Something interesting is going to happen when Final Fantasy XIV adds Beastmaster to the game as a limited job. No matter what weapon the job uses, it’s going to leave at least one group of established Beastmasters as outliers. I noted this in my speculation column about the job when I suggested that it might use one-handed axes, I proposed that it might also use whips, and it could even be more odd than those suggestions. But we have Beastmasters in the game using one-handed axes and spears, and we’re not going to have both available for Beastmaster.
Obviously we can’t be certain about what weapon the job will use until, you know, the job actually has details revealed about it. But it brings to mind something that is a continual element of FFXIV at this point, something I’ve talked about before but is only becoming more relevant over time. There’s a whole swath of consistent weapons that players don’t get access to even as it seems like these are the sorts of things that really, really ought to be in the game in some capacity beyond NPCs.
To be clear here, I’m not talking about one-off fights with NPCs that have unique weapons or styles; it makes sense that Halone would have a unique fighting style with a spear and shield and that Byregot has a hammer, and I don’t expect to have an entire job based around Livia’s gun-knuckle style. I’m even willing to allow for some space there for the fact that Nero’s hammer style hasn’t yet manifested in a job in any capacity (although there are a lot of people running around with maces at this point).
The thing is that there are styles that are represented in the game fairly consistently but seem oddly ignored. For example, the pistols used by the Yellowjackets are everywhere. In the building housing the Marauders’ Guild, sure, but that same building features people practicing with the pistols. Merlwyb wields two such pistols. We’ve also seen lots of opponents using a cutlass and a pistol in the offhand, which you could write off as early-installment weirdness in the game if not for the fact that in this expansion, Ketenramm uses the same style all over again!
Garlean gunblades also have their own style that overlaps in places with what Gunbreaker does, but also features a very different art and is far more akin to fencing with a semi-ranged weapon. (Remember, the Bozjan gunblades very explicitly do not have a barrel to fire projectiles.) We know that Geomancers are the Far Eastern version of White Mages, which is fine, but White Mage increasingly has moved away from the elemental magic that made that style stick so that they feel like very different things.
Some of this is understandable as a basic function of the game as a game. One-handed cutlasses are already in the game, as are the pistol models, and that makes sense as a set of weaponry for a pirate character. It’s boring if everyone who fights uses the same style, after all. Garlean gunblades are in the game before Bozjan gunblades, and they work well as a weapon for Garlean enemies. It’s not like Raubahn – who wielded two swords before he, uh, no longer was able to – in some way fought like a Viper. “What if sword, but in other hand also a sword” is not some inconceivable idea that would otherwise never come to people.
By that same token, it’s not really a lift to say that there are some NPC combat styles that we don’t have access to, just as there are NPC attacks we don’t get to use because these attacks are made for boss fights or whatever. I am not asking why Y’shtola can both serve as a Black Mage and White Mage with the same staff; these are skills she knows how to use and it makes logical sense.
However, there is also a certain degree of oddity inherent in some of this because the thing about FFXIV as a rule is that it works on fairly consistent and comprehensible laws. It’s weird that there is a whole guild full of people using guns that not only don’t overlap with the Machinists; they’re very clearly using an entirely different style from top to bottom. And as the game’s jobs become more themselves, this stuff sticks out.
That last one is worth digging into, so let’s look at Ninja. I’ve said before that while Ninja ostensibly uses daggers, a lot of Ninja weapons are very obviously short swords. This is not a problem. Ninja, from the start, was an extension of Rogue and also a glimpse at, well, Ninja. It was simultaneously carrying on the physical damage legacy of Rogue/Thief characters as well as the tactile magic that Ninja characters have historically used.
None of this is a problem, but it creates tension because it meant Ninja had to simultaneously be Locke, Rikku, and Zidane while also being Shadow and Edge. Physical, skillful damage that is also magic-focused techniques. It’s hard to do both. So you have things that don’t fit in one wheelhouse (Hellfrog Medium) and things that don’t fit in the other (Mug), and there’s no way to do both easily.
That’s not to say Viper doesn’t have its own themes, but Viper much more easily splits that difference. Now Ninja is very much the Magical Ninja Melee job, and Viper is the Skilled Physical Combatant job.
Again, the problem here is not mechanical; most of the jobs have a very firm mechanical identity, and Summoner is the only job that’s really consistently struggled to identify “what is this job supposed to be.” (The only other really comparable thing is when Bard and Machinist had cast times, to try to wedge all ranged damage into casting DPS.) But Machinist has increasingly leaned on “you are an engineer” instead of “you are a gunslinger.” That’s fine, as it tracks with the name, but it means people who want to just shoot a gun are kind of waiting for the job that lets them do that. But it feels weird when, as mentioned, that job exists. You just can’t play it.
To be clear, I’m not trying to predict the next job. Would I be hype for sword-and-gun as a new tank job? Yes, but I’d also be hype for hammer (which feels right to me) or even something I haven’t guessed at all. (“Tank with a spear and shield? Well, storms.”) Rather, it’s one of those interesting things that has just developed organically over time. The game does seem to have a consistent weapon type for Pirate, but it isn’t available for players, and when it keeps coming up, it becomes noteworthy.
Of course, that was also what I expected instead of Viper, so sometimes I think Yoshida is just blissfully trolling us here.
Feedback, as always, is welcome in the comments down below or via mail to eliot@massivelyop.com. Next week, I want to talk about something that Yoshida has alluded to when we were going into this expansion. What will we do for our next expansion’s level cap? Sure, it seems pretty obvious, but it’s a fun thing to speculate about. (Look, it’s either that or hating the stupid Strayborough Dreadwalk.)
The Nymian civilization hosted an immense amount of knowledge and learning, but so much of it has been lost to the people of Eorzea. That doesn’t stop Eliot Lefebvre from scrutinizing Final Fantasy XIV each week in Wisdom of Nym, hosting guides, discussion, and opinions without so much as a trace of rancor.
