Quote Originally Posted by Almalexia View Post

Stylistic decision!
first of all, 2 white mages are *required* for this. the healing load is simply too heavy for one healer to carry. using paladin allows you to switch out one healer for another dps, which both helps with getting down nails and increases damage output on ifrit, shortening the fight and therefore lessening chances for things to go wrong.

second, if you have any experience and/or understanding of the fight, you know that the main reason warrior is EXTREMELY UNRELIABLE as a tank for ifrit extreme is because if cracks pop under both healers it almost always results in a dead tank, as they cannot keep themselves alive long enough for *both* healers to run out and back.

third- notice FIVE WARRIORS. warrior single target dps is atrocious. as a result, if they ever pull hate through dps, the tank is awful. if they were stacking geared, skilled dragoons or even if they had a single BLM pushing dps to shorten the fight, the warrior would find it almost impossible to hold hate as without the ability to cure themselves and others their enmity generation is just too low.

finally- jumps. warrior doesn't have nearly as many enmity generating tools at their disposal so in addition to taking longer to reach the enmity ceiling, they can't ramp up as fast as paladin either. this is a critical weakness when it comes to the hate reset after jump. everyone else has to wait for the warrior to firmly establish aggro before doing anything, the chances of accidentally pulling aggro, getting hit by breath and putting sear on the raid skyrockets, etc etc. it's just messy.

you can call it a "stylistic decision" if you want, but that does the entire debate disservice because it absolutely isn't that simple. if people 'prefer' taking warrior to ifrit extreme, that's their choice- but it's essentially like saying you'd rather drink urine than water.

does warrior have the ability to tank ifrit extreme? yes, but they end up handicapping your entire effort. paladin suffers none of these setbacks, and as a result was preferred across the board by LSs who cared at all about winning.