Quote Originally Posted by Kazrah View Post
When people wanted Dark Knight, they looked at how it was traditionally and thought "it sacrifices health to do extra damage, so of course it'll be a dps". When Dark Knight came out as a tank instead, that simply proved that job concepts can be more or less bent toward roles not expected by the playerbase.

This is why I said that Red Mage could be pinned to any role: it has far more flexibility than Dark Knight in that regard.
Not really a good comparison. The Dark Knight, whether as a DPS or Tank, is a very straight-forward job and thus only the most basic trait had to be tweaked/changed for it to work as a Tank; so that instead of sacrificing health to do damage, they absorb health depending on the amount of damage they deal, which was already a thing in previous FFs through the use of Blood Equipment.

To make Red Mage work as a tank or healer, you'd have to completely change the whole concept of the job, which is them being versatile allrounders who are adept in many forms of combat and magic but not excelling in any of them. How can you tank with mediocre (at best) defensive abilities and lackluster base stats, or be a committed healer when you're not able to use the higher levels of White Magic? It just doesn't work.
As a Hybrid DPS they would however be able to make use of their versatility, utilizing both melee combat and offensive magic while buffing themselves and their party members with offensive and defensive utility spells.

So, imo, there's no way to sell RDM as a tank or healer without completely redesigning the whole job.