Rune Fencer 2nd new job

[Camate]

Looking at the name “rune fencer” it is actually not a magic based job, as they will be consuming runes to gain special effects. To give a bit more insight into the actual name, I will share a quick Japanese lesson with you all. Red mage, black mage, and other “mage” jobs utilize the kanji
“魔道士” which denotes a mage or wizard-type role. On the other hand, rune fencer in Japanese
is “魔導剣士” which uses a slightly different kanji “魔導.” Both are actually pronounced the same way (madou) but are different in the sense that the latter is used to denote more of a sage-type character. With that said, it might seem to overlap with the image of red mage, but it is in fact completely different.

On another note, for all of you who may still be wondering what the main weapon for rune fencer will be, as many has guessed it will be great sword. However, they will still be able to fully utilize one-hand swords as well.

Attack wise, since they are using great sword, we are planning to have them deal higher damage than paladins. As a tank role though, generating higher enmity than your melee and other damage dealers with attacks alone is quite impossible, so we will be looking into other methods to gain enmity.

In regards to their defensive capabilities, as was stated their specialty is magical defense and elemental resistance, but they will not be able to have all resistances enhanced at once and will have to use runes skillfully to enhance themselves.

[Teraniku]

Finally a Job that will (hopefully) be A+ in Great Sword.

[cidbahamut]

Attack wise, since they are using great sword, we are planning to have them deal higher damage than paladins. As a tank role though, generating higher enmity than your melee and other damage dealers with attacks alone is quite impossible, so we will be looking into other methods to gain enmity.

Is the development team going to look into changing the enmity system itself? I think that's the first step.

[Alistaire]

In regards to their defensive capabilities, as was stated their specialty is magical defense and elemental resistance

How do you plan to have this compete with Aegis?

[Daniel_Hatcher]

How do you plan to have this compete with Aegis?

Indeed, as it is PLD is already amazing at magic damage and Physical damage resistance.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Looking at the name “rune fencer” it is actually not a magic based job, as they will be consuming runes to gain special effects.

So it's ninja 2.

[Edyth]

In regards to their defensive capabilities, as was stated their specialty is magical defense and elemental resistance, but they will not be able to have all resistances enhanced at once and will have to use runes skillfully to enhance themselves.

Sounds like SCH's stratagems, and SCH's stratagems are awesome.

[Zerich]

Sounds like SCH's stratagems, and SCH's stratagems are awesome.

not sure if sarcastic >_>

[SpankWustler]

Looking at the name “rune fencer” it is actually not a magic based job, as they will be consuming runes to gain special effects.

As other people have mentioned, I see two ways Rune Fencer's relationship to runes could go and I'm wondering which is more in-line with the Development Bros current plans.

Will a Rune Fencer literally consume runes from his or her inventory, similar to a Ninja consuming ninja tools or a Corsair consuming cards?

OR

Will a Rune Fencer figuratively consume runes through job abilities with charges or charge-like things, similar to a Scholar consuming stratagems or a Dancer consuming Finishing Moves?

The former seems much more likely to me, but then again, my first guess was that Rune Fencer would just use a lot of job high-enmity abilities to compliment a small and focused Enhancing magic selection. Obviously, that was way off.

[Oakrest]

Attack wise, since they are using great sword, we are planning to have them deal higher damage than paladins. As a tank role though, generating higher enmity than your melee and other damage dealers with attacks alone is quite impossible, so we will be looking into other methods to gain enmity.

As a PLD by choice, I find a great deal frustrating and just faithless about what is said here. In short, it's suggested that Rune Fencer will do more damage than Paladins - that's fine - but "as a tank role" ... wait a minute, you're going to make this a tank too? How about fixing paladin first and make it the tank it was intended to be? The fact that you acknowledge some jobs have a 'tanking' purpose at all is discouraging. As many fellow players point out, there are no tanks in FFXI right now except those who attack the fastest. To be specific, you acknowledge the enmity for the RF to tank cannot be achieved through "attacks alone" - so how else do you plan on doing it? With job abilities? Perhaps with a trait? The thought about enmity should be happening at a much larger scale, because whatever is concluded there - should be applied to existing broken tank jobs like Paladin.

Honestly if you release this expansion/job without first fixing PLD I just can't see how I could continue playing without cringing every time I logged in to realize I was playing Rune Fencer not because it was an exciting new challenge, but because I knew it would be more effective/useful for endgame content. It seems it would be the closest thing to a Paladin (which is my fav job choice) but doesn't have to be a useless 'tank' as Paladin is now. I have Ochain and Almace, and am working on Aegis and Excalibur to complete my paladins damage mitigation and damage dealing diversity - yet this all feels in vain now.

I love the idea of a new expansion and new areas. I've been asking for it in some of my other posts. But this is just wrong on so many levels. Let's back burner the expansion, and focus on really making the jobs we have better. Agreed?