New to tanking. Dark knight, Paladin, or Warrior?

Hi everyone I normally play dps jobs, but I'm tired of waiting 30 years just to advance through the story; so now I'm going to try tanking at cap. Can someone give me a brief overview of their playstyles and pros/cons of each? Which is the least played? Which is the most complex (even if only slightly)? I know everything just got crazy changes so I'm curious about how they are now. Thank you for any help!

Right now Paladin is your choice, best damage, tankyness and utility.

whichever you like the most. Thoough PLD finally has it's spotlight for this expac, doesn't mean you should automatically go sword and board. All of the tanks have their pros and cons. Fiddle around and play which one you like most.

Was kinda hoping for some details as I'm sure certain things might change at cap like other jobs. I'm going to boost one to 60 so I'd like some general information before I pick. I'm not asking necessarily for an opinion, but rather information; so while I do appreciate them a little unbiased comparisons would be nice.

PLD

/10chars

Since this is your first tank, I would suggest PLD. IMO, it is the most straight forward of the tanks so should be easier to learn the ropes with. If you are jumping to 60, I would suggest doing a good amount of the HW lvl60 dungeons and the earlier SB dungeons to get a proper feel for the role in group content instead of trying to rush to 70 as it may be a bit overwhelming to get used to the role as well as all the new changes.

I suppose I should be specific about what I'm looking for. I'm not asking which is currently the best. I'm asking for pros and cons, which is the least played, and which is the most difficult.

Can someone answer those specific questions for me? Please? If listing pros/ cons is too daunting of a request, then I can settle for the last two.

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Originally Posted by Droughboi

Was kinda hoping for some details as I'm sure certain things might change at cap like other jobs. I'm going to boost one to 60 so I'd like some general information before I pick. I'm not asking necessarily for an opinion, but rather information; so while I do appreciate them a little unbiased comparisons would be nice.

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Its not really biased. At the moment paladin does flat out everything better. They all play largely the same at that. DRK is easiest, PLD and WAR are about the same atm. Best bet would be to just do 2-3 PotD with each. Otherwise, go Paladin.

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Originally Posted by Droughboi

I suppose I should be specific about what I'm looking for. I'm not asking which is currently the best. I'm asking for pros and cons, which is the least played, and which is the most difficult.

Can someone answer those specific questions for me? Please? If listing pros/ cons is too daunting of a request, then I can settle for the last two.

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I answered your question with what I would consider the biggest and most important pro for a new tank "PLD is the most straightforward tank to pick up", meaning easiest point of entry for getting into tanking.
That answer has nothing to do with flavor of the month meta stuff, it was a part of their initial design.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

I answered your question with what I would consider the biggest and most important pro for a new tank "PLD is the most straightforward tank to pick up", meaning easiest point of entry for getting into tanking.
That answer has nothing to do with flavor of the month meta stuff, it was a part of their initial design.

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This is no longer true as of SB. DRK was made way simpler.

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Originally Posted by Tila

This is no longer true as of SB. DRK was made way simpler.

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Sorry but I disagree. Even with the changes to DRK, I feel PLD is still more straightforward with how it works.

IMO PLD is more "streamlined" while DRK is a bit more "hectic".

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

Sorry but I disagree. Even with the changes to DRK, I feel PLD is still more straightforward with how it works.

IMO PLD is more "streamlined" while DRK is a bit more "hectic".

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Lost essentially three OGCD (since DP should never be used now), no more mana management, DA almost everything.

It was dumbed down. To an alarming extent.

So... which is least played, DRK or WAR?

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Originally Posted by Droughboi

So... which is least played, DRK or WAR?

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Tanks have always had about equal representation, or at least close enough to not really matter. Right now prolly more paladins, but thats because fotm.

Go with the one you enjoy the most. FOTM changes will impact class population each patch.

PLD seems to be the recommended beginner's tank, but you can pick WAR if you really want to. The main reason why being that PLD has an enmity AOE that doesn't use TP, many straightforward mitigation CDs, stances dont affect how the job is played too much, and PLD's gauge does not have a major impact outside of tankbusters. WAR, while it does also have many CDs, are not quite as easy to use. Raw Intuition will make you take more damage if used incorrectly, and Inner Beast is tied to the Beast Gauge, which itself is quite harder to manage than PLD's Oath Gauge. Plus WAR's enmity AOE, Overpower, is a conal AOE instead of Flash's simple circular area, and can drain your TP if you use it too much. Not to mention Defiance (tank stance) and Deliverance (dps stance) have much larger and pronounced changes than Sword Oath and Shield Oath. All in all I would pick the job that seems the most appealing to you, but if you really are concerned with how difficult tanking could be I would choose PLD.

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Originally Posted by cetrei

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THANK YOU. This is the kind of answer I was looking for. Thank you to everyone else who commented as well, but I asked those questions for a reason lol. What appeals to me is difficulty of play, hence why I was asking before I used a character boost. If all 3 are equal them i guess it doesn\\'t matter. Ik things can change as level increases, so I was looking for information on capped tanks. Playing them at a low level won\\'t answer that question specifically.

Would you mind giving me a little info about DRK too? What you said before was great.

DRK is imo the most difficult tank to play out of the three because it is the most unforgiving and has the heaviest resource management. Many of DRK's abilities require MP, and Darkside stops MP regeneration. Thus, the job revolves around absorbing MP through attacks and abilities so you can keep enmity through its magic AOE attacks, MP being something you can easily run out of if you don't watch your usage. It still has the highest APM out of all of the 3 jobs (and is probably still one of the highest APM jobs in general). Until you get to level 70 it can feel very squishy compared to the other 2 tanks, as you will only have at most 4 mitigation tools (including anticipation) for pulls, one of which blocks magic only. Not to mention DRK's invuln CD, Living Dead, will kill you if your HP is not restored by 100%. I would suggest getting a grip on tanking before you try DRK but it is very fun and fast paced, and has the best job quests in the game.

While I can't tell you how they all play in 4.0, I can give you some ideas with PLD being my main and I can explain that one very well.

Generally speaking, all tanks are well balanced and anyone screaming "Overpowered" are talking about incremental differences. So don't worry about stats, especially since everyone's getting huge balance changes in the upcoming updates. I played all tanks to 60, with only PLD at 70 now.

-WAR: Warrior, from what I can hear and understand, is still the strongest overall tank. It USED to be about long sustains and self heals but that's been nerfed. The whole point of it now is building up guage and spending them on Fell Cleaves for HEAVY damage. They got a rage/berserker theme and is pretty straightforward to play with very little gimmicky-ness to it. From what I've seen, it's the least popular in-game due to the the whole FOTM/trends that always happen with big class changes. PLD got a lot of love so a lot of people are checking it out, but over time they'll all fall back to their other classes. WAR has a very fine line drawn through their stances and, comparatively speaking, is the middle class of difficulty (or was. But still it's not a complicated class). Can't give you any pro's and cons because I haven't played it to max yet.

-DRK: Just like Warrior, I can't give you pros or cons due to me not maxing it either. From what I've heard Dark Knight can hit really good damage (And used to be the AoE king, not sure about now). Once again, not sure if it's still the case, but DRK is pretty heavy on "siphon" attacks that drain HP or MP to help make up for the lack of the straightforward defensive cooldowns that WAR and PLD give. They have the ability called "Dark Arts" which gives all kinds of different effects for certain skills, some effects meaning damage some giving defense or enmity or whatever. It's a really cool little skill that adds a big layer of depth. DRKs are also the kings of stance dancing and were definitely the most complicated to play. I hear polarized opinions about DRK being either dumbed down and simplified, or still just as complicated. Not saying DRK is ultra-mega crazy, but there is(or was) a much more noticeable skill gap between a good and bad player. As of right now, I think DRK is in 2nd place for the most popular tank according to today's tank FOTM trends.

-PLD: Paladin used to be hilariously basic and only using oGCD flat defensive abilities and 1-2-3 combos. As you've probably heard, PLD got a ton of attention this ep to spice up the gameplay and give it identity and people are now yelling "overpowered". PLD comes off as the most straightforward tank but now have a lot more complexity to it rivaling that of Heavensward DRK if you choose to play it to it's maximum potential (Which still isn't that crazy, lol). It is better than the other tanks in pretty much EVERY category, but the problem is that they can really only do one of those things at a time whereas DRK/WAR can do it all at the same time. They do have the best potential DPS, but they have to sacrifice aggro sustain to pull it off (And their full DPS rotation is very long). They have top notch support abilities but they have to give up their damage and aggro sustain to do it (Clemency, Divine Veil, Passage of Arms, Flash, Intervention, Cover) and some of them being hassles to set up and activate. On paper, PLD is overpowered but in practice they are still bottom of the barrel as far as damage output goes. They are absolutely FANTASTIC to play now though and PLD is now the premier "One Man Army" tank capable of soloing content with their self heals. The only area they are truly OP in is solo-content. PLD now has a lot of neat tricks up it's sleave with all their pretty new support skills and oath guage. PLD right now appears to be the most popular tank, most likely due to the overhaul they got and people mostly falsely throwing the word "overpowered" around. Paladin's playstyle can get very hectic now as it is directly involved with the party member(s) just like Healers are and, in my opinion, are "babysitter tanks" as they take care of the party whereas DRK/WAR gets their tools put right into their damage rotations.

IDK if that's what you're looking for. Sorry that I couldn't give hardly any concrete info on DRK/WAR post Stormblood.

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Originally Posted by Kazzoey

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Thanks a lot for you and cetrei's input(I'd multi quote but I'm using a phone and it's just too much work lol)

I'm going to fool around with DRK and PLD and see which I like more. If DRK is harder then ill probably pick that.

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Originally Posted by cetrei

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Several points above are not true in SB anymore. The DRK got changed massively in the update, and turned from being (intentionally) the busiest and most complex tank to being the least complex and not really busy anymore. It also suffers from several abilities being outclassed and made obsolete by others for most situations.
Darkside does not kill your MP anymore. Also, since the job lost most of its OGCDs, it is not high APM at all. Its pretty slow and steady, like WAR before stormblood, but with less buttons to use.

Being a good DRK will require you to know which half dozen abilities to ignore most of the time, and being happy with using one combo over and over on single targets. I am playing all 3 tanks and the new Samurai, and can say without a doubt, DRK is the easiest to master because it just lacks depth. There are no decisions. If being able to play "perfect" relatively easily appeals to you, by all means give it a go. But right now I consider DRK to be badly designed, or probably not really finished (you can already see in the order of abilities gained that the design team forgot a last QA pass, because you get your gauge and can basically not do anything with it for a long time.).

PLD, the other 2 tanks are nothing more than bootleg version of it at the moment

Regardless of what people say, any works. If you prefer to have some extra passive mitigation though, go with Paladin. Shield being able to block magic now is a huge boon.

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Originally Posted by Droughboi

Hi everyone I normally play dps jobs, but I'm tired of waiting 30 years just to advance through the story; so now I'm going to try tanking at cap. Can someone give me a brief overview of their playstyles and pros/cons of each? Which is the least played? Which is the most complex (even if only slightly)? I know everything just got crazy changes so I'm curious about how they are now. Thank you for any help!

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DONT switch to Tank, its incredibly boring and clunky at endgame atm. Even i switched from main-Tank to main DPS and i didnt think that would ever happen.

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Originally Posted by Araxes

DONT switch to Tank, its incredibly boring and clunky at endgame atm. Even i switched from main-Tank to main DPS and i didnt think that would ever happen.

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Well that just sounds like extremely biased and terrible advice :/

What I think Araxes illudes to this: DRK and WAR were nerfed a bit too hard.Niyuka is right, DRK is no longer near as complex (therefore not as fun).Also, DRK lost their AEO burst, defensive abilities and a lot of single target damage.Most the number crunchers agree that PLD will be able to do much more damage(and survive better) than DRKs/WARs.The majority of groups are talking about taking PLD/PLD at the moment because of this, though there is talk ofPLD/DRK.The issue quite simply right now is why not take PLD/PLD. All that being said apparently I love to suffer; I might not do impressive damage as a tank, I might die a lot more from lack of CDs, and it might not be as fun but DRK is still my baby and WE DID SO HAVE THE COOLEST QUEST. Im level 62 and I can FEEEEEl the nerfs in the old dungeons compared to what they used to feel like.Taking it to 70, and if I cant raid on it I will reroll DPS, which will be a shame since tanks have been my main classes since 2005. Hope this helps!

Dark Knight lost a lot without much gained in this expansion, Paladin gave a bunch of abilities to the role system, but unlike White Mage, it didn't hurt them as much.

I'm rolling with Paladin at the moment, and I plan on leveling drk after doing the main story. I used to main sch, but I'm loving tanking, and pld has a lot of abilities that made me love sch (healing and shielding)

But the lore of drk is more intriguing, I think. While the abilities of paladin suit me better, the storyline doesn't really interest me.

Warriors never interested me in either abilities or lore. So I can't help you there. I will say this, though I know this is no longer the case; when I was healing I loved having a warrior around. They didn't take as much damage and I could help DPS more.