Samurai Skills and Concepts (Up to lv 40)

[Duelle]

The OP's design is a little too stance-heavy. That and basing your model on enmity is not solid, IMO. Anyway, as per my time-honored tradition:

Mercenary/刀術士

Sellswords. Cutthroats. Mercenaries. These are the words used to describe trained warriors that hold loyalty only to the weight of their purses. Despite bearing a negative stigma, the effectiveness of trained mercenaries cannot be questioned, as they have proven to be as capable as members of all adventurers' guilds in tasks that require witts and combat skill.

Remaining distant from their adventurer brethren, mercenaries train using foreign weapons forged in the far east. From great katana to the smaller combination of one-handed katana and wakizashi, they hone their art for the safety of their benefactors and the ensurance of payment.

Concept: Tank class that focuses on parrying while having flexible combos.

Mechanics: Unlike other melee fighters, Mercenaries do not have combo restrictions, but attacks are separated in the categories of Opener, Bridge, and Closer. Bridges and Closers cannot be used out of order.

Weapons: Mercenaries can equip great katana and daisho (katana+wakizashi)

Abilities
01 Cut (切) - Opener. Delivers an attack with a potency of 100.
02 Third Eye - Parry all incoming attacks for 15 seconds. 3 minute cooldown
04 Demon Cut (鬼切) - Bridge. Delivers an attack with a potency of 120. Increased Enmity
06 Resolve - Reduces the effect and duration of status ailments and damage over time effects on you. 4 minute cooldown.
08 Dragon Fang (牙竜) - Opener. Delivers an attack with a potency of 100 to all enemies directly in front of you. Increased enmity.
10 Boost - Increases the attack power of the next two weapon skills by 50/25%. 2 minute cooldown.
12 Break (ブレイク) - Delivers an attack with a potency of 100. Reduces the physical damage target deals to you by 10% for 15 seconds. 90 second cooldown.
15 Iron Flash (斬鉄閃) - Delivers an attack with a potency of 130. Increased enmity. 15-yalm range.
18 Shooting Star (流星) - Delivers an attack with a potency of 50. Knocks target back. 45 second cooldown.
22 Challenge - Forces the target to attack you for the next 6 seconds. 25 second cooldown.
26 Counterstance - Instantly counter melee attacks. 10 second duration. 5 minute cooldown.
30 Turning Swallow (燕返し) - Closer. Delivers an attack with a potency of 270. Increased enmity.
34 Hold the Line - Reduces damage taken by 15%. 10 second duration. 2 minute cooldown.
38 Tornado (陣風) - Bridge. Delivers an attack with a potency of 120 to all enemies within 5 yalms. Increased enmity.
42 Heart of the Sword - Allows the use of one Bridge or a Closer, regardless of whether an Opener has be used. 2 minute cooldown.
46 Brace - Reduces damage from incoming attacks by an amount determined by your defense and magic defense values. 5 Charges. 1 minute duration. 2 minute cooldown.
50 Nine Dragons (九頭竜閃) - Closer. Delivers an attack with a potency of 30. Places a damage over time effect that grows stronger over 24 seconds.

Traits
08 Enhanced Vitality
14 Enhanced Third Eye - Doubles mitigation from parries while Third Eye is active.
16 Enhanced Strength
20 True Dragon Fang - Dragon Fang causes the next Bridge-type weapon skill to deal additional fire damage with a potency of 50.
24 Enhanced Vitality II
28 Full Break - Break now also reduces magic damage dealt to you by target.
32 True Demon Cut - Demon Cut now increases your parry chance by 20% for 9 seconds.
36 Enhanced Shooting Star - Shooting Star now also places a 50% Weight effect on the target for 10 seconds.
40 Enhanced Boost - Boost now increases the attack power of three weapons skills by 75/50/25%.
44 Enhanced Counterstance - Reduces the cooldown of Counterstance to 3 minutes.
48 Immovable - Extends Hold the Line's duration to 20 seconds.

(suggested) Achievements
Blade and Soul I-V

Notes
- Just to get it out there, potency numbers and cooldowns are negotiable.
- As a reminder, unless otherwise noted parries equate to damage reduction rather than negating damage as in older MMORPGs.
- MRC must use skills in the strict order of Opener => Bridge => Closer. This rule also applies to SAM.
- MRC's tank model is more centered around parry mitigation with a couple of cooldowns it can use in a tight spot.
- Resolve is designed exactly as written. If a paralyze effect has a 30-second duration, MRC using Resolve will reduce the chances of paralyze proccing by half and reduce its duration to 15 seconds. The same goes for any future death sentence-type effects as well as things like Allagan Rot, making the effects end faster. This may be seen as something of a double edged sword unless you know exactly when to use it.
- Brace is based on the WoW DK cooldown Bone Shield, and much like it does not affect DoT effects, AoEs or damage auras. Where Brace deviates mechanically from Bone Shield is that Brace charges are not spent whenever a parry or dodge proc. Think of it more as an insurance policy for reduced damage whenever you fail a parry/dodge check.
- Brace damage mitigation caps at 35% and is calculated based on player level as well as their defense and magic defense values. It's defensive bonus also stacks with that of Hold the Line.
- Nine Dragons is designed to simulate each additional "dragon" (in this case, subsequent DoT ticks after the attack is used) joining in after the effect is applied. Starting potency would be 30 and the tick potency when the 9th dragon joins (the tick that takes place on the 24th second of the effect) should be something like 210 potency.
- Counterstance is a way to get some extra damage out, and is most effective when surrounded by mobs. Unlike FFXI where Counterstance prevented damage, you are still taking damage while Counterstance is up (this is why I did not suggest the "reduce defense to 0" part)

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Samurai/侍

Upholding personal and family honor, the far eastern warriors known as samurai once composed the armies of many a feudal lord. Their peerless courage and skill in combat earned them the awe and respect of both commoner and noble alike. It was this dedication to protecting and serving that led to their rise to greatness.

When a prominent clan betrayed their leige and made into the night with the treasures of the shogunate, a stigma befell these warriors that would not fade with time. As more lords stopped supporting them in favor of other means of defense, many samurai clans were forced to go underground and adopt new ways of life. Some say that to this day the clans are quietly training heirs to a legacy of protecting the weak, even when they have no one to protect. Others claim that the way of the samurai died long ago and will never return.

Mechanics: Building on MRC's focus on parries, SAM focuses on parries while gaining Counter whenever a parry procs. Counter increases the damage of the next Opener/Bridge/Closer by 10% and allows the use of three attacks. Using any Opener/Bridge/Closer, Ageha, Kouki or Midare Setsugekka consumes Counter.

Support Classes: GLA (Convalescence, Savage Blade, Awareness) PGL (Featherfoot, Haymaker, Second Wind)

30 Seigan (正眼) - Decreases damage dealt and damage taken by 10% while increasing enmity. Parrying attacks while Seigan is active grants Counter.
35 Ageha (鳳蝶) - Requires Counter. Delivers an attack with a potency of 100. Decreases target's resistance to slashing attacks by 10% for 20 seconds.
40 Kouki (光輝) - Requires Counter. Delivers an attack with a potency of 100. Additional Effect: Pacification for 4 seconds.
45 Midare Setsugekka (乱れ雪月花) - Requires Counter. Delivers an attack with a potency of 250. 30 second cooldown.
50 Meikyou Shisui (明鏡止水) - Perfectly parry all incoming attacks. 10 second duration. 7 minute cooldown.

(suggested) Quests
30 Legacy of Honor
35 To Protect and Serve
40 Dual Fates
45 In Memory Of...
50 Muramasa
50 A Relic Reborn: Masamune

(suggested) Achievements
Strength of a thousand men - Complete the samurai job quest Muramasa
Like, mind over matter - Acquire Masamune in the quest A Relic Reborn

Notes
- Not mentioned in the design, but SAM would favor great katana.
- Seigan introduces the Counter mechanic while also providing some passive mitigation for SAM.
- Counter allows the use of Ageha, Kouki and Midare Setsugekka. Ageha brings in a debuff that SAM would be encouraged to keep on the mob as much as possible. Kouki is utility in the form of Pacification. Midare Setsugekka is on-demand damage and would be inserted into the rotation whenever possible (much like PLDs do with Spirits Within in situations where an interrupt isn't required). Ageha, Koki and Midare are off the GCD and do not break combo chains.
- Attacks parried while Meikyou Shisui is active deal no damage (hence "perfect parry").
- Opinion: I don't have a full story drafted, but what I would want the SAM story to focus on is the player character's encounters with a fallen Samurai wielding the blood-thirsty blade Muramasa, building it up and culminating in a fight to the death against them. Since we have vanity slots on the way, I'd also want Muramasa to have a unique model and be an equipable reward for clearing the SAM questline. Maybe a "sealed Muramasa" or something.
- You get a cookie if you can guess where I got the SAM achievements from.

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Yojinbo/用心棒

Concept: Not finalized, but going for DPS job focused on chaining abilities.

Mechanics:

Abilities

(suggested) Quests
50 A Relic Reborn: Ama no murakumo & Ito

(suggested) Achievements

Notes

[Kitru]

Anyway, as per my time-honored tradition:

And as per mine...

Mechanics: Unlike other melee fighters, Mercenaries do not have combo restrictions, but attacks are separated in the categories of Opener, Bridge, and Closer. As long as the attack is used in the proper order, additional effects will proc.

It's basically identical to the MNK/PGL system. The only difference would be if abilities that aren't labelled as such break the combo, which would need to be clarified. Even with your Yojinbo changes, it wouldn't be all that different because all it would be doing is adding the equivalent of "third form and second form bonus" to the second form attacks.

Openers grant stacks of Focus, which reduces the GCD between abilities by .5 second, and each ability used consumes one stack of focus. Using an opener while having stacks of Focus does not grant additional Focus. If used outside of order, baseline potency for all attacks is 75 and no additional effects will proc.

Few problems with this. First off, Focus shouldn't reduce GCD by a flat amount. All effects like that should be a percent reduction in attack speed. As such, it would be more appropriate to say that Focus increases attack speed by 20% (keep in mind, that's a 25% increase to DPS). Second, it's pretty arbitrary given that you're having Iron Flash provide 2 stacks and Strike provide 5 stacks (I'm assuming that Enhanced Strike was meant to refer to Strike instead of Cut) so that you're basically going to have it up at all times (5 stacks means that you have the full combo plus 2 non-combo attacks). There's not really a reason to keep it as stacks. Of course, because it's triggered by everything that *starts* combos, it's basically a 20% increase in attack speed that you get automatically since there's no reason to ever *not* start with it.

It doesn't really add anything because it would basically be up at all times and be generated no matter what you do. You would maintain it without ever thinking about it and it doesn't even impact tactical decision making because it's based off of the attack that everything else is built off of (unlike Maim, which preempts the use of the high enmity skills).

A couple random points in general: you're not using the levels that every other class gets their given abilities and you're 1 ability short from the 17 minimum that every other class gets (ACN gets 18 and is the only deviation because it's providing their pet). It's not a balance concern, nor is it impossible to implement, but it's a deviation from what has been adhered to religiously.

02 Third Eye - Attempt to parry all incoming attacks for 12 seconds. 3 minute cooldown
14 Enhanced Third Eye - Doubles Third Eye's duration and mitigation from parries while Third Eye is active.

I'm not entirely sure what was intended here because your wording is vague and roundabout.

Parries are already attempted on all physical attacks so saying "attempt to parry all incoming attacks" is really just a fancy and roundabout way of saying "allows you to parry magical attacks", which is less useful than one might think, given that there are already magic attacks that can be parried (magical auto-attacks such as those used by sprites). In addition, because it's an RNG mechanism, it doesn't actually afford much in the way of predictable performance, which is what you would want out of something intended to be used on the big bursts that you cannot currently parry.

If it was intended for this to be a bonus to parry chance, it needs to be listed. Furthermore, it shouldn't be a percent increase to the existing chance but rather a flat increase, such as provided by Bulwark, else it becomes worthless at low levels and hugely overpowered at high levels.

Also, the other level 2 CDs that the tanks gets are 2 minute-trait-down-to-90 secs tank CDs. You should probably be providing Brace at this level instead.

08 Brace - Reduces damage taken by the next 2 attacks by 30%. 20 second duration. 2 minute cooldown.

40 Unbreakable - Brace now reduces damage taken by the next 4 attacks.

Tank CDs wouldn't work out well like this because 2 attacks happen almost instantly. You'd have to activate it less than a second before a lot of big attacks or else waste it, for all intents and purposes. It works for BLM because they're not *supposed* to be getting attacked all the time. If you want something that only mitigates a small number of attacks, just make it an absorb shield. If you want it to be damage reduction, just make it apply to all attacks over the given duration.

Also, even if it *were* supposed to be stack based, 2 attacks every 2 minutes is a complete and utter joke. Assuming 1 attack per GCD, you're talking about 1.25% mitigation over time from what is supposed to be the equivalent of Foresight (~1.67%) and Rampart (3.33%). When it's weak compared to *Foresight*, you know you screwed something up bad. When you finally get Enhanced Brace after 32 levels, it starts actually being able to compete with Foresight against single target (but only really competes against Foresight because it's still really weak), but it's still weak compared to pretty much everything else out there (and functionally worthless in any situation in which you're tanking multiple enemies).

You're providing a second tank CD at level 8, when, honestly, tank CDs are needed the least. Should probably provide the damage CD that you forgot to implement at this level because it would be much more useful.

12 Dragon Fang (牙竜) - Bridge. Delivers an attack with a potency of 100 to all enemies directly in front of you. Increased enmity.

20 True Dragon Fang - Dragon Fang now affects all targets within 10 yalms.

38 Tornado (陣風) - Closer. Delivers an area attack with a potency of 200. Increased enmity. 45 second cooldown.

48 True Tornado - Tornado's cooldown is reduced to 30 seconds.

These are the only AoEs that Mercenary gets, and they're both combo based. It's bad explicitly bad design since you're forcing the player to use the combo as opposed to allowing them to choose between AoE spamming and using a more efficient methodology (which is what happens in every other case of AoEs being tied to combos). It's even worse because, unlike DRG, tanks actually *need* to use AoE as part of their fundamental role.

For Dragon Flash, the effect of Focus has it doing the equivalent of 125 potency damage and you're having it apply in 360*. You started it off as Overpower and then buffed the living hell out of it, especially since you're giving it nearly 3 times the area of effect compared to Flash and roughly 9 times that of Overpower.

As to Tornado, you're putting a t3 combo attack on a 45 second CD. That's terrible. Have it be one or the other. If it's a t3, you seriously need to reign in that damage because, with the 25% increase in effect DPS from Focus, you're providing an AoE that hits nearly as hard as Steel Cyclone and can be used more often. Even as a CD, it hits harder than it should given that Steel Cyclone precludes the use of other attacks to justify its potency.

22 Cut (切) - Bridge. Delivers an attack with a potency of 160. Increases damage dealt by 10% for 20 seconds.

You just copied Maim. It's something of a recurring theme that you didn't really do anything new, but just copied what another class did with a minor deviation.

26 Challenge - Forces the target to attack you for the next 6 seconds. 15 second cooldown.

I would be very surprised if the devs implemented this given that they didn't have Provoke do this when they could quite easily have done so.

34 Deflect - Deflect one enemy attack, decreasing damage taken by 50%. 10-second duration. 3-minute cooldown.

44 Enhanced Deflect - Increases damage reduction to 75%.

As with Brace, mitigation for a limited number of attacks is a horrible idea for a tank. Even worse, a single attack at 50% every 3 minutes is even worse than Brace. Even at 75%, it means next to nothing because it's a single attack.

40 Counterstance - Grants a 25% chance to counter attack when taking direct melee damage. 30 second duration. 2 minute cooldown.

"Counter attack" means absolutely nothing. If you meant dealing damage from getting attacked, you just copied Vengeance and you still forgot to include the potency. A *chance* to do so is also relatively worthless, even with a longer duration, because it's a CD. CDs should have predictable effects; it's why Featherfoot and Internal Release aren't considered absolutely amazing but Life Surge is afforded a decent level of respect.

44 Resolve - Breaks any snare or root effects on you and makes you impervious to root and snare effects for 10 seconds. 90 second cooldown.

Tempered Will on a lower CD.

48 Nine Dragons (九頭竜閃) - Closer. Delivers a nine-fold attack with a potency of 210. Reduces the target's STR, DEX, INT and MND by 10% for 10 seconds. 2 minute cooldown.

Combo attacks with CDs are bad ideas. At 2 minutes, the damage is a joke and the effect is mediocre at best, especially given that all you did was copy Virus.

50 Heart of the Sword - Instantly gain 3 stacks of Focus. Allows you to use any attack with their additional effects regardless of being Opener, Bridge, or Closer. 10 second duration. 5 minute cooldown.

It's just Perfect Balance.

- Focus is only obtained by the two Openers available, Strike and Iron Flash while the Merc has no Focus stacks.

You don't have Iron Flash labelled as an Opener so it simply provides Focus stacks. You would still have to follow it up with Strike, generating 5 stacks of Focus and rendering the second stack provided by Iron Flash redundant, in order to use any of your combo attacks (of which only one other attack, Shooting Star, *isn't*).

- The idea behind the loose combo restrictions is that the player has to think on their feet depending on what they need to get done. If you open with Strike and want bridge into high enmity, you're going to follow it with Demon Cut. If you're looking to buff yourself, you're going to use Cut instead. You could do something like Strike => Cut => Turning Swallow and still get favorable results since you're closing with an increased enmity skill.

The problem is that it's not a lose structure. Your only Opener is Strike and 2 of the 3 Closers are on CDs. Even if you removed the CDs, all you'd be doing is mimicking WAR: Strike>Cut>Nine Dragons is SP and Strike>Demon Cut>Turning Swallow is BB. Since Cut lasts 20 seconds (which is just over 3 combo cycles), it even copies the WAR rotation pretty much explicitly.

- Merc's tank model is more centered around parry mitigation with a couple of trump cards it can use in a tight spot.

They're not trump cards because they're CDs so weak that they're almost laughable.

30 Seigan - Decreases damage dealt and damage taken by 20%. Increases parry chance by 10% of STR.

Broken as hell. You copied Shield Oath (since, as a tank stance, it's supposed to have an enmity increase on it that you forgot) and then, on top of that, provided a parry buff that's nigh upon ludicrous. I can understand the desire to have it scale with Strength, but doing so just makes Strength provide more parry chance than parry rating, which is just saying "ignore everything but Strength", which is a bad idea for a tank class. Furthermore, it's another one of those cases of "worthless at low levels and absurdly overpowered at high levels". In full i90 gear, a tank is going to have roughly 360 STR. In i50 gear, 200 or so (I think, haven't checked). If you want it to increase parry chance, just have it increase it by a flat amount. Buffs and stances should not scale based upon gear because it just creates an exponential growth issue (gear *already* improves performance; you'd be having it improve performance *even more*). Also, you'd need to fix the living hell out of the damage dealt/taken reductions: you're providing a 10% increase in damage dealt, which WAR gets, and, as such, you need to reduce damage via the stance by more to compensate.

35 Mimamoru - Parry attacks aimed at nearby allies. 10 second duration.

No CD, but I'm guessing it's supposed to be something like 3 minutes. You also don't give a range, which would be needed (6y v. 10y could change a lot). Since it's RNG based, it's not very useful, especially since Parry is a mechanic that only contributes appreciably over longer periods of time and you're only affording it 10 seconds. Also, AoEs tend to either be unable to be parried (e.g. magic) or single instance. Either way, it wouldn't actually do much. Would probably be better to just have it provide damage reduction to all allies within a given range for the duration. Make it 20% to "match" parry rating.

40 Enpi - Bridge. Delivers an attack with a potency of 150. Decreases target's resistance to slashing attacks for 20 seconds.

Now you can choose between a 10% personal damage increase and an 11% increase to all tank damage. Not really all that impressive and, once again, basically copying WAR.

50 Meikyou Shisui - Counter attack the next 5 attacks and reduce damage taken from area attacks by 60%. 15 second duration. 7 minute cooldown.

Reducing damage from area attacks means next to nothing and you, once again, didn't define "counter attack", which means next to nothing. Stack limitations on mitigation are still apt.

- Seigan is a basic tank stance. I wanted to give it a built-in counter attack mechanic but I felt that would be overpowered when comparing damage output between SAM, WAR and PLD.

It wouldn't been more interesting than what you afforded it with your given stance. I'm not sure why you thought it would be overpowered since all you'd have to do would be have the stance provide a more stringest damage reduction modifier to compensate.

- The 5 attacks that can be guaranteed counters while under the effect of Meikyou Shisui fully negate the damage. The 60% damage reduction is there to compensate for SAM not having an real invincibility.

"Counter attack" has never meant "take no damage" in the annals of the FF series so I'm not sure where you're getting that from. It also makes next to no sense since a counter attack is an attack in response to an attack.

Another point, all melee DoW have access to a stun and some other form of CC or utility as well. You have provided neither. The closest you get is Heavy and KB on the same attack, neither of which are especially useful to melee.

Yojinbo/用心棒

I have *always* seen the term translated as "Yojimbo" and that's also how the FF series has translated the term historically.

Mechanics: Equipping the Yojinbo crystal causes Dragon Fang to place a dot on all enemies affected that lasts 12 seconds

You need to define that DoT because just saying it's there and how long it lasts means next to nothing without potency.

35 Hobaku - Stuns target for 6 seconds. 20 second cooldown.

Assuming it's supposed to be off-GCD like all of the other stuns, Brutal Swing is 5 seconds, Steel Peak is 4 seconds, an Leg Sweep is 3 seconds. Tanks are supposed to have better stunning capabilities, based upon what we've seen currently, and you're providing the strongest stun in the game to a DPS class.

40 Satsujin - Delivers an attack with a potency of 200. Can only be used on targets with 20% or less HP. 45 second cooldown.

So they get a second Mercy Stroke?

- The design doesn't say this, but Yojinbo favors daisho (katana+wakizashi). I'd expect the katana and wakizashi to come as a set (thus not requiring anything in the offhand slot)

I find it rather strange that you provided the weapon set that favors parry and counter-attacking to the DPS and the one that emphasizes strong direct attacks to the tank. It makes *way* more sense for it to be the other way around. You don't really provide a reason for the two weapon types to be there either. They would be mechanically identical but require twice as many animations to be made, which is a really bad idea, given that the problem with adding classes is the additional workload. It's entirely arbitrary, from a design standpoint, and adds nothing to the actual play. It's not as if the same type of weapon can't have different stat allocations: just look at the ACN/SMN/SCH books.

[Duelle]

It's basically identical to the MNK/PGL system.

This was intended. The devs used the concept of martial arts kata that can flow into different attacks with PGL/MNK, and I think a similar idea would fit Merc/SAM/Yojinbo.

The only difference would be if abilities that aren't labelled as such break the combo, which would need to be clarified. Even with your Yojinbo changes, it wouldn't be all that different because all it would be doing is adding the equivalent of "third form and second form bonus" to the second form attacks.

I looked at this more in context of Merc compared to GLA and MRD rather than Merc vs PGL. The former is a tank, the latter is DPS through and through. That said, I'm not prone to attacks of unique snowflake-ism, and instead look for things that work and try to give them a slightly different spin.

Few problems with this. First off, Focus shouldn't reduce GCD by a flat amount. All effects like that should be a percent reduction in attack speed.

If you make it a percentage all that makes it is subject to getting messed with via Skill Speed. I just feel a flat amount with reduced potency per attack would keep it close enough to WAR and PLD that it doesn't take over the tanking game. The again, the fact that tank gear doesn't have a ton of skill speed gear and light DPS gear like PGL's does may be able to come into play and keep things balanced, with SAM using the former and Yojinbo using the latter.

Second, it's pretty arbitrary given that you're having Iron Flash provide 2 stacks and Strike provide 5 stacks (I'm assuming that Enhanced Strike was meant to refer to Strike instead of Cut) so that you're basically going to have it up at all times (5 stacks means that you have the full combo plus 2 non-combo attacks).

This is intended as well.

I'm not entirely sure what was intended here because your wording is vague and roundabout.

Fancy way of increasing parry chance. I couldn't decide on a number, and looking ahead I was thinking LNC should be one of SAM's subclases. I could make it 100% parry chance for the duration (would work similarly to Rampart).

Tank CDs wouldn't work out well like this because 2 attacks happen almost instantly. You'd have to activate it less than a second before a lot of big attacks or else waste it, for all intents and purposes.

Brace is more for things like Mountain Buster, admitedly. I can recognize that it wouldn't be useful if you're getting beat on by multiple enemies, though.

These are the only AoEs that Mercenary gets, and they're both combo based. It's bad explicitly bad design since you're forcing the player to use the combo as opposed to allowing them to choose between AoE spamming and using a more efficient methodology (which is what happens in every other case of AoEs being tied to combos).

I disagree here. The idea was opening with Strike or Iron Flash, and with the reduced GCD quickly go into Dragon Fang => Tornado if you need AoE. Merc would have access to Flash from GLA, so at low levels you could suplement with that.

For Dragon Fang, the effect of Focus has it doing the equivalent of 125 potency damage and you're having it apply in 360*. You started it off as Overpower and then buffed the living hell out of it, especially since you're giving it nearly 3 times the area of effect compared to Flash and roughly 9 times that of Overpower.

I guess I wasn't paying attention to Flash's tooltip. I'll have to look at that and adjust it.

You just copied Maim. It's something of a recurring theme that you didn't really do anything new, but just copied what another class did with a minor deviation.

This is intended. Granted, Cut resolves my pet peeve with Maim because Maim doesn't flow into aggro generation at all (which sucks horribly when DPS don't realize that to maximize threat you HAVE to get Maim up), whereas Merc's combo system's version of it would flow because if I wanted to I could bridge with Cut and close with Turning Swallow and still get some added enmity out of the deal.

I would be very surprised if the devs implemented this given that they didn't have Provoke do this when they could quite easily have done so.

The undertone of this part of my suggestion is "change Provoke to match this ability". The way it is currently designed makes tank swaps needlessly difficult.

As with Brace, mitigation for a limited number of attacks is a horrible idea for a tank. Even worse, a single attack at 50% every 3 minutes is even worse than Brace. Even at 75%, it means next to nothing because it's a single attack.

Again, I'm thinking of it being used for stuff like Mountain Buster or very high damage attacks. I guess it could be turned into a regular mitigation CD (45% damage reduction for 8 seconds or something).

Tempered Will on a lower CD.

Tempered Will prevents knockbacks, whereas this doesn't.

Combo attacks with CDs are bad ideas. At 2 minutes, the damage is a joke and the effect is mediocre at best, especially given that all you did was copy Virus.

The bread and butter of Merc and SAM is supposed to be Strike => Bridge => Turning Swallow. Read my notes on Nine Dragons, by the way.

It's just Perfect Balance.

I didn't realize this until after I finished typing up Merc. Much like with PGL, a system with restrictions like Merc's could use a CD that temporarily lifts the restrictions.

You don't have Iron Flash labelled as an Opener

Read the traits, please.

The problem is that it's not a lose structure. Your only Opener is Strike and 2 of the 3 Closers are on CDs. Even if you removed the CDs, all you'd be doing is mimicking WAR: Strike>Cut>Nine Dragons is SP and Strike>Demon Cut>Turning Swallow is BB. Since Cut lasts 20 seconds (which is just over 3 combo cycles), it even copies the WAR rotation pretty much explicitly.

I guess I could have called it free-flow instead.

They're not trump cards because they're CDs so weak that they're almost laughable.

I was admitedly conservative with the numbers.

Broken as hell. You copied Shield Oath (since, as a tank stance, it's supposed to have an enmity increase on it that you forgot) and then, on top of that, provided a parry buff that's nigh upon ludicrous. I can understand the desire to have it scale with Strength, but doing so just makes Strength provide more parry chance than parry rating, which is just saying "ignore everything but Strength", which is a bad idea for a tank class.

Lack of +enmity was a typo, which I'll fix. The parry buff is taking into account the fact that you don't have shield blocks at all to help mitigate incoming damage. Parry rating in its current incarnation is pretty terrible because of the fact that it tiers rather than gradually increasing parry chance defined by the different between player level and mob level. The alternatives would be fixing parry in a discernable way (which given the comment by the devs about not wanting to have ratings translate to percentages, is not likely to happen) or having Seigan increase the amount of benefit SAM gets from parry rating. PLD has a parry+shield, WAR has active mitigation and self heals, SAM should have better/stronger parries.

Reducing damage from area attacks means next to nothing

You've never been in a situation where stray AoE can get you killed. You can chalk it up to bad healers, but again, it's there to make up for SAM having no invincibility.

"Counter attack" has never meant "take no damage" in the annals of the FF series so I'm not sure where you're getting that from.

Final Fantasy XI.

Another point, all melee DoW have access to a stun and some other form of CC or utility as well. You have provided neither. The closest you get is Heavy and KB on the same attack, neither of which are especially useful to melee.

This is more due to me not wanting utility shared by both SAM and Yojinbo. Nine Dragons kind of falls into that category, but as I said that's in an iffy spot.

I have *always* seen the term translated as "Yojimbo" and that's also how the FF series has translated the term historically.

I write it exactly as it is written. Kind of like how senpai/先輩 is sometimes romanized as sempai. I stick to the former.

Assuming it's supposed to be off-GCD like all of the other stuns, Brutal Swing is 5 seconds, Steel Peak is 4 seconds, an Leg Sweep is 3 seconds. Tanks are supposed to have better stunning capabilities, based upon what we've seen currently, and you're providing the strongest stun in the game to a DPS class.

You wanted stuns and utility. There you go. >.>

So they get a second Mercy Stroke?

MRD shouldn't have a monopoly on Execute-type attacks. I also never said anything about Yojinbo getting access to MRD abilities.

I find it rather strange that you provided the weapon set that favors parry and counter-attacking to the DPS and the one that emphasizes strong direct attacks to the tank. It makes *way* more sense for it to be the other way around. You don't really provide a reason for the two weapon types to be there either. They would be mechanically identical but require twice as many animations to be made, which is a really bad idea, given that the problem with adding classes is the additional workload. It's entirely arbitrary, from a design standpoint, and adds nothing to the actual play. It's not as if the same type of weapon can't have different stat allocations: just look at the ACN/SMN/SCH books.

This isn't so much about stats as it is about aesthetics. I was also thinking of this when I decided Yojinbo should use daisho.

I'll admit that I have to use the gear equipped by SMN and SCH to differentiate them because if you were to look at the book you still wouldn't know which is which. I also kept in mind the crooks vs wands and cudgels vs staves thing CNJ and THM have going, and wish that was a little more widespread. It's also why I've pushed for GLA loosing daggers and getting great swords as a secondary weapon.

[zmoney03]

so they gonna release the samurai for FFXIV

[Duelle]

so they gonna release the samurai for FFXIV

I don't see why they wouldn't, really.

[Kitru]

I don't see why they wouldn't, really.

If given infinite time and monies, I'm sure that the Yoshi and company would implement every job ever come up with for FF and then some. It's horribly unrealistic to assume as much though. As such, there's a certain amount of triage that new class/jobs have to go through, and, given the lack of cross-class acting as a major mechanic (as occurred in FFXI), there isn't as much of an impetus to design new classes and jobs. The only reason would be to add a specific desired construct to the existing classes and jobs (which is basically what Yoshi has says that they'll be basing their decisions around).

There's also lore and story considerations to take into account. Samurai isn't an Eorzean class/job construct, which presents some problems if it were going to be implemented as a class (jobs can pull the "exotic combat style" thing because that's kind of what they're supposed to be; WAR is from the far north, SCH/SMN are from the ancient past). While not a concern from a balance/design standpoint, it's still something that has to be considered, especially when there are classes that could be brought in without any problems of the kind.

While I think that SAM is one of those "eventually" and/or "if we get to it" classes, I fully expect that we'll get a bunch of other classes first, if only because they're the lower hanging fruit: DRK, NIN (if NIN were done as a job off of a "local" class like THF), RDM, DNC, etc. SAM, without a construct that views SAM as a job applied to a thematically separate class instead of a class and job together, is problematic enough that SAM is "harder" than other options (not that it's impossible to create such a construct; the class could be simply the 2h sword class that turns into SAM at 30; as long as the base class didn't *scream* SAM while not being completely antagonistic towards it, it could work).

[Viridiana]

@kitru

If you would recall (assuming you're familiar with FF), "great katana" is the term in final fantasy for the 2-handed sword used by SAM, whereas "katana" was the 1-handed sword used by NIN.

Except in Tactics, where it was "Katana" and "Ninja Sword," respectively.

[Duelle]

The only reason would be to add a specific desired construct to the existing classes and jobs (which is basically what Yoshi has says that they'll be basing their decisions around).

As I've mentioned, SAM's aesthetic happens to suffer the same problem NIN does. It's too unique and there is a little leeway in terms of where they can insert the job. I can picture people being VERY pissed if SAM were to be derived from lancer (for example), and even more furious if Masamune was turned into a naginata for the sake of that idea.

There's also lore and story considerations to take into account. Samurai isn't an Eorzean class/job, which presents some problems if it were going to be implemented as a class (jobs can pull the "exotic combat style" thing because that's kind of what they're supposed to be; WAR is from the far north, SCH/SMN are from the ancient past).

How is this an issue? You write lore and wait for the proper moment to introduce the class/job and the lore that supports it. The original classes that launched with 1.0 had the benefit of setting to back them up (since each guild was clearly presented as having their place in the world), and I don't see MRC (per my suggestion) or SAM having any trouble if they were introduced in an expansion that focuses on the far east.

While I think that SAM is one of those "eventually" and/or "if we get to it" classes, I fully expect that we'll get a bunch of other classes first, if only because they're the lower hanging fruit

This is fine and to be expected. I wouldn't want them to randomly shoehorn jobs in for no reason. That's how we ended up with SAM and NIN coming from a bunch of pirates in FFXI rather than a more "pure" source.

the class could be simply the 2h sword class that turns into SAM at 30; as long as the base class didn't *scream* SAM while not being completely antagonistic towards it, it could work).

On the first point, SE has shown with XIV that they care a lot about stuff like attack animations and stances (MRD and LNC have VERY different stances instead of the blanket 2-hander animation schedules other MMOs tend to use). A claymore and a great katana are and should be held differently, so a 2-handed sword class wouldn't sprout SAM without going against the way classes are built and animated.

On the second point, a class heavily leaning towards a job is not strange and could even be called expected. GLA plays pretty much like a PLD with less cooldowns, for example.

[SirTaint]

SAM,DRK,RDM,NIN have huge fan bases. I know SE said they would introduce new jobs with updates but I wouldn't be surprised to see the big name jobs with the first expansion.

If I had to make SAM it would be a tank job. Parry based with a stack system almost like BLM.

Tachi: Enpi opener then have 2 paths. Parry/Emn up path (stacks) and a debuff path.

Enpi > Yuki (parry stack) > Gekko (stack+Emn bonus) > Kaiten (Stack+Emn)
Enpi > Yuki (parry stack) > Kasha (stack+Damage down bonus) > Kaiten (Stack+Emn)

Enpi > Rana (damage up stack) > Fudo (damage up stack)/Koki (Magic damage down debuff)/Jinpu (physical damage debuff)


Pretty rough idea, but I would love SAM to constantly be spamming WSs and constantly needing to decide which path to choose. 4 step combos as finishers with the main functions at the 3rd step. So you can spam 3 steps for the buff/debuff or finish the combo for more damage/hate but taking up another GCD.

[Kitru]

As I've mentioned, SAM's aesthetic happens to suffer the same problem NIN does.

I can understand the sentiment you're expressing here, though I don't think that SAM and NIN have *quite* the same problem. NIN has a pretty easy evolution out of THF, which is easily placed pretty much anywhere for virtually any reason. SAM doesn't really have a class that does the same.

How is this an issue?

Because, if it's a class, it players should be able to start their character as that class. A *class* built to obviously transfer into a SAM would *have* to be strongly influenced by the Far East of Hydaelyn, if not originating there. The story, as it is written, is focused upon the player being an Eorzean. A Far Eastern character, which is what you'd be if you started as the pre-SAM, would require rewriting the starting story.

*That* is the issue: it requires rewriting stuff. The only ways to circumvent the issue would be to either design a class that *doesn't* obviously turn into a SAM and have SAM be a job acting as a new and unique combat style you're not using *or* deviate from the class norms and prevent it from being a class that you can start as (which, while it doesn't effect longstanding players, has a definite impact upon new players coming over to check out the SAM).

A claymore and a great katana are and should be held differently, so a 2-handed sword class wouldn't sprout SAM without going against the way classes are built and animated.

Yes, they should be wielded in dramatically different ways. The problem, however, is what I mentioned before: a class that is obviously built to grow out of SAM is going to present implementation problems. A class designed to circumvent the implementation problems would need to be an Eorzean 2h sword fighter; it *doesn't*, however, mean that the aforementioned non-SAM pre-SAM class would *have* to have animations that make absolutely no sense for a SAM to use. A claymore isn't the same thing as a katana; a bastard sword *is*, and it just so happens that Occidental fencing *does* actually have a combat style relatively reminiscent of kendo (high guard, falling strikes that flow into others) that could be used.

On the second point, a class heavily leaning towards a job is not strange and could even be called expected. GLA plays pretty much like a PLD with less cooldowns, for example.

And I'm not arguing the point. In fact, I agree with you. The issue is that a class that leans into SAM wouldn't work since classes are, by virtue of the story, as written, supposed to be Eorzean. Far Eastern classes wouldn't work without revision to said story (and the actual story, not the backstory). Without that revision, a pre-SAM class would have to *play* like a SAM without feeling like one or even looking like one, which is what I was referring to.