infest the target enemy granting you a further zoomed out camera (more for bosses) and you could cast spells from within that target, using their life as your mana. Or to transform into an elder god like mass, moving and casting, while inflicting CC on lesser creatures (and debuffing greater ones).

Related thread:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ecromancer-Etc
---

Name: Blue Mage
Role: DD
Weapon: Cane
Gear: Mage Mc Magey
Appearance: Blue da ba de...
Gameplay: Gold bordered spells in your book have an alternate 'in party' effect akin to PvP spells vs PvE. You can organize the book by gold borders to make it easier. Each spell has a level associated to it (and might even be organized that way in the book), such that you can only queue for the content in which you have consecutively earned those skills (no blue mage enters content without all their needed spells). The carnival and basic instinct will be big friends in ensuring all skills needed are available. Gold skills have 100% learn rate and can be solo'd or trust / squadron'd (blue mage now being normal can use these systems as well). Wild things like Bad Breath and Death could be present but will be tweaked, for example on greater beasts (things that normally 'normal' jobs couldn't CC to high heaven that limited blue could) they receive blue aether sickness instead of the debuff. Many of Blue's damage spells would capitalize on debuffs (in fact on the job guage it might just tell you the number of debuffs in the area). So like casting death on a trash monster when you have a lot of blue aether mist available will just outright kill it (this mist taking other spells to place, just an extremely high damage single target) but on bosses it's just a big hitter with a debuff instead.

/* Limited (now, advanced job): Blue Mage */

As it is now, though I would still wish to see some changes like making any skill as cool as it's source if not cooler (while maintaining gameplay fun). For example our Diamondback is worse than the boss, given that the boss can shoot it back, and gameplay fun wise.. it's not fun to be stunned and you can't even cancel it. Perhaps 3 second force stun and then you can cancel it? Something better than just watching like a dodo... lol. Fire Angon, etc. Though I would love to see some in general 'more' like FFXIV's version of FFXI spell alchemy. Certain spells created effects when together, here perhaps it's a separate system, so you're not forced to use a bad spell just for a good passive, but you have to go collect spells to use them in the alchemy... Maybe X total unused spells in alchemy adds up to max equip-able passives, and each passive used takes the corresponding spells out from the 'unused' pool meaning you have to have spares. Therefore you collect spells so they can make interesting interactions, now and into the future, and then also collect spells so when you use those interactions you have points to equip them.

Lore for chained / unchained (normal / advanced, limited / unlimited) was basically a variant of what was suggested for Demiurge where Demiurge doesn't go full beast because in end game content being fully present is important as the stakes are too high, here blue mage doesn't go full beast magic because their magic generates a mist (FFIX) of monster aether that can create issues for their allies (when the stakes are not high they can more carefully field the battlefield, or work with allies who wont be affected) but in dire situations the blue mage doesn't take a water hose to an electrical fire incase they cause their allies to be sick.

Related thread:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...imited-Jobs%29
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...d-Job-Focus%29
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ike-to-see-%29
---


Here's two limited jobs that I think could be both interesting and also not step on the 'expected' or 'wish list' for almost anyone in a normal sense (unlike say Blue Mage, Puppetmaster, Beastmaster, etc).

/* Limited: Operator */
Name: Operator
Role: Its limited..
Weapon: The mech
Gear: You make the mech
Appearance: Armor Core / Xeno saga the job.
Gameplay: Key part is to get a few systems that are fun to balance, obviously heat could be one. HP might be shield and the mech itself, where the mech is very very tanky but limited health and slow to recover (ineffective to heal); however, the shield can be healed (by healing spells) and returns more easily. If you're equipped for offense you cant afford to have a lot of shielding as that would take away your ability to balance heat for attacks as well (so a tank build would have low heat weapons with high heat defensive abilities). Melee builds would be very mobile and have attacks that could leach back shield. While heavy artillery (mage) builds would rely more on a BLM style. But you could then throw wrenches into general concepts like tread legs would allow a (mage) artillery build to move while casting (albeit slower).

Related thread (vaguely, more generically related to magitek but I feel the garage idea could be a nice place for this limited job):
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...XV%29-Workshop

/* Limited: Onion Knight */
Name: Operator
Role: Its limited..
Weapon: ANY WEAPON
Gear: ANY GEAR
Appearance: Whatever the heck you want it to look like, it can wear and use anything.
Gameplay: There would be multiple self balancing systems, almost akin to multi-classing in DND, or FFXI, except you can triple and quadruple class here. As you level onion knight you can earn more points to spend into each job (making builds, which you can freely change), which unlocks spells and passives from those investments (perhaps in a two tier system, so you invest your onion points into a job to unlock basic skills and stat bonuses, which you get right away, and can continue to do so to gain tiers in that profession, but then you spend mastery points to get specific unique aspects of that profession like fast cast or sage's kardia mechanic).

These spells combo into each other based on the categories they are placed in. For example black mage sharpcast could also trigger the bloodletter from Bard (as the spells would be given descriptions with keywords that you can easily follow and connect). So there would be structure and not just a random selection of abilities. The deeper you invest the more core identity spells you can use from a job, but the system is specifically designed that sole investment is never a good idea (might as well just play that job, that's silly); however, you might find combos that make triple investment ideal as well. All stats would mean something, perhaps jointly with minor buffs. Like Strength increases damage, and also vitality, while dexterity increases damage but also skill / spell speed, etc. There would be soft caps on stats. Passive systems could also include things like ability stacks so you could earn Onion Stack at level 50 that allows you to add an additional cast to any instant cast ability with a cooldown less than X seconds (or if we want it to be more simple, just automatically does it, but it would be less 'build' related then).

Instead of more obvious leveling could also make it more like FFXIV 1.0 leveling with gear mastery.

Related thread:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...s-Onion-Knight

DoL job for funs:
/* DoL: Chocobo + Hot and Cold */
Name: Archeologist (or something)
Role: DoL / Mini-game (Fisher, but ideally has some purpose beyond novelty only)
Weapon: Chocobo's face and feety
Gear: Doesn't really matter, could be Chocobo Jockey equipment I guess (or perhaps the gear is for your chocobo).
Appearance: U ride da choco boco and u pecks the ground
Gameplay: A greater gamification in finding the 'node' than the other gatherers where nodes are quite obvious, there might be some mini-game in the gathering itself but ideally no fail state like Fisher (because you're digging, .. if you failed to dig deep enough just dig deeper lol). Like hot and cold there could be chocographs that are one offs, but there should also be a repeatable structure as well. The items rewarded are less consistent than the other gathers but given that could allow for a wide range of novelty and usefulness.

Related thread:
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...t-Tribe-etc%29


As an aside on limited, I would really hope to not see SE take an idea that could have been just a very interesting normal job to make it shallow limited. IF THEY MUST make it limited then go all the way to town, and then even farther into town, aaaaaalllll the way into fun town- don't skimp. Like BLU at release was barely in the hamlet near the town, it royally, in a first world sense (its a video game), made me upset lol.

If the hall of fame for a limited beastmaster is that it can collect animals with some very generic attacks, then I am going to point at WoW and insert an indestructible meme about how they did it as a normal job.


So I would really hope that IF they feel they need to do that, then it's more than 100% justified and not "we can't seem to figure it out, or don't want to give substantial flavor to any MSQ based job, so we took the easy route". I can see it being cool, but I can also see it just feeling like "......".

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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. . .

[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