SAMURAI SHOWDOWN

[Shippuu]

just wanna slice the enemy in half, not smack it with the side of the sword to make it "madder" at me than the rest of my party....

And yet warrior has the single strongest melee attack in the game by a longshot...how about that.

[Alacran]

The rest of the underlying point is that both Warrior and Dark Knight are both two handed, parry based tanks. Sam is a two handed class that would be parry based if included as a Tank.

That is only unfounded conjecture atm, assuming it was parry based is just something the player base has decided. The development team knows what parameters will be in future content, the overall structure of encounters that we will not know until release and even then after watching some one else's play through. If we had the actual know how we would be making the games, not discussing the viability of The Only Classic Far Eastern Armored FF Series class/ job That makes sense as opposed to reworking other iconic FF mainstays in to roles they never meant to fit in.

I honestly see 4.0 (or 5.0) as a possible introduction to skill trees and talent specializations freeing the the players from the armory system. However, as it stands My view is the Samurai so effortlessly fits the Tank role it almost seems comical to think otherwise.

[Kyuuen]

That's such a bunk argument though and you know it. That's like saying adding another DPS that has a DoT shouldn't happen because other DPS utilize DoTs. Or a DPS that has to manage a buff timer (DRG, MNK, NIN, BRD, MCH, BLM). Warrior and Dark Knight have 1 (ONE) defensive cooldown that effects their parry, that hardly makes them parry tanks, especially when they have more defensive cooldowns that just increase their mitigation (That's like saying you can't add a tank that mitigates magic damage because DRK has 1 cooldown that increases their magic resistance.) And even then, so what if it's parry based? Where's some magical rule that says only X number of tanks can utilize parry as a defensive property? Again that's like saying adding a new DPS job can't have any DoTs, no buffs, or no positionals etc. etc. etc.

You're absolutely right.. if we existed in a world in which people wouldn't complain about it. We're talking about a community that complained about Grass ffs. Or were you not here for that particular insanity? Of course it's an issue, if they keep throwing one design out there someone is bound to call them out for it. Which is why another parry based tank would be a poor decision after having just put one out.

First of all, a samurai tank doesn't have to use a 2handed sword, it could also use dual katanas wielded upright. Even if it is a 2h katana wielder, saying that tanks that use parry is redundant is just about the silliest argument you can come up with. You're basically saying that because three jobs try to deflect an incoming attack that all of a sudden this means no jobs in the future can utilize this... What? It's a stat on tank gear for a reason, and surprise surprise, it's not just tanks that can parry. Any tank that is implemented is going to be able to parry. It's what you do want to do when an attack comes at you, which is kind of the point of tanking.

To the Italics See above reply.

To the Bold There's three types of tanks in the world. The third being a bit questionable due to luck and game balance. Block types (shield bearers and magic types)- that utilize a shields, magics, parry, and evasion to mitigate. PARRY (two handed weapon users, dual wielders, and magic users) types, which can't block and can only utilize parry, magics, or evasion and tend to have higher HP, so sponges can be lumped in with parry types. Evasion based, self explanatory. Can parry, maybe magics, but main focus is evasion. Hard to pull off because if you evade, you take no damage.. and a tank that takes no damage is a god and screws others tanks over. My overall point to all this explaining... see above reply to Shippuu.

That is only unfounded conjecture atm, assuming it was parry based is just something the player base has decided. The development team knows what parameters will be in future content, the overall structure of encounters that we will not know until release and even then after watching some one else's play through. If we had the actual know how we would be making the games, not discussing the viability of The Only Classic Far Eastern Armored FF Series class/ job That makes sense as opposed to reworking other iconic FF mainstays in to roles they never meant to fit in.

If it's iconic Sam, it's not conjecture. If it does not use a shield, there is no chance of block. A block with a weapon is a parry. Therefore it would be a Parry based tank. Unless they try to design Sam as evasion based... which would be real weird.

[MagiusNecros]

And yet warrior has the single strongest melee attack in the game by a longshot...how about that.

Not enough Ninja Sneak Attack in this post.

[ADVSS]

And yet warrior has the single strongest melee attack in the game by a longshot...how about that.

Fell Cleave is pretty righteous, i halfway feel like the tool tip to carve n spit was meant to be a similar hard hit, but unlike dream within a dream this threefold attack hits once id probably die if i ever saw it do a 400x3 potency burst hit my god man!

[Shippuu]

Not enough Ninja Sneak Attack in this post.

Except Ninja lack a 50% damage steroid Warriors get. So, try again.

[MagiusNecros]

Except Ninja lack a 50% damage steroid Warriors get. So, try again.

Dun count kiddo. Comparing base skill damage it's the same chump. Besides the Ninja will make you perform better with Trick Attack. Ninja wins again.

[Shippuu]

Dun count kiddo. Comparing base skill damage it's the same chump. Besides the Ninja will make you perform better with Trick Attack. Ninja wins again.

Still doesn't change the fact warrior has the strongest melee attack in the game. I didn't say highest potency. You saying berserk doesn't count is just a poor attempt to deny that truth.

[ADVSS]

but if you trick attack, you cant sneak attack right? not taking sides, i think strength tank fell cleave back in its day is probably one of the highest hitting skills at that time, if it crit. I mean thats the sort of stuff that got people into tanking, only to have it nerfed rip high numbers sam tank we never knew you but we miss you already lol

[DWolfwood]

Comparing base skill damage it's the same...

Idk who's gonna use Fell Cleave without Maim/etc up.

Looking at it:

Sneak Attack = 500pot*1.2(venom) and it's up once every minute.
Fell Cleave = 500pot*1.2(maim)*1.05(deliverance)*1.5(berserk) and you get quite a few to say the least.

Sneak Attack isn't really optimal anyways in most situations, so not really hard to see what he's getting at.

To the Bold There's three types of tanks in the world. The third being a bit questionable due to luck and game balance. Block types (shield bearers and magic types)- that utilize a shields, magics, parry, and evasion to mitigate. PARRY (two handed weapon users, dual wielders, and magic users) types, which can't block and can only utilize parry, magics, or evasion and tend to have higher HP, so sponges can be lumped in with parry types. Evasion based, self explanatory. Can parry, maybe magics, but main focus is evasion. Hard to pull off because if you evade, you take no damage.. and a tank that takes no damage is a god and screws others tanks over. My overall point to all this explaining... see above reply to Shippuu.

Yeah, sorry. I still just don't see what you're getting at, and I think the way you break down the types of possible tanks in your mind is a limited way of thinking about things coming from someone who sees diversity in DPS simply by making samurai into another melee DPS.

There's actually quite a bit they can do to easily differentiate a samurai tank from the current tanks while also not having to rethink their entire job system. It makes too much sense from every perspective except to the people who just want to wield a sword as a DPS. It's puzzling, because I think anyone who seriously tanks can see how a samurai could bring something new to tanking. So many people I've talked to have come up with so many different ideas.

Also, for the record, parry in XI actually has you take 0 damage. Don't think that parry is what XIV has defined it to be. We don't actually have parry in this game. What you're really defining is: tanks that get hit and take no damage (game breaking), tanks that get hit and mitigate the damage (realistic), and tanks that don't get hit (game breaking.) Parry is just one means to an end, among others. All tanks are going to be based around CDs which are balanced by the strength of their mitigation and timers.