Terrified...

[Kosmos992k]

GLA/PLD is the best and easiest to start with as several folks have mentioned it has the simplest rotations which allows you to get used to watching threat/hate meters, keeping an eye on adds and healers. Learning to tank is more than enmity multipliers, you have to develop situational awareness specific to tanks. GLA/PLD let's you spend time on doing that since you don't have to worry about complex combos.

There is a slight issue with enmity(hate), if your weapon is underpowered and the others around you are level sync'd end-game players, they will steal threat easily. The solution there is to make your weapon the #1 priority for your gearing options as you level. Always have the best weapon you can, it makes more difference to your ability to manage the threat/hate, than anything else.

Beyond that, as long as you are trying and acknowledge any mistakes you're unlikely to run into anyone who will be nasty. The horror stories about DF are out there and most are probably true, but they represent <1% of all experiences. I've found that acknowledging my errors in any situation immediately disarms the situation, and then we go back and stomp it.

Once you get your Oaths, don't forget to turn on Shield Oath when tanking or playing as main tank. Otherwise you'll see the threat get stolen immediately and a chorus of "turn on Shield Oath n00b!" in party chat. Of course if you acknowledge the brain fart and apologize, almost all players will be fine.

PLD experiences a major jump in difficulty in Haukke Manor, BrayFlox and Cutters Cry because you have not yet got your Shield Oath skill, but the capability of DPS players is accelerating making it harder to maintain threat.

This is when you must have learned the situational awareness I was talking about, and then use provoke and shield lob effectively to recover adds that look elsewhere, also use tab targeting to rotate your targets after a couple of rounds of flash and a RoH combo on the initial mob. This is because the AoE's that are incoming from DPS players will make group hate hard to hold, so use the tab targetting and spread around your combo, throw in a flash every now and again at this stage, and you should be fine.

After that, your toolbox get's better and as others have said, although there is a specific situation in Alex Savage where PLD is an issue because of the nature of the fights, in the other 99% of the game, you'll do just fine.

I started working on MRD and DRK, but have yet to find I like them as much as sword and board. But I like that style of play, so even if they other jobs are considered more fun by others, I prefer the style of GLA/PLD. Though I still find myself daydreaming and wishing for a dual wielding skill for GLA....as the in-game icon for GLA directly implies and the Flame General himself demonstrates.

P.S. I main PLD, I've played since Beta 3, and due to playing time restrictions I have always been a little behind the lead group - including my friends. Plus, I like to take my time with the game. When I got to the stage of running AK/WP Chimera, Hydra and the hard mode primals for the relic (this was just before 2.1 dropped), I had a HQ pre-relic (thanks to a great friend who made it for me). I was fortunate enough to get an Ifrit Blade when I first beat Ifrit HM, and used that for a couple of months (it took a while to gear sufficiently to attempt Titan HM - was pre nerfs and pre-echo). Even though I only had an ilvl 60 weapon, I could maintain hate in AK and WP against players with Relic Zenith and/or Coil weapons. I will say this was partly due to those other players letting me get off one or two flashes, and partly due to the hard lessons learned earlier about maintaining aggro by cycling targets and saving provoke/shield lob for recovering strays. Now, we were not speed running back then, my gear would not allow it, but I seldom had problems with strays.

Due to Level sync, as long as you have a decent level 50 gearset when you get to 50 (can buy from MB); you'll never run into this issue. Even at lvl 50 in lvl 50 content playing wityh much higher level players, it won't be an issue because, in any level sync'd content everyone will lvl sync to the same ilvl as you or close to it. So you will not have a problem, as long as you use your skills effectively.

[Seku]

I started working on MRD and DRK, but have yet to find I like them as much as sword and board.

Not trying to be mean here. But how can you really compare 100% what's easiest if you've just started on the other two tanks and really only have in depth knowledge of one tank?

[Kosmos992k]

Not trying to be mean here. But how can you really compare 100% what's easiest if you've just started on the other two tanks and really only have in depth knowledge of one tank?

I compare based on my experience of Drk with it's lvl 30 skills which very much give it's flavor as a job, and my more limited exposure to the MRD/WAR skillset. I didn't like the styles of either, and found the skill set of DRK at 30 to be much less straight forward than PLD. Even though I've only taken MRD to level 8, I didn't like the way it played as much as GLA. I wasn't intending to start an argument here, it's my personal opinion that GLA/PLD is best principally because I prefer sword and board. I will, more than likely, eventually level warrior, but I'm just not feeling it at the moment. I stand by the statement that PLD is easiest to play because it's core skill rotation is the same whether you are trying to deal damage or manage aggro.