Funnest Tank to play?

Eventually I’ll get around to messing with leveling a Tank to 80 so I can do those role quests. I’m wondering not which job is the “best”, but which you feel is the most “fun” to play.

Gunbreaker of course. Paladin comes in second place and Dark Knight and Warrior are the least fun.

https://imgur.com/a/ymqa7ju

Depends on what you really want from a tank. GLA/PLD is definetely the easiest tank to play and probably has the highest survivability (and you get to be a cool knight in shining armour!). MRD/WAR and DRK are pretty much even and definetely if you want the raw, edgy, visceral sort of tank that protects others by smashing things until they don't move anymore before they hurt others. ;) And GNB is definetely the tank for those that want a tank with the feel of a DPS, as they're fast. Very fast. And also for those that loved Squall in FFVIII and want to emulate him. ;)

So really, my opinion is to start with GLA/PLD and learn the basics of tanking, and from there try the others as I'm sure you'll find one you that fits the best for you. :)

All 4 are fine Warrior and Paladin are harder to get to 80 since they start at level 1. Dark knight starts at 30 and for some stupid reasons that go unexplained Gunbreaker starts at 60 so it’s the easiest to get into

Mostly depends what your into, Everyone loves warrior for the ridiculous Fell cleaves, Everyone loves Paladin for the support, Everyone loves Dark Knight for the aesthetic and cool skills, and Everyone loves Gunbreaker for explosions and the obligatory “I like FF8”
Crowd

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Originally Posted by Jirah

All 4 are fine Warrior and Paladin are harder to get to 80 since they start at level 1. Dark knight starts at 30 and for some stupid reasons that go unexplained Gunbreaker starts at 60 so it’s the easiest to get into

Mostly depends what your into, Everyone loves warrior for the ridiculous Fell cleaves, Everyone loves Paladin for the support, Everyone loves Dark Knight for the aesthetic and cool skills, and Everyone loves Gunbreaker for explosions and the obligatory “I like FF8”
Crowd

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New jobs are always introduced 20 levels from expansion cap. DRK/MCH/AST came out at a time when Job story was still tied to levels at intervals and job unlocks were at lvl 30 across the board but these didn't require the pre-requisite 30 main, 15 sub of the original 2.0 jobs. I personally like WAR only because Inner Release never gets old for me, but FC spam and golf swings are. WAR, PLD and GNB are the most thematically accurate in terms of play style. WAR goes berserk with Inner Release. PLD is a holy knight. GNB is a fast fluid explosive job. DRK... well its an edge lord thats lost its edge.

They killed DRK's identity when they finally screwed with Abyssal Drain.

Anyway, GNB is fun to me, haven't put it down yet.

GNB and PLD I guess.
Personally they took WAR outside and shot it this expansion and DRK... its just a slightly better WAR clone.
Overall, honestly its not very fun (TO ME) to even be tanking this expansion. I am going DPS next raid tier regardless of how "skilled" I am at tanking. Its just so darn boring right now.

Performance wise they are basically equal.

Difficulty / fun wise, its subjective, but to me WAR and DRK are rather lackluster on both ends. It's basically playing whack-a-mole with CDs while repeating 1-2-3 and intermittently smashing a button 5 times in a row. While I'm not against the playstyle it's not busy enough to balance the constant repetition of the basic 1-2-3 combo.

PLD and GNB have a longer, stricter rotation. While still not exactly busy, they break the simple 1-2-3 spam more often.

That being said, TBN on DRK can be both extremely fun and powerful if used correctly. One of the few reasons I still pull out DRK for casual content.

To me, the tanks are too homogeneous to really rate which is best or most/least enjoyable to play. Same with the healers. It all comes down to which one you prefer.

Wait, there's a difference between the tanks?
I thought I was just choosing which icon I wanted next to my name.

The most fun imo is dark knight followed by paladin, gunbreaker and then warrior. Well Drk has this edge identity and the animations are very cool as well as sounds. Paladin is the most complete tank in the game with some very cool skills. He can heal himself he can heal others, he has a beautiful skill with wings and he has a magical ranged combo that has no cast. So he is very good for every content. Gunbreaker is also cool but since they changed his sounds he sounds like a blunt weapon job. Also his combo rotation is somehow hard to execute when mechanics happen. The least cool one for me Is warrior because he is very stiff and boring to play. Before you can even pull mobs you have to do storms eye combo and that is very stupid imo. He used to be the most popular tank by far. Now he is the least one which is sad maybe.

I think DRK is probably one of the lesser fun tanks to play, and this is solely due to how a lot of the skills are not satisfying to use.

For example, every time I press GF or BZ on GNB, I feel satisfaction from seeing the animation and the damage that comes out. For WAR, every time I press infuriate and see an Inner Chaos, followed by that big number, or IR, you better believe I feel a rush of endorphins and dopamine.

But DRK? I don't feel satisfied in the slightest from hitting all 5 GCDs under BW. I just feel relieved I'm not punished. I don't get that big payoff feeling whenever I press Living Shadow, or Salted Earth, because neither are particularly flashy or eye grabbing. They're just CDs that start and end with a quiet whimper. Delirium? Don't even get me started. That's supposed to be DRK's burst moment, but it never quite feels like it unless you get a lucky direct crit, but pales in every way compared to IR.

But I'd still rank PLD the least fun lol.

Anything but Warrior at the minute.
All it has is a burst phase and self heals.

Warrior with a full skill speed build is a lot of fun and makes such a huge difference in engagement and excitement imo. Too bad it's a terrible build meta wise. With huge skill speed I might consider it the most fun, without, probably the least. It's strange but I don't have this with other jobs, WAR in particular just feels really great and brutal with high skill speed.

I wish the job would get an overall skill speed buff like the melees (at cost of some dps potencies perhaps), I just get the feeling that's how it's supposed to be played with how well it flows and it also fits the theme aesthetic.

It was DRK during the 3.0 days, but now all 4 tanks play the same. Each has a AOE, combo and burst attack.

Honestly part of me sorta regrets leveling my GNB instead of DRK recently...
I just find the sound effects of GNB so hard to get over, the old ones were so much better :/.
They really sound so out of place and do take away from how it feels to play imo.

With the old sound effects I'd probably say GNB > DRK > PLD ( haven't leveled WAR ).
But as it is now I have a hard time deciding between GNB and DRK.

For me, PLD.

Because you get actual support and defensive abilities beyond "take -x% damage". Sure DRK has TBN but that isn't until rather later on, and it just doesn't feel the same as Passage of Arms, Cover, Clemency, etc. It makes me FEEL more like a tank.

I guess it just comes down to what aesthetic you prefer. For me a tank has always been and will be a pld in my head so it would rank towards my more favourite solid tank, with warrior and gnb a joint second. I’m using gnb a lot in Rival wings and enjoying that sort of mercenary tank style.
Drk has always ranked the bottom for me basically because I’m a ffxi player and my fav job on there was drk. A scythe wielding pure dps job and I just haven’t got into ffxiv version that made it a tank. Had it been a scythe wielding dps job I would be maining it till the end.

But in short play which one you like the look of, they all have similar basic kit and a few personal tweaks that either float your boat or doesn’t.

PLD for my first choice because I get to soak damage like a sponge and have so many cooldowns that I can pretty much take just about anything thrown at me or help the team. But GBN if I want to go full on Blue DPS and just hit the enemy hard, fast, and with explosions.

PLD and DRK.

GNB seems too strict on rotation, and warrior is plain out boring.

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Originally Posted by Leidolf

PLD for my first choice because I get to soak damage like a sponge and have so many cooldowns that I can pretty much take just about anything thrown at me or help the team. But GBN if I want to go full on Blue DPS and just hit the enemy hard, fast, and with explosions.

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Then you want to try out DRK and WAR because those two has way better mitigation tools.

Long time tank player here. Currently my favorites are DRK and GNB, followed closely by PLD which I have a love/hate with. WAR is my old love, but they chopped off its balls and made it feel way more stale in this era, somehow by taking away real Berserk. For fun I'd recommend GNB or PLD.

I do have a caveat about DRK though. They fucked it up. In trying to homogenize the tanks, they butchered it fully this expansion. This is suppose to be its expansion, and it just doesn't feel as groovy as it should. They should have changed the animation for Delirium, because it used to just give you MP and elongate the duration of Blood Weapon and Blood Price. Now that it's for a burst phase it doesn't feel appropriate, and the animation hang on Bloodspiller starting has cost me my 5th more often than I care to think about. Not only that, but it has no actual burst phase outside of getting to do its strong move 5 times, whereas WAR's at least still buffs the hits to their automatic highest damage potential. If it weren't for the Esteem shade you can conjure, it wouldn't feel strong at all. Also I miss the MP and Blood juggling game from last expansion. I didn't think they would make it any simpler, yet here we are. I'm actually one of the few that miss Heavensward style Darkside drains MP dudes. I mostly console myself in that Flood/Wave of Darkness or whatever is a take on Cecil's Dark Wave from FF4. Oh and Stalwart Soul is cool looking, but I feel the name is mismanaged for being an attack name.

That all said, DRK is my preferred tank for dungeons still. While it no longer has the advantage of being the only tank able to sprint without compromising its ability to tank and deal AOE damage, because of Flood of Dark/Shadow, it doesn't have to wait for a second GCD pretty much ever to solidify pick up on enemy groups. GNB is annoying in this regard, PLD a little less so, since at least Circle of Scorn timer is low. WAR can uhm, burst with Equlibrium heal to generate hate while moving, but the CD is long.