Incredibly high key but it is, quite frankly, all I ever wanted out of Arms Warrior. While Blizzard keeps stumbling and twiddling their thumbs reworking it every other patch, Square all but had to have some sort of anime sword boys.
It’s stylish, the rotation is deliberate and precise, there’s no rng or proc bull crap. It’s committed to a very particular aesthetic and drives it home in execution.
I understand why WoW is different, obviously, but SAM was like tailor made for me and also everyone should try it.
I mean, not to bring actual numbers into the mix, but I recently took a look at FF14 balancing versus WoW balancing.
Keeping in mind that FF14 has way less classes to balance, it sort of really dawned on me at how… chaotic WoW balancing is? With FF14, the balancing makes sense. Ranged Physical are lower end of DPS because they have the most freedom of movement and aren’t locked into positionals like Melee. Caster DPS is middle of the pack with RDM being slightly lower since they can throw out heals (lol) and rez’s like no one’s business until their poor mana runs dry. Melee DPS make up most of the top for being clearly harder to master (except Dragoon, which is honestly lower than expected), with Samurai and Black Mage being the top since they’re glass cannons who bring no utility but their utility is their stupid DPS numbers.
Meanwhile, looking at WoW makes zero sense. There’s no sense of reasoning behind their balancing. Speaking of balancing, Balance Druid tops the charts and destroys many other classes that do the same job but worse. Why is a Hybrid DPS so high up? Who knows.
It’s fascinating to look at, though, and compare how goofy as hell WoW balancing is compared to FF14’s far more reasonable (and actually BALANCED) classes are.
Ninja does the same for me though I wish it did have more of a stealth element. Right now it plays a lot like the final battle arc of any Naruto chapter, handsigns and all. And still I enjoy it immensely.
FF14 is class fantasy done unflinchingly well. WoW was getting there with Legion but kept tottering on this line of failing to commit to it at all and feeling half-assed or just failing altogether.
Can’t wait to see if Reaper is the next top selfish dps dog or if Square goes crazy and gives them like… I dunno, a rez I guess?
It drives me up the wall that Orc Blademasters are such a widely regarded thing but we get so little to that fantasy.
I tend to Warrior as my tank of choice so I’m really getting everything I could want, but who knows what 6.0 will bring. Cool anime dimensional slash, sick backflip jump slice? It’s anyone’s game.
Where do pirate and ninja rogues fit on that line, asking for a friend who loves outlaw and hates roll the bones.
If you’re asking what Jobs in FFXIV fit the pirate/ninja themes, Ninja is a job itself, and as for pirate, you’d probably do well with Machinist. FFXIV does have actual sky pirates as well as sea pirates, and a gun is a common pirate weapon.
I’m going to come out and say it. Red Mage is the class that I wish fire mage became during Legion when Felo’melorn was made their artifact. It’s the entire battle mage trope of a sorcerer who can both swing a sword decently enough as well as cast magic from far away. And it’s story is interesting to boost.
The same things go for Monk and Reaper.
Having monk in WoW be a very fast-paced class with positionals that can deal intense amounts of damage if they play the fantasy of fast and precise well would be a vast improvement over the mechanic of “just don’t repeat an ability for a slight damage boost.” they have ATM. You could give them a stance-dancing mechanic similar to monks with the four celestials and watch them go nuts in the hands of skilled players.
And Reaper is my blood Death Knight fantasy gone haywire. So I can swing a giant scythe? I fight together with an undead/void wraith at my side? I built up to having that thing possess me and turn me into a wraith? Hell yeah I’ll play that. Whereas in WoW? Well, I guess Bone Shield does have a good animation and throwing an occasional Heart Strike is nice?
I think my rant can easily be summed up by this: FFXIV’s classes have BAM! mechanics. You’re always doing something with cool flavor. In WoW, classes work with one or two animations and barely cool mechanics.
See I don’t know because I -hated- Outlaw because I loved Combat. Thematically, Legion Outlaw hit a lot of marks in the swashbuckler feel. Pistols, uncanny mobility, that cannonfire AoE talent, cursed treasures(artifact weapon). Even Roll the Bones pays homage to that dashing rogue’s knack for luck just turning the fight in their favor. Like I understand what they were going for. Even if gameplay wise it was a cluster–explicit.
Legion sub and going forward was half-assed. Because just adding “shadows” to spell names doesn’t make it a ninja. End of expansion in PvP yeah, you were doing big openers and crits, but for a concept of misdirection, stealth, and keyword here -subterfuge- the spec had little of it. It was simple to play and simpler to play against–.
WoW’s Rogue’s toolkit has always been simple and streamlined because it’s skillset is versatile. “I learned to do everything with nothing so I can do anything with everything.” But the ability pruning/redistribution turned Sub into an above average damage dealer with only mild-game changing skills(Shadowy Duel) that were only really effective because other classes were also stripped/streamlined of their options to counter.
That’s not fun.
Assassination, in the case of Rogues is class fantasy done well.
The idea of any positional in WoW made me ugly laugh when I remember how Sub was the only class with a Back positional for a long time and how awful that could genuinely be.
I think it is almost impossible to quantify the feeling evoked by seeing DRK at the end of the Shadowbringers job action video, and even loss possible to make any sort of apt comparison to WoW.
Short of, maybe, the Demon Hunter reveal in Legion. Who are like, the one type of thing missing from FFXIV. And now Reaper happened so like, lol.
Very unnecessary clarification from me but I have all jobs capped (soft flex), I was just being tongue in cheeck about my own experiences with Rogue.
Which is why I specifically mentioned stance-dancing in my post as opposed to making positionals more than a side note. They have four August Celestials with distinct philosophies and aesthetics there. Do something with it.
If I remember, Monks did have “stances” to switch from when released and then the game did what it does and condenses everything into oblivion.
But yeah, thematic and gameplace differences of the four celestials for monk should be a bit more defined. Like Yulon for more traditional Mist healing but Chi-ji for Fist-weaving.
I would be very surprised if they did a lottery because they can’t actually stop you from signing up on every single one of your characters. On the other hand, Ishgard housing will be adding another 1440 houses.
Players are limited to one house per world per account and have fairly hefty requirements to buy one in the first place with how you have to rank up your Grand Company. Theoretically, yeah, you could use alts to put in more lotto tickets, but it would only work until you have a house and not many players have more than one or two alts leveled to that point in the first place.
Doesn’t it also require getting to the Second Lieutenant rank?
It’s a grind regardless and most people aren’t addicted enough to do that on multiple characters (it’d be super draining).
Either way, I think a lotto has its ups and downs.
Ups because you can go have a life instead of sitting down in front of a plaque for 12+ hours praying to the twelve you’re going to get a house.
Downs because now instead of 8-10 people for one lot, you’re possibly playing the lottery against dozens if not hundreds of players depending on how many houses are lotto’d.
That said, the Ishgard housing will probably be instant-buy first time… unless they lotto it even if it’s new. In which case, that basically screws over any new players getting housing in Ishgard because then it’s just going to be a race for anyone with a house to move in asap.