(03-29-2015, 03:52 PM)undefined Wrote: Now then, I wanna talk Clerics, because it's the very thing that'd scratch your Mages-in-armor itch. Here's a typical Cleric, right here.
Kinda kickass, right? Notice the orientation of gear towards a fully offensive stance, the use of a blunt weapon, and the total lack of fucks to give. So why don't we have these in the game? It's really a combination of the Devs wanting to stick to the tried and true Jobs of FF that were the most easily recognizable for players to choose from, and that giving Cleric Stance to WHMs and SCHs (and thus making them damage dealers as well as Healers, which is basically what a Cleric IS) kind of made the point of a true Cleric class/job in the game a moot one. Why spend all that time developing a Healer/Hinder dedicated class and all the gear, quests, etc. that goes along with it when Cleric Stance does the same thing while also adding a bit of micromanagement to the primary healing classes? You don't. That's silly.
![[Image: 200px-Cleric04.jpg]](http://www.tenebraemush.net/images/thumb/d/d8/Cleric04.jpg/200px-Cleric04.jpg)
Oh, you don't have to tell me about Clerics. That's my go-to class in any game. Which is why XIV can be so frustrating for me at times: It's literally the only mmo I've ever played seriously that lacks a cleric class. Hell, even The Old Republic had a cleric equivalent in the Imperial Operative, if you built them for healing. Â Â
And I think a lot of it has to do with lack of class customization. In most games, either our paladin or bard jobs would have been able to specialize in healing, possibly both. But in XIV, a tank is a tank, and will always be a tank. And you know, I'm not gonna claim that one way is better than the other. How SE has it now certainly makes it easier to balance. What I hate is when people try to tell me "The jobs are the specializations, since you can have more than one." (Lookin' at you, Reddit) but no, that's not how that works. Completely changing classes is not the same as customizing a class. My other favorite thing they say is "If we had class customization, there would be one optimal choice so it's pointless" because despite they'll tell you all of SE's decisions are perfect, but they don't trust them to make a simple talent tree...Â
Anyway, back on topic. Frankly, I'm more into aesthetics than anything else. Sure, I'd love to return to my old healing days when I could run up to the boss and smack it with my sword to get mana back between heals. As far as I'm concerned, there is literally no healer design better than that. However, I'd be almost as happy if I could just look the part. I mean, I'm already wearing Odin gloves and Darklight boots as a White Mage, and those are both plate armor. Yet while those are okay, I'm not allowed to wear a chailmail shirt because it would "break the mage aesthetic". Horse shit. Warriors are allowed to wear robes and wizard hats if they want to, and a lot of them do for funsies. But that perk only goes one way. Why is all of my gear marked "All Classes", while theirs is all "DoW Only"? Â Â
And then I guess the last thing I want to rant about is Astrologians. The class looks... interesting, at least. Can't say if I like it or not, but it's intriguing. But let's be honest, thematically it's just halfway between a SCH and a WHM. They literally combine science and religion. I mean, apparently they also are mechanically halfway between a SCH and a WHM too, but I'm more forgiving of that. It's like, granted, Dark Knight is visually pretty similar to a Warrior, but everyone was asking for Dark Knight, so that's fine. Machinist is pretty new and interesting in the FFXIV scene, and there's currently nothing really like it. But the healing class was wide open. Nobody knew what to expect, everybody had different ideas on what it would be, we even thought it'd be a gun class for awhile, but SE had a million different ways they could have gone. I, in my foolishness, thought "Alright, everything's about Ishgard, we're getting really deep into Temple Knight lore in the MSQ, shit's about to go down with dragons... We're getting my goddamn cleric class!" Â
Then the actual reveal happened, and this pretty well sums up my thoughts the moment I saw the picture.Â
![[Image: ytURqGy.jpg?3]](http://i.imgur.com/ytURqGy.jpg?3)
But I quickly rebounded! I realized, "Hey, those are the dudes over at the Observatorium! Every gear set may still be robes and wizard hats, but we'll get to learn about Halone, and the Enchiridion... go do quests in the Observatorium and stare at the sky while mumbling about dragons... it's gonna be awesome!" Â
Oh, no no no no. See, healers aren't allowed to have anything cool in this game. Machinist? That's Ishgardian. Dark Knight? You can bet your Bahamut card that's gonna be linked to Ishgard. Astrologian? Obviously from Sharlayan, why would you ever think otherwise? (referenced from this, the only thing I've ever been mad at Koji for.) Apologies to anyone who's a huge fan of Sharlayan and super excited about this, just not huge on them myself.Â
Anyway, feels good to get all that out. I know it was largely off topic and all over the place, and most of you will have very valid reasons to disagree with most of it, but it's nice just to have a place to yell about it every now and then.
