Roles for Samurai, Red Mage, Dancer

[Nalien]

I'd quite like Dancer to be a "frontline" healer - utilising TP - they could have traits which increase their TP generation and it would make for a slightly different kind of healer.

That's difficult considering certain mechanics, though not entirely impossible to solve... They'd just need to adjust the Duty Finder such that every 8 man party gets at least 2 ranged based Jobs, and mechanics like Judgement Nisi target ranged Jobs, rather than healers...

That said, I'd go for making Dancer a ranged based healer... Final Fantasy XI gave the Job a War Hoop as its first "artifact" weapon, though Relics and Mythics later went for daggers... Still, giving it a throwing weapon for ranged physical attacks, and dances for "spell" heals works nicely IMO...

As for Red Mage and Samurai... Both DPS... I guess either could be a counter-based tank, but I think fitting a tank role onto a Job ends up limiting what you can do with it mechanically, you've got to many "required" skills to fit in... Blue Mage makes the best of this IMO, it very much fits the counter-based tank role, and classic Blue Magic spells kinda fit in with the skills a tank is going to need... Blue Mage can have a Clemency/Divine Veil style skill in White Wind, it can have defensive spells that are classic Blue Magic spells... It works with that role perfectly IMO, while Red Mage and Samurai? Every concept I've come up with for the Jobs would have to be butchered to fit enmity combos and defensive skills in, so no thanks.

Tanks are very much the jack-of-all-trades in this game though, so if you forced me to put one on tank, I guess I'd have to go with Red Mage... Tanks can deal damage, they can take hits, they can all also heal fairly well, even if it's just themselves typically... That's exactly why I'd stick Blue Mage on that role though, Blue Magic had a range of useful spells that can cover all those uses, thus its perfect for a tank IMO... Same is true for Red Mage though, just I'd personally rather see a frontline DPS that fences and weaves spells into its combos...