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Howdy all,
I just re subbed after taking a year off and picked up Heavensward. I plan on tanking as I did previously, and was wondering if anyone could enlighten me with a high level difference between DRK and War and where they currently stand in endgame :)
My WAR/PLD are currently both at 60, and while I'm still leveling dark knight, I have close friends who have all tanks at 60 and frequently tank endgame content.
WAR is incredible at the moment. They are considered the best OT, as they can put out high damage thanks to their new damage stance, Deliverance, and skills like Fell Cleave. They are almost always going to be desired in an 8 man raid team due to the need for high group DPS. I see that you have a level 50 WAR, so you know that one of their strongest defensive cooldowns, Inner Beast, relies on building up and using stacks at the proper time. They have strong self heals via bloodbath and equilibrium.
DRK and PLD compete for the MT spot on a raid team, and players who end up main tanking endgame content will often level both, using whichever one is more suited to the particular duty they are working on. By this I mean that PLD is better at mitigating physical damage while DRK is more suited to tanking magical damage. DRK is slightly more complex than PLD and does a bit more damage as a result, though not as much as a WAR.
Generally, you will see raid groups running DRK/WAR or PLD/WAR (or as I said, their MT may switch between PLD and DRk depending on content), so regardless of which class you pick, you shouldn't have any trouble finding a group and getting into endgame. I find WAR to be much more fun, but you should definitely try out both classes and go from there :).
DRK is the preferred MT and WAR the preferred OT. WAR is very good at both roles tho, but as OT he's dealing top notch DPS (not that he doesn't as MT, but less than DRK). DRK has the highest MT-DPS amongst the tanks, gets a lot of advantages from being hit (more MP, Low Blow CD reset, Reprisal which benefits the whole raid), and his mitigation is very similar to PLD's but with a very strong perk against magic attacks (Dark Mind) at the price of a bit less physical mitigation (no shield -thus no sheltron-, and no RoH), but not that big of a deal compared to what Dark Mind does against magical attacks. DRK also has access to better party-wide mitigation tools than PLD while MTing (especially if you don't have a MNK in your party, since he can bring both the INT down debuff AND a 10% reduced damage debuff on the boss THAT STACKS WITH STORM'S PATH). WAR just destroys everything, he can literally grab entire mountains and hit you with them like they're giant punching gloves, with little to no fucks given. You can also throw him a mountain and he will either not give a shit or just instantly heal himself while sucking your blood and playing a guitar solo with his axe (because any true WAR's axe has an electric guitar attached to it).
Try both, find out which one you like better, and play that. Or just level both. Or all 3. Whatever you want, man.
I have all leveled, they all have their uses. Get all tanks up, really easy since they share the top gear at the moment. Gear one and you gear all. POTD is an especially a good way to get an easy weapons too, at least good starter-raid weapons. Easy level, easy to gear, get them all.