Hybrid classes - SAM & RD MAGE.

[Kuurei]

For those of you out there that played FFT a Samurai was like a tank/DPS/mage all rolled into one. It would be interesting to see them bring that concept over to MMO form and somehow balance it. (minus breaking potentially breaking our weapons)

Tank DPS is usually balanced by making their DPS mid-tier and having their Defensive Cooldowns/oh shoot! buttons being mid-tier as well. Pre-RoK Berserker on EQ2 fit this, doing about the same DPS as a Swashbuckler back in the day, since it was an AoE heavy class like Swash, and their oh shoot! buttons had to be pretty well-timed.

Tank/DPS Hybrid could work if it is made to where it is only filling one role at a time, too. Forced Stance like they're making Astrologician do maybe? If you switch stances you cannot switch to the other mid-combat?.

Red Mage would be tricky. I feel like they could go with a duality, getting mid-tier heals and mid-tier nukes, a couple minor shields and the like to play off of any of the existing healers well. Maybe the "En-" line of spells that the Beastmen use to make their Autoattack potency based off of INT instead of STR.

[Ashkendor]

Tank DPS is usually balanced by making their DPS mid-tier and having their Defensive Cooldowns/oh shoot! buttons being mid-tier as well. Pre-RoK Berserker on EQ2 fit this, doing about the same DPS as a Swashbuckler back in the day, since it was an AoE heavy class like Swash, and their oh shoot! buttons had to be pretty well-timed.

The way FFXIV is set up, that just makes you a mediocre DPS and a mediocre tank.

That means that generally they wouldn't be the preferred choice for either role.

Tank/DPS Hybrid could work if it is made to where it is only filling one role at a time, too. Forced Stance like they're making Astrologician do maybe? If you switch stances you cannot switch to the other mid-combat?.

This has possibilities, though.

[sirDarts]

The way FFXIV is set up, that just makes you a mediocre DPS and a mediocre tank.

That means that generally they wouldn't be the preferred choice for either role.

Well a Tank/DPS hybrid (does more damage than a tank, but tanks less than a tank) could work in 8-man or raid instances where one (or several) tanks are mostly off-tanks, who don't stand in so much of a damage, and their DPS is important. Dunno.
But yeah, in 4-man instances they would be mediocre at best.

[Zaft]

Tank/DPS Hybrid could work if it is made to where it is only filling one role at a time, too. Forced Stance like they're making Astrologician do maybe? If you switch stances you cannot switch to the other mid-combat?.

This is what I foresee being the future of this game, unless we come up with talent trees. Even WoW does the same thing with Gladiator Stance, where you're unable to swap into or out of Gladiator Stance while in combat.

[Sylve]

This is what I foresee being the future of this game, unless we come up with talent trees. Even WoW does the same thing with Gladiator Stance, where you're unable to swap into or out of Gladiator Stance while in combat.

Except that you give up Tanking talents to make Gladiator Stance worthwhile DPS.
Not only can you not switch Stance in combat, you required a FULL set of pure DPS gear.

Gladiator Warriors are not Tank Warriors.
Defensive Stance alone does not a Tank make.

[Zaft]

Except that you give up Tanking talents to make Gladiator Stance worthwhile DPS.
Not only can you not switch Stance in combat, you required a FULL set of pure DPS gear.

Gladiator Warriors are not Tank Warriors.
Defensive Stance alone does not a Tank make.

Do you think it would be any different here? Granted our "tanking stat" parry is crap compared to bonus armor or mastery, but the fact remains that you would likely have different sets of gear for different scenarios. I know I don't tank T13 in all STR gear like I do the other turns.

Also talents in that game can be changed on the fly outside of combat in just a few seconds. So I wouldn't really consider that a big deal.

[Sylve]

Words

Given that you can simply flip your entire spec more easily than fiddling with a half dozen talents, trying to be a hybrid is a waste of time.
Why get the DPS Warrior to do it? Any Druid, Monk, Death Knight or Paladin could also just specflip and be a Tank.

Hybrid classes work in WoW because 1 character = 1 Class.
No such issue here, So theres no reason for any Job to NEED to be able to flip roles like that on the fly, there is presently no content that would take advantage of it naturally outside of Statics with a specific strat in mind.

Being role focused is good for a Job, it eliminates the wasted Skills for the other Role that you may never even play, let alone like.
If we had a hybrid Job, it'd need enough skills to be an effective Tank AND enough Skills to be proper DPS. You'd end up with half your available skills wasted on a role you never use, giving you a very narrow selection for the role you DO like.
Like Druids were in WoW for the longest time, 2/3rds of the total skills in its spellbook were entirely unusable at any given time.

[Shurrikhan]

Except that you give up Tanking talents to make Gladiator Stance worthwhile DPS.
Not only can you not switch Stance in combat, you required a FULL set of pure DPS gear.

Gladiator Warriors are not Tank Warriors.
Defensive Stance alone does not a Tank make.

Except that their favorite secondary stats are identical to Protection Tank favored secondary stats... the only difference is slightly reduced Versatility weight. Bonus Armor gives Gladiator stance as much raw Attack Power per point as Strength while still giving tank benefits as well. The talents don't have to change either, as (apart from Shockwave versus Dragon Roar) no DPS-increasing and mitigation-increasing talents share the same tier; you still generally chose simply AoE or single-target.

I'm not saying that WoW's Gladiator spec stands as a proof of concept contrary to what you were saying, only that this example does not work.
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I really don't see why it should be so difficult to balance though, or why one would think that the game forbids a job from being good at two roles at once. Look at the Bard changes for Heavensward, for example; the 'support' slot being basically guaranteed anyways, they seem now to be decreasing the dps gap between support dps and main dps. Sure, the main dps will probably have to have enough burst / alternate support / whatnot to warrant not going double-support in most cases (for the unlimited AoE spam, for instance), but beyond that they're not really competing for slots. More common in recent content, even, is forgetting the Bard altogether due to its lower longterm dps when there are too many breaks in which to recover TP/MP anyways, etc.

That being said, Samurai will not be a 'support' dps so much as a dps that, like any 'main' dps has some utility, which would likely come in the form of being able to snap-tank. He would be the one who could stack with tanks more safely than anyone else (at least with preparation - probably no more safely than a non-BFBing DRG otherwise), he can hold adds, etc., doing anything from reducing necessary stack counts to easing tank grabs (and thereby burst dps checks), to even reducing the number of tanks needed for slightly outgeared content (providing a tank insofar as is necessary without sacrificing basic damage). In many ways that's not so different from any other 'main' dps now, but would certainly see use.

[Reynhart]

I really don't see why it should be so difficult to balance though, or why one would think that the game forbids a job from being good at two roles at once.

The problem here is balance. If one job can be good at two things at once, why bother bringing another job ?
By preventing changing "on the fly", it can reduce the problem, just like AST won't be able to switch stance during combat.

As for BRD, they trade mobility for damage, and, having recently done Keeper Of The Lake as a BLM instead of a DRG, mobility can be a very important loss.
They purposely didn't make BRD a top DPS and an important buffer while keeping mobility.

[Shurrikhan]

The problem here is balance. If one job can be good at two things at once, why bother bringing another job ?
By preventing changing "on the fly", it can reduce the problem, just like AST won't be able to switch stance during combat.

As for BRD, they trade mobility for damage, and, having recently done Keeper Of The Lake as a BLM instead of a DRG, mobility can be a very important loss.
They purposely didn't make BRD a top DPS and an important buffer while keeping mobility.

True, but what is being restricted by Wanderer's Minuet is not the ability to fill multiple roles, or even multiple roles simultaneously. It has simply given Bard the option to be a competitive dps OR retain its unique complete mobility which already comparatively excelled in those situations that made use of it. In other words, it made Bard more versatile, giving it no situation in terms of mobility that it is not good for (outside, ofc, of having to drop/swap Minuet frequently). Minuet's movement restrictions have nothing to do with limiting their versatility of role; it seeks only to not make their DPS (further) overpowered in niche situations. I don't see why people cite Wanderer's Minuet as an example of multi-role restriction when it has nothing but positive benefits (given that one can always turn it off and go back to run-and-gun-ing) for Bard.

I'll agree that SAM certainly shouldn't be able to take blows like a tank simultaneously to dealing them like a dps, but that's far from an issue of merely being a hybrid with full potential in both (or, more realistically and as per my example above, full potential in dps and simply decent potential in tanking). There should be something different, likely sacrificing dps in the short-term, to how SAM handles tanking as compared to dps. The only point is that when not tanking at all, they should be able to deal full dps. I personally wouldn't mind seeing Samurai able to tank at full potential either, but in that case something would have to change to require them to sacrifice dps through necessary gear-choices or other pre-combat matters as make them level with other tanks (seeing as all tanks are already dps in their off-time of not being beaten).