Considering what to main

[Erit]

I mostly picked warrior because I like axes more than swords, but the stack mechanic turned out to be a lot of fun in practice. Proper inner beast timing is satisfying.

DRK has way more off globals though, I feel like I never stop mashing buttons as one. I got killed tunnel visioning my mana bar a couple times though.

This is the two tanks in a nutshell, though I can't speak on Warrior's feel other than absolutely crushing whatever it is that was stupid enough to fight you.

Dark Knight is very busy and is actually a little multitask-y, which is why I like it. Flitting around aspects of the fight managing this or that ability on this or that mob, and when it comes time to single-target dumping everything in the proper order consistently. Busy, but engaging. Warrior just lets you feel badass for far more straightforward practice than the oGCD micromanagement of Dark Knight.

Warriors will always have raid slots available, though, unless encounter design philosophy changes drastically come 3.1. Dark Knights... from the sounds of the next Savage tier being mostly Physical, it's sounding like DRK and PLD are going to start playing a long game of Irrelevance Leapfrog in the bleeding-edge meta that everyone forgets is bleeding-edge and not standardized.

[Sapphidia]

Thanks for the responses, I was leaning war, but the eso weapon having parry is garbage.... I know drk has parry on some gear too. I wish I could get the ilvl 210 Gordian axe just a little bit easier than a4s.

Don't base a class choice on a Secondary stat on one tier of items. Parry is all over the place and you can't really avoid it, but Secondary Stats in general mean very little compared to primary stats and weapon damage. Plus it wont be long before we're in the next tier of gear with relic weapons anyway.

[MeeYow]

WAR is designed in a universal manner with respect to damage resistance, PLD and DRK are designed with a speciality and a weakness, so in any given raid design WAR will be in the top two most useful tanks even before its extra DPS is considered.

The other two classes as currently designed take turns being the good or bad tank for an encounter, use the class you can consistently take to every raid and be in a good spot. Currently this difference is massive, hopefully in the future it will be much smaller (see final paragraph)

Any future buffs or nerfs aside WAR has the most useful core concepts. It would take huge changes to classes and raid design to ever make WAR a bad choice.

@Erit, the quote about damage type in the second round of Alex was more physical than the first set, not that it would be mostly physical, if this happens DRK will be in an ok spot because it has dark mind for magic and skin/wall for physical, whereas PLD has rampart/sentinel for magic and bulwark for physical, so given its higher DPS hopefully DRK and a PLD will be on more relatively equal footing than DRK being unusable.

[Snowy_Mist]

Honestly if you are only starting to gear up now and going to end up getting the relic might aswell spend the 990 esoterics on something else, then atleast you'll have either 2 more left side or possibly 2+accessories when you get your relic.

I feel drk has a lot more to juggle and manage than warrior, and war has a lot more synergistic tool kit. Like others have said just choose one you enjoy more but they do change quite a bit at lv 60.

[Dyarc]

if you love being a challenger go DRK,
if you love being a champion go WAR.

DRK has more oGCD to look out for while WAR pretty much only have brutal swing to spam whenever available.
It's pretty satisfying when you mastered DRK.

As for me i main WAR because that's what i always do in other games.

[Kemas]

Warrior is best at the moment and the notion that it's more difficult to optimize is an over exaggeration if you already know how to tank/play the game. If not- well- it's still quite fool proof.

[Syzygian]

In terms of how the jobs feel I'd say play WAR if you enjoy OTing more and prefer a slower but heavy-hitting playstyle with the greatest ease of stance-dancing. I'd say play DRK if you prefer to MT, and can handle a much faster paced (lots of oGCD weaving) playstyle with a higher skill cap, and don't mind the resource management.

[Jim_Berry]

I had PLD to 50 before WAR hit 50. I liked WAR for a while, but over time began to die fast. I guess I couldn't handle the job. My survival rate is much higher on PLD, which is why I decided to retire WAR (50) and push my PLD (55).

[TacoBell]

PLD is just awful right now hopefully they get buffed i have a feeling WAR will get the nerf bat pre soon as well

[KinSlayer009]

If you wanna piss off the raid bosses go drk / pld. If you wanna rearrange their faces go warrior