Arcanist based tank

[RoDandryn]

I want to preface this with I'm sure there are a thousand ideas why this will never be real, I just think it's fine to speculate. I'd like there to be a tank branch of archenist to complete the trifecta. The weapon is a large crystal page book that is about a third of the height of the character. The book will have a handle on the back cover and you will hold it like a tower shield.

As your pet you will summon a themed aura around yourself that is see through (50% opacity, so you can still see your glam). This will look like wearing a suit of armor themed to look like a carbuncle or some different summon from Final Fantasy history.

You will have a meter that will refill when you use certain skills such as the end of your main combo, and will drain every few seconds you have your aura up. While you have your aura up you will have increased damage as well as it being a prerequisite for your most powerful skills.

Starting out this will lead to a loop of building meter to turn on aura so you can get your best skills on cool down, then when it runs out you build it back up in time to use them again.

At higher levels you will get a skill to pause the meter drain for a short time to make it last longer or ways to gain meter with your aura up. If the boss leaves the arena and you can't attack for a time you will have a way to turn off the aura so you don't lose meter and a skill similar to meditate from Samurai so you can build meter as long as you don't move.

At the highest levels you will have enough skills to start a fight in aura and stay in it the whole time. You will begin getting very strong skills that will cost your meter and force you out of aura will average out to more damage than if you had stayed in it the whole time.

There would be a progression of auras through the levels. Early levels you will have a carbuncle aura that just covers the head like a helmet. Advance I to a chocobo aura that covers head and chest. Move on to behemoth that covers you head to toe. There could either each give different effects or just be cosmetic like going from using carbuncles to using egis.

As for the general lore it's inspired off of how some people are able to turn themselves into primals such a shiva. This would be a more safe way of doing this along the same lines of using egis instead of real primals for summoner.

The crystal pages will work similar to white auracite, in that it will steal a small amount of aether from your enemies and store it in the book. Early use of this job in the lore had use of normal size books but they couldn't hold enough aether. The obvious solution to this was bigger crystals but mages were not strong enough to lug around this huge book effectively in battle. It was an unfinished idea for a job until the WoL arrives and is both strong and smart enough use the book.

I'd love to hear what you think about this.

[Alice_Rivers]

I think if we had better aggro management and pet latency a pet tank would be a really neat concept, you could have three (maybe plus one from the meter) pets with different skillsets and bonuses which you direct and support in fights. One could favour dps for example, the second having more mitigations and the third has more party options which would give the player agency to pick the one that best matches the situation they find themselves in.

I feel like the devs are averse to having a skill floor set that high though.

[Carighan]

I mean in it's most basic form we had this. With the tactical potato pet. But it was removed, like all pets. :'(

[NobleWinter]

A tank variant of Arcanist would be awesome. A phantasmal Carbuncle helm would be great especially if it included a cape shaped like Carbuncle's triple tail. Imagine a Chocobo flavored Gap Closer and Disengage tool with a temporary Chocobo aura. The Ranged Agro tool could be Carbuncle Dashing forward to do a spinning attack. Full body Behemoth Armor as the 30% damage reduction cool down and King Mog Armor for whatever healing abilities they get. Maybe use Odin's Sword for the burst phase. Why don't we have this already?

[Zarkovitch]

Oh baby the tri-force will be done