Future Jobs branching from Tank Classes

When I first found out about how the Arcanist class could branch off into two job classes(Summoner and Scholar) I was surprised and excited for the possibilities of other classes.

If the tank classes were to branch off, would there be any chances of them changing roles? Like how Arcanist are under the DD category can turn into Scholars which are under the Healer category. I'm not against the idea of more tank classes, but I believe most of us want something like a DD Swordsman/Axeman :p mainly to add variety to the class (like how an Arcanist can DPS or Heal) and I'm sure as heck most Marauders who were new to mmorpgs and the Class Trinity wanted to cut things up with an axe!(Do alot of damage) Being someone who chose their class mainly on aesthetics I'd like to be able to switch from doing damage with an axe and tanking with an axe.

If they were to implement DD roles (Or even healer roles!) to the tank classes how do you think they would go about doing it? How would YOU do it?

I'm thinking along the lines of:
-DPS Stances. Decreases Enimity generated, Increased Damage, Lowered Defense as an offset. Basic stuff.
-Enimity Mechanics. Job attack skills or buffs that utilize Enimity generated previously as bonus effects or added potency. E.g Rage of Rhalgr 100 Potency attack, If there is enimity that can be consumed, this skill does 240 Potency and increases damage by 10% for 18 seconds. Consumes 200/10% of generated Enimity.
-Healer Skills: 2.0 Inner beast-esque type skill. Heals party members/Creates a shield for party members.
-Job specific Weapons: Equipping a two handed katana instead of sword and shield when equipping a Samurai Soul Stone. Changes some base class skills, and even the looks of some skills! This one is most unlikely because you know... shield lob...

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KATANA LOB?!


Before you ridicule me for being a lowly DPS scum; I love playing tank classes as I find the notion of being a big beefy bastard standing between a giant monster and my much less beefy friends a motivating feeling >:). Perhaps the DD classes could have tank jobs. Fist of Steel anyone?

SAM and DRK as DD plz

Im gonna say...PLD should get Dark knight it just makes a nice dualism, between the "holy" knight and the Dark one.
LNC + PUG sub class.


MRD to get Berserker (FFV), with LNC + ACN. Fits the MRD perfectly.

As far as "other", GLA could get Mystic Knight as a sort of Healer, and MRD can get Beast master as a pet job.

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Originally Posted by Hundred

Im gonna say...PLD should get Dark knight it just makes a nice dualism, between the "holy" knight and the Dark one.
LNC + PUG sub class.

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Nooo!!!!

The GLA is a shield using tank class and I don't think much of anything is going to change that. A DRK is a single weapon damage dealing class, it always has been in EVER SINGLE final fantasy game out there. So sorry this is never going to happen.

Shield is nothing compared to Ninjitsu arts

I play PLD just because its only jobs that peoples like atm

I think everyone expects that any new jobs branching off of Gladiator and Marauder will be DPS.

The first ability of any such jobs would likely be a stance that reduces their enmity generation, though its possible that the second job branching off of Marauder wouldn't need it since Marauder does have combos without any enmity modifiers tied to them.

The thing that I'm more curious about is how they will deal with the issue that these likely DPS jobs will be able to wear the best defensive gear in the game (assuming that defense does something in this game). I kind of expect the new Marauder job to be Berserker and that their DPS stance will reduce their defense. Though I gues Beastmaster is another possibility.

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Originally Posted by Bloodclaw

Nooo!!!!

The GLA is a shield using tank class and I don't think much of anything is going to change that. A DRK is a single weapon damage dealing class, it always has been in EVER SINGLE final fantasy game out there. So sorry this is never going to happen.

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Cecil used a shield :\

he's kindof the iconic dark knight/paladin from ff....

The FFIII job that was later renamed to Dark Knight could also use shields.

It was only in FFXI that Dark Knight's main weapon type was a two-handed Sword or Scythe.

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Originally Posted by Bloodclaw

Nooo!!!!

A DRK is a single weapon damage dealing class, it always has been in EVER SINGLE final fantasy game out there.

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Dark Knights originally used swords and shields. Final fantasy III, IV, IV (after Years), and Tactics. Also worth noting, using a shield is optional. They could easily make Dark Knight a single handed (or dual bladed) sword user.

Well boy am I wrong. I could have Sworn IV and Tactics both had him using primarily two handed weapons. I will just retract my statement on the never.

However the shields here are for tanking in this game, and I just don't see dark knights tanking in this game, or ever seen them (On purpose of design) ever tanking before.

I wish I could find Kitra's detailed post on the timeline of the Dark knight as a character but Dark Knights for the majority of their playability have had high Hp/Def along with High attack. In fact the Dark Knight design is pretty overpowered, in Final Fantasy XI though they were a single 2-handed user with paper defense. I personally would like to see Dark Knights in a dps role but have pretty subpar dps on their own and decent defense to allow them to offtank (even if barely, make them stronger defensively then a goon). I would like to see a Dark Knights dps come from debuffs placed on enemies that increase the dps of all the other party members.

Hope they'd fix the attributes then.. If your SMN is a main, you'll have everything in INT. Your SCH would be sort of gimped and vice versa (SCH in mind, playing a SMN with mind when you switch).

Or did I miss something there? Don't play one of them myself..

Beastmaster out of MRD, yikes >.>

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-How-I-d-Do-It

DRK

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Originally Posted by Kitru

Uhhhh... No?

If you actually look at the various incarnations of Dark Knights over games other than XI, they've actually been a very tanky class:

• The very first Dark Knight is Leon from FF2 who is a one of your most durable characters, with high hp and defense. The only "damage dealer" kind of thing he gets is access to Black Magic, which is no more anti-tank within the confines of the classless FF systems than PLD getting White Magic.
• Cecil, in FF4, is *still* super tanky while a Dark Knight, what with high defense, hp, and heavy armor. The only "damage dealer" aspect he gets is the whole sacrifice-hp-to-increase-damage/deal-damage thing, which still doesn't preclude his tankiness given the fact that he is still your most durable character *and* it's another of the FF games where you don't have anything resembling a trinity construct so even the durable characters are supposed to be throwing out as much damage as possible.
• In FFX-2, Dark Knight is, once again, a highly durable class: high hp and high defense. The same explanation of hp-sacrifice as applied to Cecil applies here.
• In FFT (which the devs seem to be drawing a lot of their inspiration from), Dark Knight is *explicitly* a tank class: heavy armor, shields, knight swords, and an at-will hp regain ability that makes them virtually impossible to kill. Gafgarion is one of your best tanks outright.

The only incarnation of DRK that is an explicit damage dealer rather than following the model for tanks that the devs have been drawing from to turn into tanks for ARR is FFXI, which is nowhere *close* to "all games". At worst, DRK was a tank that used BLM instead of WHM. In general, it was a tank that had the option to sacrifice hp to become a damage dealer for a short period.

It's important to keep in mind that in every single Final Fantasy, with the exception of XI, *there was no trinity*. Everyone was expected to deal damage and take hits. If your only definition of "tank" is "has cover" then the only tank that would be around would be PLD, which is a *terrible* idea for an MMO since having only a single option for a role is boring as hell. When you're pulling classes from games that don't have a trinity and assigning them roles to fit *into* a trinity, you have to look at attributes other than "takes damage for other people" (especially given the fact that oftentimes the characters aren't actually meant to be balanced against one another); you look for high defense, high hp, and a lower than average damage dealing capacity compared to the explicit damage dealers (Cecil as DK compared to Edge or Yang; DK dressphere compared to Gunner or Thief; Dark Knight in FFT compared to monk, lancer, archer, or ninja).

Now, as to what classes actually fit this mold, there are a few of them: Berserker (high hp, high evasion; as a tank, likely based off of PGL), Samurai (self-buffing, parry/evasion; likely based off of new class entirely), Dark Knight (hp draining, high defense, high hp; as a tank, likely based off of new class), Spellblade/Mystic Knight (self buffs, magical sword attacks; likely based off of new class, potentially treed off of the same one as Red Mage), and Templar/Defender (heavy armor, high hp, self buffing; likely based off of LNC).

Considering how many potential jobs there are in the FF series overall and the need to maintain a decent tank/DPS/healer class ratio in *this* game, I find it unlikely that most of those would be implemented as anything other than a tank, since it would be severely cutting into the number of prexisting FF-jobs that could actually make sensible tanks (and, no, Ninja is not a "sensible" tank; FFXI is so anomalous compared to the rest of the FF series that you can safely ignore everything that it did with its jobs because so many of them depart so very heavily from the original implementations). The same holds true for finding new healers, since it's not like there are a lot of them other than White Mage in previous implementations: if it's a job that was designed providing support, it'll likely be brought in as a healer even if that class didn't originally have any real healing capability. DPS is likely going to be a role that gets assigned to a job when it can't feasibly be turned into a tank or healer.

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SAM

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Originally Posted by Kitru

Do I have to do this again? I swear, it's like people don't even *try* to actually look at the historical iterations of a class before they go claiming that it *has* to be a given role.

Samurai has 7 major implementations:

• The first was in FF5, where Samurai was a high stamina physical class with Gil Toss, an instant-kill attack, a stun attack, and a high evasion passive.
• The second was Cyan in FF6, who has crazy high strength, defense, and hp while baseline equipping shield and all of the heaviest armor in the game. He's got Bushido which is just fancy sword techniques.
• The third was in FFT, where Samurai had balanced physical stats, an *insanely* strong evasion passive, and an ability list that included a lot of self buffs/heals, enemy debuffs/status effects, and some relatively generic attacks.
• The fourth is Auron who is strange but qualifies in some senses since he wields a "katana" and has "Bushido" as his limit break; his abilities focus upon specific stat reduction and he has 2 separate versions of Cover as well as the highest hp, Strength, and Defense amongst the entire group.
• The "fifth" is Yojimbo who fits the samurai mold, but he's got some wonky constructs thanks to being a summon (and further conflated by requiring Gil to be spent on him). He's got the insta-gib and generic beatdown otherwise.
• The sixth is from FFX-2, where Samurai has the insta-gib, a bunch of debuffing/purging abilities, a slew of excellent self buffs, Gil Toss, and a stat allocation with moderate strength, good defense, high agility, and high evasion.
• The seventh was in FFXI, where Samurai was originally intended to be a tank focusing upon parry but turned into a damage dealer.
• The final was in FFT:A2, where the Paravir fits the Samurai mold, with katanas, unleashed sword skills and the insta-gib. It's got crazy high physical attack and low defense but high evasion and high hp.

As such, the fundamental aspects that are occur most often with the Samurai are Gil Toss, the insta-gib, high evasion, and high hp. With the exception of the Paravir, it's exceptionally tough: it either has outright high defense and high hp or decent defense, high evasion, and high hp. It often gets a lot of substantial self buffs that serve to make it more durable as well.

If you're going off of how Samurai has actually been implemented historically, it's a tank: either an evasion tank or a parry tank, depending upon how you interpret Blade Grasp/high evasion in games without partial damage, with pseudo-mystical sword techniques and some monk-like abilities. The only real "DPS" Samurai are one that isn't even *named* Samurai (and, even then, you can get pretty damned tanky with it given the right loadout) and a metagame evolution of a class initially intended to be a tank that turned into a DPS (similar to how Ninja was originally intended to be a DPS and became a tank), which isn't really very reliable evidence.

This isn't to say that is impossible for SAM to get put in game as a DPS job, but it's doubtful given the historical role of the samurai throughout the series coupled with the design metagame not really having as many viable tank options as DPS options.

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Branching a dps off of gladiator will take a lot of work. They have too many cooldowns (Sentinel, Bulwark, Rampart, Convalesence, Awareness)

Marauder would be an easy convert.

Nature Knight

gladiator level 15
Conjurer level 30

Relic Weapon: Eden Sword and Gaia Shield


Nature Tree Skill

(Automatic Passive)- More Time you parry and or Block it will inc Enmity and cause a small Flash like for small aoe for enmity only-

Nature Bond (Passive)- hold up to 5 enemies roots will hold enemies down and reduce all damage by 10% and Inc of Overall Defense of 3 enemies of 5% (If one enemy dies inside the effect of Nature Bond it will go to a new enemy who are not in Nature Bond)

Shield Ram- Rushing Attack that give knock back in who ever in area of 3 yard of cone. -Effect: Knock Back-

Shield Chain- Bring the enemy to the person -Effect: Inc Enmity and 1sec Stun-

The Gaia Fury- Hit up to 5 enemies in Area of Effect -Effect: Inc Enmity-

Gaia's Word- Inc Healing and small Area of Effect who ever allies inside

States more important is DEX *More DEX more Enmity generate* and VIT

I was thinking about a DRK tank.

It could be MRD/SMN.

Most of what defines warrior comes from warrior itself, so a DRK based on MRD could be very different.

The first two attacks of the standard three-combo would apply Bio 1 and Miasma. DRKs would have access to Bio II but have to use separately. Bane would spread all 3 and the combo would refresh the duration on the main target.

These would be int-modified, just as they are so that while nice aoe dps, it wouldn't be broken. Just as with smn and sch, weapon would have an effect on potency.

I wouldn't at all make it a pet job, but cooldowns (offensive or defensive) revolving around short-term demonic possession would be cool.

My guess is a Ninja to use up all that +Dex gear.

In regards to the idea of a Dark Knight, I actually think it could work. Waaaaaaaaaaaaay back in 1.0 (and I'm talking initial release, not revamped 1.0), I opted for a setup with my GLA for DPS. This was when you could cross class all abilities and set stat points however you wished.

I focused primarily on STR (obviously), with a bit in to PIE (THM spells were fueled by this stat), and geared primarily for DPS. This consisted of a lot of the scale, hauby, and gladiator tools that were more focused on damage, such as the weapons with crit/det vs parry. There are shields that focus the same (Bladed Lantern Shield).

I took several of the THM spells, such as debuffs to defense and absorb spells (drop enemy's STR/ACC and buff your own), and used abilities more suited to damage than threat. In the end, it worked EXTREMELY well for damage.

It's not to say that it cannot be done - it can, and it has prior to the change of mechanics. All it takes is a bit of stat reallocation, a few cool new abilities, and some swords that are more damage, less tank. It was a TON of fun back then, and since they took said spells from THM... what's to say one cannot make them DRK spells? Food for thought, I'd love to have a DPS spec!

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Originally Posted by Timberwolf

(Cont'd, sorry don't know how to surpass the 1000 character limit!)

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You exceed the character limit by editing your post.

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Originally Posted by Altimis

Shield is nothing compared to Ninjitsu arts

I play PLD just because its only jobs that peoples like atm

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COOL STORY. Your comment is so unrelated, i cant even come up with a way to describe it.

I would like the next gladiator class to be a dd that uses vit as its way of formulating damage. I know this will never come true because dark knights in ffxi were too over powered every 2-hours... (with the right weapons...) But I don't want to spend 20k seals or what ever it is to respec my attributes from vit to str everytime my Fc needs me to dps.