Lancer : New Job Tank

[Kitru]

But how can we use a parry based survival skill to create a tank? Thought building around a riposte concept would work?

Riposte doesn't really work as a theme for a polearm fighter. Ripostes are more the domain of sword and light weapon fighters. A polearm's special attack "schtick" is generally that it can do amazing things when set against a charge, though that's something relatively pointless to implement in an MMO because it's not like charge attacks are used outside of PvP and a *very* small number of enemies.

Personally, for a polearm tank, I honestly have to wonder why people think that it should be parry focused. Polearms have never been associated with parrying, and the only "reason" that I can come up with for the decision is Keen Flurry, which, to me, would make more sense as the sole RNG mitigator in the CD suite as opposed to the central mechanic that the class is built around, much like GLD has a shield but the only thing that cranks it up is Bulwark.

It's also somewhat problematic to come up with a given theme for a polearm tank. Templar, which is the most common choice, has issues because it's basically just a PLD with a spear (in fact, if you check out the previous incarnations of Templar, you'd see that they actually end up using knightswords as often/more often than spears because the knightswords tend to be stronger); you're not really getting into a unique theme there and, because of that, are going to be retreading much of the same ground.

This is going to sound a bit weird, but I thought that an interesting variation upon the lancer tank would be the Geomancer. Geomancer based off of CNJ is already problematic because it is bogged down with so very, very many heals that would need to be worked around such that I doubt it would ever get a DPS job. While most of the implementations Geomancer throughout the series are casters, though they tend to have decent physical stats as well, the Tactics iterations, place them as being excellent physical attacks with balanced stats or reasonably proficient physical fighters with utterly ridiculous defense. I've always preferred the Tactics iteration because using a Bell as a weapon and dressing in recolored Santa clothes always rubbed me the wrong way. It's a bit of deviation from the standard mold, but it brings in a theme that allows for deviation from both the PLD and WAR. Plus, the LNCs guild is in Gridania, which is nature magic central so it makes some sense for there to be a little bleed over.

One of the bigger problems with designing a LNC tank job is that tanks have a more pressing need for an AoE attack/enmity generator than the other roles because they have to keep the attention of everything, especially against healers and AoEs; LNCs don't get any AoEs until 42, which is problematic. You could feasibly make the argument that they should be using Flash, though that would require giving them some kind of powerful native mp recovery (not *completely* unworkable, but potentially so). PLD has already shown that you don't *need* to get your tank stance at 30, which means that the level 30 Geomancy attack could very easily be an AoE attack, my preferred idea being a ground patch, whether ranged or not, that lasts 10-20 seconds and applies a high enmity DoT to anyone standing nearby; conversely, it could be a straight up AoE, like an earthquake or burst of poisonous thorns.

For a tank stance, some kind of pseudo-transmutation would probably be apt, empowering your flesh with the resilience of stone or hardwood. You'd then have 3 abilities remaining to bolster the relatively weak LNC tank CD suite: Lifesurge's heal is only marginally useful because it's once every minute and applies a heal about as large as Inner Beasts, which isn't all that great, and Keen Flurry, which, while quite nice, isn't what you would call "incredible". You'd devote one to an uber-CD, a physicks immunity CD, and a traditional tank CD. You could probably repurpose Blood for Blood to become a tank CD as well (since increasing damage taken doesn't really make sense for a tank; could probably just turn the damage taken into damage reduced and be fine with that, leaving the damage buff alone, because tanks kind of need that), to round it out.

The baseline abilities wouldn't need all the much changing. Add high enmity modifiers to a few attacks (Full Thrust combo and Ring of Thorns), remove the positional effects while folding the positional benefits into the baseline effects (Impulse Drive, Disembowel, and Heavy Thrust so that you can actually use them as a tank), and tweak some of the more offensively driven ones to be more tank focused (Heavy Thrust applies an absorb shield or HoT instead of +dam and Chaos Thrust applies an RoH/SP style debuff instead of a DoT), and you've done most of what you need.

All in all, it would look something like...

Attacks:
The Full Thrust combo would be your high enmity combo, which balances out the massive +enmity from a x5 enmity mod on Full Thrust by having to use other combos to maximize mitigation; effectively, the Maim that WAR's use to crank up their enmity generation through Butcher's Block to make up for having to use SP/SE in the first place is simply folded into the high enmity combo. Heavy Thrust and CT combo would be used every 30 seconds, with Phlebotomize taking a back seat most likely, which creates a rotation that looks like HT>CT combo>FT combo>FT combo>FT combo, which is 32.5 seconds, with leaves the buffs/debuffs down for 1 GCD (which is what you get with BB>BB>SP, so it's appropriate).

Assuming that HT no longer increases damage, CT gets something instead of the DoT, and the damage debuff/enmity modifier from the stance are on par with those of the existing ones, ePot/GCD would be 773.78 ((((150 + 200 * 3 + 330 * 5) * 3 + 170 + (180 + 220 + 200) / 13 + 83.33) / .9) and pot/GCD would be 332.76 ((((150 + 200 + 330) * 3 + 170 + (180 + 220 + 200)) / 13 + 83.33) / 0.9). For comparison, from the math I did here and here, PLD gets ~870 and ~305 while WAR gets ~730 and ~325 (using SP>BB>BB) or ~595 and ~370 (using SP>SE>BB). As such, those numbers are pretty much exactly where they should be (the max enmity combo of Disembowel>FT combo>FT combo>FT combo spam would generate 860.27 ePot/GCD and 340 pot/GCD).

Job abilities (in no particular order):
(Assuming the armor would be the LNC stuff with tank stats)
(GLA and CNJ as cross-class: Convalescence, Provoke, and Stoneskin are all "required")
1. Local Quake: 120 potency; 5x enmity modifier; 20% Heavy for 10 seconds; 5y radius, 15y range, ground targeted AoE, consumes MP
2. Nature's Embrace: 25% -dam; 2x enmity modifier; 25% +hp, 10% +evasion, 10% +healing; stance (evasion makes them slightly inferior to mitigating magic damage)
3. Wind Ward: Increases evasion by 20% for 15 seconds; 120 sec CD
4. Deep Roots: You are Heavy 60% and are immune to all physics effects; 15 second duration; 3 min CD
5. Unending Life: Your hp cannot be reduced below 0 by most attacks and all healing you receive is increased by 100% for 10 seconds; 5 min CD

This would keep mean mitigation and eHP on par with the other tanks (though slightly worse for magic damage since those cannot be evaded and slightly better for physical thanks to the evasion and self healing operating on a multiplicative level instead of an additional) and provide them with a tank CD suite of Keen Flurry (effectively guaranteed parry for 20 secs every 90), Blood for Blood (20% DR for 20 seconds every 80, but comes bundled together with the job's +dam), Convalescence (20% +healing for 20 seconds every 120), Wind Ward (20% +evasion for 15 seconds every 120), and Unending Life as the uber-CD, which puts the job about even with WAR.

I would give Heavy Thrust a 30 sec HoT governed by attack power, the equivalent of 50 potency worth of damage per tick (Cure potency is wonky so I'm not sure what the exact number would be) along with a Refresh (to make up for Local Quake consuming MP, along with Stoneskin). The only thing I'm not sure of is what Chaos Thrust would do. I'm thinking it could be something like a 10% reduction in the target's accuracy (basically only affects auto-attacks) without being Blind, but I'm still not entirely sure. Either way, as soon as that's sorted out, it would be a pretty spankin' good tank: proper enmity, damage, and survivability, plus, it would definitely play differently than PLD or WAR.

PS. How's that for constructive? :3