Red Mage as possible new tank class

[Sephirah]

There aren't many "historical" Dark Knights, but those that have in the FF games been very tanky, essentially PLD themed around unholy rather than holy. It wasn't really a Warrior/Black Mage so much as a Warrior/anti-White Mage. The first was Cecil, pre-paladin, in FFIV. After that, you got Gafgarion from Tactics, who was definitely tanky, what with using the same gear loadout as a Knight and having a weapon based drain attack that he could use at-will so that he was almost impossible to kill. The only other major manifestation was in FFX-2, wherein they were, once again, a really durable class (i.e. high defense and craploads of hp) with the ability to toss out a bit more damage by sacrificing some hp.

Dark Knight never had Black Magic (baseline, you could add it as part of the baseline system though, with the stats it had, the damage would suck). The only connection between the two is in the name (Dark and Black). It was always an exceptionally durable (which it needed to be to be able to sacrifice hp to deal damage) and used the same gear loadout as the Knight/Warrior/Fighter (i.e. tank). High hp and defense have always been part of the mechanical makeup.

The only place where I've ever seen Dark Knight be interpreted as DPS was in FFXI (which also happens to be the only place where it got tied to using Black Magic). Everywhere else it was just one of the various tank-y types.

Actually, the first instance of a Dark Knight is Leon in FFII, who has high intelligence and black magic. http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/L..._Fantasy_II%29

Dark Knights are still Knights, and thus will be "tankier" than any other non-heavy armor wearing class, but they have always had an emphasis on damage over defense.

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Dark_Knight

More than likely, the next tank class will be Ninja.

But yes, Ninja is coming. They won’t tell us when though!

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/g...-Prime-13.html