Quote Originally Posted by Dualblade View Post
Paladin isn't my main but it is my second gear'd behind Dragoon, and is the one I'm furthest along with for relic. Having a new tank (or healer) would have been nice to try out but I'd probably just end up back on Paladin because I enjoy it. That not making a new tank job means all three tanks have a better chance of being balanced (WITHOUT nerfs to Warrior or Dark Knight please) then I'm all for it!

Its possible that Red Mage will turn out to be a Ala Mhigan job, while their Monks are most famous its not like their whole military might were just them. It could also be something like Dark Knights, being an Ala Mhigan job but also not used by many for whatever reason lore wise. Given that White/Black Mages are rare as far as lore is concered Red Mages should be too.
I actually think 4 tanks and healers would be easier to balance. People often divide dps in to sub catagories but in reality the same applies to healers and tanks.

You have throughput healing like WHM and mitigation healing like SCH. The whole issue AST has is it tries to be both and have its own identity without totally supplanting either of the other two. This is almost impossible to achieve.

Likewise WAR is the damage output tank vs the mitigation tank that DRK and PLD are. In fact WAR identity as a tank pretty much is as the dps tank. While it holds that position it will be seen as a sure thing for all groups. More over, the attempt to balance it gives it enough mitigation to comfortably handle most content making the mitigation tank's strength unnecessary excess. This means WAR is unchallenged in its sub role because the other tanks cant complete with it in that role and at the same time making it able to mitigate enough places it in a position where the strengths of the other two tanks hold less value. That is why its fundamentally OP at the moment.

More so in the second one you can achieve balance but risk homogenisation of the Jobs and an erosion of Job identity gameplay wise. In the first case, your dealing with two roles that the existing meta consider optimal and so AST will always be in a position where it is inferior or superior to both making balance near impossible. Either they would need to fundamentally alter the meta or make it so it doesn't have to compete with both healers. If it only had to compete with one or the other you could create very clear advantages and disadvantages to both so it became a real choice.