So no Blitzball! but how about Blitzballer job?

[Bright-Flower]

They 'could' make it work, sure. While dancer does on occasion branch out into throwing knives etc, they are chakrams 99% of the time and a blitzball is different enough visually and would have distinct animations for its attacks without overlapping with dancer's theme too much.

And it is likely that 9.0 will have a new phys ranged, as we haven't had one since 5.0 now and will be heading into 8.0 for our next jobs.

However. I don't think it's likely.

For one, with the way jobs tend to work lore wise, the idea of a group of people fighting by throwing sports balls at voidsent and monsters etc may be a bit silly. Not insurmountable, they made Pictomancer work. But this isn't a whimsical magical art but a martial discipline. It worked for Wakka well enough as a one off character who happened to use one for combat but making an actual job stone of people doing combat with blitzballs may be a harder sell.

Plus, including blitzballer means introducing blitzball into the lore. New jobs already often suffer from not being able to put their quests in zones applicable to their lore. No Dancers in Thavnair for example. But blitzballer as a job is so intrinsically tied to the game, that if they couldn't have the quests involve an actual blitzball game in a blitzball stadium, even if it was just a cutscene thing like the hippo race, would be pretty disapointing I think. And including this as a JOB would j ust increase the demand for an actual blitzball minigame all the more, something Yoshi P has now emphatically said they do not intend to include.

And while the animations would be unique enough, Wakka doesn't really have much to add as gameplay inspiration either. His role in FF X was mostly being able to reliably hit ranged enemies and applying a variety of debuffs. Where as in FFXIV this aspect of debuffing the enemy I feel like wouldn't be fully explored by the game's job design. It'd likely end up as mostly 'guy who throws ball at enemies' and maybe a cooldown for the raid that temporarily increases the damage an enemy takes.

And unlike say, dual blades being inspired by Zidane but given to Viper, I have a harder time imagining blitzballs working as weapons in a new context for a non blitzballer job that throws sports balls to deal damage.

I could be wrong. I wouldn't say for 100% that it could never happen. But I don't think it's a likely option.

[BrewCityMonk]

For one, with the way jobs tend to work lore wise, the idea of a group of people fighting by throwing sports balls at voidsent and monsters etc may be a bit silly.

First, everyone knows that anything from another FF games makes it into FFXIV, the lore to it will be totally different from the original game. Who says that the lore to Blitzball can't be different from FFX's lore? It could just make it a land sport like some kind of extreme soccer/volleyball/rugby martial art competition instead of being a aquatic sport.

It worked for Wakka well enough as a one off character who happened to use one for combat but making an actual job stone of people doing combat with blitzballs may be a harder sell.

Then explain Sqaull and his gunblade or Zidane's thief sword being the Viper class? Both of them were one off characters with one time classes. And if they can sell classes like Bard, Dancer, and even Picto then SE can surely can make Blitzballer class work.

Plus, including blitzballer means introducing blitzball into the lore. New jobs already often suffer from not being able to put their quests in zones applicable to their lore. And including this as a JOB would j ust increase the demand for an actual blitzball minigame all the more, something Yoshi P has now emphatically said they do not intend to include.

Like I said earlier, the lore of Blitzball can change in FFXIV.
No one care about not having a job being "zone applicable". Having new classes starting in the main cities make sense, anyways.
And if Yoshi-P changes the lore and the way blitzball is introduce in FFXIV then they won't have to worry about that. Because FFX's version of Blitzball doesn't exist in FFXIV's world.

And while the animations would be unique enough, Wakka doesn't really have much to add as gameplay inspiration either. His role in FF X was mostly being able to reliably hit ranged enemies and applying a variety of debuffs. Where as in FFXIV this aspect of debuffing the enemy I feel like wouldn't be fully explored by the game's job design.

You do realize that classes like Gunbreaker don't play nowhere how it plays in the original game? I would see Blitzballer as a range DPS version of Monk, but with more team wide buffs and AoE debuff attacks. I think Blitzballer would be the "true team player" class.

And unlike say, dual blades being inspired by Zidane but given to Viper, I have a harder time imagining blitzballs working as weapons in a new context for a non blitzballer job that throws sports balls to deal damage.

In a game where you now paint pictures to fight, able to punch over-sized monsters to death with just your fists, or play music or dance around in a fight against a hell beast. But throwing a ball to deal damage is hard to imagine?