Warriors Viable?

Deleted. No longer needed.

War is OT but they main tank with tank swaps.
T11 the second head, and t12 they are main tanking after revelation.
With tight dps checks sense you need two tanks you need that War in your party for extra deeps.

The way turn 11 and turn 12 work there really isn't a main tank, it's designed as a shared tanking role. Of course you can alter your strategies to create a main tank role, but that isn't required at all.
Honestly it boils down to the people believing one tank is significantly better at the role than the other are the people who don't have an intricate knowledge of how these classes work.
During progression there are logical roles for each party member, so there are limited exceptions.

Either tank is perfectly viable and capable as MT or OT for almost all the content with the only exceptions being some level of preference in the more hardcore content like Coils, but in those cases most groups will want one of each.

WAR doesn't or at least shouldn't create more stress for the healer since they pretty much both require the same amount of healing in the end. A WAR can take more damage per hit than a PLD but they also get more HP back per heal. This leads to bigger numbers going in (heals) and bigger numbers going out (damage taken) and these can cause some healers to freak out a bit and over heal.

Really which tank is best depends on personal preference and play style. Level up both to 50 and see which you like more. Also leveling up the other tank class will unlock cross-class skills that you will definitely need.

Lastly, you shouldn't expect to be the MT or OT all the time and should just get comfortable being able to be both since it is pretty much a guarantee that you will end up having to play both depending on the situation.

I'm just looking at your FC, cause I'm nosey when folks make claims like that. I don't see anyone in coil gear <<.


Paladin has a button for each individual thing. They are easier to play. They are like one big swiss army knife.
Warriors have buttons and ability for multiple uses. They requires a bit more skill to play effectively. They are like one big multitool.

For Turns 10 and 11, our Paladin MT's and my war keeps debuffs up. For turn 12, I begin the fight as MT and am essentially maintank.

For Turn 13, Paladin is "MT" but I'm still tanking multiple adds, while contributing to damage. He gets Bahamut, I grab mini twins, etc. etc.

Our Paladin does around 200 dmg in turn 10, I did 352 last night.

In any case, there doesn't exist content that Warrior cannot main tank. And they have as many tools, albeit different tools, to mitigate damage as others, just ours sometimes requires more expert timing. That and most warriors, realizing their potential to contribute to damage, will risk a bit more towards that end.

When doing Ramuh, I prefer to solo tank it on Warrior because the self heals aren't reduced by the overcharging of orbs. For Turn 9, I also prefer Warrior, though my first clear was on Paladin, because when you aren't familiar with everything, off global cooldown mitigation is easier to manage than GCD ones like Inner Beast.

In short.. even if your a warrior Off-Tank... your still a tank. You can still MT, but your the better Off tank in many scenarios, because you can not only keep slashing debuff up for Ninjas, but 10% reduction up simultaneously, and with the right accessories, give some DPS a run for their money.

And if you want to be MT, that's fine too. There's nothing you can't MT as War. Personally I love OTing because I get to help push DPS and see how far I can push myself and we got some killer abilities through Storms. You could even make an arguement that Warrior is the better MT, because they can generate much more hate/damage while in tank stance with abilities like Unchained/Beserk.

Anyhow... if you got any doubts about what makes Warrior great, I'd suggest checking out Xenosys.

and here's a video of me "Main Tanking" Turn 12 on our first clear. Though you'll see from all the swaps, that there isn't really any MT. Paladin goes second to hold Bennu's during that phase and takes them off me so I can contribute to the dps push.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vl-XXhTbMbg

I mean.. if you really just want to be the guy infront all the time, I guess you can be a boring ole Paladin <<.

Thanks for the feedback everyone... My FC is only like turn 9 or something (not a very high up group) Suppose really I need to stop thinking like i'm still playing WoW, i use to do it all in WoW, hardcore raiding and all. Do plan on playing all 3 tanks in expansion, just got a bit concerned with what they was talking. Long as I can do all activity as any class I enjoy (warrior) then I'll be happy :D

I don't really have plans to raid hardcore till expansion, just wanted to make sure this game wasn't type that limited you based on class you played, and you could raid hardcore no matter the class. Thanks All!

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

WAR doesn't or at least shouldn't create more stress for the healer since they pretty much both require the same amount of healing in the end. A WAR can take more damage per hit than a PLD but they also get more HP back per heal.

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I hear this a lot but as someone that mains healers... no, warriors are definitely harder to keep up, even after the defiance bonus. In some content it doesn't matter, but in content with big damage on a single target, PLDs really are much more survivable and less stress on the healing.

That said, in FCOB, Storm's Path is still invaluable as it reduces the damage output even when the PLD is MTing.

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Originally Posted by Steady

In any case, Warriors will by default, take bigger damage numbers, but they also take in bigger heals. This evens things out.

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I might not be able to explain why very well, but experience tells me this is just not true. Maybe they have lower defense on their base stats or something?

For example, back when t4 was current, warriors were a lot more likely to die from double dreads than paladins were. In more current content... equally geared wars are a lot harder to keep up than plds during t10's add phase.

Warrior still brings things to the table, it's a 'viable' tank, but something about the "as easy to heal as a PLD"/"defiance = shield oath" just does not play out. Consider the next example... :

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Originally Posted by Steady

I can show videos of my War doing turn 9 solo tank too <<... but it's kinda dated content at this point. Come to Gilgamesh, we can knock out your turn 9 and help ya embrace your WAR.

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My static's war can and does solo tank T9 if we go weapons farming or something like that, but I have to work a lot harder. For example, on the second Bahamut's favor: Shield, virus, lustrate (maybe twice). If I miss any of those, the war dies. If it's a PLD solo tanking... I can pretty much just physick and be OK. While both tanks can do it np, but the warrior tanking definitely requires more work and precision, and is less forgiving.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

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Lets address that one.

If warrior is OTing, more often than not, Storms' Path is gonna be up. If warrior is MTing... it won't necessarily be up. So already, Paladin is get 10% damage reduction over Warrior. And some Paladins are reluctant to keep their STR down enmity combo up, which is further mitigation not shared.

Now, there's solutions, Warrior could just do Path vs. Eye, but then that's 10% slashing resistance gone. You might have a ninja to deal with that, but maybe not. In any case, Warriors will by default, take bigger damage numbers, but they also take in bigger heals. This evens things out. Now a Paladin does have random mitigation, and are more prone to accept Parry as a worthy stat. So I suppose I could forsake my Hyrbid Str accessories and Slashing debuff for the sake of more mitigation in terms of parry and a large HP number... or you can enjoy the extra 150dps I'm doing :P.

As for your Turn 4 Example....

Back when Turn 4 was current, Inner beast was still only a self heal without mitigation.

Turn 5 Warrior is the ideal Main Tank because Inner Beast can be used ever 7-8 swings, so that's instant 20% mitigation for every Death Sentence. That's a 6 second rampart on demand every time you need it. The only time I'd bother using other cooldowns was when I got my timing wrong or was dealing with more than one thing.

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Originally Posted by Hinata_Kenpachi

Thanks for the feedback everyone... My FC is only like turn 9 or something (not a very high up group) Suppose really I need to stop thinking like i'm still playing WoW, i use to do it all in WoW, hardcore raiding and all. Do plan on playing all 3 tanks in expansion, just got a bit concerned with what they was talking. Long as I can do all activity as any class I enjoy (warrior) then I'll be happy :D

I don't really have plans to raid hardcore till expansion, just wanted to make sure this game wasn't type that limited you based on class you played, and you could raid hardcore no matter the class. Thanks All!

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I can show videos of my War doing turn 9 solo tank too <<... but it's kinda dated content at this point. Come to Gilgamesh, we can knock out your turn 9 and help ya embrace your WAR.

Thought somebody bumped a thread from 2.0.

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

Thought somebody bumped a thread from 2.0.

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no I started this thread cause all the post I found on this subject was at least a couple months old :(

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

My static's war can and does solo tank T9 if we go weapons farming or something like that, but I have to work a lot harder. For example, on the second Bahamut's favor: Shield, virus, lustrate (maybe twice). If I miss any of those, the war dies. If it's a PLD solo tanking... I can pretty much just physick and be OK. While both tanks can do it np, but the warrior tanking definitely requires more work and precision, and is less forgiving.

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Does your Warrior IB every Claw and add additional cooldowns (like Vengeance or ToB + Conva) to it? Because if he does not, he will be squishy like hell. Since the 2nd Claw comes rather "surprising" after the Thermionic Beam and IB is a GCD skill, it might hit him much harder. While a Paladin can use a Rampart somewhere between Super Novas and the Beam and is still on the safe side.

The only situation that I can think of where a Paladin is superior to a Warrior MT is solo tanking Shiva. Since 90% of the damage dealt by Shiva is through continuous autoattacking over a long period of time, Paladins can mitigate more and more reliably due to their Shield block (up to 35% damage reduced) and the length of their mitigation skills. Warrior are great for tanking short spike damage, but you need to know the fight well.

To the OP: there are lots and lots of bad warriors out there. And you will notice a bad warrior much faster than a bad Paladin. A bad Paladin is still a decent tank. But if the player decides to play a Warrior like a bad Paladin (1 2 3 and using cooldowns without planning ahead), you will have a really bad time. Don't be that guy.

Wars used to suck at 2.0. SE revamped the class and it's fine now. Some people still hold on to the stigma it used to have or see a crappy war and assume war sucks. Many also are bad at math and think defiance is crap compared to shield oath when in fact they are virtually identical.

A war played by someone with a brain is on equal footing with pld. There are some specific encounters that slightly favor 1 tank over another (frequent tank busters favor war due to inner beast all day every day like T5, while just long oeriods of sustained high damage favor pld cuz shield blocks like shiva ex) but both are adequate in all encounters.

The difference is war requires a little more finesse and timing to deal with extra layer of resource management (wrath) and balance debuff combos (eye and path) with enmity combo (butchers), and timing (IB is 6 sec so you have to land it more precicely to work properly) while pld just 1,2,3 till the cows come home and hit their prescribed instant CD when boss charges up their lazers.

War is easier to mess up, true, and that leads to a lot of bad experiences for people. But played properly they are extremely well balanced with properly played pld and synergies very well with them. The class is great, if it's played right. But that's the IF.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

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Your Warrior is bad.

Anyways, at the moment, the 2 tanking classes are very balanced, with WAR having a little edge.
The reason with the current PLD MT and WAR OT strats is that WAR simply makes a much better OT with it's current tool set and PLD Block.

WAR is definitely viable right now and is a really fun and challenging class to play, your player ability heavily shows on WAR.

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Originally Posted by Steady

If warrior is OTing, more often than not, Storms' Path is gonna be up. If warrior is MTing... it won't necessarily be up. So already, Paladin is get 10% damage reduction over Warrior. And some Paladins are reluctant to keep their STR down enmity combo up, which is further mitigation not shared.

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I am surprised why a paladin would be reluctant to do Rage of Halone. It is A the number one damaging ability Paladin's have not including the Strength down. But a good Paladin would go sword oath if they were tanking for any extent.

Well, you already got clear answers, but yeah, WAR is definitely viable. Having played as both PLD and WAR quite a fair bit, I can even tell you that both Tanks excel at things the other doesn't. (But again, others already went over that) PLD could stand a few slight small buffs though IMO... maybe. Many people tend to claim that WAR has a slight edge of PLD after all, so some possible buffs come Heavensward could remedy that.

That said:

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Originally Posted by Steady

I mean.. if you really just want to be the guy infront all the time, I guess you can be a boring ole Paladin <<.

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It saddens me any time someone considers the Paladin boring. I know. I know. Different tastes and all, but still. :(

^^^
PLD played at its most basic is boring, I'll admit it straight up. Shield Oath+1,2,3+some flashes gets old fast, but from what I've seen in-game this is the way a lot of people play PLD and then they complain its boring.

PLD has a lot of other things to make it more interesting, like oath dancing to maximize dps and utility skills that can potentially be used in interesting ways, like Cover. However, its these exact things where Squenix dropped the ball on class/ability design IMO. The very things that can make PLD interesting to play are neutered to where their effectiveness and usefulness is debatable. Perfect example is Cover, seriously physical damage only wtf.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

Perfect example is Cover, seriously physical damage only wtf.

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Well you got me there. I too have been questioning that. Cover should just... cover damage period, lol.

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Originally Posted by Nocturcity

Your Warrior is bad.

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I was thinking the same thing.

OP, my static has traditionally had warrior MT everything up until T13. (I'm not even sure why we didn't use warrior MT for that fight. I think it just came down to our PLD really wanted to tank Bahamut.) We cleared turns 10-11 the first two weeks the content released and never had an issue with warrior MT. Healing never felt hard or stressful compared to pld MT. Pld does have some bigger cooldowns, like Sentinel and HG, but warrior cooldowns are really consistent and up sooner than pld ones.

Your free company members lack the experience to speak with any authority on this. And tbh, a dragoon can tank T9 at this point so don't let them scare you away from playing the class.

Yes, they are definitely viable.

PLD afaik has more def CDs to run, but tbh they arent necessary as long as WAR pops IB, and use storms path its all good.

They take bigger numbers but that is scaled with their HP

WAR has less cooldown buttons but they are on a short cooldown meaning you pretty much always have something to pop even in fast paced fights. It's not just about the number of cooldowns though. WAR can do IB > 2GCD > Infuriate + IB for 12 seconds of 20% damage reduction every minute, + IBs in between. Warrior tanking is all about clever cooldown combinations and on the fly adjustments based on what you have available.

Bloodbath is severely underrated as a general damage softener. When you are self healing 250-300 damage every 2.5-3 seconds, thats up to 10% reduction in healing required if you are taking 3k damage every 3 seconds. Lasts 30 seconds and is on 90 sec cooldown. WAR should be combining cooldowns like this with offensive cooldowns like unchained and berserk for maximum effect, but it's not uncommon to find a 1,2,3 (or raw overpower spam) WAR getting much less mitigation from these cooldowns than they should be. Warrior should be played aggressively to get the most out of your toolkit.

If MTing as war storms path can mostly be used as a defensive cooldown only when needed in place of a BB combo so you don't lose any storms eye uptime. If you use the correct opener you can gain enough of a hate lead over PUG dps to just cycle SE/SP if you really need to. Using BB only when unchained and berserked is plenty to stay well ahead of anyone else on threat if you feel you really need full uptime on path.

To be fair to your FC, a bad WAR is waaay harder to heal than a bad PLD, but once you get to decent+ WAR vs decent+ PLD, the gap is near non existent.

Tbh, it doesn't matter. Both tanks are cool. Both tanks kick ass together. Just watch the opening video. Screw anyone who tells you otherwise. BOTH TANKS KICK THE ASS

It's much more common to see bad Warriors because essentially the Job is more 'complex', when in reality it just has more rotations and abilities and requires more attention. There are immeasurable amounts of bad Paladins around though, but it's far easier to get away with being a bad Paladin (low dps, bad CD management, etc) than it is to get away with being a bad Warrior.

There is no content that a Paladin can do that a Warrior can't do.

EDIT: As a Warrior main I get consistently bombarded with 'Paladin's make better MTs', which is bull. Either tank can MT any content without any trouble as long as they know what they're doing. Yes, Warrior has to time their Inner Beasts as opposed to mashing an oGCD ability, but all that takes is just paying attention.

To topic creator:

Your FC has no idea of what they are talking about.
Maybe the healers just need to get good or other member are way too biased.

I have Main Tanked as Warrior all coil turns, 1 to 9, and all extreme primals, with 2 tanks or solo tanking.
It's totally possible and it's not bigger stress on healers if they are any good. Btw I have end-game geared SCH and WHM and i have also healed that.
In fact I prefer to heal warriors than to heal paladins, but both work.


On my group I main tank T10 and I'm the tank who picks 4 adds on phase 4 of this turn. There are tank swaps but I MT 75%+ of the time.
On T11 we have PLD main tanking and I make sure all debuffs (storm's path/eye) on boss are up all the time. I soak the Secondary head and PLD vokes back right after.
T12 there's not really a MT with so many swaps every minute or less, so both PLD and WAR are going to be tanking the fight 50% of the time.
T13 PLD main tanks first phase and I go full DPS out of defiance till phase transition. I grab adds on phase2, and me and PLD grab adds on 3rd phase as needed as well. Last phase we tank together to soak the damage.


By the way bringing 2 PLD (or 2 WAR) to FCoB is a big NO right now, both Storm's Path and Rage of Halone debuff should be up all times on every boss, every turn.

it's because when a war is present in the group and properly maintaining Storm's Path the PLD is also benefiting the from it and the damage reduction from their tank stance Shield Oath if it's up. One of the reasons I believe SwO mting is viable.

Sword oath tanking is viable because pld maintains access to all their defensive abilities and shield. War looses not just the passive damage mitigation, but also Wrath and all its skills, notable IB. Without IB on every tank buster war gets very squishy very fast while pld retains all defensive abilities and shield. If we kept Wrath without defiance war would he all over tanking without stance. Has nothing to do with storm's path. You can keep up path 100% of the time regardless if main or OT.

OP ignore everything.

War is the best Tank, simple as that. Anyone who says otherwise is a squishy. And warriors don't listen to squishys.
And if anyone has a problem with that, then you need to /yell This is SPARTA, and kick them into the pit.

#warriorsrule

All healers that main and only play healers, no matter what will think Warriors are more difficult to heal. But in fact Warriors are not. The big numbers are just an "Illusion" because healers heal by how much the tanks hp drop and not how much the damage reduce the % of HP. I know i dont make sense now because my English is not as good. OK let me give you guys an example.

Lets say there is a Chocolate bar. One is 8cm long another is 10cm long like 8k hp and 10k hp for PLD and warrior

You cut 4.8cm off the 8cm bar you are left with 3.2cm (60%)

But for the 10cm bar you cut off 6cm leaving you 4cm (60%)

Now, obviously 6cm LOOKS like you lost more chocolate than the 4.8cm but in fact they are the same.
I don't know if anyone understands this but im just leaving it here.

To add another note to healers because i myself play healers too. I believe by playing both worlds makes you better at another. If you heal Warriors like how you Heal PLD, of course you are going to think that Warriors are more squishy. No healers should ever heal Warriors the same way they heal a PLD like No Warriors should ever play like a PLD, or No Sch should ever heal like how Whm heal. They are the same Role but they have their own individual way of playing.

Warriors like me who from the start of playing a Warrior never stop trying to improve myself to be 1. Make Healers job easier. 2nd Do as much DPS as I can will know doing one at a time as a Warrior is easy as 123. But doing both Tanking and Maxing dps. It's a struggle no one besides those who main Warriors know. But no matter how much we improve ourselves Healers will think PLD is the better tank, making us feel unwanted, Im pretty much going to ditch Warrior if DRK is as fun and can be appreciated more by the community than Warriors

Eh. Honestly, I prefer a WAR as an off tank for 8 man content because they put out more damage without having to worry about ripping hate off the MT, plus they have some really good debuffs (though a very geared warrior can maintain these and still maintain hate too). They're perfectly capable of MT'ing. Healers (especially new healers) tend to freak out because warriors' HP will yoyo up and down dramatically. Yes, they take more damage than a PLD but they have a larger HP pool and get healed for more to compensate for that. PLD do have Hallowed Ground going for them, but that's 10 seconds every 7 minutes. Overall, I prefer PLD for endgame content or new content (it's just what I'm more comfortable on) and WAR for dungeons/trials that I'm already familiar with.

Warriors are great. They have Unchained so they do great dps in tank stance. That said they also have Inner Best which is basically the most boring Awesome Button I've ever encountered in an MMO for tanking since EQ. I play a Paladin because Warrior mitigation really bores me, but I'll be swapping over to DRK to see if it's anything really new/fun. Warriors work for everything as both MT and OT so do whatever you want.

I might be in one of the Only Raid groups, that runs double warrior (they both dont like pld so... well.). We have cleared T13 like 10/11 weeks ago.
i'm in that group since like 7 months now or so, and me, as a WHM, never had the feeling, that we're missing a PLD, or that our WAR maintank is noticeable difficult to heal. Even in T13, its totally fine, and more than doable. IT depends on 1. the healer skills, and 2. the war MT skills. Of both know what they doing, its not a tiny bit worse/more difficult than aPLD Maintank. i Know it, i healed a PLD maintank in T13 today, and it was not easier (but ok, was a complete different group).

So... Even if your friends/group doesnt like pld, 2x WAR works just fine, as long everyone knows their job.
If anyone's interested, first 2 Ahk Morns goes into Holmgang, every single after that is tanked together, and we just heal through it. not really much of a problem. So, its really really more than doable, and warrior does not fall behind Paladin at all. If you have any concerns.
(Maybe we're even the first group, that beat T13 with double warrior. Since double war seems to be pretty rare-)

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Originally Posted by Instrumentality

Warriors are great. They have Unchained so they do great dps in tank stance. That said they also have Inner Best which is basically the most boring Awesome Button I've ever encountered in an MMO for tanking since EQ. I play a Paladin because Warrior mitigation really bores me, but I'll be swapping over to DRK to see if it's anything really new/fun. Warriors work for everything as both MT and OT so do whatever you want.

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This seems backwards to me. "Oh, here comes RandomTankBuster, ahh good ole Sentinel" vs "Oh, crap I have 4 stacks, do I have time to get this last one in? Thank goodness for that Vengeance stack! Boom Inner Beast! Oh hey it critted for 2.1k, sweet"

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Originally Posted by Abbul_Stonecleaver

This seems backwards to me. "Oh, here comes RandomTankBuster, ahh good ole Sentinel" vs "Oh, crap I have 4 stacks, do I have time to get this last one in? Thank goodness for that Vengeance stack! Boom Inner Beast! Oh hey it critted for 2.1k, sweet"

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There are no random tank busters. Their timing is all meticulous and easily recognized. I like Paladin mitigation because I can have a workflow/plan for every buster without ever using the same CD twice in a row and still be perfectly fine. Warrior it's always the same CD + whatever else you feel like hitting.

Don't get me wrong I recognize why people like Warrior and I don't have any problem with the class. It's just not my style.

I meant random as in there are many of them and I needed a universal name. Guess a tank buster would work.

Just saying Warrior is more proactive while a Paladin can be more reactive. Kinda the opposite of boring

not sure if it's been mentioned or not but one thing about PLD beining chosen more often for MT is it's random Midgate from Shield and Parry. Along side with Adlo and Stone Skin I reduced a Flattern by Bahamut to 0 mainly due to my Shield Blocking like 35% of it.

what is this, 2.0? lol

yes warriors can MT. it doesn't really matter who MTs. I have main tanked a lot of Coil. But really, MT is just a fancy word for "stands in place and tunnels boss". there are plenty of times where it is more taxing to be an OT and more pertinent to be on your a-game.

there should be no problem "MTing" most of the game's content as a Warrior. It might be better to have a Paladin MT for some bosses but usually when you are at a level where it really matters you don't really even care so it's pretty irrelevant

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This seems backwards to me. "Oh, here comes RandomTankBuster, ahh good ole Sentinel" vs "Oh, crap I have 4 stacks, do I have time to get this last one in? Thank goodness for that Vengeance stack! Boom Inner Beast! Oh hey it critted for 2.1k, sweet"

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boss ability queues are generally pretty strict in FFXIV - they are not random at all

i.e, shortly after dropping bombs titan will do a mountain buster. every time. the trick is to know that window. it takes about 20 seconds to generate 5 wrath, but if you use it too soon you will waste it. the window for a mountain buster is probably somewhere around 22-30 seconds. and honestly dont quote me on that because that is a pretty rough estimate but it's meant to illustrate a point

once you spend enough time having your shit kicked in by a boss you will know when the big damage is going to come out

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Originally Posted by Abbul_Stonecleaver

I meant random as in there are many of them and I needed a universal name. Guess a tank buster would work.

Just saying Warrior is more proactive while a Paladin can be more reactive. Kinda the opposite of boring

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Haha, maybe for you. My favorite part of any fight as a tank is nailing down absolutely everything I need to do in order to maximize my survivability and find out new patterns to use my cooldowns in for both myself and my healers. It's very ill suited to the Warrior playstyle, which is fun if you like that sort of tanking style. I enjoy it about as much as I enjoy healing, which is to say not at all.

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Originally Posted by Instrumentality

Haha, maybe for you. My favorite part of any fight as a tank is nailing down absolutely everything I need to do in order to maximize my survivability and find out new patterns to use my cooldowns in for both myself and my healers. It's very ill suited to the Warrior playstyle, which is fun if you like that sort of tanking style. I enjoy it about as much as I enjoy healing, which is to say not at all.

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I'm not really here to change your mind (I like PLD too), but I will say that planning WAR's CD rotation is actually way more strict than PLD's. Usually, when you're figuring out your rotation for PLD, you're basically just figuring out what will be up when. So, say, you start with Sentinel on the first big hit, then Ramp + Conv for the 2nd, Hallowed 3rd, Sentinel again 4th... etc etc. With WAR it's quite a bit different, you have 4 major CDs to work with and combine together (IB, Vengeance, and Thrill + Conv). IB usage is basically what makes or breaks a good WAR - some WARs will hold onto 5 stacks until the tank buster is about to happen, hit it, build 5 more stacks, then save again. This isn't something you want to do. You want to know when and where you can freely use IB to mitigate other damage/deal more damage. You also have to consider when Unchained is safe, when you have Infuriate to get another IB off or to get 2 after an Unchained, when you need to prioritize Steel Cyclone over both of these, etc. Basically, WAR's CD management is GCD to GCD, whereas PLD's is a bunch of CDs that can be planned out just on the tank busters.

I will say, from experience, I've found it significantly easier to start fresh content with PLD due to being able to pop a multitude of CDs whenever. As an example, Odin is really quite strict on when he does what, but the first time you go in as WAR you're forced to hold your Wrath a lot because you don't know when stuff is coming. Once you do know then WAR becomes a lot better, you get 99-100% SP/SE uptime, you get IB + a CD for every tank buster, you can freely use IB without much worry, and you do more damage than a PLD solo. There's a lot of advantages to mastering a fight with WAR, and that's what I personally like about the job.

I do think both jobs have their merits, and it's really just down to what type of CD management you prefer.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

I might not be able to explain why very well, but experience tells me this is just not true. Maybe they have lower defense on their base stats or something?

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Well, I don't realy tank high level content so I don't know for sure.. But I think most WARs that are not pure VIT put points into STR where as PLDs put points into DEX? I don't know if that would make that much of a difference though.