Samurai, why Tanks?

[MeeDeggiThePunisher]

Troll, it has to be.

Why is everyone calling him a troll? I've played XI 2004-2009 and don't ever remember people asking SAMs to tank. Except maybe for Valkurm Dunes. Ugh the dunes. /shudder

[Duelle]

I dont know what version of 11 you played but these were never things.

Only because people refused to adjust. SAM was designed with the highest parry rating out of the jobs. Its weapon skills had easy-to-stack mods and their gear originally leaned towards high parry with STR supplementing. Since parry mechanics in FFXI were garbage people used it as DPS, taking advantage of the easy mods on their weapon skills (the design combined with gear swaps meant SAM ended up doing a ton more damage that other jobs, specially once people discovered how store TP worked). It was easier to veer it towards DPS over having to fix how parries worked, figuring out a better mechanic for SAM tanking AND admitting they were wrong. This was Tanaka's FFXI, and at that time they never admitted they were wrong, much less clean up their own messes.

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That said, I like the idea of a SAM tank. I'd probably base it off the WoW Monk's stagger mechanic (basically damage taken is split by half into direct damage taken and a stacking self-DoT called stagger. The design revolved around parrying stuff and managing your stagger stacks so that damage taken would not overtake heals tossed at you by the healer).

[Kitru]

That said, I like the idea of a SAM tank. I'd probably base it off the WoW Monk's stagger mechanic (basically damage taken is split by half into direct damage taken and a stacking self-DoT called stagger. The design revolved around parrying stuff and managing your stagger stacks so that damage taken would not overtake heals tossed at you by the healer).

How they do SAM is probably going to be heavily influenced by what kind of SAM they're going with because there are 2 fundamental archetypes of the samurai that they could go with: the samurai wearing flamboyant armor who gets by on intimidation, strength, and sturdiness and the samurai wearing normal clothes and defending themselves entirely with their skills with a sword. It's kind of like the difference between a fencer and a knight.

A SAM built around wearing heavy armor would, in all likelihood, be STR based with a lot of self buffs and debuffs generated by kiai and other forms of intimidation (which would probably be their "shtick"; they could even operate as tank with support functionality with a mechanic like this, reducing their own mitigation/enmity/damage to improve the performance of others). A SAM built around wearing light/no armor would most likely be DEX based and, mechanically, be a parry/evasion tank by necessity; in all likelihood, have some form of controllable dramatic increases to parry and other forms of mitigation (akin to Inner Beast providing a burst of DR) possibly derived from katas (e.g. there are 3 combos, each of which provides you with a passive buff of some kind that can stack up to 2-3 times; they are provided with 3 job abilities that consume one type of said each and provide a dramatically increased condition of the consumed stacks for a short duration after; this wouldn't hit the same problem that Wrath had pre-2.1 because you'd still have the other 2 buff types active).

Much of the implementation for any class depends heavily upon what vision the devs have for a given class. They made WAR follow the noble savage/barbarian archetype, as opposed to the emotionless/focused weaponmaster that other games make them out to be, and the abilities followed suit. They had WHM designed to be more akin to a druid rather than a cleric/priest (nature magics and whatnot) which heavily influenced the story and base class. We won't really know what the devs imagine one class to be like until they release it (or explicitly tell us about it, like they've outright said that NIN isn't going to be a tank if/when it's introduced).

[Aaramis]

Kitru, your comments about Samurai and Ninja are fairly accurate, although we also have to keep in mind that Samurai changed significantly over time, including their weapons and, eventually, their armour.

Nevertheless, there's little point getting into debates about it since FFXIV is a *game* and has no real requirements to base their classes/jobs on reality.

If they wanted to make their Samurai in heavy bulky armour and as Naginata-wielding tanks, then so be it. Similarly, they can make them gi-wearing dual-wielding DPS if they so choose.

In other words, you're right in your second post: there's a wide range of variety they have to choose from, so it's also impossible to determine which way they're going to go with things. All we can do is speculate based on previous FF games which, also, have a lot of variety in how classes/jobs have presented.

[SirTaint]

I dont know what version of 11 you played but these were never things.

Troll attempt?

[MomoOG]

Are you seriously trying to logically explain why Ninja, historically the equivalent to a modern spy, should be a tank instead? FF11 made dumb mistake with ninja that we don't need repeated. Maybe Samurai shouldn't be a tank but Ninja sure as hell should not be a tank over Samurai.

[Megido]

Are you seriously trying to logically explain why Ninja, historically the equivalent to a modern spy, should be a tank instead?

That wasnt really the point of my post. But if we get an evasion tank, it would make the most sense to me if it was on a ninja, not on a samurai. And for samurai to be dps. Also well, evasion tanking seems a lot more unique than another parry/block job or not-nerfed WAR lifesteal tank.
I see this discussion all the time and the only reasoning i ever got was 'cool armor' or 'just cause'.

And yes when i heard people talk about ninja tanks i raised an eyebrow as well but it still makes more sense than a samurai. The lesser evil, one could say.

SAM was originally designed as a parry tank. They had high EVA too and then later Seigan etc.

DRK started out as a fragile DD but with the addition of high end PDT, Apoc drain/haste and dread spikes it was the ideal tank in 11.

There we go, now it makes a lot more sense. Thanks.

[AzumaKun]

Are you seriously trying to logically explain why Ninja, historically the equivalent to a modern spy, should be a tank instead? FF11 made dumb mistake with ninja that we don't need repeated. Maybe Samurai shouldn't be a tank but Ninja sure as hell should not be a tank over Samurai.

Also, SE didn't intend for Ninja to be a tank when it was implemented into FFXI.

[Deculture]

I have no idea if SAM was originally designed to be a tank in 11, but I do know SAMs that were properly geared with a proper haste TP build set + STR WS set blew everyone out of the water when it came to DPS parses up until Abyssea. GTK for errything and then you just pulled out your Tomoe for flying targets and spammed Pentas into it.

[Euphe]

If they made SAM a tanking class wouldn't it be a copy of WARs? I mean they use katanas which are two handed weapons and dress in heavy armor. We have that already. I guess they could make SAM evasive tanks like they would NINs in the end... Maybe make them a Dexterity based tank? Just throwing ideas out there.