is WAR the best MT now?

[Hierro]

I bring this question up now that we live in a post-3.2 world. Tank damage has been lowered significantly. Holding aggro is no longer as easy as it used to be, where one could perform an opener loaded with burst and enmity, then turn it off and cruise in DPS stance for the remainder of the fight. Now holding aggro is something to actually worry about.

This holds mostly true, but WAR is the exception. Thanks to our enmity combo being the same as our damage combo, this is always used. This in turn allows WAR to stay in DPS stance longer than the other tanks. Other tanks do not have this luxury, so if they are to stance dance, their time out of tank is much shorter than WAR for fear of another DPS/Healer ripping aggro. This is also coupled with the fact that the other two tanks' aggro combo being their least optimal combo for DPS, leading to a wider gap between them and WAR in terms of DPS.

Since the tanks are mostly equal in their ability to mitigate damage by looking at their CDs, it seems that WAR has the upper hand in holding aggro, along with their spot at #1 damage. So, then, does this make WAR the new best main tank? I will add the qualifiers that I do not have as much experience with the other tanks as I do with WAR, or much experience due to my short time here, so this is not so a MUH CLASS IS DA BES thread as much as it is inviting the opinions of the other tanks to weigh in on the matter.

[Syzygian]

If a DRK can somehow manage to stance dance as often as the WAR, their MT damage is still better over the course of a fight. This now requires a lot of party support though; Shadewalker, Smokescreen, a slashing debuff, and an OT that is willing to not spam their hate combo.

That being said, WAR's ability to hold aggro with pretty much no sacrifices or hoops to jump through is definitely a thing. Because of Second Wind and Equilibrium WAR also essentially has more defensive abillities than the other tanks (all of them have 5 unique CDs including their oh-shit-button, and the 4 CC abilities (Foresight/Awareness/Conva/Bloodbath), and then WAR has these two powerful and boost-able self-heals on top of that that are instant cast).

So yeah, WAR may very well have usurped the one thing that another tank ever managed to do better.

._.

[winsock]

For dungeons, Id say WAR is probably the best tank hands down.

For endgame I'm not so sure. Grit & shield oath > defiance for tanking, but even if WAR can pull higher mitigation / recovery for a particular fight, taking 2 WAR slows the LB gauge. If you took say DRK/WAR, would total party dps be better with the DRK or WAR as MT? WAR might be the worst MT option of the 3 just because it's such a good OT

[Syzygian]

For endgame I'm not so sure. Grit & SwO > defiance for tanking, but even if WAR can pull higher mitigation / recovery for a particular fight, taking 2 WAR slows the LB gauge. If you took say DRK/WAR, would total party dps be better with the DRK or WAR as MT? WAR might be the worst MT option of the 3 just because it's such a good OT

That's true, unless you just WAR/WAR (lol@the LB gauge stopping folks). Most WARs will default to OT b/c of their high potential in that slot, and if you make a PLD or especially a DRK OT, you rob your party of their MT-locked utilities/dps.

Again, some of people won't care and will just WAR/WAR.

As far as the dungeons thing, I'd still say there's still some merit to DRK there if you're speed running. DRK's speed-running toolkit is second to none; it can infinitely sustain its AoE and ranged resources, and only gets more powerful the more trash it is tanking. So there's something to be said for that I suppose.

[Drakkaelus]

That being said, WAR's ability to hold aggro with pretty much no sacrifices or hoops to jump through is definitely a thing.

They really need to give PLD/DRK a reason to want to use their enmity combo. Especially DRK. It almost feels like you're being punished if you use Power Slash too often. Something about that seems wrong.

[MagiusNecros]

They really need to give PLD/DRK a reason to want to use their enmity combo. Especially DRK. It almost feels like you're being punished if you use Power Slash too often. Something about that seems wrong.

Poorly designed IMO. PLD Enmity Combo has an effect. DRK's ironically really doesn't. Honestly surprised they didn't plop Int Down on PS. And give Delirium something else. Like Magic Vulnerabilty up or lower an opponent's accuracy by a certain degree.

Or even a damn silence.

[Lyth]

WAR has always been a capable MT. This isn't a new thing; even looking back to the 2.x series (more specifically, savage second coil progression), there were a number of progression groups using WAR MT/PLD OT configurations at various points in time. Although much of the playerbase has been indoctrinated into seeing WAR only as OT, it's good to see a gradual shift in thinking.

That being said, there are a quite a few practical reasons why this doesn't happen as frequently. For one, WAR is constrained to maintain SE every second combo. This introduces two issues. One, while you generally have a consistent threat generation profile over the course of the fight, you don't have the luxury of using a back-to-back threat combo in the same way that a PLD could to quickly open up your lead just for a few GCDs. Second, if you do want to use your other utility combo, SP (yes, you do actually have another one) to provide raid-wide mitigation, it's going to come at the expense of your threat generation. (This isn't as much of an issue in double WAR groups, but that also comes at the expense of your LB progression).

Another issue to consider is that while stance dancing on WAR seems very convenient on the surface, it has its own unique constraints. One full cycle of swaps costs you 25% of your HP total while tanking. You can try to ameliorate this by timing your switch to deliverance at a point just after a raid-wide aoe goes out to "soak" the damage, but your healer still has to top you off when you return to defiance. Furthermore, while IB is probably the most readily available mitigation ability in the game, it is the only mitigation ability that is both on GCD as well as constrained by your choice of stance (not to mention that it places additional restrictions on when it's safe to use berserk, as you cannot be pacified to use it). This actually places a lot more limitations on when and where you can stance dance that the other two tanks just aren't subject to, unless your healers are willing and able to pick up your slack.

There are a few additional factors worth considering as well. PLD will always take less damage at baseline from a physical fight. This has nothing to do with the way that your eHP is calculated in stance, nor does it have to do with their powerful cooldown set. It comes from the fact that, having access to block, they will passively take less damage than you, even on autos and cleaves (the latter of which will also be fairly consistantly be soaked with Sheltron).

DRK has a different sort of advantage, setting aside the free mitigation from reprisal procs (our shield) as well as the versatility of DM. The single most valuable tank utility skill on DRK (and actually, across all three tanks) is plunge (oops, gave away our secret). This has a triple role of oGCD attack, gap closer, and knockback negation skill on a minute cooldown. Especially in an environment where the proportion of raid dps coming from tanks has been reduced, the single most important contribution that MTs make is effective raid positioning and minimizing movement. The closest skills that PLD and WAR have in comparison are Tempered Will (2 minutes) and Holmgang (3 minutes, which doubles up as WAR's "ultimate" mitigation ability, and which also sets you up nicely to eat up any aoes placed over the next 6 seconds). On movement and knockback heavy fights, this alone is a reason to use a DRK MT, assuming that your raid isn't entirely ranged and they don't mind chasing you and the boss around as you get pinballed across the map (rip dps). A good DRK can turn a movement heavy portion of a fight into a near stationary one.

There are a few other issues that we could go into, including durations of each tank's ultimate cooldown and the loss of block/parry proc moves, but there are pros and cons to each. I don't want to discourage you from playing WAR as MT (I've been wanting this to gain widespread acceptance since the 2.x series), and I think that actually seeing viable alternatives to PLD on progression content in the 3.x series (i.e. DRK) has done wonders for opening up tanking options for MT. But it isn't all sunshine and roses either. Not that you warriors are into that sort of thing.

[Galgarion]

They really need to give PLD/DRK a reason to want to use their enmity combo. Especially DRK. It almost feels like you're being punished if you use Power Slash too often. Something about that seems wrong.

Poorly designed IMO. PLD Enmity Combo has an effect. DRK's ironically really doesn't. Honestly surprised they didn't plop Int Down on PS. And give Delirium something else. Like Magic Vulnerabilty up or lower an opponent's accuracy by a certain degree.

Or even a damn silence.

Personally, I think one of the big issues plaguing tanks in general are Enmity Combos, full stop. FFXIV is the only trinity MMO I've played where a tank has to choose between aggro and damage. Common sense tells us that if a tank is doing more damage while in his defensive stance, then his threat should be fantastic. Counter-intuitively, this is not the case in FFXIV. (Unless you're playing a warrior.) Having seperate combos for threat and damage does nothing for class complexity (It actually simplifies it considerably. Want more threat? Do your threat combo. Nrrrrrrrrrr.)

Mandatory Enmity combos should be given the boot. They're a hindrance, a clunky mechanic and a slayer of fun. Tanks should have unique priority systems to distinguish their play from other classes, not 1-2-3 or else. (Unless you're a warrior.)

[Disc]

Tank damage has been lowered significantly. Holding aggro is no longer as easy as it used to be

Since when?

[Syzygian]

snip

You make some of the most artfully objective posts on these forums, so thank you for that. Good perspective.

They're a hindrance, a clunky mechanic and a slayer of fun.

I would not be opposed to this change at all.