I want to tank! ...but first...

Hello. So after 2 different melee DPS classes to 50 (Monk and Ninja) I've decided I want to tank. I have Marauder to 26 and PLD almost to 34 just to unlock all of their cross class skills and of course to try them out a little bit, and then of course there is the DRK, however I've only done the opening quest to that. My plan is eventually to have one of each role; a tank, heals, and dps class on hand. For DPS I favor Ninja, but I've yet to decide on what tank or healing class I want to pick. So anyway that's the context and now I will ask some questions that I hope you can do your best to answer! よろしく！

1. Which tank is considered the "best" at the moment? I know, I know, they all have their strengths and weaknesses, but I think you know what I mean here. Generally, meta-permitting, there is always a class considered objectively higher tuned than the others. I'm curious right now which tank is seen as the best...tuned class if you will, in ascending order. This isn't so much because I want to pick the best, balance can always fluctuate, I'm just curious what the general opinion is among the tank community at the very moment. For example I'm able to observer by simply browsing that the answer to this question for the current moment is probably not PLD.

2. Do any of the tank classes have any situations where they are considered un-viable or sub-optimal? I mean this in the sense that if I join a group, the party gets all "Ugh...it's a DRK/MAR/PLD, we're screwed". Do any tanks have this sort of issue with any of the current end-game content? I know I've experienced stuff like this (for example when I played a Paladin tank in BC back in WoW, we weren't bad but there was a stigma to it for anything other than AOE tanking). This is also in regards to an average pug group. I'm aware that in a really organized, high-skill group that possibly anything can work for anything, those types of players make almost anything work if they have to.

3. If you had to make a completely off-the-cuff and uneducated, un-backed by statistics guess as to what the least ---> most played tank class is in general, what would be your observation?

Thank you for your answers and assistance in helping me pick my tank class :)

Warrior. It's just kind of the best in every sense- enough to make a lot of people mad about it- but it does require some intelligence and maintenance. You'll have to do some homework to be good at it.

PAL is not quite as versatile but is a great set-it-and-forget-it tank. Very safe.

DRK... well, a lot of people are not quite really that happy about the way DRK is panning out. Not broken or anything, just has a lot of abilities that don't really play nice with each other and lacks overall cohesion. Some people say DRK is perfect! ... Some people said 2.0 War was perfect and everyone who complained was a filthy casual... Take a massive grain of salt with anything you hear about DRK, these are tumultuous times for it.

In the end, a Warrior is your best choice most likely. Fun, lots of potential, doesn't suffer the godawful disability of leveling to 40 without a tanking stance like Paladin, and it's always got tools.

Warriors and Dark Knights are doing all right atm. There's a present debate over whether Paladins need a dps increase to stay competitive with those two. Warriors are the Aoe tank at present, with Dark Knights close on their heels. Paladin AOE threat is manageable but a clear third. Warriors following their tanking rotation can put out considerable dps which can be cheesed even higher by stance dancing, Dark Knights have a permanent dps increase since they don't ever have to turn their dps stance off while tanking (with good resource management skills that is) and Paladins have finally been freed from the Rage of Halone 1-2-3 ghetto. Warriors have a semi-complex opener that requires some light memorization to do well, Dark Knights only have to Dark Art (that is to say, super charge) their threat combo to get a good lead in, and Paladins are good 'ol Paladins.

I main all three, but Warrior's my favorite with DRK in second.

Kumo answered your first question nicely.

WAR is the most versatile and self-sufficient of the three. It is also the hardest to master imo due to its mechanical gameplay.

PLD is the safest option. Simplest to pick up and master.

DRK is great. Not as safe as PLD but safer than WAR. DRK takes more physical damage than either other tank but also takes significantly less magical damage than either of the other two.

There is a stigma with DRK being squishy and that WAR players are bad. This is largely due to players that never tanked playing DRK and some WAR players trying to tank in their DPS stance without using CDs.

Pre-3.0 statistics said PLD was the second most played class out of all classes after WHM. Based on that I assume PLD is still the most played tank, followed by DRK then WAR. I would guess WAR is the least popular because of its aesthetics.

If you are new tanker (doesn't matter which job), it is best to go full vit jewel and 35 bonus stats into str, and use that to learn the CD pop. When you are use to the CD pop, you can change to full str jewel

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Originally Posted by Galgarion

There's a present debate over whether Paladins need a dps increase to stay competitive with those two.

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Sad that everything in the game has to be dps-focused. Whatever happened to letting roles be roles?

There isn't a single game where maxing tank dps isn't a component to the raid's dps.

Tanking is too easy to have it be anything else. Already the easiest dps rotations, press a cd for buster is not exactly difficult, what else are you going to do as a tank?

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Originally Posted by Jim_Berry

Sad that everything in the game has to be dps-focused. Whatever happened to letting roles be roles?

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Tanks ultimately have two jobs: Maintain enmity on the mobs, and minimize damage taken, both of which are very easy to do. Once you gotten sufficient enmity, what else is there to do? Generate more enmity? Why? You might as well do more damage to speed things up slightly.

Try all three. Stick with whatever "feels" right. You will know what that is.

When I did that, my mind clicked when I held the axe.

I say try out all three to figure out which one you enjoy most. If you pick something on someone else's recommendation and don't have fun playing it, you're not going to enjoy playing it any better just because it's the popular "meta" job. I've got WAR at 57, PLD at 50, and DRK at 47. I enjoy WAR well enough but I usually will only tank for free company members. Dark Knight on the other hand, I enjoy so much I am considering maining it. As far as paladin, I found that a bit boring and got to 50 mostly just for completionism. It may be less boring now that the 1-2-3 isn't the only rotation, though.

WAR is seeing the most love in the community atm, PLD is likely safest long-term. DRK is settling in and people are preferring it for specific content