Is Warrior the weakest of the tanks?

[aqskerorokero]

Never liked WAR for the playstyle back then, does not appeal to me now.....

[Umbeliel]

Objectively, yes it's weak. Subjectively, you'll find a lot of people defending it with reasoning that often boils down to "I'm happy with it so it's not weaker than the others."

Also objectively drk is worse. Be a Paladin if you care about output at all. The difference isn't gigantic, which is why a lot of people can get away with trying to defend it.

[Paiyne]

Worst dps rotation in terms of difficulty as it's similar to BLM in that you need to know fights to maximize cool down usage, and we get punished very hard if you misuse zerk - or god forbid ir zerk.

But it has the best defensives too, but also the worst tank stance if you turtle tank. So it's swings and roundabouts really. For OPs use just find a tank you enjoy and play it, not even a main. All three work as is and in theory patching should only improve things.

[RLofOBFL]

To TC, it doesn't matter. Every tank works. If you like WAR then play it. It's also the easiest to keep aggro and its burst and overall dps is higher than the others, it also has the best defense if you are mting in dps stance due to its many short cds.

Whatever imbalance the tanks may have had at launch have been mostly straightened out. PLD is only considered "better" due to its "utility", so you would probably want one when progging savage, it also does the highest damage in 100% tank stance.

[aleph_null]

Worst dps rotation in terms of difficulty as it's similar to BLM in that you need to know fights to maximize cool down usage, and we get punished very hard if you misuse zerk - or god forbid ir zerk.

Every job that has dps cooldowns need to know the fights to do well. You think pld pops requiescat and fof whenever they want? If anything their "burst" duration is longer than war's berserk (20s/60s) since they have ~23s of fof and ~12s of requiescat, and the latter even reduces your mobility, which requires you to know mechanics timings very accurately (for example o4s blizzard 3 and delta attack: can I finish x casts of holy spirits before the aoe explodes). Inner release rotation is also not as punishing as pre 4.05, back then you'd lose one fell cleave if you even miss a gcd, now you only lose 1-2 onslaughts at worst, unless you died or went full retard and have near empty gauge when inner release is up. Aligning inner release and/or berserk with raid buffs (trick, litany, voice, hypercharge, etc) also works the same way as how pld aligns their requiescat with those buffs. The only thing about war rotation that's arguably harder than other tanks is infuriate usage outside berserk, to maximize the benefit of the new trait, but once you've mapped all your gcds in the phase/fight that's not a problem.

[Jandor]

As I understand it, it has the highest personal DPS and the best defensive cooldown suite, it's just a very selfish tank and doesn't bring any utility to the group. Squeezing that high DPS out of it can also be a pain in some fights.

It's certainly not weak.

[Launched]

I'd say it has more mitigation than any other tank. Not to mention Holmgang, arguably the best tank invuln due to the short CD. In O1s you can Holmgang both Twinbolt after Charybdis combos, in O2s you can holmgang every tankbuster, in O3s you can Holmgang every other Critical Hit, and in O4s you can cheese the tank swaps for Thunder and for Delta Attack, making the fight quite a bit easier.

Cooldowns don't make a difference. Anything beyond what you need to comfortably survive is pretty much a waste. A PLD/DRK combo can tank any fight easily, and swapping one out for a WAR doesn't mean you'll see any noticeable dps increase from less tank stance or more healer dps uptime. Right now PLD/DRK has the 5 fastest kills on both A3S and A4S, so where does WAR's supposedly superior mitigation and dps actually make a difference? There are fast WAR groups too, of course, but why doesn't WAR outperform the other two in speedruns where utility is less important and maximising dps is incredibly important?

In O2S you can LD > HG > LD the first 3 Evilspheres, and at this point I don't think groups should be seeing the 4th. I'm sure there are plenty of average groups not even seeing the 3rd now. In O4S you can LD all 3 Delta Attacks and have Hallowed for the 1st and 3rd Double Attacks. O3S isn't really threatening when all 3 tanks gain a ~33% mitigation cooldown from Awareness. You can mitigate a lot of Critical Hit's damage with just Awareness, TBN, Sheltron/Intervention and Cover, leaving other cooldowns like Rampart and Shadow Wall free for autoattacks.

Holmgang is great, but its strength is exaggerated. All 3 tanks can tank any fight just fine, and it's completely unnecessary even for speedruns which is shown by all the groups that don't have a WAR. Why rely so much on a cooldown that leaves you at 1hp when you have "free" skills like Sheltron/Intervention and TBN to make everything survivable? You'll need healing either way unless you use Defiance for Equilibrium, which you really don't want to do.

[silverlunarfox]

War isnt weak its just not always fully utilized by people playing them...

Drk i just started my grind up to 70 from 60 and I just don't even know about them....They just seem to be in a very strange place...Not bad, just...idk....

[Galgarion]

. I was talking to some buddies yesterday, and they said that WAR is just too weak/squishy and not worth even leveling. Is this true?

No, it isn't true. Your buddies don't know what they're talking about. The only sin warriors have against them is lack of utility. Anyone saying they're squishy and weak is an idiot, though.

[ArianeEwah]

Aside from TBN I think DRK is the weakest tank right now. Its dmg output is mostly below PLD, has less utility and is IMHO awful to play compared to both other tank jobs. (Not actually bad, yet I couldn't get myself to love this job.)

Idk, excluding dungeon runs, DRK has the lowest enmity generation kit of all tanks. Single target enmity is a pain, specially if your party (or OT in general) don't contribute anything into aggro controll, i.e. diversion/shirk. Your enmity combo doesn't give you neither mana nor blood gauge, and has lower DPS then your (no DA) Soul Eater combo. And take TBN away, their mitigation kit vs non-magical attacks is awful, too, and they lose their only utility skill. DRK is not bad, but the design has flaws.

WAR has the highest dmg output and has fairly short CDs on its defensive skills. This makes the job less squishy as long as those skills are used. Also, to dump overflowing beast gauge, you gotta squeeze some Onslaughts here and there, so holding aggro even without enmity combo and in DPS stance is pretty easy compared to other tank jobs.

PLD has the most simple rotation of all tanks and pretty decent dmg output. Their passive ability to block (as long as shield is equiped) any attack and proc Shield Swipe provides additional hate generation, damage dealt to target and reducing damage recieved. PLD can heal itself, provide shields for party and reduce incoming damage with Passage of Arms. (Also Cover is awesome on a single party member.) Only downside are their long defensive CDs, a trade-off for the ability to block.

If I had to make a ranking:
1. PLD
2. WAR
3. DRK

PLD slightly ahead because they've got an awesome utility kit and a simple rotation.
Through WAR is my fav job, I feel like it's solo mitigation skills, missing utility and just slightly higher DPS output compared PLD, doesn't make it better than PLD. WAR is still in a good spot and the easiest job to hold aggro in DPS stance.