I wish Gunbreaker would be a DPS class.

[Burningskull]

While I've come to terms with Gunbreaker being a Tank since it was always designed as one. I do think people take the "Squall was always a meat shield" to far. In FF8 every character could be w/e you wanted them to be due to how the junction system worked. It was the same in FF7, FF10 after a while through the sphere grid. When FF12 first came out every character could learn how to do everything. FF13 was basically the same after you beat the game every character could be every role, tho some where better than others. In FF8 Squall was a mercenary, which to me says a Jack of all Trades to me.

I just hope Gunbreaker feels different than PLD. Just going off the trailer for it, which yes I know that's not much and not everything it can do, it just kinda seemed like a PLD without a shield.

Tanks don't really have much leeway. You're going to have a enmity combo, one or two DPS combos, mitigation abilities like Rampart and your own Job specific one like Shield Wall or w/e it's called for PLD, and then you are going to have your Gun Trigger abilities that either make your DPS combos better or your Mitigation abilities better. (Speculation on how they have talked so far.) Maybe it'll be a faster tank which would work since they are removing TP. Maybe it'll be the highest DPS of all the tanks. Who knows. But I hope it will be fun and I'm looking forward to collecting all the gunblades that I can. Just probably not the Savage / Ultimate ones... Those are way to hard / annoying to get lol.

[Vaer]

Q: Why is Gunbreaker a tank and not a DPS?

A: There are two reasons. First off, if we added it as a DPS, the numbers wouldn't be balanced anymore. We already have a lot of melee DPS, so we didn't want to add any more. The second reason is because it was about time to implement the FF series jobs that people around the world had been requesting, such as BLU. We considered that a gunblade job would make a good draw because of its flashiness and appearance, and adding it as a tank would be great for role balance. We debated about whether we could make a tank different from the ones that fight at the forefront and in the end decided to go with gunblade. There were a surprising amount of people who predicted it'd be a tank - about 70% of the community. I think that means the players are also aware of FFXIV's job balance and design policy.

Q: Right now, the three tanks are well-balanced. What will happen when you throw another job into the mix? Can you tell us roughly what Gunbreaker's special characteristics will be?

A: Honestly, please wait until May for the answer. We'll show you how the four tanks will differentiate themselves, including their new actions. We've had three tanks up to Patch 4.5, and we see tank players' preferences with regards to MTing, OTing, tank stances, etc. I don't think it'd be good for the three tanks to form a "triangle", so maybe we'll balance them by having two MTs and two OTs, or make them capable of both. Right now, we're working towards a compromise as we adjust the actions. We'll announce the battle system details in May, so please wait until then.

Q: You announced that Gunbreaker would involve "pulling the trigger the moment you slash the enemy" as its battle style. Is that a command input or some kind of setting?

A: If we make the player pull the trigger every time, then controller players will get tendonitis *laughs* We plan to show it graphically, with actions that'll let you feel like you're experiencing it. We always emphasize a different game experience based on each job's base concept, so Gunbreaker will be released with its own job system as well. That will be revealed along with the battle actions in May.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme..._at_paris_fan/

Some info from an interview.

[Araxes]

While I do think we need more tanks, I do wish it was a DPS job and the other planned job/jobs would be a tank instead.

Okay. Give me Samurai-Tank and you can have gunbreaker dps.

[Burningskull]

Okay. Give me Samurai-Tank and you can have gunbreaker dps.

Gladly... but that's not going to happen lol. Matter of fact you can have SAM, DRG, MNK, and any other job that comes out as a tank if I could have Gunbreaker as a DPS

[EdwinLi]

Gladly... but that's not going to happen lol. Matter of fact you can have SAM, DRG, MNK, and any other job that comes out as a tank if I could have Gunbreaker as a DPS

They can make a Tank MNK, SAM< and DRG if the developers decided to put effort into it since there are other Jobs that have similar fighting styles or were advance versions or pre-required job of these jobs.

Black Belt can be a Tank MNK but uses a Guantlet as a weapon since those will be more defensive designed to allow the Black belt to block attacks with their arms.

Sentinel would be a good choice for the DRG Tank Job being a Lance/Shield Tank that focus on holding their ground.

They can make a Counter Attack based Tank for a Katana theme Tank but use Daisho (the dual katana user that use a one-handed katana and a wakizashi). They may make the Job name Ronin since these Tank SAMs are samurais without masters.

[frostmagemari]

Just let it be now since not many Jobs can be picked to be a Tank Job in FF series unless that Job been used by a "Main Character" in a FF game.

Tank Job has a iconic image for being the Leader/Hero of the group that takes the most damage for the team while leading the team into battle. With Squall being a character that charges into the fight more head on, I am not surprised considering this job is based around him.

You know.. that's probably the single most compelling explanation for why jobs that don't really fit as tanks have been tanks that I've ever heard.

[Seraphor]

In FF8 Squall was a mercenary, which to me says a Jack of all Trades to me.

He was also, along with Seifer, a Sorcoress' Knight.

[Nedkel]

Q: Right now, the three tanks are well-balanced. What will happen when you throw another job into the mix? Can you tell us roughly what Gunbreaker's special characteristics will be?

I want to slap in the face a guy who asked this question. Wat a jackass.

[Jandor]

I want to slap in the face a guy who asked this question. Wat a jackass.

Why? Tanks actually are pretty well-balanced.

[mosaicex]

I want to slap in the face a guy who asked this question. Wat a jackass.

Performance-wise they actually are quite balanced right now.