ability and ai help (aggression, provoke)

[RandMuadDib]

Hey there, looking to kick lancer on its butt and turn it into a true tanking class. Those who have played MMOs or FFXIII know that controlling aggression (or aggro) is an important part of any tank's repertoire. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas for doing something like that in FFT, preferably without needing to rewrite the AI.

I have a few ideas, well two, so far.
The first is an ability to give all allies the "defend" status, without giving it to the user. Since i'm planning on using the Defend innate all hack anyway, this doesn't seem like a terrible idea, just a not very good one. It still seems a little overpowered, though it should help to draw aggression because i believe the AI would rather attack a character that isnt defending.

The second is similar, but with wall instead. The AI won't target people with Wall, and if i can figure out a way (i.e. find a hack) that doesnt make them immune to damage, that would be significantly better. (I just realized that the wall spell does not actually give the wall status, so i had to test it quick).

Any ideas that would make the AI target a character less or target the tank more would be greatly appreciated.

[Pickle Girl Fanboy]

You want something like Decoy from FFXII, right?

[RandMuadDib]

Yes precisely

[Pickle Girl Fanboy]

Maybe you could do it with the skills available to this class, but I don't know if the AI is smart enough to attack classes with healing spells.

[philsov]

but I don't know if the AI is smart enough to attack classes with healing spells.

afaik, no.

"tanking" in FFT is difficult, because the AI will usually seek out the ones that are easier to pick off.  So the high-health high-evasion guy is going to be ignored far more often than not. 

Giving everyone but yourself defend/wall is a great way to manage this, but borderline OP. 

Hm...

perhaps a persevering 1 range Self AoE don't move infliction?  The enemy will only get to straight melee that performer, and while performing the tank looses the ability to mitigate damage (which ruins the tank motiff without that mitigation, but it will make him a larger target)

[MysticKnightFF5]

did the torrero do this? Celdie! Come tell us how you did that, lol

[Eternal]

Do what I did for Parted Ways. Make a Persistent small healing move. The enemy will be drawn to both the performer and the healing. Seems to work fine for me.

[RandMuadDib]

Philisov, eternal, thank you for the ideas! Both seem like they will work and I will have to try them out.

[Celdia]

What Eternal said. I just borrowed his idea for my patch. Works like a charm, btw.

[RandMuadDib]

Rockstar. unfortunately still at massive planning stages, havent had a chance to do much actual fiddling yet.

[RandMuadDib]

Managed to use half of FFTMaster's "Wall does nothing and AI will attack units with wall" hack so that it was just "Wall does nothing." I think i'm going to rename it Incognito and do a targeted ability, instead of all allies (which is super OP). Not using transparency because i want that to have a different feel. Incognito will be enemies ignore you, Transparent is units cant see you and you can stab them better.