Favourite Tank Incarnation?

[Recon1o6]

3.4 dark knight by a longshot. Buffs, debuffs and lots of combos. Wasn't perfect but at the time I had faith. I miss those days

warrior is a toss up between arr and sb, I didn't play it at all in HW but i did in ARR and a couple of times in SB. Its never really stuck with me, and it certainly doesnt now its braindead

Paladin is late sb though i barely got to play it. its not appealed to me but i love its solo capabilities

[Sqwall]

A shorter oGCD AOE for more convenient trash pick up in dungeons. Bow Shock is on a minute long cooldown, and if you use it while running through trash to solidify hold on a group, then you don't get to hit the whole pull with it. With how gung ho is these days, this means that GNB has to stop and wait a sec to do another GCD AOE to solidify hold, and it makes the people who make you have to do that complain that you're stutter stepping the pull etc.

Of course, you can pop Aurora just for enmity, but it won't do when there's a MCH single target firing on one monster in the pack while the pack is on the move.

I'd also love an AOE version of Continuation, but it's pretty obvious they invested ZERO time in GNB's aoes, as they consist of spins. Two are exactly the same but one is anti-clockwise. The third is the same as the first but with explosions. Very, dreadfully, boring.

I agree with the AOE. GNB AOE is abysmally slow for me. I don't know why...but it feels like using a pool noodle when I AOE on GNB. I think you may have hit the nail on the head in using continuation for an AOE combo.

I still can't buy into GNB, I get the concept and it's style. It just doesn't ring well with me. Love my WAR to much

[Absurdity]

I'm really questioning how you can find GnB's aoe slow but not WAR's.

[shao32]

3.x DRK hands down and wishing to all my heart get it back being even better.

3.x WAR was really nice gameplay wise too, the berserk window was way better tht the braindead inner release, the only flaw was the pacification debuff but ignoring that and sticking gameplay wise only i preffer that incarnation.

For PLD is a job that only improved across the expansions and while i don't like requiemcast window the best version of the job is SHB for now.

[Shurrikhan]

4.0 Stormblood Warrior (provided it'd been tuned a little better and Shake it Off worked on most debuffs, instead of relatively few), Stormblood Paladin (any patch), and Heavensward DRK by a slight margin (Stormblood DRK comes close due to the sheer glee of Blood Weapon - Quietus refunding itself in mass pulls).

The oonga-boonga Inner Release rework was, for me, bloody murder. I'd have rather it just also double Beast Gauge generation so it didn't feel so unresponsive / dependent on banked resources in openers or dungeons.

Slapping said Inner Release onto DRK was the equivalent of beating a man to death with another dead man.

[Marxam]

3.4 dark knight by a longshot. Buffs, debuffs and lots of combos. Wasn't perfect but at the time I had faith. I miss those days

warrior is a toss up between arr and sb, I didn't play it at all in HW but i did in ARR and a couple of times in SB. Its never really stuck with me, and it certainly doesnt now its braindead

Paladin is late sb though i barely got to play it. its not appealed to me but i love its solo capabilities

WAR in HW was broken. SP is 10% dmg down on enemies. SE has synergy with slashing jobs, NiN, PLD and DRK. Unchained gave it the best opener. Berserk was 50% attack power NOT damage dealt and can be paired with internal release, MNK cross class. Deliverance was 2% crit per stack, max 5. Defiance pairs well with SCH and Adlo crits. You get the idea now. It was a job where you had to set up your cds and gauge properly for Berserk windows instead of how IR works after the nerf in 4.2. A high skill ceiling job that rewarded you greatly and put you on par with DPS which is insane when you consider that it is a tank.

[Drkdays]

Bradley! They're a bit crowded on the inside, but so versatile.

Jk, Dark knight for life. Remember.Kentaro Miura!

[Korbei]

Current day PLD for me. I like all the current "dumbed down" tank/healer styles, despite the contrition. It's gotten much more people to play the roles and I feel that's the most important thing for the well-being of the game.

I also don't consider them anymore dumbed down than any other job. I just find them less stressful to play in general these days.

I still find BLU tanking to be tricky.

[Undeadfire]

WAR in HW was broken. SP is 10% dmg down on enemies. SE has synergy with slashing jobs, NiN, PLD and DRK. Unchained gave it the best opener. Berserk was 50% attack power NOT damage dealt and can be paired with internal release, MNK cross class. Deliverance was 2% crit per stack, max 5. Defiance pairs well with SCH and Adlo crits. You get the idea now. It was a job where you had to set up your cds and gauge properly for Berserk windows instead of how IR works after the nerf in 4.2. A high skill ceiling job that rewarded you greatly and put you on par with DPS which is insane when you consider that it is a tank.

Precisely, and Warrior 2x instead of a Dark Knight became the meta till SE introduced A12S, limit break restrictions for multi same job and forced a LB3.

[Launched]

Precisely, and Warrior 2x instead of a Dark Knight became the meta till SE introduced A12S, limit break restrictions for multi same job and forced a LB3.

That's not true. Double WAR was never the meta in HW, it shows up a few times on FFLogs in Gordias but that's about it. Two different tanks was way more common, DRK more often than PLD because it did more damage and had great personal and raidwide mitigation for magic damage. You don't need to exaggerate how good HW WAR was.