Pipe Dreams: Samurai (two for one special)

[Duelle]

Samurai/侍 The Tank

Mechanics: The combo system would be similar for the tank SAM, since skills are split between Openers, Bridge skills and Closers.

The main thing is that SAM would have several ways of responding to attacks from enemies, with a hopefully greater degree of control over their mitigation over what other tanks provide.

Weapons: Great katana
Cross-class: GLA (Provoke, Convalescence, Flash), LNC (Invigorate, Keen Flurry, Feint)

Abilities

01 Cut (切) - Opener. Delivers an attack with a potency of 130.
02 Third Eye (心眼) - Parry the next incoming attack. Duration: 10s. Cooldown: 45s.
04 Demon Cut (鬼切) - Bridge. Delivers an attack with a potency of 160. Additional effect: Increased enmity.
06 Exuberance (意気衝天) - The next direct heal cast on you places a healing over time effect that heals for 25% of the amount restored over 12s. Cooldown: 90s.
08 Dragon Fang (牙竜) - Opener. Delivers an attack with a potency of 100 to all enemies directly in front of you. Additional effect: Increased enmity.
10 Brace (気を張る) - Reduces damage taken by 15% for 15s. Cooldown: 150s.
12 Blade Bash (峰打ち) - Delivers an attack with a potency of 80. Additional effect: Stun for 5s. Cooldown: 40s.
15 Iron Flash (斬鉄閃) - Delivers an attack with a potency of 130. 15-yalm range. Additional effect: Increased enmity.
18 Bright Rend (照破) - Delivers an attack with a potency of 120. Can only be used after a parry. Additional effect: Damage over time with a potency of 20 for 15s. Cooldown: 10s.
22 Meditation (黙想) - Restores own TP over 10s. Cooldown: 90s.
26 Turning Swallow (燕返し) - Closer. Delivers an attack with a potency of 270. Additional effect: Increased enmity.
30 Counterstance (構える) - Reduces attack speed by 50% while increasing parry chance to 100%. Upon receiving damage, delivers an attack with a potency of 150. Increases enmity generation. Each parry drains TP while this effect is active. Effect ends upon reuse. Cooldown: 2.5s.
34 Tornado (陣風) - Bridge. Delivers an attack with a potency of 110 to all enemies within 3 yalms. Additional effect: Increased enmity.
38 Howling Draw (龍鳴閃) - Delivers an attack with a potency of 50. Additional Effect: Silence for 2s. Cooldown: 60s.
42 Full Break (ブレイク) - Delivers an attack with a potency of 100. Can only be used after a parry. Additional effect: Reduces target's damage dealt to you by 5% for 10s. Cooldown: 10s.
46 Tiger Claw (虎) - Closer. Delivers an attack with a potency of 200. Additional effect: Damage over time with a potency of 30 for 30s.
50 Challenge (勝負) - Places you at the top of target's enmity list. Additional effect: Reduces target's damage dealt to anyone but you by 20% for 10s. Does not work when enemy is already engaging you or if you are at the top of the enmity list. Shares a cooldown with similar abilities. Cooldown: 40s.

Traits

08 Enhanced Vitality
14 Enhanced Third Eye - Increases the amount of damage blocked by Third Eye's parry by 10% of your VIT.
16 Enhanced Vitality II
20 Enhanced Vitality III
24 Enhanced Brace - Increases Brace's damage reduction to 25%.
28 Enhanced Exuberance - Increases the amount of HP restored over time to 50%.
32 Enhanced Blade Bash - Reduces the cooldown of Blade Bash to 20s.
36 Alertness - Allows you to parry attacks aimed at your flank or rear.
40 Inspiring Rend - Increases the amount of TP recovered per tick by 20% while Bright Rend's damage over time effect is active.
44 Enhanced Meditation - Reduces the cooldown of Meditation to 60s.
48 Enhanced Howling Draw - Reduces the cooldown of Howling Draw to 45s.

Job Abilities

30 Mukei (無形) - Counter. Activates upon taking damage. Delivers an attack with a potency of 150. Reduces damage taken from the triggering attack by 20%. Cooldown: 30s.
35 Thunderclap (迅雷) - Closer. Delivers an attack with a potency of 80 to target and nearby enemies. Additional effect: 30% Slow to target and nearby enemies for 18s.
40 Mekkyaku (滅却) - Counter. Activates upon taking damage. Rush to attacker and deliver an attack with a potency of 120. Range: 20y. Additional effect: Reduces target's damage dealt to you by 20% for 10s. Cooldown: 45s.
45 Fudo (不動) - Delivers an attack with a potency of 200. Can only be executed when target's HP is below 20%. Cooldown: 40s
50 Meikyou Shisui (明鏡止水) - Perfectly parry most incoming attacks for 10s. Cooldown: 420s.
52 Hamanoha (破魔の刃) - Changes your damage dealt from physical to unaspected. Actions performed while under this effect consume MP in addition to their TP costs. Allows magic spells to be parried. Allows the use of certain abilities. Effect ends upon reuse.
54 Arataka (荒鷹) - Counter. Activates upon taking damage. Delivers an attack with a potency of 130. Additional effect: Restores HP equal to damage dealt. Cooldown: 60s.
56 Yaegasumi (八重霞) - Reduces damage nearby party members take from special attacks and magic by 10% for 10s. Can only be used while under the effect of Hamanoha. Consumes Hamanoha and places it on a 20s cooldown. Cooldown: 60s.
58 Shirahadori (白羽鳥) - Counter. Activates upon taking damage. Delivers an attack with a potency of 150. Perfectly parries the triggering attack. Duration: 10s. Cooldown: 90s.
60 Kaiten (回天) - Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 300. Can only be used while under the effect of Hamanoha. Consumes Hamanoha and places it on a 20s cooldown. Cooldown: 60s.

Lv3 Limit Break: Kachou Fuugetsu (花鳥風月)

Notes

- Assuming these were the chosen cross-classes for SAM, SAM would not have access to Blood for Blood, and this is intentional.
- Beyond being just a swordsman, the theme I was going for was a hunter of demons/evil spirits. Sort of an extension of the thematics behind FFXI's SAM.
- Counterstance, Bright Rend, Full Break, Hamanoha and the counters are oGCD abilities.
- TP consumption from parries while in Counterstance is actually quite high. We're talking about 200 TP or higher per parry. This means that Counterstance will drain you of TP very quickly between the parry drains and your own attacks.
- The counters are all dependent on a type of damage taken and are meant to have different effects. I did tie some utility to them, and am considering also making them share a cooldown.
- Mukei is a sort of go-to counter for attacks you know are not going to kill you and don't want to waste Third Eye to mitigate.
- Mekkyaku would be useful to catch up to targets attacking you at range; I see it getting a lot of use in PvP too.
- Arataka is a self-heal and could prove useful in situations where you know the incoming damage will be considerable. The self heal is determined by the damage dealt by Arataka's counter-attack rather than the incoming attack itself.
- Shirahadori is meant to be used on stuff like tank-busters. If perfectly parrying the attack is too much, I could change it to 80-90% mitigation instead.
- With the exception of Mekkyaku, the counters rely on the enemy being in melee range of you.
- Enhanced Third Eye is meant to make parries stronger on SAM as they continue to gear up. So a Third Eye parry without the trait is capped at 20% like with other jobs. The trait allows the parry to mitigate beyond that 20%.
- Inspiring Rend is only active once and unlike other buffs, does not have a timer. The effect will only be active on you so long as Bright Rend's DoT is active on a target.
- Using Hamanoha should ideally cover the SAM's great katana with the standard spirit fire effect. This is the aspect of the ability that would allow the SAM to parry magic. The magic parry effect works with all of SAM's other skills, so you can activate Hamanoha and then Third Eye to guarantee a spell parry.
- Yaegasumi and Kaiten can be removed and replaced with something else, but I figured it'd be neat to have abilities reliant on Hamanoha that would cause you to spend the effect as needed. Assuming we were to take this job beyond lv60, Kaiten would be the job's ultimate sword technique and subsequent Hamanoha-dependent abilities might instead deal with mitigation or other party effects.
- Yaegasumi's damage reduction only applies to special skills and spells cast by enemies. This means that it DOES NOT apply to auto attacks.
- The "perfect parry" text on Meikyou Shisui and Shirahadori means they entirely negate damage. Meikyou Shisui is subject to the same limitations Hallowed Ground has (as in, certain attacks will ignore the effect).
- The Lv3 limit break is what we know as Cosmic Illucidation in FFXI. Kachou Fuugetsu is something that refers to the beauty of nature according to the Japanese aesthetic, which IMO is fitting for a tank limit break. The alternative would be something involving spirit wards, but I couldn't come up with a name to use.