Arcanist Attributes and future jobs.

[Myxie Tryxle]

Part of their goal here may be to encourage cross class play. Thaumaturge and conjurer have to choose what role they wish to fill, but they make that choice at level 1. Arcanist makes that choice but does so at level 30. If arcanist is equally capable at ranged DPS and healing through job choice, it reduces incentives to play conjurer or thaumaturge. Why not just play arcanist where you can do both without penalty?

 

I think we'll have a much clearer picture once we see the powers available to arcanist and its jobs. They may very well have different stance choices (likely through the pets) the way conjurer, pugilist, monk, paladin, and warrior do. It would make sense, considering the chocobo companion gets four stances (healer, defender, damage dealer, and grab bag).

[Naunet]

Part of their goal here may be to encourage cross class play.  Thaumaturge and conjurer have to choose what role they wish to fill, but they make that choice at level 1.  Arcanist makes that choice but does so at level 30.  If arcanist is equally capable at ranged DPS and healing through job choice, it reduces incentives to play conjurer or thaumaturge.  Why not just play arcanist where you can do both without penalty?

 

I'm sorry, but what you're saying isn't making any sense to me.

 

Arcanist is not a hybrid class; it only does damage. You will put your attribute points into INT, all 30 of them. Jobs have separate attribute point allocations from classes, but apparently if two jobs branch from a class, those two jobs share attribute points. So if you do not have your crystal equipped for SCH or SMN and your character is currently ACN, you should have 30 points in INT. If you equip a SCH or SMN crystal, you will have 30 new points to play with, but only 30 between the two jobs. This is forcing people to choose one roll or the other, either healing (SCH, MND) or dps (SMN, INT).

[Myxie Tryxle]

That's what I'm saying. They may be essentially forcing you to pick one job or the other. If one character can be equally effective as both a scholar and summoner, your choices for higher level magical play become thaumaturge (damage dealer only), conjurer (healer only), arcanist (damage dealer and healer). If the arcanist can fill both roles with equal effectiveness, there's less incentive to play the other two magic classes. Thus they force you to choose one job or the other the same way you choose between thaumaturge or conjurer. One class = one job the same as it does for any other class without two job choices.

[Naunet]

If the arcanist can fill both roles with equal effectiveness, there's less incentive to play the other two magic classes.

 

I disagree, as THM/BLM and ACN/SMN bring extremely different damage tools to the table. Arcanist is heavily focused around DoTs and other debuffs (think affliction warlock, for those familiar with WoW), while thaumaturge has heavy burst coupled with a low-damage recovery phase. ACN/SMN will have ramp-up times and won't be very useful on short fights or against mechanics that require a lot of burst (think Ifrit's fetters), but once it gets going - and with the ability to multidot - it will be very good with multiple targets and whittling down a boss. Very different classes. A similar case can be made for SCH and CNJ/WHM, as we know SCH is likely to be very heavily focused around HoTs, while CNJ/WHM is primarily burst healing.

---

One class = one job the same as it does for any other class without two job choices.

 

Also to add, we know Squee intends to add second jobs for every other class over time, so this is not going to be an Arcanist-unique thing.

[Ildur]

Not all people work on a min-maxing basis. If arcanist was somehow as effective as the other two classes put together, there's still people who will like Thaumaturge better from a design perspective (nukes) or from an aesthetic level (staffs and huge balls of fire/ice). The same applies to Conjurers.

 

As far as I understand, Arcanists will be based on DoT and HoT effects. Some people don't like those (design). In some encounters it might be better to have the Conjurer's one-time big heal instead of a heal that works over time. So they wouldn't be making any class less relevant unless all you care are about is how classes compare to each other via DPS or Heal meters.

[Myxie Tryxle]

Mostly I was speaking from what I imagine to be a game designer's point of view, not that of individuals with individual preferences. Personally I love the way thaumaturge plays. I plan to start phase 4 as an arcanist, since the way I've been roleplaying Myxie is very scholarly and bookish, but if it doesn't play the way I'd like, I'll be right back to fireballs and blizzards. My point was that having one class with twice the potential of the seven other classes is going to skew game balance to make that class more attractive, at least until other classes also have options. In general, the MMO community tends to react strongly to even slight perceptions of class imbalance. One class = one job is likely the fairest way to balance it until all eight classes have multiple job options.

[Naunet]

Mostly I was speaking from what I imagine to be a game designer's point of view, not that of individuals with individual preferences.

 

I wasn't talking about individual preferences at all. I was talking about actual class mechanic balance.

[Havoc Snow]

Base classes don't share stat points with jobs

I just wanted to clarify that based on the information given by Hvirine in the post I quoted, this is no longer the case. Whatever stats you put into your class are going to be the stats you have for your Job, this is why Scholar and Summoner will share attribute distribution.

 

As far as I see it, Jobs are basically your talent specs and you can only get the most out of them if you decide to spec completely into one area, though nothing stops you from splitting between the two of them. As far as stats go, the devs have commented several times how they do not use different stats from WHM and BLM, so you will need to pick between INT and MND.

[Naunet]

I just wanted to clarify that based on the information given by Hvirine in the post I quoted, this is no longer the case. Whatever stats you put into your class are going to be the stats you have for your Job, this is why Scholar and Summoner will share attribute distribution.

 

That would be exceedingly silly and not intuitive at all, considering ACN is a dps class, while SCH is a healer. If your points don't change when you switch to a job from a class, you're going to have a lot of people leveling ACN and finding out that they wasted 15 or so points on INT.

 

If that is the case, it is a very, very poor design decision.

[Havoc Snow]

I just wanted to clarify that based on the information given by Hvirine in the post I quoted, this is no longer the case. Whatever stats you put into your class are going to be the stats you have for your Job, this is why Scholar and Summoner will share attribute distribution.

 

That would be exceedingly silly and not intuitive at all, considering ACN is a dps class, while SCH is a healer. If your points don't change when you switch to a job from a class, you're going to have a lot of people leveling ACN and finding out that they wasted 15 or so points on INT.

 

If that is the case, it is a very, very poor design decision.

 

In version 1.0, stats could be allocated for both the class and for the job. However, in A Realm Reborn, you will now only be able to allocate points for the class itself.

 

Based on this statement, that is in fact how it will work. Yoshida also commented that it won't be possible to just change your stat allocations whenever you want, so I'm assuming it will require an item that is relatively difficult to obtain (like it was in 1.0) or it will be exceedingly expensive. In either case, consider this thread a warning to spend your points wisely when leveling Arcanist, because the choices you make are the ones you're stuck with regardless of which Job you pick.

[Naunet]

Very unhappy camper. >

[Sounsyy]

Ashren beat me to it already, but to clarify the point for any skimming over. There is only one set of allocation points. This is for classes. You get 30 points and 30 points only. 

 

Separate from allocation points, when you switch from class to job, your base stats will alter to reflect your job. (Example: In 1.0 when you switched from GLA to PLD you got a huge boost to VIT and MND but took a hit to your INT stat.) I image that Arcanist will have an about even MND to INT ratio, with INT maybe coming out a little higher. When you swap to SMN, your base INT rating will increase. When you swap to SCH your base MND will increase. Again, this is separate from allocation points.

 

 

_________________________

 

 

And as far as min/maxing goes, the simple choice is: do you want to be 15 points "behind" in both classes, or do you want to be 30 points behind in the other class? That's really what it comes down to. 

 

You will never be exactly equal in stats to another player. Ever. Even if you role a Duskwight Elezen and pump 30 points into INT for your SMN, you may still be behind a random SMN that has full Lv50 materia'd gear or Darklight or Allagan or Labyrinth Gear who allocated their stats 15/15. You may be ahead of them in stats, who knows. But the stats don't really matter in endgame as much as people think they do.

 

Why? Because nobody can see your stats. In endgame you're looking for two things in order: 

1) Player skill and flexibility. You want a player who knows the role(s) of his/her class(es). You preferably want a player who can effectively play multiple classes. Which if you've rolled full INT for your SMN, you've effectively said you're unwilling to play the other half of your class.

2) Their gear. This will at least give you a guess as to what their stats look like. Not so much, but you at least wanna have something to work with. The whole point of endgame is to get better gear anyways so you're not really judging. What you're doing is seeing how they wear their gear. Are they wearing good gear for their content level? Are they wearing appropriate gear pieces? (ie full leathers on a PLD ruh roh) Do they show some level of attempting to improve their gear? (Materia'd gear or gear that reflects research on their job etc.) Sloppy gear usually is taken as a lack of dedication to that job.