The Mog Log: Level 99 problems, of which a sub ain't one

Can you feel it? Do you wake up in the middle of the night, finding that you have scrawled the number 99 on your pillows and wall? Does each passing day grip you with a paralytic knowledge that soon, everything you know will be shattered? If so, you may want to see a doctor about that purple prose syndrome, but you're probably keenly aware that the level cap raise in Final Fantasy XI draws ever closer. With that comes chaos, madness, and the ruinous conclusion that you're going to need to do something about that there subjob.

In theory, anyway. Consider: with 24 more levels on your main job, your sub will be also flying up twelve levels to 47 -- enough for new abilities even if said job is on the lighter side for that level band. The obvious thought process here is that it's going to change the face of job combinations significantly. But like much of the knee-jerk reaction to the Vanafest 2010 announcements, in a lot of cases not much is actually changing. That having been said... there are a few jobs that produce an interesting thought process.

It should be noted here that there is the possibility some of these will turn out to have some mitigating factor in the 24 additional levels that makes this speculation totally irrelevant. While it's unlikely that Paladins will suddenly be able to use instruments, for example, it's possible in theory. That having been said, we're going with the assumption that the biggest change are to the levels -- which is reasonable enough.

Bard
Well... there might be some added utility with Raptor Mazurka, the Carols, and a new rank of Paeon. This having been said, you're still limited to a single song and you don't have an instrument. So, probably not unlocking any terribly new subjob options, which has always been about nil with a Bard anyway.

Beastmaster

Not only is the job starkly limited in parties to begin with, and not only has /BST always been an awful idea, you don't even get any new abilities. Well, another rank of Wide Scan and Snarl for your underleveled jug pet. Hoo-boy.

Black Mage
Red Mages who loathed having to sub /DRK for Chainspell Stun can breathe a sigh of relief, as the spell will now be available with a good old-fashioned /BLM. Warp II is also on the list, as well as a few -ga spells at rank II and some other rank II damage spells. It will continue to be an attractive option for players looking to focus on offensive casting, with a little extra utility thrown in there.

Blue Mage
Chain Affinity is in, as is Max MP Boost as a slottable trait. You've also got MP Drainkiss, Blitzstrahl, Stinking Gas, and the usual collection of physical abilities. Call me crazy, but I think DRK/BLU is going to get just a little more life here as an odd but workable combination. RDM/BLU might work just a touch better, but then, that would require a really strange playstyle for a Red Mage in a party.

Corsair
Quick Draw is totally useless to most jobs, and the addition of two rolls of middling effectiveness with halved effects isn't going to light anyone on fire.

Dancer
We're looking at a lot of additional moves for /DNC -- Haste Samba, Stutter Step, the Reverse and Violent Flourishes, and the last category adds another Flourish category for those who dance on the side. And another Evasion Bonus, on top of that. It's enough to make almost any melee class a real solo machine, even late in the game, but it might have some serious applications for anyone with plenty of TP. A Samurai dancer being useful in a party? Maybe. (Probably not.)

Dark Knight
Resist Paralyze, yay, who cares. Bio II and Stone II, yay, who cares. Absorb TP, yay, who... well, wait a second. There's always the potential for some enterprising Red Mage to kit themselves out with some +Dark equipment and some physical gear and use this setup to hybridize themselves a bit more. It's not as far-fetched as all that -- they could cast every Absorb spell for stats and they've got a high enough Sword skill that they could produce some interesting numbers, especially with an excellent Enfeebling skill to start with. It's not a great plan, but it could work.

Dragoon

You get no new abilities from a current /DRG. Well, that was easy.

Monk
Chi Blast, Counterstance, another Subtle Blow... but none of them are actually all that interesting to another class. Counterstance is useless for any sort of tanking class that might find good use for it, Chi Blast is reliant upon a unique cocktail of Monk stats and equipment, and Subtle Blow is... well, Subtle Blow. I guess a Ninja might have use for Counterstance if they didn't need /WAR... so, yeah.

Ninja
Yonin and Innin. This opens up a whole host of combinations for... well... people already using this subjob. At best, I might say that a PLD/NIN with solid use of Yonin, Blind, and tools could start going to town as a reasonable tanking combination... which, if it works, would be sort of like covering a chocolate sundae with more chocolate.

Paladin
Resist Sleep and Shell II! This is almost better than /DRG.

Puppetmaster
Yay, it's like Dragoon only you have your pet.

Ranger
It's another case of chocolate on chocolate. Corsairs will be happier, other jobs won't be getting anything new.

Red Mage
I played a WHM/RDM, and I occasionally had to deal with people who complained that I wasn't a WHM/BLM. I pointed out over and over again that the added potency to heals and the Fast Cast was more useful than a few extra points of MP, and had to keep defending myself about this over and over. And over. And over. Now, Convert and Refresh are going to be accessible for that combination.

Allow me a line break for this: who's laughing now, jerks.

Samurai
Essentially, it's /MNK without even the slight benefit of new abilities that matter. Store TP III remains just out of reach, and thus it's the same old song and dance.

Scholar
Accession opens up to support-minded Red Mages, as another way of spreading Phalanx love around the party if for some reason you absolutely must be a RDM/SCH instead of the other way around. That's about it -- none of its current utility is compromised, and there's a fairly limited expansion there.

Summoner

It's still an MP pool. A couple of new abilities will open up for your underleveled pets, but that's really it, and none of them are marquee abilities to begin with. Heavy casters will make good use of it as a fueling job and not much else, and avatars are so prohibitively expensive as to make any use of them as pointless as ever when subbing it.

Thief
Hide! No, really, Hide! And Treasure Hunter II! We're shy of Triple Attack, but this might give back some desirability to use other physical subjobs. /SAM isn't getting new tricks, nor is /MNK for all intents and purposes. SATA gets a boost here for most physical jobs, and the added Treasure Hunter is nothing for a party to sneeze at from a greed perspective.

Warrior
You can be an Aggressor. It's nice, but it isn't opening any new doors for the subjob. Then again, /WAR is common enough that it hardly needs more public visibility.

White Mage
Subbing /WHM for healing is always the way, and the addition of Afflatus Solace is going to mean that pretty much any casting job can do decently as a /WHM as long as Cure IV and Cura will keep the party up. That means Black and Blue Mages can both probably handle the job with some decency.

So where are we? By and large, the subjobs that we know and love aren't changing much. Most of the changes that have been highlighted are going to be useful for a handful of odd playstyles or gimmick fights, or to be played around with as an alternative to the setup that already works. I'm sure that people are going to have a field day picking this apart, but as usual, you can send questions, complaints, and so forth to Eliot at Massively dot com. We've got another month before we can see how right (or wrong) everything turned out to be.