Quote Originally Posted by Docent View Post
Well, warriors are known for their offense, despite being tanks. That's because tank isn't mostly about defense, it's about threat first and foremost. The tankiest characters who don't have agro aren't tanks. They're just hard to kill.

Historically, RDM has good grounds for being a tank, but not because of their stellar HP pool or high DEF or magic DEF, as people often point out. What they have is tremendous EHP (Effective Hit Points) through their ability to cast healing spells. a 600 HP mage able to cure 4000 hp is a lot sturdier than a 800 hp fighter who takes 20% less damage per hit.
A white mage would have much higher "EHP" than a red mage in this case, given that their HP, armor, and healing capabilities are always as good or better. They even get shields sometimes! Should they also be tanks?

As for warriors, I don't know if you've played FF1, but they are absolutely a tank. They basically exist to be put at the front of the party and take 1 damage from the attacks that decimate every other class. And they evolve into knights, which in Japan are paladins, so FF1 actually covered both of the original tank classes by itself pretty nicely.

The problem with determining which FF classes are tanks is that the idea of threat does not apply to most games in the series. FF1 was the closest example, since party order determined who was most likely to be attacked, and lo and behold, it's the game with the most tank-like classes. Other than that, what part of any FF job actually suggests tanking? Mostly just the paladin's cover ability.

So with the idea of threat being non-applicable to every FF game that has jobs or classes, we need to go by something else. And it's pretty obvious that the through-line for tanks in FFXIV is "heavy armor." No one else can use it in this game, and every tank class so far uses heavy armor traditionally. (Dragoons generally do too, but given that their signature ability takes them out of play for a turn, they would hardly make good tanks. )

EDIT: I want to make it clear, I'm not saying red mages can't or shouldn't be tanks. Hell, I think that would be pretty interesting. What I'm saying is there is absolutely no basis in the series of making them tanks.