Samurai Tank Speculation

Suppose that the upcoming expansion's new tank job is the samurai, how would you design the job as a tank? What would its tanking style be? What would its base class be? What would its five (or perhaps six?) abilities be. Where would players go to pick up the class? Would you make it a starting class? Or would you put some requirements first?

Make your thoughts known here.

After reading that other thread for a "Ranged tank" (can't do range only, honestly it sounds... stupid to me lol, people say it's done in WoW or some shiz but seriously I can't imagine it being more than kiting and doting on NIN/DRK in XI lol) I thought it'd be somewhat possible to make SAM atleast similar to a "Magical" based tank, so here's my shot.

Samurai
The "Magic" Based Tank, Weapon skills + Buffs draws upon (channeling) the 4 elements: Earth, Wind, Water, Fire (Even though elemental aspects serves no use in this game, it becomes a more of a theme) but with this the weapon skills performed are Magic based instead of Physical.
While still keeping Halone Combo/Riot physical so you can switch between the two whenever
.
When performing weapon skills with certain elements channeling, your weapon will glow that color (SAM would have their own Nexus weapon in which case, the Nuetral glow that it has normally will be the blinding white yellow, under channeled element it changes to that corresponding color)


Base Class: LV30 Gladiator
Sub Class requirement: LV15 Monk
Town you begin quest in: Ul'Dah (cuz gld, mnk I guess I rather Gridania, but LNC/ARC would be a more DPS Focused SAM and not a dedicated Tank)
NPC for Job Skills located @Mor Dhona the center for "Aether flow" sounds acceptable.

Weapon: 1 OR 2 Hand Katana/Nodachi
'Offhand' where 'shield' normally is (which should be changed to offhand that ANY class can have a use for): Wakizashi (Let's make this tank dual wield too, but their Wakizashi's will have lower weapon DMG, higher secondary buffs: Det + Parry)
Armor choice: Obviously wear both heavy or the light leather


**WARNING ALL NUMBERS ARE KIND OF JUST THROWN AROUND, I JUST TRIED TO KEEP IT AS BALANCED LOOKING AS POSSIBLE!**
The Skills:
LV15: Throw Pebbles (Replaces Shield Lob, edited to throw this in after I made everything else, I ran out of ideas by now after writing everything down there sorry lol)
TP 50
Potency 50 inflicts DoT with potency of 10. Increased Enimity (nothing but a ranged pull, doesn't need to do anything special)
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
LV30: Swift Strike (Replaces Shield Swipe, again out of ideas by now, was made AFTER everything else down there)
TP 100
Potency 210
Used after evading an attack (option will be available for 20 seconds), inflicts silence.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
LV30: Third Eye (your 'Foresight' + 'Bulwark' for PLD)
CD: 120 Sec - Lasts: 20 Seconds
Buff: Reduce Crit chance & Crit DMG taken by 10% + Increase Parry 10% (Max. #X)
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
LV35: Flames of Destruction (Like Fists of fire huehuehuehue) does not effect GCD + when used a 'Red Aura' covers the user to indicate the element that is channeling through their body
Unlocks skills (You will have these skills already on hotbar but they will remain unusuable until these elements are channeled, like Monks and their stances)
*Inner Flames - Perma buff until a different stance is used
Increase potency on all weapon skills by 25, user suffers a small DoT while in this stance scaled to 2.5% of their total HP per tick.

*Crimson Lotus - 70 TP (Magic based attack) Animation would totally look lke Tachi: Kasha
Potency 100
Inflicts DoT with potency of 25 per tick, when tick crits it will damage all enemies 10 yalms around target for 75 potency (lasts even after stance is changed)
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
LV40: Heart of Steel
Unlocks skllls:
*Unshakeable Resolve - Perma Buff until stance is changed (chains will encircle user to indicate that earth is being channeled)
Gives user a 'Lightning Rod' stack that absorbs 20% of dmg from enemies abilities/magic attacks, 30% of aoe damage taken from party members at a max of 20 yalms from user are transferred to user for a max of 10 stacks.
Upon reaching 10 stacks an AoE attack wave is released around the user that damages ALL characters within 10 yalms of user, regardless of friend or foe.
User movement is slowed (NOT AS BAD AS HEAVY THOUGH OMGGG, Maybe like when you equip Dusk Gear in FFXI)

*Split Asunder: 80 TP (animation like Circle of Scorn, but its a jump forward slash motion and shockwaves bursting fourth diminishing at the max range)
Inflicts potency 150 on enemies in a cone in front of you (max 15 yalms), targets at the end of the shockwave (max range) are hit with 100 potency and inflicted with heavy, duration 10 seconds.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
LV45: Breath of Life
Unlocks skills:
*Gentle Breeze - Perma buff until stance is changed (cherry blossom petals will encircle the user to show that wind is channeled, like garuda demi primal weapon)
User deflects 10% of damage taken back at enemies, Increased movement speed (only slightly faster than bard song)

* Gale Wings - 90 TP (Your super cool looking Multi Hit weapon skill! like using "Braver" but the first 2 hits have you on the ground, the third is an upward slash into the air followed by a downward slash smashing to the ground before an ecliptic sweep)
Potency: 150
Aoe 10 Yalms frontal cone. Removes 1 buff from enemies hit by skill.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
LV50: Fu Rin Ka Zan - 60 TP *Chains only after an elemental weapon skill (4 slashes, use your imagination cause I've ran out for this one lol)
Potency: 170
Single target.Increases Enminity.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
LV55: Elemental Convergence
single target buff
+100 TP all all party members
Next weapon skill can be of any element.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
LV60: Meditate (Have to put this in I just can't see Samurai without it)
CD: 300 Sec
Single target buff.
Resets Third Eye CD.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Traits:
LV32: Counter! 15% chance to counter attack when user parries an attack
LV36: Meikyo Shisui (Again gotta do it) 20% Chance that after casting a buff or channeling an element the next weapon skill you perform will cost 0TP
LV42: Crimson Explosion - increased potency for DoT ticks to 50 and AoE to 100
LV48: Fault Line - increase range to 20 yalms, heavy duration to 15 seconds.
LV54: Enhance Counter! increase 15% to 30%
LV60: Enhance "Third Eye" % increased to 20% for buffs.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Some clarification:
Why Make Meditate the lv60 skill that resets third eye and not Meikyo Shisui?
Because it makes sense word to action wise.


This job will totally be hot bar heavy.

Thoughts, comments, feedback, etc. etc. if you'd totally play a job like this.

I enjoyed making this because I started it a little after I got to work, its almost time to go now though so thanks OP! :3

hasso seigan? "stances" base class would probubly built as ronin maybe in morhdona

As far as ExHeroKid's version of Samurai goes, I'd expect they'd just come out with a class for it like they came out with Rogue for Ninja. But that's just my guess.

I hope they do get their own class like Samurai (as the class) and Ronin as the actual job, since the other way around would not really make sense... but it would remain the same game play wise so no hurt in a name swap, right?

EDIT: I also want to see Hakama's added and uwagi's! both standard and different renditions even if they are cosmetic...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ExHeroKid

Too long to quote

---

Some of your ideas are interesting, I'm just wondering why you designed a lvl15 skill and some traits, since jobs are level 30 and don't have traits.

For me, I'd like SAM to be a Parry and Counter tank, like the Swordmaster in Bravely Default...which could be the name of its class, so that you could play a new kind of tank right from the beginning.

To sum up, I imagine several combos (used to gain enmity) and each finisher gives you a short buff (6 seconds max).
Each buff would greatly reduce the damage of one type of attack (Auto-attack, Physical skill, Spell, etc...) and performs a powerful counter.

A tank like this would require a lot of skill to play properly, but could dish far more damage than actual tanks with the good timing. It would have no natural damage mitigation CD (Apart from cross-class skills), and would rely on its "finishing buffs" to survive incoming hits.

I want a warrior to be a damage dealer, samurai too.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ojikuh

I want a warrior to be a damage dealer, samurai too.

---

same, and then make dragoon a tank and give warrior b4b while givng drg a non fatal buff, add in some tank buttons and presto

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ojikuh

I want a warrior to be a damage dealer, samurai too.

---

Too many DPS in the game as is... The game needs more tanks and healers to even out the field. I like playing Tanks and Healers but unfortunately there are only two of each kind, while we have five, soon to be six DPS roles...

Dragoon attacks and chains are a bit slow to be tank-ish and I don't agree with them role swapping a dragoon to tank and warrior to DPS. I'm hoping DRK & SAM are both tanks tbqh and PRAY Dancer and Time Mage are healers

I love the Bravely Default Swordmaster, it's great inspiration. And I like active tanking, which the War does to some extent, being expanded with the class. But I'm not too keen on a tank that doesn't normalize to War/Paladin's without-cooldowns healing required. That is, per point of damage taken, both war and paly require roughly the same number of spells cast on them if no extra mitigation skills are used. Samurai should be similar.
Further it should have synergy with adding strength like the Warrior does (and IMO paly should too or receive other benefits [some may argue it does already], but this is for a different thread).

My vision of Samurai is that the tank stance adds countering at some base rate with the mitigation and return damage based on strength, a 10% overall damage reduction and a parry buff. All in all the idea is that it should add up to the 20% extra mitigation over a fight (but it will have a randomized element, making it less dependable than the paly's shield oath). That 20% would not include "extra" parry stat from gear, as the other tanks stances don't either.
Tank-stance DPS actually higher than War, mostly because counters add up, at the cost of dps when not actively tanking.
I see the basics for of like this:
Regular old enmity combo - this has the added effect of booting counter damage.
Second combo which builds stacks up to 4. These add to counter rate and may be consumed, two at a time, for:
A mini-inner beast, no healing, just 10% reduction and boosted counter rate.
"counter all the things" cooldown
partial evasion cooldown.
emergency can't die kind of thing
its own provoke
Pulling from Marauder and lancer as cross-class.

The idea is that even though it's 20% is semi random you can do a lot of things to protect yourself when it really counts, without relying much on actual cooldowns.

Marauder could pretty readily split into a second DPS job - stance/trait to remove enmity bonus, 4 more skills, give it lancer for b4b and invigorate.
Sure it has a ton of cooldowns, but you've potentially created quite the offtank then.

I designed the Lv15 skills because a Samurai wouldn't use a shield, so with my "Offhand" idea of a wakizashi, Samurai's LV15 Shield Lob/Shield Swipe is replaced.

Thanks for feedback though! :3

A tank with lots of skill mechanics sounds fun to me, I main PLD but like WAR tank skills better because it makes me feel more involved, so I tried to do that with my version of SAM.

When I picture Samurai tanking, I picture someone who waits for an opening (like a dodge or parry) to counterattack as needed.
The Domans have easily introduced us to enough justification for a far-east class like Ronin to start the journey towards the Samurai job. Ronin could pull a Gladiator and allow light enmity control with a basic 1-2(-3?) enmity control combo and a few on-GCD counterattacks that couple damage and enmity alongside.. cleave? blind? resistance drop? stat drop? Upgrading to Samurai seems like it would take it a step further with a proper tanking stance, some off-GCD counter skills, and whatnot.