Favourite Tank Incarnation?

[MyakotApelsia]

4.x dark knight. Blood weapon felt awesome thanks to the speed it gave you, bloodspiller felt far more impactful, abyssal drain was extremely fun to aoe things with.
Dark arts was bit spammy, but it could be fixed by removing it from syphon slash or something.
5.x dark knight can go burn down

[ReynTime]

ARR PLD.

Although ShB tanks play so incredibly non-tank that PLD still feels incredible to play in comparison.
If they try to streamline it further in EW I'm definitely quitting before finishing the story.

[Shurrikhan]

ARR PLD...

If they try to streamline it further in EW I'm definitely quitting...

Was there something more simplistic ("streamlined") than a single 1-2-3 rotation, 2 oGCD rotators, a procced counterattack, and a basic damage window?

[ReynTime]

Was there something more simplistic ("streamlined") than a single 1-2-3 rotation, 2 oGCD rotators, a procced counterattack, and a basic damage window?

Every other tank plays exactly like a DPS with 1 or 2 mitigations and 1 radial party buff.

At least PLD has:
A physical AND magical rotation to alternate
A healing action
4 actions to actively protect the party/an ally (like an actual TANK should)

Having so many optional but handy actions to use feels FUN to me. If enmity management was thrown away for casual appeal then all I have left to feel like a real tank are several actions I can cycle between to defend allies. If every kit has to be valued only based on rigid raid rotations PLD would be boring as hell.

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

Dark Knight used to have a lot of Magic, that was(only in ARR) and is not Paladin exclusive, as current Dark Knight still has a few spells... And...
Paladin is not the only Tank with a healing action... All Tanks have healing actions, Paladin's healing action is just a spell, where the others all use abilities.
also.. Dark Knight has The Blackest Night, a Barrier that can protect allies, and GunBreaker has Heart of Stone...

none of what you said is Paladin exclusive, Paladin just does those things in a more direct manner.

[Shurrikhan]

At least PLD has:
A physical AND magical rotation to alternate
A healing action
4 actions to actively protect the party/an ally (like an actual TANK should)

You said, let us repeat...

ARR PLD.

There was no magic damage, let alone a magical rotation; your healing action was a joke and almost never worth using during potential uptime; you had precisely one action by which to actively protect allies.

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

thank you, Shurrikhan. my thoughts exactly... I was more intent to just retort the ShB part, but that contradiction is also... what ever it is.
I have no idea how ShB Paladin is some how the game-play of ARR Paladin, and how ShB Paladin is some how exclusive and superior?, even though the other tanks can do similar things as ShB Paladin, and just as affective as ShB Paladin's bag of tricks.

[Shurrikhan]

...

ShB Paladin is arguably the best designed tank in ShB. It's pretty great. Lots to do, and the most pivotal change over the course of its minute-by-minute rotation.

I just couldn't understand a complaint about streamlining standing alongside a pedestal topped by... ARR Paladin.

[Lyth]

It would be interesting to compare what the action budgets for each tank were across each expansion, but I haven't seen a good archive of the old action lists. A lot of Shadowbringers' PLD's 'design' comes from the fact that it just has a bigger action budget than the other tanks.

More actions doesn't necessarily translate into more engaging (most MOBAs use surprisingly few, as an example), but I think a lot of the fan favorites just had more buttons available to press.

[Shurrikhan]

It would be interesting to compare what the action budgets for each tank were across each expansion, but I haven't seen a good archive of the old action lists. A lot of Shadowbringers' PLD's 'design' comes from the fact that it just has a bigger action budget than the other tanks.

More actions doesn't necessarily translate into more engaging (most MOBAs use surprisingly few, as an example), but I think a lot of the fan favorites just had more buttons available to press.

This, for the most part.

I think we can get a pretty good estimate by the number of available buttons that have an element of (1) pacing (forced, as per using CDs on refresh), (2) timing (player chosen) or (3) decision.
Though, for example, if we looked at each of GNB's 30s combo actions as separate buttons and estimated from there, I suspect our estimate would be slightly inflated?