tank with least buttons for 4 mans

I am trying to find out what would be the tank with the least buttons for 4 mans. I don't plan on raiding as tank.

For dungeons, Pld is the easiest.
Flash, Fight or Flight, defensive CD, and spam Total Eclipse until your out of tp...

Warrior prolly has the least buttons. Paladin has the most buttons but you probably wouldn't need to use most of them in 4mans anyway.

Your group would hate you, but you could probably hold aggro and get through dungeons as a Paladin without ever using any ability other than Flash.

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Originally Posted by Kuo

I am trying to find out what would be the tank with the least buttons for 4 mans. I don't plan on raiding as tank.

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I think a more interesting question would be which tank loses the least by using less buttons. Like can you have 95% performance using only 75% or less of the skills?

drk, unleah and chill, on boss too

Warrior. A warrior can hold aggro on any four man dungeon in the game with overpower spam. One button, spaced out to let TP regen.

But seriously, that would be boring, and your party would hate you SO much.

I'm inclined to say for a dungeon run drk has less buttons to juggle than pld or war, but I haven't lvld mine to 70. For aoe situation drk spams abyssal drain with dark arts, ogcds and defensive cds weaved in, pld does flash 1-2x and spam total eclipse with ogcds and defensive cds weaved in, war spams overpower while maintaining eye buff and occasional decimate spam in berserk/inner release, while still having to weave in defensive cds. On bosses pld needs to manage 3 combos (halone, royal, goring), while weaving in requiescat and holy spirit spam. War is similar with the 3 combos (eye, path, block) and on top of that war needs to manage gauge and align berserk/infuriate/inner release. Drk only has 2 combos, and dark arts usage is pretty easy (carve and spit > everything else other than dark passenger).

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Originally Posted by aleph_null

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Dark Dungeon running is actually what I'd call "smoother" but I wouldn't say it has less buttons. In dungeon pulls you'll likely use unleash, abyssal drain, carve and spit, quietus, the blackest night, defensive cds (although this is for all tanks), blood price, delirium (every 120 seconds unless before boss), and the syphon combo when low on mana or near the end of the group with dark arts if you're capping for mana. A lot more buttons there than one might think.

All tanks are pretty similar for bosses though.

The actual answer here is DRK by far. Come on guys what are you even trying by saying PLD and War instead? All a DRK has to do is literally just spam Unleash/Abyssal drain with some blood price to get mana back. That's it. At most at really high levels spam abyssal drain with the ocasional quietus worked in there.

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Originally Posted by TheCount

The actual answer here is DRK by far. Come on guys what are you even trying by saying PLD and War instead? All a DRK has to do is literally just spam Unleash/Abyssal drain with some blood price to get mana back. That's it. At most at really high levels spam abyssal drain with the ocasional quietus worked in there.

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You'd burn out of mana pretty quickly if you only did that as Blood Price gives piddly amounts of mana back. That being said, it is good for blood generation for quietus which does get you mana. Likewise you're going to be needing syphon strike for that mana return so, no not really lol. You'll probably want to use The Blackest Night anyways since it's free defense and a quietus (which depending on the group will give you more mana in return).

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Originally Posted by Kalocin

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You're trying to make the DRk sound more complex than it really is, and anyone who has played them will know its nonsense how simple it is.

Here's your average dungeon: Pull > blood price + unleash/abyssal drain spam and drop a salted earth > when out of mana use your one combo that you'll ever use to get some mana back and continue using AOE on repeat, hope you enjoy pressing a single button for most of the dungeon because that's what you're going to be doing > if 64+ in level throw in an ocasional quietus and continue the spam once that terrible complexity is over with.

That's it. That's literally all there is to it. The majority of that is spamming unleash/abyssal drain and using your one combo to get mana back so you can do it some more.


Here's your single target rotation if you're not absolute max level: Use your one combo path on repeat while dark artsing everything, ocasionally dark artsing carve and spit instead when it gets off the cooldown. Damn. So complex. Bloodspiller ocasionally if you're near max level and actually have it, which I can guarantee you the majority of the dungeons you'll do you won't. In the few instances you'll do an actual level 70 dungeon you will get it ever so slightly more interesting because you have TBN, not that that's some terrible complexity either. Just use it just before some damage is gonna hit you and use the blood you get from it for another bloodspiller. yay.

Dark Knight is dead-simple nowadays and doesn't require many buttons to be pressed at all, specifically in dungeons what the OP was asking. The majority of your time spend will be using your one AOE ability on repeat there. There's a reason why people are so easily able to reach optimal dps levels on Dark Knights, it's because you quite literally can't go wrong. You could smash your face on the keyboard and do well with them.

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Originally Posted by TheCount

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Not at all, I said it was smooth in the sense that it feels easier to run dungeons with them... I actually forgot to include salted earth in there too haha. I actually think they're pretty easy to play but that's not the question, the question was about buttons and it's wrong to say they only use a few... Unless you're just doing the bare minimum of course.

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Originally Posted by Galgarion

Warrior. A warrior can hold aggro on any four man dungeon in the game with overpower spam. One button, spaced out to let TP regen.

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PLD has Flash ;)

Don't think anyone saying PLD has actually played a PLD lately. On my PLD i have 36 buttons on my bars of which i use at least 28 for each run and the last 8 being situational.

The correct answer is probably DRK.

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Originally Posted by TheCount

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I suspect that you probably haven't played DRK in a while, but the new Quietus change has created a lot of different interactions with multiple targets present. Quietus generates 0.2 DA worth of MP per hit. This can be then used to fuel TBN, which can generate another Quietus. If TBN is on cooldown, the MP can go towards AD. If you cap, you lose potency, so excess should go into DA DP, and can optionally go into DA AD if you want more sustain. The role of Delirium with multiple targets is a bit unclear. Theoretically, under BW, Quietus can generate enough blood to generate more Quietus if you have enough mobs (perhaps with some help from Salted Earth), but you need a large amount of mobs to do so, and AD doesn't proc BW (this is probably more of a consideration if you're off-tanking in an AoE heavy fight than dungeons). Delirium-BP is an option, in that you generate a minimum of 40 blood over 30 seconds on top of any additional blood that you gain from hits, so it at least pays for itself if you get hit 10 times in the window.

I'm not sure how that matches up to Flash > TE or Overpower > Decimate in terms of difficulty, but everyone struggles with different things, I suppose.

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Originally Posted by Thela

Don't think anyone saying PLD has actually played a PLD lately. On my PLD i have 36 buttons on my bars of which i use at least 28 for each run and the last 8 being situational.

The correct answer is probably DRK.

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DRK will run out of mp faster than PLD will run out of TP.

PLD just spams TE / Flash and alternate when their run out of one type of resource. 2 buttons.

WAR will spam OP but needs do to SE combo to maintain buff and potentially do Cyclone. 4-5 buttons.

DRK will spam AD and Unleash but will need to replenish mp with SE and potentially TBN for quietus. You're looking at 5-7 buttons.

So no, the correct answer is PLD.

If you're literally just concerned about buttons, DRK numerically has the least abilities out of all the tanks, @ 25. WAR has 26, and PLD has 28.

Yea I don't know how anyone would think drk is simpler when you have to use combos to get mp back while pld literally spams one button for max near-max dps.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

If you're literally just concerned about buttons, DRK numerically has the least abilities out of all the tanks, @ 25. WAR has 26, and PLD has 28.

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This is not a good indicator as not all abilities are used equally.

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Originally Posted by DacienSanderon

This is not a good indicator as not all abilities are used equally.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

If you're literally just concerned about buttons

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10char

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Originally Posted by Shinkyo

DRK will run out of mp faster than PLD will run out of TP.

PLD just spams TE / Flash and alternate when their run out of one type of resource. 2 buttons.

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Nice thing about this is you also get more mitigation for no effort. Free blocking plus 20+ seconds of blind. The AE dps is the lowest of the 3 tanks though, maybe significantly lower.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

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I think the concern is useful buttons. If you want to be literal though are you really going to count war fel cleave and inner beast as 2 buttons even though it auto switches for you based on stance? Or count 2 paladin/war stances vs one drk stance?

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Originally Posted by Shinkyo

DRK will run out of mp faster than PLD will run out of TP.

PLD just spams TE / Flash and alternate when their run out of one type of resource. 2 buttons.

WAR will spam OP but needs do to SE combo to maintain buff and potentially do Cyclone. 4-5 buttons.

DRK will spam AD and Unleash but will need to replenish mp with SE and potentially TBN for quietus. You're looking at 5-7 buttons.

So no, the correct answer is PLD.

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But nobody asked which tank is better/easier or whatever to play, the question was which tank has the least amount of buttons and the answer to that question is most definitely NOT Paladin.

And if you just spam TE / Flash and nothing else you're really not gonna get very far, just saying. If you go by that logic then the correct answer would be Warrior, doing nothing but Overpower which will create enough aggro for you to just stand there after you run out of TP waiting for it to replenish. Or indeed Paladin doing nothing but Flash. But I'm assuming the OP want to play the job CORRECTLY.

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Originally Posted by Thela

But nobody asked which tank is better/easier or whatever to play, the question was which tank has the least amount of buttons and the answer to that question is most definitely NOT Paladin.

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The question in the title is from my understanding "which tank requires the least button to run 4-man content (i.e. dungeons)?" so I'm simply answering in that mindset.

Flash/TE is the correct way to play PLD in dungeon big pulls until you reached a boss.
Only when you've burned the mobs down to 3, you may want to Goring if it's gonna tick in full.

All I'm saying is that with a minimum of 2 buttons and on trash mobs, PLD is more efficient than the WAR/DRK. It's less potency per GCD but it's more sustainable and you're not playing it wrong.
But really the OP question is a bit weird in the first place :-)

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Originally Posted by TheCount

The actual answer here is DRK by far. Come on guys what are you even trying by saying PLD and War instead? All a DRK has to do is literally just spam Unleash/Abyssal drain with some blood price to get mana back. That's it. At most at really high levels spam abyssal drain with the ocasional quietus worked in there.

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You have to combo to regen mana, though. That's too many buttons, the whole system falls apart.

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Originally Posted by Thela

And if you just spam TE / Flash and nothing else you're really not gonna get very far, just saying. If you go by that logic then the correct answer would be Warrior, doing nothing but Overpower which will create enough aggro for you to just stand there after you run out of TP waiting for it to replenish. Or indeed Paladin doing nothing but Flash. But I'm assuming the OP want to play the job CORRECTLY.

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Flash/TE spam is playing the job correctly. That's the point.

Correct answer is DRK.

* AOE threat gather - don't have to mind the cone aoe
* AOE damage deal - same.
* scaling mp regen based on number of enemies with no effort.
* floor based damage - also scales with number of enemies
* least amount of defensive CDs to manage

Basically : any tank job player saying it's another tank job the easiest.

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Originally Posted by Isrea

Your group would hate you, but you could probably hold aggro and get through dungeons as a Paladin without ever using any ability other than Flash.

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Wasn,t it how PLD used to play from 1 to 50 prior 4.0 ?

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Originally Posted by TheCount

All a DRK has to do is literally just spam Unleash/Abyssal drain with some blood price to get mana back. That's it. At most at really high levels spam abyssal drain with the ocasional quietus worked in there.

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i could not disagree more. That might of been the case with 4.0 launch but now with 4.05 changes the aoe rotation is somewhat different in that Quietus is actually useful now and actually requires some sitational awareness to see if its worth it or not. you have to judge how much damage you're taking from the trash to judge if TBN will break to get you the 50 blood, then you have to judge if Quietus is worth it (worth it on 5 mobs as it pays for the TBN used, 10 mobs pays for both TBN and the DA used on it.

Meanwhile PLD is litterally flash twice then mash Total Eclipse until everything is dead while weaving in Circle of Scorn. Litterally 3 buttons as a bare minimum for "acceptable" aoe damage.

WAR has Tomahawk > Infuriate > Steel Cyclone > swap to deliverance > eye combo > overpower till the eye combo wears off, then reapply if you want to be optimal. If you don't, you can tank any trash pull in the game with one button, Overpower. And it isn't half bad even if you do unlike if a PLD were to spam Flash. However if you one day decide you want to do better than the lowest common denominator, WAR has the most complex single target dps rotation.

However as has probably become clear from this thread, all tanks aoe rotations are so simple a monkey could do it.

I really hope I never have to heal you.

I think DRK has so many buttons to press. Good lawd, I know I'm just struggling that I don't have more fingers to press all these buttons. DA-DP, blood price, shadow wall/rampart, anticipation, TBN, quietus, delirium, and abyssal drain. Gaining MP is so convoluted that thought is required so you can be more than a punching bag for the mobs.

WAR, on the other hand, that's simple. pop defensive, activate eye and zerk, spam OP either in defiance or deliverance. DONE. Can you take in the time to build gauge and spam decimate and steel cyclone? sure, but taht's easy too. you're not being a piano concertist+physics major like a DRK.