What is the warrior job fantasy?

[TaleraRistain]

oh god no please do not break up tanks into magic and physical tanks again, it would be DRK/GNB only in EX and above because those bosses do 90% magic attacks on raidwides and TBs

They could add more things like Harrowing Hell were as a GNB you're sitting there feelsbadman when the only party mit you can offer on the heaviest hitter in the fight is a 10s Reprisal.

[Raikai]

What are supposed to be Warrior's defining characteristics?
I see a lot of ''homogenisation bad'' talking points when it comes to tanks, so let's start with the developer's favourite tank; Warrior.

What are supposed to be Warrior's strengths and weaknesses? What sort of fights is it supposed to thrive in, and where should it fall short?

Idk, I just find weird that the "Berserker" job is the one with most self-healing. I'd certainly assume it to either be DRK's vampiric/blood aspect or a PLD's forte.

[RitsukoSonoda]

Lore wise in this particular game WAR was essentially Berserker turned into a tanking job initially. Hence all the earlier quests focused around the inner beast and it's consuming rage through ARR,HW,SB.

Other FF titles generally had WAR as the meat and potatoes physical fighter that could also essentially double as a walking armory due to the amount of different weapon types it could use.

[GoatOfWar]

They could add more things like Harrowing Hell were as a GNB you're sitting there feelsbadman when the only party mit you can offer on the heaviest hitter in the fight is a 10s Reprisal.

Well, neither Dark missionary nor Heart of light are better at mitigating magic damage than Shake it off is. So they'd need to rebalance that.

[ty_taurus]

Something I think could've been really interesting would be if Warrior could place themselves in a state very regularly where taking lethal damage does not KO them, but instead places them in negative HP for a set duration. Certain self-sustain cooldowns are greatly enhanced while the Warrior has negative HP, but if they cannot heal off their negative HP fast enough, they die. I know this is basically Living Dead, but rather than being Warrior's invuln, I'd just make that their normal method of mitigation, and moves that otherwise need invulns to survive would just do way too much negative HP for the warrior to heal through, or if the negative HP reaches a certain threshold, you just die anyway. In other words, rather than raw mitigation, they'd survive normal tankbusters by being able to go into the negatives and heal that off.

Meanwhile I'd just have had Dark Knight's Living Dead set them to 0 HP and allow them to live on 0 HP, and based on the amount of damage they deal while in that state, they recover once the duration of the Invuln ends. This would be similar to how someone like Ardyn works in Dissidia Opera Omnia where his main gimmick is reducing his HP to 0 and becomes unkillable. Queen from Type 0 does this too, but she doesn't basically live in that state unlike Ardyn.

[Payadopa]

To make healers obsolete without effort apparently. lol

[TheOperator3712]

Something I think could've been really interesting would be if Warrior could place themselves in a state very regularly where taking lethal damage does not KO them, but instead places them in negative HP for a set duration. Certain self-sustain cooldowns are greatly enhanced while the Warrior has negative HP, but if they cannot heal off their negative HP fast enough, they die. I know this is basically Living Dead, but rather than being Warrior's invuln, I'd just make that their normal method of mitigation, and moves that otherwise need invulns to survive would just do way too much negative HP for the warrior to heal through, or if the negative HP reaches a certain threshold, you just die anyway. In other words, rather than raw mitigation, they'd survive normal tankbusters by being able to go into the negatives and heal that off.

Meanwhile I'd just have had Dark Knight's Living Dead set them to 0 HP and allow them to live on 0 HP, and based on the amount of damage they deal while in that state, they recover once the duration of the Invuln ends. This would be similar to how someone like Ardyn works in Dissidia Opera Omnia where his main gimmick is reducing his HP to 0 and becomes unkillable. Queen from Type 0 does this too, but she doesn't basically live in that state unlike Ardyn.

This is basically Brewmaster Monk's Stagger mechanic, but more difficult to implement.

[Renathras]

Warriors story is about rage and the inner beast controlling it and going berserk to take out your enemy

I think this is a slight misconception. The Job quests never have the WoL lose control, and it shows losing control of The Beast being a bad thing, with the Au Ra of the Azem Steppe even considering it bad enough to exile people who have awakened it.

It's more "power under control". The concept is the WAR needs to focus on what they are trying to protect, and aim the Beast at those things that threaten them. This is why what helps the NPCs control theirs is remembering that they want to PROTECT people, and when they forget that is when they become feral and have to be knocked down. The WoL, which is basically WAR perfected, is in constant control of his/her Beast, demonstrating what a WAR is "supposed to be" is a bit less "berserker" and more about controlling and channeling the beast.

Less Kenpachi and more Ichigo when he trains to manually control his mask form. The King ruling the Horse, if you recall that bit from Bleach.

I do agree that they aren't supposed to be bulky, though. Simple, straightforward, powerful, and agile, and above all, in control, summoning their feral spirit and targeting their hound of war at the enemy, but never actually letting go of the leash.

[Mithron]

The job fantasy for WAR is highest damage lowest utility tank

[Eelanos]

so let's start with the developer's favourite tank; Warrior.

What are supposed to be Warrior's strengths and weaknesses?

Do each of them need separate threads? I think one is enough to list what each of us think each class' fantasy, strength and weaknesses are.

This is what I think each tank should feel like and what fantasy they should fulfill.

PLD
Fantasy: Protect. Heal. Team feels safe with them. Healer's first tank job?
Strength: Safe. New content's safety net (The WHM/RDM of the tanks). Commendation magnet. ~Party-wide mitigation~! Physical damage mitigator?
Weakness: Little damage. Long mitigation cooldowns. MAG damage makes them sad.

WAR
Fantasy: High base damage. Too angry to die. The lower the health the stronger the defenses? Selfish. Wall of meat. "HOW did you survive THAT???"
Strength: Lots of HP. LOTS. Tankbuster who? Enemy supression as mitigation (DMG Down debuffs?). AST's best buddy~
Weakness: Little to no DEF Up mitigation. Bosses leaving the fight counters them. Healers' worst nightmare. 80% of the fight at 25% HP.

DRK
Fantasy: Vampire. Do damage, heal damage. "My suffering will be yours" - DRK Yuna, FFX-2. AKA, more damage suffered = more DPS dealt.
Strength: Constant AOE/DoT fights. Magic attack? Don't mind if I do *Slurps*.
Weakness: Heavy physical damage = Healers adjust. Low tank damage fights =

GNB
Fantasy: DDR but make it Tab target. Low cooldown, lots of weaving. Busy, stylish job. For his neutral special, he wields a GUN, AKA long range combos.
Strength: Long range forcing mechanics. Rotation. Never. Stops. Constant short duration mitigations. Speedrunners' dream job.
Weakness: The AST of the tank role. May need to stop a DPS weave to weave a mitigation. Not many heavy mitigations (tankbusters are dangerous). While very engaging, could get tiresome.

Or at least that's what I think. WAR having lots of self heal is something that has always rubbed me the wrong way. It feels like that's stepping on DRK's whole identity.