nervous tanker

[ghostkatt]

I do agree with you a lot.
when I am a healer I focus on healing, a saying I either heard or made it is "A healers job is healing why am I doing this DPS stuff?"
So when I look at tanking I see that same thing in my head.

What I am looking for is how to be a better tank, and perhaps an easy tank class to get into to get a feel for it. I do not really want to deal with a lot of buttons unless I can get them them fast. hence why I posted my hud in hopes to get some better means on using keybinds to streamline my job.

[aleph_null]

I do agree with you a lot.
when I am a healer I focus on healing, a saying I either heard or made it is "A healers job is healing why am I doing this DPS stuff?"
So when I look at tanking I see that same thing in my head.

What I am looking for is how to be a better tank, and perhaps an easy tank class to get into to get a feel for it. I do not really want to deal with a lot of buttons unless I can get them them fast. hence why I posted my hud in hopes to get some better means on using keybinds to streamline my job.

Dps optimization on healers and tanks is something you learn after you're good/familiar/geared enough for the contents you're doing. Your main priority as a tank is to manage aggro and control incoming damage. Once you're comfortable with that, dps optimization comes in, and this is where you can see the difference between decent players and good players. Obviously optimizing dps while having aggro/mitigation problems doesn't make you a good tank. Same thing with healers, you need to make sure everyone is/will be alive before you focus on your dps.

At lower level marauder/warrior would probably be the easiest to play. Personally I think dark knight is harder than warrior at low level since you need to be concerned with your MP usage/recovery (syphon strike, blood price) and skills that can't go together (grit and blood weapon). Gladiator/paladin is simpler than the previous two, but this job gets their tank stance (shield oath) at lv 40, so before lv 40 it'll be harder to maintain aggro, so you need to be more careful and pay more attention to keeping your gear up to date (especially weapon).

At high level paladin is definitely the easiest and simplest tank job to play. Based on the number of skills/buffs cast per minute, dark knight is the most complex, warrior is behind it, and paladin comes in last. Dark knight needs to manage MP to use certain skills (including buffing certain moves by consuming extra MP, using certain skills to recover MP), warrior needs to manage "stacks" granted by certain skills, which allow you to use other powerful skills, and sometimes need to think about the tradeoff of using defensive cds for offensive purposes (thus risking not having them up for incoming big damage). Those all are extra, on top of the "basic" duties every tank has: maintaining aggro, mitigating damage, positioning mobs/bosses.

Additionally dark knight is quite similar to paladin excluding their MP usage/recovery toolkits. I'd suggest trying all of them at low level, and pick the one which interests you the most and level it to 60. After that you can level the other two. I'm honestly quite lucky, I started as gladiator, switched to marauder early on and stuck with warrior for over a year before I even considered levelling the other two tank jobs.