Tank role

[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.