The 4th Tank.

[Iagainsti]

I'm still hung up on Beastmaster, but had a cool idea at work. Someone might have mentioned this already; pet style tank that utilizes piety and Vit, so healer caster gear is utilized instead of plate. Have a pet focused on physical reduction, another for magical, and a dps stance like pet. The job focuses on casting buffs on the pet and your 123 combos are a mix of dots and buffs. You could even call it puppeteer if that's your preference.

[elemental10]

Looking at how SE is going with tanking, any tanks after this would have to have:

1) More than moderate amount of HP.
2) Lots of defense
3) Do not sacrifice HP for skills/spells.
4) Do not use magical attributes to an extent.

So, if I'm correct the whole "magical tank" thingy is actually DRK but SE is set in stone how a tank actually works. Any sort of deviation from rules such as "producing a secondary persona in order to attract enemies to attack said persona" is out of the question. If that is the case, we're going to also see a deviation of VIT/STR builds to INT/PIE builds and by now, I think SE made their points that they do not like a variety of builds except the ones they say that is okay.

HP sacrifice would be more tangible with DPS (i mean BLM already does that) and tanks, according to SE, will always wear plate armor and such. Defensive attributes SHOULD NOT scale of RNG or other sorts of chance-y stuff, instead it has to be solid mitigation effects. Look hat happened to Parry and Block.

But that doesn't mean I want to see a class that has a different kind of playstyle other than 1, 2, 3, BUFF, MITIGATE ATTACK, 1, 2, 3....

Evasion tanks are nice to see but I don't think it'll be implemented because the community already decides that RNG = Bad/Unreliable. So, no. We have already trapped ourselves in that aspect.

I just want to see more of Mudra kind of thing on a tank. Certain chains of action would result in different kinds of skills. I like the Mudra and I play NIN because of it. So, why not go ahead and experiment with the system, while also researching for other kinds of cool system that we can implement.

[VargasVermillion]

the problem with evasion tanks is that it would need to be unreliable to be balanced because anything more will make it better than the other tanks.

[Yhximott]

In terms of sam I'd either like it to be a counter-attack based tank class or if it's a dps I think giving it a 'skillchain' angle like in XI could be cool - instead of hard rotations 1->2->3 have the weaponskills act more like ninjutsu where different combinations proc different 'skillchains'.

I suggested something similar earlier (but vying for a tank), incorporating a non combo based skill set to prevent the enemy from dealing damage by enfeebling them, but people seem to be too afraid of that giving it too many skills. I'm guessing that's the politically correct method of saying "I don't want being good at it to require me to have any skill as a player."

[Yhximott]

For another idea, how about Green Mage being a barrier/counter tank? Using shields and debuffs to absorb damage into MP/HP and reflecting damage. Cooldowns could have "bide" style damage attributes where they absorb a portion of the incoming damage and return it to the enemy after a set amount of time, for extra if you've dropped vuln-up or def-down on the enemy before it pops. It's DPS and mitigation could be as one, and it could protect the party with buffs and debuffs.

[Zophar]

I think many people would be unhappy if SAM was made a tank tbh. If anything it would be a DPS that shares DRG gear.

A whole lot of people were upset that drk was made a tank, but that didn't stop them.

[Kabooa]

Blue Mage. Take the hit, sling it back. Vitality based mage!

[Xpress]

THF/NIN tank! It's all the new rage!

[Deusteele]

I wouldn't mind the 4th tank being based on a similar model to WoW's Brewmaster Monk or Guardian Druid. Evasion based using either a huge health pool to mitigate bad streaks, with self-heals to supplement healers. Or a shunted damage pool that absorbs a percentage of damage taken, which then slowly bleeds the excess damage back to the player. Dancer could work as the latter, Beastmaster as the former.

Blood Death Knights use a combination of self-healing and damage bubble that took a while to fix, but lately has been very balanced in relevant challenging content. They use an attack that heals them for the amount of damage done, then creates an absorb shield on a percentage of that damage. Tends to break content that they over-gear. Would have said Dark Knight, but that ship has sailed so I have no idea what class could work

Just a few ways that tank mechanics could workout.

[Shippuu]

I have a feeling SAM will be a dps this time around, not only did yoshi say he would rather it be a dps but they probably want to use the opportunity to have a sword wielding dps since that's a popular request.

He really didn't say this though. He said that when he thinks of a Samurai, the image that pops into his head is that of a kinagashi wearing iaido user and that that image lends itself more to the idea of a dps job rather than a tank. He doesn't picture Samurai as lamellar armored warriors but as clothe wearing quick-draw fighters. Even then, this doesn't change the fact that Samurai was indeed in the running for the next tank job despite whatever Yoshi-P felt like they should be.

It all depends on which version of Samurai they want to put in. If they use the armored variety it's very likely to be a tank. But if it's to be a DPS it's going to be the kinagashi wearing variety of samurai and I can guarantee the people clamoring for SAM dps will be just as disappointed if they get the non-armored SAM as a dps than if SE made an armored SAM as a tank.

Also, Red Mage is highly likely to be a DPS or DPS w/ support/utility and it's going to use a sword. So there's your sword wielding dps job.