What is the warrior job fantasy?

What are supposed to be Warrior's defining characteristics?
I see a lot of ''homogenisation bad'' talking points when it comes to tanks, so let's start with the developer's favourite tank; Warrior.

What are supposed to be Warrior's strengths and weaknesses? What sort of fights is it supposed to thrive in, and where should it fall short?

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Originally Posted by GoatOfWar

What are supposed to be Warrior's defining characteristics?
I see a lot of ''homogenisation bad'' talking points when it comes to tanks, so let's start with the developer's favourite tank; Warrior.

What are supposed to be Warrior's strengths and weaknesses? What sort of fights is it supposed to thrive in, and where should it fall short?

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According to devs, it seems it's supposed to thrive in every category because reasons.

Honestly, I'm okay with it being the easiest tank in the job to play, it gives it that unga-bunga feel that Warriors traditionally have. The falling short should be having the lowest dps of the tanks next to PLD, of course not to the point it isn't taken into high-end, but the lowest.

Obligatory nerf the hell out of Shake it Off, there shouldn't be any tank that heals the party this much. The eHP from the shield alone is sufficient.

I think, currently, the split between magic and physical damage negation is key if we want weaknesses and strong points.

DRK and GNB could provide magic defense, WAR and PLD could provide physical defense, for example. (Though...really it makes more sense for PLD to provide magical defense). Ideally this would only apply to party utility since issues would be ran into if, say, Vengeance only reduced physical damage.

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Originally Posted by GoatOfWar

What is the warrior job fantasy?

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In terms of fantasy, they are supposed to channel their inner beast (their rage) either into doing attacks (Fell Cleaves) or into defending others. In a real life context, you can think of it as having anger issues and finding positive ways to channel it, such as specific targets or protecting others.

The job certainly achieves that feeling if you get into it. Spamming Fell Cleave and doing as much Fell Cleave is a fun past time for many Warriors and it's still very much about that, except in one of the expansions they made a button that lets you spam Fell Cleaves instead of it all being about wrath stacks / gauge.

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What are supposed to be Warrior's defining characteristics?

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That they take that damage like an angry beast with abilities like Holm Gang or Thrill, but then heal it right back up. Whereas other tanks would actually mitigate it, such as PLD using Hallowed Ground/Sheltron/Bulwark/Passage plus PLD used to have a 40% mit instead of 30%, or DRK would have TBN for everything to prevent the damage in the first place.

But this kinda changed in Endwalker since now they have have a lot of mitigation and shield on Bloodwhetting (which is half as strong as TBN) and mitigation in general had a cooldown reduction over time (used to be less frequent, especially before 5.1).

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What are supposed to be Warrior's strengths and weaknesses? What sort of fights is it supposed to thrive in, and where should it fall short?

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Where it would often fall short is in a fight that needs constant heals that PLD can achieve with Clemency, because WAR's heals are limited to their cooldowns unlike Clemency which is unlimited if you can maintain MP. Or where mitigation could work better than heals. But again this has changed with Endwalker and there being more of a variety on Bloodwhetting. Their heal also only used to be this good if they used it on something like Inner Chaos or Fell Cleave, whereas now it's good on anything.

Well, in ages long since past, when the tanks were still more different from each other and tank stances had other effects than just enmity...

They all reduced damage done, but gave other bonuses... Both PLD and DRK had as a part of Shield Oath and Grit reduction on damage taken, meanwhile WAR's Defiance gave them more max HP and healing received.

And for when not taking, PLD had Sword Oath, which essentially just increased auto-attack damage by 50%... And WAR got Deliverance which increased all damage done by 5%.

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Originally Posted by CaptainLagbeard

Well, in ages long since past, when the tanks were still more different from each other and tank stances had other effects than just enmity...

They all reduced damage done, but gave other bonuses... Both PLD and DRK had as a part of Shield Oath and Grit reduction on damage taken, meanwhile WAR's Defiance gave them more max HP and healing received.

And for when not taking, PLD had Sword Oath, which essentially just increased auto-attack damage by 50%... And WAR got Deliverance which increased all damage done by 5%.

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Man they don't even have to bring enmity management back I would take the stances bringing unique effects to the tanks in itself

To clarify, its aether powered instinctual fighter. Most people think rage, but it also invokes the natural protective instincts, hence its a tank. That's why fighting without purpose causes the inner beast to fail.

In terms of combat, its supposed to be building up to heavy hitting strikes, and tanking blows through simply not dying and finding more stamina ie hp, to keep the fight going. In other words raising your current hp and getting healed better.


Which is why warrior is accused of stepping on all the other tanks while simultaneously being the tank the devs use as a template. It shouldnt have life steal or a regen over time, it should have more "I raise my max/current hp"
Dark should be lifesteal
Pld should be healing spells
Gnb should be shield/regen over time.

Warrior in 2.0 was a reactive tank. You got the hit unmitigated into the face and then you used your self heals to shrug the damage off and return fighting.

It also was the dps tank, so the job did more damage than Paladin.


That concept didn't work, so they gave Warrior a similar defense kit like Paladin but kept the damage and selfheal fantasy intact, while slightly nerfed.


And ever since Warrior is too powerfull because they want to keep the fantasy of damage and selfheal but have to give him the defense of the other tanks to make the job work.

hit thing with axe

Being too fucking angry to die.

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Originally Posted by Tint

Warrior in 2.0 was a reactive tank. You got the hit unmitigated into the face and then you used your self heals to shrug the damage off and return fighting.

It also was the dps tank, so the job did more damage than Paladin.


That concept didn't work, so they gave Warrior a similar defense kit like Paladin but kept the damage and selfheal fantasy intact, while slightly nerfed.


And ever since Warrior is too powerfull because they want to keep the fantasy of damage and selfheal but have to give him the defense of the other tanks to make the job work.

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Let's be fair, it's not that the concept didn't work, it's that they didn't even try it... they never tried to fix the most obvious mistakes like relying on Wrath stacks for increased healing received at the same time that you "wanted" to use those stacks for Inner Beast (wanted between quotes because the skill costing all 5 stacks at once and healing being based on your damage was also a bad decision).

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

In terms of fantasy, they are supposed to channel their inner beast (their rage) either into doing attacks (Fell Cleaves) or into defending others. In a real life context, you can think of it as having anger issues and finding positive ways to channel it, such as specific targets or protecting others.

The job certainly achieves that feeling if you get into it. Spamming Fell Cleave and doing as much Fell Cleave is a fun past time for many Warriors and it's still very much about that, except in one of the expansions they made a button that lets you spam Fell Cleaves instead of it all being about wrath stacks / gauge.

That they take that damage like an angry beast with abilities like Holm Gang or Thrill, but then heal it right back up. Whereas other tanks would actually mitigate it, such as PLD using Hallowed Ground/Sheltron/Bulwark/Passage plus PLD used to have a 40% mit instead of 30%, or DRK would have TBN for everything to prevent the damage in the first place.

But this kinda changed in Endwalker since now they have have a lot of mitigation and shield on Bloodwhetting (which is half as strong as TBN) and mitigation in general had a cooldown reduction over time (used to be less frequent, especially before 5.1).

Where it would often fall short is in a fight that needs constant heals that PLD can achieve with Clemency, because WAR's heals are limited to their cooldowns unlike Clemency which is unlimited if you can maintain MP. Or where mitigation could work better than heals. But again this has changed with Endwalker and there being more of a variety on Bloodwhetting. Their heal also only used to be this good if they used it on something like Inner Chaos or Fell Cleave, whereas now it's good on anything.

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This! All of this~

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Originally Posted by GoatOfWar

What are supposed to be Warrior's defining characteristics?

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I see WAR as a bloodthirsty barbarian. A cross between a Viking and a Mongolian warrior. Someone who will kill anything that stands in their way with brutal strength. Someone who would not put any emphasis on "fair fight" or "code of honours", if the adversary cheats, that means it's a challenge for their strength instead of a hindrance. Someone who would overemphasise their physical strength over literally anything else.

A pro would be: Killing machine
A con would be: Easily outsmarted/Not very smart

Warrior: Offensive Tank - So long as it attacks, it reduces damage taken to self and heals self at the same time with a constant regen.

Paladin: Defensive Tank - Specializes in providing defensive spells and abilities to self and party members for near all situations in exchange for physical attacks being the weakest of all Tanks.

Dark Knight: Regen Tank - So long as it keeps attacking, it constantly heals itself and can provide regen spells and abilities for self and party members.

Gunbreaker: All Rounder Tank - Can switch between the three described above freely, but in exchange is not as strong/effective in anyone comparably.

This is just an example of how the devs should try to view not only Warrior, but all Tank jobs classes: Thinking up and sticking with a defining category that each tank uniquely represents and can perform that the others can't or at least not as well do.

fellcleavefellcleavefellcleavefellcleavefellcleaveFELLCLEAVE

CRIIIIIIIIIIIT

I miss the neurotransmitters you'd get for managing to sneak in a 5th fell cleave but I don't miss the carpal tunnel.

WAR's identity proper is being an HP sponge that builds up rage until they go berserk. Their self-healing comes from the euphoria of battle driving them onwards. In their current state, WAR's identity is haha fell cleave go burr.

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Originally Posted by TheOperator3712

WAR's identity proper is being an HP sponge that builds up rage until they go berserk. Their self-healing comes from the euphoria of battle driving them onwards. In their current state, WAR's identity is haha fell cleave go burr.

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which, tbh, is pretty ideal imo. the class is pretty good and i have no major complaints. you feel, well, tanky. not much damage at first but the longer the fight goes on, the more damage you can put out until you're empty and then it just begins again. also fits into its story/canon as well.

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Originally Posted by GoatOfWar

What are supposed to be Warrior's defining characteristics?
I see a lot of ''homogenisation bad'' talking points when it comes to tanks, so let's start with the developer's favourite tank; Warrior.

What are supposed to be Warrior's strengths and weaknesses? What sort of fights is it supposed to thrive in, and where should it fall short?

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Mechanically or thematically?

Thematically, WAR's are SOMEWHAT untrained (compared to something like PLD), a bit more unga bunga where their training is more on basic but effective combat techniques and harnessing their inner beast/rage on the battlefield.

The playstyle is, in line with that, supposed to be fairly simple, direct, and too the point. Basic but effective.

The strengths are that it has a straightforward and slimmed down kit with straightforward, easy to use, and easy to understand abilities that largely just work. Few bells and whistles, "just the facts, ma'am" functionality. It's a unga bunga berserker, so it shouldn't have the lowest DPS of the Tanks (whoever said that, it makes no sense thematically), but it should be somewhat weaker in defenses and its healing should mostly be relegated to itself being "too angry to die".

In ARR, PLD was a more defensive Tank with a smooth damage profile while WAR was more a HP sponge with self-healing and HP inflation abilities. That is, PLD mitigated incoming damage where WAR just inflated its HP pool to eat it and then increased the HP restored so the healers could bring it back up so that, comparably, they'd need about as much attention from the healers to stay in shape.

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I'm not sure why they decided to make WAR into the party healer. That's the part that's weird and makes no sense to me.

If we're gonna discuss all the tanks then...

WAR - Takes damage, but heals it right back up.
PLD - Raw, flat mitigation tank.
DRK - Magic shield/magic mit tank that absorbs damage into its powerful shield.
GNB - Jack of all trades, master of none. Although it has a regen.

But Endwalker blurred this a whole lot. PLD gets a regen on Sheltron and Divine Veil as well (which now applies to self), WAR gets a regen on Shake It Off and Equilibrium, as well as a magic shield on Bloodwhetting and more effortlessly strong heals, so now it is like all of them except DRK are a jack of all trades. GNB's changes at least were more in line with its idea of regens or responsive heals.

Warrior job fantasy is not having to deal with 20 oGCDs during burst in the 'deal with 20 oGCDs during burst' videogame.

In Watsonian terms I guess that would be 'slow, cumbersome, powerful hitter'.

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Originally Posted by Zairava

According to devs, it seems it's supposed to thrive in every category because reasons.

Honestly, I'm okay with it being the easiest tank in the job to play, it gives it that unga-bunga feel that Warriors traditionally have. The falling short should be having the lowest dps of the tanks next to PLD, of course not to the point it isn't taken into high-end, but the lowest.

Obligatory nerf the hell out of Shake it Off, there shouldn't be any tank that heals the party this much. The eHP from the shield alone is sufficient.

I think, currently, the split between magic and physical damage negation is key if we want weaknesses and strong points.

DRK and GNB could provide magic defense, WAR and PLD could provide physical defense, for example. (Though...really it makes more sense for PLD to provide magical defense). Ideally this would only apply to party utility since issues would be ran into if, say, Vengeance only reduced physical damage.

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oh god no please do not break up tanks into magic and physical tanks again, it would be DRK/GNB only in EX and above because those bosses do 90% magic attacks on raidwides and TBs

Warrior should personally be about

1. Having a higher Hp pool to begin with, maybe a passive 10% more could work, this would allow warrior to be passively pretty strong.
2. Have less mitigation (enough to get through fights) but have sustain tools and hp extending to get you through things. even SHB where you could either Chose to sustain or mitigate was actually a fun design that wasn't busted, having the choice actually had some skill to it
3. Should be more selfish then it is right now, shake should give just the shield, the only sort of healing warrior should give is self, still a party member targetable mit should be needed just to keep it somewhat inline with other tanks
4. remove its AOE Healing in mobs, this is simply not fun for healers, tanks should work with healers in aoe pulls not do 100% of their job for them.
5. beast gauge should be reverted to the SHB one and include ur punch attack OCGD and gap closer.

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Originally Posted by GoatOfWar

What are supposed to be Warrior's defining characteristics?
I see a lot of ''homogenisation bad'' talking points when it comes to tanks, so let's start with the developer's favourite tank; Warrior.

What are supposed to be Warrior's strengths and weaknesses? What sort of fights is it supposed to thrive in, and where should it fall short?

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Warriors are suppose to be like berserker fantasy, keep up berserk get hit get angry let out the beast to rip and tear things apart, that's the warriors fantasy suppose to be, however what we got is well a medic tank lets be honest here.

Warriors story is about rage and the inner beast controlling it and going berserk to take out your enemy that's what the fantasy is suppose to be. Honestly I don't think warriors armor should look as bulky as in its fantasy in my eyes you want to get cut and cut back sorta like Kenpachi in bleach

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

oh god no please do not break up tanks into magic and physical tanks again, it would be DRK/GNB only in EX and above because those bosses do 90% magic attacks on raidwides and TBs

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If there was a balance struck between physical and magical it wouldn't be an issue. Don't blame the abilities themselves when the devs are the ones making most of the endgame magic damage. Now that we can actually see what's magic and physical it would be easier to tell which is which as well.

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Originally Posted by Zairava

If there was a balance struck between physical and magical it wouldn't be an issue. Don't blame the abilities themselves when the devs are the ones making most of the endgame magic damage. Now that we can actually see what's magic and physical it would be easier to tell which is which as well.

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And then what happens when a troublesome tank mechanic is discovered to be Physical damage, so you need WAR/PLD as your tanks to deal with it, but it's mid-prog and you don't have them geared?
It creates a situation where there is potentially a wrong answer in composition for fights that you only find out after you've already locked into starting progging.
Either that or it would force every tank to farm/buy 2x weapons and use a standard BiS for their tank gear on the off chance they have to swap mid prog

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

And then what happens when a troublesome tank mechanic is discovered to be Physical damage, so you need WAR/PLD as your tanks to deal with it, but it's mid-prog and you don't have them geared?
It creates a situation where there is potentially a wrong answer in composition for fights that you only find out after you've already locked into starting progging.

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What would gear have to do with the physical/magic party mitigation split I mentioned? Did you miss when I mentioned that it would exclusively be party mit and not cooldowns like Vengeance?

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Originally Posted by Zairava

DRK and GNB could provide magic defense, WAR and PLD could provide physical defense, for example. (Though...really it makes more sense for PLD to provide magical defense). Ideally this would only apply to party utility since issues would be ran into if, say, Vengeance only reduced physical damage.

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Originally Posted by Zairava

What would gear have to do with the physical/magic party mitigation split I mentioned? Did you miss when I mentioned that it would exclusively be party mit and not cooldowns like Vengeance?

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It being a party mit doesn't change the situation. What happens when you find out you need more pysical mit from your tanks ?
you basically halt the prog of the group until the tank goes and farms up another weapon to play the other job.

This was something that happened in Abyssos when PLD and WAR were too weak to pass the DPS check on P8S, people had to leave prog and gear DRK/GNB to continue prog.
Just at a fundemental level these types of "incorrect comp checks" are something that the game and community doesn't work well with.

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

It being a party mit doesn't change the situation. What happens when you find out you need more pysical mit from your tanks ?
you basically halt the prog of the group until the tank goes and farms up another weapon to play the other job.

This was something that happened in Abyssos when PLD and WAR were too weak to pass the DPS check on P8S, people had to leave prog and gear DRK/GNB to continue prog.
Just at a fundemental level these types of "incorrect comp checks" are something that the game and community doesn't work well with.

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flat percentage mitigation has nothing to do with your weapon, though? That is dps not defense, unless you count the vitality boost on the tank and/or Tenacity. Unless the party mitigation scales off your hp it would basically be a non-factor

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Originally Posted by Zairava

flat percentage mitigation has nothing to do with your weapon, though? That is dps not defense, unless you count the vitality boost on the tank and/or Tenacity. Unless the party mitigation scales off your hp it would basically be a non-factor

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Why are you so hung up on the weapon? It's about having to gear 2x jobs and weapons aren't shared between tanks.

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

Why are you so hung up on the weapon? It's about having to gear 2x jobs and weapons aren't shared between tanks.

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I was just trying to stay consistent with what you mentioned, which was the weapon, before that it was the gear itself.

I understand why they went the "mit just mitigates both physical and magical" route, I just think it wasn't totally necessary for party mit. As long as all tanks can clear the content, what's the big deal? Potencies can be adjusted if they undertune the job

If they would finally increase the bloody tome cap it wouldn't be a huge issue to gear another tank or alt jobs (There's still farming the current ex if you really need to get said weapon for the other tank). Having comps exist isn't inherently a bad thing, but as you mentioned earlier this game's playerbase thinks of it as some form of kryptonite against the game's design. Which, to be fair, it currently is.

Broadly speaking, I think the Warrior fantasy is the idea that animalistic rage can be harnessed to directly lead to a positive outcome (in this case, specifically in combat). In short, it's Hulk.

Anger can indeed serve a positive purpose when used as motivation to work towards change; which is to say, if you're angry, that can be a reason to stop tolerating the status quo and instead start doing something about it. However, while anger can help us get moving instead of sitting on our thumbs, it is generally not a good quality to allow to surface while actually trying to solve the problem. Studies have provided evidence for what strategists and martial artists have known for thousands of years: when a person is angry their abilities to perceive and process information diminish. If you want to do your best, you don't want to be angry, you don't want to allow those baser desires to be a part of your process.

The fantasy of Warrior is that you can defy this common wisdom and be victorious. You just have to "tame" these feelings/instincts, and then rather than a hindrance they will be a source of power.

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

oh god no please do not break up tanks into magic and physical tanks again, it would be DRK/GNB only in EX and above because those bosses do 90% magic attacks on raidwides and TBs

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They could add more things like Harrowing Hell were as a GNB you're sitting there feelsbadman when the only party mit you can offer on the heaviest hitter in the fight is a 10s Reprisal.

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Originally Posted by GoatOfWar

What are supposed to be Warrior's defining characteristics?
I see a lot of ''homogenisation bad'' talking points when it comes to tanks, so let's start with the developer's favourite tank; Warrior.

What are supposed to be Warrior's strengths and weaknesses? What sort of fights is it supposed to thrive in, and where should it fall short?

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Idk, I just find weird that the "Berserker" job is the one with most self-healing. I'd certainly assume it to either be DRK's vampiric/blood aspect or a PLD's forte.

Lore wise in this particular game WAR was essentially Berserker turned into a tanking job initially. Hence all the earlier quests focused around the inner beast and it's consuming rage through ARR,HW,SB.

Other FF titles generally had WAR as the meat and potatoes physical fighter that could also essentially double as a walking armory due to the amount of different weapon types it could use.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

They could add more things like Harrowing Hell were as a GNB you're sitting there feelsbadman when the only party mit you can offer on the heaviest hitter in the fight is a 10s Reprisal.

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Well, neither Dark missionary nor Heart of light are better at mitigating magic damage than Shake it off is. So they'd need to rebalance that.

Something I think could've been really interesting would be if Warrior could place themselves in a state very regularly where taking lethal damage does not KO them, but instead places them in negative HP for a set duration. Certain self-sustain cooldowns are greatly enhanced while the Warrior has negative HP, but if they cannot heal off their negative HP fast enough, they die. I know this is basically Living Dead, but rather than being Warrior's invuln, I'd just make that their normal method of mitigation, and moves that otherwise need invulns to survive would just do way too much negative HP for the warrior to heal through, or if the negative HP reaches a certain threshold, you just die anyway. In other words, rather than raw mitigation, they'd survive normal tankbusters by being able to go into the negatives and heal that off.

Meanwhile I'd just have had Dark Knight's Living Dead set them to 0 HP and allow them to live on 0 HP, and based on the amount of damage they deal while in that state, they recover once the duration of the Invuln ends. This would be similar to how someone like Ardyn works in Dissidia Opera Omnia where his main gimmick is reducing his HP to 0 and becomes unkillable. Queen from Type 0 does this too, but she doesn't basically live in that state unlike Ardyn.

To make healers obsolete without effort apparently. lol

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Something I think could've been really interesting would be if Warrior could place themselves in a state very regularly where taking lethal damage does not KO them, but instead places them in negative HP for a set duration. Certain self-sustain cooldowns are greatly enhanced while the Warrior has negative HP, but if they cannot heal off their negative HP fast enough, they die. I know this is basically Living Dead, but rather than being Warrior's invuln, I'd just make that their normal method of mitigation, and moves that otherwise need invulns to survive would just do way too much negative HP for the warrior to heal through, or if the negative HP reaches a certain threshold, you just die anyway. In other words, rather than raw mitigation, they'd survive normal tankbusters by being able to go into the negatives and heal that off.

Meanwhile I'd just have had Dark Knight's Living Dead set them to 0 HP and allow them to live on 0 HP, and based on the amount of damage they deal while in that state, they recover once the duration of the Invuln ends. This would be similar to how someone like Ardyn works in Dissidia Opera Omnia where his main gimmick is reducing his HP to 0 and becomes unkillable. Queen from Type 0 does this too, but she doesn't basically live in that state unlike Ardyn.

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This is basically Brewmaster Monk's Stagger mechanic, but more difficult to implement.

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Originally Posted by Daddyslittlevampire

Warriors story is about rage and the inner beast controlling it and going berserk to take out your enemy

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I think this is a slight misconception. The Job quests never have the WoL lose control, and it shows losing control of The Beast being a bad thing, with the Au Ra of the Azem Steppe even considering it bad enough to exile people who have awakened it.

It's more "power under control". The concept is the WAR needs to focus on what they are trying to protect, and aim the Beast at those things that threaten them. This is why what helps the NPCs control theirs is remembering that they want to PROTECT people, and when they forget that is when they become feral and have to be knocked down. The WoL, which is basically WAR perfected, is in constant control of his/her Beast, demonstrating what a WAR is "supposed to be" is a bit less "berserker" and more about controlling and channeling the beast.

Less Kenpachi and more Ichigo when he trains to manually control his mask form. The King ruling the Horse, if you recall that bit from Bleach.

I do agree that they aren't supposed to be bulky, though. Simple, straightforward, powerful, and agile, and above all, in control, summoning their feral spirit and targeting their hound of war at the enemy, but never actually letting go of the leash.

The job fantasy for WAR is highest damage lowest utility tank

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Originally Posted by GoatOfWar

so let's start with the developer's favourite tank; Warrior.

What are supposed to be Warrior's strengths and weaknesses?

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Do each of them need separate threads? I think one is enough to list what each of us think each class' fantasy, strength and weaknesses are.

This is what I think each tank should feel like and what fantasy they should fulfill.

PLD
Fantasy: Protect. Heal. Team feels safe with them. Healer's first tank job?
Strength: Safe. New content's safety net (The WHM/RDM of the tanks). Commendation magnet. ~Party-wide mitigation~! Physical damage mitigator?
Weakness: Little damage. Long mitigation cooldowns. MAG damage makes them sad.

WAR
Fantasy: High base damage. Too angry to die. The lower the health the stronger the defenses? Selfish. Wall of meat. "HOW did you survive THAT???"
Strength: Lots of HP. LOTS. Tankbuster who? Enemy supression as mitigation (DMG Down debuffs?). AST's best buddy~
Weakness: Little to no DEF Up mitigation. Bosses leaving the fight counters them. Healers' worst nightmare. 80% of the fight at 25% HP.

DRK
Fantasy: Vampire. Do damage, heal damage. "My suffering will be yours" - DRK Yuna, FFX-2. AKA, more damage suffered = more DPS dealt.
Strength: Constant AOE/DoT fights. Magic attack? Don't mind if I do *Slurps*.
Weakness: Heavy physical damage = Healers adjust. Low tank damage fights = :(

GNB
Fantasy: DDR but make it Tab target. Low cooldown, lots of weaving. Busy, stylish job. For his neutral special, he wields a GUN, AKA long range combos.
Strength: Long range forcing mechanics. Rotation. Never. Stops. Constant short duration mitigations. Speedrunners' dream job.
Weakness: The AST of the tank role. May need to stop a DPS weave to weave a mitigation. Not many heavy mitigations (tankbusters are dangerous). While very engaging, could get tiresome.

Or at least that's what I think. WAR having lots of self heal is something that has always rubbed me the wrong way. It feels like that's stepping on DRK's whole identity.