Tank Options

[Seabhacgra]

Good afternoon all! I have been playing FFXIV since near the end of AAR, just before Heavensward. I always played DPS of one sort or another. The last time I played a tank was back in WoW The Burning Crusade as a Paladin. Lately my friends have been egging me on to level a tank up and try tanking for them. I resisted at first as I've not tanked for what feels like eons, but finally gave in. I currently have Dancer, Black Mage, Machinist and Red Mage at 80 and keep going back to Dancer, been loving it.

I started with a Gunbreaker,.. it's the new pretty class and looked fun. I got it to about 74 before I resisted and went back to DPSing. Started a Dark Knight and got it to 72 then switched to Paladin at 74 now. My big question is this.. How are Tanks now days? is there one better than another? they all seem pretty balanced, just some of them better at one thing or another. Let me know what you think and who's best at what, I'm working on an answer myself but I wanted to see what you all think about the state of the tanks right now. thanks!

[shao32]

the balance of the tanks in terms of numbers it's pretty well and it doesn't matter wich one you pick, most complains right now are for gameplay and identity, if you wanna still know wich ones are the best of the best those are PLD and GNB but the difference with WAR and DRK is minimun.

[Tex_Mex]

Tank balance is arguably the best it has ever been in FFXIV history right now. Pick the one with the playstyle and aesthetics you like best and you can't go wrong. Sure, some are slightly more optimal than others, but they are really really close.

[Hierro]

If we're talking about balance within 8-man endgame content, they're all similar in terms of DPS. In terms of defense, there's more variation based on utilities, CD lengths of invulnerabilities, and on-demand mitigation, but it's still pretty balanced and at that point the tanks are more a question of what you prefer in terms of gameplay style and mitigation flavor.

If dungeons are more your thing, WAR and DRK are the best, while GNB flat out sucks! All other tanks can grant themselves some degree of independence from healer intervention, but GNB just BEGS healers for their GCD healing. Now, if you're a skilled tank and understand how to utilize and space out your cooldowns, you might respond that you've been "doing just fine," but it's something that would be A LOT more fine if the same was done on literally any other tank job.

[BarretOblivion]

PLD seems best right now although GNB does deal more dmg but has problems with mitigation sometimes.
WAR and DRK aren't excatly in great states according to the community. Sure they deal enough damage to be 'balanced' but the sentiments are pretty universal they they both are fairly 'boring' especially WAR who has the worst 'downtime' of all the tanks to the point being a severe detriment to some losing focus due to boredom when IR is on cooldown.

[DRKoftheAzure]

If dungeons are more your thing, WAR and DRK are the best, while GNB flat out sucks! All other tanks can grant themselves some degree of independence from healer intervention, but GNB just BEGS healers for their GCD healing. Now, if you're a skilled tank and understand how to utilize and space out your cooldowns, you might respond that you've been "doing just fine," but it's something that would be A LOT more fine if the same was done on literally any other tank job.

Are you talking about from a healer perspective, a tank perspective, a DPS perspective, a group perspective, a solo perspective, or any combination of the five? Because you need to more specific than that, because healers are supposed to be healing, it's what they are supposed to do, and I do not trust a healer that's going to Holy spam because of the delay on the damage and stun from that.

[BloodRubyXII]

Are you talking about from a healer perspective, a tank perspective, a DPS perspective, a group perspective, a solo perspective, or any combination of the five? Because you need to more specific than that, because healers are supposed to be healing, it's what they are supposed to do, and I do not trust a healer that's going to Holy spam because of the delay on the damage and stun from that.

Holy is better mitigation than any other spell in the game that can be applied to a tank. If a tank can't stay alive for around 1.25 seconds for the first cast to go off, the problems that tank has are deeper than any pure healer would be able to solve.

[TheForce]

Stay as a PLD brother, it's better on this side

[Hierro]

Are you talking about from a healer perspective, a tank perspective, a DPS perspective, a group perspective, a solo perspective, or any combination of the five? Because you need to more specific than that, because healers are supposed to be healing, it's what they are supposed to do, and I do not trust a healer that's going to Holy spam because of the delay on the damage and stun from that.

I'm having difficulty understanding where the confusion is coming from given that I mentioned my dungeon qualifier. In that instance, I'm talking about a holistic perspective that focuses on mitigation and self healing.

As long as I'm alive, I want the healer to avoid a healing GCD as much as possible. I want to ensure that the opportunity for healer DPS is as available as possible. I want mobs to melt with everyone's active participation. Now, GNB was given just enough to get any job done, but if a mob isn't mostly dead by the time your defensives fall off (and lets be real, this is likely with most pugs), your healer is going to feel it harder than with any other job. GNB will be the tank job to most likely get in the way of those desires being actualized. This is why it sucks.

[Pepsi_Plunge]

If dungeons are more your thing, WAR and DRK are the best,

I would say PLD takes number one spot here. It brings massive self-healing to the table and Holy Ground is probably the best death prevent CD for big pulls as you just stop to take dmg (and don't need to drop down to 1 HP like GNB or need to be nearly dead like with WAR. And we don't talk about DRK because it just sucks in dungeons)