Knight: Samurai and Dark Knight Proposal

KEY:
(A) = ability off GCD, (S) = skill on GCD

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Knight: The Knight (太刀士) is a two-handed sword user which specializes in creating combos which generate Sigils. These sigils are used in conjunction with MP to utilize their Breaking system to both lower their target's stats as well as increase their own by extracting the power lost from the enemy. They are a DPS role at heart with a little bit of enmity generation attached to their MP restoral. Should they draw the ire of the enemy they are trained in parrying with their mighty blade and have basic training in salves.

Abilities:

1: Hard Slash: (S) Delivers an attack with a potency of 150. TP Cost: 70.
2: Frostbite: (S) Deals ice damage with a potency of 140. Add. Effect: Slow (10s). TP Cost: 80.
4: Power Slash: (S) Delivers a critical attack with a potency of 100. Combo Action: Hard Slash, Combo Bonus: 180 potency. TP Cost: 60.
6: Weapon Guard: (A) Increases parrying rate by 25% (15s). Recast: 60s.
8: Power Break: (A) Consumes 1 sigil to reduce the target's attack power by 5% (15s). Extract Power: Increases your physical damage dealt by 10%. MP Cost: 100. Recast: 15s.
10: Blade Bash: (S) Delivers an attack with a potency of 50. Add. Effect: Stun (3s).
12: Shockwave: (S) Delivers an attack with a potency of 110 to enemies in cones in front of and behind you. TP Cost: 100.
15: Iai Strike: (S) Lunges to the target with a potency of 120. Range:15y. TP Cost: 120.
18: Armor Break: (A) Consumes 1 sigil to reduce the targets physical resistances by 5% (15s). Extract Power: Reduces your physical damage taken by 10%. MP Cost: 100. Recast: 15s.
22: Herculean Slash: (S) Delivers an attack with 160 potency. Add. Effect: 20% chance to Paralyze target (8s). Combo Action: Power Slash, Combo Bonus: 230 potency. TP Cost: 60.
26: Freezebite: (S) Deals ice damage with a potency of 120. Add. Effect: Increased Enmity. Combo Action: Frostbite, Combo Bonus: 180 Potency and TP Cost: 80.
30: Extract Power: (A) Absorbs the Break penalties you have placed on your target to increase your own stats (15s). Removes the Break effects from the target and prevents the equivalent Break buffs from being re-applied until they wear off. Recast: 20s per Break absorbed.
34: Mental Break: (A) Consumes 1 sigil to reduce the targets elemental resistances by 5% (15s). Extract Power: Reduces your magical damage taken by 10%. MP Cost: 100. Recast: 15s.
38: Bonecrusher: (A) Delivers an attack with a potency of 100. Add. Effect: Potency is increased by 4 for every 1% of your maximum HP you are missing. (Example: You have 80% of your HP so the potency of this ability will be 180, when you drop down to only 20% HP the potency of this ability will be 420.) TP Cost: 100. Recast: 300s.
42: Magic Break: (A) Consumes 1 sigil to reduce the enemies attack magic potency by 5% (15s) Extract Power: Increases your magical damage dealt by 10%. MP Cost: 100. Recast: 15s.
46: Salve: (A) Recovers own HP with a potency of 400 over 10s. Magic Attack enhances the amount it heals. Recast: 180s.
50: Minus Strike: (S) Delivers an attack with 75 potency per Break effect active on the target. Removes the Break effects from the target. TP Cost: 90. Recast: 180s.

Traits:

8: Slashing Sigils: Successful combo's using Hard Slash, Power Slash and Herculean Slash generate one sigil. Maximum of 1 sigil.
14: Enhanced Strength: Increases STR by 2.
16: Zanshin: If an auto-attack misses you gain a 15% chance to swing again.
20: Enhanced Strength II: Increases STR by 4.
24: It's A Sigil Life: Raises the maximum sigils you can stack to 2.
28: Zanshin II: If an auto-attack misses you gain a 25% chance to swing again.
32: Tactical Parry: Parrying or having an attack parried will grant you 5 TP.
36: Enhanced Strength III: Increases STR by 6.
40: Extract More Power: Extract Power recast is lowered to 15s per Break absorbed.
44: Enhanced Tactical Parry: Parrying or having an attack parried will now grant you 10 TP.
48: Boneshatterer: Bonecrusher will now reduce your damage taken based on your HP% (5s). (Example: You have 80% HP upon use so you will receive a 20% damage taken reduced buff. If you have 20% HP you will receive an 80% damage taken reduced buff.)

http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2...FT_Knights.jpg

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Concept: The concept for Knight came from Auron, Steiner and Final Fantasy Tactics. These characters all had some moves in common when it came to the Break line of abilities. Auron was a Samurai with the abilities of the Knight from FFT and Steiner was a Knight with the abilities himself as well as some Dark Knight traits. All three of these characters/classes wielded two-handed swords so I thought it fitting as both Samurai and Dark Knight have in the series as well. Since Knight (ナイト) is what the Japanese use for Paladin the distinction I made for them is (太刀士; "Long Sword User/Specialist") which is equally appropriate as it follows the Japanese naming convention for classes.

The sigil mechanic is a way to both debuff your foe and buff yourself. This use will make the KNT's DPS start off slower but will excel in longer fights. They could in a sense be thought of as an idea for the first hybrid role with their ability to generate enmity and take a few hits. Their main order of attack would be relatively up for grabs but the basics would be: Hard Slash > Power Slash > Herculean Slash > 2 Breaks. At this point they have several options depending on the encounter:

They can repeat the process to place all 4 Breaks and cripple the enemy; They can repeat the process to place all 4 Breaks and then deal a large amount of damage with Minus Strike; They can repeat the process to place all 4 Breaks on the target and use Extract Power to remove all 4 breaks in order to greatly buff themselves up once every 60s; They can use Extract Power on 2 Breaks to empower themselves every 30s; They can use Extract Power with just 1 Break and maintain that one boost indefinitely.

With Breaks using a lot of MP they will also be utilizing Frostbite > Freezebite for MP recovery on occasion. This will generate some enmity however so they must be careful with it. Bonecrusher is usable at any time for a small amount of mitigation and damage but is best used with low HP (such as after a big attack) in order to gain a large amount of mitigation and damage.

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Samurai: The Samurai (侍) is a nimble tank in heavy armor; unlocked with 30KNT/15PGL. They continue to use two-handed swords but specialize in Katanas which feature stats more suitable for tanking. They focus on evading, parrying and countering attacks focused on them. They utilize the elements of lightning (use their defense for their offense), ice (use their offense for their defense) and fire (use their defense to use the flames of rebirth for healing) in their Bushido attacks. Its relic weapon is the Amenomurakumo no Tsurugi.

Abilities:

30: Shirahadori: (A) Bestows the Bushido stance, reduces damage dealt by 25% and damage taken by 20% and increases enmity, evasion and parrying rate by 25%. Shockwave and Iai Strike gain increased enmity. Ends upon re-use.
35: Third Eye: (A) Allows you to counter the next physical attack with a potency of 100. Bushido Bonus: Suffer no damage from the attack countered. Recast: 90s.
40: Skyfury Blade: (S). Can only be used immediately after parrying an attack and while affected by Bushido. Deals lightning damage with a potency of 180. Affected by both magical and physical attack. Add.Effect: Increased Enmity, 25% chance next shockwave will cost no TP. MP Cost: 50. TP Cost: 70.
45: Hoarfrost Blade: (S) Can only be used while in the Bushido stance. Deals ice damage with a potency of 180. Affected by both magical and physical attack. Add. Effect: Increased Enmity. Combo Action: Freezebite, Combo Bonus: Reduces damage taken by 20% (10s). Damage reduction cannot be activated for 60s after it wears off. TP Cost: 120.
50: Shimmering Blade: (S) Can only be used while in the Bushido stance. Deals fire damage with a potency of 50. Add. Effect: Burns the target with a potency of 20 (30s). Affected by both magical and physical attack. Combo Action: Skyfury Blade, Combo Bonus: Each tick of Burn has a 10% chance to reset Third Eye's recast timer and a 20% chance to activate Phoenix Flame which heals the user for 10% of their current HP. MP Cost: 70. TP Cost: 70.

PGL:
Featherfoot
Haymaker
Internal Release
Mantra

GLA:
Provoke
Awareness
Convalescence
Sentinel

http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2...FT_Samurai.jpg

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Concept: The concept for this type of Samurai stemmed primarily from Auron in terms of the Break abilities. The rest of the abilities are adaptations of abilities found in FFVI (Cyan), FFTA2 (Parivir) and FFXI (Samurai). They focus on using the ice elemental attacks to maintain enmity at first and then move on to utilizing the Break system to empower their defenses. With Skyfury Blade we see a reaction ability come into play which can help maintain AoE enmity. Hoarfrost Blade brings in additional enmity as well as damage mitigation when combo'd. The mitigation element of it can only be put to use once a minute. Shimmering Blade rounds out the three elements offering a chance of healing when combo'd with Skyfury Blade. This makes Samurai shine when tanking multiple enemies but still viable for single-target tanking.

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Dark Knight: The Dark Knight (暗黒騎士) is a DPS which gains power through sacrificing its own life force; unlocked through 30KNT/15ACN. The more health the DRK sacrifices the more damage their attacks deal. This makes them a very busy job managing not only their TP and MP but their HP as well. If they're not careful they will be quite a hindrance for their healers. A successful DRK knows when and when not to sacrifice their HP for stronger attacks. They are quite formidable with AoE attacks in addition to their single target training as a Knight. Their relic weapon is the Caladbolg.

Abilities:

30: Nether Void: (S) While active it slowly drains your HP. Allows the stacking of Malevolence (Max 4). Each stack of Malevolence increases damage dealt and critical hit rate but also how much HP is being drained. Ends upon re-use or ≤10% HP.
35: Darkness: (S) Consumes 10% of your maximum HP to deal unaspected damage with a potency of 200. Combo Action: Shockwave, Combo Bonus: 150 Potency to enemies within 10y of target. MP Cost: 70.
40: Souleater: (A) Consumes 10% of your maximum HP to increase the damage dealt by your next ability by 30%. Overwrites and is overwritten by Life Surge. Recast: 120s.
45: Scourge: (S) Consumes all stacks of Malevolence to deal unaspected damage over time with a potency of 15 per stack of Malevolence consumed (18s.) Add. Effect: If DoT critical hits there's a 10% chance to reset timer on Bonecrusher. Combo Action: Darkness, Combo Bonus: Spreads the DoT to targets within 5y of the target. Magic Attack enhances the damage done. MP Cost: 90.
50: Darkside: (A) Consumes 20% of your maximum HP to instantly grant you 1 stack of Malevolence. Recast: 60s.

ACN:
Virus
Bio
Shadow Flare
Ruin

LNC:
Invigorate
Keen Flurry
Blood for Blood
Life Surge

Nether Void & Malevolence:
1 stack of Malevolence will be stacked for every 20% of your max HP is drained via Nether Void, Souleater and Darkness.

0 Stacks = 1% of max HP drained per 3 seconds. +3% Crit Hit Rate+Damage Dealt
1 Stack = 1.5% of max HP drained per 3 seconds. +6% Crit Hit Rate +Damage Dealt
2 Stacks = 2% of max HP drained per 3 seconds. +9% Crit Hit Rate +Damage Dealt
3 Stacks = 2.5% of max HP drained per 3 seconds. +12% Crit Hit Rate +Damage Dealt
4 Stacks = 3% of max HP drained per 3 seconds. +15% Crit Hit Rate +Damage Dealt

Changes to Knight:
Salve: Changes to Drain: Consumes all stacks of Malevolence to deal unaspected damage with a potency of 100 per stack of Malevolence consumed. Absorbs 100% of damage dealt as HP. Magic Attack enhances the damage done. Recast: 90s.

http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2...DarkKnight.jpg

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Concept: This version of Dark Knight was inspired by Steiner primarily. As he has several classical Dark Knight abilities as well as abilities shared by Samurai in the series I felt it would mesh well. The DRK plays very similar to Knight in building up sigils for use in their Break mechanic but also must now manage a new mechanic with their Nether Void stance. The stance can be very powerful but at a cost of increasing damage over time. With 4 stacks of Malevolence it would only take about 2 minutes to completely drain their HP. This is why there is a safety switch on Nether Void to turn off once the player gets to 10% HP or lower. Should they get very low on health they can make excellent use of Bonecrusher with Scourge giving a chance to reset its timer. They have three ways to remove Malevolence and reduce their HP loss: Scourge removes the Malevolence they've accumulated to inflict damage on enemies; Drain removes the Malevolence they've accumulated in order to heal themselves; Deactivating the stance will remove all Malevolence. With Shockwave, Darkness and Scourge they are adept at AoE encounters while their Break mechanic leaves them suitable for single target as well. With access to Bio, Shadow Flare, Ruin, and their native Mental Break, Magic Break, Nether Void, Drain, Scourge and Darkness they can function as a weak ranged unit if the situation demands.

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Since Knight (ナイト) is what the Japanese use for Paladin the distinction I made for them is (太刀士; "Long Sword User/Specialist") which is equally appropriate as it follows the Japanese naming convention for classes.

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I don't know. It's kind of misleading to use 太刀士 (which I guess translates to fat katana artist, which is probably closer to Claymore artist) rather than 騎士　as ナイト is already taken and translated differently. I think you should change Knight into Squire or Page. Something lower on the class ladder.

I think the Japanese actually use パラディン (lit. Paladin) for Paladin. The FFXIV team just named it Paladin due to the class required being CNJ.

EDIT: I'm not sure I like having Sentinel as a cross class skill. I believe only skill that are available to most classes to be used rather than take some of the stronger skills and give it to new classes.
EDIT2: Souleat + Life Surge => ok.

The reason I went with 太刀士 (Tachishi) is because 太刀 (tachi) literally translates to great sword (synonymous with long sword in English). The tachi sword style preceded the development of katanas as well which I thought would be a nice work-in for leading to the Samurai job. I would have used 両手剣士 (double-handed sword user) but that would break the naming convention set in place of using only 3 kanji. In the class description their weapon type could be clarified to 両手剣 (double-handed sword) to include all manner of large swords. They do this with Gladiator already. Gladiator is 剣術士 which means "Sword skill user" but they clarify in the description that it uses 片手剣 (single-handed sword). As far as PLD is concerned: This link shows that they do use ナイト for it.　FFXI and FFXIV are both examples of using ナイト over パラディン. I think only FFTA, FFTA2 and FFIV made use of パラディン.

I think Squire is too weak of a name and in the series the Squire was bare-bones. Argath is the only Squire to have any Break abilities and they were Rend Helm and Rend Armor. Now when you look at Knight, they had all of them and then some. Knight is also a class I could see people wanting to play based on the name over Squire as well. I envision the story of Dark Knight being one to collude and corrupt the Knight for a literal name tie-in. As far as giving Samurai access to Sentinel it's more of an homage to Auron. Sentinel first came into the series with FFX in Auron's path which makes the first use of it belonging to a Samurai/Knight. I do agree with you on your opinion for cross-class abilities but I had to make this exception. The same goes for Shadow Flare and the DRK. While the DRK will most likely never use it due to its cast time, I just had to include it for the sake of FF history.

Good catch with Life Surge, I'll make sure they can't be stacked.

Okay, so admittedly my main is a DPS and not a Tank, but I really don't think Tanking classes should have a charge. My experience playing as a WAR is that face-pulling is not the way to go, since you could accidentally aggro more monsters than you had intended, leading to a party wipe. As such, I'd recommend making Iai Strike a melee attack. Instead, you could either make Shockwave a ranged pulling attack, or you could replace it or Iai Strike with Wind Slash (a move used by Paravirs, a Samurai-like job from FFTA2) for use as a ranged puller.

Also, Samurai lacks any sort of "Panic Button", like Marauder's Holmgang or Paladin's Sacred Ground. I know that Knight is intended to be a DPS role, but in that case, you should remove one of Samurai's offensive moves and replace it with something similar. Just as an example, but how about a move that both greatly lowers damage taken and gives you a potent regen effect? The two effects would have to be balanced such that combined they would make you effectively invincible while active while still being unique when compared to Holmgang and Sacred Ground.

Dark Knight looks good overall, though I do believe it should have native access to something like Drain, so it isn't reliant on a Second Wind variant and a cross-class skill to keep itself going without a healer. But that would mean having to decide between Darkness, Soul Eater, and Scourge to replace, and all three of them look so cool...

Anyway, those are my thoughts on this right now. You putting your own thoughts on a Samurai job and class has made me want to go back and work on my own idea again. It uses an alternate resource system similar to Warrior's Wrath, which I've kept messing with trying to get it to look good without just being a renamed Wrath...

I was OK with it (and actually would have wanted to play it), until I read the traits.

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44: Enhanced Tactical Parry: Parrying or having an attack parried will now grant you 15 TP.
48: Boneshatterer: Bonecrusher will now reduce your damage taken based on your HP% (5s). (Example: You have 80% HP upon use so you will receive a 20% damage taken reduced buff. If you have 20% HP you will receive an 80% damage taken reduced buff.)

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Boneshatterer is totally OP. No need to explain why I guess. I know it's intended to give a "last chance move" to the tank (samurai), but it shouldn't really be made that way. Especially when we see how powerful that attack already is at low %HP (420 potency at 20% HP, really ?)

Enhanced tactical parry is tricky because... it might be totally OP too, or completely useless. But I'll come back on that just after with..

The samurai :
If anything, he should come from lancer and not from pugilist. Because you give him parry buffs => keen flurry.

That said, his tank stance is like the exact same one as shield oath, with evasion and parry rates upped just for the sake of it. Give them one or the other, not both. Increased defense (not damage reduced, just defense increased) and parry rate and/or parry strengh should be enough.

Anyway, increased parry rate with "enhanced tactical parry" means a TP generator which will be unlikely to be stopped.


I have nothing to say yet on DRK

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Originally Posted by Kamifubuki-Yoakesetsuri

@Marta I don't agree with samurai being a tank...it should stay dps.

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why not ? It's traditionally an off-tank (or tanky dps, depending on how you see it). Still more fitting than ninja (despise what the crying "nintank" could say) or other stuff. Less than templar though, sure, but we aren't discussing about templars here ^^

@Marta I don't agree with samurai being a tank...it should stay dps.

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Originally Posted by DarkStar

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I was thinking of adding a ranged pulling mechanic but decided on the charge for a couple reasons. First of all GLA & MRD already use a ranged attack and I didn't want to copy it directly. Then when I thought about it, should you pull a monster, any nearby will link and probably to the same effect of charging in. The only difference would be that they wouldn't have to run to you. If a mob is close enough to agro when you charge in, it's probably close enough to link to the monsters you would have pulled with a ranged attack anyway.

Samurai was intended to be more of a reactive tank. Shimmering Blade originally had a 300s CD with its mechanic altered a bit to make Third Eye reset it's timer more often. I thought that would be too strong though. In it's place I added Bonecrusher for both DRK and SAM to make use of. Bonecrusher gets a trait, Boneshatterer, that reduces the damage taken so it could work well as a panic button. If they drop to 5% HP and use Bonecrusher they'll do a spike of damage for increased enmity as well as gain a 95% damage reduction. I forgot to include its recast timer though so I'll edit that in now haha.

Dark Knight does get Drain. When the Dark Knight crystal is equipped Salve turns into Drain which consumes all Malevolence stacks and heals the user for 100 potency per stack consumed. Perhaps a 180s timer is a bit long though.

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Originally Posted by Kuwagami

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Yeah, Bonecrusher is meant to have a 300s recast timer on it but I forgot to include it. Definitely would be OP without one. The potency is high but only when near death and it will never prevent 100% damage taken so purposely waiting to use it could prove fatal. Only DRK could use it more often than 300s but that's on a low chance critical hit proc on their DoT. Even then with their constant health loss they'll have to be careful with its use since the spike of damage could potentially kill them alongside their higher enmity from their MP restoral combo.

As for LNC I was torn between it for the reason you mentioned or for PGL for Featherfoot and Mantra. I went with PGL in the end because it has more skills which aid in a tank situation. Life Surge from LNC would make it feel too similar to WAR to me and Keen Flurry could end up with too much parrying for too much returned TP with Tactical Parry. That's also why I added an additional evasion boost to the tanking stance. If you evade you don't parry afterall which retains mitigation but also prevents too much TP gain.

Because DRK and SAM take a bit of warming up to show their full potential while still using roughly the same TP as anyone else I wanted them to have a way to recover small amounts of TP during the fight. The Break abilities were also using 100TP in my original idea so that was a big part of having Tactical Parry. I don't think 15TP on a parry would be too broken but without Breaks using the TP perhaps I could lower them to 5 and 10.

As for the stance, it's not exactly like PLDs. The stance reduces damage dealt by an additional 5%. :P But in actuality I was afraid that using defense wouldn't scale well in later levels. A direct reduction to damage received would always scale appropriately. I'm pretty adamant in keeping both parrying and evasion bonuses but perhaps defense could work in lieu of damage reduction. Any idea on a good baseline? I'm not in a numbers mindset at the moment.

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Originally Posted by Kamifubuki-Yoakesetsuri

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I respect your opinion but have to point out that it has always been tanky. It always had access to heavy armor and even in FFXI where most saw it as a strict DPS it could function as a fantastic parrying/evasion/counter tank. In FFXI they had to work for it though but if they equipped any "Enhances Rice Ball Effect" gear (3 slots of gear total) and ate a Rice Ball they would gain +50 defense for each piece of gear. That meant they had +150 defense (a lot at level 75 cap) from food. Combine that with Seigan and Third Eye for a lot of damage mitigation and counterattacks, /NIN for additional shadows if your Third Eye drops early and SAM's natural high damage output with Store TP and Meditate for enmity and you had yourself a great tank for leveling and an emergency tank in some end game.

@Kuwagami



With that same logic, we should also make Dragoons or any other Melee based, Heavy Armor bound based job into tanks.

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Originally Posted by Kamifubuki-Yoakesetsuri

@Kuwagami

With that same logic, we should also make Dragoons or any other Melee based, Heavy Armor bound based job into tanks.

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Yes, yes they could. However, being that your mindset is already corrupted, take a look at all the Final Fantasy classes that existed; pick me out the tank classes.

I'll wait.

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Originally Posted by Exstal

Yes, yes they could. However, being that your mindset is already corrupted, take a look at all the Final Fantasy classes that existed; pick me out the tank classes.

I'll wait.

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Heresy !! this link is missing jobs from the FFT

FFTA :
-Paladin (aready in)
-Templar
-Defender
-Mog knight could do if modified a bit


other FF series :
-Viking
-Mystic knight could be tuned for the role

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Originally Posted by Kuwagami

Heresy !! this link is missing jobs from the FFT

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http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/L...y_Tactics_Jobs
http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/L...s_Advance_Jobs

I'll wait.

Templar totally needs to be secondary job for Lancer.

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Originally Posted by Aethergoggles

Templar totally needs to be secondary job for Lancer.

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Have an idea for that too in my signature (although admittedly could use some further tweaking)!

I can definitely see the parallels between our ideas, guess that's what happens when you have to use the same material (older FF games). >w>()
I like how you solved the "Breaks be broken" problem with the use of a stack.

Here are the things I can critique:
- I half agree with DarkStar that you need something to pull monsters farther away but I can also see that Iai Strike is a gap closer... Hmmm...
- I also agree with Kuwagani that Bonebreaker/shatterer seems OP, even with the longer recast. Especially for your Dark Knight, who uses their HP and have those stacks tick it away. It could easily get down to just before 15% and Nether Void's auto-shut down, Bonebreaker and get the Boneshatter buff, use Drain, and have a Healer max the rest.
- Also, your Templar idea already has Bonebreaker. >A>()
- EDIT: I'm also concerned about the inclusion of magical damage with your Samurai's skills. It coming from a physical DPS class, I don't see it having a high enough magic attack to really effect the attack unless you're flat out adding the two attack stats together, which would then seem kind of broken considering if you can get Breaks and/or Power Extracts up. It's more acceptable on Dark Knight because the spells they can us are DoTs (Bio and Shadow Flare) and Drain.

Yeah, Templar does have Bonecrusher too but that's another idea altogether haha.

Important to note that Boneshatterer buff only lasts for 5 seconds and with the need for gaining MP the DRK would likely be at orange-red enmity at all times. So if they were to use it at 11-15% HP they'd have 85-89% mitigation for perhaps one hit, maybe two but if they don't get the drain off in time or the healer heals pre-emptively then it would mess up a lot. The high damage would likely get them flashing hate as well with their already high threshold which would have to be taken into consideration with mechanics and mob positioning (like landsliding an unprepared tank for instance). They'd have to have a competent tank to grab hate back before they died as well since their armor rating would be similar to DRG's. High risk, high reward if used appropriately. Best use of it for DRK would be around 50-70% HP as that is a relatively safe amount and easier to reach. They should be using it on cooldown as long as they're maintaining a Scourge combo.

As far as the magick attack abilities I literally mean what I say in their descriptions in that it simply affects them. I haven't thought of an actual equation or how to incorporate the multipliers but essentially a move like Hoarfrost Blade would incorporate both physical and magical damage sources in its equation. This way it can also benefit from some of the magic based Breaks and not just the DRK. With their naturally low magic attack the 10-15% boost will be small but a boost nonetheless. It's mainly set that way for when they are off-tank or not needed for tanking so they can still push out some decent numbers. Both DRK and SAM would have low magic attack, DRK similar to DRG's (around the 80s iirc) and SAM similar to WAR's (around the 70s iirc).

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Originally Posted by MartaDemireux

As for the stance, it's not exactly like PLDs. The stance reduces damage dealt by an additional 5%. :P

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I'm curious as to how you got to "5% more than PLD" (which is a massive increase in survivability, actually; it's 6.67% less damage taken/healing required over time, which is more than what a WAR gets out of IB used on CD). PLD is a straight up 20% reduction in damage taken; you have that coupled with a 25% increase in evasion and parry. The parry itself is a ~6.25% reduction in damage taken, and the evasion is going to account for a metric crapload more. As written, that tank stance is monumentally overpowered.

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But in actuality I was afraid that using defense wouldn't scale well in later levels. A direct reduction to damage received would always scale appropriately. I'm pretty adamant in keeping both parrying and evasion bonuses but perhaps defense could work in lieu of damage reduction. Any idea on a good baseline? I'm not in a numbers mindset at the moment.

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There are a number of problems with using parry and evasion as the tank mitigation mechanism. First off, they do not affect eHP in any way. Secondly, they don't work on magical attacks. Third, evasion doesn't do anything for attacks that cannot be dodged (which include almost every single burst mechanic; the only exception that I can think of is Titan HM's Mountain Buster).

Def/mDef don't really work either because they scale in a really weird manner and, towards the endgame, you'd start encountering rounding errors which would increase or decrease the (additional) effective contributions of the stance by significant amounts (increases from i90 to i100 is only +2; if it rounded down, unless the bonus was at least +50, which is pretty insanely high, you'd see absolutely no benefit from the tank stance compared to what you had before). The only reason I would ever put a Def/mDef modifier onto a tank stance is if the tank was not intended to use tank gear (e.g. a tank wearing MNK gear would need a ~80-85% Def/mDef mod to keep their defense equal to the other tanks and ensure equivalent scaling).

A tank stance needs to provide roughly the same benefit as the existing tank stances, which means ~25% increase in mean mitigation to both magic and physical attacks and at least 25% increase in effective hit points (PLD, which has the absolute best form of mean mitigation since it is *absolutely* constant and proactive, provides 25% increased eHP so the use of any unreliable or reactive mechanisms would need to be made up by providing *at least* as much eHP). The only mechanic that increases eHP without affecting mean mitigation is +hp, which means that, if you don't want to basically "copy" the WAR model (+hp and then an exclusively mean mitigation mechanism), you have to do some kind of combination of the PLD model and WAR model (though this has the side effect of using what could easily be seen as using *too many* mechanics).

I would likely do away with evasion improvement completely, mainly because, traditionally, FF characters have only had evasion because there wasn't an RNG-style "take less damage from an attack" mechanic (largely for simplicity). The RNG mechanism was either complete avoidance or being hit by it. It makes a lot more sense for the heavily armored sword user without a shield to specialize in parrying rather than dodging (at least as a passive capability; an evasion CD wouldn't be out of place).

Since parry is both unreliable and exclusive to physical attacks, if you're going to rely upon them to any appreciable extent, you have to find some way to extend benefits to magical attacks as well, whether it be providing a separate "reduce damage taken from magical attacks" aspect to the stance (this is a pretty suboptimal option because it dramatically increases eHP for magical attacks, which could easily turn them into tanks that are way too good at magical fights) or *possibly* allowing for the parrying of magical attacks (not sure about the practicality of this, however).

Furthermore, parry values are really low in ARR (compared to pretty much every other MMO out there). If you wanted to provide a parry rate bonus that provided similar mitigation as one of the other tank stances, you'd basically be required to increase parry chance to 100% (which also ends up getting rid of any chance of a critical hit, I believe). As such, you need to do something to both increase parry value as well as parry rate to avoid turning an RNG mechanism into a static mechanism permanently.

Parry also has the problem of being an attribute that is additive and logarithmically more powerful the more you get of it. For DR, an ability that provides 20% DR will reduce the damage you would have otherwise taken (all of your existing values factored in) by 20%. For parry, a 20% increase in parry rate (for simplicity's sake, say it reduces damage by 100%; it illustrates the point better since it's not dealing with an extra layer of math) when you have a 10% chance to parry reduces your damage taken by ~23%; if you had a 70% parry chance, that same 20% would reduce your incoming damage by 66%: the more parry you have, the more valuable said parry becomes. As you start getting better gear (and more parry), your stance would slowly become more and more powerful, unlike the other 2 tank stances which remain the same. The exact same is true of parry *value* since your parry value goes up as you get more and more STR. This isn't really a problem for CDs since variation in short term performance is generally acceptable (Keen Flurry on a tank would be fine, even if it effectively made said tank guaranteed to parry, specifically because it's only available for short stints).

This all basically boils down to the point that building a tank stance around improving parry *or* evasion would not work in a balanced manner in ARR: evasion is too unreliable and, for good reason, worthless on massive attacks (or magic) so it would put said tank at a significant disadvantage for recovering from burst damage scenarios (plus, relying heavily upon evasion creates a truly spiky incoming damage profile which is just annoying to heal because it cannot be reliably predicted), and parry has significant problems with scaling.

The only real solution that I can see is to not have all of the mitigation mechanisms necessary to balance with the other tank stances on the tank stance itself. Conditional/partial uptime on stuff like guaranteed parrying can fix some of the balancing/scaling issues (you would want to have said condition set up so that, as you get better parry rate/value, it reduces the chance of triggering the condition in the first place), and that can only really be done through having a separate ability. Design wise, this isn't really problematic and, in fact, has some precedent given that WAR has Inner Beast (triggered ability separate from tank stance, gained 5 levels later) to make up for a lack of shield blocking (passive attribute).

A possible set up could be a tank stance provide a 10% decrease in damage taken (provides a baseline cushion of DR and increased eHP) and allow for the parrying of magical attacks (along with increasing enmity generated), and a second ability (at 35) that provides a 100% parry chance for 5-8 seconds; put it on a 30 sec CD that gets instantly recharged when you get hit by a single attack that takes away more than half of your hp (you can use it before a big hit for eHP/mitigation and then, if it's big enough, as a recovery-assist afterwards). You would probably want to restrict this so that it can only be used while said tank stance is active (or, if it's an off-GCD attack, that it only provides the parry bonus and recharge chance while in the tank stance).

I really don't see any really effective solution for having a single tank stance that provides the benefits that a tank stance needs to provide *without* having said tank stance mimic one of the two existing tank stances (or using so many mechanics that it just becomes onerous). If you want to have a "creative" tank stance, you're basically going to have to combine it with something else (which means figuring out a way to have it consistently provide the necessary mean mitigation as well as eHP).

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Originally Posted by MartaDemireux

I was thinking of adding a ranged pulling mechanic but decided on the charge for a couple reasons. First of all GLA & MRD already use a ranged attack and I didn't want to copy it directly. Then when I thought about it, should you pull a monster, any nearby will link and probably to the same effect of charging in. The only difference would be that they wouldn't have to run to you. If a mob is close enough to agro when you charge in, it's probably close enough to link to the monsters you would have pulled with a ranged attack anyway.

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Except you're forgetting about the significant increase to mobility that it affords since it's instantly closing the gap. Because it doesn't have a CD, you're providing a remarkably cheap "instantly jump 15y" ability. The tanks (and LNC) have a ranged attack for good reason: it keeps them balanced against each other.

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Because DRK and SAM take a bit of warming up to show their full potential while still using roughly the same TP as anyone else I wanted them to have a way to recover small amounts of TP during the fight.

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Except when soloing, DRK should never be getting TP generation from Tactical Parry (NPCs don't parry). SAM, on the other hand, will be parrying a lot, which affords them with a significant advantage over the course of long fights because they're must less likely to run out of TP, made even *less* likely they'll run out of TP because they will be regularly using MP consuming attacks instead of TP consuming attacks. Assuming a 25% parry chance and 1 attack per GCD, your same would be getting, passively, roughly half of an Invigorate every 3 minutes (the Invigorate CD).

Now consider how Tactical Parry would work in AoE situations: if you're being attacked by 6 enemies at once, you're going to be getting ~15 TP/GCD from Tactical Parry. You're already giving them a cheaper than normal AoE (100 TP compared to Overpower's 130) with a larger area of effect (front and back cone) and only slightly lower damage (110 potency compared to 120). Combine that with the extra TP they're getting and they'll be spamming the living bejeebus out of AoEs with negligible penalties (in fact, compared to fighting a single target, they'll have similar TP drain).

Tactical Parry is basically going to allow your tank to never have to worry about resources ever.

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DRK would likely be at orange-red enmity at all times.

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Absolutely, totally horrible idea. The devs can add high enmity tags to attacks as soon as you swap into a job. DPS should *not* have high enmity attacks for good reason: DPS should not be riding the living hell out of a tank's enmity generation, mainly because, if the tank is anywhere near *not* an optimal enmity generator, said high enmity DPS will be blowing them out of the water. You've got the base class as DPS. Since it's DPS, it shouldn't have any high enmity attacks. Any attacks that you want to be high enmity should get the tag only after you swap into the tank job.

There a bunch of other nit-picky things that I could get into (Armor Break is crazy strong; Mental Break only really helps BLM; DRK is an incredibly simplistic DPS playstyle; Third Eye is OP as hell; you're taking abilities as cross-class that have no right to be cross class; etc.), but I've already written a crapload and it's getting kind of old pointing out how your "creative" ideas are either shooting themselves in the foot or lazy design.

I'd like to point out that the Samurai were taught to never block with their blade, and that their armor was made mostly of loose metal plates and heavy cloth, meant more for stopping arrows than any kind of real damage. Also, because the leggings were the under kimono or hakama wrapped around the legs, it could constrict the knee and hips and make it difficult to move. Some schools of Kenjutsu even have an unusually low stance to counteract this. Katana are also very delicate as far as swords go and kind of high maintenance. Granted it doesn't have to be that consistent with real life, but what we end up with is a tank class that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to be a tank class.

I would like to see Sam being a bit like mnk, but with a throwback to XI skillchains. Use 3 moves in a sequence, get a skillchain that is somehow more than the sum of its parts.

Marta I'd definitely be ok with a class that splits to sam tank and another dps
job. Afterall the more thanks the better at this point. I had an idea for a katana
class that became sam tank and and demon like job for dps (to feed on a lot of
mythology, basically learn learn demon based abilities and fight with an extra
haunted katana that fights with you). so it's definitely doable and could be beneficial.
Thanks for the post

sam has usually had some tankiness or defensive abilities in the past.

Lifesurge, Bio, and Shadowflare are not viable options for cross-class abilities, so they shouldn't even be on the table when discussing them (doubly so for Shadowflare, which is Arcanist's capstone ability).

On top of that, having Arcanist as the cross-class requirement (much less even an option at all) for Dark Knight is a huge mistake. You're giving up the Pugilist's Internal Release and Second Wind and/or anything the eventual Rogue class will give, which are way more helpful to you than anything the Arcanist can provide. I get why you want Arcanist as one of the cross classes, but mechanical viability should be a higher priority than what you think is thematically appropriate.

Also, DarkStar is right that Knight should have some kind of ranged initiator made available at Lv15, just as Gladiator and Marauder have Shield Lob and Tomahawk (respectively). Pulling a mob with a ranged attack gives you the option of picking and choosing which enemies you fight, rather than charging in head-first and aggroing things you don't want to fight.

Plus, the Knight should have more utility to it prior to Lv30. There's nothing in it's kit pre Lv30 that gives it the ability to tank, which it should because if you're a Samurai, you're a tank no matter what level you're at, and you should thus have some native skills that at least let you do your job somewhat compentently (because you're not getting anything from your job prior to 30).

Oh, and Shockwave should just hit everything in a radius around the Knight, just like Arm of the Destroyer or Circle of Scorn. Much easier to hit enemies that way than something that only hits things in a cone directly in front of and behind you.

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Originally Posted by Nahara

ranged initiator.
nothing pre Lv30 that gives it the ability to tank.

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I've seen tanks agro more than they meant to with ranged attacks in the same way that they potentially could with a charge in, though. It would just take some extra attention really.

As for nothing pre-30 for tank I'm not sure what you mean:

6-Parrying rate increase
8-Power Break reduces your targets attack power by 5% (which directly effects tank survivability).
12-Shockwave gains enmity boost for AoE hate conrol
15-Iaia Strike gains enmity boost for combat initiator
18-Armor Break (Extract Power = possible for a consistent 10% damage reduction 40+ via trait at the cost of not utilizing other Breaks in addition, otherwise can be maintained with 5s downtime)
26-Freezebite combo for enmity and MP

But it's whatever. Just let this idea die, please. Call it my "Final Fantasy." I don't have the energy to deal with unnecessary and downright rude/mean remarks and jabs from a certain person(s). No more terrible, "creative" ideas from me. Absolutely done with these forums. :)