The future of Thief and Ninja (minor 2.2 spoilers)

[Nahara]

The more I think about it, the more I fear that SE will do the stupid thing and make Ninja a tank again. They screwed themselves by not correcting that mistake in XI. Set a terrible precedent.

Not for lack of trying, mind you. SE made some adjustments to Utsusemi to try and nerf it's ability to tank (such as lowering your enmity when a shadow got absorbed or all shadows getting erased if you were hit by an AoE), but the community was dead-set on keeping it an evasion tank, and SE eventually gave in.

If NIN does come back as a tank class, SE would be wise to not put that kind of power back into players' hands.

[Melinia]

At high level, SCH wears the same gear as CNJ and WHM, not ACN.

Sure, once everything goes super specialized. But at lower levels they wear the same armor as ACN... and also, incidentally, as CNJ.

At low levels, a ninja tank would no doubt wear the same gear that it wore before becoming a ninja. And once they reach level 50 and everything starts going specialized, they'd most likely have their own unique armor.

We've already seen that with things like Relic weapons, which are Job-only, and can't be used by the original class.

[Zerobreaker]

I'm totally with you there. If they are going to stick with the trilogy of positions, tank, dps and healer, I would like to see all those options available to both DoW and DoM schools; A DoW healer - a DoM tank. There are a lot of possibilities as you've said! I'm curious and anticipate these new classes and jobs, but in the mean time, I'm trying to avoid having expectations to try and remain open-minded!

A DoW healer wouldn't be to hard, Musketeer -> Chemist(a very easy job to implement) would be amazing.

[Atreides]

I just hope that Thief shares the gear with Monk, that would be win win for me and would actually make the most sense.

[Reynhart]

Sure, once everything goes super specialized. But at lower levels they wear the same armor as ACN... and also, incidentally, as CNJ.

Because low-level mage gear gives the same amount of Mind and Intelligence, which is all they need.
Low-level tank gives much higher defense and magic defense compared to standard Disciple of War gear.
For example: (lvl30)
Storm's Private Cuirass DEF/MDEF 65 (Tank only)
Storm's Private Chainmail DEF 43 MDEF 22 (Tank and LNC/DRG)
Storm's Private Acton DEF/MDEF 33 (Disciple of War)

And it you would safe to assume that Ninja wouldn't wear the Chainmal, since it's a "light" fighter, like Monk.

[Akujin]

I'm totally with you there. If they are going to stick with the trilogy of positions, tank, dps and healer, I would like to see all those options available to both DoW and DoM schools; A DoW healer - a DoM tank. There are a lot of possibilities as you've said! I'm curious and anticipate these new classes and jobs, but in the mean time, I'm trying to avoid having expectations to try and remain open-minded!

Expanding on that. If not now, perhaps later, they can follow a semi-XI thing and introduce Geomancer or a Rune Mage type of class, similar to Red Mage, to be the magic-based tank class. The Rune Fencer/Mage makes more sense, being upclose with the mob as a Tank should be, but utilizing Runes for particular effects to mitigate damage taken/hinder the mobs own actions to retain enmity/debuffing it to make it easier to kill for everyone else. A tank class that I might actually be interested in trying out myself.

They really could take some queues from XI in that, while I have said I don't want to see Ninja come out as a tank, as it was not originally intended for that role in XI but it was groomed that way by the players. Likewise. RDM was meant to be a sideline melee/support type of class, that numerous people also used to solo fairly hard content with the use of stoneskin, phalanx, shadows(Ninja subjob to clarify, though Blink I believe was available, or perhaps only with SMN) and other RDM abilities. They could totally make that work. Not sure how the general community would feel about RDM being a tank job in XIV, but I'd dig it.

[ShinigamiZero]

Ninja tanking aint right though. I mean ninjas were never meant to be spotted. If they were they are to distract and get away. Tanking is just very un-ninja like.

Ninja should be what SE eventually tried to make them on FF11. Where they'd get a damage boost from attacking from behind and more attack speed. Might be a good idea to add more tank roles but butchering jobs people have been looking forward to; to 'save' the game with more tanks kinda sucks.

[abzoluut]

I do believe either THF and/or NIN will be given to us. I just hope they time it well and give us a tank (and maybe a healer) at about the same time too or at least announce it when they implement another dps.

I think the tank:dps ratio will be worse when other dps comes first. I main both tanks so every time Im on one of my dps classes, I brutally get reminded of how it sucks to do stuff outside of my static as a dps.

[melflomil]

If they only add dps this time around future content better be 5 man. 3dps 1 healer and 1 tank

[DioxinTaru]

A lot of people seem to be missing clues/spoilers snippets we've already been given ingame.
Dual Dagger Class is coming, but what do we have in game to provide the back story?
The Leviathan cutscenes.....
Thancred will be the base class trainer and Yugiri will be the Job trainer. Given the weapons used in these cutscenes and the mention of the secretive/illicit nature of the Organisation Thancred is part of, I highly suspect Thief is on the cards.

But seeing as the general format Squeenix is using for the class/job systems is unknown/known class/job descriptors.
I would suspect Brigand/Thief or some such.

As much as I would love Ninja to be released, I dont think its going to be now despite the allusions to "Eastern" style.

I also feel that the entry of the veiled Yugiri is also going to coincide with a Lizard people perhaps Mamool-Ja as there are discussions around Yugiri's people being equivilent to beastmen. I think they could be released as playable race too.

Thief progression to Ninja also doesnt make sense they should have different base skill sets. In addition both Thancred and Yugiri are using daggers, if Ninja was on the cards I would have suspected Kunai by one of them.