Switching mains to a tank role. What is wrong with warr?

[Heal_Bot]

Seeing a lot of talk about how war and drk are both shite right now. I've been leveling my war since I don't like the idea of a sword & shield playstyle. Any chances of warriors or dark knights getting balanced re-tuned? Just bought stormblood a couple of days ago.

I'm worried that if I invest in either warrior or DRK it'll be a lost cause.

[Brannigan]

I think this is a fairly realistic rundown:
Warrior, Paladin, and Dark Knight all deal similar DPS under ideal circumstances. They're within 5~10% of each other on the top parses I've seen, with paladin pulling ahead by a little and DRK falling behind by a little.
All three have more than enough mitigation tools. You could make an argument for warrior having the best defensive toolset, but they have to be in tank stance for this to be the case (and when you can, you want to tank in DPS stance as all three jobs)
Paladin beats Dark Knight on party utility by a good amount. Dark Knight basically can give a shield to a party member every 15 seconds if they need to, while paladin can shield the whole party in a couple of different ways, heal people, and intercept damage. Paladin's stuff has some drawbacks (cooldowns, eats into DPS, etc) but they have the best utility of the three tanks by a good margin. Warrior has pretty much no raid utility outside of establishing enmity, which SE just made easier, so the value of that is questionable at best.

Currently, paladin has a decent advantage over the other two tanks. Personally, I think Dark Knight is pretty good, but a lot of people disagree. I haven't played WAR really since 2.0 so I won't comment much, but on paper and by the numbers they look more or less okay, although little janky gameplay-wise and lacking in utility. However, there is going to be some job rebalancing on the 18th. A live letter on the 15th will go over some details.

My personal opinion is that if the raid were to come out tomorrow with no job adjustments, any composition that involves two different tanks would be fine. Warrior underwent a lot of gameplay changes and was relatively much, much stronger in 3.0, so I think a lot of people are just experiencing shock. PLD and DRK underwent fewer changes to their core gameplay, and although DRK lost a lot of tools, its level 70 ability offers a lot of opportunity for skilled gameplay.

With that all said, warrior is going to be fine. They are currently in a much better position than paladin was in 3.0, and that job somehow managed to survive. Plus, SE is already talking about looking at them. By the time you hit 70 and start to notice any faults they might very well be fixed.

[OriWhitedeer]

I Main DRK and know several people who play both WAR/DRK at a high level of skill -- both are viable. I think the changes have made them harder to play in the "aggressive" style as in the past but I'd hardly call leveling one a lost cause. As a mid-tier/filthy casual I honestly don't think DRK is any worse, just had to make adjustments to thinks like using TP and a few nerfs that I had to work around. I hear they're buffing enmity next patch so that should open us back up to doing dps again. Just my two cents.

[ovIm]

Warrior underperforms severly in comparison to the other 2 tanks. It has no utility and lacks the damage to make up for that. In addition, the "new" rotation thats forced upon the class is much, much stricter, less dynamic, and more punishing. You have to hit certain timing windows in order to play the class effectively.

In general, I can savely say that both DRK and PLD are in a much, much better spot than WAR. Square Enix wanted to properly balance the tankclasses and, in trying to do so, made the current situation worse than before. Personally, I dont think playing WAR is worth it atm, though that might change in a week when they introduce the first few changes of the class.

[Heal_Bot]

Lots of information here to process.. I'll stick with warrior I suppose, and hope for retunning next week.

What about stats? I see on accessories that you can aim for STR or VIT. So I'm guessing trying to get an even balance is the goal there?

[Kaedan]

Bottom line is: You can choose any tank and do all the content in the game no problem assuming you have the skill. So just choose the tank you like stylistically.

However, PLD does it a lot more easily than the other two right now. We'll have to see what they do to fix WAR and DRK in the next few patches.

[Venoshock]

Warrior sucks ass now lol. Like it's really bad. The class us ultra clunky because of that fucking beast gauge wwhich takes away a whopping 50% of your current rage which a lot of your offensive GCDs that makes the class fun (fell cleaves, upheaval, inner release) are locked behind, so it puts you in a situation where you either stay in defiance for a while or stay in deliverance, changing too much means you're forever trying to build the gauge back up.
Optimal rotation is by far the most difficult to pull off and can change depending on fight phases, sudden pushes etc,the class has ZERO utility and does around the same dps as the other tanks....wtf is the point in warrior? there is none and until SE fixes this, you'll see a lot less of them, because I for one have and a lot pf warriors I know has quit playing that godawful class where you have to have a PhD in mathematics to pull an optimal rotation with very little reward (the same dps as the other tanks).

[Brownondorf]

i'm leveling war right now and i'm only lvl63 but it already feel clunky and swaping stance is really painfull. I'll stick to it in the hope that they apply a good fix to the job but as of now i dont have as much fun with war as i had in heavensward. The loss of Flash and bloodbath also hurt the job a lot!

[DWolfwood]

WAR is actually not in as bad a place as some would have you think. Back in 3.x, WAR was extremely easy to play, but now they've made it a lot more thought provoking and essentially made it more difficult for the majority of these players. Personally, the changes have reinvigorated my interest in it, as it was my main throughout ARR.

That said, WAR is now very unforgiving and it doesn't provide utility. Some want it to be buffed in the DPS department, but these people aren't seeing that the people pushing WAR are doing nearly what DPS jobs do already, so buffing it is not the solution. What it really needs is a buff in utility right now.

[Venoshock]

snip

What are you on about, mate? Warrior is in a very bad spot right now. You're at a huge disadvantange bringing one along. Why play or bring warrior along if its rotatation is the hardest to pull off which means the easist to mess up compared to the other two tanks, whilst doing the same or even less than (because fuck ups)? slashing debuff isn't really anythin anymore since -as it currently stands - any serious static will either have ninja or samurai. There's no reward for playing it personal or raidwide. the job has had it's balls cut off completely. The class needs to be reverted back to what it was in HW.