Will the incoming thief job be a DPS or tank?

[Nekodar]

Thief/Ninja will probably both be job's available through a single class...

[Sylve]

Ninja tank didn't make sense in FFXI either, it just existed because of terrible balance and class design. Samurai honestly makes more sense as a evasive, but heavy armored tank. Thief/Ninja are going to be DD no matter what, but perhaps some amount of support like bards.

I could absolutely see Samurai as being a Tank job. I might be pining a little for Log Horizon here, But i feel like a job that wears medium/heavy armor (Kinda like a Dragoon) that focuses on quick draw style strikes to build enmity, while damage reduction would be handled via a highly increased Parry rate.

[Gilraen]

Given alot of the replies here, why do people want another Limsa Lominsan tank? It already has marauder/Warrior, why another? At present only Gridania lacks a tank (hopefully they make a tank Job for lancer), and Limsa Lominsa lacks a dedicated melee DD (again, like lancer/Dragoon and pugilist/Monk). Is a melee DD really so disgusting a proposition for a city of thieves and pirates?

[KyroeFelix]

It managed this by use of two spells: Utsusemi: Ichi and Ni that created 'shadows'. Ichi created 2 shadows and ni created 3.

The difference between ichi and ni was not 2 vs 3 shadows. Both gave 3 shadows, Ni just had a shorter cast time, like all of the Ni variant spells (aside from Tonko which also received a duration increase).

Anyway, if people are worried about Ninja not being able to tank multiple mobs, they could always give it access to gladiator skills (flash) and that problem is solved. I don't see how it would work effectively though. We don't really have a concept of evasion in this game, aside from Featherfoot. I don't even think there's an AGI stat in the game so I doubt Ninja would become a tank. Like someone else said, probably just a hybrid caster-melee. Bringing back the elemental wheel would be nice, but since elements don't really have a place in this game...blah..

[Kuwagami]

nin tank ? /lolthread.

Be serious, let the tank and the DD do their stuff on their own. No need to create a loltank just to please FFXI players who denaturated the ninja back then

[ReplicaX]

Just because NIN became a tank in XI, doesn't mean it will be in XIV.

If you are going to bring up NIN tanks from XI, bring the dirty laundry with it. As mentioned it has always been a balancing nightmare and continues to this day.

[Tiggy]

Thief class to Ninja job would make sense mechanically:

It wouldn't make sense for the series though. Thief is a classic Final Fantasy job just like how every other job in the game is a classic Final Fantasy series job class. The base class will be some silly named class we've never heard in the series before. Like how Conjurer is whm. Conjurer was never in the series before and whitemage was the job. Thief and Ninja will definitely have a class that follows that exact same pattern.

[Delsus]

Ninja tank didn't make sense in FFXI either, it just existed because of terrible balance and class design. Samurai honestly makes more sense as a evasive, but heavy armored tank. Thief/Ninja are going to be DD no matter what, but perhaps some amount of support like bards.

Ninja was never designed as a tank, the one reason it became one was that for a lot of hard hitting mobs you could cast shadows in between auto attacks, once this was discovered the players made it a tank.

I do hope Ninja does become a DD, it would be a lot more fun to play than an evasion tank. THF will definately be a DD, that employs stealth to attack. I could see them both stemming from an Assassin class. We do however need another tank job which could relegate Ninja to a tank again.

[Altijacek]

It wouldn't make sense for the series though. Thief is a classic Final Fantasy job just like how every other job in the game is a classic Final Fantasy series job class. The base class will be some silly named class we've never heard in the series before. Like how Conjurer is whm. Conjurer was never in the series before and whitemage was the job. Thief and Ninja will definitely have a class that follows that exact same pattern.

Conjurer has been in the series before just never as important as summoner.

[Aegis]

It wouldn't make sense for the series though. Thief is a classic Final Fantasy job just like how every other job in the game is a classic Final Fantasy series job class. The base class will be some silly named class we've never heard in the series before. Like how Conjurer is whm. Conjurer was never in the series before and whitemage was the job. Thief and Ninja will definitely have a class that follows that exact same pattern.

Actually, in the French version, the Conjurer is an Elementalist, which I believe was in FFV?

Also, remember the JP class names aren't the same as our class names, even by translation. Marauder is Executioner, I believe, in Japanese.