Blue Mage tank???

[AshTerus]

What if instead of being tanky themselves they make the enemy weaker
For example maybe a skill reduces damage that monster deals to the blue mage (would probably be strong if it reduces damage to everyone)
Could work with Bad Breath

[Drtoxicmedica]

Pld has 2 spells that scale off of skill speed and strength that are white magic. Red mages vercure scales off of int even tho it's white magic. Why exactly would it be so hard to scale blu's spells off of strength for sake of balance?

[Seku]

They made DRK into a tank. Not seeing a problem with a BLU tank.

[CYBEReris]

It would be nice if Mighty Guard weren't already taken by the tank limit break, it would be a really suitable tank stance for this idea. Big Guard is also a thing but it's nowhere near as prevalent in the series.

[WildFlowerXIV]

in FFXI BLU was absolute EVERYTHING THOUGH! Tank? yeah. Healer? yeah. DPS? ya. LITTERALLY EVERYTHING? FUCK YEAH

[Claire_Pendragon]

in FFXI BLU was absolute EVERYTHING THOUGH! Tank? yeah. Healer? yeah. DPS? ya. LITTERALLY EVERYTHING? FUCK YEAH

To be fair, in XI, quite a few jobs could be more than 1 thing.
Casters could sub WHM or BRD to be healer or support. (at Lv50, if u dont have a BRD or RDM, /BRD for ballad1 is a god send, though most ppl didnt have BRD leveled to do it.)
Melee could sub WAR DNC or NIN to help tank or help heal. (you'd need 2 of them as either, to make it work.)

BLU was just good enough at all roles, that it didnt require that 2nd DPS job to make it possible. But that 2nd DPS helping did make a difference. (Be it tanking, healing, or support.)

by Lv75, every job in the game could tank the strongest endgame bosses, if they spent the time getting the proper gear/sub jobs. (In most cases, it was /NIN)
Seen every jailor tanked by every job, WHMs, BRDs, DRGs, etc (DRG being the hardest job to tank as, due to lack of threat w/o a THF SATA)

[Nabian]

They made DRK into a tank. Not seeing a problem with a BLU tank.

Cecil from FFIV was already a DRK tank. Them saying they made "DRK" into a tank isn't really saying much.

[Duskane]

Take a popular job and put it on a role that lacks players
Drk helped and so will blue

[Claire_Pendragon]

Take a popular job and put it on a role that lacks players
Drk helped and so will blue

According to Yoshida, the amount it helped was practically not at all.
(So I'd assume something less than or equal to 1% difference)

For my own story on being a tank or not;
I was WAR in 1.0, then switched to PLD when i got it to 50 in 2.0.
I was starting to play BLM, WHM, and DRG more than PLD near the end of 2.0, but then when DRK came out, I mained it for all of HW.
So in my case, it made me stay on tank, but I had already played tank, but not fully.

Then 3.0 DRK changes made me hate it, and slightly WHM.
I took up RDM, and now i dont really touch WHM or DRK.
WAR is pretty fun now, honestly feels like an easier version of RDM, and RDM is already easy. (I enjoy easy, I dont get mental fatigued after 15-30mins of raiding, like I do as DRK and other jobs)

But unless they ruin RDM, and they will, they cant keep something fun, I dont see myself maining WAR.
I doubt Id main BLU either, but I do wanna mess around with it. They would have to do something pretty darn cool, for me to main it.

So honestly I think its more complex than "More people will tank if BLU can be a tank".
At most, we'd see a small % increase, but nothing really noticeable, other than people who level it for the 1st, time, and then are done with it. (Which isnt bad honestly, thats queues that get done.)

[Duskane]

----

Yes most people who tried drk and ast were already tank and healer players
But there was a small margin like myself who started tanking and healing because of Drk and Ast,
And to fill up a unpopular role even a little bit is better then nothing,

And not sure how they will ruin RDM when its already bottom of the barrel
Brings nothing but a quick rez ,stale gameplay,extremely simple
But i guess ruining rdm for you is giving the job the slightest bit of depth.

A small % increase to tank/heal is better then more dps bloat.