HIGH POWER=LOW TIER?

I've always tried to compensate by making magic users exceedingly frail. A tank then becomes useful due to its ability to survive. As far as giving them magic-like special attacks... At least heavily limit these uses, or have them permanently damaging to a stat.

Suggestion to combat it...?

Make magic useful. Magic should be incredibly powerful and very difficult and seldom cast. Magic should basically be compared to a limit break, in my opinion (for attack spells). It's a VERY powerful attack that can sometimes let you win the battle, but it shouldn't be used except for the last possible second, when you start nailing the boss with it.

Aside from that, healing is important to have and should be somewhat cheap in comparison to attacks. Buffs should also be somewhat cheap, but not nearly as cheap as healing.

If you really want to mix it up, you could just make things work off of a Stamina system like Chrono Cross or Xenogears. Then, just make a spell something you have to save AP up for several rounds for. i.e. 7 points (say you recover 7 in a turn) is used for a "strong" attack; perhaps a strong spell is 21 points. A buff is worth 6 points, and healing (minor) is worth maybe 3 points. Full healing/restoration is worth 14, perhaps.

Also, I would almost ALWAYS make a Tank also a buffer or a healer. Perfect example: Rand from Breath of Fire 2. I used him as a healer and he had a huge amount of HP and Defense, so he was able to last. I think a tank on its own doesn't work for a console RPG -- they really need to have some method of support -- think how awesome Garr would be (or could be if you used Skill Ink) to make him be capable of buffing your heroes. On my BoF3 save, just testing it, I put him under Emitai master for a while to pump up his AP and gave him some skills for buffing. He was INCREDIBLY useful. Sure, he was slow, but when he's taking all the hits and he can handle it, it's nice to give Ryu and Rei some extra attack via War Shout. So in that archetype, I think 3 stats should be above average, and one should be severely penalized -- Garr had Int, Off, Def, but bad Agi. It worked for him.

Aside from that, perhaps the Tank could be given some other useful ability or in-game benefit? Garr can push blocks (for the three that existed in the game, lol), but maybe if there were more for sidequests, it'd be worth it, ala Ox from BoF1. Even then, I think he had some Defense and Offense buffs, didn't he?

Then make mages have lots of MP and Defense and Int. Make it so they suck for combat, but they can cast spells that are extremely powerful -- but if they don't conserve it by the end of the dungeon, they'll be utterly useless. That's kind of how it was for FF1. You had to conserve magic. I think just the proportion of the stats are more important or the amount that they influence attacks.

How the problem is solved depends on how your battle system is designed.

If you like the idea of having a tank in the first place, or any other "class" with a specific role, then they need have to have a function, not just be in for the sake of variation. Ask yourself this, focusing back on tanks: can I design battles to be easier if I have a tank? Should I make some or most boss fights actually require a tank? For magic users: should I give all of my characters the ability to use magic? If not, do I want my magic users to be able to output steadily higher damage than non magic-users?

Now that I think on it, there seems to be a balance. You could give every character every ability, and the reason I think this works in many games is because it allows players to use the characters *they* like. FFXII is a bonus; you can not only play the characters you like most, but you can also, for the benefit of people like Craze, choose a "class" and force it on a character of your choice, and it's as easy as a change of gear and learning specific licenses.

On the other hand, some games have roles forced onto characters. I think a good example of a succesful formula is FF4. Look at what they did: Rosa is your primary healer, and as such she is quite weak physically. She's designed to remain in the back row, as when she doesn't need to heal, she can attack from range with her bow. Rydia is weaker physically, but her primary method of attack can be performed from the back row. Both being weak and unable to take sustained attack, they are at a disadvantage that offsets their powers. Keeping them in the back row is a strategy (however obvious) that the player can use to offset. In addition, Cecil can also use the cover ability which significantly reduces their damage intake, and allows them to maintain their casting. This ALSO validates Cecil as a tank, meaning he's not expected to put out as much damage as Rydia or as much healing as Rosa, yet is equally important (not that you have a choice ever, but he's still useful).

I think both of the above examples represent enjoyable gameplay. What's been said before on the thread is mostly right, classes have to be useful for someone to want to use them. How you realize this is what can vary by game design. You can code weaknesses into mages, or strengths into other classes. As mentioned earlier, it's also a possibility to give class-restricted characters other useful abilities (tanks w/ support abilities, as mentioned above). You can also play with swapping characters out in battle: magic-immune enemies? Send in the brute squad. My idea in particular involves giving all characters a way to deal damage (the bread and butter of battle), some the ability to mitigate incoming damage (be it physical or magical), some the ability to heal effectively, and some the ability to support by buffing the party/debuffing the bad guys. When a character is not needed for a particular function (i.e. melee tank against magic-using enemies), bam, he can switch to a damage-dealing skillset, either on the fly or in the game's main menu outside of battle, and you've still got someone useful. Maybe your main tank also happens to use a magic element that works best against a group of enemies. Bam, make him the primary damage, and switch someone else to a skillset that has some pedigree of damage mitigation.

I am brand new here, but I read through the topic, and good discussion. I never really thought about the fact that most Tanks do kinda... suck.

Couple things I thought of though. Since I'm playing Breath of Fire III currently, I'll start with Garr. He does suck unless you use him properly, true. The one thing I didn't see mentioned is the availability of elemental Strike moves in that game you can give him. He may just seem like the 'wail-away-and-take-damage' Tank, but with the Strike moves, he becomes very deadly, very fast. Due to magic sucking big boat, utilizing elemental weaknesses through physical blows is a devastating way to compensate. This is an effective method of counter-acting his uselessness, but you must remember his absolute crap AP and prepare accordingly.

The other thought I had was to give Tanks some useful abilities that depend on him/her taking damage to trigger them. I came up with one so far- using it, the Tank takes an extra 10-15% more damage. After that, about 5-10% of that total damage gets dispersed amongst the other party members in the form of a heal. It doesn't seem like much, I know, but give him a 'target me!' type ability and you can pretty much keep everybody else alive indefinitely. This would put him/her in a considerable amount more danger, but gives him the chance to be a healer, too.

What do you think?