In previous MMOs, I have always played a healing class, but with FFXIV I decided to go Warrior Tank. In general, I thought tanking was easy from 15-50. It didn't take much work for me to keep hate and all I really learned was mob marking. I ran dungeons repeatedly because I enjoyed them far more than fates and I loved getting gear even if it was for a class I would play in the future.
Then I get to AK. This is where I have really been LEARNING to tank. I have learned more doing AK runs than anything from 1-49. I have been paired with both good and bad players, and players that were well geared and poorly geared. In fact I have been both the good and bad player, and the over and under geared. I have learned to keep hate off players with far better gear than I have. I have also learned to keep a party alive when under geared players make a fight go slowly.
In short, I was wondering if anyone else, who was initially new to tanking, found AK to be where they really learned the ins and outs of the role?