Which class fantasies of base classes do you like/miss?

[KooriGraywolf]

Although admittedly one of the reasons I was drawn to FF14 was that I could play as a Black Mage, one of my favorite classes in ALL of RPG's, once I researched the original concept of Thaumaturge I thought it was quite cool. Keepers of life and death who use holy and dark magic. When the new caster for Dawntrail was announced, I was lowkey hoping that it would be something like that rather than the highly speculated Green Mage.

And even earlier than that, what initially drew me to try the Arcanist class was the focus on using mathematical geometries, and one of the arcanist stereotypes being that of a hyper-calculative strategist (in the form of K'lyhia). As a math nerd this was such a cool class fantasy for me, and it even made me consider maining that over THM/BLM. However, when you become Scholar, you turn into a war historian? I hate studying history, dude.

This thread was also inspired by a Zepla video talking about how she missed the Rogue class fantasy, and that she was happy she could realize that fantasy with the new Viper class.

To clarify a bit, I was particularly interested in talking about how the class fantasy of base classes are abandoned when you transition into a job and fulfill a different class fantasy.

What are some old class concepts you guys like, and/or wish they were implemented in a future job?

[Cleretic]

You can and should do better than watching Zepla. But to actually engage with the subject of the thread:

For the most part, I do recognize that the gradual streamlining of job kits is a good thing, that many of the things we lose were minor, or just didn't work, either in terms of game design or just straight-up functionality; Summoner's pet functionality was always way too tenuously-implemented to base a job around, and AST's old cards were a balancing nightmare. But I do think that the job that genuinely lost a lot of good flavor to that streamlining was Scholar.

In the lore, Scholars were literally tacticians, and that still retains in some skill names, like Art of War, Deployment Tactics and Chain Stratagem. But originally it actually held in their gameplay, too, because Scholar was weird as hell. It was crammed full of niche techniques that only worked if you really knew how to use 'em, with the notion that Scholar was a high skill ceiling job that rewarded really being able to read the battle. The Eos/Selene split was probably the best example of that; Eos was pretty much all healing while Selene was focused on more niche stuff like buffs and debuffs, so the notion was just that they were useful for different contexts; it might be that they were useful in different types of duties, or maybe the idea was that you'd actively swap between them in fights based on what you needed.

But then, the developers refined the game; they found the fun, found what worked and didn't work. And Scholar kinda got both barrels; some of its abilities turned out to be literally worthless (i.e. Selene's silence), while others were too powerful (i.e. Selene's esuna; wasn't seen as too powerful by the players but made designing debuff mechanics terrible), and others were so good that they instead became standard features, like Virus (now Addle). In terms of balance this actually turned out too well for Scholar, because they were frequently the best healer thanks to reliable access to buffs, and their 'tactician' role actually suits how FFXIV high-end gameplay goes anyway. But it did mean that, over Stormblood and Shadowbringers, Scholar lost a lot of what made it unique in the effort to make up that gap, with those things either becoming common or getting cut entirely.

Agian, I think the game is better for it. But I miss Scholar's 'swiss army knife of situational tools' design.

[Lyth]

I don't think that Viper represents a 'rogue' class fantasy. The slides talk about Turali hunters and ancestral power. This strikes me as more like playing a monster slayer for hire.

Dark Knight is the best executed job fantasy to date as far as the story is concerned. It's a bit difficult to compete with older jobs simply because they have more than twenty levels worth of job quests. Reaper is conceptually interesting, but the lack of a Venom-styled wisecracking symbiote Avatar was a big miss in the story.

The job that I would be the most interested to see is one that builds off of the Corvsi 'Unyielding Blade' sword style that we've heard so much about. Ivalice's greatsword users were formative to my concept of a 'magical knight', as was Count Cidolfas Orlandeau. I'm aware of the potential overlap with Dark Knight, but most DRK weapons currently use an asymmetrical 'Dark Sword' design that I personally dislike. I want a traditional, symmetric great sword without any nonsense cutlass handles, in the vein of Defender or Save the Queen, to be wielded by a gish 'striking' physical DPS. Whether that's Mystic Knight, or Divine Knight, it doesn't really matter to me.

In the interim, I'll probably aim for Viper, simply because the playstyle looks interesting.

[Yuella]

Paladin is a huge miss. FFXIV's Paladin is like a wandering ronin who help people in need instead of a holy warrior who get power from a divine source.

[SannaR]

Not sure why this wasn't posted somewhere more suitable and would gain more attention but it's here now.

I really liked Dancer as we all knew there were dance troops and dancers that didn't use their skills for fighting. It's one of the classes that made me disappointed in the overall story of Endwalker. Here is a class that goes around putting on performances to in a way help heal people minds of not souls by fighting the negative energies left over from tragedies and yet they get no mention. You don't even know that the troupe that does this was kept busy during Endwalker's story unless you go and talk with the trainer. Or pay attention to characters in the background.

[Turnintino]

Not sure why this wasn't posted somewhere more suitable and would gain more attention but it's here now.

I really liked Dancer as we all knew there were dance troops and dancers that didn't use their skills for fighting. It's one of the classes that made me disappointed in the overall story of Endwalker. Here is a class that goes around putting on performances to in a way help heal people minds of not souls by fighting the negative energies left over from tragedies and yet they get no mention. You don't even know that the troupe that does this was kept busy during Endwalker's story unless you go and talk with the trainer. Or pay attention to characters in the background.

Especially disappointing given what takes place in Thavnair -- Dancer's home -- where they are both uniquely suited to assist in the relief effort, and presumably available in numbers (few or not, who can say, because we only see the two at the Meyhane, and one in Radz's intro cinematic, iirc, but one can imagine). But the most we get is some dialogue from Ranaa if you speak to her in Kugane, and that's just an expression of relief to hear that you were there to assist her homeland in its time of need. Touching, but not exactly substantial lol. Hell, I would've been happy just to see a Dancer NPC around to acknowledge the bare minimum, let alone a yellow quest. But c'est la vie!

[Jade_Tyrant]

In terms of specifically the question regarding class fantasies I miss:

While I don't really mind Bard the way some people do, I do like the more pure Archer class theme we get before the job; the focus on just shooting and putting additional effects on the arrows (poison + wind magic respectively, for the DoTs) was neat, as opposed to Bard that focuses a lot more (reasonably) on the song aspect in its job quests and lore. I doubt they'll ever revisit the Archer concept in something new for various reasons, but it'd be neat to get something like it as a full job.

[Vyrerus]

What are some old class concepts you guys like, and/or wish they were implemented in a future job?

I really loved learning all of the old class and job lore. I particularly fell in love with Arcanist and the idea of aetherial geometry, and the explanation surrounding how DOTs like Bio work by reducing the aetherial composition of a being. Plus your auto attacks are thwopping the monsters with your book. I literally leveled ACN to 10 by auto attacking monsters in Middle La Noscea to death with the Weathered Grimoire. The concept of aetherial geometry seemed more interesting to me than what SMN and SCH were introduced as (specialized Arcanists, really). It tracked into the way Ascian society wound up operating in days of yore, too. Like lost knowledge found again. In that way, I guess it really hasn't been left behind.

I really rather like the Ninja back story. Karasu Redbeak is a top tier character, as are Oboro and Tsubame. Still waiting on the WoL to somehow unlock the 4th Mudra that the evil Ninja master uses against you in the level 50 genkai fight.

The entire Gladiator storyline revolving around the Alacran, Aldis, and Mylla is pretty solid too. The swordsman tournament PLD got in Stormblood was peak job class questing, and I would love those characters to come back again, and to also know why swordsmen from all over have such different styles/different elements that they use. Like that one Roe had all earth elements and like boulder drops. The Ishgardian Knight had light orbs. Aldis as Black Lotus had Plunge as a PLD, amongst other things. It really made it seem like PLD should just be called Knight or Swordsman instead of having the PLD label forced upon it.

The Lancer guildmaster had some sort of connection with the boars of the forest, and that kind of related more to being Gridanian I guess, but those quests also centered around this idea of tempering your courage and resolve to face danger and hardship. Going against Foulques's idea of fearlessness. Really stuck with me, for some reason.

The Monk questline from ARR presenting the idea that you could gain power and open your "chakras" by doing battle in places with strong aether/aether of the departed was also really cool. I really loved how the NPC giving you the quests was an Ala Mhigan historian, and you could opt into the lore behind both Monk and Ala Mhigo, and get introduced to The Autumn War and the fact that apparently the Ala Mhigans had heavy lancers that rode Griffins into combat. Really made me wish we'd gotten a Griffin Rider class or something.

[Cleretic]

Paladin is a huge miss. FFXIV's Paladin is like a wandering ronin who help people in need instead of a holy warrior who get power from a divine source.

Okay, explaining XIV Paladin as a 'Paladin class fantasy' is a goddamn TRIP, because it has a rich history, that just isn't the one we grew up with.

Something we actually have to remember is 'Paladin as holy religious knight' is actually an invention of D&D Second Edition. Before then, including in earlier D&D editions, Paladin was more associated with stuff like the knights of Charlemagne; more chivalrous and pious. There was religion involved in it, and their abilities had that 'holy' flavoring to it, but only as a small part of a greater code of honor, as an assumption that a noble knight would by nature be religious. D&D moved away from that and into a pure religion thing probably because a lot of that code of chivalry was honestly just really annoying restrictions on exactly one person at the table, and paring that back to just a religion of the player's choosing kept the notion of a knight with a code while giving a lot more freedom. (2e Paladin still had some of that, like paladins having to constantly give tithes to local churches, but most of it was gone.)

But, remember that JRPGs as a whole grew out of people playing those earlier editions of D&D primarily as dungeon-crawlers; Japan didn't get 2e, so they didn't get the memo about things like 'we've now decided paladins are just religious knights'. As a result, Japanese approaches to that sort of fantasy borrow from only those earlier versions of D&D, and in this case, that manifests in Final Fantasy's paladins just not being religious. Consider Cecil from IV; not an ounce of religion in his character, he's just got a busload of duty and conviction. Given that, you can look at the base conceptualization of FFXIV Paladin and see that it actually is a solid adaptation of irreligious paladins; they're a 'For Queen Sultana and Country' royal knight, with that whole original story being tied up in tradition, honor and duty in the face of a world that wants to stamp that out.

...And then the HW Paladin story arc still ruins that, because that story is terrible no matter which direction you're coming at it from.

[Turnintino]

(Not to mention that the job is just called ナイト -- "Naito", i.e., "Knight" -- in Japanese. "Paladin" was a localization choice, and personally, I don't think it's an entirely unfitting one... Though I'm betting the team just thought it sounded more exciting and evocative than the alternative.)