New jobs upcoming, new tanks?

[Gamemako]

So I'm thinking we really only have a few choices outside of crazy implementations.

Samurai
Rune Fencer
Dark Knight (people really dislike this idea)
Puppetmaster?

Samurai, sure. Rune Fencer (Rune Knight, Mystic Knight, Spell Fencer, Spellblade), sure. Dark Knight technically can, but the Darkside/Darkness ability is ill-suited to tanking. Puppetmaster or any pet-focused tank is contrary to ARR's movement-heavy design. Remember that there are no true "tanks" in FF games of yore; you really just have to look at what has been the hard-to-kill character you dropped at the front of your party. Anyway, durable jobs in previous FF games (at least two appearances):

Already used:
-Fighter/Warrior
-Knight/Paladin

Already used as non-tanks:
-Dragoon

Other possibilities:
-Berserker
-Templar
-Viking / Pirate
-Mystic Knight / etc
-Dark Knight
-Samurai

Kinda-sorta durable-ish, largely due to nebulous concept applied broadly across games:
-Blue Mage
-Beastmaster

Only durable as super-jobs or screwups:
-Black Belt / Master Monk / Supermonk
-Ninja

Among those that are most likely, I would say of their possibility:

Templar: Ripe for the picking with Ishgard in the lore. Only possible with LNC right now, which would be a decent mechanical fit. Would be odd to have both LNC jobs coming from Ishgard, however. Any alternative would require a new class.
Berserker: Could come from PGL with some modification to PGL's ability set, or could come from an entirely new hammer-wielding class. Berserker spirit already somewhat claimed by Warrior, however.
Viking: Axe and sword tanks already taken. Really would only make sense if you created a hammer-wielding class or similar (perhaps sword-and-gun class).
Mystic Knight: Mechanically infeasible as tank with current classes. Needs a new magicked-sword or two-handed class.
Dark Knight: Technically could come from LNC, but that would be weird. I'm not fond of the idea of a Dark Knight tank in the first place as it requires cutting the Darkside ability considerably.
Samurai: Once again, could come from LNC. Would need a story to go with it, and would cause a small revolt for not using a katana. Otherwise, new katana-wielding class.

TL;DR: No really good choices right now. Templar from LNC is as close as it gets, and it has lore drawbacks. Berserker from PGL could work, but requires some serious work filling out necessary tank traits.

I'll take that challenge!

Uh... you have no attack spells. All you have for healing is a gimped Cure with half the magic damage stat and otherwise equal MND. It would be roughly equivalent to SMN or BLM healing.

[mythicrose]

Samurai: Once again, could come from LNC. Would need a story to go with it, and would cause a small revolt for not using a katana. Otherwise, new katana-wielding class.

Well...it would be cheesy but with the recent New Year holiday event revolving around bringing horses to Eorzea from the far east, SE could do two things at once. Introduce horse mounts and samurai at once. Samurai happens to wear traditional attire with a nagita or other spear/polearm. Player encounters him in the lancer's guild. Smarai could could say something along the lines "You've learned how a spear can be offensive, let me teach you how it can be just as effective defensively" or some tripe. I'm not saying it'll happen though I would love to see a spear weilding samurai tank.

[Gamemako]

Well...it would be cheesy but with the recent New Year holiday event revolving around bringing horses to Eorzea from the far east, SE could do two things at once. Introduce horse mounts and samurai at once.

Good point; I had forgotten about that horse business. Samurai could wield any of several polearms, including the naginata (glaive) and yari (straight spear). Plenty of good ways to do it. Honestly, the main drawback is just how pissy certain players will get for not using a 7-foot katana.

[mythicrose]

Good point; I had forgotten about that horse business. Samurai could wield any of several polearms, including the naginata (glaive) and yari (straight spear). Plenty of good ways to do it. Honestly, the main drawback is just how pissy certain players will get for not using a 7-foot katana.

There would also be a backlash if SE implements darknights weilding sword and board. Regardless of what SE does, there will always be pissy players.

[Gamemako]

There would also be a backlash if SE implements darknights weilding sword and board.

I think that would would be quelled in a hurry by everyone spamming images of Cecil. By contrast, you don't have Cyan or Auron wielding polearms. One is classic, the other is unprecedented.

//EDIT: Then again, so was using scythes on Dark Knight in FF11, but some people actually liked that.

[Kitru]

There would also be a backlash if SE implements darknights weilding sword and board. Regardless of what SE does, there will always be pissy players.

It's not really the same thing though.

DRK is an abstract concept (warrior wielding powers of darkness) without an explicit real world equivalent; even in FF, the gear loadout of DRK is poorly defined since it's never actually *had* a standard loadout or anything close to it. DRK could be given a hammer and it wouldn't be a major deviation.

SAM, on the other hard, has an explicit real world equivalent, which is where we actually get the name from, which, even if it did not use the katana as its predominant weapon of war, still treated it as a trademark (samurai was a caste that was defined by the wearing of the katana; if you weren't of the caste but wore one at your side, another samurai would be well within their rights to kill you on the spot). Hell, for years, up until Japanophilia really took over in the West, the common term for the katana was "samurai sword" (you'll still see plenty of people call them that). In addition, SAM, throughout the FF series, has always wielded katana.

SAM with a weapon other than a katana would be akin to having PLD using axes exclusively: it's plausible/acceptable, but it's still contrary to both real world *and* FF variants of the archetype.

[mythicrose]

snip.

As you know, it is plausible for SE to implement a spear wielding samurai. It's been done in only one of their games if I remember right (FFXII-2 maybe? didn't play that series). Even in the real world, they weren't excluded to just katana training. I do not contest it was a trade mark weapon. Regardless of how/when Samurai is introduced in this game, I just see backlash coming. SE can't please everyone. I would just love to see naganita weilding samurai be the tanking aspect job from lancer.

On a side note, Kitru, I mostly like your ninja/thief ideas in the Other Battle Systems thread. Also, I can't help but give "voice" to your posts read as though I'm listening to Emma Watson's portrayal of Hermine Granger. I can't explain it, but giving your posts that voice over just seems....fantastic.

[Tzain]

SAM with a weapon other than a katana would be akin to having PLD using axes exclusively: it's plausible/acceptable, but it's still contrary to both real world *and* FF variants of the archetype.

Assuming any form of Vanity replacement exists at the time of implementation, the appearance of the item (Katana) does not have to be connected to the actual items real form. It's just an aesthetic that doesn't necessarily reflect the mechanics. Not something I'd be particularly bogged down with. Depending on the vanity system involved, it might be possible to have the process of Equiping a job stone cause the item to change appearance, the same way equipping a chest piece changes how the character is displayed.

Uh... you have no attack spells.

40 - Element Blast - Spell: 2.5s cast time. Delivers an attack with X potency and inflicts or refreshes a 30% slow. 10 yalm range. Increased Enmity. costs MP.
Blizzard II is an available THM Cross Class skill.

That's single target and multi-target. Both of which carry the more important Control Effects that a tank would be looking for.

All you have for healing is a gimped Cure with half the magic damage stat and otherwise equal MND. It would be roughly equivalent to SMN or BLM healing.

30 - Magik strike: Deals Physical damage
Combo Action: Riot Blade
Combo Bonus: causes the RDM mind and int stats to = their str stat for 5 seconds and spells cannot be interrupted. Effect drops after a spell is cast.
Combo Additional effect: Causes all other attacks from other sources to cause X% more damage

So after doing Fast Blade > Riot Blade > Magik Strike you get 5 seconds to cast a spell of your choice with a MND/INT stat that now equals your STR stat.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but DMG/Healing is a calculation based on Weapon DMG, INT/MND/STR, and associated Traits, right? If not I'll amend the design. The intent is to cause Magik strike to make a single spell that's potency related to have a potency somewhat analogous to it's parent class (minus class effects brought by Traits of course, this is a Tank after all).

Side note: The seeming overreliance on Cross Class spells is on purpose.

[Kitru]

As you know, it is plausible for SE to implement a spear wielding samurai. It's been done in only one of their games if I remember right (FFXII-2 maybe? didn't play that series).

In the FF series, Samurai have *always* wielded katana and, in fact, has only used polearms in a single iteration:

• In FFV, Samurai use knives and katana.
• In FFVI, Cyan uses katana exclusively (Zantetsuken is technically a sword/scimitar, but it's the only one that Cyan can use).
• In FFX, Auron uses katana exclusively.
• In FFX-2, the Samurai dressphere uses 2h swords (Rikku uses Auron's sword, in fact) which are significantly different, aesthetically, from the Dark Knight's.
• In FFXI, Samurai used a katana as their absolute best weapon with polearms as their second (also, random point, this is the only game where great katana is the samurai weapon and katana is the ninja weapon; in every other instance, either the two weapon types are conflated or they are referred to separately as katana and ninja blade).
• In the FFXII rerelease (that actually had something resembling a job system), the katana-using license board uses katana exclusively.
• In FFT, Samurai only used katana.
• In FFTA2, Paravir only used katana.

In the annals of FF, Samurai has been synonymous with katana-wielding (though, katana-wielding is not always synonymous with samurai; when there is only ninja around, ninja use katana rather than ninja blades). It would be a *massive* deviation from the norm. Hell, FFXI's Samurai (along with so very much about FFXI) was a substantial deviation from the norm insofar as Samurai got to use *more* than just katana. Given that ARR uses a system wherein class/jobs use a single weapon, it's incredibly unlikely that they'll use anything else. Based upon Yoshi's comments, I'd be highly doubtful they would let expediency get in the what they think the best design would be.

[Gamemako]

Assuming any form of Vanity replacement exists at the time of implementation, the appearance of the item (Kata. It's just an aesthetic that doesn't necessarily reflect the mechanics.

Weapons don't animate themselves. It's unlikely that you will be able to use vanity on anything the job can't already equip.

That's single target and multi-target. Both of which carry the more important Control Effects that a tank would be looking for.

A single spell does not a job make. Moreover, you're talking about a tank for some reason -- PLD is already the tank for GLA, and there won't be a second tank.

So after doing Fast Blade > Riot Blade > Magik Strike you get 5 seconds to cast a spell of your choice with a MND/INT stat that now equals your STR stat.

Melee weapons have half the magic damage stat of magic weapons. Even with high MND, you'll get little damage out of the spell because your magic damage stat is lower.

Side note: The seeming overreliance on Cross Class spells is on purpose.

As a DoW, you don't have access to Blizzard II. Even if you did, it's a low-potency utility spell unsuitable for damage uses. You'd have Aero, but the gimped magic damage stat would make it worthless as well. Basically, in-tree spell is the only one you'd have. Red Mage with one spell. And a tank.