How would Red Mage fit in this game?

[Shurrikhan]

I'm just saying that it's practical for a tank to wear heavy armor, so they can be durable and can take hits better. The magic you've mentioned is a possibility (except the air one. That's not tanking, but evasion.)

The point of a tank is to improve the balance of incoming and outgoing raid damage through mob-holding. As long as you reduce raid damage taken by holding enemy attention and causing their attacks to be less effective, you're a tank. Generally a tank will also seek to improve raid damage dealt through facilitating positional and AoEs as well, but a kite-tank is still a tank. Evasion is tanking just as much as standing there and taking the hit to your face (assuming you can take damage when hit in the face than someone else would take if you hadn't). And as for armor types, if it works, it works. It doesn't have to depend solely on the Defense stat any more than a Warrior would have to depend on a damage taken down stat. It'll need eHP, but the sources of that can be anything.

That said, I'll agree that neither RDM's armor and weapon or arsenal seem particularly tank-oriented. *Blocks dullahan blade with a steel toothpick.* *Blasts enemy with an array of offensive attacks and utility... to survive (without kiting).*