SAMURAI SHOWDOWN

[MagiusNecros]

A SAM as a Melee Machinist and copying it's Wildfire/Time Bomb doesn't bring anything unique to the table IMO.

[Kazrah]

A SAM as a Melee Machinist and copying it's Wildfire/Time Bomb doesn't bring anything unique to the table IMO.

Less Wildfire and more Fester/Sidewinder but as a mainline rotation and not something cooldown-based. SAM might have dots, but the theme was to have minor attacks whittling away the target before a much larger felling strike.

[DWolfwood]

have you seen any movies or anime, where samurai, is anything else than "DPS"?

I actually started this post by referencing Log Horizon, you should watch it sometime.

not every samurai was heavy armored, most of them was using chain mail

If you could find a single instance of them using chainmail, I'd like to see it. Usually their armor was woven scales, the strongest being iron scales and plates.

Anyhoo.

To the people saying that SAM should be a DPS oriented OT, like WAR, this presents a major problem because WAR is not an OT because it makes a bad MT. It's OT because PLD/DRK make horrible OTs. WAR is actually the strongest MT as well. They need to make all tanks as strong as WAR, not just SAM.

To the people saying SAM as a tank would be boring and have the same niche as DRK, I think you underestimate how many creative ways they could go about making a Tank class. Parrying is not the main mechanic of DRK, Dark Arts and managing MP is. Stacks are the main mechanic of WAR, and PLD is intended to be straight forward. The way they design a class is around how it should play first, and then they design the look of it (i.e. DRK vs SAM) and incorporate it.

To the people saying we need a Mage tank, we have DRK. It revolves around MP management already, so making another tank revolve around that would be just as redundant as another 2-handed weapon tank. Plus, I'm not sure you've thought out the defense aspect when you say that they could just cast spells. Surely you realize how under-powered this would be as time went on. They'd have to either give lighter clothing the same defense as heavy armor or rework defense entirely.

[Kazrah]

To the people saying we need a Mage tank, we have DRK. It revolves around MP management already, so making another tank revolve around that would be just as redundant as another 2-handed weapon tank. Plus, I'm not sure you've thought out the defense aspect when you say that they could just cast spells. Surely you realize how under-powered this would be as time went on. They'd have to either give lighter clothing the same defense as heavy armor or rework defense entirely.

DRK isn't really a mage, rather an emo tin can with a few magic tricks. MP management could be done defensively rather than offensively such as partial MP shielding (some damage reduction and dealt as MP damage) and have far better MP restoring abilities and traits to offset that, or even have a pet that intercepts a portion of damage taken. The "tank stance" buff could do something like increasing physical defense to match magical defense, which casters can caster gear typically have loads of as baseline.

I think you underestimate how many creative ways they could go about making a Tank class.

[DWolfwood]

Your words.

I'm not saying they couldn't do it. I'm saying using the argument that we need a mage tank because we have a 2-handed sword tank already is a pointless argument since we already have a mage tank as well.

Edit - To elaborate, I was referencing the play-style when I mentioned creativity, something they'd already have to build up from scratch, whereas the mage tank reworks the entire defense system already in place. (This confusion happens when you quote people out of context.)

Yes, they could rework everything, and it would also take quite a bit more effort. Whether you think that's worth it or not is one thing. What I'm pointing out is that there is no good argument out there that goes like, "we have too much _____, so we should make ____ a DPS(or Tank.)" These arguments need to just be taken out of discussion. New jobs = more variety, not less.

My suggestion is STILL, make a SAM Tank AND DPS. Shogun Tank, and Ronin DPS.

[MagiusNecros]

Building on that you could also say they could have been more creative about DRK instead of tacking on Parry and being a mishmash inbetween of PLD and WAR. Yet. They weren't. The only reason why WAR can go OT or MT and do good in both is the fact they can mitigate all forms of damage and don't have to have content specifically designed to favor one class over the other and even then since WAR is the go to OT in the game they will always have a spot on party composition.

The question I ask you is either as a Tank or DPS what can a Samurai offer to the table that is unique and fresh and not a slight alteration of other abilities in the game possessed by other classes?

Edit: And they already said the Arcanist SMN/SCH thing would not be repeated. if you opt for the option of SAM to Tank and DPS the only real answer you have is to make it fill the OT spot. And besides if you want to separate SAM into two classes then I assure you the Dark Knights gonna raise hell.

[Kazrah]

The question I ask you is either as a Tank or DPS what can a Samurai offer to the table that is unique and fresh and not a slight alteration of other abilities in the game possessed by other classes?

This is the grand hurdle. This is really the biggest obstacle standing in the way of Samurai. For DPS, it's looking at and think of how it would be more than just a Monk or a Dragoon or a Ninja with a fresh coat of paint. For a tank, it would need its own style of damage mitigation, not just some greater emphasis on parry or dodge.

I'd still say no to Samurai, but at least it's nice knowing that the right question is being asked.

[DWolfwood]

The question I ask you is either as a Tank or DPS what can a Samurai offer to the table that is unique and fresh and not a slight alteration of other abilities in the game possessed by other classes?

Like I said, to answer that, we need to first come up with something new to add to tanking/dps in general. It's a very good question, and one that if you give me time, I could definitely come up with something. I'm sure the development team has been working on this.

Thinking about a SAM tank, how would it play? Surely there'd be countering and parrying involved, so this brings us to the interesting idea about countering. Then we ask, "is there a tank that already uses countering as a big part of their toolkit?"

Then we look at the tanks, and we find Vengeance, with Blood Price to a lesser extent since it doesn't really reflect damage. Then we ask, "is Vengeance a defining ability of WAR?" while also asking, "can we make a tank toolkit based around countering?"

Then you start coming up with ideas:

Ultimate Tank move: Counters all attacks for X seconds. (Similar in strength to PLD's ability, so should be a shorter duration given the benefit of damage.)
Sheltron-like Counter ability: Probably too strong, so one would have to come back, but the idea is there.
Building stacks with successful parries: Would be less reliable than WAR's stacks, so would need to make it worth it. While perhaps also making it not as relied upon as WAR's stacks.
Sheltron-like Parry ability to help build stacks: An alternate perhaps to the counter, but we should lay out all ideas in the beginning.

If you run into a wall here, you look at what other things could define SAM. Kiai has already been mentioned, so how could this be used in tanking? Well, one thing that is lacking in tanks right now is an AoE taunt. It's also a problem that every tank seems to have to use GLA as a cross-class to obtain it. These problems combined could be solved with an AoE taunt as part of SAM's toolkit, called "something Kiai" or whatever.

Stances are probably more linked with SAM than any other job's real life inspiration than anything, so I think we can safely say that they'd have the easiest time coming up with stances.

A DPS would likely follow a similar line of creation, with the main difference being that counter abilities would be of lesser importance than other stuff, like Kiai. I can tell you that of all jobs, SAM would have potentially the easiest time of having an abundance of names for abilities and stances to accommodate both a Tank and DPS, than any other job currently, so again, I think it would work well.

Does any of this make SAM a completely unique job than what we got? No.

Does it make for a unique play experience? Yes.

At the end of the day, making any job completely unique is going to be difficult because you run into many more obstacles, when all you really need to aim for is to make it feel like it plays uniquely.

[DWolfwood]

if you want to separate SAM into two classes then I assure you the Dark Knights gonna raise hell.

I think that would be good for them to raise hell. When these jobs finally do come out in 4.0, the development team would love feedback on what jobs to make next. A "Gloom Knight" or some kind of knight that is a DPS and perhaps even uses Scythes would be a great addition.

Personally, as a DRK main, I would love for them to just start adding multiple weapon types and just suck it up and make new animation sets for all the jobs.

For example:

WAR: Now wields Great Axes and Great Hammers
PLD: Now wields Swords and Maces/Hammers
DRK: Now wields Great Swords and Scythes

The rest of the jobs would take more work and effort of course considering the optional weapons for NIN might be: Kusarigama, 2h Katana (maybe this would make players happy if SAM was solely a tank?)

MNK might use staves, which might make certain punch abilities have odd naming. BRD would use ????. MCH could use a different type of gun. DRG should probably stay as solely spear uses, so I guess you wouldn't have to force multiple weapons on every job.

I'd like to see this, but of course, I would be perfectly fine with the community wanting a new type of "Dark Knight" alternate.

[Nalien]

To the people saying we need a Mage tank, we have DRK.

Dark Knight is not a mage, it's knight that uses MP.

For me at least, when I ask for something like a mage tank or melee healer, I simply mean a tank or healer that is visibly distinct from current ones. For healers this is terrible, they're all mages. For tanks, Warrior adds some variety at least. Dark Knight may use MP, but it has 0 cast times and is very much a Knight. At best it's a hybrid, but it most certainly isn't a mage tank. Dark Knights main weapon is its sword, not the half dozen or so spells it insta-casts...

Meanwhile, I can't imagine it would be too hard to have an INT based tank like Blue or Red Mage, those would very much be mage style tanks. The only issue comes with gear; Do they wear Fending or Casting? Well, I'd say there is no problem having them tank in Casting sets... It can't be too hard to have the Jobs MT stance function fairly similarly to Clerics Stance... Likewise for a "melee" healer like Dancer, it can share gear with Ninja, but a stance could easily convert DEX into MND for the purpose of healing... It can still sit out at the back, throwing ranged weapons instead of casting Stone/Ruin/Malefic and Dancing to heal party members, instead of casting Cure/etc. That's very much distinct from the current trio of mage healers IMO, and the same thing applies for something like a mage tank. Dark Knight isn't remotely distinct enough from Paladin or Warrior, while a Blue Mage tank very much could be.