Best Tank for a New Tank?

Hi y\\'all! Question...

I\\'ve played MMOs for years, so I understand what a tank does and, in a generic sense, how it\\'s done. (Face boss away from group, keep enmity, etc.)

I\\'ve never tanked. Ever. But I\\'d like to learn.

Which tank job is best suited for someone new not only to FFXIV, but the tanking role itself?

Thanks in advance!

Paladin.

It's a job where everything is very intuitive and packed into its own little cycle. Rather than its kit interplaying with every other part of it, you have very distinguished segments that lead naturally into one another, and while it doesn't have "Free" use of its whole kit at once, it also has some of the most flexible options available to tanks that allow you to salvage what other tanks can't.

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Originally Posted by WalxAtNite

Hi y\\'all! Question...

I\\'ve played MMOs for years, so I understand what a tank does and, in a generic sense, how it\\'s done. (Face boss away from group, keep enmity, etc.)

I\\'ve never tanked. Ever. But I\\'d like to learn.

Which tank job is best suited for someone new not only to FFXIV, but the tanking role itself?

Thanks in advance!

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Gunbreaker plays similar to a DPS, so it maybe the best way to ease yourself into the role if your experience has mainly been playing as a DPS.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

Paladin.

It's a job where everything is very intuitive and packed into its own little cycle. Rather than its kit interplaying with every other part of it, you have very distinguished segments that lead naturally into one another, and while it doesn't have "Free" use of its whole kit at once, it also has some of the most flexible options available to tanks that allow you to salvage what other tanks can't.

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So some things are dependent on other things, in other words?

I must admit this lost me a little. The only job I've done in 14 is Bard and I love it.

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Originally Posted by Edax

Gunbreaker plays similar to a DPS, so it maybe the best way to ease yourself into the role if your experience has mainly been playing as a DPS.

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That sounds really fun, too. Gunbreaker is just a cool job anyway. It looks like fun.

WAR or PLD.
WAR is the simplest of all the tanks now and has the best personal mitigation.
PLD is your bread and butter tank.

Paladin, it's straight forward and to the point in terms of being a tank.

I'll add which one appeals to you?
What story do you want to follow? or does the tank story matter to you?

I agree PLD is probably easiest and WAR has good mitigation.
Yet I play DRK as tank and that's the one i'm leveling now. I prefer it over the others.
I'll probably level PLD up also.
I walked away from WAR during stormblood.
I started GNB but it didn't have a huge appeal for me.
Just trying to point out "which is best" is somewhat subjective.
What ever you pick have fun!

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Originally Posted by WalxAtNite

So some things are dependent on other things, in other words?

I must admit this lost me a little. The only job I've done in 14 is Bard and I love it.

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It has a very set rotation, divided into a physical segment of hitting things with your sword, and a magical segment of firing off spells at things.

The physical segment ends with an attack that buffs your magic damage, hence how one leads naturally into the other.

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While PLD has a reputation as the simple tank I'd say that idea's a bit outdated.

In my opinion DRK has less going on than PLD does these days, and while I don't really play WAR I get the impression from others that that's also a very straightforward job at the moment.

PLD is the better one to learn as it offers both personal mitigation but also targeted options for other players. So you can learn the fundamentals of tanking while managing skills like cover and sheltron.

All 4 tanks play similar and there is no major differences between them.

Try out all of them and decide which one you like it better, since difficulty on all 4 is similar, performance is the same and its just your personal preference.

Btw PLD is not better for new players, he plays terrible below 72 lvl, DRK and WAR better to lvl.

The truth is that all of the tanks are mind-numbingly easy to play from a rotation standpoint. Some may be slightly easier than others, but none of them would be any harder than maybe 3/10 if I had to put a scaling difficulty on it. This ease of rotational mechanics is by design though, since most of tanking is not anything to do with the rotation itself. Tanking is more about managing a fight than anything else.

Learning where to move the boss and when, learning enemy ability names and rotations, and managing your tank defensive cooldowns make up the majority of the difficulty of tanking. This is all stuff that can be learned and honestly FFXIV makes it pretty darn easy to do so. Enmity management in FFXIV after 5.0 is a complete joke, and most bosses don't even start carrying tank busters until later on, and even then they are not very dangerous if you are geared with current level gear.

The point of all of this is just to say that play whichever tank you like. They are all of relatively equal difficulty and they are all highly capable of doing their job effectively. Pick the one you like and you will have a good time.

I find WAR to be the easiest tank.

PLD is simple but has a few more things to think about due to its expanded utility v the other tanks.

Its heal is on global, meaning that unlike the other tanks, it's a viable tool to utilize for yourself and others more often, but as it is on global it also requires a little more thought as to when it is optimum to use it. The other tanks just need to think about whether their health is low, and weather their heal is ready to use.

The PLD's party buffs also require a little more thought. One requires positioning in relation to party, the other requires that it be followed up by a heal, either from yourself or the healer. Other tanks just have to click a button

WAR is my tank of choice because its kit requires the least attention from me. Freeing me to worry about boss mechanics, and how I can position enemies to make life easier for my healer and DPS.

WAR is just a one two three combo, with an occasional alternate finisher to maintain a self buff. No need to worry about whether the target has enough life left to warrant the alternate DOT finisher that the PLD has.

Its damage phase amounts to: 'Hit the red button and spam.' The only thing that really takes any consideration is when to use nascent flash on someone. But that's a consideration shared by other tanks with equivalent abilities.

Honestly my only complaint about WAR is the horrible looking aura effect you get from your beast gauge. I really wish we could disable that.

Any way. I would 100% recommend WAR as the tank to learn tanking with. Its tool kit scales well, and remains easy to use from level 1 to 80.

I am not particularly drawn to edginess and find the graphic effect of unleash to be quite ugly. So I have not played DRK much. But I know it suffers from a lack of mitigation cooldowns for longer than other tanks. With skill and good gear this isn't necessarily a problem. But as a healer main I have found DRK players are typically either very very good, or very very bad. So this class probably takes a little more skill to play then the others.

PLD is a very solid choice. So long as your not letting enemies flank you you will get extra mitigation thanks to the shield, so it's not so important to use your cool downs. BUT you should still be using them. At low levels it is very similar to WAR. At max level its very different thanks to its dual damage type rotation and its utility. Until you get clemency at level 56 it just feels like a weaker WAR though. From that point on, you will wish you signed up as WAR when you get good groups, and PLD when you get bad ones.

GNB I have not yet done much with, so I don't know how it compares across all levels. My experience with it has been positive, but my impression so far is that it requires more finger dexterity then WAR. The rotation is still simple, but your going to need to be able to reach a few more buttons thanks to the powder combo.

I'd recommend PLD. Straightforward rotation and mitigation. Nothing tricky.

Lots of people say WAR is easy, and this is wrong. WAR opener and IR window is easy, everything else is a massive chore and pain in the butt. But, WAR is probably the best dungeon runner post Lv. 76.

If you are looking to raid as a tank, then go DRK. They have possibly the best mitigation tool kit of the tanks... ignoring Living Dead... no one talks about LD.

GNB is a jack of all trades, and has possibly the highest dps. They have an "ammo combo" that is really annoying in raids from what I hear.

If you cant decided, and all seem fun, think of just maining all of them. They do all play very similar to each other.

I think WAR's pretty good when you feel confident with cooldown usage, because then you can speed things up a good bit by pulling maybe two packs, popping one defensive and going ham with berserk and AoE spam. WAR isn't anymore complex than PLD in all honesty.

Past opener and IR, WAR has a simple rotation, with very low APM. The main difference between PLD and WAR is if you want a consistent, moderately strong aoe for every pull, or a really strong AoE pull every OTHER pull respectively.

War has the least buttons to press. It's actually quite hard to decide which is easiest because they kinda all are. On the offensive side they are like simplified versions of melee dps. Keeping enmity isn't something that needs managing any more; this expansion making your enmity-booster stance so strong that non-tanks can never come anywhere near overtaking you. Only need the fundamentals like you said; generally face enemy away from the party and reduce your damage taken by using mitigation buttons with good timing.

None require anything more "tank-like" than the others, really. XIV in general requires almost nothing from tanking than that you use sprint, pull things, appropriately AoE on gather (with only Overpower offering any challenge in that regard), and then sequence cooldowns. I'd just advise them to go with whichever they most like the aesthetics of.

Thanks everyone! I think I'll start with WAR and move on to PLD if it doesn't grab me. I know nothing of any of the stories and ideally they'll all be leveled at some point, so I wanted to start with something well-rounded and not difficult in terms of rotation.

You've been so helpful! Thanks again!

Gunbreaker. Easy ST and AOE skill rotations. Couple self buffs and enemy debuff. Mind numbing easy and I love it. Plus a gunblade aesthetic.

Paladin and Warrior imo.

Paladin especially since it's a good offtank, does have a very good evolution when leveling up (you really feel that it's becoiming more powerful)

As a WAR main, I'd recommend new players to start with PLD.

The reason is simple, WAR has a cone AoE and PLD has circle AoE, so it's very easy for a newbie to miss an attack with Overpower and panic, it adds an extra difficulty which the opposite of what a new player needs.

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Originally Posted by Tridhu

Paladin and Warrior imo.

Paladin especially since it's a good offtank, does have a very good evolution when leveling up (you really feel that it's becoiming more powerful)

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Ah. Thanks for thinking of that on my behalf! Maybe I should do the opposite and go PLD, then WAR if I don't enjoy it for some reason.

PLD is GLD at the start, correct? I can never remember between GLD and Marauder (don't remember the abbreviation for that, either.)

I'm a noob. Clearly.

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Originally Posted by WalxAtNite

Ah. Thanks for thinking of that on my behalf! Maybe I should do the opposite and go PLD, then WAR if I don't enjoy it for some reason.

PLD is GLD at the start, correct? I can never remember between GLD and Marauder (don't remember the abbreviation for that, either.)

I'm a noob. Clearly.

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Gladiator in Ul'dah becomes Paladin.

Marauder in Limsa Lominsa becomes Warrior.

Dark Knight starts in Ishgard as a level 30 job.

Gunbreaker starts in Gridania as a level 60 job.

Not to beat a dead horse here but Marauder into Warrior overall is a really solid experience. Yes, overpower is a conal instead of a circle, but having played WAR since ARR it isn't that big of a deal (granted, when i leveled originally the alternative was Flash, of all things). Warrior gains a ton of great mitigation abilities (equilibrium is a solid heal, raw intuition is vastly underrated, nascent flash is really close to busted), and WAR is the first tank to get its death defying ability (holmgang still comes at 42 iirc).

WAR does have some issues, don't get me wrong, but most are very minor and are really only affect the offensive experience, but whenever I play WAR i feel pretty close to indestructible.

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Originally Posted by Xelphus

Not to beat a dead horse here but Marauder into Warrior overall is a really solid experience. Yes, overpower is a conal instead of a circle, but having played WAR since ARR it isn't that big of a deal (granted, when i leveled originally the alternative was Flash, of all things). Warrior gains a ton of great mitigation abilities (equilibrium is a solid heal, raw intuition is vastly underrated, nascent flash is really close to busted), and WAR is the first tank to get its death defying ability (holmgang still comes at 42 iirc).

WAR does have some issues, don't get me wrong, but most are very minor and are really only affect the offensive experience, but whenever I play WAR i feel pretty close to indestructible.

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Flash WAR was neat, something to spend all that MP on.

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Originally Posted by Xelphus

Warrior overall is a really solid experience. Yes, overpower is a conal instead of a circle, but having played WAR since ARR it isn't that big of a deal

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I would go one step further. Overpower being conal is a good thing. It cultivates the habit of keeping enemies in front of you.

A lot of new tanks do not realise that they need to keep enemies in front to parry. Overpower encourages someone learning to tank to do this, even if they are unaware. And as a good tank should be doing their best to keep enemies in front for this reason any way, it is not a particular disadvantage.

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Originally Posted by ctcc42

A lot of new tanks do not realise that they need to keep enemies in front to parry.

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I dont want to go against genuinely sound advice, but this is factually untrue.it has been for quite a long time now. Straight from the 4.0 patch notes from over 2 years ago (in the battle system under the rdm/sam quests);
https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...e7c51abfa95055

"Blocks and parries are no longer limited to attacks from the front."
what we still cant do to targets behind us is use weaponskills or spells. All we can do to a target behind us is auto-attack (baring AoE and untargetted abilities and such)


that said, you dont want to have a bunch of mobs crowded around you with yourself in the middle; people have AoEs. AoEs that only reach so far away from a specific mob they need to target. to use an older term, when youre mass pulling and have a bunch of mobs crowded up, it's called the "deathball". the tigher packed the deathball is, the more effective and efficient AoE damage becomes. you dont want to destroy a deathball. it makes people sad. just tank everything as in front of you as you can.

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Originally Posted by Fluffernuff

I dont want to go against genuinely sound advice, but this is factually untrue.it has been for quite a long time now. Straight from the 4.0 patch notes from over 2 years ago (in the battle system under the rdm/sam quests);
https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...e7c51abfa95055

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Thank you for the correction. I read that this was a thing when I started playing in January and have adhered to it my whole time in game. Looks like I have been playing to a mechanic that has never applied to me.

I could have been softer about it, but the information USED to be true, its just outdated. its still very much standard/good practice to keep mobs in front of you to the best of your ability. in ShB content though, this is a more difficult/tedious affair though. lots of big fat ogre butt mobs cosplaying as Moses and parting the mobs like its the red sea. so you just gotta do the best you can.

but to give a little credit, it USED to be true in Heavensward, and you cant parry MAGICAL damage (while blocking can, as well as blocks reduce more damage), so there's some difference still, but it's not the facing anymore.




Onto the actual topic, my suggestion would be toward PLD if you're first time learning. PLD simply gets all of it's tools the quickest and covers every base a tank needs to learn. You have an unlimited AoE rotation early, all of your cooldowns reasonably early on, and you dont have a resource that gets "wasted" or overcapped until the later stages of your leveling process.

DRK and GNB really stuggle in these aspects specifically until level 72, and by that point, the only thing pld is "missing" is a magical AoE to use Req on. oh man, such an awkward and clunky thing they lived without.

I'll fully disclose, though, that i have not and have no interest in WAR in ShB, so i dont have the slightest clue how their leveling progresses.


and at the end of the day, I speak for actually leveling up and not the state of endgame toolkits. there is something to be said there, but I think its a little more "advanced" than the discussion warrants

Dunno if this has been said already, but I'd recommend to avoid GNB until you've learned the basics of tanking. Since GNB starts at lv60, you risk ending up tanking Heavensward content as your first dungeon, which might be painful.
DRK doesn't really suffer from this, lv30 is low enough to go in blind without putting your party at risk.

Hi, WAR main here - for a starter I'd suggest playing as a WAR simply because it's simple and pretty straight forward, think of it as a gateway tank class. Once you get an insight into tanking and cooldown management, you can move onto something with more utilities. PLD is pretty good with a lot more utilities to mitigate damage and provide party/raid-wide with mini buff/protection. I have not personality played GNB but I am itching to learn once I get the time to level the class. DRK is pretty fun to play, although I have not played the class in this expansion - I've only heard good things about it.