Warrior vs Paladin

Hello! I don't have much experience with tanking. Currently have DRK at 53, PLD at 32, and MRD at 17. I stopped leveling DRK at 53 and started leveling Monk. Now that i have Monk at 60 I want to go back to tanking, but don't want to DRK. I feel like I didn't learn much about tanking with DRK because of skipping levels 1-30, and I feel like it was rushed, so to pick up tanking again I want to go with either Paladin or Warrior, I just can't decide on which one. I know PLDS have superior defense and are Main Tanks, and that Warriors DPS is much better but is also harder to master. Any input that you guys can give me would be great!

Warrior is "better" than paladin in nearly every way when it comes to the content in this game, both are playable in all of it though, pick the one you enjoy looking at.

Also you didn't miss anything starting drk at 30, all tanks in low level dungeons is generally spam X then rotate 1-2-3 enmity combo, X being whatever the AoE threat ability for that class is (flash, overpower, unleash).

You'll want gladiator high enough to have provoke regardless of which tank you want to play though.

Also warrior isn't hard to master at all, the "hardest" part is learning how to most efficiently maximize berserk uptime around fight mechanics/phase shifts. Learning how to rotate defensive cooldowns is probably the easiest on warrior but pretty easy on all three tanks. Drk is probably the "hardest" tank to maximize your play on, followed by warrior then paladin, neither really far apart from each other.

The only thing I feel with PLD is they have so many defensive cooldowns that it's a bit overwhelming. Also with MRD I feel like running dungeons I run out of TP very fast.

It depends on what you want, really.

WAR is an all-around better class that brings good utility and good damage, though most of its utility is "brings more DPS," with the upside of bringing some raidwide mitigation too. Its capacity to self-heal is also kinda ridiculous, with Equilibrium and Blood Bath in Berserk windows. It's slightly more complex than Paladin too, both in terms of DPS rotation and the way it cycles defensive cooldowns, the later being slightly different from the other two tanks. Its gameplay design is overall better too by a large margin, even if it is hilariously unbalanced. If you like main-tanking, though, you'll have some trouble with tank "etiquette" in Duty Finder should you wish to go Warrior, as you'll usually be expected to be OT even if you're sitting in Defiance before the pull (which is bullshit, tbh, but it's very deep-rooted in the community).

PLD has the lowest personal DPS output, but it is the simplest one to use for its role requirements. What makes PLD different from the other two tanks is that PLD generally has an answer for a lot of different situations. They have every form of interrupt in the game (spammable Stun on GCD, Silence and Pacification), can cancel out knockbacks and binds, have a raidwide barrier akin to Succor, can heal and shield other party members through Clemency and Stoneskin, and can take physical damage for one ally, which can be used to ignore mechanics in combination with other CDs. In short, while PLD is the simplest to use in current meta, there's a lot of little quirks and things that you can squeeze out of it depending on what fight you're getting into. Of course, this means that this part of its toolkit is completely useless for some fights, particularly those that are heavily magical in damage output, and also that, since most of the utility PLD brings is defensive, it quickly becomes somewhat unnecessary as content becomes easier and gear gets better. The later is the reason PLD is "shunned" by a lot of endgame raiders. This doesn't really mean the class is bad, simply that it's not optimal in a more min-maxer PoV.

As was said in the post above, you won't really learn much tanking skills before level 30, even before level 40. The first dungeon that will actually kind of test your tanking capabilities is Stone Vigil, which doesn't come until level 41 iirc. Sastasha, Tam-Tara, Copperbell et al don't really have that much tanking to do.

It's also recommended that you bring Gladiator to lvl 34 anyways, for Awareness.

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Originally Posted by ChaoticCody

The only thing I feel with PLD is they have so many defensive cooldowns that it's a bit overwhelming. Also with MRD I feel like running dungeons I run out of TP very fast.

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MAR does have TP issues, but they don't last long. Once you reach lvl 30 and you get your tank stance you'll be way less reliant on Overpower for holding enmity. The number of defensive CDs on PLD isn't that large, really! And they're really good for cycling if what you're doing is dungeons.

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Originally Posted by Fernosaur

MAR does have TP issues, but they don't last long. Once you reach lvl 30 and you get your tank stance you'll be way less reliant on Overpower for holding enmity. The number of defensive CDs on PLD isn't that large, really! And they're really good for cycling if what you're doing is dungeons.

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I play on PS4 using a controller so the amount of CD's is a little overwhelming in where to place them to make them easily accessible.

Play WAR if you want damage, PLD if you want utility and raw defensive ability, and DRK I don't know I've never played it. Both WAR and PLD are very fun, though.

Play DRK if you want the feel of a DPS but the queue of a tank. Note: you are not actually a DPS and need to use CD's like the other tanks.

WAR has more issues with button space than PLD on crossbars. No matter what job you play you're going to have to fiddle with your crossbar options to make everything fit comfortably. WHM and AST are the easiest on crossbar space if that's your issue (for me at least, but it depends on your playstyle). Personally I use 2 crossbars on all my jobs. Both crossbars contain my primary combo/skills (fast blade, Savage Blade, etc), and my emergency skills so that as I swap between them I always have access to those things, while the long CD skills are swapped out for other skills. Then I press R2+L2 to activate 8 more buttons, which are tank buffs and/or skills that are used for specific/timed mechanics, like my AST bubble (CU).

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Originally Posted by GeekMatt

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I main AST and I use 2 hotbars. Primary heals, draw, redraw and spread all on the right side. Emergency skills (lightspeed, CU, swiftcast ascend etc) on left. Dps skills on 2nd hotbar on the right, buffs on the left.

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Originally Posted by GeekMatt

WAR has more issues with button space than PLD on crossbars.

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Since you can't have access to Inner Beast and Fell Cleave at the same time (Same for Steel Cyclone and Decimate), WAR has actually less skills available at any given time.
After that, you only need to make Defiance and Deliverance macros that will put the available skills in the same spot.

I want to set one thing straight: Anything PLD can tank, so can WAR. All too often people talk about the classes like there's a gigantic gap, like one's made of jello and the other's a brick wall. If you plan things out, you can MT just as well as a PLD. This isn't also saying that WAR is somehow handicapped and has to work harder to achieve that tankiness. Both tank stances give the same eHP. While PLD has sheltron, WAR's inner beast is more reliable against physical and magical damage. Same also goes for storm's path. From there you can see many ways in how WAR use cooldowns to achieve more mitgation. However, the difference begins when you compare damage output. There's just no contest, whether it'a AoE to help trash burn or single target to melt bosses, WAR's the guy for the job.

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Originally Posted by ChaoticCody

I play on PS4 using a controller so the amount of CD's is a little overwhelming in where to place them to make them easily accessible.

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It's not too hard, actually. It's pretty much all about developing muscle memory. As you level, find a place on two bars, one of which should be for main abilities, and the other of which should be for other abilities, typically with longer cool downs. If you want, I can see about getting you screen shots.

Don't forget, update 3.4 introduced another set of controller hotbars that you can quickly access by double-tapping the triggers. I find the activation to be somewhat unreliable for anything that requires precision timing, but I have moved a lot of out-of-combat and convenience actions there (mount, companion, sprint, marking macros) which frees up room on the main and R2+L2 crossbars.

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Originally Posted by ChaoticCody

I main AST and I use 2 hotbars. Primary heals, draw, redraw and spread all on the right side. Emergency skills (lightspeed, CU, swiftcast ascend etc) on left. Dps skills on 2nd hotbar on the right, buffs on the left.

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I also main AST since 3.0, bumping PLD to my secondary. My crossbars are pretty similar, but the L2+R2 is too convenient not to use. For use of a singular skill it's more practical than swapping crossbars.

I won't use the new set from 3.4. It feels like added complication.

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Originally Posted by Hierro

I want to set one thing straight: Anything PLD can tank, so can WAR. All too often people talk about the classes like there's a gigantic gap, like one's made of jello and the other's a brick wall. If you plan things out, you can MT just as well as a PLD. This isn't also saying that WAR is somehow handicapped and has to work harder to achieve that tankiness. Both tank stances give the same eHP. While PLD has sheltron, WAR's inner beast is more reliable against physical and magical damage. Same also goes for storm's path. From there you can see many ways in how WAR use cooldowns to achieve more mitgation. However, the difference begins when you compare damage output. There's just no contest, whether it'a AoE to help trash burn or single target to melt bosses, WAR's the guy for the job.

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The problem with IB is that it's locked behind Defiance and costs stacks which could have been spent on FC/Deci. WAR has the greatest damage penalty for being in tank stance. So while you always have the luxury of falling back on IB if you're stuck, if you have to do so, it becomes quite costly in terms of dps. Contrast this with something like Sheltron, which is oGCD and not locked behind stance. This is how you narrow the gap on PLD, by trying to use your defensives to spend more time out of stance than a WAR would in the same position.

Likewise, RI is tied to your Berserk windows. So if you want to take advantage of it defensively, you need to try and time it so that your Berserk window occurs at a point where you need the mitigation. WAR tends to be weaker in the 90s recast range and more effective in the 120s range.

It's not a question of whether you can MT. Any tank can do that. It's a question of whether you can do so without costing yourself dps. This is relatively simple when you're tanking short segments of the fight on WAR, but gets harder when you have to tank continuously for extended periods of time.