All tanks have lost about 30% of their damage in PvP post 3.2 (estimate)

[Cynric]

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Resistances reset after a period of time. You don't have to die for them to go away. I'm not sure the time off the top of my head but I want to say something like 30 seconds or so.

Warrior does actually have pretty close utility to paladin, though stun locking is actually better than holmgang. While stunlocking one person might be a similar comparison you're looking at 4+ targets to take away from the fight for a max of 9 seconds at a time per player. Holmgang can't match that.

Paladin has Testudo however Paladin also has Divine veil, which they can trigger themselves now.

PLD> War> DRK , Dark knight has.. A heavy, a Damage reduction and a very mediocre stun for utility, they can also annoy casters with ranged attacks easier than the other two.

Paladin has way more utility than you're giving it credit for

[Februs]

Resistances reset after a period of time. You don't have to die for them to go away. I'm not sure the time off the top of my head but I want to say something like 30 seconds or so.

That's true, but I was talking about a full resistance reset.

Unless something has changed in PvP recently and I'm not aware of it (in which case, sweeeeet), resistances don't fully reset as soon as the timer expires. They first reset to their absolute bottom resistance. For stunning, that would be 1(ish) second depending on latency. Even if the Pld waits 30 seconds (I don't recall if this is the real time, either, but for now we'll run with it), they can't fully stun lock that target to a maximum lock of 9 seconds. At best, you're temporarily interrupting them for a second. Then they're free to run off again. Given that snare tactics require the target to stand still and defenseless long enough for the Dps to kill them, a 1 second stun doesn't cut it. That's why I said that War and Pld stuns, both, are an all or nothing stun. The idea is to lock the target and get the kill.

You are correct, though, that War and Pld stuns are different. If we're comparing stuns between the two of them, then Pld's definitely have a better multi-target stun. It can be applied to targets faster than Holmgang. So, with a good Dps team, you can swap to new targets faster. Again, though, this is really only a benefit if the targets are actually dying. If they're not, you're just wasting the stun resistance and won't be able to do anything more than annoy people with it for the rest of the match. That's also being generous, because party Dps is dramatically lower when a Pld is spamming Shield Bash.

Holmgang is not as useful on multiple targets, but it is most certainly a better single target stun, because War's can upkeep their Dps while using it. A target snared by a war's Holmgang + Brutal Swing is far more likely to die than a Pld target who is stun-locked, because the Dps is much higher (especially if the war got the slashing debuff + Full swing up in advance). Again, though, if the target does not die, then the War is put at a disadvantage while they wait for that CD to come back around again.

In the end, is one better than the other? Not really, no. They're just used differently. Given that stun locks tend to fall to: did the target die, yes or no? The overall utility is mostly the same.

Paladin has Testudo however Paladin also has Divine veil, which they can trigger themselves now.

Again, this is true; however we're still talking about a trade in utility, not a better utility. Even if we're going to be as generous as possible with the amount of Hp a tank could have, Divine Veil grants roughly a 2k buffer on the party (That's at 20k max Hp and it does not include the Pld). War's make that up in self-healing, no problem. Instead of having a weak shield cast over the party Hp, the healers get one party member who has a dramatic reduction in required healing whenever Bloodbath is up. Further, War's bring additional utility in the form of boosted party Dps. Pld's have no way to increase party dps, at all. War's boost slashing dmg with each use of Storms Eye, on top of dealing their own dmg simply by applying it. There's a trade off.

I'm not trying to downplay Pld utility. They have amazing utility, but the idea that Pld's are somehow inherently better than War's in PvP is false. One tank is more defensive. The other tank is more offensive. Does that mean one or the other has "better" utility? No, not really. They just have different utility. Depending on your party composition and personal play style, one might work better than the other, but one is not universally better than the other.

Drk's, on the other hand, I do feel sorry for. Compared to War's and Pld's, their utility is substantially lower. They do, potentially, bring the Highest dps to the field if they are constantly under attack and proc ALL of their oGCD's ... but even with the Heavy Medal Debuff painting a target on their butt's, I don't see this happening. I suppose they can harass Smn's/Blm's with Delirium Blade, and they'd probably make for excellent co-tanks in 8 man matches due to their high burst potential, but they definitely lack stand alone utility compared to War's and Pld's.

[Synestra]

I might remember wrong but CC resist timer was 60s and it got added to the game when Ifrit HM "stun-locking" was still a thing.

[Cynric]

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Resistance reset at least in my experience after whatever period of time it is goes back to the capability of full duration. I don't know if you were around back when Wolves Den came out but Sleep/Stun/bind/and I think Heavy all work the same way and back then if you got slept three times then later got slept again you were back to the full sleep duration. Same thing goes for stun, I think if you're going by frontlines it'd be harder to judge because by the time the resistance resets someone probably already added resistance back to the target. However in the den I've never had trouble seeing the full duration of my stuns even without the target dying.

As for the utility trade off, I still stand by Warrior being slightly worse than PLD simply due to the fact that Shield Bash is really that good. You can CC the healer, or save your healer by CCing DPS/Tank, much more on demand than Warrior. I don't think Warrior is that far behind but it'll still be slightly worse than PLD imo.

As for DRK... DRK's utility wont come from burst DPS, but from Dark Arts Dark Dance + Awareness + Blind, hopefully the dodging will make them be a little better at medal keeping. Not saying it'l work like that but one can hope DRK will be able to do something at least.

[Februs]

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It's hard to say, since tagging the same target repeatedly in FL after a reset duration is not easy. They tend to disappear into the mass of frenzied players, and node positions have changed by he time the reset applies. WD would probably be an easier place to test it out in. I have to admit, though, it has been a while since I've played on my Pld in WD, so even I'm not really positive that it still works the same way. I know that in PvE, blind resist resets to it's highest resistance, which is why maximum Pld mitigation rotation stops Flash after 3 uses. Beyond that, there's no point besides aggro. I'm pretty sure Stun works the same way, because, as synestra pointed out, stun locking HM Primal fights was an exploit that SE had to adjust. I assumed it was the same in PvP, but it might not be. Next time I get the chance to try it out in WD I'll give it a shot and see what happens.

I still think it's a trade in utility, though. What it falls down to is party composition. Pld will probably be the "safe" bet for random teams and solo queues, but in pre-mades the favoured tank will vary depending on what dps you are rolling with. Any team that has a Nin or Drg, or even a Drk or Pld on Co-Tank (assuming 8-man queues use a two tank format), will see more offensive utility out of a War's slash down debuff than they will out of a Pld's defensive stuns, especially given that a Pld's stun lock rotation really is a tremendous loss in party dps.

Drk's DA + Dark Dance + Awareness + Blind works wonders for defensive purposes in FL. I imagine they'll get a lot of use out of it when they're metal hogging in Feast. That is, after there are medals to actually hog. Up until that point, using their Mp draw on Defense would be a waste of potency, because most teams don't attack the highest defensed player first. They go for the squishy guy.

As much as Drk's clearly have the lowest stand alone utility in Feast, I think they'll be pretty fun to play as, because they're Mp management will completely change around half way through the fight. At the start of the match they'll probably want to use their Mp to take advantage of their awesome burst potential, but when they start to collect medals they'll want to keep their Mp for defense. Healers, too, will probably have a similar experience, because they'll be higher priority targets at the start of the match, but less so when the tank/Dps start hogging medals and getting debuffed. Should be pretty fun to see how it works out.

[Cynric]

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I really don't think the DPS will determine the tank you want. I think the tank you go with would determine the DPS. Example being say you run a Paladin, well you might be better off with Brd/MCH ranged, however if you're running a DRK it'd be better off to have a BLM for sleep as the CC on DRK is very low.

All in all there will be plenty of viable compositions.

By the way I don't consider 8 mans period at all when I talk about the feast. I only consider the ranked portion of it where comps will be a big deal. 8v8 is indeed forced 2 tank 2 heal, however there afaik either there is no premade 8v8 or its a shared queue , either way it's not really worth talking about in my eyes till it becomes rated as well.

[Nalien]

Dark knight has.. A heavy, a Damage reduction and a very mediocre stun for utility, they can also annoy casters with ranged attacks easier than the other two.

Fixing Tar Pit alone would probably solve a few of my issues with Dark Knight in PvP... The Job has no real means to do a bulk "heal" in an emergence (Sole Survivor + Mercy Stroke is great and all, but can't really rely on it...). Warrior has Second Wind, Thrill of War and Equilibrium. Paladin has Stoneskin, Clemency and Divine Veil. Dark Knights options are fairly lackluster...

I could see the HP drain on Tar Pit kind of being Dark Knights version of Thrill of War, but it is just so damn pathetic... Thrill of War would net me around 2,100~3,500HP, and Thrill of War is AoE to party members... Last I cared to check, Tar Pit would be lucky to even get me 500HP... That's only going to get worse with Feast, too... Heavy is OK for Seize, you can slow a push or retreat. No such utility for it in Feast (though it still has some, just things like an AoE knockback +Stun/buff removal are vastly superior), not with the Sprint adjustment anyway... Then consider the number of people in Feast... I can pretend I can stack the entire 48 enemies I have in Seize for Tar Pit to be amazing (and I'd be insane to suggest that), but 4v4 and 8v8? It's going to absolutely suck. Plain and simple...

What I really don't get is why it's so weak... We have Abyssal Drain, and granted that's fairly weak as well (I'd need to hit what, 10 people for it even to be half as good as Clemency?), but why is Tar Pit so much weaker? It's on a freakin' cooldown! I cannot spam Tar Pit, so why is the HP drain effect on it so damn lackluster compared to Abyssal Drain, which I can "spam"? It makes no sense... I'd love to have Tar Pit as a "Run in, mitigate the damage with the drain, and run out with them all Heavy'd" skill, but the HP drain on it is so pathetic that Heavy is the only thing it really offers...

You know what would be nice? Change it from flat damage up front to something akin to an AoE DoT... Twist being, anyone hit by it is tethered to the Dark Knight, which each tic of the DoT healing the Dark Knight. You can then break the tether by running out of range, though obviously that is going to be harder with the Heavy effect. That could be very interesting, Dark Knight could effectively herd people with such a skill... It would have some solid utility beyond just Heavy... Sort of an offensive Collective Unconscious perhaps... A bubble around the Dark Knight that enemies want to stay out of... If I can still move? Great, that's got some awesome chase potential (which is what Dark Knight really shines at). If I can't? No problem, that can stack up nicely with a lot of other skills (Salted Earth and healer bubbles) and my party can get in the bubble with me to deter melee...

[Februs]

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I agree. To be honest, if it wasn't for the additional burst dmg from having Tar Pit and Carnal Chlll I probably wouldn't even bother swapping my AP points when I play as Drk. Based solely on utility, they just don't have any backbone. Even in FL, I find that I almost exclusively used for dmg, because the situations in which applying a Heavy or a dmg reduction are typically outweighed by the value of actually killing the opponent. Not to mention the fact that, nine times out of ten, your teammates are more likely to waste the utility of a heavy or dmg reduction than they are to take advantage of it.

I can't count how many time's I've applied a beautifully positioned Carnal Chill on a healthy patch of ranged dps (I'm talking 5 or more players), only to see my teammates retreat instead of fight. More frequently is when I apply a nice heavy debuff to a couple of stray Dps who are on the retreat, only to have my Dps let them go instead of running them down. If you see that kind of thing enough times you stop caring about trying to use those moves for party utility and just start using them purely for dmg.

I like your idea for Tar Pit ... but instead I'd rather see it changed to a persistent ground AoE. I think it would have even greater utility that way. If it was a persistent (roughly the same time as Salt of the Earth) ground based AoE, Drk's could use it as an area denial, a trap for dropped medals, and a safety guard for healers and heavy medal debuffed players. I think that would work really well for team strategies (Ie: bait kills by having ViP targets stand in the Pit) as well as give Drk's a means of actually self healing by having a DoT that translates to a HoT.

[Stormrider]

Cmon now. And to even get a 5k plus fell cleave you have to use all cool downs and some dps had to be silly enough to stand still and eat a storms eye and full swing and wait around for the fell cleave instead of just running away.

Exaggerations.

Well I have never seen 7.5k. But i have seen 6k+ back to back repeatedly. I am sure debuffs and buffs play a role. Aether at least has more then enough Warriors popping multiple 6k fel cleaves when you get into a scrum and have to heal and can't run away.

[P4X0R10N]

I like all this talk about tank utility instead of tank dps. The shift in focus will will show how shallow the tanking game is in ffxiv pvp. Can I get a copy/paste of some moba tank/bruiser abilities?

Speaking of which I've always liked Shen's ult from LoL. Maybe give pallies a dash which places a small health shield around allies that the pally dashes through?

Or for warriors, a buff place able on self or others that increases the ap or healing power of the buff-ee by a percentage of damage received? The effect would be still be damage mitigation, because you don't want to buff the enemy, but with a twist.

I dunno. I just want some real tanking abilities I can use every 30 to 40 seconds rather than 2.5 minutes plus...