How a Shapeshifter Could Work in FFXIV

[Kazrah]

I hear shapeshifter and I think druid to be honest. Sorcery and the title of Sorcerer is more along the lines of Black Mage, White Mage, and Red Mage, and maybe dealing with voidsent rather then anything in the realm of shapeshifting like a druid in touch with nature and the inner beast.

As for mage tanks, in general its a conflict of themes. Mages are always known to be thin brittle robe wearers, the polar opposite of tanks which are known for being bulky tough armor wearers. Sorcerer especially invokes the robe wearing bookish type that is not physically fit for the rigors tanking requires.

Funny, because when I think of a Druid, I think of the Celtic druids that served as one of the main influences behind White Mages as well as some of their sacrificial rituals that may have inspired some elements of Black Mage in FFXIV. Now when I think of a Sorcerer, I think of this painting. One of the many detrimental things WoW has done in terms of history and culture is skew the meaning of the word "druid", and your statement serves as a remarkable example of that. Your comment on Sorcerers, on the other hand, is a bit more understandable since Sorcery covers a wide variety of abilities (including transformation).

As for the "conflict of themes" bit, much like the reference to druid, is yet another perception drawn from a stereotype, and if the druid you refer to is in fact the druid of WoW (a spellcaster that could be a tank), that only makes it worse.

It's a good idea, but you could take ideas from WoW Druid for this as well.

Actually, I was trying REALLY hard not to because not everything has to be like WoW.

I wish square would just remove that 1000 character limit already.

My original post was 26,363 characters. How do you think I feel?

[kikix12]

If we look at other FF games all dedicated casters are squishy, and even in the customizable versions all casters are squishy or speccing a character out to be a caster makes them more squishy unless hybridized to give up a sizable chunk on the caster side.

I just told you. Blue Mages have comparable survivability to Paladins and Soldiers, and few other "tanking" classes, in Final Fantasy Tactics advance. And you don't need to "spec" them either. Their innate stat boosts are like that. And in Final Fantasy there is no such thing as dedicated mage to begin with. Everyone is an equal mage unless you grow them differently. And a tanky mage suffers no more than a tanky physical. You have survivability, attack OR a balance of the two. Whether the attack is physical or magical doesn't matter.

Even in dungeons and dragons for a caster type to be durable they have to give up a lot on the caster side to do it.

And this shows that you completely ignored most of what I wrote, only to make your own, little, nice setting that "proves" your point. I'm not talking about multi-classing. Mages have lowest HP, yes. Mages tend to be given low Vitality, yes. Arcane mages (and there are non-arcane mages, Druid and Cleric are the basic ones) suffer as mages from trying to put on heavy armor, yes (they need to spend quite a few extra traits in order to get to equal standing in that respect). But they have unmatched defensive spells. SPELLS. Their casting in no way suffers from taking them. It is part of them. There is, literally, no better defense than what can be used by a caster in 3.X. Nothing. Null. Nada. Mages are powerful offensively and defensively in D&D. If you fail to see that fact, then you simply "filter" it out cause it doesn't fit your bill. They are so powerful that their sustainability had to be severely impaired by spell slots so that they wreck enemies in one fight, but are all but spent later on. And they need to choose defensive or offensive spells for the slots they pick (Sorcerers had to make that choice for spells learned in addition).

And the ones shown to have any decent magic barriers main story wise in FFXIV are white mages, and just look at what happened to Y'shtola when some extra force was applied. Her shield was ripped in half and she was sent to the hospital for the 4.0 main story. Gameplay wise just look at how often WHM, AST, and SCH shields get punctured.

...White Mage...White Mage. Mage. Yep, that's relevant here...

And what happened to Y'Shtola...is relevant how?! Now you're saying that a tank can solo him without a healer?! Of course not. Zenos Yae Galvus in story was shown to tear through Y'Shtola's barrier, but he was also shown to wreck the Warrior of Light just as easily at multiple times. Including tank Warriors of Light. Your point is?! Stronger beats weaker, simple as that. It just proves that magic in FFXIV is not almighty or superior to physical abilities. It's balanced out, and whichever you pursue, you're going to be able to cope with the enemies by overpowering or outsmarting them all the same.

And gameplay-wise their shields being punctured...now, this is hilarious. Go ahead, play a tank. Go to a boss and say "hey, I'm a tank, so you can't scratch me!"...And die five seconds later. OF COURSE the shields are being punctured. It's a GAME! We're not talking about bringing an invincible mage tank here!!!

And by technicality dark knight is the "mage" tank. Its also considered the worst tank in the game outside of boss fights against enemies that use magic at max level.

What nonsense. Dark Knight is not the "mage" tank technically, thematically or lore-wise at all. He is a mage-tank mechanically, since he have spell skills. Paladin is more of a mage tank in any way, shape or form. He have actual cast times, he have targeted spell healing and his lore is actually showing it as a spell-casting knight. And he was always considered the best at survivability (and now considered the best overall). Dark Knights are shown to use darkness from within, which is just "spells" in mechanics for simplicities sake.
Dark Knight was called "mage tank" because it was a class with the most skills to tank mage ENEMIES. And because outside of lore, people call everything either a warrior, mage or healer, so the distinctive nature of his "spells" didn't matter, just that they are mechanically spells.

I wish square would just remove that 1000 character limit already.

Well, at least you can bypass it by editing. There is no limit to characters at that point. Though yes, the lone existence of it is horrid forum design. We can't even preview the posts if they are over the limit...

[TankHunter678]

-snip-

The WoW druid bear tank never felt like a true tank to me, then again most of my experience with them was chasing after them as they mulched through everything faster then I could keep up like a steamroller of death only slowed down by bosses due to them having more HP then typical mobs. Also them relying on pure bulk and evasion granted by their armor to survive. They just happened to be the most tanky thing Night Elves had back in WC3 due to said sheer HP bulk.

[Kazrah]

The WoW druid bear tank never felt like a true tank to me, then again most of my experience with them was chasing after them as they mulched through everything faster then I could keep up like a steamroller of death only slowed down by bosses due to them having more HP then typical mobs. Also them relying on pure bulk and evasion granted by their armor to survive. They just happened to be the most tanky thing Night Elves had back in WC3 due to said sheer HP bulk.

By that logic, WAR isn't a true tank--wait a minute....I see what you did there....

At the end of the day though, you still have to ask yourself "is it holding mobs like a tank, taking hits like tank, and griping and moaning at the DPS like a tank?"--okay, maybe not that last one as much, but if it's doing the other two, then it's still a tank regardless of whatever armor it's rocking.

And gameplay-wise their shields being punctured...now, this is hilarious. Go ahead, play a tank. Go to a boss and say "hey, I'm a tank, so you can't scratch me!"...And die five seconds later. OF COURSE the shields are being punctured.

RIP Haurchefant.....

[Shippuu]

The itemization alone makes this job problematic. Your solution of them simply adding a new type of gear because it's "easiest for you" is actually the hardest for them. It pollutes the loot pools unnecessarily for a single job for zero reason except that you want them to wear robes. Your other solution to have them wear dps gear, misses the itemization issues of sub stats showing you lack the foresight to see those major complications especially now that we have tank and dps specific sub stats that are only found natively on their respective role's gear. This creates a balancing nightmare that isn't easily solved without straight up ignoring sub stats which is a big part of this game's gear treadmill.

On top of that, the concept of a tank that deals purely magic damage is another problem. Outside or being much harder to balance damage wise with the other tanks due to inherent weaker magic resistance in most enemies, it also creates problems in content where enemies or bosses reflect or are immune to magic damage. You now have a tank that takes extra damage in fights like leviathan extreme, or that cannot tank some bosses such as the one in void ark depending on which one because immune to magic.

This is just trying to be different for the sake of being different for pretty much no reason. It may be appealing to people who like casters, but is a concept that generally isn't desired for the community who plays tanks. Combined with the incompatibility of gear and other issues, this would be a less desireable tank for anyone to play. Why gear just one tank when you can gear 3? There's many reasons the tanks all share gear and future ones will continue to do so as well.

[Clawbriar]

This reads a lot like Guardian Druid.

We should get Outlaw Rogue instead.

[AriaFairchild]

I propose WHM to have tank stance, and melee skills to their arsenal, using their staff to bitch slap people around. Their tank stance can boost their physical/magical defence up to like 300% or something, and raise their parry rate to a minimum 50%, and it should only be turned on/off while out of combat. Oh and please add stealth, group-wide stealth, and a button to enter stealth mid-combat to nope the heck outta there when everyone in the group begins to die. TYVM.

[Kazrah]

-snip-

By that loot pool logic, we shouldn't have DRG. Or NIN. Or any melee in Heavensward since each one of them had exclusive gear, so that's not really an excuse. As for an option to use DPS gear, have a starting trait put in that increases Vitality and defenses while increasing Tenacity by an amount equal to Direct Hit gained from gear and adjust potencies to compensate for the increased damage caused by dealing magic damage. Other features can be balanced passively, so it's not really that much of a nightmare for balancing.

As for a tank dealing magic damage, we now already have two of those, which tells me that not only would mechanics revolving around opposing magic damage not be as big of a thing, but devs would probably know how to implement them in such a way that that sort of mechanic would not apply to any job in a tank role and could potentially retroactively adjust what fights have these mechanics accordingly should there be enough demand for it. Of course if devs happen to be as inept as you seem to imply them to be (which I definitely don't), that's why I included the third option of Striking gear, have a trait that readjusts stats accordingly, and even have them deal physical damage if necessary.

With the whole "being different" thing, look at SAM. Everyone was expecting it to be just like the armored tank of FFXI, but Yoshi decided to have SAM as something different, and despite the whining and moaning at first, people enjoy it now. Yoshi has even reinforced this by bringing up wanting to add jobs unique to the Final Fantasy series because he wants the game to be different. Sure, there might be more tanks that use Fending gear like all the others, but there could just as easily be a tank that breaks that rule, much like a DPS that can heal.

Lastly, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that you speak on behalf of all tanks (which I still can't stop laughing at the thought of it). If what you say is true and more caster players would favor it than tank players, then guess what? MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!! What better way to make tanking more inclusive than to bring in a tank that more DPS players would prefer than tank players? Keep your Warriors. Keep your other tin cans. I'll stick to being different.

[AlphaFox]

I admit, the idea of a mage tank I love. I feel it is not something I have ever really seen done as its usually the tin can variety. I do admit however when I hear shapeshifter, I think more along the lines of say Terra and Espers. The gauge being a bit different in that it starts at 100 and while in Esper form it counts down, quickly recharging out of combat but also able to be built up while in human form.

[eschaton]

Just wanted to say a new tank class which does things this way might become very popular if only because it makes people want to try it out. And even more if it actually turns out on the field as a new fun alternative! Great idea, love it! Fresh idea's are always needed!