Style Matters in MMO Classes

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city of heroes, class, classes, coh, doing it wrong, ffxiv, final fantasy xiv, MMO, mmo class, mmo classes, mmorpg, mmorpg class, mmorpg classes, mmorpgs, mmos, roleplay, tera, xiv

One of the Discords that I’m a part of featured a conversation among some players of Final Fantasy XIV who were discussing the different tank classes in the game. It was interesting to watch unfold, as the tete-a-tete mostly featured one person who was all about the DPS numbers and skill potency figures while the other was about how the class felt, and it’s not often I get to witness two disparate viewpoints discuss things (let alone in a rational matter).

It got me to thinking about my own experiences with classes in FFXIV, and then with other classes in other MMOs, and throughout the little bit of navel gazing, one common thread stood out: When it comes to MMO classes, style will always trump substance for me.

Stormblood Squee Week Extra: SAM and RDM Thoughts

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classes, ffxiv, final fantasy xiv, final fantasy xiv stormblood, jobs, MMO, mmorpg, rdm, red mage, sam, samurai, stormblood, stormblood squee week, stormblood squee week extra

So we’ve had quite a few days to gnaw on the neck of the last Live Letter and suck out all of the infojuices from it. Translations of Japanese tooltips have been made, videos created, and threads on Reddit springing like horny flowers in early Spring.

Also, this dummy’s entire week of blog posts about the whole thing.

So, in the interest of said information, as well as to close out the dummy’s blogs for Stormblood Squee Week Extra, I wanted to cobble together my impressions of the new Samurai (SAM) and Red Mage (RDM) Jobs arriving with the expansion.

Stormblood Squee Week: My Personal Combat Refresh

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abilities, classes, combat, expansion, ffxiv, final fantasy, final fantasy xiv, jobs, MMO, mmo combat, mmorpg, skills, stormblood, stormblood squee week

With the arrival of Stormblood to Final Fantasy XIV, we’re also going to be seeing a “combat refresh” – a rebalancing of skills for every class in the game, with apparent special attention being paid to the existing tank and healer classes.

According to the information I’ve seen, the team is shooting for classes to have a similar number of skills available to them even though we’re seeing a level cap raise from 60 to 70. This is meant to ease the complexity of certain jobs while also removing useless skills. And boy howdy, are there some useless skills.

I’m lookin’ at you, Chevy Noir.

So for this entry, I’d like to talk about what I’d like to see from this new combat refresh and what skills I’d like to see edited or culled entirely.