PLD highest DPS tank single target

[Lyth]

The most important factor in determining tank dps is the amount of time that you spend out of tank stance. Your ability to stay out of stance depends mainly on the rate of incoming damage. In most fights, the bulk of the incoming damage (i.e. 40-70%) on a tank is in the form of auto-attacks, and to a lesser extent, cleaves. PLD has three unique advantages in this regard: block, Shelltron, and RoH.

The parry calculation thread from earlier this week showed that your shield provides about a 4% damage reduction advantage over the other two tanks in low parry configurations. When you combine that with 10% strength down from RoH and the additional damage reduction from Sheltron on cleaves, your incoming damage profile should be significantly smoother than a WAR or DRK. This gets converted into an offensive advantage by allowing you to spend less time in tank stance. This is where you can catch up with your dps.

Fights with magical autos are a bit of an equaliser of sorts, but they penalise everyone. DRK loses reprisal, and the main advantage that we're left with is DM. This is handy, but you need to burn a DA to power it up above 15% magical damage reduction, so it doesn't grant nearly the same passive advantage that PLD has in a physical fight with Shield + Sheltron (compare this to 23-28% damage reduction on a block). At the end of the day, all three tank jobs have to be more clever about their cooldown usage to stay out of tank stance in these types of fights.

PLD's main strength is in its ability to simplify fights, both for yourself and your raid group. HG is the most powerful tank cooldown in the game. In several cases, you can outright cheese mechanics with it. You can bypass tank swaps in fights like A7S by denying stacks. You can redirect stacks to yourself as OT using Cover. You can chain stun adds with the only on-demand tank stun move. You are the only tank with access to silence (wasn't DRK supposed to be the magic tank?) DV protects the raid from big AoE hits, such as every second Akh Morn in Nidhogg. It's an absolute joy to play in these fights.

It's easy to look at another tank job's advantages and want them for yourself. The important thing is to find one that you're passionate about and learn to push it to its maximum potential. I'd main DRK even if it was terrible (and it was viewed as such, up until Gordias arrived). If you can't say the same for PLD, maybe it isn't the right fit for you. Fix the player before the class.