SAMURAI SHOWDOWN

[Katana190]

Red Mage does have a history in FF series for being able to equip Heavy Armor which does allow it to fit into a Tank for FF14. The only matter of it is how SE may adjust Red Mage in the FF14 version if it is a Tank Job because they can not simply copy and paste skills from White Mage and Black Mage here but may have to use new skills unique to to FF14 version without giving up Red Mage's identity to use both White and Black Magic.

I still think Red Mage may prove to be a more interesting tank job with one possible mechanic as White Magic being the Protective Tank abilities and Black Magic as the Destructive DPS abilities.

White magic, Self healing tank hype? Get 2.0's WAR right lol. Black magic... Hmm it can't exactly use Fire IV and I'm not much of an FF veteran (this makes it difficult to comment on the forums sometimes) so I don't know all BLM abilities.. I'm sure there are lots if abilities they'll have access to though. Thinking about RDM tank makes me hyped though even though it might not happen, it sounds really interesting, we'll have whm = healer, blm = dps, rdm = tank. This makes my mind at war if I want SAM or RDM as tank now D': Their both really aesthetic and iconic I would be happy with either. And as mentioned above, I'm sorry for my lack of knowledge of the FF titles but I saw a few comments back or it was another thread.. That RDM would use boots,legs and gloves of fending but different chest and helm, which doesn't sound within the confinements of this game

[EdwinLi]

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A rundown of White Magic, since you already said you don't know much about FF series, is that it contains 2 aspects of Magic and does not cover only Healing Magic.

Recovery Magic is the Healing skills you are speaking about and is what White Magic is commonly known for but there is also Support Magic which is the Protection/Damage Reduction aspect of White Magic.

I am speaking more about Red Mage Tank using more of the Support aspect of White Magic such as using White Magic skills such as Deflect to reflect certain attacks back at enemies for a short time and Shell to place a Magic Barrier around themself to improve their own defense. They can use Crusade as their Aggro grab skill if they lose aggro on a enemy and use skills like Dia to allow them to cause more damage on their targets for easier aggro generation through damage.

[Katana190]

A rundown of White Magic, since you already said you don't know much about FF series, is that it contains 2 aspects of Magic and does not cover only Healing Magic.

Recovery Magic is the Healing skills you are speaking about and is what White Magic is commonly known for but there is also Support Magic which is the Protection/Damage Reduction aspect of White Magic.

I am speaking more about Red Mage Tank using more of the Support aspect of White Magic such as using White Magic skills such as Deflect to reflect certain attacks back at enemies for a short time and Shell to place a Magic Barrier around themself to improve their own defense. They can use Crusade as their Aggro grab skill if they lose aggro on a enemy and use skills like Dia to allow them to cause more damage on their targets for easier aggro generation through damage.

I see, sounds great! I was kinda hoping DRK would be a tank that would facilitate their mp to create magic barriers like galvanise from sch. Sounds like RDM might actually fulfil that tank I was hoping for, using mp to create barriers.

[Rbstr]

White magic, Self healing tank hype? Get 2.0's WAR right lol. Black magic... Hmm it can't exactly use Fire IV and I'm not much of an FF veteran (this makes it difficult to comment on the forums sometimes) so I don't know all BLM abilities.. I'm sure there are lots if abilities they'll have access to though. Thinking about RDM tank makes me hyped though even though it might not happen, it sounds really interesting, we'll have whm = healer, blm = dps, rdm = tank. This makes my mind at war if I want SAM or RDM as tank now D': Their both really aesthetic and iconic I would be happy with either. And as mentioned above, I'm sorry for my lack of knowledge of the FF titles but I saw a few comments back or it was another thread.. That RDM would use boots,legs and gloves of fending but different chest and helm, which doesn't sound within the confinements of this game

I do think a RDM tank would be pretty neato. The one thing is that you already have one tank with a mana managment mechanic so you'd want to do something different.
My concept would be some kind of 1/2 hand melee weapon, high-HP, receive higher healing, and do self-shielding as the main mitigation (Like DRK was kind of PLD-patterned, this would be more WAR-patterned). They'd have like a instant stoneskin type CD, maybe something inner beast like for shields. Their combos and damage stuff would each have en-spell flavor of fire/ice/thunder.

Their aesthetic and animations would be a little less "Tough" and more "technique". It should continue to use Fending gear though.

[DWolfwood]

I've been tanking in ffxiv for 5 years :P ...

... Damn. I read this and was like, holy shit XIV isn't that old is it? Made me realize I've been a tank main a decade now, since the PLD75/WAR37 days. Wow.

So i wouldn't mind if i got to play SAM a lot more with it being a tank, but i'd be sad because i have this image of SAM being a 'bringer of destruction'.
Seeing it have tank damage would totally destroy that image for me.

This is being pretty dramatic. Even the Ronin image in my head, which is most certainly a DPS is not a "bringer of destruction." I think you're confusing it with BLM. Not to mention, they can do a lot with animations to make a SAM tank look pretty badass.

Oh, and yeah. It seems pretty boring to get more of the same tanking stuff. But hope that someone can present a nice SAM tank concept that looks appealing.

You know, there's a few who keep saying that adding a new tank doesn't bring in new players to the role, which I absolutely refute, but if we humor that idea for a moment, then we gotta look at what the tank population enjoys. Completely disregarding SAM's place in the picture, I gotta say a RDM or BLU tank look boring, and will be the first tanks ever in an FF game that don't interest me. In XI, I leveled PLD, NIN, WAR (zerg tank), SAM (merit pt tank), MNK (Salvage tank), and was working on DRK (new zerg tank) before quitting.

I always level every tank, but a RDM/BLU tank just doesn't appeal to me. It needs to be said that being completely original doesn't mean interesting. In fact, Yoshida has directly touched on this subject in regards to Samurai and Red Mage specifically:

Michael A. Cunningham (RPGamer): ... How are you looking to move forward with new jobs from here?...

Yoshida: We're trying our best to create jobs while keeping the traditions of the Final Fantasy series in mind. This includes looking into bringing back jobs from previous titles such as summoner, thief, ninja, samurai, and red mage. Rather than obsessing over originality, we want XIV's jobs to evoke a true Final Fantasy feel while remaining balanced within XIV's battle system.

Cunningham: ...how are you looking to make them different? How about the same?

Yoshida: We aren't setting out to radically change jobs just for the sake of being different... ...Our focus is on implementing jobs to adequately fit roles in XIV's battle system.

When you start making jobs just for the sake of being "original" then you start running into the niche job territory. The only thing truly unique about RDM and BLU being tanks is that they're jobs we wouldn't expect to be tanks. I think making a RDM or BLU a tank would be an injustice to everyone because it would attract even fewer people overall than any of the current tank jobs, and the majority of people who want to play these jobs would not want to tank.

Red Mage does have a history in FF series for being able to equip Heavy Armor which does allow it to fit into a Tank for FF14...

You're really stretching to consider the single outlier of FFIII a "history" where RDM could use most of the heavy armor, though not all. In every other iteration, RDM has cultivated a history of not being able to wear heavy armor. Their very next appearance, they pretty much established themselves as mostly relegated to cloth armor.

[Shippuu]

That argument is such a load of bullcr*p. Give tanks the uninteresting / makes no sense tank (anything but SAM)? There are way more interesting concepts than SAM.

That's an opinion. Still doesn't change that Samurai is pretty much the most requested job to be added to the game. So it doesn't really matter what's interesting, only what's a safer bet. A RDM tank would be interesting, sure, it's also a bigger step away from it's traditional identity as well as all kinds of other issues like itemization.

Logical and factual arguments? DRG has heavy armor, but is a DPS? MNK uses leather, but had Taunt in 1.0?
Also, about the queue times. A different kind of tank, one that is more Mage-like, would help the queue times way more in the long run.

DRG wears heavy armor, sure. It could have been a tank if SE wanted it to. It also doesn't have much history with abilities that shielded or defended others.

You're also greatly overplaying the 1.0 pugilist skill taunt. Which only directed the enemy towards the pugilist for 5 seconds (which wasn't very long in the slow pace of 1.0, we're talking about one enemy attack.) They had zero moves that built or increased their enmity, and the ability was removed in 2.0 so it's a moot point at this rate.

I also disagree that a mage/casting tank would help queue times more in the long run. You're taking a playstyle that is not shared with other tanks and while it's an interesting idea it makes it incredibly harder to balance in-line with the other tanks, on top of itemization if they don't wear fending armor. And even then, it would have to be one of the more requested mage jobs (RDM or BLU) which comes with the same flak as taking SAM and making it a tank instead of a DPS as those players will complain as well. SAM tank is generally the path of least resistance from a develop standpoint.

[EdwinLi]

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You do know Yoshi-P said in that quote he wants to make the Jobs and their Roles fit into FF14 battle system.

Michael A. Cunningham (RPGamer): ... How are you looking to move forward with new jobs from here?...

Yoshida: We're trying our best to create jobs while keeping the traditions of the Final Fantasy series in mind. This includes looking into bringing back jobs from previous titles such as summoner, thief, ninja, samurai, and red mage. Rather than obsessing over originality, we want XIV's jobs to evoke a true Final Fantasy feel while remaining balanced within XIV's battle system.

Cunningham: ...how are you looking to make them different? How about the same?

Yoshida: We aren't setting out to radically change jobs just for the sake of being different... ...Our focus is on implementing jobs to adequately fit roles in XIV's battle system.

This can lead to things people may not expect from a Job.

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Making things too safe is also a risky move in business as well as things end up being too similar between each other which does cause people to lose interests in the Job and may be even question if they will ever make anything innovating to use. We already saw this kind of issue in 3.0 and now as people did notice the gameplay of Machinist and Bard are not that different from each other and Astro was considered a weaker version of White Mage and Scholar.

Machinist suffered the most because people consider it a Bard that depends on RNG despite many people wanted a Gun Job in the game.

[DWolfwood]

You do know Yoshi-P said in that quote he wants to make the Jobs and their Roles fit into FF14 battle system.



This can lead to things people may not expect from a Job.

You should consider being a lawyer with how you interpret things lol. How someone sees reworking the armor in FFXIV specifically around RDM out of "implementing jobs to adequately fit roles" while supposedly not ignoring the previous "we aren't setting out to radically change jobs just for the sake of being different" is completely beyond me, but more power to you.

[EdwinLi]

You should consider being a lawyer with how you interpret things lol. How someone sees reworking the armor in FFXIV specifically around RDM out of "implementing jobs to adequately fit roles" while supposedly not ignoring the previous "we aren't setting out to radically change jobs just for the sake of being different" is completely beyond me, but more power to you.

They are not changing a Job if the foundation and lore of the Job is still there in the FF14 version. Both Samurai and Red Mage can be either Tank or DPS without affecting the lore behind the two jobs.

If you're relating that quote to gameplay of a Job alone that is something we should not go deep into as the only way to know the gameplay of a Job in FF14 is if it is already released or shown. It is only then when we know if they have radically changed the job's gameplay to be different.

However, that has already happend with Machinist as it was originally intended to have a unique mechanic involving Weapon Modifications but was scrapped and changed into what it is now.

[DWolfwood]

However, that has already happend with Machinist as it was originally intended to have a unique mechanic involving Weapon Modifications but was scrapped and changed into what it is now.

Attachments would've just been an Offhand piece of equipment. Not exactly a major change so much as an elimination of something not considered that important.