Well, you can't deny that elements of AST are similar to Time Mages. Arrow is similar to Haste, their Time Dilation and Gravity are Time Mage spells as well.
So, yes, they are similar. Maybe not as much as you'd like, though.
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It probably won't be. It's just a theory, but the odds are good that SE will follow the same formula with Heavensward as they did with A Realm Reborn (they seem to be so far). If they do, we can safely expect to get one Dps job release before the next expansion.
In ARR, we had all our starter jobs, but shortly before expansion came out SE gave us the Ninja. For HW we have 3 starter jobs (DRK, AST, and MCH). I'm expecting SE to release one additional Dps job before we reach 4.0. Given that HW has been full of "near-eastern" references, and we already had an event which introduced a Samurai character, the odds are good that Samurai will be the job they release before the end of this expansion. This would leave Red (or Blue) Mage for the roll out of 4.0.
Obviously, none of this is confirmed, but the pattern is there, and SE seems to be following it to the letter. So, if I were a betting man, this would seem like a pretty good place to lay down my money.
My bet is on a Caster DPS (or some sort of hybrid) would be next. SE likes balance - 3 tanks/3 healers, 2 ranged support types, 3 melee/ 2 caster DD's
I think rdm would be a cool tank Idea. I know it's not traditional... BUT! It has enspells for it's rapier like stances, it lends itself to damaging and healing magics. It would be weird to make Rdm anything outside a DPS with a rapier (mby 2?) or a Tank. It's almost like a Blue mage, outside it's magics being beast abilities.
Its suppose to be a whm blm hybrid with a few original spells. But if it were a healer everyone would be all, "But it can do dmg too!" and if it were a blm type dps, everyone would be all "BUT IT CAN HEAL TOO!" So Why not just use Fast cast as an excuse as to the reason it can insta cast Both healing and offensive magic in a tank role.
Samurai would be alright as a tank I guess, But I think it would be far cooler as just a regular DPS. I hope SE incorporates Skillchain like FFxi animations/abilities. Regardless I hope that gets worked in... That would make me so jazz hands.
Edit: Not to draw too much on ffxi. But Rdm was OPOP! it didn't fit super well into groups later on, but that class was more tanky than most tanks.
Can they use bows and spam sidewinder?
I believe it was said in one of the Live Letters or interviews that they won't be releasing any more jobs until next expansion.
Yep, found it: http://www.siliconera.com/2015/07/14...any-time-soon/
They said something similar before HW came out. Early Ninja speculation originally teased it to be a possible expansion job, but they rolled it out before HW. It would not be the first time that SE said one thing and did another, and everything is up in the air when they use uncertain terms like "probably."
That said, I wouldn't be surprised if they actually meant it this time. HW has a much shorter shelf life than ARR, so even if they wanted to release a new job before 4.0, they just might not have the time. In which case it makes sense for them to be using those uncertain terms. Better that then making promises they can't deliver on.
I've toyed with the concept of RDM as a tank myself, and I think a very cool idea would be to have it use primarily melee attacks in tank stance (along with protective white magic), but switch to a caster mode in its off-tank/damage stance (with mostly black magic and some melee attacks). That'd probably the best way to represent the RDM as a jack-of-all-trades, and would also give us a fairly unique job in general.
That was a really old old example.
For SAM as a DPS, they talked about it when DRK was revealed.
In the beginning, they wanted SAM as a Tank and DRK as a DPS. But since another "eastern-themed" job was released recently (Ninja), they decided to postpone SAM and focus on DRK...it also felt better with the mood in Heavensward.
But they really needed to add another tank, so they switched their initial role.
And that's why there is a very high probability that SAM would eventually be released as a DPS.
If it was a tank, though, I'd like something like mitigate+counter kind of tank. Several combos that put you in a counter stance for a few seconds, one for physical skill, one for magical skill, one for simple auto-attacks (Probably the enmity combo).
And you have to maintain these stances to keep your mitigation, while anticipating the stance you needed few GCD prior.
I always think of Samurais being defensive in a way since historically their helmets are given a curved design so that attacks to their heads are auto-parried. Also Samurai can use bows, so it'd be neat to see their AOE skill be similar to Archers Quick Noc.
Since they'll probably be added to the game as a DPS job, it would be neat if they had some sort Tank stance to switch into (kind of like how Summoner could break out Titan Egi sometimes.)
SAM would have the armor, stats and skills of a DPS so it couldn't really replace a tank defensively, but at least the stance would give it increased enmity so it could stand in while the party recovers.