It must be a sign...

[Ehayte]

I have to echo Paikis' sentiment. I leveled a PLD first and got it to Relic and the AF2 chest, and now I'm playing WAR.

I really prefer the WAR feel - I feel like I have much much more control over the ebb and flow of my HP bar. Certainly I can feel that I have less eHP, but I can make up for the mistakes of my healers with my myriad healing abilities. I do feel like I have less utility as a WAR (no silence, shitty stun, no Off-GCD meaningful attacks).

I am starting to understand what I think is the underlying frustration with WAR, in that all of the abilities that a WAR has are geared towards being the MAIN tank. Overpower feels good but not essential, but with Thrill of Battle and the healing and recovery abilities we have, I think a WAR in good hands FEELS more like the main tank.

PLD, when I play it now, feels like the utility tank; it offers silence, an AE move that rocks socks, consistent stun, stoneskin on self and others, MP recovery, a (horrible) cure spell. Its through the innate abilities and OPed CDs that PLDs have that make them the go-to tank. I really feel like an OT in a MTs shoes while playing PLD since I DON'T need to (or can't really) worry about my HP, I can worry about what others are doing, what other mobs are doing, manage my CDs, Stun, etc. The WAR feels like it was tuned to keep your attention on a smaller number of things, with a greater % of your attention focused on your own hit points.

I'd like to see a buff to WARs that reverse the current roles (PLD to off-tank, WAR to MT) - but I know that's a very very long shot and it would piss everyone off, and its against the spirit of the sentiment to which I agree: the game was designed to have two main tanks (I agree it WAS designed this way, not that it is correct - I actually think that's dumb as hell).