We’re starting to reach uncharted territory in Final Fantasy XIV in the sense that there aren’t a ton of obvious classic job candidates to pull from when the next expansion rolls around. Between Red Mage, Samurai, and Dancer, all of the most glaring omissions have been added in the previous two expansions.
That said, there are still a few mattresses to look under. Final Fantasy XI, because of its more open-ended combat, is no stranger to very creative jobs that are able to do extremely niche and unique things on the battlefield. While most of them would not translate over to Final Fantasy XIV 1:1 well, there are some unique ideas there that Producer Naoki Yoshida and his team could draw from.
Here are three extremely creative jobs from Final Fantasy XI that could find their way into Final Fantasy XIV, if the dev team wants them.
Rune Fencer
In Final Fantasy XIV, every tank is designed to handle anything thrown at them. In Final Fantasy XI however, tanks are more specialized for certain situations. The Rune Fencer is built to be the master of magic defense as it can use runes to create wards against specific elements.
For example, using an Ice rune would protect you from the element that Ice is strong against (Wind) and provide you resistances against any debuffs that are tied to Wind, such as Silence, that you could also share with the party. These runes would also give you offensive capabilities as well.
When infused with said Ice rune, your attacks gain an Ice-damage additional effect and you can expend all of your runes (you can charge up to three to increase the effect or mix and match elements) for a big burst of damage, or you could use them to plant a debuff on an enemy.
As neat of a job Rune Fencer is in Final Fantasy XI, it obviously wouldn’t work in Final Fantasy XIV since elements are superficial everywhere other than Eureka. That said, there are some ideas here you could use.
The concept of charging up elemental runes is an interesting one that can be reused but altered to fit the more rigid world of Final Fantasy XIV.
Also, runes could still easily be used as a damage dealing mechanic, adding elemental damage to physical swings that ratchet up in intensity as more charges are added through some kind of rotation.
Defensive Rune Fencers could play as a tank with buff/debuff elements. A rotation could include a trip through all of the runes which could hinder the enemy for a short time in some way while buffing nearby party members as well.
The easier route would be to just repurpose it into a DPS class that perhaps resembles Final Fantasy V’s Mystic Knight more than Final Fantasy XI’s Rune Fencer. This is probably more likely than it ever coming over as a tank because of how complex a job it is in Final Fantasy XI.
I would also love to see Final Fantasy XIV think a bit more outside the box when it comes to how tanks operate, though I admit it’s hard to do within the confines of Final Fantasy XIV’s rigid balance.
