SAMURAI SHOWDOWN

[Nalien]

it requires the least amount of extra development work and the least amount of issues disrupting balance.

While this is true, it's exactly why I don't want something like that... Ideally, if I'm getting a new expansion with new Jobs, I want those things to actually be new... Another physical slashing tank wearing Fending is the easiest thing to produce, but it's also something I've already got three of, so I have very little interest in having a forth... A mage based tank would be new, we currently have nothing like that in the game, the fact that it would require more work from the developers means little to me considering I'm a paying consumer... I'm paying for their product, and if they're not going to offer variety, instead opting to cookie cutter their way through future content, I'll start reconsidering that... The state of dungeons is bad enough...

I mean, after what the developers did with Bard and Machinist I'm fully aware that new Jobs are probably going to be handled in the cheapest way possible, rather than anything that offers true variety. Various new content gives some hope that the developers aren't just planning to use the same template for the rest of the games life, but I'm still fully expecting new Jobs to be fairly lackluster. Ideally though? Ideally I'd like all the money from subscriptions and the cash shop to stop going into FFXV/FFVII and to start being put back into XIV to give us some decent variety of content... Looking at Jobs like Bard and Summoner, I have no expectations that they'll deliver what I want from future Jobs, but I'm allowed to voice hopes for such things, no?

[silentwindfr]

i did say that actually in the principle the samurai tank is no different than a war with a different mechanic at the place of rage. what it is.

let's summarize what is the war as tank:

- physical resilient tank mostly (sam will be the same since he will not use magic)
- using a 2 hand weapon (same will be the same, i don't see them going throught dual katana for sam since it will be a bit like ninja)
- using mostly parry as mitigation (same for the samurai, since no magic and will have no shield then all in parry!)
- have ton of life (that the part that can be different)
- use the combo system (all the melee use it)
- is more offensive (sam will too be extremely offensive)
- use 2 stance, 1 dps and 1 tank (if the sam is a tank he will too have 2 stance)

rage mechanic is the special trait of the jobs, but outside this and the hp pool... most of the stuff will be redundant with the sam as tank.

you can try to make the mechanic specific of the samurai special... all the rest will be the same. DRK avoid this by relying a lot on magic... but samurai is not a magical job.

plus like said yoshida will have the last word into this, and i doubt they will had a samurai as tank because they are lazy, they will try to bring a new experience for the new tank (when it will happend)

mark my word, samurai will not be a tank, too much feature of the samurai as potential tank is already used by the other tank already present (mostly the war) and Yoshida have said that he will added a jobs if he bring something new to the group and the game. samurai as tank will bring nothing new...

for the balance and work, sorry to say this but i doubt they care for this, so far they have done everything for do bring new experience (not always succeding) and when the developpement did take a turn that was looking lazy is mostly because of limitation of time. however an expansion is worked on since the last expansion is ready to be shiped... they had time to work on it for a looong moment.

[Radacci]

it doesn't matter how many tank jobs you add, there won't be more ppl playing as tanks. it's not going to affect DF ques, at all - the people who are main tank, will stay that way, people who are not tank mains, won't be, even if they added 10 more tank jobs.
i'd wanna see more 2h dps jobs - there's only drg atm.

So, only the crap classes should be tanks, tanks cannot be cool classes. I can't believe what I read here... "Samurai is one of the favourites of most players, should be DPS, is it a waste if they put as tank..." Okay. Good, screw tanks, they have no right to have cool classes.

WAR and DRK, are cool.
As Yoshi said, tank role doesn't even fit the theme of SAM.
We can blame the class system being so restricting - if we had skill trees, we could pick whichever role we want - DPS-WHM? why not. It's just gonna continue being like this, every time they add a new iconic job - half the playerbase will be upset it's not the role they wanted.

[Ciri_Wolf]

WAR and DRK are arguably the coolest classes in the game. Not sure how any tank players can even consider being upset if DPS got a cool swordsman of their own.

[Calypsx]

WAR and DRK are arguably the coolest classes in the game.

Maybe if you're into that angry edgy stuff but those are two of my least favorite jobs thematically in the entire game.

I want an eastern themed tank. I want a tank from Doma, I even want a healer from Doma.

[Duelle]

Factoring in the mage tank idea above, I feel that putting them on casting gear and making their tank stats scale on Int would be the best bet. Putting three classes on "of Casting" would even it out with what we have on "of Healing" and "of Fending."

At that point it's more an issue of nomenclature. Having a tank wearing "of Casting" gear and fighting with the BLMs and SMNs in a raid over it would be weird.

If you could find a single instance of them using chainmail, I'd like to see it. Usually their armor was woven scales, the strongest being iron scales and plates.

Yes, Samurai used lamellar armor. I've never found any comparison between that and the plate armor worn by knights as far as weight. Just by the way its built and the materials used, I would assume it's arguably lighter than plate, but I've found no evidence one way or the other.

To the people saying we need a Mage tank, we have DRK. It revolves around MP management already, so making another tank revolve around that would be just as redundant as another 2-handed weapon tank. Plus, I'm not sure you've thought out the defense aspect when you say that they could just cast spells. Surely you realize how under-powered this would be as time went on. They'd have to either give lighter clothing the same defense as heavy armor or rework defense entirely.

Not really. Firstly because DRK is a knight that consumes MP for some of its attacks. The bulk of its MP consumption stems from Dark Arts and Darkside ticking away, not use of attacks.

Secondly, stances can do more than just increase enmity. Our presumed mage tank would have a stance that modifies its stats and gameplay to have the same EHP as the other tanks along with safeguards to allow it to perform its job uninterrupted. Using magic to reinforce equipment or outright reduce damage taken would be expected out of our mage tank. I'd probably have the stance reduce cast times, remove interruption chance or reduce damage taken while casting to take us further in that direction.

Even if you do this, it would mean tanking w/o tank stance becomes even worse than what tanks do now since they now have caster defense/HP without it.

That's sort of the point, and something I hope SE gets around to enforcing to all tanks. You're supposed to tank in stance and switch when you're not the tank. There may be exceptions (a tank built around swaps as part of its gameplay), but the rule still applies.

What is so wrong with a RDM healer? RDM are known to be jacks of all trades. That means they shouldn't be able to take hits like a warrior or paladin, but should have some means of shielding. They shouldn't have the dps of monk or dragoon, but have decent dps along with a rapier. They shouldn't have the healing of white mage, but should be able to heal a party. To me this clearly points to it being a frontline melee healer.

And to me it points to a melee DPS with utility and damage options via spells. "Healer" is the last thing that comes to mind when thinking of the Red Mage.

DNC should be a frontline support job in the future.

DNC would actually be another good option for a tank.

[NailBach]

i hope it's a healer. Hit someone with your sword to heal, cut off poisoned limbs, etc....

[Katchoo]

it doesn't matter how many tank jobs you add, there won't be more ppl playing as tanks. it's not going to affect DF ques, at all - the people who are main tank, will stay that way, people who are not tank mains, won't be, even if they added 10 more tank jobs.

This ^

If you don't like tanking, you don't like tanking, and i would imagine that it's less to do with the Job and more to do with the way you have to learn a fight or the pressure etc etc that comes with it. Same goes for healing i figure.

Learning a fight with a DPS however can vary wildly from Job to Job. I'm sure there are people that will disagree with me on this point.

[MagiusNecros]

Issue I take with DPS SAM is it's defenses will suffer, will likely share maiming gear and will most likely offer little to nothing and like most DPS have little responsibility in a majority of content compared to say a Tank or healer. Kinda like how it's expected for a DRG to screw up and no one will care.

On Tank side it's AP will suffer, will rely on parry to do anything, share fending gear and we will have 4 physical tanks as far as weapons are concerned. What will that offer? Very little. Could say DRK's parry mechanics was testing the waters for SAM.

[jazo]

Blue mage as a mage tank
Dancer as a melee healer
Samurai as a TP juggle DPS (like, how blm eats all their MP an then Regen it)

There, balanced and new play style jobs for the trinity.