How would you tackle job identity?

[sindriiisgaming]

so, Now i KNOW the devs are reading these forums. i want to give some feedback.

Healers -
WHM - more focus on HOT and elemental based damage. think along the lines of shaman in wow. and then i think whm will feel better to play. i love shaman setting totems on the ground that do HOT or Buff dps. whm could do something similar by setting elemental idols that give different buffs depending on what element. in KH1 aero was a shield that repelled damage. there's your wind. water is a dot if an enemy stands in it. fire is a damage buff, and earth is a defense buff
Sage - sage is a barrier healer and i think thats what its focus should be about. barriers. whether its physical barriers, magical barriers, esuna fields or HOT fields. a shield user shouldnt really heal.. but shield. i like pepsiMAX skill that breaks shields for heals. but it would be better if they just outright healed compiled damage.
Astro- Okay this healer is hard.. since its actually JUSt a time mage. and maybe we should make it more OF a time mage? have a deck of 15 cards. (all 14 of the old ones and 1 new 1) each card can be played whenever you want with a limitation of the numbers per cycle. so like rn 5 cards is 1 set. kind of like a 5 card hand. you can either play all the cards, or reshuffle them back into the deck and draw the ame number of cards you reshuffled (so its basically yugioh now) each of these cards can be played a 30 second CD. the card has an effect that never changes. for example lets say u draw The spire The ewer The bole The arrow The balance and each of these cards has a different ability attributed to it. so using it at the right time would be very important. for example the bole might heal, the arrow might dps. ect. some are dots, some are buffs.
SCH- sch has NO synergy with its fairy. its a total afterthought. and this what needs reworked entirely. selene can come back, as a dps fairy. and using her opens up new dps abilities. think of this very similar to when you summon bahamut or phoenix in summoner. only now its not a rotation its a choice every minute which 1 to summon. you will have basic heals, and basic dps in both fairies. but 1 will be tailored MORE to that kind of fairy. Seraph will become a burst fairy only usable after the fairy guage is at 100 ( in order to have it at 100 each fairy will need to be used (this would put seraph on a 2 minute cooldown if you do your fairy gauge properly) shell do big damage and a heal coupled with it. in later levels the additional effects of her final hit could be increased.


one of the most important aspects of reworking combat SHOULD be reworking the early jobs skills. dragoon, ninja, monk and many other jobs get there aoes way to late into the game. given that ARR was the original endgame.. i find this an absolutely mental design choice.. much like monk has its kit at 60, so should all jobs have a basic aoe kit at 15, 30, 50, 60+ with each expansion adding on new unique things to make that kit exciting.

[sindriiisgaming]

TANKS
Warrior - Warrior should be a true berserker. instead of pumping out mental heals, they should instead offset the insane health cost of using the berserk abilities. this would make playing a warrior optimally very difficult. bring back a true sense of player skill with management, while having just enough healing at even a noobie can play it well.
Dark Knight. wasnt this job modeled after blood DK? i mean.. wheres the blood? wheres the self inflicted pain that turns into strength. that was always the entire appeal of Dk. so.. maybe we go revisit that??
PLD - more party aid, more useful skills like cover.. and emphasis on MAGIC. its a magical tank for g-ds sake yet it doesn't even use any.. seams a bit lame to leave that out.
GNB - i feel like gnb rn is ok. but i love what pvp did with the junctions. and maybe if we put that into the pve it would revitize it.. when i want to burst as an OT i use DPS junction. Defend as a tank - i use tank junction. and when i feel like im dying a lot. i use my healer junction. i also love its 5 stack LB combo that is broken if you or the target move. quite creative.

[Acelyn]

the jobs are fine, the issue is the content is so simple they never get chances to shine,

its why tanks are so solid, they're the only jobs that integrate all parts of the system, they pretty much 1v1 bosses, have to use their jobs kit all the time(mitigation) and have the ability to heal themselves in various ways, its why watching a tank solo something is always fun to watch, everyone else wishes they could do just that.

then its all the dps, they have a bit of leeway, but in normal content(the stuff that everyone who isnt on forums/reddits plays) they just hit the baddies and dodge, not much else.

at the bottom is healers sadly, with nigh unkillable tanks and dps who can scamper away at will from danger healers just do what they can pretty much.

pretty much everything that involves group fighting should be redone, enemies/bosses should be able to harm everyone almost at will, if i was a "monster" what sense does it make to just beat up the tank? i would wanna go off and slap everybody, especially if the others have swords, knives or somehow have the ability to light me aflame.

letting enemies actually inflict damage on the ENTIRE group builds healers back up, we have combat medics in damn near everything, they should be used as such, it doesnt even have to be hp damage, dps can be hindered in various ways that only a doc could solve.

a tank should be focused on survival and moments of having to chase down pissed off creatures, just being able to run to the wall/edge and toil away for every fight is too easy imo, if a player doesnt do high end content they may never see a tank cast a shield on them...theres no point, the healers will either juice the whole party or if its a crummy party the tank may just yolo it murder the monster themselves.

[GoatOfWar]

the jobs are fine, the issue is the content is so simple they never get chances to shine,

its why tanks are so solid, they're the only jobs that integrate all parts of the system, they pretty much 1v1 bosses, have to use their jobs kit all the time(mitigation) and have the ability to heal themselves in various ways, its why watching a tank solo something is always fun to watch, everyone else wishes they could do just that.

then its all the dps, they have a bit of leeway, but in normal content(the stuff that everyone who isnt on forums/reddits plays) they just hit the baddies and dodge, not much else.

at the bottom is healers sadly, with nigh unkillable tanks and dps who can scamper away at will from danger healers just do what they can pretty much.

pretty much everything that involves group fighting should be redone, enemies/bosses should be able to harm everyone almost at will, if i was a "monster" what sense does it make to just beat up the tank? i would wanna go off and slap everybody, especially if the others have swords, knives or somehow have the ability to light me aflame.

letting enemies actually inflict damage on the ENTIRE group builds healers back up, we have combat medics in damn near everything, they should be used as such, it doesnt even have to be hp damage, dps can be hindered in various ways that only a doc could solve.

a tank should be focused on survival and moments of having to chase down pissed off creatures, just being able to run to the wall/edge and toil away for every fight is too easy imo, if a player doesnt do high end content they may never see a tank cast a shield on them...theres no point, the healers will either juice the whole party or if its a crummy party the tank may just yolo it murder the monster themselves.

Tanks aren't solid.
One is just arbitrarily the best answer to every problem.
And no, i don't think anyone particularly likes one guy soloing a boss for 5 minutes while they're doing nothing.

[Oizen]

For a small shred of hopium, I actually like how they've handled the 40% Tank mit upgrades and I would do this to more things. Like delete role actions outside of like Shirk/Provoke, and do the same sort of things with those.

Like delete Rampart and Reprisal entirely, or un-roleactionify them and give them back to PLD and DRK respectively and come up with some other way for the tanks.
DRK and WAR used to have their own versions of Rampart way back when before SE got the idea that everyone should just have PLD's for no reason, why not tailor them more to what each of the jobs need or are good at.

Do the same with things like Reprisal, Low Blow, fuck even interject why not.

[Absurdity]

Do the same with things like Reprisal, Low Blow, fuck even interject why not.

I also wouldn't mind if they brought some flavour to those skills besides just making unique versions for each job. Something like Low Blow has a chance to reset it's cooldown when your barriers break, like an updated version of the old Low Blow reset on parry.

[Valence]

I'd definitely take example on pvp kits. Obviously they're not directly translatable into pve anyway due to completely different environments, and the pve ones would probably benefit to stand on their own anyway.

But as a mental exercise this is an example of how I'd have translated pvp RDM into a pve identity (posted in another thread), and other jobs. Note that it's done with EW's state and doesn't take into account DT's new skills and ideas:

1) RDM keeps its pve combo and dualcast, no problem there. It's similar in pvp: dualcast filler and melee combo on a cooldown. In pve, the melee combo can continue costing gauge (white/black mana).

2) Introduce White and Black shift.
- Black Shift is focused on damage
- White Shift is focused on utility and restorative
- It is possible to swap between White and Black shift instantly like in pvp, with almost no recast timer, allowing to switch on the fly right in the middle of a combo.

3) Black Shift
- Spell combos: increased potency
- Melee combo: potent dot stacks per melee hit

4) White Shift
- Spell combos: no cast times
- Melee combo: barrier stacks per melee hit (probably only used for heavy incoming damage or solo purposes like deep dungeons etc)

5) Corps-à-corps & Displacement (multiple charges like today)
- Inflicts target with monomachy: +10% damage dealt to target (used before the melee combo for example) and -10% target taken from target (used to self mitigate, no more sad red mages noises with no manaward)

6) Spell procs (verfire, verstone) work like today, and the game becomes how you use your white spells for mobility and your black spells for power.

7) Mana gauge
- Melee combos consume only one side of the gauge, which is based on whether you use melee hits in black or white shift.
- If white shift mode: Verholy, which is instant cast and AoE heals around the RDM/target. 
- If black shift mode: Verflare, which has a cast time and deals more damage.
- As said in 2), it's perfectly possible to swap between white and dark at every step of the combo if so you wish.
- The way black and white mana is generated can be designed in different ways: every spell generates the same amount of both, or black generates white and white generates black. Or the imbalance of the gauge like today's pve can also be kept (but what for?).

8) Magicked Barrier is only available under White Shift and costs white mana (+ cooldown). Same for Vercure and Verraise (very steep white cost on top of MP cost).

9) Black and White shift play
- The idea is to go into black or white shift depending on the situation (mobility, damage, heal/support...), and deal with limited resources in both mana types.

10) Grand Cross (120s cd or whatever): used in white Shift heals a craptload and AoE around the target, and used in black Shift grants Embolden/Frazzle to everybody hit around the target (with diminishing buff effects like pve embolden, you can call the buff status Embolden)

Now you can move as a RDM, not just with reprise or melee combos.

Now you'll tell me, DPS jobs have some identity left today compared to supports. Alright, let's do support then.

White Mage is currently extremely barebones when it comes to its pve offensive kit especially. It can be strengthened relatively easily since everything is left to build here.

1) White Mage has a main filler spell: Stone 1 > Stone 2 > Stone 3 > Stone 4 (standard combo or pictomancer consolidated combo? you choose idm). The AoE version is Holy > Holy 3.

2) White Mage has a non-stackable dot: Aero (single target) OR Aero 3 (AoE) of a certain duration, recastable at will. 

3) Introduce Seraph Strike (seen in fields operations already and pvp), add crimson wings to it if you feel like it: gap closer to target with high damage dealt to target and AoE around. Similar here to a buff button, makes you go get close and personal.
- Grants presence of mind buff, accelerating recast speed and upgrading Aero to Dia/Dia3, Stone to Glare and Holy to Misery for the duration (Misery would also be used for single target, it's a nuke).
- Seraph Strike is on a 40s recast.

4) Afflatus Misery feeds the blood lily, 3 of those unlocks Afflatus Purgation, wide line AoE laser dealing high damage and stunning targets hits. Healers can also have epic attack spells.

5) Aquaveil/Benison get condensed into one ability. Nullifies one status affliction (like Warden's).

Now for the healing kit, Pvp is relatively barebones on its limited healing for obvious reasons, so we'd need mostly to base ourselves on the pve model I fear (unless going for a very role agnostic system...). This is where my ability and willingness to design healing kits kinda stops tbh. But I had some ideas like Temperance being on a faster recast and unlocking some stacks of Rapture or Solace for example, and being a state of powerhealing the job could get into, but with timers or constraints.

Granted, this is far from the hardest jobs to translate and take inspiration from pve, and I'm not a designer with 3 years of development to work on it further. But that's how I'd go about it, with cool interactions between various parts of the kit. idk

[Ayer2015]

I would do several things with the 8.0 class design:

1. Refined the classes to exist from levels 1-30, then have all OG jobs start fresh independently at lv30. This would finally eliminate 1.0 skill dependencies.

2. Job gauges should be heavily tied to the identity of the job and facilitate the overall feel of said identity.

3. Provide jobs difficulty ratings. There is no reason the devs should feel all job should maintain a similar difficulty level to play. This point, in my opinion, is where the problem truly originates. People have the ability of play all jobs.... so use this fact in your design philosophy.

4. Skills with impact feel better than a high quantity of skills that do the same thing.

5. Resource management is important and has been heavily minimized, especially for healers.

[ThaCa]

For Job identities, I would first look at roles themselves. Figure out what is the minimum required for the Jobs to function in their role and condense that kit.

After having the generic must have buttons for Healers and Tanks, they can go as wild as they want with the rest of the kit.

I'd rather see wild variance in GCD within subroles, someone with more rigid and stable rotation while other has more proc based one (either faster gcd or pseudo random for some badluck protection). Some buildup with spenders, some stabile wailing with alternating phases, some chaining things, some slow big hefty hits etc.

Preferrably most or all DPS would shift from team buffing to greedy DPS so they can more easily balance the vastly different playstyles by purely adjusting numbers without having to worry about interplay with other Jobs. If there's buffs they should be mostly personal or something a Healer or Tank can pop at times if their gameplay doesn't get more complicated.

[Khryseis_Astra]

I would certainly love to see more job related story quests.

Yes, even if it’s just one per expansion at this point. Every 10 levels give us a short quest for the individual jobs. The role quests are great for how they tie into the MSQ, but it lacks the personal touch of the individual job quests. I’d like more job lore in-game!

As for other job identity issues, as long as the 2-minute meta is a thing that exists, we get all the jobs and their skills designed around it. But whether it stays or goes, the individual job kits could still play into the identities more…

SMN for instance could get more triads of summons to work off of the existing gem buttons, starting with Levi-Shiva-Ramuh. SMN will feel more like a SMN the more things it gets to actually summon! And I’ve seen a few posts now about dividing those 6 gems into Astral and Umbral phases, that would be amazing imo. But as far as more “creative expression,” like deciding which one of 6 gems to use at any given time outside of the active triad, or even deciding which demi to use, that’s all locked into the 2-minute burst routine, and that’s what everything is getting balanced against. Which is whatever… if that’s how it’s going to be fine, I don’t really care about it either way, just give us more stuff to fit the job fantasies so we can get the feeling of uniqueness, even if the overall structure and potencies of skills have to be rigidly balanced.

I’ll be interested to see how PCT plays and how it feels, because I get a sense that it will be a preview of whatever job design changes we have coming up in 8.0. It seems like there will be some room for creativity with its rotation so far.