Roles for Samurai, Red Mage, Dancer

As long as something is released for tanks we won't have the DF crisis that ninja brought

Samurai will be DPS without a doubt. The community wants it to be DPS. I main a tank, but I know that if the samurai were to be tank a lot of people would be upset, so Yoshi-p clearly doesn't want that. I imagine Red Mage as weird as it may sound might actually be a tank class that uses a fencing weapon. Dancer will be healer.

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Originally Posted by Worldofwarcraft

Samurai will be DPS without a doubt. The community wants it to be DPS. I main a tank, but I know that if the samurai were to be tank a lot of people would be upset, so Yoshi-p clearly doesn't want that. I imagine Red Mage as weird as it may sound might actually be a tank class that uses a fencing weapon. Dancer will be healer.

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I know he's talked about SAM being the DPS and all [since he did, and prefered SAM to be one, I can't see it NOT being one]
but has he ever talked about RDM or even DNC? I don't even think they can add or think about another healer right now.
AST needs to be fixed, it's in such a mess right now what to do with it's stances and such...I'm scared Dancer will be a mess also.

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Originally Posted by Mugiawara

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they mention several ajustments to all jobs + utility nerfs to WAR and SCH to make a balance, add a new healer can go perfectly in that formula, same for tanks.

At this moment were kinda just speculating these are the 3 chosen jobs arn't we? Dancer is the only one (assuming his word on the event having to do with it, thus the emote being a copy of XI) that seems like a possible choice but outside that, has any other info been seen or given to hint at it?

well honestly I only see red mage being a dps( I can handle it if it is a healer but if its a tank No just NO) I can see it having a slow natural MP regen so when the mp is gone, it switches to physical attacks and if the healers of a raid or a dungeon is having a tough time, the red mage would switch to healing and help with healing a party since in my opinion healing comes before dps( talking to all those healers who get DPS tunnel and forgets they have to heal a tank)

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Originally Posted by shao32

they mention several ajustments to all jobs + utility nerfs to WAR and SCH to make a balance, add a new healer can go perfectly in that formula, same for tanks.

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i just hope whatever role they put SAM, RDM and DNC (is this as likely as the other 2?) in, is that they undergo extensive testing taking into account things they learned from 3.0 so that the new healer and DPS will not come out of the box under-powered and frowned upon by the playerbase a week after launch.

that being said, i think SAM would make a nice tank or dps; RDM as dps; and DNC probably a melee type healer or another (gulp) support-dps ^^

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Originally Posted by Mugiawara

AST needs to be fixed, it's in such a mess right now what to do with it's stances and such...I'm scared Dancer will be a mess also.

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Is the problem Nocturnal Sect being worthless? I always figured it was dumb of them to copy Scholar with that... I'd much rather have seen either a Phalanx style effect or a Wildfire style effect, or a mix of the two... Phalanx effectively worked as an alternate form of Stoneskin, rather than putting up a barrier that blocked say 2,000 damage, wearing off when that damage is dealt, Phalanx put up a barrier that blocked say 50 damage, and only wore off when the duration was up... That has a lot more synergy with Time Dilation/Celestial Opposition. Alternatively, a healer version of Wildfire lets you charge up a heal that is applied when the effect wears off... Can either have your Benefic/Benefic II charge that up, the same way Machinist dealing damage charges up Wildfire, or you can have it charge up from taking damage... Your tank gets hit, that charges up the effect, when it wears off they're healed based on how much damage they took... Either way, it again has synergy with Time Dilation/Celestial Opposition...

I'm no career Astrologian though, so that probably doesn't address the Jobs problem, and even with that I'd still be more incline to use Diurnal Sect, just because it's effect is also beneficial for nuking... I'd kinda like to stance dance between the two, though given how powerful that'd end up being, I can see why that isn't allowed... Still, reminds me somewhat of XIs Scholar in a way... Perhaps we could get an Enlightenment style skill to temporarily swap us... I do kinda like what I think they were going for with the concept, you're meant to read the future and set the right stance based on what the fight will need, which is thematically fitting of the Job, just Nocturnal Sect is kinda really lame... Make it +5% Mind instead of Healing Potency, then it effectively amounts to +5% Magic Attack Power with Clerics Stance, and perhaps I'd want to use it...

inb4 Nocturnal Sect is everyones go-to stance and I've been playing the Job wrong all this time... I'm really not a career Astrologian...

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Originally Posted by Astyrah

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compared to ARR, heavensward was a disarter in terms of balance, they release 4 jobs in total, plus a lot of thinks they basically run out of time, in heavenswar whe see more changes in stats and job balance that the entire ARR how the only several change whe see was WAR 2.1 and some smalls tics in the rest.

they drop one dungeon per patch and dont touch scholar and warrior even they now they are ovepower from the begining (basically bcs are the same from the release), what i want to say they know about all the balance we need and is obvious they drop support to some areas to keep this weak balance now and make a good one in the next expansion, the fact whe dont go to see any several change in the last 2 patchs before the expansion prove that.

i really hope hope they do a better job after the experience of the first expansion to dont make the same mistakes.

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Originally Posted by shao32

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1. There was only 3 jobs released, 2. they release 2 dungeons each patch 3. Honestly don't know about warrior but scholar can be overpower if the player is actually doing everything correctly, though most of the scholars I see don't have eos on obey and never use succor or Adloqium so it's a powerful job with a huge crutch.

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Originally Posted by Worldofwarcraft

Samurai will be DPS without a doubt. The community wants it to be DPS. I main a tank, but I know that if the samurai were to be tank a lot of people would be upset, so Yoshi-p clearly doesn't want that. I imagine Red Mage as weird as it may sound might actually be a tank class that uses a fencing weapon. Dancer will be healer.

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don't speak for everyone because I rather see sam as a tank.

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Originally Posted by Powe

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1º counting ninja in 2.4 was 4 jobs in a short time, many of the problems with the jobs come from release ninja betwen the ARR release and heavensward, ninja release affect the release of DRK, AST and MCH, more to AST and MCH, thats why they go to release new jobs in expansions only for now.
2º and in ARR was 3 dungeons per patch, they drop one.
3º every job now loss so much if you dont play it perfectly, thats why devs want to return all jobs rotations to ARR dificulty, all jobs work very nice if you play it well, but WAR and SCH works a lot better that the other tanks and healers plus dont have a equivalent in they raid spots, this was adresed by yoship himself.

so add a new healer and tank how take part of WAR and SCH utility is a wise chooice and give it they own equivalents in raid spots, but whe dont know if that happen.

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Originally Posted by Worldofwarcraft

The community wants it to be DPS.

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Community speaking here. Give me SAM tank. Thanks.

Sam DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS D.P.S PLEAAAASE. Give us a DPS sam.

RDM 3 stances that can't change outside of combat or once you enter a instance.

You pick your role.
Healer Stance / DPS Stance / Tank Stance. The true do it all but sucks at everything job!

Dang, you guys are on fire. I reached my post limit and when i come back we have like four new pages. Okay, here goes nothing:

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Originally Posted by Zojha

Personally, with the way our healers DPS more often than not, I'd be inclined to make the Red Mage a healer - they can even get heavier armor because chances are, it doesn't matter. Only the melee aspect would suffer a little.

I can't imagine dancer capturing the core fantasy of it without it being a DPS. It should be very mobile, because motion is what dancing is all about - something that tanks definitely should not do because every melee DPS would get a stroke and something that would most likely be OP on healers.

Samurai could work as either DPS or Tank - they are typically depicted in heavy armor, but the shirt wearing Samurai (preferably with a straw in the mouth) has also become widespread in media. Healing seems off - there are no associations of Samurai with mending.

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Can't imagine Dancer being anything but DPS? That's odd. DNC has been a support class since the very beginning. Although I do like the idea of mowing down enemies armed with only a fan. Or a pair.

Yes Samurai healer is kinda dumb. I just included it because it is one of the possible ways to combine the 3 jobs and the 3 roles. I could maybe see healer SAM sacreficing speed, damage, tp or health to buff or heal the others. As an extreme form of loyalty to your Lord (the tank).

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Originally Posted by AutoWhit

Samuai DPS
Red Mage tank
Dancer healer

I'm not sure why people still think that having another tank class is going to fix the shortage of tanks. People don't tank because it's the most demanding role (except maybe healers) and requires the most attention while playing. People get nervous queuing with them. SE could add 3 more tank classes and no dps/healer classes and it still wouldn't change the shortage issue.

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Well then, how about giving them a fun class. That could be an incentive to play.

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Originally Posted by Claymore65

In pretty much any "Holy Trinity" based MMO there is always a surplus of DPS players and a shortage of Healers and Tanks. There are multiple theories as to why (Added "responsiblity" when playing a tank or healer, more "cool" class options as DPS, "Damage is fun") but it's very rare to find a Trinity MMO where Healers/Tanks are more popular than DPS roles.

For the question above, I could see it going more or less anyway. I'd lean toward "Samurai = DPS, Red Mage = Tank, Dancer = Healer". but I'm not really sure.


For Red Mage, they could technically fit all three. Red Mage is going to be tough to fit in this game, if only because they are defined by being "Jack of All Trades, Master of None". The Red Mage will see quite a bit of change, and depending on what they decide to emphasize it will change. As a Tank, they could easily have a number of defensive abilities, support abilities, and offensive abilities (not unlike Paladin), while still fighting in melee. It might make a great fit. However, it would likely need heavier armor, which might not work as well. As DPS it could probably still do all three as well. Healer I see being a bit harder, if only since it's supposed to be melee, but it could fit. I think Red Mage is a pretty good bet for the expansion though. The two major Ala-Mihgan characters we've seen have both combined swordplay with fire magic (Ilberd and Raubahn), I'm just not sure what role they'll fill.

Dancer I could easily see as a Healer, or a DPS. As a DPS they could easily fit the "melee bard" kind of role, with support focused dances and quick melee strikes. As a Healer, they could focus on party wide support abilities, although I'm not sure how they would handle "melee" healing. Tank fits some of their aspects thematically (attracting attention), but I feel like would be a bad fit. Either they would have to wear heavy armor, or they would have to be an "Evasion" tank, and to be frank I don't see that happening. "Evasion Tanks" are notoriously hard to balance correctly, as they usually end up either too weak or wildly overpowered. So, I don't realistically see "Dancer" as becoming a tank, though healer or DPS could work.

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Red Mage or Dancer could probably fit any of the role. For dancer tank i had the evasion tank in might. It might be hard to balance but it would be interesting.

I think people new to MMOs jsut begin with dps as that is the easiest and they never graduate.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

Samurai being a tank seems like the obvious choice - but I kinda hope it doesn't happen. Samurai will probably use a katana or great katana, and that would make for THREE out of four tanks wielding swords... It'd be nice to have a sword-wielding DPS for a change. Of course, they could get fancy and give SAM a Naginata, or even a bow...

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Exactly. The DPS Icon is a sword for gods sake. But with this 3 we are getting 2 sword wielding jobs. It is highly likely that one of them will end up being a DPS.

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Originally Posted by Derio

What if they made samurai have a tank version and a dps version. 2 different style katanas.

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What do you mean? Two different samurai classes? The only way I could see that happen if samurai ends up being a base class with a tank and a dps jobs (saaay Yojimbo and Ronin respectively.) I would really love that but I don't think that will happen untill I get Yoshie-P's position.

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Originally Posted by CaptainLagbeard

With those 3...

Samurai Tank
Red Mage Healer
Dancer DPS (in the same vein as Bard)

I wonder if they could add new base classes instead of just jobs, because that way they could add more Jobs in the same matter how ACN is used by both SMN and SCH as a base class...

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I hope they do eventually. Classes are important, but they have been hurt a lot in Heavensward.

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Originally Posted by Evangela

So what? Because the tank role is less popular so we're gonna keep sacrificing good jobs like Dark Knight and Samurai to be a boring punching bag?

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They don't need to be boring, you know.

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Originally Posted by AlphaFox

At this moment were kinda just speculating these are the 3 chosen jobs arn't we? Dancer is the only one (assuming his word on the event having to do with it, thus the emote being a copy of XI) that seems like a possible choice but outside that, has any other info been seen or given to hint at it?

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Yep, we kinda are just speculating. While i wasn't here for last years rising I think it mentioned samurai and red mage. Definitely samurai. The current rising event had the wandering minstrel mention a sword cleaving the ocean floor after spears do something (meaning after Heavensward we get a water themed expansion with a sword wielding class). And these 3 are the most requested classes/jobs anyway.
No definite info. Yoshida will probably come with a new t-shirt to the fanfest and mention that his favorite movie is Last Samurai or Dirty Dancing or HUnt for the Red October, or whatever. At least that's how Dark Knight and Machinist were revealed.

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Originally Posted by CrystalRainbow

RDM 3 stances that can't change outside of combat or once you enter a instance.

You pick your role.
Healer Stance / DPS Stance / Tank Stance. The true do it all but sucks at everything job!

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I had the same idea for dancer actually, But you still need a main role that you can use for queing.

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Originally Posted by Evangela

So what? Because the tank role is less popular so we're gonna keep sacrificing good jobs like Dark Knight and Samurai to be a boring punching bag?

If you want something for the tank players, you can get Barbarian, Warlock, or Viking.

Non-tank players aren't gonna switch to play tank anyway.

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Tanks are only unpopular when compared to the entirety of dps roles though. The populations of players who play melee dps jobs is pretty much the same as tank players according to the official census. So the number of players who'd be attracted to the "good" jobs like samurai and dark knight is generally the same.

You don't get to sit here and dictate that tank players who are arguably more important to the health of the game, should be relegated to the scraps of uninteresting jobs just because you're a selfish mess.

I really hope they'd make Dancer more Bard than Bard actually is here. I miss the concept of support jobs from the FF series, even if they were lackluster in practice, outside of XI's nearly perfect application of the role in an MMORPG.

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Originally Posted by Shippuu

Tanks are only unpopular when compared to the entirety of dps roles though. The populations of players who play melee dps jobs is pretty much the same as tank players according to the official census. So the number of players who'd be attracted to the "good" jobs like samurai and dark knight is generally the same.

You don't get to sit here and dictate that tank players who are arguably more important to the health of the game, should be relegated to the scraps of uninteresting jobs just because you're a selfish mess.

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Don't overlook a significant reason for the DPS role being more popular. The responsibility and attention for it. Tanks are traditionally the leaders, and no one likes to lead or have that responsibility no matter how easy it might be to play it. Spotlight is frequently on you. Likewise with healers, the spotlight is even moreso on you during combat. You mess up too much and you're going to be blamed for not healing enough (even if it may have been impossible to heal because everyone else was ****ing up). No one wants to deal with that crap.

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Originally Posted by AlphaFox

At this moment were kinda just speculating these are the 3 chosen jobs arn't we? Dancer is the only one that seems like a possible choice but outside that, has any other info been seen or given to hint at it?

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Dancer is actually the least likely of the 3 however. It's one that a lot of players have asked for but its not once been mentioned by Yoshida or the devs. Samurai has been talked about quite a bit and is undoubtedly a surefire addition to the game at some point, whether its 4.0 or later, it was originally in consideration for the tank role for 3.0 but lost out to DRK at the last minute (so some could argue it's role has already been decided and simply pushed back to a later expansion). And red mage has been mentioned quite a bit, and notoriously Yoshida has said recently it's one of his favorite jobs. Which interestingly enough he said the same thing about Dark Knight and Machinist in one interview months before the first Fanfest back in 2014.

So I would say, in my opinion, that Red Mage is potentially the most likely to he added in 4.0. It's iconic appearance will make for easy marketing and I wouldn't be surprised to see a CGI trailer where the Hyur changes jobs again to the Red Mage

Btw um I think dancer should be race restricted, can't see a lala twerking to stun enemies or doing a very sensual dance to get aggro or grinding on the tank to heal their hp.( btw a AOE heal should involves splits and twisting in the air like a acrobatist)

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Originally Posted by Welsper59

No one wants to deal with that crap.

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I mean, despite that being demonstrably untrue as a significant portion of the game's population plays tanks and enjoys them...

YOU may not want to deal with "that crap" or are unable to but thankfully you are not everyone in this community so you should probably stop speaking for everyone.

3 melee dps and 4 ranged. Redmage could make it 4 and 4, or samurai could make it 4 and 4. But there are more ranged dps than melee because melee dps have partial tank mentality whether they know it or not. DRK added alot of new tank players to the game. Even though the census says 19%, there are many players that play tank for dungeons for fast dungeon queues, but main dps for everything else, thus they skew the census by a tad bit

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Originally Posted by Powe

btw a AOE heal should involves splits and twisting in the air

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https://media.giphy.com/media/WLq5xLSELqBhK/giphy.gif

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Originally Posted by Shippuu

I mean, despite that being demonstrably untrue as a significant portion of the game's population plays tanks and enjoys them...

YOU may not want to deal with "that crap" or are unable to but thankfully you are not everyone in this community so you should probably stop speaking for everyone.

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Wait so you're trying to argue that tanks and healers are more popular in active numbers than DPS? That was the point of the previous statement and you're now stating that it's untrue. Whether or not there's an active following for a role is irrelevant when the point was referring to majority situations. The moment you have a universally greater need for DPS over tanks or heals is the moment the game has done something special that no others have for it.

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Originally Posted by Welsper59

https://media.giphy.com/media/WLq5xLSELqBhK/giphy.gif

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OMG yes yes SE make this happen

Dancer should be a gathering class that gathers applause and fans.

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Originally Posted by Welsper59

Wait so you're trying to argue that tanks and healers are more popular in active numbers than DPS? That was the point of the previous statement and you're now stating that it's untrue. Whether or not there's an active following for a role is irrelevant when the point was referring to majority situations. The moment you have a universally greater need for DPS over tanks or heals is the moment the game has done something special that no others have for it.

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I was never arguing that they are more popular so perhaps I mispoke but I was specifically talking about populations numbers. There are less tanks than dps as a whole, but when we're talking about jobs that are strictly melee its manipulating the statistics to compare all dps players to tank players when talking about adding specific jobs. People who are die hard caster/ranged dps players may have little interest in melee dps jobs.

In this situation, samurai. The argument is that "there are more dps players so it should be dps." But if we actually look at population data, the number of players who play specifically melee dps jobs is roughly the same as the number of players who play tanks (20% and 19% respectively). So to argue that based on population alone it should be a melee dps simply cannot be made. That was the point I was trying to make.

the trouble with samurai as tank, and it was pointed countless time but ignored by some, is... it will be:
- a two hand sword class (like the dark knight)
- based on parry (like dark knight and warrior)
- mostly physical damage (like paladin and warrior)
- wearing heavy armor (like every tank)

the point is the samurai as tank is only a skin.... we already have a jobs with 2 hand sword as tank... and one based on parry. what the point to add one more jobs like this? i see more a magic melee tank that will bring novelty and new gameplay to the tank, more than samurai that some want simply because.... they want samurai as tank.

as tank it will bring nothing new to the jobs. when a tank based on a caster can be quite interesting and have a few way to be added. because dark knight is not really a caster tank, is more a bad hybrid with more a melee with a few ability draining him mp... don't make it a caster tank.

and just a particularity into the combo system is not enough for justify to add samurai as tank.

A quick description of what I's like and why:

Samurai TANK: stacks system that goes up the more hits you take, so you can unleash powerful blows like Bonecrusher. A DPS stance based on drawing your sword where you lose your ability to auto-attack but counters every hit you take with a 100 potency Iai attack.

Red Mage HEALER: only role in this game where you can use both attack and healing magics without people getting mad at you. Mechanics based on doublecasting (instant-cast 2 spells, no MP cost), one melee combo for MP management.

Dancer DPS: Think Monk without the stacks and each "Form" would give the nearby party members a different effect, so, depending on how you want to support them, you rotation would differ.

What I would be ok with: SAM tank, RDM anything that isn't a healer, DNC as anything
What I would love to see but isn't happening: SAM tank, RDM full hybrid, DNC full hybrid

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Originally Posted by silentwindfr

the trouble with samurai as tank, and it was pointed countless time but ignored by some, is... it will be:
- a two hand sword class (like the dark knight)
- based on parry (like dark knight and warrior)
- mostly physical damage (like paladin and warrior)
- wearing heavy armor (like every tank)

the point is the samurai as tank is only a skin.... we already have a jobs with 2 hand sword as tank... and one based on parry. what the point to add one more jobs like this? i see more a magic melee tank that will bring novelty and new gameplay to the tank, more than samurai that some want simply because.... they want samurai as tank.

as tank it will bring nothing new to the jobs. when a tank based on a caster can be quite interesting and have a few way to be added. because dark knight is not really a caster tank, is more a bad hybrid with more a melee with a few ability draining him mp... don't make it a caster tank.

and just a particularity into the combo system is not enough for justify to add samurai as tank.

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INCOMING FFXI TALK. This is your only trigger warning!

- Doesn't have to be, although not using their iconic weapon is probably a big turn off. Samurai Weaponry
EDIT: Maybe a fellow D&D/LoT5R nerd can help me, wasn't there a stance/feat/something that allowed one clan to offhand the wakizashi in a defensive stance? Maybe something like that could work.
- Doesn't have to be. FFXI has Seigan/Third Eye to make it a psuedo evasion tank, with some parry on the side. They could pretty easily break the mold here and still keep balance.
- Doesn't have to be. FFT Samurai shows that making magic damage a part of the skill set could work. It does have the potential to step on NIN's toes if the gimmick isn't tweaked more to work with whatever physical damage is in their skill set, but that's more on SE.
- Doesn't have to be.FFXI's Rune Fencer is a light armor tank. That isn't to say it doesn't have issues, but those issues are more ingrained into the game itself rather than the classes design (it's hard to make a tank that can compete with Ochain/Aegis). There are also armors that could fit in-between the heavy and light categories like some of the earlier "tank" armor that has DRG on it as well as the tanks. Build that Medium armor set into full sets will also have the framework set for other lighter armor tanks.

I think the part I bolded in your post is the biggest issue. It's on SE to step out of the safe space they have been playing in with the patch cycles and job design, and actually want to make an attempt at something new and keeping the balance instead of the trend toward homogenization. That's the bigger issue.

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Originally Posted by silentwindfr

the trouble with samurai as tank, and it was pointed countless time but ignored by some, is...

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Your arguments are often ignored or easily dismissed because more often then not they're either weak arguments or actual non-arguments. I'll easily debunk them once again:

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- a two hand sword class (like the dark knight)

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While both weapons use two hands, they are starkly different in how they appear and how they would be used. The only similarity is that they are both a form of sword. We have White Mage and Black Mage that both use two handed staves/canes. SCH and SMN both use books (though they are a shared base class). Even then, there is no magic rule that says two tanks cannot have similar weapons. Please provide a sourced comment where any developer for FFXIV has said there can never be any (slight) overlap in weapons by jobs in a same role. That's like saying they couldn't add Machinist because it uses a weapon that fires projectiles because Bard already has a weapon that fires projectiles.

This also doesn't rule out a possibility of a dual wielding Samurai concept, of which there is no dual wielding tank available to players.

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- based on parry (like dark knight and warrior)

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Nowhere is it said it must revolve around parry. It can have an active counter-attack system/skills without being based around parrying or using parry as a stat. Even then, multiple jobs have abilities that increase parry or proc other moves off of a dodge or parry. Just because one job uses it doesn't mean it's "locked out" from being used by another job.
Even if you argue that parrying is part of FF Samurai's identity (Which it isn't, but counter attacking is but can technically be a different mechanic.) It's no different to how people said Dark Knight must have an HP sacrifice mechanic and look how that turned out.

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- mostly physical damage (like paladin and warrior)

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Dark Knight is also mostly physical damage (Only a few of their moves do magical damage and most of magical ones their primary purpose is not damage). There are bosses/enemies in the game that become immune to, or reflect magical damage that need to be tanked, as a result tanks cannot be locked into doing primarily magical damage without changing mechanics of said bosses and removing that kind of mechanic from ever being used again which is highly unlikely (same concept applies to melee healers as well.)

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- wearing heavy armor (like every tank)

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How is this in any way an argument AGAINST Samurai being a tank? The fact tanks share a common armor type is intentional for a multitude of reasons and offers plenty of benefits. Future tanks will likely continue to share this armor type. It makes things easier on the devs and provides flexibility for tank players to play multiple tank jobs to keep them playing that role. Introducing tanks that do not wear fending gear would make tank players have to pick and choose which tanks to actively gear, reducing their flexibility and options which could drive them away from tanking which you don't want to do. This is the same reason Red Mage tank is unlikely unless they alter the identity of Red Mage to wear heavy armor.

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the point is the samurai as tank is only a skin.... we already have a jobs with 2 hand sword as tank... and one based on parry. what the point to add one more jobs like this? i see more a magic melee tank that will bring novelty and new gameplay to the tank, more than samurai that some want simply because.... they want samurai as tank.

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These same arguments can be made directly towards a DPS Samurai as well. We already have combo based DPS etc. We already have 2 handed DPS that does spike damage etc. etc. I've already debunked the magic damage tank above. 2 of the 3 tanks already have emphasis on magical aspects and using MP, so another physical orientated themed one would be fine.

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as tank it will bring nothing new to the jobs. when a tank based on a caster can be quite interesting and have a few way to be added. because dark knight is not really a caster tank, is more a bad hybrid with more a melee with a few ability draining him mp... don't make it a caster tank.

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Your lack of imagination and narrow view of what a Samurai is or could be is why you cannot possibly see it as anything but a dps. And I won't even start on how a caster tank just isn't feasible, even if it did physical damage with it's "spells".

So in summary, your arguments just don't cut it, as usual.

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Originally Posted by Shippuu

And I won't even start on how a caster tank just isn't feasible, even if it did physical damage with it's "spells".

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While I agree about the points regarding SAM being a tank, I wanted to point out that caster tanking is absolutely a feasible thing. Mage tanking is almost as long of a tradition in RPGs (the general genre) as normal sword and board types. The most common form of mitigation for them is magic shields or barriers. If you ever played original Starcraft or Broodwars, think Archons in that example. A specific boss fight in the TBC expansion of WoW had the Mage class have to tank a boss as well, using the bosses shield against them. Sometimes magic manipulation itself becomes their mitigation, as is the case of Rune Fencer in FFXI. Though they use a 2h weapon in that game, the concept of runes to ward harm isn't exactly exclusive to people who would wield sluggish weaponry lol.

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Originally Posted by Welsper59

While I agree about the points regarding SAM being a tank, I wanted to point out that caster tanking is absolutely a feasible thing. Mage tanking is almost as long of a tradition in RPGs (the general genre) as normal sword and board types. The most common form of mitigation for them is magic shields or barriers. If you ever played original Starcraft or Broodwars, think Archons in that example. A specific boss fight in the TBC expansion of WoW had the Mage class have to tank a boss as well, using the bosses shield against them. Sometimes magic manipulation itself becomes their mitigation, as is the case of Rune Fencer in FFXI. Though they use a 2h weapon in that game, the concept of runes to ward harm isn't exactly exclusive to people who would wield sluggish weaponry lol.

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What you're describing isn't a caster tank though. You're describing magical themed tanks which isn't the same. We have magical themed tanks such as Paladin and Dark Knight. Paladin's have flash, they have clemency which is a hard-cast heal, and Divine Veil which creates a magical barrier around their allies. Even Cover has a somewhat magical connotation. Dark Knight has even more, from Dark Arts itself being a buff, to Dark Passenger shooting a wave of dark energy, even their Power Slash which isn't magic damage has the appearance of a magical spell as they blast a ball of dark magic from their hands.

So a tank can definitely be a kind of mage. But one cannot work so well (In this game specifically) as a caster. At least not without making some significant exceptions to how it casts spells. There's just no way it can be feasibly done unless you do the following:

-The caster tank cannot be interrupted in their spellcasting.
-They can move while casting magic with no reduction to their mobility.
OR
-Their cast times are incredibly short (think BRD/MCH level, about the same as the GCD).

We have already seen the problems when it comes to Paladin's Clemency. They already had to significantly reduce the cast time, and even now it's challenging to find windows you can squeeze out a cast without being interrupted or having to move. Tanks in this game sometimes have to move often, and a caster that has to move often significantly drops in efficiency. Tanks also often have to tank a lot of enemies at once, especially with dungeon speed runs calling for huge pulls. More enemies = more chances to be interrupted. So this is why a caster tank needs to have these kinds of exceptions made to their casting to make it work.

At that point though, are you really playing a caster anymore however? You're fighting in melee range, and basically just waiting for your attacks to go off. Tanks often have to grab enmity quickly and react fast to pick up adds or enemies who might have gotten pulled away. If the majority of your moves have a cast bar it's counter-productive to things like snap-aggro, we saw this in 2.0 Warrior's Overpower which had a long windup before going off, in 2.1 it was changed to the fairly instant version of Overpower we have now because it was easy to miss with such a slow AoE enmity tool.

There's other things to consider too like armor types, will it wear mage robes? Or Tank gear? Is it a good idea to have a tank compete with gear with dps? (Generally not so good of an idea). If it wears tank gear do they need to add magic stats to tank gear? That's more work. How will it handle mechanics in fights where enemies are immune to magic damage such as in the Void Ark if all it does is magic damage? Or fights where magic is reflected? Why would people want a tank that takes extra damage from a boss?

So in the end, it's not so cut and dry. There are many things that need to be considered and while a concept might sound cool initially when you start to look at it from a realistic and developmental viewpoint it can easily fall apart. This doesn't mean that a casting tank isn't possible, but it's a lot harder to develop and in the end it could likely never be a full blown caster but rather a melee job that has a handful of casted spells not unlike Dark Knight thematically or Paladin mechanically.

I've said it before but mage tanking can be a thing and I would hope they would consider it. Sure give them a few instant spells or casts for hate but let the basic skills be actual casts. When your in tank stance, lower dps, more hate and having a permanent "surecast" in a way so your only interrupted in casts via stun and silence

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Originally Posted by Shippuu

So a tank can definitely be a kind of mage. But one cannot work so well (In this game specifically) as a caster. At least not without making some significant exceptions to how it casts spells. There's just no way it can be feasibly done unless you do the following:

-The caster tank cannot be interrupted in their spellcasting.
-They can move while casting magic with no reduction to their mobility.
OR
-Their cast times are incredibly short (think BRD/MCH level, about the same as the GCD).

We have already seen the problems when it comes to Paladin's Clemency. They already had to significantly reduce the cast time, and even now it's challenging to find windows you can squeeze out a cast without being interrupted or having to move. Tanks in this game sometimes have to move often, and a caster that has to move often significantly drops in efficiency. Tanks also often have to tank a lot of enemies at once, especially with dungeon speed runs calling for huge pulls. More enemies = more chances to be interrupted. So this is why a caster tank needs to have these kinds of exceptions made to their casting to make it work.

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Paladin's issue with Clemency would almost go away if blocking an attack prevented an interruption like in 11. That being said insta-cast spells, auras, channeling abilities could all play some role in how a caster tank could deal with this. Or if you wanna cheese it give them Aquaveil buff that would pretty much do bullet #1 here. Casting time doesn't necessarily need to mean exactly like BLM or exactly like BRD and that's it.

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Originally Posted by Shippuu

At that point though, are you really playing a caster anymore however? You're fighting in melee range, and basically just waiting for your attacks to go off. Tanks often have to grab enmity quickly and react fast to pick up adds or enemies who might have gotten pulled away. If the majority of your moves have a cast bar it's counter-productive to things like snap-aggro, we saw this in 2.0 Warrior's Overpower which had a long windup before going off, in 2.1 it was changed to the fairly instant version of Overpower we have now because it was easy to miss with such a slow AoE enmity tool.

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Aura that keeps a mob 10' out (the caster's life could be tied to said aura so they aren't invulnerable) or whatever as long as its in a place it could normally go (not pushing Titan off the platform for example). I don't see why you seem to exclude insta-cast for a caster, it'd be pretty easy to give them the standard Flash/Unmend equivalents as spells, and even in 11 some spells were pretty damn quick. Probably a better way to do this I'm not thinking of and I could see this taking the most time to debug.

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Originally Posted by Shippuu

There's other things to consider too like armor types, will it wear mage robes? Or Tank gear? Is it a good idea to have a tank compete with gear with dps? (Generally not so good of an idea). If it wears tank gear do they need to add magic stats to tank gear? That's more work. How will it handle mechanics in fights where enemies are immune to magic damage such as in the Void Ark if all it does is magic damage? Or fights where magic is reflected? Why would people want a tank that takes extra damage from a boss?

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Ilvl 240 with a 245 weapon PLD is at 1399 VIT and a BLM is at 918 VIT and 1253 INT. 1399-918=481 481/1253 ~= 39%. Wear the caster gear and trait them to add 40% of their INT to VIT. Ragnarok 2 did similar when switching from Cleric to Monk, there was a trait that messed with int vs att so you didn't have to restat to go from Cleric to Monk at 25 (at that point both str and int helped att). Defensive differences could be fixed with pre-pull buffs, increased amount of mitigation tools, playing with cooldowns, etc.

It would be a challenge for sure, but that's not such a bad thing.

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Originally Posted by Shippuu

What you're describing isn't a caster tank though. You're describing magical themed tanks which isn't the same. We have magical themed tanks such as Paladin and Dark Knight. Paladin's have flash, they have clemency which is a hard-cast heal, and Divine Veil which creates a magical barrier around their allies. Even Cover has a somewhat magical connotation. Dark Knight has even more, from Dark Arts itself being a buff, to Dark Passenger shooting a wave of dark energy, even their Power Slash which isn't magic damage has the appearance of a magical spell as they blast a ball of dark magic from their hands.

So a tank can definitely be a kind of mage. But one cannot work so well (In this game specifically) as a caster. At least not without making some significant exceptions to how it casts spells. There's just no way it can be feasibly done unless you do the following:

-The caster tank cannot be interrupted in their spellcasting.
-They can move while casting magic with no reduction to their mobility.
OR
-Their cast times are incredibly short (think BRD/MCH level, about the same as the GCD).

We have already seen the problems when it comes to Paladin's Clemency. They already had to significantly reduce the cast time, and even now it's challenging to find windows you can squeeze out a cast without being interrupted or having to move. Tanks in this game sometimes have to move often, and a caster that has to move often significantly drops in efficiency. Tanks also often have to tank a lot of enemies at once, especially with dungeon speed runs calling for huge pulls. More enemies = more chances to be interrupted. So this is why a caster tank needs to have these kinds of exceptions made to their casting to make it work.

At that point though, are you really playing a caster anymore however? You're fighting in melee range, and basically just waiting for your attacks to go off. Tanks often have to grab enmity quickly and react fast to pick up adds or enemies who might have gotten pulled away. If the majority of your moves have a cast bar it's counter-productive to things like snap-aggro, we saw this in 2.0 Warrior's Overpower which had a long windup before going off, in 2.1 it was changed to the fairly instant version of Overpower we have now because it was easy to miss with such a slow AoE enmity tool.

There's other things to consider too like armor types, will it wear mage robes? Or Tank gear? Is it a good idea to have a tank compete with gear with dps? (Generally not so good of an idea). If it wears tank gear do they need to add magic stats to tank gear? That's more work. How will it handle mechanics in fights where enemies are immune to magic damage such as in the Void Ark if all it does is magic damage? Or fights where magic is reflected? Why would people want a tank that takes extra damage from a boss?

So in the end, it's not so cut and dry. There are many things that need to be considered and while a concept might sound cool initially when you start to look at it from a realistic and developmental viewpoint it can easily fall apart. This doesn't mean that a casting tank isn't possible, but it's a lot harder to develop and in the end it could likely never be a full blown caster but rather a melee job that has a handful of casted spells not unlike Dark Knight thematically or Paladin mechanically.

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Well "caster" isn't really a role, it's just a term used to identify the type of class/job/whatever (i.e. a broad group identity). Generally speaking, casters are magic users, be it they are primarily instant use spells (similar to melee skills/abilities), have cast time, or channeled. If SMN, for example, were entirely composed of instant cast spells, you'd still lop them in with the group identified as "caster". They're casting spells, even if they are instant. It's pretty rare for anyone to not use that to reference a magic user in general. For the role of tanking, instant cast with some either channeled or cast time spells/abilities thrown about.

In terms of the idea of distance, that much is fairly irrelevant. Think about times you solo, need to move in close (e.g. WHM Holy), or even use as a means to increase DPS (like SMN were technically moved to do during the 2.0 era, since books as weapons added a noticeable increase). You're in melee proximity for those cases. What you might be thinking of is a ranged tank, in this case. Those are of magic use or physical, as was the case of 2.0 BRDs kiting FATE bosses around, since the point is to simply play in a way that keeps distance between you and the target(s). Outside of kiting or fighting ranged-only mobs, they don't really exist for obvious OP status reasons lol.

Again, the term caster is simply a title or identity, it's not a reflection of mandatory play. Instant cast spells, spells with cast time, spells that are channeled, etc. are all part of the identity of "caster". That is, a character that utilizes magic as their primary. Technically, if PLD in this game could cure groups reliably, they'd be considered a caster too if they choose to focus on healing lol. Since they're more melee oriented though, they're simply a melee or tank that can cast spells. Even the term "melee" is simply a description to identify the primary means of doing their job. Casters can melee too, but you rightfully wouldn't label them as such.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Keep telling you guys, RDM tank is where it's at.

What are they gonna do with their Shields anyway otherwise?

So many possibilities for unique tank stuff, and since it would be a Mage Tank, have their shield block magic hits too!

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Originally Posted by ShinMetsu

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Keep telling you guys, RDM tank is where it's at.

What are they gonna do with their Shields anyway otherwise?

So many possibilities for unique tank stuff, and since it would be a Mage Tank, have their shield block magic hits too!

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Under the current system I agree with you.

OPINION ALERT!

As much as I don't want RDM and DNC to be pushed into a single role I feel that they will. And I have my doubts about SE being able to balance sword damage, magic damage and healing capability in a way that would satisfy me (look at all the issues stemming from cross classing cure, SMN issues unrelated to the pets, etc.). I think at best I will get some sort of RDM/RUN hybrid as a pure tank job.

EDIT: And the only time I refused to play RDM in FFXI was ToAU when it was a full healer.

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Originally Posted by Arrik

Paladin's issue with Clemency would almost go away if blocking an attack prevented an interruption like in 11. That being said insta-cast spells, auras, channeling abilities could all play some role in how a caster tank could deal with this. Or if you wanna cheese it give them Aquaveil buff that would pretty much do bullet #1 here. Casting time doesn't necessarily need to mean exactly like BLM or exactly like BRD and that's it.

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If a majority of their skills/abilities are instant then are they truly a caster tank though? Because in my opinion they'd just be a tank that has some casts. In which case that mechanic can be applied to just about any job in the form of a "charge up" mechanic for certain skills.

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Aura that keeps a mob 10' out (the caster's life could be tied to said aura so they aren't invulnerable) or whatever as long as its in a place it could normally go (not pushing Titan off the platform for example). I don't see why you seem to exclude insta-cast for a caster, it'd be pretty easy to give them the standard Flash/Unmend equivalents as spells, and even in 11 some spells were pretty damn quick. Probably a better way to do this I'm not thinking of and I could see this taking the most time to debug.

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In a game where positioning is often key something like this keeping enemies at range makes positioning things exceptionally more difficult. It's impractical and thus highly unlikely. It's harder to move enemies when they're kept far away from you. You use Titan as an example but don't consider that Titan is usually kept at the edge of his arena, you simply cannot move him there if he can't get closer than 10 feet from your character. Impractical and ultimately a pointless mechanic, what benefits does this add except giving the illusion you're fighting from range?

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Ilvl 240 with a 245 weapon PLD is at 1399 VIT and a BLM is at 918 VIT and 1253 INT. 1399-918=481 481/1253 ~= 39%. Wear the caster gear and trait them to add 40% of their INT to VIT. Ragnarok 2 did similar when switching from Cleric to Monk, there was a trait that messed with int vs att so you didn't have to restat to go from Cleric to Monk at 25 (at that point both str and int helped att). Defensive differences could be fixed with pre-pull buffs, increased amount of mitigation tools, playing with cooldowns, etc.

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Mechanically making a tank wear any kind of armor is easy, as abilities can be implemented that passively boost stats to be on par with other tank's defense. The problem comes with things like sharing loot. Role-mixing on loot in FFXIV would provide potential issues. I pointed out that tanks sharing gear is an intentional one that affords tank players the freedom to generally swap out to any of the 3 tank jobs pretty easily. (Same goes for healers). This is certainly an intended design to help keep Tank players playing tanks. If you remove this aspect, you've now introduced a tank that doesn't share armor with other tanks, meaning they have to choose between gearing the new mage tank, or the other 3 tanks. That's a bad decision and splits the tank players.

Now you have a tank that shares gear with a DPS, which means they can gear as a tank and then spend the rest of their time playing a DPS? That's counter-productive to trying to aid the age old problem of low tank population. Not to mention who would want to queue into content to get tank gear when you can be contest by quite possibly every DPS in the party as full mage parties are very common when queueing into duties.

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It would be a challenge for sure, but that's not such a bad thing.

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The simple reality of the situation is that challenges take time to iron out. And Time is not something this game has an abundancy of when it comes to developing content. Because they release content on such a regular basis they just don't have the time or resources to spend trying to reinvent the wheel. This means that new job additions are less likely to shake up the formula anytime soon.

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Originally Posted by Welsper59

Well "caster" isn't really a role, it's just a term used to identify the type of class/job/whatever (i.e. a broad group identity). Generally speaking, casters are magic users, be it they are primarily instant use spells (similar to melee skills/abilities), have cast time, or channeled. If SMN, for example, were entirely composed of instant cast spells, you'd still lop them in with the group identified as "caster". They're casting spells, even if they are instant. It's pretty rare for anyone to not use that to reference a magic user in general. For the role of tanking, instant cast with some either channeled or cast time spells/abilities thrown about.

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By this definition we have 2 caster tanks already then. So if redundancy is a valid argument against something like Samurai via their weapon choice, then this would also apply to future mage tanks being redundant when we have Paladin and Dark Knight, who both cast magic spells in an instant cast fashion.

In my opinion, Casters are casters because they have cast bars, whether it's a channel or fill guage. Yes instant cast spells are still "cast" but now it's just arguing semantics.

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In terms of the idea of distance, that much is fairly irrelevant. Think about times you solo, need to move in close (e.g. WHM Holy), or even use as a means to increase DPS (like SMN were technically moved to do during the 2.0 era, since books as weapons added a noticeable increase). You're in melee proximity for those cases. What you might be thinking of is a ranged tank, in this case. Those are of magic use or physical, as was the case of 2.0 BRDs kiting FATE bosses around, since the point is to simply play in a way that keeps distance between you and the target(s). Outside of kiting or fighting ranged-only mobs, they don't really exist for obvious OP status reasons lol.

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I certainly wasn't arguing for any kind of a ranged tank because that's an even more absurd idea than a tank that primarily has cast bars for their attacks.

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Again, the term caster is simply a title or identity, it's not a reflection of mandatory play. Instant cast spells, spells with cast time, spells that are channeled, etc. are all part of the identity of "caster". That is, a character that utilizes magic as their primary. Technically, if PLD in this game could cure groups reliably, they'd be considered a caster too if they choose to focus on healing lol. Since they're more melee oriented though, they're simply a melee or tank that can cast spells. Even the term "melee" is simply a description to identify the primary means of doing their job. Casters can melee too, but you rightfully wouldn't label them as such.

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That's one definition sure, but it can also be applied as a gameplay mechanic and not an identity, that's how words work they can have multiple definitions. And in the viewpoint of games development particularly for MMO's, a Caster is someone who casts spells usually via cast bars. You don't call Death Knights in WoW casters even though they cast plenty of spells, but you'd call Mages casters, Warlocks casters, etc. etc. You're really just arguing semantics here.