Who's good at what?

[Jscagg]

Between the three tanks, who's best at what? Who's the best magic/physical defense? Who's the best at aggro? What are their pros and cons? Who's most desired? Who has the highest dps? I'm trying to decide who to take to 70 between the three, and I can't decide fully. I have all three at 60 or just a bit higher, so I know the play styles, truth be told I like them all equally, so I can't just pick the one I like most.

I know these are noob questions, but I want to make an informed decision before spending hours grinding levels and gear. Thank you all for any help!

[Raldo]

You should play whichever one feels the most fun to you. The tanks are currently all quite well balanced. The answer to "Which job of [role] should I play?" is always "Unless you're raiding hardcore, it literally does not matter, and if you ARE raiding hardcore, then you should slot into whatever role makes the most sense for your party composition. Leveling jobs is easy."

With that said, here you go.

Who's best at what / What are their pros and cons:
PLD - Really easy to use competently. Generally, has the best survivability due to its shield and curing capability. Has the largest number of actions, so hotbar space can be an issue depending on how your UI is setup.
WAR - Great burst damage. Easiest to swap between tank and DPS stances due to them being off-GCD. Easiest to hold hate on dungeon trash due to all of its "hit everything" actions having a stupidly high enmity modifier on them.
DRK - Requires the most skill to play. You'll be hitting buttons a lot more than the other two. That's usually either an easy sell for why you'd want to play it, or a dealbreaker for why you don't.

Who has the best magic/physical defense:
PLD generally takes the least damage due to its shield. Aside from a single DRK ability that reduces magical damage, there's little difference between physical and magical damage. Hardcore raid groups tend to like having a WAR since its "I can't die" button (Holmgang) has the shortest cooldown (3min) compared to PLD (Hallowed Ground, 7min) and DRK (Living Dead, 5min).

Who's the best at aggro:
Aggro is so easy to hold, this question is irrelevant.

Who's most desired:
I generally hear the most complaints about DRKs, but the difference is minimal. I think DRK tends to get a bad rep simply because it takes more skill to play, so it's easier to encounter bad DRKs.

Who has the highest DPS:
The last tank assessment I saw showed them all within 1% of each other. WAR definitely has the highest burst damage though.

[Megguido]

You should play whichever one feels the most fun to you. The tanks are currently all quite well balanced. The answer to "Which job of [role] should I play?" is always "Unless you're raiding hardcore, it literally does not matter, and if you ARE raiding hardcore, then you should slot into whatever role makes the most sense for your party composition. Leveling jobs is easy."With that said, here you go.

Who's best at what / What are their pros and cons:
PLD - Really easy to use competently. Generally, has the best survivability due to its shield and curing capability. Has the largest number of actions, so hotbar space can be an issue depending on how your UI is setup.
WAR - Great burst damage. Easiest to swap between tank and DPS stances due to them being off-GCD. Easiest to hold hate on dungeon trash due to all of its "hit everything" actions having a stupidly high enmity modifier on them.
DRK - Requires the most skill to play. You'll be hitting buttons a lot more than the other two. That's usually either an easy sell for why you'd want to play it, or a dealbreaker for why you don't.

Who has the best magic/physical defense:
PLD generally takes the least damage due to its shield. Aside from a single DRK ability that reduces magical damage, there's little difference between physical and magical damage. Hardcore raid groups tend to like having a WAR since its "I can't die" button (Holmgang) has the shortest cooldown (3min) compared to PLD (Hallowed Ground, 7min) and DRK (Living Dead, 5min).

Who's the best at aggro:
Aggro is so easy to hold, this question is irrelevant.

Who's most desired:
I generally hear the most complaints about DRKs, but the difference is minimal. I think DRK tends to get a bad rep simply because it takes more skill to play, so it's easier to encounter bad DRKs.

Who has the highest DPS:
The last tank assessment I saw showed them all within 1% of each other. WAR definitely has the highest burst damage though.

If I may add something about what my fellow tank said:

Who's best at what / What are their pros and cons:
PLD - Really easy to get the damage rotation. Using its defensive kit right is the trickiest part (when to use Cover, Intervention, and Veil right mostly). Also has the best team support. Personnal mitigation is strong, but on long cooldown (once you used your Sentinel, you're kinda naked for the next 3mins). PLD has a hard time pulling without losing a ton of damage, unlike WAR/DRK.
WAR - Loses the least damage during initial threat generation during a pull (in a raid scenario).
DRK - DRK excels at personnal mitigation. It has the same damage potential as PLD but not as much party support. On the other hand, it has three powerful defensive abilities on medium to very short cooldown (2 min for the longest, 15s for the shortest).

Anyway, each tank duo is good, even at savage raiding levels. So I'd advise you to try each tank and see which gameplay fits you the most:

PLD - Has a strict damage rotation, with a 25s physical boost followed by a 12s magic burst, every minute. Very few damaging oGCD abilities.
WAR - Rotation is based on gauge management, and a HUGE 10s damage boost, every 90s. If you like big crits and going berserk you might like the job. Also has very few damaging oGCD abilities.
DRK - No proper rotation nor buff to maintain. Has to manage two gauges: mana and blood. Mana is used to boost the damage of most skills and for mitigation, blood is used to perform powerful attacks. Has to weave A LOT of oGCD abilities, which makes it higher paced than WAR/PLD, and requires you to press more buttons than WAR/PLD to play it right.