New jobs upcoming, new tanks?

[Kitru]

What is everyones fascination with having samurai become a tank!? It has never been anything of the sort in any iteration of Final Fantasy, it must be DPS. SE can easily design new classes/jobs that have never appeared before, but if they are going to use names of jobs from previous games then those jobs should fill the same role.

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

Samurai has 7 major implementations:

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

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

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

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

[Kitru]

Why look at those roles to be a tank (SAM, DRK) and not look at jobs in past FF that are tanks (Rune knight, etc)

90% of the problem is that there *aren't* any real historical examples of tanks in anything except for FFXI because tanks simply didn't exist given the game design. There were the fast melee classes with low defense/hp and the slow melee classes with high defense/hp. The first category generally stays DPS while the second capitalizes on the high defense/hp and become tanks. Hell, Rune Knight has fewer examples than DRK *or* SAM and is incredibly inconsistent (Celes is a straight up generalist that's skewed towards magic use, the Rune Knight in FFT is a boss class that has a variation on the Holy Sword/Dark Sword skillset; the Rune Fencer is a straight up tank).

(tbh I don't think we need any more tank classes)

If you honestly think that the game needs more DPS jobs and no more tank jobs, I seriously have to wonder if you care *at all* about there being any kind of roughly even distribution of roles. As it stands, the class ratio is effectively the same as the intended 8 man composition (1:2:1 or 2:4:2 for composition; 2:5:2 for jobs) and there are *still* an inordinately large number of players going as DPS such that tanks are in exceptionally short supply. Adding more DPS classes will simply skew that even more. If new tank jobs aren't added when they bring in new DPS and healer jobs, the tank population will stagnate and start falling off, creating all kinds of problems.

It's for this exact reason that most people are confident that the devs are going to spend more time adding tanks and healers than DPS. Hell, DPS already has 5 options for the role where tanks and healers only have 2 apiece. It's only when you discretely separate melee and ranged DPS that you get an even distribution of options.

[Gandora]

90% of the problem is that there *aren't* any real historical examples of tanks in anything except for FFXI because tanks simply didn't exist given the game design. There were the fast melee classes with low defense/hp and the slow melee classes with high defense/hp.

No, you're totaly right. FFXI is the game that 1st released Cover... Maybe you did not use it, doesn't mean that it did not exist..

I think I should stop posting...

Yeah you should.. Reading your messages is mentaly exhausting..

[Thunderz]

snip.

The simple fact the class mentioned are popular is because people want them to be DD roles

Tank classes have always been in short demand and its not because we don't have enough of them its because people do not like playing them

Its a community issue and not a dev problem

something you have to live with

[Gardes]

Yeah you should.. Reading your messages is mentaly exhausting..

Post looks fine to me. Is it mentally exhausting because you don't like what he's saying?

[Marxam]

No, just no! DRK is a damage dealing class, it has been since the begining & should stay that way.. remeber that its counterpart is the Paladin which IS a tank.

Also WAR being a tank is already awefull enough.

Cause that's what we need... an already popular class combined with an ever popular job. I would prefer DRK to be dps but I hate to see half the server filled with DRK who fate-trained their way to 50. I just hope they introduce a "hoplite" class (ie one hand spear and large shield). Its a classic game tank and could add variety to the tank selection.

[Kitru]

The simple fact the class mentioned are popular is because people want them to be DD roles

I'm curious where you've found *anything* that substantiates this, much less how you've discovered that this is a fact rather than simply an opinion (much less a "simple" fact). Dark Knight is popular because it's the starter class for an iconic FF character and capitalizes on the incredibly popular anti-hero demographic. Samurai is popular because of the Japanophilia that runs rampant across the target demographic of the game. The popularity of those two jobs has nothing to do with the role and everything to do with the aesthetics/theme of the jobs themselves.

Role will have *some* impact upon how many people play the class but not as much as you think, especially since you seem to think that it's either the *only* reason or even the main reason. Honestly, I expect that, if Dark Knight were a DPS class, it would actually see *less* play than if it were a tank, mainly due to the fact that there are more DPS classes competing with it: there would only be 2 classes competing against it as a tank but 5 as a DPS, not to mention all of the other DPS classes that are inevitably going to be added.

Tank classes have always been in short demand and its not because we don't have enough of them its because people do not like playing them

This is where stuff gets kind of wonky. The devs have to weigh maximizing play of a given class against the effects of said given class drawing play from other classes/roles. Novelty is a major draw when you're adding a class, especially when you're adding a new class to a "class economy" that has already reached its equilibrium. Even if a player was initially reluctant to play a tank, adding a new one will often get that player to at least try it out. As such, adding a new DPS class will skew the distribution of classes towards more DPS and adding a new tank will bring the tank numbers up a bit. Because of this, adding a new DPS class can actually make life harder for people by exacerbating existing population disparity problems *even if the design intent was to just get as many people playing the class as possible*. Since MMOs live and die by community as much as by content, this can actually end up having a detrimental effect. With this in mind, it often behooves the devs to add new tank/healer classes even if those roles are nominally less popular explicitly because adding them brings the population distribution more in line, improving QoL for everyone.

On top of this, the more classes that exist within a given role, the smaller segment of the population of people that play that role are going to play it, especially once equilibrium is reestablished 1-2 months after the new class is introduced: a new tank or healer class would only be competing against 2 existing classes whereas a new DPS would be competing against 5. Another variable that has to be factored in is that, unless the addition of the class is accompanied by a gear reset (or getting up to the current competitive end game gear is relatively easy and quick), equilibrium ends up working against the new class as players default back to their well geared mains when they've finished getting the new class to max level.

As such, just because there are fewer people explicitly asking for new tank classes doesn't mean that there aren't much more compelling reasons for the developers to add new tanks rather than new DPS classes. There are a lot of mitigating factors that have to be considered alongside the whole "there are more DPS players than tank players", most of which suggest that it's actually a *bad* idea to add new DPS classes without at least adding enough tank/healer classes to preserve the previous tank/dps/heal ratio.

[TirionCrey]

@Kitru: I get your arguments and I get your points, but you are using them in a complete "zero gravity" kind of environment. It is a fact that majority of players prefer DD classes over Tanks. It doesn't matter what kind of Tank they are, what kind of playstyle they have. It's the fact that they TANK, that makes them "undesirable" for the majority, cause most people just wanna deal damage. This is not a FF game at first, this is an MMORPG based in an FF universe. None of the FF "rules" or previous installments need to apply to anything here. And in MMORPGs it has always been and always be like this "DD>Tanks~Healers" in terms of how many play them regularly. Given the fact that you can play each and every class on one character in this game makes it even "less" understandable why there are still more DDs than Tanks or Healers, cause you are not bound to the class...but still that's how it is and none of your arguments will change that.

There are many people "trying" to tank when they are new to the game, or new to the whole genre although most of them give up on it after a while, cause it's just not "made for them", but adding a new tanking class won't drive many "current DDs" into playing a Tank class, if any at all. Cause it's not that the "style of tanking" is what people dislike on PLD or WAR right now, it's the fact that they tank. A lot of the Tanks in FFXIV are players who played other MMORPGs before and guess what...there they played a tanking class as well...cause that's what they like and want to play. That's how it is and that's how it works. Adding more tanking classes won't increase the tanking population by much if at all, it will just make already tank playing people, switch to a different tank. I for example...started out as a DRK in XI...then switched to PLD and NIN, cause I prefer tanking over DPS. In WoW I played a Rogue first, then switched to Warrior and later on Death Knight. In White Knight Chronicles I played a Tank right from the get go cause by then I knew that's what I prefer...in FFXIV 1.0 I started out as GLD and switched between GLD/MRD as the content required. In FFXIV 2.0 I play pretty much any class, but first and foremost I play my PLD...cause that's what I like...I like tanking...and it's the same for DDs...except that the majority of people prefer DDs, while I am being kind of an "exception".

PS: There is a simple reason why SE won't implement DRK as a tanking class. Cause it would be based on a "2-handed weapon wielding" class...and that role is already filled by Warrior. A different set of abilities won't give it enough "uniqueness" to be considered a tanking class. Not counting the fact that WAR also covers a lot of the "usual DRK" skill-set, like HP drain abilities. This is also the reason why Berserker will never be a tanking job. Cause it would be based on Marauder...that's the only "reasonable" class to base it on thus making it obvious to become a DD class, cause they won't have 2 jobs filling the same role on one class.

Instead of arguing about FF standards, rules, regulations and the FF universe in general, you would be better off basing your arguments on logic and MMORPG standards, rules and regulations. And the base rule for ANY MMORPG is...if 2 classes feel too much the same or are too similiar to each other...one of them gets scratched before they make it into the game. DRK as a tank would be too close to WAR...hence if/when implemented, it won't be a tanking class. It's not rocket science...it's just logic and common sense.

[Obreck]

It gets tiresome every time a class is suggested as a possible tank role the DD fanatics have to come out and demand "No, no, must be DD/DPS!" Seriously tank players need their variety too, and some classes will have to step up to the role. As its already a given the majority of the classes/jobs will be DD it seem incredibly selfish to hear DD players saying "No ninja must be dps, samurai must be dps, dark knight must be dps...." Those of us that prefer other roles need our options too (and chances are at least 2 of those classes will be DD) so learn to share. Most tank players are not okay still only having PLD/WAR while DD players get handed the lion's share of upcoming jobs.

[Gandora]

Post looks fine to me. Is it mentally exhausting because you don't like what he's saying?

No, its not about me liking or not liking what he says, I just think he's abusing the fact he can post without restriction, and his use of sign everywhere make it very difficult to read for a non english native person.

That is why reading him is mentaly exhausting, bar the fact his argument are worthless because of the lack of logic, I.E make a job using a great sword or a great katana tank, when you see the current unbalance of WAR already.