Roles for Samurai, Red Mage, Dancer

[MomomiMomi]

EDIT: Actually no, I'm wrong on Third Eye on that, yeah. Deleted the previous sentence. Seigan bonus. So let me ask this then... why was SAM never used as an actual tank? Real question, since apparently it has so many great qualities.

Answered this earlier.

That it "didn't work" is a result of, again, XI's poor balance. PLD and NIN were just that much better. And we already know that NIN was never meant to tank. That it could tank doesn't suddenly make people think that the image of a ninja is that of a tank. What the players use things as has nothing to do with the job's design. The players are always going to use things in the way that benefits them the most, intended or not.

Tank balance got worse in endgame as they tried to balance the game around NIN tank existing, which made things far worse for every other job; even PLD couldn't keep up with the amount of damage being dished out anymore and had to resort to using /NIN just to stay alive. Even though other jobs had clear examples of tanking abilities, if you don't make them as good as the best, they're never going to be used, because the game has to be balanced around the best thing available to the players.

[Welsper59]

Answered this earlier.

That didn't stop people from using MNK or THF to tank in small parties though. MNK didn't even always use Utsusemi in Merit Parties. If SAM is as good of a tank as you think it is, and those two other DPS jobs could potentially tank well, what does that say about the idea that SAM is a tank? SAM could have just done as THF did and go /NIN, if it really was conditioned to tank.

[MomomiMomi]

That didn't stop people from using MNK or THF to tank in small parties though. MNK didn't even always use Utsusemi in Merit Parties. If SAM is as good of a tank as you think it is, and those two other DPS jobs could potentially tank well, what does that say about the idea that SAM is a tank? SAM could have just done as THF did and go /NIN, if it really was conditioned to tank.

It absolutely was used to tank in small parties. I actually tanked most of my time on it whenever our tank had to go. I also had a friend who tanked with it while I healed. It didn't even need /NIN, though it was at times used. Because what didn't use /NIN? It couldn't tank in endgame, but what could other than PLD and NIN? Or RDM/NIN. Or Anything/NIN. That's also why I can't consider THF/NIN an example of THF's ability to tank. Because anything could tank with /NIN.

Anyway... I'm veering way off topic here. I've turned this into an FFXI thread. Sorry about that.

And I may have gotten a little too antagonistic in my argument. Wasn't my intention.

[Welsper59]

It absolutely was used to tank in small parties. I actually tanked most of my time on it whenever our tank had to go. I also had a friend who tanked with it while I healed. It didn't even need /NIN, though it was at times used. Because what didn't use /NIN? It couldn't tank in endgame, but what could other than PLD and NIN? Or RDM/NIN. Or Anything/NIN. That's also why I can't consider THF/NIN an example of THF's ability to tank. Because anything could tank with /NIN.

Anyway... I'm veering way off topic here. I've turned this into an FFXI thread. Sorry about that.

And I may have gotten a little too antagonistic in my argument. Wasn't my intention.

My THF/NIN tanked way better than PLD/NIN did during certain periods of various expansions lol, like your mentioned period of increased mob damage. Not because I could keep threat better or anything, but because for as random as evasion was, it was a very noticeably different story for high evasion skill jobs. It dodged even more often than NIN main did, but couldn't keep up with NIN because of better threat tools, debuffs, and better Utsusemi. I rarely saw SAM/NIN at all, but that's likely because it was accepted as purely DPS to everyone I met... plus all the SAM I've had couldn't control threat, even if they wanted to. MNKs, BLM, etc would have better sustained or burst damage, which would make non-Provoke tanking a pain.

And yes, apologies all around. Went on for too long lol.