Healer, Voker, and Extra Damage...That's it?Follow

I don't know if any of you guys have ever played this game I've been playing recently, but it's an MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) called Final Fantasy XI (yes, I know it doesn't make sense that it's called Final Fantasy XI, as there shouldn't be a sequel to a Final Fantasy ever...but oh well).

Maybe I'm a little slow, but I've been thinking lately about how in a party, a Ranger = Dragoon = Black Mage = Samurai...in fact there's really only three basic roles. You're either keeping the party alive, taking the damage from the mob, or giving the damage to the mob. Very few classes fall into the first two categories. WHMs, sometimes RDMs, and Bards in a lesser sense keep the party alive. The only reliable way to take damage from the mob is to have provoke so any WAR/ or /WAR will probably fall into this category. It kind of feels like everyone else kind of falls into the third category - either as a damage dealer or a damage "enabler". I don't mean to insult the Dragoons out there - it's a cool class, but you're basically just there to deal damage aren't you? Same with Ranger, Black Mage, Monk, Samurai, Dark Knight, Thief (though they also help decide who's taking damage from the mob), Summoner...all you're deciding when you take these jobs is how focused you want to be on dealing damage vs. some other attributes (ie a Summoner might help the group survive with group blink). I didn't list Ninja as it seems to be more a damage "enabler" than a damage dealer, at least when I've played with them. They allow the skillchains to do more damage as well as nukes.

So, am I missing some fundamental fact here? Other than, of course, the fact that some people will enjoy certain jobs more than others (ie it's way cooler to be a Samurai than a stupid Dragoon with a pet bird...besides, remember the last Dragoon in FF? Wasn't he allied with that evil Golbez?).

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Aaero, Taru on Valefor

There are other differences.

Spell Damage is different from Melee Damage. That IT Pugil Water Walls on you, your melees are screwed. Yet the Black Mage can continue to happily blast it to heck.

You mentioned enabling damage, but didn't go very in depth. Red Mages are big damage enablers; some of the best debuffers in the game. This also secondarily falls into the "keep the party alive" category.

And there are also utility purposes some jobs have that aren't immediately apparent. A Thief can shorten the amount of time you need to hunt for that rare item. A Black Mage can Sleep an add so things don't get out of hand. A White Mage can Teleport the group so they don't have to travel so far.

A Dark Knight or Ranger must constantly worry about getting too much of the monster's attention. A Dragoon with Super Jump does not have so much to be concerned for. A Monk can compensate being debuffed or gaining agro by using Dodge or Focus... A Thief is the best form of hate control a party can have, and a killer finisher to a Skillchain. Ninjas make for incredible pullers and secondary tanks with Utsusemi, and their 2 hour can also help save a party.

I would create several basic tasks that are necessary to defeat a monster: Engage it successfully (avoid adds, pick the right monster). Make the monster susceptible to damage (Debuffs). Damage the monster (Spells, Weapon Skills, Skillchains, attacks). Control hate (Provoke, Trick Attack, Super Jump). Stay Alive (Heals, debuffs). Recover from task failures (Raise, Tractor, Re-raise)

Each job has attributes that pertain to several of those tasks.

Edited, Wed Jan 28 15:53:15 2004 by Arctyc

Think about it thou, just concerning battle itself, you only really need and want 1 person to take all the damage (PLD or WAR), 1 (maybe 2) people to heal (WHM or RDM), the other 3-4 positions are damage output or support. With so many options for this third role you can strategically set it up for the situation, maybe you need a thiefs TH for mad L3W75 (loot), maybe you need more magic, maybe more melee, maybe you need a specific weapon skill for a chain, maybe just more support for these classes or something other classes just can't do like a bard/blm to sleep, or a bst to charm, maybe a pet class like summoner or dragoon, or a rng/bst for widescan.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying you need the first two roles to be done by those examples, but no one can deny those jobs do those roles better then anyone else.

I wasn't trying to oversimplify every job, and make it seem like the actual experience of playing a Ranger is not significantly different from that of playing a Thief...because it is. Every job requires time to master and different play styles will play them differently.

I also definitely feel that some jobs span multiple categories. Bard and Red Mage especially...I wouldn't agree that a Pally is generally viewed as a healer per se. They can, but not like a White Mage or even a Red Mage. The best Pally's I've PTed with are curing themselves to get even more hate because they just love to be hit I guess.

All in all, I have to agree with Arclyte to a degree. Even though most of the other jobs fall into that "Kill the monster" category, some have more diverse jobs than others (pulling, debuffing). I don't mean to twist this thread around, but I think a Ranger is my preferred puller, not a Ninja. I really don't want to get rated down by all the Ninja-lovers out there, but Ninja in my experience is the least useful main job. They make good secondary tanks...they do OK damage...and they enfeeble to the elements. Enough with that divergence.

ShadowwSpawn, I never meant to imply that the classes don't have unique abilities. Yes, a DRK can absorb and a Summoner can summon and a Samurai gets TP like a mutha. The way every job deals damage is obviously different. High VIT monsters with low MND are like tissue paper to BLMs. The method is different but the result is the same...so it's just the outlying abilities that separate one class from another.

Instead of looking at it in the NA MMORPG way "damage dealers, tanks, healers/utility"... you should look at it in the traditional FINAL FANTASY way.

I don't know if you've ever played these games, but once upon a time I played this game called Final Fantasy 4 (II), then FF5, then FF6 (3), etc...

And there's two fundamental types of Final Fantasy characters:

Front Line and Back Line.

The poster directly above me (at the time of typing) has it correct: all in all you are there to ensure that the monster is dead. HOW you do it is where the class diversity comes in.

Some classes can only be front line. Some classes can only be back line. Some classes can be both depending on where in the level spectrum you currently are.

Each class has their unique abilities to separate them from another. From your point of view you seem to think that just because they are all "doing damage" that renders them the same. Well, they are not. The second poster already went over the difference between Melee and Magic damage difference. Even if we look purely at Melee we will see that there are differences between slashing and piercing damage and a variety of job ability differences (but they all do damage! Yes, yes they all do damage, just different TYPES of damage).

What each job character does heavily has to do with the player behind the computer. I think Square put a much heavier emphasis on skill > cookie-cutter build in this game. I don't think xp chain would be there if they didn't want to reward skillful play in Final Fantasy. A ranger should not automatically be considered the puller. While his class is very suitable for pulling, if either the ranger's player is not good at pulling or another player in the group is exceptional at pulling then you let the non-Ranger pull.

I've heard that most high level JPN gathers the players first and then decide what classes/subs they will be. While I've not seen this first hand because I'm nowhere close to "high level", this is what happens in my LS. We rather get people together from our own LS that we can count on and then choose appropriate jobs/level range rather than counting on random pick-ups.

Sorry for rambling.

Yeah, you're missing a fundamental point. Front-line/Back-line difference. Final Fantasy XI isn't about damage dealer, voker, and healers. It's about how well your team functions together as a team.

That's my opinion, it's subject to be incorrect.

~Nall

Nallon said what japanese PT does. The leader(usually I do it...) first invites 2 front-line tanks, usually 2 vokers (not neceseraly). Then we invite 2 back-line this is for healer type. But before gathering, you will require to know where you want to hunt, what you want to hunt and know their weakness. If you know the weakness, you will know the renkei to use, what MB to use and most importantly which job to invite or can your current job perform that renkei.

I usually look for war/pld/nin for front line. Lets say we want a 33-35 PT to hunt beetle and bats. They are weak in distortion so you need to think about a combination who can perform this. Lets say I found a PLD and Warrior, Redmage and White mage as backup. Now we need the pld warrior to deal with renkei... hm well we can pick thief. Check the warrior if he can use spear. Yes? Then the renkei will be Double thrust > Fuidama Viper = Distortion. Paladin can simply use TP when he wants. Now we need blm for MB. It will result a party with 2 front line, 2 back line, 2 attackers (blm and thief). Of course there are always exceptions. Maybe the warrior cannot use Spears very well... or haven't learned double thrust yet (doubtfull...). But he can use 2 handed sword. Fair enough... you can still make distortion with Powerslach > Fuidama Viper.

To make an effective group, you will need to know about mob's weakness, place to hunt, what mob to hunt. You can quickly search this in this very site. My best 2 groups structure was like this.

31-33PT consisiting of Sam(tank) Sam(tank) thf(attacker) Rdm(me, main healer), Rdm(primal debuffer), Blm(Attacker, heal helper)
We did in Althepa desert, and our target was beetles, and dhalmels. Constant Renkei of distortion amoung Sam > Sam and Sam > Thf, with 2 rdm chain MBing and blm dishing massive damage. Healing was hard but over all we netted 3.5k exp per hour.

33-36PT consisting of Ninja(tank) Sam(tank) Thf(attacker) Whm(healer), Rdm(me, prime debuffer, crowd control, heal assist), Blm(attacker, heal helper aswell)
This group took place in garliage. Good Renkei with Sam > Ninja and Sam > thief combination. Distortion again is the weakness since we were doing bats and beetles.

1st Group, I was leader. Took a while to gather up but ended up good. 2nd I got invited.

Actually, this is pretty much standard for any RPG, speaking as someone who's played D&D and similar games. You see, a party is split into two areas:

1. Front Line (fighters, paladins, barbarians, etc.)
2. Rear (everybody else)

Every party needs a cleric, or some way of healing. The only parties I've ever seen survive in D&D without a cleric were in a Psionics campaign, and could self-heal. The only difference here is that in D&D, since you have rolls for non-combat actions, there is another category called the "skill monkey". This is usually a Rogue.

Okay, to make a clearer analogy, military strategy you basically have infantry, cavalry, support, and artillery. Infantry keeps the enemy at bay, cavalry flanks them, support...supports (duh), and artillery deals heavy damage from a distance. Since we aren't doing battlefield manuevers in this game, let's forget about Cavalry. Then you're left with exactly the three categories you mentioned: tanks, nukes, and healers.

Of course, there's also that last category we've all forgotten, saboteurs: spies, assassins, and in FFXI...enfeeblers (Red Mages).