SAMURAI SHOWDOWN

[DWolfwood]

I'm confused are you talking about Samurai being DPS and Tank roles like roles SMN SCH? (Which will never happen btw)

Or A tank with a better DPS stance?

Also someone should make a straw poll for this.

Well, actually, what I really want is to literally have two separate jobs that could start at 30, much like DRK/MCH/AST.

One way I'd like for them to be distinguishable is to have the Tank use heavy armor and wield two swords, like this:


And to have the DPS wield their katana with both hands and have much lighter armor, looking like this:



Unlike other jobs, I think samurai not only has the community support to want something like this, but that the class lends itself to having a ton of ability names and ideas to draw from to make both of these jobs unique.

[Jhett_Magnum]

He means two completely separate jobs not even called Samurai (Shogun and Ronin) where one is a Tank and one is a DPS probably branching from a similar base class or even two completely different classes becoming two completely separate roles.

Hmm no can't say I agree, we should stick to one role for each job and regardless wether it's a tank or DPS just something we gotta live with.

I will say though yoshi p did mention hybrid job role (support/debuffer) and what better time to implement it than 4.0. Think about it..RDM and SAM have arguebly ambiguous roles so why not let those jobs be firsts? But that's getting off topic I think.

[Krissey]

I actually really miss "passive" evasion tanking. The reason being: Once tanks get "active" mitigation they all basically get the same buttons...I prefer tanks to have a unique identity which may include just stacking as much dodge, parry and block as possible to reduce over-all incoming damage. Then of course cooldowns and abilities to supplement this identity. Samurai may be a good fit for this.

However overall I still thing the common media portrayal is that of a damage dealer rather than damage soaker or taker.

[Aaliyahrose]

The only way I would want to see Samurai being a tank is if they followed some alternate form of mitigation such as a heavy emphasis on dodging, parrying, blocking, etc... rather than straight up taking damage. Whether active, passive or a mix in-between. But more of the same is just boring.

Samurai does have enough abilities in it's skill set from previous games to become a tank. However, Samurai is a high mobility job. Some abilities include increasing evasion, and countering abilities.
It can easily be argued to have Samurai be an Off Tank, simply because it has possible counter potential similar to DRK Reprisal. There is always several new abilities that can be added to a SAM, just like what they did to DRK by adding Grit.
Many people thought DRK should be a DPS until Grit was added to the job.

[DWolfwood]

Hmm no can't say I agree, we should stick to one role for each job and regardless wether it's a tank or DPS just something we gotta live with.

I will say though yoshi p did mention hybrid job role (support/debuffer) and what better time to implement it than 4.0. Think about it..RDM and SAM have arguebly ambiguous roles so why not let those jobs be firsts? But that's getting off topic I think.

Well, I wouldn't oppose this lol. Honestly, it's a better idea, but I just feel like it's more to ask.

I actually do envision it would be perfect for RDM, because you could have a "swordmage" type of class that branches off into RDM and BLU. RDM being the healer branch, and BLU being the dps.

[Krissey]

I loved Druid tanks in World of Wacraft and also Death Knights which chose to stack heavy mitigation stats over just "HP" because they didn't have the defensive stats of the paladin and warriors which had shields. There-fore it was fun going several attacks in a row never taking a true hit of damage because it was dodged or parried or even blocked. I found that fun and disliked when they, and consequently this game, has gone to homogenized "active" mitigation. Everyone has their -20% incoming damage for x duration, -30% incoming damage for x duration, +to Healing Received...+% Increase to Block damage...yawn. They all play roughly the same.

I think a tank that focuses on taking as few hits as possible rather than just reducing the damage but still taking every hit is way more interesting and fun. Fancy foot-work, dodging, countering and parrying are all more fun to me than pressing whatever -20% incoming damage ability. In this way Samurai would actually make sense as a tank to me. I just don't see them as takers of massive, heavy punishment. So either an evasion tank or a DPS.

[Aaliyahrose]

In previous games, SAM had a abilities such as Curtain - landing a blow will generate a barrier.

In FFXIV - Curtain would just be another ability that mitigates damage as a tank.
However, skills of a SAM, depending on how much mobility you had stacked up, could allow for a very strong attack.

Mobility can only be translated to Skill Speed, or oGCD procs in FFXIV.
SAM could honestly work similar to how WAR works if they decide to go the tanking route.
Giving SAM stacks of whatever stat they choose to work with (Crit maybe?) up to a certain number. Giving SAM an evasion mitigation ability to possibly Perfect Dodge a tank buster with full stacks?

This would make more sense in a DPS perspective though, as Evasion is a passive form of mitigation and only stacks with physical character level.
Giving SAM too many abilities to increase evasion to HOPEFULLY dodge a tank buster is gimmicky and does not work similar to other mitigation. You either dodge the entire thing, or take the full hit?
Evasion is a worse form of mitigation compared to Parry at the moment.

[DWolfwood]

Evasion is a worse form of mitigation compared to Parry at the moment.

I think they should honestly rework parry completely. Shield blocks and Parries should result in 100% mitigation. In my opinion, they should make it as such and then work on balancing from there. I seriously don't see what the calamity is if a tank takes 0 damage from a tank buster anyways. If they balance the tanks around being equal, it shouldn't be a problem and they can still balance fights around the assumption that it won't happen. It's really just tossing the healers a bone. lol

[Aaliyahrose]

If they were to rework parry, They would either...

A. Have to rework the Parry formula.
B. Make SAM the Absolute best Parry tank - better far and away better than DRK
C. Give SAM an abitily to proc more parries than a DRK can

If B were the option... you would see something like 100+ Parry on your Katana...

It cant be on your gear...because tanks would end up sharing the same gear...
and that is not reworking the parry formula lol.

[Shippuu]

You guys can't think outside the box is all I'm getting out of all of this. Not everyone, and especially those who say heavier armor = tanks only, and tanks = heavy armor only. Can I (we) have some much, much needed variety, please?

Thinking outside the box is all well and dandy, but the problem is you can come along with all kinds of wildish and creative ideas but this is a business, with things like finances and development time that needs to be considered. Variety is good, but it also comes with far more work and a balancing nightmare. SE has been adamant that they want everything to be balanced, to the point a lot of jobs are very similar to each other, so that no one job is left out of content. You start trying crazy things and you quickly run into situations where some things are far better than others. So you can say it's a lack of creativity, but at the same time, it's addressing the situation with a realistic viewpoint on the necessary drawbacks which come with left field ideas.

In this game, tanks = heavy armor. If they want to add more tanks while also preventing a much larger work load for their staff then tanks will continue to wear heavy fending armor. So following that logic you look at which requested FF jobs also have a history of wearing heavy armor and then your list gets pretty small considering most of them are some variant of knight. Samurai happens to be one with a history of heavy armor as well as defending/protecting others while still offering a unique flair to it, and thus it's a pretty logical choice given what few options you have.

So again, in a perfect world, every class would be wildly crazy and different, and it's fun to come up with those kinds of ideas, but if you're going to look at things seriously and take in the actual factors, it becomes a lot more cut and dry.

Edit: Also, everyone seems to conveniently forget the series has already had a clothed Samurai without armor. Auron.

You're right, Auron wore robes mostly, but his "katana" was also a greatsword as well. But even then, let's take a look at Auron.

He was the guardian of summoner Braska, and caretaker of Tidus later. Auron's specialty are the break abilities that lower enemies' stats, and guard abilities to shield his comrades from enemy attacks. His early stat growth is based around high Strength, Defense and HP.

Hmmm....Defends/shields others, has high STR, VIT, and Defense...what role of the trinity has emphasis on those traits I wonder? So he may be lightly armored in appearance, but in practice he's definitely in line with being a tank. The same goes for Bravely Default's Swordmaster.