Quote Originally Posted by Alacran View Post
Point being there are other FF Jobs that more readily "fit" the magic Tank role
The FFXIV dev team is very comfortable combining job concepts. It's 100% reasonable to expect that Rune Fencer traits/skills/spells will end up in any magic tank job that gets created. The question would be what is the front facing JOB that they choose.

Here are the current examples:
- Ranger has been co-opted by Archer and Bard. Shadowbind, Sidewinder, you're never going to see RNG in FFXIV.
- Thief has been co-opted by Rogue and Ninja. Mug, Sneak Attack, Trick Attack, Dancing Edge, you're never going to see THF in FFXIV. FFXI AF is literally called Rogue's Attire and is used by FFXIV Rogue NPCs.
- Gambler/Corsair to a certain extent, their Cards and Dice have been co-opted by Astrologians, the Corsair gun was co-opted by Machinists. Was there ever an FF game with cards and dice at the same time? I can't remember. And the Setzer Gambler gearset is in the Gold Saucer.

So for SOME job to have both Rune Fencer and Red Mage characteristics rolled together it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

3 main reasons they actually choose the job that they do
- Story/Lore (they like Ninja better than Rogue/Thief because they want to relate some lore to Doma, they don't like the concept of Adventurers being thieves)
- Gear Design (every once in awhile besides generic Fending/Striking/Aiming/Casting etc gearsets we get some JSE), they like fanservice (hey look it's Kain/Shadow/Yang/Rydia/Vivi's outfit)
- Animation/Weapon Design (Dual Wield and Guns were things we didn't have yet and could have unique animations still)

Given those 3 characteristics
- Lore (RDM vs Rune Fencer doesn't really matter, can be written either way really)
- Gear Design (the 3 most fanservicy things still missing are RDM, SAM and BLU, nowhere does Rune Fencer hold a candle to that)
- Animation/Weapon Design (all those Rune Fencer concepts look like Great Swords, they already gave that to DRK, we don't have Rapiers and stabbing animations)

Similarly, I think if they were to make BLU a thing, they might actually go with more of a Quina like Fork weapon, a Whip or even steal the Bell from Geomancer rather then give them the FFXI Scimitars.

Quote Originally Posted by Alacran View Post
No need to sacrifice a Job more suited to a DPS role simply to hope for the off chance that Samurai not be placed in the Role it was originally envisioned in by the development team
There's no reason to say RDM is more suited for a DPS role. BLM has always been the iconic DPS job. RDM should never be able to put out the DPS that a BLM does.

I don't consider SAM at all when I think about how RDM best fits into the game. I think about how a RDM could play in 4 man dungeons and in every EX Trial. Soloing is also completely insignificant, any implementation of it will be fine soloing.