Evasion tank concept, branching from Musketeer.

So as most people could agree, the likely first job musketeer gets will be a form of DD.

I am looking past that... and considering the role of the 2nd job.


New FFXIV tank concept: Cannoneer/Engineer -- Branches from Musketeer.
(other variations that had been considered were Mystic Knight or "Fixer", but the above may be more role appropriate.)


This is strongly based on former MMO ideas, but could be fun if implemented properly.

Weapon: Low accuracy, high yield gun. As long as enemy is nearby (say, within dragoon spear range), accuracy is optimal.

Armor: MagiTek adaptation, allows user to use magic to summon direct evasion enhancements to existing gear.

Magic: Able to use En-magic. Able to cast Healing-over-time spells for additional enmity.

Advantages: Ranged options as a blink tank.
Disadvantages: Growth to an optimal state is slower than other jobs, and may be costly due to more used consumeables.

Specials: May have unforeseen skills tied to Magitek, such as versatile teleportation abilities. (summon party members to self?)

I know this idea is rough around the edges, but maybe other folks have ideas on how it could be improved upon?

I just can't see any character wielding a gun as your front line defense from an enemy. Unless they are rolling a mini cannon around, it is just too weird.

The evasion tank is called Ninja. He shall make his triumphant return. Rejoice.

you mention there's an optimal range like a dragoons, you can't really control that range if you're tanking, if a mob has extremely small attack radius you won't be able to keep it out at your optimal range while tanking. Again i agree with above poster, why have a ranger fight at point blank range, that sorta defeats the purpose of a ranged weapon, might as well use a melee weapon.

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Originally Posted by NeonC

I just can't see any character wielding a gun as your front line defense from an enemy. Unless they are rolling a mini cannon around, it is just too weird.

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Check out the blunderbuss. Or they could just go full flat out equilibrium on mobs (look up your typical anime game on how logic flies out of the window on this concept).

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Originally Posted by NeonC

I just can't see any character wielding a gun as your front line defense from an enemy. Unless they are rolling a mini cannon around, it is just too weird.

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Was done in AO.

http://static.ao-universe.com/files/...e/31/fixer.jpg

Also, since when is whimsy such as a large firearm discouraged in RPGs, or FF?

http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/f/20...oud_Strife.jpg



http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs29/f/20...6ea9730455.jpg

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Originally Posted by Nayto

Check out the blunderbuss. Or they could just go full flat out equilibrium on mobs (look up your typical anime game on how logic flies out of the window on this concept).

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Sort of a shotgun concept, more effective at close range. Me likey.

hmm, I don't think the word knight would fit in what you want however. Knight using a gun? I mean, it's kinda weird.

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Originally Posted by Duuude007

Also, since when is whimsy such as a large firearm discouraged in RPGs, or FF?[/IMG]

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Well... you asked for an evasion tank so...

Think flat out Gun Kata with dual Flintlocks is already enough... mearlwyb does it (someone find the video).

i like this idea, i would play that kind of job!

Those don't even look like tanks, I would not trust that guy to hold Titan from mauling our whole party, I mean what can he do? Shoot him in the foot? I'm not saying looks dictate anything per se. I trust a Lalafell to tank as strong as the next, though there is always that doubt in the back of my mind. Point is you have to draw the realism line in the sand SOMEWHERE.

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Originally Posted by NeonC

Those don't even look like tanks, I would not trust that guy to hold Titan from mauling our whole party, I mean what can he do? Shoot him in the foot? I'm not saying looks dictate anything per se. I trust a Lalafell to tank as strong as the next, though there is always that doubt in the back of my mind. Point is you have to draw the realism line in the sand SOMEWHERE.

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That was an image of a fixer ready to do the quest for their equivalent of AF1, known as grid armor. Significantly boosts character's base evasion.

Its a 15 year-old scifi MMO, so conditions would not necessarly be the same but...

http://www.infinitecities.com/gamepics/ao154.jpg

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Originally Posted by NeonC

Those don't even look like tanks, I would not trust that guy to hold Titan from mauling our whole party, I mean what can he do? Shoot him in the foot? I'm not saying looks dictate anything per se. I trust a Lalafell to tank as strong as the next, though there is always that doubt in the back of my mind. Point is you have to draw the realism line in the sand SOMEWHERE.

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Trained years on firearms, Musketeers develop a keen sense of observation and reactionary skills. Unlike their archer counterparts musket bullets fly faster than arrows, hence they are trained with the utmost discrepancy to reacting immediately on sound.
There's the... logic
I mean Yda was able to parry a bullet while your tank well... just tanks it and dies. (1.0 CS) Sure realistically you can't have reaction speed that matches the speed of sound, but Yda (a monk nonetheless) does and we do have that possible potential to reach that kind of being.
Remember the guy is speculating if Muskateer becomes the EVASION tank... which isn't too far off thanks to LOLHOLLYWOOD.

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Originally Posted by Duuude007

Sort of a shotgun concept, more effective at close range. Me likey.

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Oh whoops, guess I'm backing up your idea with the wrong intentions... still I prefer the gun kata idea rather than a close range 'heavy hitter'.

I'm not sure how evasion tanks would work given the games setup. If you have a tank that avoids damage then your healing requirements are reduced, so do you now run one less healer and add an extra dps to the group? If that's the case then warrior and paladin are officially relegated to "let's go old school for fun" status, why wouldn't you ALWAYS pick the option that gives you the most damage?

You have to make an evasion tank squishy enough that they can be killed easily if they aren't maintaining their evasion stuffs... otherwise balance goes right out the window. Another possibility is to cap how much evasion such a tank can achieve to maintain healer demand through inevitable damage however you risk creating a niche market of evasion tanks and burst healers when you do that. That scenario also prompts a need for more twitch response playing from the healers. There's a difference between fast paced mechanics and needing to start casting a heal within 1/10 of a second of the tank taking damage. (Obviously I'm being somewhat facetious to make a point)

Even in scenarios where composition is mandatory such as 4 mans evasion tanks would have a premium advantage, as healers could go nearly full time dps due to the lack of damage being taken. (And let's be honest, given SE's track record for balancing classes, especially tank classes you have to expect that it would be either OP or UP.)

Well perhaps a heightened sense of awareness could help, but how could they evade a 6 pack of Tonberry's throat stabbing them? Eventually they will take one right in the kisser, and I don't know about you but I'll take my chances with a Paladin or Warrior(in 2.1 of course, I'm a frail Bard and a very pretty one I just don't like taking the risk). I mean who knows right? If Harrison Ford can Solo tank this boss mob I guess it can be done :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by NeonC

Well perhaps a heightened sense of awareness could help, but how could they evade a 6 pack of Tonberry's throat stabbing them?

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Watch some kung-fu movies.... way too many typical "I took on 5 guys and didn't get a scratch" scenerios. I don't even support the musketeer evasion tank idea... just pointing out that it is possible because of I just love this guy and that's all I see if Musketeer becomes an evasion tank.

Furthermore I keep forgetting Duude wants it to be a mystic knight so....
http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/It_100a6a_663520.jpg

Reason why I said that is because of what Vanidin has just brought up. We recently just added more 'mitigation' to the Warrior because their self heals just causes unnecessary overhealing, even with critical inner-beast hits. On top of that rellying on critical inner-beasts or anything RNG related is a no-no in tankonomics appearently. (Yeah flash blind is still useful, but you aren't solely rellying on that as well, it just 'adds on' and appearently there's not a steady value carried with it in the 'how much damage was saved' equation).

An evasion tank is something that sounds heavily RNG based on paper. If we have consistant evasion, then it's pretty much the go-to tank because "lol no-need to heal anymore!". However if there's not enough 'evasion' CDs or mechanics then the 'requires too much healing' complaint comes up.

Because right now the standard 'mitigation' from the warrior is squishy at the most and has been said to require 'too much care from healers'.

A note to this argument about all or none evasion: If you can partially block, partially parry, why can't you partially evade?
Even Neo got grazed by the bullet in that posted video example, joke or not.

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Originally Posted by Duuude007

A note to this argument about all or none evasion: If you can partially block, partially parry, why can't you partially evade?

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A lot of the RNG mechanics is added last to the grand scheme of tankonomics (from what I glanced). Vitality is first before worrying about your blockrate/parry rate. That's why there's little tanks going the DEX build route because blocking isn't reliable enough.
I mean I'd love the idea to become a gun-kata mystic knight but with how Warrior was handled they'd need to double check how to cope on the evasion's tank 'squishyness'.

And warriors are using the same armour as PLDs too. Most likely the evasion tank will be using the same thing as to what LNC wears (chainmail,lightweight plated armour such as bone).

Furthermore while looking for 'evasion tank' concepts on the tanking forum one user pointed it out loud and clear and is the bane of the evasion tank ideal.

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Originally Posted by Phreak

The job of the tank is to eliminate chance, not rely on it.

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Originally Posted by Nayto

but with how Warrior was handled they'd need to double check how to cope on the evasion's tank 'squishyness'.

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I agree.

That said, I feel there is a need for at least 1 more 'breed' of tank in XIV, that is why I was floating this concept.

After all, why does every job have to be based on XI designs? Ninja may return in XIV, but I believe the role of blink/evasion tank could be reassigned, and Ninja could fill an alternate niche.

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Originally Posted by Duuude007

I agree.

That said, I feel there is a need for at least 1 more 'breed' of tank in XIV, that is why I was floating this concept.

After all, why does every job have to be based on XI designs? Ninja may return in XIV, but I believe the role of blink/evasion tank could be reassigned, and Ninja could fill an alternate niche.

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Well.. we can take a 180 and go the 'engineer' route with musketeers (especially with the large gun idea) and Ninja can be relegated to a DD (I mean Monk has an evasion stance but it hasn't reliably tanked anything yet).

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Originally Posted by Nayto

Well.. we can take a 180 and go the 'engineer' route with musketeers (especially with the large gun idea) and Ninja can be relegated to a DD (I mean Monk has an evasion stance but it hasn't reliably tanked anything yet).

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Duly noted. 'Engineer' could better fit the idea of mixing magic and tech, as well.

I get the feeling some people believe an evasion tank evades everything so can't take damage so never needs healed. Seriously wise up. This just isn't the case, it will dodge, partially dodge or block and parry as well as dodging. Its essentially mitigation just in a different form. And people are so pessimistic "O it's SE, it won't be balanced" I think they've done a pretty good job so far. Also evasion tank off monk would be good make musketeer a DD, just my preference:)

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Originally Posted by Nathan061111

make musketeer a DD, just my preference:)

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I made this point in the OP, just like Arcanist has a healer job and a dd job, why can't the same branching of roles happen for the Musketeer class? Having 2 dd job roles branch from the same class seems.... derivative.

I get the feeling some people believe an evasion tank evades everything so can't take damage so never needs healed. Seriously wise up. This just isn't the case, it will dodge, partially dodge or block and parry as well as dodging. Its essentially mitigation just in a different form. And people are so pessimistic "O it's SE, it won't be balanced" I think they've done a pretty good job so far. Also evasion tank off monk would be good make musketeer a DD, just my preference:)

Why did you just repost the same comment?

A tank coming form Musketeer a ranged class is fail on every level you try to place it.

The evasion tank will be melee for the simple fact you can not range tank in a game where you have no choice but to tank at point blank trying to change the game to allow this would screw the whole game as every mob/boss would have to be remake to allow it.

The Evasion tank might happen and if so the odds are it will be Ninja or Dancer and to be fair i am not sure we will ever have one since its to hard to balance as there able to avoid every thing or die.

The whole FF11 Ninja tank was broken and made PLD semi worthless when you could run NIN and only have to cast stoneskin and with that you free up the healer to de/buff or toss out some dps or worst still replace the healer as long as some one can stoneskin the NIN.

The NIN was broken even as a sub class many times i would play smn and run with just rangers all i ever had to do was use titans stone skin effect and the rangers would burn down ANY THING with out ever been hit.

No to "ninja" tanking.

Musketeer really needs to be like Corsair was. The game has a history of chance based attacks and buffs that involve swift mini games. I'd be very disappointed if it was not something similar.

If you want to have two sides to Musketeer and have one side do something else, okay... but I don't see it ever being a front line job. What's the point of having a gun if you take away one of the benefits of having a gun... ranged attack.

I see Muskeeter splitting into a Corsair like job..... Possibly a Puppetmaster like job with some sort of magitech automaton. (Ain't crazy about the puppetmaster Idea, but I've heard it so much I've accepted it as a possibility.

I'm not against gun weilders as tank jobs, but more of a armored soldier with a gun tank, rather than a nimble musketeer dodging stuff.

Evasion tanks just don't work. They end up either to week or way overpowered. Being an evasion tank you have to have some drawbacks since you take damage less often - generaly be more squishy. This means the fight will go: Miss, Miss, Miss, ... 35 misses later ... Hit -> Dead. So your survival is up to rng and in addition to that healers can just go dps.

Sure you could say that your evasion won't be that great and you maybe wouldn't be that squishy so you'd still need heals - you get hit less often but get hit for more. Averages in the same amount of healing so healers can't just go dps. But you have to be squishier so you take more damage if you do get his. If you're not, you're outright better than other tanks. So this means that with bosses that have heavy one shot moves that do, say, 5k damage to current paladins you'd either dodge it and be happy with healers not having to worry. Or eat it and die. So even with the necesity of healing the little hits it would still be broken because of the big ones.

And making the dodges be partial damage reduction instead of complete would have the same problems. If you can frequently (but still randomly) reduce damage, you''l have to be squishier which means die to big hits. And if you buff up the tank and reduce the frequency and damage reduction of the "dodges" you end up with with a paladin with it's shield blocks.

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Originally Posted by Duuude007

After all, why does every job have to be based on XI designs? Ninja may return in XIV, but I believe the role of blink/evasion tank could be reassigned, and Ninja could fill an alternate niche.

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Like it's original intended design in XI. You know a Debuff/DoT, mixed Melee/Ranged DPS?

As long as the evasion is controlled by RNG you either have to make the evasion OP so that the tank will always survive in which case you once again make warrior and paladin pointless or you increase mitigation enough that it doesn't matter if you evade or not in which case you're not really an evasion tank... you're just a warrior that's figured out how to use something other than an axe.

Evasion tanking worked in xi because of slow combat speed, movement mechanics that allowed easy kiting, gear optimization that essentially negated mob attacks (ie you could put up 7 shadows for every 8 mob attacks and could easily eat the 1 that gets through) and the all around brokenness of utsusemi. Evasion tanking in xi relied primarily on how much haste and fast cast you could stack to reduce your recast timers to the point where your shadows never fell even if you never dodged a single attack.


A tanking model that relies on RNG (which an evasion tank in xiv would have to be) is either OP because it always works or it's unreliable.

Who's going to use an unreliable tank?

Why must an evasion tank be all or none? No gray areas whatsoever?

Are you saying that you cannot partially evade a bullet, or a sword? (You were merely grazed. Its only a flesh wound.)

Is it me, or is this whole "Evasion tank R bad" argument based on the assumption that a gray are does not exist?

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Originally Posted by Vanidin

character limit suck!!! ~~

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whats about to post this , thanks for saving me time.. ^^

evasion tanking ISNT reliable...u dodge or u dont...if u do all the time u are a god, if u dont .....why are u tanking?

the only way to fix evasion tanking is adding stoneskin effects to the job , in order to avoid getting 1 shoted if u "fail to dodge"....a stoneskin that the evasion tank builds using skills (and its based on tank %HP so its scales, similar to DK wow mastery (death strike > bubble) , or Rift rogue tank (rift guard))

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Originally Posted by Warlyx

evasion tanking ISNT reliable...u dodge or u dont...if u do all the time u are a god, if u dont .....why are u tanking?

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I swear its like people aren't even considering gray area /partial evasion.

Guiz a gun type tank is liek stoopud idea cuz gunz range only.
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/fi...sas_Arvina.jpg
Owait.

I suppose its unrealistic for something like this to branch off of Musketeer, however, I guess it would be possible to have tank gear be solely equippable by a job and not a class yeah?

I think tanks are tanks because of their available gear, if you're tanking in DD leather and you don't evade or have a cooldown up you're going to send the healers into panic mode after one or 2 hits.

All that being said I fully support a tank coming off of Musketeer one way or another. Engineer is my dream job so be it an evasion tank, a shield gun tank, a magitek pet tank, a potion tossing tank, whatever I will play it for forevah. :p

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Originally Posted by Duuude007

I swear its like people aren't even considering gray area /partial evasion.

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Considering that evasion isn't even a visible parameter in this game there would be no gear to even give evasion tanks a sense of progression other than hp and parry. So unless SE fixed that in any shape or form an evasion tank would have to solely rely on its CDs and when it's off CD a bad rng hit will one shot it if pretty much every other game with an evasion tank is any indication.

So I'm gonna say no.

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Originally Posted by Noroi_Kisaragi

The evasion tank is called Ninja. He shall make his triumphant return. Rejoice.

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right. except Ninja shouldn't be a tank. see what I did there?


that being said, my favourite - to heal - in SWTOR are vanguards


http://www.republictrooper.com/wp-co.../ss03_full.jpg

yupp yupp

so give me that gunnytank!

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Originally Posted by amnie

right. except Ninja shouldn't be a tank. see what I did there?

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The ninja can be whatever he wants because he's a freakin' ninja.

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Originally Posted by Noroi_Kisaragi

The ninja can be whatever he wants because he's a freakin' ninja.

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well yes of course, but I just always found the topic of especially the FFXI ninja to be highly hilarious. even in this topic someone complained Ninja was not the 'greatest' tank in that game. well d'oh.

that being said it's always fun to experiment and 'anything goes'
in tsw I tanked with my assault rifle for a while. the base skills had no extra aggro skills at all. I only had the 'side skills' (not related to a specific weapon). it worked pretty well once I had people convinced that yes, I would be able to keep the aggro ;)

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Originally Posted by Duuude007

I swear its like people aren't even considering gray area /partial evasion.

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so it would be more just a flavor change, then? instead of a partial block, or parry, you would just partial evade, have different ability names that do the same thing. im not against it but unless it plays differently enough whats the point (besides flavor, as i said)

personally i would like to see a magic based tank somewhere down the line. a 'battle mage' that had to rotate various defensive shields (some for physical, some for magic) to mitigate damage..maybe have an aggro DoT that needs to be maintained, otherwise its hate would drop off dramatically. of course an Engineer class could dod the same thing i guess.

edit: i never played xi, but wasnt ninja tanking completely unintended, and somewhat broken in terms of 'balance'? im all for doing things and using classes in non expected ways, but not to the point of what is essentially exploiting a busted mechanic.

but more the variety the better, imho