How would you tackle job identity?

[Moqi]

Sub's lapsed and I don't plan on coming back so I needed to get this out get some closure, but it could still make for some interesting discussion.

This is how I envision each job to play. Feel free to add your own thoughts!

Paladin: the quintessential Tank, has the highest defenses amongst tanks thanks to its unique Block stat given by the shield. It has a relatively simple rotation and unique abilities to cover and heal allies, which makes them the ideal beginner tank with a pretty low skill floor and lots of recovery tools for yourself and allies. The skill ceiling is gradually raised with the introduction of a magical phase and 3 different stances (Shield, Sword and Magic) that boost defensive, physical and magical attacks respectively as well as add different effects to various skills, like added healing to Holy Sheltron in Sheild stance, added DoT to Goring Blade in Sword Stance or istant spells in Magic Stance. Players will have to juggle between stances as Magic Stance will put you into negative MP mode and you’ll lose almost all of your self healing when not in Shield Stance. Paladins can still be very useful in endgame raids both in progression thanks to their exclusive party wide mitigation and healing, as well as being the most mobile tank in Magic Stance, and with proper Stance dancing they can still dish out very respectable damage as they’re the only tank who can benefit from both magic and physical support abilities from allies.

Warrior: the king of “offense is the best defense”, it has no shields or pure heals, lowest defenses and fewer damage reduction abilities opting instead for more damage, Drain effects on his attacks, increased healing recieved and temporarily increasing his HP to be the highest amongst tanks. They have several crit-guaranteed abilities to maximize their self healing and damage done and can temporarily share their Inner Beast with all party members for an increased crit chance and drain. It has a higher floor than Paladin because of more incoming damage (you’ll see their HP go up and down a lot) and a buff+Beast Gauge to mantain but it’s still a great choice for beginner and the only tank to boost the party’s damage to take advantage of more expert players in endgame.

Dark Knight: the first of the 2 expert tanks with a higher skill floor, they specialize in shields and magic damage reduction. They have the least self healing of all tanks but the best shields and very powerful magic-focused mits. MP management is key as both shields and offensive abilities are tied to your MP, but you’ll be rewarded for optimal shield timing with refunded MPs to deal even more damage.

[Moqi]

Gunbreaker: they are the other expert tank, they specialize in physical damage reduction. They use lots of small, long general cooldowns (along with some phys-focused one) and regens as their playstyle is split into two phases: a more tank focus phase where you’ll apply said mitigation and a DPS-focused phase where your Continuation combo can’t be interrupted, so you’ll have to time your mits and heals beforehand or risk losing most of your damage.

White Mage: White mage is your starter healer with simple but most powerful and direct healing and offensive spells. MP managment and positioning are key since all WHM spells are more expensive than other healers’ and they have the longest cast times as well, with Glare and Holy leaving no weave windows normally. At higher levels can gain different types of Lilies to cast istant and free magic (both healing and offensive) and they can enter an amplifier stance that’ll greatly increase the MP cost of their offensive spells for even more damage. WHM has the potential to top the charts of healer damage with proper MP managment and stance dancing, but overhealing and greed will quickly drain you of mana if you’re not careful.

Astrologian: Astrologians combine time magic and rng to make a mixed healer/offensive support. They have selected powerful heals that need to be timed precisely and long regens, along with a costant stream of cards to play to buff their allies. As such, it has the least DPS tools and personal damage but more than makes up for it in terms of rDPS.
The Major Arcana features one of 6 cards:
Bole: applies a small shield that reflects back part of damage absorbed if broken
Ewer: bulk MP recovery + increased MP recovery over time
Arrow: doubles auto attack speed and halves cast time of spells
Spire: reduces recast time of all skills currently on cooldown
Balance: increased luck (crit and proc chance)
Spear: haste (increased skill and spell speed)
The Minor Arcana consists of a random Lady or Lord of the Crown, but they also features 2 more cards as oGCD: Refresh, that resets the timer of a Major Arcana buff, and spread, that extends the current buff of major arcana of a player to all players. It’s a high AMP job as cards will be coming out fast and you’ll have timed heals and bombs to manage as well, so spells will have shorter cast times than WHM and Lightspeed will be essential. Although your personal offensive kit is limited, Astrologian can also multiply the damage done by a party in a certain amount of time through Foresight, that’ll place a timed “damage shield” on an enemy that if reached will increase the damage done (think of it as Wildifre but you need to deal x amount of damage in order to activate).

[Moqi]

Scholar: scholars split theri healing between their CGD shields, Aetherflow damage reduction abilities+shield modifiers and fairy pure heals. As master tactician their mitigation abilities consists mostly of targeted ground attacks, so positioning will be very important, while their offensive skills mostly deal with spreading DoTs to all enemies on the battlefield. While Astrologian are the best buffers in the game, Scholars are the best debuffers, opting for reducing the enemie’s damage rather than increasing the party’s damage while still dealing moderate damage themselves. As they level up, they can opt to sacrifice their Aetherflow stacks to power up (up to 3x) their fairy to a heal focused demi summon or a debuff focused one, or sacrifice their fairy to gain Aetherflow stacks and power up their own shields.

Sage: Sages heal through DPS thanks to the Kardia mechanic, while setting up small, instant shields that when broken give them resources to cast more powerful offensive spells. They’re able to swap Kardia around and temporarily spread it to the entire party, as well as temporarily buff their damage proportionate to their Kardia’s target’s missing HP. Although a shield healer, Sage is much more reactive than Scholar as its damare potential is more dependant on incoming damage and has the most expanded DPS kit as well as mobility. They also keep their Eukrasia ability in order to change the effect of most of their heals, shields and offensive spells, turning pure damage/healing into dot/hot or turning multiple multi target shields into a big one for tankbusters.

Monk: Monks are all about brotherhood, so they turn into a mixed dps/support. They start off with a low skill floor and a simple but flexible rotation of their 6 attacks divided into 3 stances and gradually raise the floor with Grease Lightning traits that speed up the CGD and multiple oCGD that change up the order of their rotation like Perfect Balance and Riddles. Riddles also affect Monks’ party wide buffs, turning its support abilities into offensive or defensive abilities, so the order of your Riddles will change depending on the situation.

[Moqi]

Dragoon: they are the other mixed DPS/support, but Dragoons work best in pairs so they only buff one party member and they are exclusively offensive focused. Along with Samurai is one of the “slow” melee jobs, with incredible mobility thanks to its jumps and a quite AMP for a slow job because of their multiple oCGDs you’ll need to weave. Their rotation isn’t as flexible as Monk but they have more ranged jumps to deal with movement, as well as some positionals.

Samurai: Samurai is a slow and methodical selfish DPS. Their rotation is extremely rigid, long (and thus very punishing if you mess up) and full of positionals, slowly building up Sens to execute incredibly powerful attacks that are guaranteed to crit. At later levels you’ll spend your Kenki to change your rotation at times by shortening combos, gain different Sens or power up/repeat your Ijaustsu.

Ninja: Ninja has the highest skill floor of all. I quite like how it plays now so it just builds on that, with Mudras unleashing powerful ranged attacks with follow up finishers and oCGDs to change your Mudra order and increase damage recieved by enemies. It’s the most mobile melee with no positionals and lots of ranged attacks and mobility tools, but it’s also the hardest to master with its fast CGDs and frenetic pace.

Reaper: never played it but looking at other jobs an inverse Red Mage that’s mostly melee but has a magical ranged phase that uses MP and can benefit from magical buffs is what’s missing, and it kinda looks like that already from what I’ve seen.

Bard: they are the premier party buffer, with lots of party wide, offensive buffs to their allies and a heavy proc based attacks that are triggered by different combinations of songs+dots. Not too different from what it is now, just with more rng, DoT managment and interaction between all its tools.

[Moqi]

Dancer: they are the more defensive oriented buffer of the jobs, although they still keep their dance partner mechanic to buff one party member. They’re the only ones to have a party wide Shield amongst ranged, as well as party wide regen and Dance Partner heal, as well as an oCGD esuna dance (Bard loses their Esuna). Dancer is one of the very few jobs with a distinct gameplay already so there’s not much to change, the heavy rng gameplay is fun, they can just build on that with more procs and follow ups.

Machinist: they are the selfish ranged DPS and feature a unqiue, priority based gameplay. They are the premiere burst jobs, with most of its damage centered around Wildifre, a countdown where every hit increases the damage dealt at the end. They feature lots of oCGD and CGD with their own unique cooldowns, as well as walking cast times and “activating” times for some oCGD abilites. Their basic rotation also includes a random % reduction on cooldowns of different abilites, as well as a “rooted” stance that won’t let you move but will eliminate all activation periods of your trinket in order to best coordinate all your skills and pack as many hits as you can during Wildfire.

Black Mage: they were basically perfect as they were in EW. DT ruined them but just get back to EW and build on their timers and procs.

Red Mage: Red Mage has a solid foundation and identity with Dualcast, melee phase and finishers. The finishers aren’t simply given but earned through heavy white and black mana phases were you’ll have to purposely shift away from mana balance in order to unlock higher tier black/white spells that will give you mana by consuming the opposite color before returning to balance to unleash your melee phase. They have different tools to shift mana around, as well as convert your own MP into mana in order to quickly enter and exit their black/white phases and unleash all their finishers. They can be as powerful as any Black Mage while dealing damage, but they can also sacrifice all of that to heal with a powerful single target heal, party wide heal and the only CGD raise from a non healer, but it’ll cost you a lot of MP as well as your black/white mana.

[Moqi]

Summoner: the base of the job is ok, it’s just incredibly boring and unfinished. Phoenix finally gives you Ramuh, Shiva and Leviathan gems, giving you access to all elemental summons. Each summon will modify your gemshine and Enkindle in different ways. Ifrit, Titan and Garuda will have different cast times (from long to instant) while Ramuh, Shiva and Leviathan will be more buff and debuff oriented. Each summon also heavily change Enkindle, which will resemble Blue Mage’s primal attacks in their variety: ifrit will be a gap closer, Titan will be a persistent DoT puddle, Garuda a powerful ground targeted AoE DoT, etc. At later levels, you’ll unlock further dual element primals based on the order of gems used that’ll lend you your powers for a further Enkindle, as well as a Light/Dark gauge that’ll let you summon Alexander or Odin for a devastating attack. Summoner still has access to raise but it’s locked behind Phoenix’s Enkindle – you’ll have to choose wether to raise a dead party member or heal an alive one.

And with that, goodbye!

[Raikai]

Before tackling job identity, I'd actually see the encounter design and how its features can actually accomodate the job kits, which I think it's essential to even address the healer situation, for example.

Irony is what they are doing in Dawntrail... However, I'm not holding my breath at all to see something new so distinct that it will fuel the plans for job identity in 8.0. Would be nice to be surprised, though.

Spire: reduces recast time of all skills currently on cooldown

Like for example, you put this... but with the current 2min meta this is completely trash and people would probably get mad at drifting if they wanted to use their actions earlier.

[HighlanderClone]

Lost Ark gameplay, FF14 systems.

[Musashidon]

i wouldn't you can easily tell what job is what at anytime there is no identity problem just a perspective problem.

[Equitable_Remedy]

I would simply use unlimited development resources to make perfect classes that everyone on social media likes 100% of the time. Weird that SE doesn't just do that.