Quote Originally Posted by Eremor View Post
So the consensus seems to be that Ninjas can be tanks but they probably shouldn't be tanks and that Red Mage has been completely forgotten.
The Ninja argument is relevant to the RDM discussion because it goes along with the question of whether a RDM *should* be a tank. Any class could feasibly be designed as a tank class, and I love thinking along this line; it's one of my favorite thought experiments. I came up with constructs for WoW where, with minimal modification, enhancement Shamans could have been perfectly effective tanks (have the mastery provide a different benefit if using a shield instead of a second weapon, allow the weapon enhancements to be used on shields, and the addition of a couple of tank talents since there were already plenty in the tree already). I did the same for Hunter/Warlock (turn Beastmaster/Demonology into tank trees with the pet and hunter being able to transfer total threat between each other on a ~20-30 sec CD; both shared the same hp pool and a few other changes). It's interesting to think about, but it's nowhere near anything that would realistically be added to the game because it doesn't really fit with the given theme of the class.

The same is true for Ninja and RDM. It's possible to come up with implementations of either wherein they could be made to be tanks. The issue is that it just doesn't fit with the given role: RDM was a melee fighter, but it was never a frontline fighter because it lacked the survivability. Making them tanks as their *only* role (which is what jobs are; FFXIV is a game where jobs have a single role; a *class* could have multiple, like the ACN, but, unless RDM is a class rather than a job, which is doubtful because BLM and WHM aren't) requires too much of a deviation from their core concept, just like it does with Ninja.

(For some reason my posts are limited to 1000 characters.)
Everyone's initial post is limited to 1000 characters. If you want to have a longer post, use the "Edit Post" to add what you need in order to break the limit (I generally do this by cutting, posting, editting, and then pasting).