Isn't it strange how Ninjas are tanks?

[Yukichibi]

Taking no damage is better than taking less damage, i think it explains all.

[Arcon]

I think he meant from a role-playing perspective, not from an efficiency perspective. And he's right, Ninjas are very weird tanks, they're even weird as melee, they're support to work covertly and stealthy, not provoking monsters and whatnot.

[Ophannus]

NIN and THF should switch play styles. In typical RPGs the THF(Rogue) is more dual wieldy/uses tools to enfeeble, avoid detection while the NIN or assassin is about sneak attacking and critical hits.

[Kojo]

IIRC, SAM was meant to be a tank. NIN was meant to be a ranged attacker/enfeebler/DoT DD.

[Harukusan]

PLD is an amazing tank. Get an Almace (and Ochain if you haven't already), gear up PROPERLY for it, and voila, you have an outstanding tank that can deal damage. I wouldn't accept any other job to tank in Voidwatch. Abyssea there are almost endless options, a WHM could tank ffs because of their seemingly limitless MP pools. But then again, "Abyssea is too hard" amirite?

[seraphimhunter]

Back when the way of the game was a 6 person party with one tank and one healer and three to four DDs and hopefully a RDM for Dispel/Refresh or those Kuftal Crabs you were way too low to drag me to fight would take forever to kill, Samurai wasn't all that great of a tank because of how we used to fight IT++ mobs for high exp chains.

Once that changed over to T to VTs Samurai really came into the light with their ability to take hate, and hold it. Once SE gave them Seigan, that was it, they became one of the better tanks in those kinds of parties. NIN was still on top, and most jobs could do it with /NIN, but SAM could sub whatever they wanted and still tank through it with the Third Eye updates.

SAM could always tank. Just at first PLD and NIN were the best because of how we used to play the game.

EDIT

Which actually is how NIN came to be a tank. Once people realized how *good* Utsusemi was at mitigating damage, it simply became the way to tank. Before it used to be "maximize defense" because not even Shield blocking was reliable back in the day, it was only slightly better than relying on Parrying. SE didn't exactly embrace that idea at first, but over time they started accepting it and added gear to help the NIN with their new role. NIN became a tank just like SAM: because of our playstyle at the time. Which hasn't exactly changed all that much.

[Tagrineth]

IIRC, SAM was meant to be a tank. NIN was meant to be a ranged attacker/enfeebler/DoT DD.

SE has disagreed with you about SAM on numerous occasions.

[Rearden]

I can't think of anything PLD tanked better than SAM at 75 cap that wasn't already a zerg fight (and thus no tank)

[Arcon]

I can't think of anything PLD tanked better than SAM at 75 cap that wasn't already a zerg fight (and thus no tank)

Plague Chigoe.

[svengalis]

SAM was a tank before abyssea WTF?! Their defense is too weak.