Quote Originally Posted by Shippuu View Post
And unless you haven't noticed, DPS have ALL the variety. In the current game, DPS have 3x the amount of choices a tank or healer has. 3 TIMES.
The "tank:everyone else" ratio is still pretty good. Out of 10 jobs 2 are tanks, 2 are healers, the remaining 6 are DPS. The split doesn't seem as bad as you're making it when you look at the actual numbers.
Having more tank and healer variety is not a bad thing, those players deserve variety too and incentive to play those roles. Most wanted jobs into Tanks? Last I checked Ninja and Machinist weren't tanks.
Having tank and DPS be equal in numbers is not going to get more people to play tanks. Variety plays a role, obviously, but some people are naturally inclined to tank, just as they are inclined to heal or DPS. I know I'm not a healer at heart and never will be (considering the only healer I enjoyed was my healer-mercenary Bounty Hunter in SWTOR). While tanks do need variety as the number of jobs in the game continues to grow, do keep in mind that DPS players outnumber everyone else, so them getting a larger pool of choices is simply par for the course.
SE will take the path of least resistance when adding new jobs from a workload standpoint, so new tanks will likely wear heavy tank armor, if not then they either have to make an entirely new classification of armor or give Blue Mages a stance or passive ability that boosts their defence and vitality while wearing mage gear.
We're eventually going to run out of jobs that can believably wear heavy armor, and going the route of variety will mean the devs will have to create jobs that don't wear heavy armor but have mechanics that allow them to tank. Two WoW examples I can bring up are druids (whose stats change when they go into bear form) and monks (who have built-in mechanics to keep damage taken under control despite wearing light armor). My original Mystic Knight suggestion had them equipping MNK/BRD gear but having a toggle that increases defense values from gear to make up for that gap. I'm sure there's other ways to pull this sort of thing off, too.
A mace by animation standpoints is no different then the 1 handed swords Paladins have.
Erm...not really. Maces would require separate animations from swords (Riot Blade with a mace would look ridiculous). You might be able to get away with that if it were one-handed axes, but not with a mace.

Granted, if I were to implement something like this, I'd design it so that the combat style would be mace/1H axe + shield instead of just mace/1H axe (meaning the attack animations would involve the player character hitting the target using both).

As for "viking", Skyrim still fresh in the memory of most people, I'd have no problem with it being a job centered on battle commands or "shouts". >.>