[Suggestion] SAMURAI

[Rhaja]

^transforming into your enemies.

[TruebladeNuke]

My, my, the raging debates on "DPS ONLY" role suggestions VS "Tanks and Healers need more variety" never ends does it? Pretty sad really.

While I have my own different thoughts about the moveset you made for Samurai, I do fully approve of the idea of Samurai being the Japanese style tank for Tank players to choose from. We already have a Japanese style DPS role (Hi Ninja) so I'd like to see that extend to the Tank and Healer roles too. In terms of Japanese style Healer, Dancer could perhaps be that depending on how they make the job function and how it looks.

I see people are still complaining about the Tank and Healer roles getting more options by taking certain jobs too. You DPS only focused players seem to not notice you guys already have it good in terms of variety. Us Tank and Healer players? We only have TWO freaking roles to choose between. 3 now, thanks to the upcoming Heavensward expansion. (I'm gonna be ALL over DRK) I have to facepalm any time people cry tears about a class/job falling into something other than DPS. Hell, I'm STILL drinking in the tears of the people crying over DRK not being a DPS.

Honestly, IMO, people need to seriously man up and take on the roles of Tanks and Healers themselves. While DPS are all well and good, there's this notable distinct lack of Tank and Healer players in the game... which grinds my nerves a bit. But what really grinds my gears is when they do get a Tank player, the said DPS players have the nerve to just throw all the blame at the Tanks and Healers for every mistake that the freaking DPS make themselves. If more people would just stop trying to avoid team responsibility and actually try running Tank and Healer roles, we probably wouldn't have these problems of tank shortages and this supposed "Least desirable role".

- From a player who actually LIKES to tank and control the battlefield of aggro.

[Suda]

I'm all for SAM being DPS or Tank. I would just prefer a different kind of tank. I know this would never happen but I would LOVE Puppetmaster as a future tank. It could even play multiple roles!

Sorry for being a bit off topic. I hope we do actually get Samurai in the game at some point as DPS or Tank. I just want it to exist.

[ErikMynhier]

Didnt the ds version combine tha DRK and the SAM? You know over the Mystic Knight? With the SAM like gear planned in 3.0, is it possible we may not get a SAM?

[myahele]

Didnt the ds version combine tha DRK and the SAM? You know over the Mystic Knight? With the SAM like gear planned in 3.0, is it possible we may not get a SAM?

I'm sure they're working on it, but what it's role will be is still up in the air. Unless they surprise us and release it early, It'll probably be included in a new Expansion or a patch like what they did NIN

Here's a "leak" from a previous live letter:

http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/commen...possible_leak/

[Kotemon]

They picked Dark Knight over Samurai as 3.0's new tank class. Odds are very good that Samurai will be a tank in a future expansion. Red Mage (or some variant) could eventually be made into a rapier wielding job that carries a main-gauche' instead of a shield making it carry two blades while casting some sort of combat magic for DPS. Then again Fencing swords were more for piercing than slicing.

As for Samurai, they are the Japanese equivalent to knights and the well paid ones had the best armor. Katanas were not made for hacking, they were mostly for slashing with the strength to cut sharply through bone. Knight armor is heavy and made to dampen a direct swipe of a broad sword or bash from a club. Chain mail adds to it but is flawed to arrows or stabs. Samurai armor was lighter and had more exposed areas to maintain mobility wile protecting vital areas from slashing/glancing damage and lesser arrows. The Katanas were more or less their only direct form of defense via blocking and countering, everything else was form, skill and evasion.

Granted the featherweight of Rune fencer didn't go over very well with the ineptitude of parry skill. Samurai can still be a tank like Warrior, Dark, and Paladin. Existing tanks do have mode changes from defense to offence (likely Dark will have one to). Either way its likely most of darks abilities were originally meant to be used for both Samurai or Dark Knight depending on which way they went. Think of it as a test for fleshing out how a Samurai would tank.

If a Samurai still can't tank then characters like Ogami Ittō would never have lived long enough to keep a child alive. If dark was styled after Berserk then at least have a Samurai styled after Lone Wolf and Cub for a tank role.

[Dualblade]

On SAM: I'm good with it being either a Tank or DPS, but if it was DPS...that thing about them having a skill (passive? Never played XI) for doing more damage from the front has me thinking that they could still be a DPS, while being in the front. With OP's idea of countering maybe they could counter atleast the big hits like, say, Titan's Mountain Buster (because if it was a tank counter class it'd be doing it anyways), having it do a bit less damage to the tank and all that. Basically a tank's best friend that isn't a healer.

As for Blue Mage: This also interests me tanking wise. I hadn't really thought about it but since its whole shtick is about using enemy attacks...mayhaps rather than having it for keeps it could work where when an enemy uses a signiture attack on it they will be able to use it for a certain amount of time/the rest of the battle. Again think Mountain Buster...just bust it right back out on Titan himself and see how he likes it! Now of course how the Def would work for them is another matter entirely...

[OMEGA_HACK]

snip.

Final Fantasy 1 experts would like to have a word with you about that red mage slander. Also if you don't know the reference red mage solo with temper stacks and melee attacks is godsend.

snip.

The only thing is that giving them something like that would either put them at a tremendous advantage over other DPS (if it was potent counter) or something so negligible they would be asked to just DPs from behind it.

[Dualblade]

The only thing is that giving them something like that would either put them at a tremendous advantage over other DPS (if it was potent counter) or something so negligible they would be asked to just DPs from behind it.

Yeah it would probably have to be a very fine balance, more so than just making it a straight out tank...

[Shippuu]

Yeah it would probably have to be a very fine balance, more so than just making it a straight out tank...

That might have worked in slower games like FFXI, but it can't work in something like this game. Even if they did have something to mitigate big hits (Like Mountain Buster you mentioned) There's other problematic bosses like Kaliya on T11 who cleaves often and splits damage. If this ability was balanced towards that, then it'd be incredibly overpowered in other content with less cleaves etc. This is also why avoidance tanks can't really be a thing, the balancing is too problematic. They're either godly OP, or weak as hell and drop like a rock.

There's this huge stigma against any classic iconic job becoming a tank in this game and that's kind of unfair.

Exactly, man. So much this.

There will be upset people no matter what new tanking job we get if it's any iconic FF job. To me, Samurai is just the most logical choice to fit into the current game's tanking archetype. The only ways it doesn't fit is potential overlap with weapon theme and animation (but really with enough imagination this is easily solvable.) and thematically from a world/story standpoint. But there's enough basis in the setting for it to be here (worked with Ninja). It also wouldn't require tweaks to game itemization in terms of armor etc. So here's hoping.