Tank role

[Tex_Mex]

=> Can you elaborate on this ?
I was still thinking PLD has the best toolkit of all 3 with shield blocks, defensive CDs, invul, etc.

As a slight warning, we are getting in to personal opinion with this statement and answer, so please take this with a grain of salt. Though many of my friends agree with this statement, many will not.

The key word in the statement I gave was "personal" mitigation tools. This refers to only tools that directly affect the user's defensive capabilities and does not include raid utility like divine veil, cover, intervention, etc. Those are all primarily "party" mitigation skills and if we were comparing the tanks based on those, nothing comes even close to PLD. Also, I won't cover role actions like rampart for obvious reasons.
For me, I like to compare these jobs based on skills that are similar, or serve similar functions, that way it is easier to make a job comparison.

Generic Damage Skills: WAR wins this round
DRK - Shadow Wall - 30% DR for 10 sec. 120 sec CD - This ability got even better with 4.3. The reduced CD is great and elevates this above Sentinel, but it is still significantly behind Vengeance.
PLD - Sentinel - 40% DR for 10 sec. 180 sec CD - The 3 minute CD is what really sets this ability behind. Is it really worth another entire minute of CD for only 10% more DR than Shadow Wall or Vengeance? No, considering that 10% is very VERY rarely the difference between life and death during a tank buster.
WAR - Vengeance - 30% DR for 15 sec. 120 sec CD. Deals Damage back to attackers - This skill is simply a better Shadow Wall. 5 more seconds of DR and damage return with the same CD? WAR easily has the best of these 3 comparable CD's

Invulnerability Skills: WAR wins again
DRK - Living Dead - Invulnerability for 10 seconds but fatal if you do not receive healing equal to your entire life pool, 5 min CD - This ability is a meme for a reason. It can be alright in the right situation, but this rarely happens. It also forces your healers to put big heals on you, instead of being able to focus on the rest of the party, or else you die...... C'mon, who thought this was a good idea?
PLD - Hallowed Ground - Complete Invulnerability for 10 seconds. 7 minute CD - Sounds absolutely amazing right!!?? Until you look at that 7 minute CD. That is an eternity considering most fights only last in the 6-15 minute range. Plus the skill has a really terrible animation delay from when you activate it to when you actually become invulnerable. The delay is near 1 second, which never matters in raiding, but is very detrimental in most other content. The number of times I have used this skill, had it go on CD, and then still died because I fell to 0 while in the delay period is ridiculous.
WAR - Holmgang - Cannot drop below 1 hp for 6 seconds - 180 sec CD - The CD is what makes this skill so freaking good. only 3 minutes means that this can be up for half of the tank busters in most fights. There is virtually no delay on the animation as well, making it great in non raiding content as well. The lower duration rarely matters either, since most tank busters are over within 6 seconds anyways. Overall, this skill gets the job of survival done, lets the party ignore tank busters more often, and is a great panic button.

3rd slot Skills: WAR wins in mostly physical fights, DRK wins in mostly magical fights
PLD - 60% Block Rate for 15 sec. 180 sec CD - This skill got drastically better in 4.X when blocking got buffed to reduce magic damage as well. This is a very solid skill. but the 3 minute CD holds it back a bit
WAR - Raw Intuition - 100% parry Rate from front (auto crits from behind) for 20 sec. 90 sec CD - Longer duration, lower CD, higher parry rate. The only major downside can be nullified by using Awareness from role class abilities. The weakness of this skill is that parry only reduces physical damage, so this skill is useless versus magic damage
DRK - Dark Mind - 30% Magic Damage Reduction for 10 seconds. 60 sec CD - This skill is massively overpowered in fights that have a focus on magic damage. Otherwise, it is terrible.

Additional Skills: DRK wins easy
PLD - Shelltron - Guaranteed Block for 1 attack. No CD, but uses 50 Oath Gauge - This skill is very good, but has some glaring weaknesses. Only blocking 1 attack makes this ability only useful on tankbusters, and even then some tank busters are multi-hit, reducing this abilities usefulness. Can be really good on some fights, but below average on others.
WAR - Inner Beast - 20% DR for 6 seconds. No CD but costs 50 beast gauge - It is a shame that Warriors have to be in Defiance to use this, otherwise it would be the strongest defensive ability in the game IMO. The penalty for WAR stance switching is smaller than other jobs, but you still have to spend 10 seconds in Defiance once you switch, which is a pretty big DPS loss. Plus, who wants to spend beast gauge on something that isn't Fell Cleave or Decimate?
DRK - The Blackest Night - 20% HP Barrier for 7 sec on a 15 sec CD. And you can use it on other party members for a 10% Shield. Plus gives 50 blood - OK, this ability rocks. One of the best tanking abilities in the game with the low CD. The MP Cost kind of stinks, but this ability needed to have at least one drawback.

Additional abilities not mentioned -
Thrill of Battle - Most WAR's only use this to boost Upheaval damage, so it rarely matters as a defensive CD.
Shake it Off - This is primarily used as a party raid damage mitigation ability. The damage reduction is not high enough to matter most of the time.
Passage of Arms - Sure, this gives 100% block rate for 18 seconds. Oh but you can't move, or attack, or think.......... Joking aside, this is a party damage mitigation tool primarily, and it is amazing at that job.
Equilibrium/Clemency/Sole Survivor - Healing is great, but you will be taking so much damage that these self heals won't matter all that much in the long run.

Conclusion - To me the WAR personal mitigation skills are quite a step up from the other tanks. Shorter CD's for similar or even better effects in most cases. If the WAR does struggle somewhere, it is in the magic damage reduction department, but this is partially offset by Holmgang, Vengeance, and Inner Beast. Another good note from all this comparing is that the DRK personal mitigation is quite good as well, being better than PLD in that area IMO with the buffs from 4.3. DRK has virtually no party support though, so in that regard, it is still quite a ways behind the other 2 tanks.

[Megguido]

Conclusion - To me the WAR personal mitigation skills are quite a step up from the other tanks. Shorter CD's for similar or even better effects in most cases. If the WAR does struggle somewhere, it is in the magic damage reduction department, but this is partially offset by Holmgang, Vengeance, and Inner Beast.

You can't quite compare every defensive ability from each tank, one by one, and say "hey WAR has more good abilities, he's better !". You have to look at the big picture. WAR has a lot of good abilities, but he lacks a good "on-demand" mitigation, as Inner Beast makes it lose tons of damage (forced to switch to tank stance, drop gauge on something else than Fell Cleave). WAR can't use Sentinel + Sheltron to reduce a hit by like 60%, nor reduce by 30% and have a 13k HP buffer on top of it.

Take apart, Vengence is very powerful, but compare it to Sentinel + Sheltron, or Shadow Wall + TBN, and it's not that overpowered.

From experience, playing the 3 tanks, PLD has the "weakest" personal mitigation. Sentinel is strong, but once that and Rampart are used, you're kinda naked for the next 90 seconds. You only have Sheltron to mitigate.

WAR on the other hand has to pair its cooldowns to make it really effective. Using only a Vengence on an Arm & Hammer in O7S is not really enough, unless your team helps you with a Palissade / Benison for example. What makes WAR so strong is that they can negate almost every tankbuster with Holmgang, and blow all the other mitigation abilities on AoEs, auto-attacks etc. WAR isn't OP because Vengence is 5s longer and boosts its DPS by like 0.5%.

On physical-only fights, DRK is a bit behind PLD, mitigation-wise. It has a weaker Sentinel, but with a shorter recast, and a 13k HP shield instead of a 28% mitigation on-demand block. But in magic heavy fights, DRK is near unkillable. And since most of the fights from both Delta and Sigma are focused on magic damage, DRK has the best mitigation out of the three tanks IMO.

[Tex_Mex]

You can't quite compare every defensive ability from each tank, one by one, and say "hey WAR has more good abilities, he's better !". You have to look at the big picture. WAR has a lot of good abilities, but he lacks a good "on-demand" mitigation, as Inner Beast makes it lose tons of damage (forced to switch to tank stance, drop gauge on something else than Fell Cleave). WAR can't use Sentinel + Sheltron to reduce a hit by like 60%, nor reduce by 30% and have a 13k HP buffer on top of it.

Take apart, Vengence is very powerful, but compare it to Sentinel + Sheltron, or Shadow Wall + TBN, and it's not that overpowered.

That is a fair point. In situations where multiple skills need to be utilized in order to mitigate maximum damage, WAR does have to make a DPS tradeoff while other tanks do not. I disagree with the notion that comparing abilities is an ineffective way to draw comparisons. We may disagree on how good or bad some abilities are, resulting in different opinions, but skill comparisons are one of the only ways to effectively compare jobs, because it allows for some objectivity. As far as Vengeance, I never said it was overpowered, just very good. It is objectively better than its counterparts.

From experience, playing the 3 tanks, PLD has the "weakest" personal mitigation. Sentinel is strong, but once that and Rampart are used, you're kinda naked for the next 90 seconds. You only have Sheltron to mitigate.

I totally agree with you here.

WAR on the other hand has to pair its cooldowns to make it really effective. Using only a Vengence on an Arm & Hammer in O7S is not really enough, unless your team helps you with a Palissade / Benison for example. What makes WAR so strong is that they can negate almost every tankbuster with Holmgang, and blow all the other mitigation abilities on AoEs, auto-attacks etc. WAR isn't OP because Vengence is 5s longer and boosts its DPS by like 0.5%.

To be fair, if you are not getting any party support in 8 man content, then something is wrong. You mentioned a couple of abilities, but there is also reprisal, The Blackest Night, Cover, and many more abilities that are available to the MT depending on party composition. High end groups are not going to have any problem utilizing these CD's to make an individual tanks skills go much further. In all other content, nothing hits hard enough for you to ever need to stack defensive abilities.

WAR isn't OP because Vengence is 5s longer and boosts its DPS by like 0.5%.

Same as above, I never called WAR OP, I was simply elaborating on why I think the job is strong in the personal mitigation area, and doing so with objective comparisons between abilities. Overall, I don't believe that any of the tanks are OP right now. If I had to rate them for overall usability, PLD would be the strongest overall, followed by WAR, and then DRK bringing up the rear. This is because I tend to greatly value the party support that the class brings. But none of them are unplayable or unusable. They are all very capable.

[Megguido]

I did say it the wrong way.

What I meant is more like: WAR's defensive capabilities are strong because Holmgang has such a short recast cooldown compared to the other two tanks. It's just lots of people complain how Vengence is ten light years ahead of Shadow Wall and that's why DRK needs a buff.

Overall, I don't believe that any of the tanks are OP right now. If I had to rate them for overall usability, PLD would be the strongest overall, followed by WAR, and then DRK bringing up the rear. This is because I tend to greatly value the party support that the class brings. But none of them are unplayable or unusable. They are all very capable.

Pretty much this. All three tanks are really well balanced right now. Not perfectly balanced, so there's still a "worst" tank, but each one have their pros and cons.

In my opinion:
- WAR has the highest damage output, and a party-wide shield that you can abuse to boost the limite break gauge.
- PLD has the worst personal mitigation but the best team support.
- DRK has the best personal mitigation and about the same damage potential as PLD, but almost no party support.