Wisdom of Nym: Potential melee weapons for future jobs in Final Fantasy XIV

You might be thinking that I would redo my entire column plans because we got a preview image for the next part of the Final Fantasy XIV MSQ releasing tomorrow and maybe that cat has a crossbow, and the answer is hell no. We’re not doing that. We’ll find out tomorrow! That will have the answers! Remember the huge discourse bomb that was the announcement of FFXIV Mobile and remember how that game is shutting down this month without ever releasing worldwide? You need to be able to look at discourse and say no sometimes.

No, we’re continuing on to talk about potential melee weapons to be used for future jobs, continuing on from last week. Last week, I talked about whips, hammers, poles, and somehow another kind of sword. This week… well, scroll down. I promise, swords will not be on this list. No, not even “swords but they’re different from other swords” like I did last week. I promise.

Nunchucks

For a type of weapon that has been in the series since the first game, nunchucks (or more properly nunchaku) don’t get a whole lot of traction. I’m not altogether sure of why this is. Is it because these weapons have in some way become memed by eras of teenagers? Surely that can’t still be it? But regardless, these are out there, and boy, if we get that limited Puppetmaster job this would be an obvious pull for the weapon, wouldn’t it?

Minor jesting aside, I think the biggest reason these weapons don’t tend to show up a lot is just because more often than not, when we get a weapon for Monk, it’s usually a knuckle of some kind. The fact of the matter is that more than lots of other weapons, nunchaku are very much weapons of martial arts, which means that we expect to see them in that context first and foremost. Knuckles just make more sense and let you do more straightforward punching. Any job using this would need to be doing martial arts that basically still come down to Monk without Monk, which is why Puppetmaster seems plausible.

That being said, these also were the weapon of your resident slot user in Final Fantasy VIII, so I think it’s worth noting that there are some diverse possibilities here after all. Will they ever be explored? Well, it’s certainly possible.

Kusarigama/Whip-blades

I suppose I could have called this “whip variants” but I think there’s more going on than that. Kusarigama are very specifically a sickle or a blade attached to a weighted cord or chain. Whip-blades are used in Final Fantasy Type-0 as a sort of combination spear, whip, and sword. There are other options too, but the point here is that we’re talking about things that fundamentally use a whip-like composition without having the lash directly being the primary attack method.

Just as the last entry has a minor issue wherein it’s a weapon traditionally associated with a specific job that already has a weapon, kusarigama are most associated with ninjutsu in a way that does somewhat limit its potential. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t still do something with it. There are motifs and ideas not solely explored with Ninja and Samurai that could easily give us a third Far Eastern look, for example. But things like the whip-blade offer even more flexibility, especially being tied to no specific real-world discipline. I could absolutely see one of these being the basis for a new job using these unique but real weapons alongside Maiming gear, for example.

This also doesn’t have a whole lot of precedent in the series as a whole, to be clear. I think the closest we got is a side character in the Final Fantasy IV sequel, and even that didn’t really wind up in the same boat. But that’s also an advantage in that it can really be sort of wide-open. “New job that wields a whip-blade and its whole gimmick is runic magic” would be an odd pull, but it’s also at the point of “sure, why wouldn’t that be a thing?”

Kick Enhancers

Despite what you might be thinking, this is neither inspired by Chie Satonaka from Persona 4 nor by Lyse wearing armored boots. No, this is inspired by the fact that Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings gave Filo a hoverboard she uses to smack into people. This is awesome, and I think everyone will agree that it should be more common. Giving a job a set of weaponized skateboards that you kickflip into people would be incredibly cool, and it might even get MOP’s Chris to give the game a shot at long last.

I am getting several urgent texts from work numbers in response to that last line and I want you all to know that I am ignoring them.

Now, while I am absolutely in favor of this, you might argue that it would be kind of silly and weird. You’re not even necessarily wrong, even though I don’t care. But having kick enhancers like weighted boots is honestly not that weird in theory; the whole premise behind knuckles and fist weapons is that you are still basically punching stuff, just with added weight to give it heft. Having something that you fundamentally use for kicking wouldn’t be all that unusual by that token.

The counterpoint, of course, is that this is another martial arts weapon, and it isn’t something where you could give it to a different job with enough justification. You have to get a lot of kicks in there. Still, we have gotten bosses using surfboards as weapons before now, so maybe there is a precedent for it. I feel like that would be low on the list of new jobs, but I wouldn’t be upset if our new tank job one day surfed on a shield. And if you hate that, you can blame me for it.

Fans

The idea of fans being a weapon feels like something conjured after the fact by people who wanted to make something not meant as a weapon look cool, except that it was a real thing. Combat fans and the style of using them were real. How real is, of course, ambiguous culturally (fans were often used for signaling rather than combat), but tessenjutsu is studied by some practitioners to this day.

I feel like this would make for a perfect scouting job, if we’re being honest. Yes, we have a couple of thrown fans for Dancer, but the art of using folded fans for quick strikes, open ones for slices, and the like would definitely give the job a unique identity along the way. And it’d be another opportunity to do something different. Who doesn’t want to fight with a war fan?

Well, I do, anyhow.

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.