New Year's Poem 2026

[Veritas-Ancora]

Here comes all the Corsair and Viking job speculation.

[Cilia]

Warrior already has too many Viking-adjacent skills and gear sets. Unless they wanted to somehow make it fight like the III Viking's optimal setup (double shield style e.g. Rhitahtyn), I can't see how they would add it and make it distinct from Warrior...

Corsair already has elements of it's own style baked into other classes, like Ninja (Rogue), Machinist, and to an extent Viper...

[WhiteArchmage]

I don't think we can quite dismiss jobs just because similar jobs exist, as the team has shown some creativity in how they translate them for XIV. SCH usually dealt with items (or BLM+WHM without the fencer capabilities of RDM), SGE was an upgrade on WHM, and, well... SMN...

They can have something that works with the theme of Viking or Corsair while giving them their own identity. (For Corsair in particular, I've been wanting an opposite of RDM, a mellee job thatbulds up for a ranged burst)

[Cleretic]

SCH usually dealt with items (or BLM+WHM without the fencer capabilities of RDM), SGE was an upgrade on WHM[...]

Those are actually extremely bad examples, and seem to be locked within very specifically FFIII for some reason; I won't begrudge you having a favorite Final Fantasy, it's just weird that it's III. For example, Sage actually flickers in identity constantly, being roughly close to Red Mage and Alchemist at various times (despite looking like a White Mage upgrade, in FFIII it was actually a Red Mage), and is more just a broad title for 'Late-Game Magic User' than it is a codified skillset. I'd instead argue that Astrologian is a good example of how they get clever with pre-existing archetypes, because who the hell looked at the Setzer-style gamblers and Time Mage and said 'those two, at the same time, as a healer'?

The question of identity remains with these two when you remember that there needs to be a unique sales pitch. And to me, is also a pretty easy way to knock out these thoughts for jobs, because they don't really have one. What is Viking bringing to the table, that Warrior and potentially soon Beastmaster doesn't already? What would Corsair bring that I don't already get from Machinist or Red Mage? Yes, there's value in making up a whole new route, but if we're doing that, then why does it have to be Viking or Corsair? That's especially true for Viking, which is a very specific historical role and aesthetic that, again, Warrior basically already covers. You can't exactly reinvent 'vikings', they're pretty firmly their thing.

And I mostly haven't cared about this poem, because I noticed it's conceptually damn near identical to the 2024 poem, which as also 'someone setting out on a naval journey and reflecting on the possibilities of what is to come'. Which kinda just means all my thoughts are two years old, but I remember people also getting weirdly certain we were getting Corsair in Dawntrail, too. And I wonder how many times people will go 'this time we're getting Corsair' and then be wrong before they resolve that maybe we're not getting that.

...granted, this is coming from the girl on her fifth straight year of 'THIS TIME we're getting Gelmorra content' cope. I guess maybe I'm just confused why people are so certain and optimistic about their constantly-dashed hopes.