How a Shapeshifter Could Work in FFXIV

[kikix12]

If we look at other FF games all dedicated casters are squishy, and even in the customizable versions all casters are squishy or speccing a character out to be a caster makes them more squishy unless hybridized to give up a sizable chunk on the caster side.

I just told you. Blue Mages have comparable survivability to Paladins and Soldiers, and few other "tanking" classes, in Final Fantasy Tactics advance. And you don't need to "spec" them either. Their innate stat boosts are like that. And in Final Fantasy there is no such thing as dedicated mage to begin with. Everyone is an equal mage unless you grow them differently. And a tanky mage suffers no more than a tanky physical. You have survivability, attack OR a balance of the two. Whether the attack is physical or magical doesn't matter.

Even in dungeons and dragons for a caster type to be durable they have to give up a lot on the caster side to do it.

And this shows that you completely ignored most of what I wrote, only to make your own, little, nice setting that "proves" your point. I'm not talking about multi-classing. Mages have lowest HP, yes. Mages tend to be given low Vitality, yes. Arcane mages (and there are non-arcane mages, Druid and Cleric are the basic ones) suffer as mages from trying to put on heavy armor, yes (they need to spend quite a few extra traits in order to get to equal standing in that respect). But they have unmatched defensive spells. SPELLS. Their casting in no way suffers from taking them. It is part of them. There is, literally, no better defense than what can be used by a caster in 3.X. Nothing. Null. Nada. Mages are powerful offensively and defensively in D&D. If you fail to see that fact, then you simply "filter" it out cause it doesn't fit your bill. They are so powerful that their sustainability had to be severely impaired by spell slots so that they wreck enemies in one fight, but are all but spent later on. And they need to choose defensive or offensive spells for the slots they pick (Sorcerers had to make that choice for spells learned in addition).

And the ones shown to have any decent magic barriers main story wise in FFXIV are white mages, and just look at what happened to Y'shtola when some extra force was applied. Her shield was ripped in half and she was sent to the hospital for the 4.0 main story. Gameplay wise just look at how often WHM, AST, and SCH shields get punctured.

...White Mage...White Mage. Mage. Yep, that's relevant here...

And what happened to Y'Shtola...is relevant how?! Now you're saying that a tank can solo him without a healer?! Of course not. Zenos Yae Galvus in story was shown to tear through Y'Shtola's barrier, but he was also shown to wreck the Warrior of Light just as easily at multiple times. Including tank Warriors of Light. Your point is?! Stronger beats weaker, simple as that. It just proves that magic in FFXIV is not almighty or superior to physical abilities. It's balanced out, and whichever you pursue, you're going to be able to cope with the enemies by overpowering or outsmarting them all the same.

And gameplay-wise their shields being punctured...now, this is hilarious. Go ahead, play a tank. Go to a boss and say "hey, I'm a tank, so you can't scratch me!"...And die five seconds later. OF COURSE the shields are being punctured. It's a GAME! We're not talking about bringing an invincible mage tank here!!!

And by technicality dark knight is the "mage" tank. Its also considered the worst tank in the game outside of boss fights against enemies that use magic at max level.

What nonsense. Dark Knight is not the "mage" tank technically, thematically or lore-wise at all. He is a mage-tank mechanically, since he have spell skills. Paladin is more of a mage tank in any way, shape or form. He have actual cast times, he have targeted spell healing and his lore is actually showing it as a spell-casting knight. And he was always considered the best at survivability (and now considered the best overall). Dark Knights are shown to use darkness from within, which is just "spells" in mechanics for simplicities sake.
Dark Knight was called "mage tank" because it was a class with the most skills to tank mage ENEMIES. And because outside of lore, people call everything either a warrior, mage or healer, so the distinctive nature of his "spells" didn't matter, just that they are mechanically spells.

I wish square would just remove that 1000 character limit already.

Well, at least you can bypass it by editing. There is no limit to characters at that point. Though yes, the lone existence of it is horrid forum design. We can't even preview the posts if they are over the limit...