A little question...

[Intervention]

Are SAM meant to be tanks?

[Feba]

No.

[Amele]

not that they can't do it successfully at many levels; sam was designed to be similar to monk - a DD with enough tankish qualities to be able to toe the hate line a little more loosely than the average DD.

with the buffs to seigan etc. hey! go to town. I've solo and duo tanked with another sam as late as the mid fifties. it's not as smooth as paladin tanking, but hell of a lot smoother than ninja tanking at that level range.

[IfritnoItazura]

Let's see, less reliable damage mitigation than Ninjutsu Ni + Ichi, no high enmity job abilities, no self-curing capability. Nope, doesn't look much like a tank.

That said, there are many SAM testimonies on their ability to tank VT's or even IT's, and hold the monsters by damage and Provoke, and do so without dying thanks to the addition of Seigan.

{I don't know.}

Somebody please make a SAM tanking guide, and gather up success/failure reports for us? (Maybe it's more for duo tanking like WAR/NIN x2 than single tanking like PLD or NIN?)

[Lmnop]

still waiting for reports of SAMs tanking with the aid of Rice Balls....

Attack and tank food at the same time, just toss in some acc gear and hate won't be much of an issue (in theory).

[Celeal]

With Seigan + 3rd Eye, SAM makes a good SATA partner, and backup/emergency tank. Just some gear swaping will see a major different: I macro in some of my NIN tank gear like Arhat set and a few evasion+/agi+, it really helps.

For main tank as a SAM/WAR, I really doubt it... lack of tools, and the choice of mob is restricted.

Edit (added)
I never tried main tank as SAM after Seigan is available. For emergency tanking, I tried both PLD-defensive-style and NIN-evasive-style (gear-swapping and JA only, I don't switch food during emergency tanking), I had much better performance with the NIN's style. My judgement is based on how much party's resource left after the danger is over. Extend the active time of 3rd eye using agi+/eva+/parry works well to me.

[Jei]

I've been in a few parties with duo SAM tank. It worked surprisingly well.

[raidenn]

I wouldnt be surprised if they add some option or ability in the future to make SAMs a tank option.

[Amele]

I've solo tanked colibri on sam at 55-57. (ok so their evasion is a joke, pecking flurry is hell on paladins and ninjas at that level and it barely makes a sam blink.) although I'd probably prefer dual tanking with another avoidance style tank over solo on sam/war. (you can roll 'unlucky' on your shadows and then you're either getting the tar beat out of you or losing all your enmity gain from having to hold defender up).

Let's see, less reliable damage mitigation than Ninjutsu Ni + Ichi, no high enmity job abilities, no self-curing capability. Nope, doesn't look much like a tank.

ni + ichi, perhaps not. but seigan *is* at least ichi (just with a few tweaks) and could be argued to be better than ichi.* add in B+ Evasion and A- Parry and sam is one of *the* most evasion jobs (only thief and ninja have better combined stats).

and ws spam is plenty of hate (and /war for provoke puts you on par/above a ninja in terms of hate holding, with a further +8 enmity if necessary once AF comes into play).

no self curing is something of an issue. but that could be said of war/nin and nin/war tanks as well.

*I say this because ichi will stop 3 attacks 'at most' whereas seigan+3eye will average 3 and will frequently take 4 or 5 and sometimes 8 or 9 (and one instance of 15+ vs. a hundred fists in dynamis that I witnessed.) while third eye won't absorb a magical attack (a benefit vs dia/bio/burn, a hinderance vs Fire IV) , it also isn't immediately dropped by magical or physical aoe, and it's avoidance is triggered by attacks, not hits, so a multihit TP move (pecking flurry, goblin rush) is no more likely to drop 3eye than a regular melee attack, and if 3eye is up when the TP move is made you will *never* take any damage as a result of the move. 3eye is also instant cast so it can't be interrupted and on the same timer as utsusemi:ichi (pre haste)

[Zempten]

Here's something I've been dying to ask, does Counter gear such as Avenger's Earring increase rate of counters while under the effect of Seigan + Third Eye?