The 4th Tank.

[Khalithar]

That's not a ranged tank. A ranged tank is a tank that fights enemies at a distance hence the ranged part. Calling that in SWTOR is a misnomer.

That's what it was called in swtor by the devs of the game, I just rolled with that as what I know.

[GeekMatt]

2 Shielded tank would be my choice for aesthetic appeal and defensive style of play. Accept, unless it could regularly replace the other tank (to be a solo tank in 2-tank instances) it would probably be disregarded because this game is obsessed with DPS and is designed around it. And if it COULD properly solo tank 2-tank combat, then other tanks would be discarded.

...On the otherhand it could have absolute 0 DPS (or close to it) and consistently support the DPS members to make up for it. I'd like that because it would force DPS to be responsible for the level damage being put out rather than the healers and tanks.

[dragoelete]

2 Shielded tank would be my choice for aesthetic appeal and defensive style of play. Accept, unless it could regularly replace the other tank (to be a solo tank in 2-tank instances) it would probably be disregarded because this game is obsessed with DPS and is designed around it. And if it COULD properly solo tank 2-tank combat, then other tanks would be discarded.

...On the other hand it could have absolute 0 DPS (or close to it) and consistently support the DPS members to make up for it. I'd like that because it would force DPS to be responsible for the level damage being put out rather than the healers and tanks.

i was thinking of something similar to that but more like the dancer (like the dancer from Ragnarok Online only with the ability to tank) so basically it would have high defense and aggro control like all the tanks but would have "dances" that act similar to bard songs only more DPS oriented effects rather than regenerative. along with dances that lower enemy damage and defenses. but in return it would do less damage or maybe even no damage but have a song that makes it where the enemy is forced to attack them but gives them a rlly high dodge chance (like a flat 25% dodge chance being added to there norm dodge chance rather than multiplied into it) as well as having a DPS dance (for solo content) that would make it where they would be constantly causing damage in an area around them. that way most of there abilities could be dances that have positive effects on the party and negative effects on the enemy but in return they would be unable to attack there only form of damage would be the DPS dance.

[Brian_]

I think rather than another traditional tank to add to the three that we already have, they should try to do something a little different to add to the variety of the game and the types of fights that they can design.

So, if they introduce a Samurai, I'd rather it be a DPS / tank hybrid. As the tanks currently are, they're also hybrids but their core role is tank and the secondary role is DPS. The Samurai could normally be a full fledged DPS with heavy armor but have skills that allow it to temporarily tank through gaining a burst of eHP. You could also link their temporary tanking to maximizing their own DPS output. For example, give them a weapon skill that forces the target to redirect their attacks towards the Samurai -- the difference from provoke is that this does not manipulate enmity in any way, it's just a straight up target redirection for X seconds. After using the weapon skill, the Samurai can pop a variety of CDs or even a stance to manipulate damage. For example -- Perfect Parry - parry all magic and physical attacks for 3 seconds, Blade-grasp - increases parry amount to 80%, Dual-wield stance - all parries while in DW stance reflect 20% of the damage reduced back at the attacker. So, before a tank buster, they can switch stances, pop CDs, redirect the attack to them, reduce the damage and reflect part of it back. They'd basically help tanks by giving the raid another on demand defensive CD and maximize their own DPS in doing so.

In the current content, it doesn't really let you break-up the 2 tank set-ups but you could do Ravana with a Samurai soaking Blinding Blades (though since you can already solo-tank it, it's not really a thing). I guess you could do A3 hand phase if the Samurai's pseudo-provoke and CDs last long enough and A4 if they have the next highest quarantine priority in the event you don't have an OT.

[VargasVermillion]

Tank types

The problem stems from SEs limited options for utility though, unless they add more mechanics involving cc, interrupts or whatever else you can think of they'll just recycle the same utilities making all the tanks being relatively the same with the only difference being play style. Basically it would be a pain to balance due to how the mechanics in the game work.

New gameplay is the main goal of course but if the new tanks have no debuffs or anything like that why pick them over the standard WAR/PLD set up. DRK is valued for better aoe dps than PLD atm but that's it.

[Cooperal]

The problem stems from SEs limited options for utility though, unless they add more mechanics involving cc, interrupts or whatever else you can think of they'll just recycle the same utilities making all the tanks being relatively the same with the only difference being play style. Basically it would be a pain to balance due to how the mechanics in the game work.

New gameplay is the main goal of course but if the new tanks have no debuffs or anything like that why pick them over the standard WAR/PLD set up. DRK is valued for better aoe dps than PLD atm but that's it.

My fear exactly. I don't think I could bear the next tank being another heavy armoured job. And other people popping ideas here don't seem to realise that wearing as much damage reduction as possible isn't the only type of tank that can exist.

I put a Dancer idea earlier in the thread (probably page 6ish?) and it just got looked right over because I posted in the middle of some babies having a bickering match. Would have liked to have seen some speculation how that could have been made to work better.

At the fan-fest in London prior to HW, they said that they had a lot of trouble choosing between the DRK and SAM, and the decision for DRK came down to the last hair. So I fear SAM will be the next tank option. I really hope they get changed to DPS though because I seriously worry for the diversity of gameplay going forward. All tanks right now, melee with bulky armour. All healers, magic users who all do slightly different things from the same standing point. I see it as a massive problem that nearly all of the games diversity is crammed into 1 of the 3 roles which is DPS.

It can be fixed with one or two mid-3.x jobs getting added, but if it's not something they address they better hope that their story content is even stronger than what they've delivered already, otherwise there's little point in staying.

[Khalithar]

Snip

Actually, I could definitely see Samurai wearing leather and using DEX as a main stat rather than Str and heavy armor. The reason for that being, Mnk and Nin share armor types, if they were to put Samurai on there they could use the pan-asian style armor of the 170 law tome gear we have for all three jobs as it fits in with all three. Also samurai armor did traditionally use leather or iron for a lot of it's construction, so they could very easily stick Samurai on to the leather gear with a stance that increases it's defensive value gain. I do however see some concerns over it's potential utility as most of that is covered.

My immediate thoughts for utility that the other tanks don't have that you see in other MMO's:

A long range pull that drags enemies to them.
Ability to inflict paralyze.
Raid wide damage reduction that is not limited by distance.
Magic damage redirection.
A non-stun cast interrupt. Think an enemy casts a spell and you just hit a button that doesn't stun them, but interrupts the cast.
A flat reduction in all enemy damage.
A flat increase to all damage an enemy takes.
A proper taunt/provoke that others MMO's have. As in one that puts you on top of the threat list and forces the target to attack/target only you for a few seconds.
An AOE stun.
An AOE taunt.

There is plenty of tank utility left that the devs have woefully underutilized. Mind you, those are all abilities I've used on other tanks in other games, in many cases those tanks have several of those, if the content is balanced properly it doesn't make them better than the other tanks either as their specific mechanics and other cooldowns differ.

[Leidiriv]

Snip

That's part of the main reason that I like the idea of a Beastmaster tank so much. Perhaps instead of you wearing the plate armour, you wear leather-type armor that also buffs the defenses of your pet and corresponds to a piece of battle-armour for your pet aesthetically.

[NFaelivrin]

A guy with two huge shields that turn into scimitars when low on HP. Immunity cooldown would be called "I'm fucking invincible".

[Phoenicia]

Snip.

While I'm all for non-plate wearing tanks, historically, Samurai wore heavy armor (plate).

However, I love thematic job designs.

We have middle ages European jobs in Knights (Paladin which is called Knight in the JP version, Dragoon which is also a knight, and Dark Knight), Wizards (BLM) and priests (WHM) and archers (BRD).

We can have a far eastern model too, let's have Samurai (tank), Ninja , Monk and add some healer that fits the far east theme. Shintou priest?

Kinda too bad that jobs in this game pick one weapon. A samurai class that could utilize katana and bows (Samurai were excellent archers with the Yumi bow) would be so interesting to play. In FFXI SAM used to skill chain with itself utilizing Katana and Archery weaponskills and was one of the two reasons they nerfed pointblank archery (The other reason was rangers dual wielding axes and wailing at the targets during the ranged attack recast lol).

Beastmaster or Puppermaster tanking with their pets would be interesting but I fear it would be as clunky as Titan-egi tanking even if they had better aggro. The most realistic way a pet class can tank is if they shared damage with their pets and had CDs where the pet absorbs the damage for them or they absorbed HP from the pet.

The main problem with the FF series is that they never had non-heavy armor sturdy classes outside of the monk. And since FFXIV doesn't want hybrids, MNK won't tank. Which is why I would suggest a Disciple of Magic tank.

RDM comes to mind, but they can make it anything really. A mage that amplifies its DEF and M.DEF through a trait or just has a much higher damage reduction multiplier on their tank stance. It tanks by applying debuffs, magical barriers (directly reduce damage or adds HP) while using magical attacks (Foe Requiem buffs them) for damage.