So, I was talking with a friend of mine about FF6, and about the sheer amount of stuff in FF14 that is either featured in or originated from FF6. Classes, for example. Most of the playable characters in FF6 are represented as classes/jobs in FF14. Sabin is a MNK, Celes is arguably a PLD, Cyan is a SAM, Shadow is a NIN, and Strago is a BLU, which is technically kind of in the game.
Then, we got talking about the characters who aren't represented. Most of them would be boring, impractical, or both to play. Relm's sketching ability could be used to copy other jobs' abilities onto your bar, but that would be a gigantic pain to balance. Gau's rages could be a physical melee analogue to BLU, but we've seen that Square-Enix doesn't really want to give that kind of thing equal footing to the other classes. I'd love to play a moogle, but their glamour options would be... very limited, to say the least, judging by the Mogglesguard. A class that just has a Mimic button would somehow be simultaneously chaotic, potentially overpowered, and boring to play.
But what about Terra? Some people say Terra is a SMN, but I have to disagree. Everyone in FF6 can summon espers with equal ease, and when everyone is a SMN, no one is. Further, summoning espers has nothing to do with her actual class ability, which is how FF6 provides each character with distinctiveness.
No, Terra's ability is to do what Iceheart did, and become an esper. That gave me a horrible, terrible, no-good idea for an awful job that should never see the light of day, but that's never stopped me before!
Now, obviously, since summoning or channeling full, actual primals is Very Bad in FF14, we can't do that. But we could take a half-measure, similar to what SMN does, and say that this class channels just a little bit of the primal into themselves. For the sake of this discussion, just to have something to call it for the time being, I'm going to call this job Half-Esper. (I know espers aren't primals, but Terra was a half-esper, and this is the Terra class, so I'm going with it for now.)
Half-Esper's basic job flow revolves around its Aspect Gauge. Similarly to how a RDM has to manage their white and black mana, balancing the two to avoid aether-related Bad Stuff, a half-esper has to balance the six aetheric aspects. Imagine six horizontal bars, arranged in a column. Or six vertical bars, arranged in a row. Or maybe even they're arranged in an asterisk shape. It really doesn't matter.
The point is, you have six transformation skills, each of which puts you into the elemental aspect of one of six primals. Each transformation skill is an oGCD with a short, shared cooldown. You get Ifrit for fire, Garuda for air, Titan for earth, Shiva for ice, Leviathan for water, and Ramuh for lightning. Each one makes you glow an appropriate color, possibly with minor cosmetic changes like glowy aetherial wings and such. Each one turns your basic rotation and oGCDs into abilities that are themed after that element and/or primal, and each primal has a specialization. (You can also use your abilities without transforming, but this will be the really weak version that you only do if you want to show up in the weekly rage thread.) Ifrit is a ranged single-target DPS, Garuda is a ranged AoE DPS, Titan is a melee single-target DPS, Ramuh is a melee AoE DPS, Shiva does debuffs (her big special one is snapping her fingers and freezing dudes), and Leviathan does buffs because he's the last one and I don't know what else to give him. I'm open to suggestions on the exact details of which primal does what, but the actual point is that each one that has an egi should at least feel similar to that egi, and that each primal has a unique role with situational advantages and disadvantages. (It might be nice to have less than six, but I'm working within the bounds of the existing lore.)
So here's the catch. When your Air aether fills up (which will probably take, oh, 30 seconds? I'm not picky), you pop out of Garuda form and you can't enter it until the bar isn't full. The same principle applies to each form. The rotations and oGCDs within each form are relatively static, and play a bit like, say DRG in terms of the simplicity of handling the form, but the complexity of the class comes from managing the different forms and their gauges and knowing when you're going to get the best benefit out of each one (and of deciding what forms to pop oGCDs in). Garuda/Ramuh for adds, Ifrit/Titan for bosses, Shiva and Leviathan are probably a bit situational the way I've written them. Melee has better (any?) damage mitigation skills, but ranged doesn't have to be in the enemy's face. Gap closers. Gap creators. A single GCD rotation that is melee or ranged, AoE or single-target based on form.
Lots of possible tactical depth here. Imagine the memes about that half-esper who tries to squeeze out that one last Ifrit combo before their gauge fills up, and ends up trying to burst damage when they've already dropped back into unaspected.
So how do you empty your bars and get able to reenter each form? You use the others. Whenever you're in a form, all the others will slowly tick down. If all of the bars are not empty, they tick down fast until one or more bars are, reflecting your perfect balance. You'll probably also have an unaspected skill that drains each of them a good bit, but it's on a cooldown. In this way, you're mechanically rewarded for using all six aspected forms, and you have a way of cleaning up odds and ends at the end of encounters if you wish.
In short, it's DRG mixed with BLM. Good King Moggle-mog help me.
submitted by /u/VoidPointer2005
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Then, we got talking about the characters who aren't represented. Most of them would be boring, impractical, or both to play. Relm's sketching ability could be used to copy other jobs' abilities onto your bar, but that would be a gigantic pain to balance. Gau's rages could be a physical melee analogue to BLU, but we've seen that Square-Enix doesn't really want to give that kind of thing equal footing to the other classes. I'd love to play a moogle, but their glamour options would be... very limited, to say the least, judging by the Mogglesguard. A class that just has a Mimic button would somehow be simultaneously chaotic, potentially overpowered, and boring to play.
But what about Terra? Some people say Terra is a SMN, but I have to disagree. Everyone in FF6 can summon espers with equal ease, and when everyone is a SMN, no one is. Further, summoning espers has nothing to do with her actual class ability, which is how FF6 provides each character with distinctiveness.
No, Terra's ability is to do what Iceheart did, and become an esper. That gave me a horrible, terrible, no-good idea for an awful job that should never see the light of day, but that's never stopped me before!
Now, obviously, since summoning or channeling full, actual primals is Very Bad in FF14, we can't do that. But we could take a half-measure, similar to what SMN does, and say that this class channels just a little bit of the primal into themselves. For the sake of this discussion, just to have something to call it for the time being, I'm going to call this job Half-Esper. (I know espers aren't primals, but Terra was a half-esper, and this is the Terra class, so I'm going with it for now.)
Half-Esper's basic job flow revolves around its Aspect Gauge. Similarly to how a RDM has to manage their white and black mana, balancing the two to avoid aether-related Bad Stuff, a half-esper has to balance the six aetheric aspects. Imagine six horizontal bars, arranged in a column. Or six vertical bars, arranged in a row. Or maybe even they're arranged in an asterisk shape. It really doesn't matter.
The point is, you have six transformation skills, each of which puts you into the elemental aspect of one of six primals. Each transformation skill is an oGCD with a short, shared cooldown. You get Ifrit for fire, Garuda for air, Titan for earth, Shiva for ice, Leviathan for water, and Ramuh for lightning. Each one makes you glow an appropriate color, possibly with minor cosmetic changes like glowy aetherial wings and such. Each one turns your basic rotation and oGCDs into abilities that are themed after that element and/or primal, and each primal has a specialization. (You can also use your abilities without transforming, but this will be the really weak version that you only do if you want to show up in the weekly rage thread.) Ifrit is a ranged single-target DPS, Garuda is a ranged AoE DPS, Titan is a melee single-target DPS, Ramuh is a melee AoE DPS, Shiva does debuffs (her big special one is snapping her fingers and freezing dudes), and Leviathan does buffs because he's the last one and I don't know what else to give him. I'm open to suggestions on the exact details of which primal does what, but the actual point is that each one that has an egi should at least feel similar to that egi, and that each primal has a unique role with situational advantages and disadvantages. (It might be nice to have less than six, but I'm working within the bounds of the existing lore.)
So here's the catch. When your Air aether fills up (which will probably take, oh, 30 seconds? I'm not picky), you pop out of Garuda form and you can't enter it until the bar isn't full. The same principle applies to each form. The rotations and oGCDs within each form are relatively static, and play a bit like, say DRG in terms of the simplicity of handling the form, but the complexity of the class comes from managing the different forms and their gauges and knowing when you're going to get the best benefit out of each one (and of deciding what forms to pop oGCDs in). Garuda/Ramuh for adds, Ifrit/Titan for bosses, Shiva and Leviathan are probably a bit situational the way I've written them. Melee has better (any?) damage mitigation skills, but ranged doesn't have to be in the enemy's face. Gap closers. Gap creators. A single GCD rotation that is melee or ranged, AoE or single-target based on form.
Lots of possible tactical depth here. Imagine the memes about that half-esper who tries to squeeze out that one last Ifrit combo before their gauge fills up, and ends up trying to burst damage when they've already dropped back into unaspected.
So how do you empty your bars and get able to reenter each form? You use the others. Whenever you're in a form, all the others will slowly tick down. If all of the bars are not empty, they tick down fast until one or more bars are, reflecting your perfect balance. You'll probably also have an unaspected skill that drains each of them a good bit, but it's on a cooldown. In this way, you're mechanically rewarded for using all six aspected forms, and you have a way of cleaning up odds and ends at the end of encounters if you wish.
In short, it's DRG mixed with BLM. Good King Moggle-mog help me.
submitted by /u/VoidPointer2005
[link] [comments]
Continue reading...