Tank Fantasy that you want to see in the future

share with us a tank fantasy that you want to see in the future

for me a shape shifter tank similar to Summoner but more defensive

switching between 4 or 5 shapes that that changes job abilities

the job more into magic and tank can heal party


what do you want to see?

I think the current tank fantasy is bad so I'll list vaguely what "Fantasy" I'd want for each tank.

Paladin
I feel like Paladin should be a strong defensive pick with some sustain, with great party utility and magic attacks, which it currently does, Personally I'd like them to lean into their supportive capabilities even more, also adding shield attacks and bringing back a form of a second combo finisher without having the strict DOT timer.

Warrior
I feel like this tank should have a baseline higher HP by 15%, it should have strong mitigations and self healing but it has to choose between those tools in some cases, similar to how shadowbringers warrior worked in a lot of cases, I also don't think warrior should be able to heal party members, but should be able to still mitigate and maybe even intimidate the boss into less damage (a personal reprisal lol)

Dark Knight
Slow regeneration healing life steal tank, some decent sustain that is over time rather then any high bursts, strong party barriers, strong self shielding even maybe ways to "Augment" abilities by using Dark Arts that could change their effectiveness, I also think DRK should have some haste buffs damage wise.

Gunbreaker
Allrounder tank that is high APM, I'd give GNB a passive 5% hp buff (similar to how in PVP its got more hp then PLD/DRK but less then War), It should be good at everything but not be the best in one thing.

If I was to ask for a new tank it would basically be if samurai was a tank, obviously their should be more differences then just that but I think theirs a cool direction that could have been took, you could also add a hammer tank or something, Theirs plenty of directions to take a new tank.

Personally I wanna see Geomancer added as a tank. I think it would actually stand out fairly well by being a tank that has actual spellcasting, or at least visually is a spellcaster.

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Originally Posted by Rithy255

I think the current tank fantasy is bad so I'll list vaguely what "Fantasy" I'd want for each tank.

Paladin
I feel like Paladin should be a strong defensive pick with some sustain, with great party utility and magic attacks, which it currently does, Personally I'd like them to lean into their supportive capabilities even more, also adding shield attacks and bringing back a form of a second combo finisher without having the strict DOT timer.

Warrior
I feel like this tank should have a baseline higher HP by 15%, it should have strong mitigations and self healing but it has to choose between those tools in some cases, similar to how shadowbringers warrior worked in a lot of cases, I also don't think warrior should be able to heal party members, but should be able to still mitigate and maybe even intimidate the boss into less damage (a personal reprisal lol)

Dark Knight
Slow regeneration healing life steal tank, some decent sustain that is over time rather then any high bursts, strong party barriers, strong self shielding even maybe ways to "Augment" abilities by using Dark Arts that could change their effectiveness, I also think DRK should have some haste buffs damage wise.

Gunbreaker
Allrounder tank that is high APM, I'd give GNB a passive 5% hp buff (similar to how in PVP its got more hp then PLD/DRK but less then War), It should be good at everything but not be the best in one thing.

If I was to ask for a new tank it would basically be if samurai was a tank, obviously their should be more differences then just that but I think theirs a cool direction that could have been took, you could also add a hammer tank or something, Theirs plenty of directions to take a new tank.

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to me Gunbreaker doesn't feel like tank, its like they change its skills 2 months before release.

I we are just being bored by swords why not a shape shift druid bruiser like tank?

tanks are so weird right now.. in DPS for example:

we have dps with 15% less damage because of utility they can give to party

but playing tanks feels so weird

all tanks have utility all of them do damage all of them play the same job with different weapon

we don't have:

1- Tank sustain.
2- Tank defense + support
3- Tank drain

to me all of them are Allrounder tanks and plays 80% the same with little variation (but at least not as bad as healers)

Dark Knight in Stormblood was a magnificent juggling act with several different gauges to balance, and it led to an extremely satisfying gameplay loop - blood, HP, MP all interacting in engaging and fun ways.

I would like that back. I am sad that Dark Knight has been Fell Cleave Job #2 for three expansion now.

Broadly, I would also like a return of tanking and DPS stances, as well as enmity being harder to maintain than using 1 AOE combo and being able to stand still and never lose aggro. Between those changes and the fact bosses run to the center of the arena to do their mechanics, it feels like all I am as a tank is a healthbar that gets to make no decisions.

Magitek Knight aka Mecha Pilot
Bring back our Magitek Walker from ARR and repurpose it as a Tank job come on you know you'd never touch another tank job again as you'd actually be in a tank like vehicle, firing missiles, guns, throwing up force fields, all of this is legit canonical stuff the Walker does in previous FF games (FF6), Heal Beams, Fire Beams, Ice Beams, Lightning Beams, X-Zone, Gravity Bombs, the ideas are endless.

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Originally Posted by Rithy255

I think the current tank fantasy is bad so I'll list vaguely what "Fantasy" I'd want for each tank.

Paladin
I feel like Paladin should be a strong defensive pick with some sustain, with great party utility and magic attacks, which it currently does, Personally I'd like them to lean into their supportive capabilities even more, also adding shield attacks and bringing back a form of a second combo finisher without having the strict DOT timer.

Warrior
I feel like this tank should have a baseline higher HP by 15%, it should have strong mitigations and self healing but it has to choose between those tools in some cases, similar to how shadowbringers warrior worked in a lot of cases, I also don't think warrior should be able to heal party members, but should be able to still mitigate and maybe even intimidate the boss into less damage (a personal reprisal lol)

Dark Knight
Slow regeneration healing life steal tank, some decent sustain that is over time rather then any high bursts, strong party barriers, strong self shielding even maybe ways to "Augment" abilities by using Dark Arts that could change their effectiveness, I also think DRK should have some haste buffs damage wise.

Gunbreaker
Allrounder tank that is high APM, I'd give GNB a passive 5% hp buff (similar to how in PVP its got more hp then PLD/DRK but less then War), It should be good at everything but not be the best in one thing.

If I was to ask for a new tank it would basically be if samurai was a tank, obviously their should be more differences then just that but I think theirs a cool direction that could have been took, you could also add a hammer tank or something, Theirs plenty of directions to take a new tank.

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Is that what he was asking about?

Oh in that sense, I just posted in the Warrior Rebalance, that they should be the damage mitigation job, potentially getting it up to 100% mitigation and it then devolving into a game of whack a-mole with your buffs to keep the game going, lol, please look for it in that thread for a full explanation on how it would work and be balanced.

Dark Knight should be kind of what Warrior is now, the endless healing tank, Dark Knights in previous FF games all had the ability to heal themselves near full health if not full health from stealing hp from their enemies, only way to kill them was to deal so much damage in a single hit or before they had a chance to go again they died. This needs to come back, Soul Eater and Abyssal Drain need to be reworked. every combo hit from the DK 3 piece combo needs to steal life and heal the dark knight, Abyssal Drain needs to be the 3 hit in a 3 piece AOE Combo no longer regulated to sharing a recast timer with Carve and Spit, and being its own spell again.It can keep the reset of its current kit, but those 2 changes would fix Dark Knight in my opinion.

I want a tank with a big hammer, long cast and a unconventional core rotation

Warrior - moved to the melee dps role.
There, tanks can finally be balanced and cool in different ways again.

Magic Knight. (Ref FF V/VI)

Class that shifts elemental stances between 4 elements with 2 others (light/dark) being long Cds.
Fire blade = burst damage
Aqua blade = HoTs/MoT
Lighting Blade = Mitigation effects / haste
Quake Blade = Shields

The vision I would have is similar to chant twisting or how DRK used to manage Darkside. Good gameplay giving good results as a advanced playstyle where you wield a sword 1 handed; you use Runic to replenish MP as well as using Aqua blade between damage spikes; then given the option to move between Fire/lightning to increase your damage output but moving to lighting to get some haste buffs or crit buffs and then into fire for the combo's and back again or Quake blade to hunker down for BIG hits. You have Light Blade for a party wide regen effect and a emergency mana top off - Dark Blade for a large hit and possibly a blind effect (using one uses the CD of both).

As for the existing tanks; I want class quests back - I dislike the concept of role quests as it feels like it distances us from the class lore evolving. It seems like the world is "stuck" in Stormblood - since Frey Left; there has been no real sign of how my fellow interesting Dark Knight characters have evolved; nor how being a Dark Knight has effected the WoL despite use seeing how Frey ended up. I want to see that good story-telling continue and will gladly engage those stories over the handful of role quests designed seemingly for the sake of expedience.

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Originally Posted by Ayan_Calvesse

Magic Knight. (Ref FF V/VI)

Class that shifts elemental stances between 4 elements with 2 others (light/dark) being long Cds.
Fire blade = burst damage
Aqua blade = HoTs/MoT
Lighting Blade = Mitigation effects / haste
Quake Blade = Shields

The vision I would have is similar to chant twisting or how DRK used to manage Darkside. Good gameplay giving good results as a advanced playstyle where you wield a sword 1 handed; you use Runic to replenish MP as well as using Aqua blade between damage spikes; then given the option to move between Fire/lightning to increase your damage output but moving to lighting to get some haste buffs or crit buffs and then into fire for the combo's and back again or Quake blade to hunker down for BIG hits. You have Light Blade for a party wide regen effect and a emergency mana top off - Dark Blade for a large hit and possibly a blind effect (using one uses the CD of both).

As for the existing tanks; I want class quests back - I dislike the concept of role quests as it feels like it distances us from the class lore evolving. It seems like the world is "stuck" in Stormblood - since Frey Left; there has been no real sign of how my fellow interesting Dark Knight characters have evolved; nor how being a Dark Knight has effected the WoL despite use seeing how Frey ended up. I want to see that good story-telling continue and will gladly engage those stories over the handful of role quests designed seemingly for the sake of expedience.

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FFXI Rune Fencer?

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Originally Posted by Lorika

FFXI Rune Fencer?

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acceptable

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Originally Posted by GoatOfWar

Warrior - moved to the melee dps role.
There, tanks can finally be balanced and cool in different ways again.

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WAR was capable of tanking or being an all rounder in FFXI as well. DRK is the confusing one. We went from being a cool DPS in FFXI to being a tank with a messy gauge + mana system and TBN which hasn't had an update since it was released (none of the other tank equivalents are tied to a resource w/a CD combined, and the other tanks now have a healing aspect tied to theirs with a barrier and/or reduction in dmg).

DRK needs a rework and no tank would be switched to DPS. Too many people wouldn't be happy.

Enmity management.

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Originally Posted by Morphiana

WAR was capable of tanking or being an all rounder in FFXI as well. DRK is the confusing one. We went from being a cool DPS in FFXI to being a tank with a messy gauge + mana system and TBN which hasn't had an update since it was released (none of the other tank equivalents are tied to a resource w/a CD combined, and the other tanks now have a healing aspect tied to theirs with a barrier and/or reduction in dmg).

DRK needs a rework and no tank would be switched to DPS. Too many people wouldn't be happy.

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Don't compare the two game too much... I mean... Ninja on FFXI....was trasnformed into a Tank by players XD

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Originally Posted by Lorika

Don't compare the two game too much... I mean... Ninja on FFXI....was trasnformed into a Tank by players XD

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Just goes to show how much more flexible and unique XI's system was. XIV can barely do RDM justice and BLU is a glorified Gold Saucer mini game.

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Originally Posted by Ayan_Calvesse

Magic Knight. (Ref FF V/VI)

Class that shifts elemental stances between 4 elements with 2 others (light/dark) being long Cds.

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just copy/paste Gabranth's playstyle in dissidia and call it Magister. It would make for a hell of a tank. I spent a good afternoon envisioning what the job would be like one day during a 24hr maint. TLDR;

-Do your 123 or 124 to get one level of Quickening (up to four at max level)
-Spend Quickening's to gain EX guage
-Higher level Quickenings deal more damage and give more EX gauge
-Use EX gauge to split your blades into dual wield (20 secs at max gauge)
-Gcds and playstyle changes while in EX mode
-Duration varies based on how much gauge you had prior to activation
-No access to Quickening's while in EX mode
-Once EX mode ends, revert back to building EX gauge via Quickening's
-Rinse Repeat

Also its invuln is rendering most attacks to deal only 1 HP. HP cannot drop below 1. It joins WAR and DRK for having a "death negate" as opposed to PLD and GNB which have true invulns.

to me I want to see Lance and Shield job which is more defensive than PLD and do damage with the shield

fantasy: Sun yes take power from the sun to damage with the shield

heavy job like warrior but shield of paladin

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

Just goes to show how much more flexible and unique XI's system was. XIV can barely do RDM justice and BLU is a glorified Gold Saucer mini game.

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The gameplay is quite different, especially battle speed and systems. (FFXI is quite slow and very statics.... It's an old school MMO)

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

Just goes to show how much more flexible and unique XI's system was. XIV can barely do RDM justice and BLU is a glorified Gold Saucer mini game.

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They should hire on the FF11 job designers, because they understood how jobs worked. I don't trust the current job designers to do a Tank like Rune Fencer any justice.

A tank idea that's been rattling around in my head is an interpretation of the artificer class, but as a 'mage' tank that uses a transforming weapon, and gauntlet with a techno-magic aesthetic. Their weapon can transform into various weapons like a bow, a sword, and a cane to suit their needs, and it can also transform into forge hammer so they can forge various other spectral armaments as well.

Squex, I think Yoshida himself, have said directly that they will never make any more healer or tank jobs after Sage because they are apparently too hard to balance and make unique from each other.

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Originally Posted by Wildheaven182

Squex, I think Yoshida himself, have said directly that they will never make any more healer or tank jobs after Sage because they are apparently too hard to balance and make unique from each other.

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It is designer problem not player base

Players always suggest changes but dev refuses to listen

There are room for new tanks but not healers in the current design scheme

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Originally Posted by Tunda

It is designer problem not player base

Players always suggest changes but dev refuses to listen

There are room for new tanks but not healers in the current design scheme

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The design scheme is a problem too. It's arbitrary like the idea of pure and shield healers. It also homogenizes them and prevents originality and creativity to the point where they say they cant make any more.

I’d love a nature themed tank. Lots of vines, leaves, briars, and other plant elements. We don’t have a good druidic class since WHM is mostly lillies, light, and minor elemental themes now. Make it the Green Mage since that was one of the speculations of the DT casters. Give it a mace or hammer or quarterstaff and it’d be cool.

Reaper could have been a very cool tank based on blocking and biding up to big nuke execute attacks.
But that would require creativity.

Beastmaster would also be a very cool tank by proxy, where your pet does the tanking. But the technology to implement pets in video games doesnt exist yet.

I don't recall Yoshida ever saying that there won't be any new Tank or Healer classes, that and he rarely ever says "never" for anything in regards to this game.
So I would require verifiable evidence over hearsay for such a statement.

In terms of potential new tank jobs, I would really prefer if they stuck to building off of an established job that already exists in the franchise such as Mystic Knight, which is what Rune Fencer was basically based off of. Essentially a knight that can empower attacks with elemental aspects, which they can simply expand on to provide other elemental abilities for defensives, buffs, etc. Asides from that, I can't really think of other recurring classic jobs that would easily be classified as a tank. There wasn't exactly a weapon that was really associated with Mystic Knight, maybe just swords in general, so whatever weapon could be used in a FF14 interpretation. Although if I really had to push for a single weapon that I think would be cool to match with the job it'd be some sort of "whip sword" akin to Ivy from the Soul Caliber series.

Alternatively it could be a job that is based more off of a beloved character(s) from the franchise like Gunbreaker was. To me this one is a little tough since so many characters either fall into an existing job or could change jobs as part of the game's mechanics.
Probably the best one would be something based off the "Judges" that appeared in the FF games that took place in Ivalice. However "Judge" just doesn't have a nice ring to it as a job name, so maybe change the name to something other than "Judge" but still essentially the same, like "Arbitrator". This is the job that could use the big warhammers and mauls, because you know giant gavels or whatever.

I think the most likely outcome is going to be a hammer tank. WAR will be the dominant pick for this expansion, and then they'll create a split similar to PCT and BLM. Aesthetically, there are a few directions they could go with this, but a Magitek Engineer inspired design inspired off of Nero and his gunhammer would be a really good pick. It might even be a good excuse to play around with deployable defensives that mitigate damage when placed in line of sight between a player and the target.

The job aesthetic that I would most like to see would be some form of Shapeshifter, especially one that uses partial transformations (i.e. limbs/hair into weapons or shields) like Emeralda from Xenogears. That's essentially what I had originally envisioned for a BLU tank, prior to its announcement for Stormblood.

I think there's probably a better niche for a gish knight on the melee DPS end of things, that would cover the Mystic Knight/Rune Knight/Sword Saint category (and maybe even include a variant of Celes' Runic). There's definitely demand for a more traditional 'knight sword' melee DPS variant that's currently missing in this game, especially if you went the Corvosi Unyielding Blade route with it and add in Orlandeau's classic moveset. You'd just have to find a way to make the weapons visually distinct (which might not be that difficult, given that a surprising number of current FFXIV swords/greatswords have either spikes or cutlass handles for some odd reason). I'd probably save that type of design for whenever we end up going to Corvos, though.