@Naoki Yoshida-> Make Samurai a Tank class!

[Shippuu]

Thing is, overlap is bound to happen, while WAR would share visible traits with Viking, I believe they would make Viking stand out with it's playstyle and possibly give it some more visually different gear down the road. Also, I don't see a lack of representation in past games as a real detriment, I mean AST only has one previous incarnation with FF Tactics and yet it is in XIV. Though one can argue AST takes a few things from Time Mage and Gambler, who have been in A LOT of FF games. But that's a slippery slope in the long run. I think if retooled a lot, Ravager could be another viable idea for a offensive brutal tank but that may be a stretch. There are ideas out there but true, none really carry that impact like SAM would. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

Naturally overlapping will happen to a degree, but ideally you'd want to try and avoid that if you could, unless it's something that you know would have a big appeal. Viking on it's own just doesn't quite have that pizzazz with Warrior kind of lifting a lot of your iconic viking tropes. It'd be different if Warrior hadn't gone the route of barbarian in FFXIV for sure. Samurai has some overlap with Dark Knight in a very small way in that they both have 2 handed swords, but if they go the regular Katana route, and not the Great Katana route then it would be used in a significantly different way, on top of their iconic armor being pretty contrasting to WAR/PLD/DRK in overall appearance. Viking (and even beastmaster) would have a lot of armor appeal overlap even though they could use more different weapons. (If we got Viking I'd prefer it to dual-wield axes tbh) It's a tricky situation either way.

But yes, AST incorporates themes/abilities from other jobs. Healers are a whole other issue though, as they are practically even more stressed for viable job options than tanks in my opinion. I feel we'll see the most innovation in terms of job design/imagery for healers than any other role because of this, there just isn't a whole lot of healer like jobs that aren't super similar in past FF games.