Roles for Samurai, Red Mage, Dancer

[F4Bz]

My choices are just something coming out of RL lore\general fantasy lore...

Samurai is always described as a heavy armored person with a long sword (katana). That makes me think of a tank, as the Samurai was basically an armed guard, serving and protecting the nobles.
I can picture it as tank class based on dodging hits (or parrying them with their katana while distibuting part of the damage they would've received to the enemy\enemies).
They also were scholars, practicing some Zen arts, like Cha No Yu (Art of Tea) and Shodō (Writing) so those skills might as well find a place in the game... somehow... (Does anyone else thought about Yojimbo by any chance???)


Red Mage is usually a weapon wielder (one handed sword\dagger mostly) with white\black magic spells and the ability to use a completely different kind of armors compared to usual "mage" classes. It's kinda specialized in buffing and debuffing, but can deal good chunk of damage thanks to the spells it can cast from its "black side"...
That makes me think of it as a DPS able to boost the party damage\lower the enemy damage and able to support the healers with their peculiar skill able to refill the MP pool. We can't forget tho that the Red Mage is the only class that should be able to "dual cast". (Considering that ability is already scripted for Chrysalis as the Ascian is using it to double or even triple cast his magic!).

That leaves us with a doubt on the healing class. Now according to this thread, we could say that Dancer should be the healing class. I'd rather throw my two cents on a different choice adding a lot more "positions" to the game. Lately we've seen how healers evolved into half-dps (sometimes even to dps better than actual dps, but that's another story). What if... Instead of a pure healer, they add a Druid. Someone able to Totem up the party (depending on what they want the party to use: +dmg? +def? +crit?) while healing AND damaging effectively?
Think about it... SCH can apply dots and bane them to the packed group, they also can Shadowflare. WHM can Aero III whole packs right before Holying them to death while stunning. AST can Gravity the shit out of them and they're able to Celestial Opposition stun them.
Now imagine a Druid. Able to switch to its animal counterpart, dealing good damage but NOT being able to heal, and able to cast (timed?) Totems to do that job for him while he actually applies debuffs\buffs to the party with a spell applying a random partybuff\enemypartydebuff and only castable every 3-4 minutes (something like Enkindle). That's in my opinion a really great setup, as we're progressing toward healers able to deal almost the same damage as dps while keeping the party alive...

As for Dancer... I can't see a real use for it, unless they wanna add a Whip class that uses songs (anyone else thought about BRD?) and dances to deal damage (!?). According to the last comments, that would be a good idea for a magic ranged dps especially if they'd add "variants" to the whips... like fighting styles (Fire gives more damage, Ice recovers some TP\MP, Lightning steals HP are just an example). That would make Dancers having to be aware of both MP\TP usage to deal their damage.

That said, this post is way too long, so i'm gonna stop now and i'm looking forward to your comments too :P

[Allistar]

bump...continue the discussion

[LunaFaye]

He did mention in one of his interview's that the 4.0 expansion will not include 3 new jobs again. But just in case we are going by that I would suggest making them all 3 dps. We don't need another tank or healer, but we do need some new dps jobs since it's getting old and boring. With that being said, I would like to see new and creative jobs not some classes/jobs taken from the older series and revamping them.

[HighMarshal]

It could be that the Samurai is a melee DPS.

The Red Mage could be a DPS/Healer with a mechanic that works like the fire/ice mechanic for BLM. Cast healing spells and you get a buff that makes your healing spells better and your dps spells worse.

The Dancer could be a dual weld evade tank with high dodge and evade.

Just a thought I had.

[Zarcoft]

I'm just curious, when have they ever confirmed any of these jobs? I would love to see the post, also a hint or suggestion of something is not confirmation so can we stop with all the these are the jobs in 4.0 posts, many of players read or hear this and believe it to be concrete proof and confuse many existing, new and future players.

I'm not saying speculation is bad and I am all for that but everyone stating false information is really annoying. They will create what they feel is best at that time, if you like it stay and play, if not voice your reason in a well thought out informative post and not some post like "They messed up this job so let's boycott or make them completely change it because I don't like it post." That get the community as a whole nothing, and makes us as NA players look bad.

Again voicing your reasons in a well thought out manner, actually makes everyone think, and maybe will get the attention of developers. Think before you post is all I ask of the community and before you post about how i want this or I hate that, think about it, write it out, format it, take out offensive tones or words, finger pointing etc.. that will get you nowhere. Just food for thought

[CaptainLagbeard]

If they make the Samurai be the same kind it's been throughout FF, it probably should be a tank...
But I think they could drop the Samurai and replace it with something else... Ronin, Yojimbo or whatever, make a katana weilding class that's not armored that could work as a DPS.

Red Mage in my opinion has always been kind of a Healer class, with a generous side of DPS.
As long as they could cast generally the same healing spells as a White Mage, they could do the job just as well. And do good melee damage with attacks and black magic when heals weren't required... Certainly much more than White Mage could do, with an excepting of undead enemies...

I think Dancer has always kind of been kind of an opposite of Bard in FF...
While still being a DPS, but where Bard mostly gives out buffs to the party, the Dancer has given out debuffs to enemies.

[shao32]

We don't need another tank or healer, but we do need some new dps jobs since it's getting old and boring.

i start to belive everyone say this or something similiar just want trolling a little in the forums.

Zarcoft no, there are not any of this jobs confirmed yet, in october in the fanfest when they release some info about the 4.0 meaby thy show the new jobs, until that red mage and samura are just the most wanted jobs right now and after the devs event where yoship npc say "samurai or redmage?" well you know both for know have the most chances to become the new jobs.

[Kikoten]

I think what'd also be cool is if we could get another advancement to our Jobs.

Like:

Gladiator -> Paladin -> Knight
Marauder -> Warrior -> Berserker
Conjurer -> White Mage -> White Wizard
Thaumaturge -> Black Mage -> Black Wizard
Pugilist -> Monk -> Master
Arcanist -> Scholar -> Oracle
Arcanist -> Summoner -> Evoker
Lancer -> Dragoon -> Templar
Rogue -> Ninja -> Assassin
Machinist -> Puppetmaster
Dark Knight -> Hell Knight
Astrologian -> Illusionist

But one can dream, eh?

EDIT: Oops! I forgot one!

Archer -> Bard -> Beastmaster

[Sweetkins]

While having completely skipped reading the entire thread (and I'm sorry) for lack of time, I just wanted to impart some of my own thoughts, trying to keep it short. (Granted, no one is forced to read this either. lol)

Red Mage Tank would be a wonderful concept, seeing as earlier versions were a bit of a hybrid taking on almost any role (blm/whm/melee).

Tanking with magic would simultaneously introduce a new visual concept to the role. I could imagine magic shields, self regen healing and mass debuffs of mob groups and then the musketeer-like dodging skills (sort of exploring abilities similar to the warrior skill "Raw Intuition" but in various combinations.) The utilization of all three roles to tank, just imagine the sparklies! Ooooo~

That being, this will most likely not be the case and we'll just get a RDM DPS and I'll be disappointed - crying in a corner.

[SendohJin]

We need a magic ranged dps when was the last one of those

no, we don't. we have two now which is balanced with the number of non-magic ranged DPS. and if you split the jobs into 4 groups, we have 3 tanks 3 healers 3 melee DPS 4 ranged DPS, the last thing we need are more ranged DPS.