Of all the 4 tanks right now, how would you stack them against each other?

[Calcilis]

Gnb does have a spammable defensive CD, it's called heart of iron iirc

[Freyyy]

^ It's heart of stone

[Kazrah]

I think it depends on what you're doing.

Paladin looks like it wound up with a case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". It still stands as the king of defense, got more QoL goodies, and still seems like the prime choice for anyone who is either still new to tanking or just doesn't like change that comes with an expansion. Yes, block nerf sucks, but block's still there and is still pretty powerful.

Warrior I feel took the brunt of damage to identity with the change from being health and healing-based to winding up more in-line with other tanks in terms of passive mitigation, which does make it feel a teeny bit on the boring side. The upside is that it still does retain its more aggressive rampage-y gameplay and has also joined Paladin for being a good job for learning how to tank. At the end of the day, if you liked Warrior before, you'll still like it, and if you didn't like Warrior, then no one cares.

Dark Knight definitely wins the "most improved" award, and I'd argue that those whining about the job now are just players who got too used to how it was in Stormblood and need to move on with their lives. While it does lack a bit in the self-sustaining department compared to Paladin and Warrior, it definitely makes up for it with The Blackest Night being a lot more powerful and the satisfaction of popping Abyssal Drain on more than six targets. The only bit of advice I'd give though is not to get too cocky with TBN since that can promote bad gameplay, which usually leads to nerfs.

Gunbreaker....I'm thoroughly convinced that this isn't a tank. It feels like some dev designed it a DPS job saying "I'm a tank too" as a joke, and nobody got it. Its unique defensive cooldowns feel too much like an assortment of tinfoil hats, Aurora seems like a band-aid to fix a detached limb, and its the single closest job I've ever seen embodying the term "button bloat". While it can be fun to play at max level, that's still 20 levels of agonizing gameplay equivalent to driving a stick-shift with a shoddy transmission as you repeatedly faceplant that GCD timer. Sure, there will likely be some tweaks and adjustments along the way due to it being a new job. For now though, I'd only recommend it to people that want to play a tank, but don't actually want to tank.

[Exoxo]

Gunbreaker....I'm thoroughly convinced that this isn't a tank. It feels like some dev designed it a DPS job saying "I'm a tank too" as a joke, and nobody got it. Its unique defensive cooldowns feel too much like an assortment of tinfoil hats, Aurora seems like a band-aid to fix a detached limb, and its the single closest job I've ever seen embodying the term "button bloat". While it can be fun to play at max level, that's still 20 levels of agonizing gameplay equivalent to driving a stick-shift with a shoddy transmission as you repeatedly faceplant that GCD timer. Sure, there will likely be some tweaks and adjustments along the way due to it being a new job. For now though, I'd only recommend it to people that want to play a tank, but don't actually want to tank.

I'm going to miss this job when it's taken to the butcher's shed.

[Videra]

I'm going to miss this job when it's taken to the butcher's shed.

Likewise. Pre-emptive F.

[Conando]

I haven’t gotten a ton of time with all of them, but so far GNB feels way better than Warrior and Dark Knight. And out of the 3 WAR actually seems to have the toughest time with cooldowns. You would think camoflauge isn’t that useful, but it can tack 10% extra mitigation onto say Heart of Stone or Rampart. TBN is stupid good.

[Quri]

GNB is pretty fun, and it's the first class to reach 80. Took a bit to learn its cooldowns. Aurora is to be used in tandem with mitigation cooldowns and not as a oh shit button.

[Cessna]

having played drk and gunbreaker to 80 and warrior to 73 here's my thoughts.

Gunbreaker: Its rotation is fun, continuation is a great skill and the dancing and twirling explosion hits remind me of squals moveset from FF8. Great visually. However right now they have a glaring issue and its one still present from the media tour, their mitigation. I'm going to be real out of all of the tanks they are the most flimsy and death prone. Whats also wierd is baffling mitigation choices compared to the other tanks as well such as 15 second mitigation on heart of stone for example. They like dark knight lack a oh shit heal button as well which also makes it harder to take heavy oncomming damage like pld and warrior can. These are not tanks you want main tanking something. Their off tanking ability is more notable particularly aurora.

DRK: Ah the good ole edgelords and the poster boy of this expansion have earned a solid place in my heart. First up, their changes wonderful, much needed and much appreciated. flood of darkness and edge of darkness are two welcome additions, and definately make dark knight seem powerful. The blackest night changes are also welcome as they make a already op skill even better.
On the mitigation side while blackest night is a strong cooldown, dark knight still has weaker sustain and oh shit buttons and if placed on a boss that can hit through blackest night harshly its best to put them on off tank role if possible.

Warrior: Where do I start. While its mostly unchanged from stormblood (insert memes about warriors 4lyfe) there's one thing I'll say, our mitigation is just extordinary. On speed pulling dungeons out of all the tanks I'll played so far, warriors ability to mitigate raw incoming damage is just unmatched. Warrior now has the most cooldowns to use on ANY tank. More importantly they have gained many old mitigation options they have had before in terms of nasceant flash/glint as well as some ulitity as well. Warrior got a nice quality of life change with holmgang all though some could rightfully call that a nerf with the fact that holmgang has changed its stupidly unfair uptime of 180 seconds to 240 seconds which if we're being honest, we were kinda asking for that the way we were abusing that. I'll tell you what though, moving with holmgang is a strange experience but a welcome one so I'll take the 60 extra seconds nerf.

PLD: haven't played it but since their cooldown suite hasn't really changed I'll say this. They are unmatched in their ulitilty and their ability to shrug of hits is quite close or better than warrior. A solid Main tank choice if I ever saw one. Clemency is just awesome as well.

I can't speak about dps because I don't have the data on that so here's how I rate them mitigation wise from strongest to weakest

WAR
PLD
DRK
GNB.

In terms of ulitity I rate them as follows.

PLD
GNB
WAR
DRK

[PuddingEaters]

PLD
DRK
WAR/GNB

[Guhigh]

Here is my analysis of all the tank for early shadowbringer

DPS wise all tank are close enough to not really change a thing. From Ex fight parser uploaded the current dps order seem to be:

DRK #1
PLD #2
GNB #3
WAR #4

WAR : Now as for war is last make sense since they steam roll on critz. as item level rise and they keep stacking it, there dps should be back on top without even changing the potency. Same as BRD that started bellow WAR in dps every expansion and ended best dps at the end.

DRK : playstyle is oGCD lacing and with low latency you can lace 2 oGCD per GCD resulting in an absurd dps for people using vpn or being close to the server location.

PLD : God I can now kill stuff with big number... best hit in stormblood was 15k direct hit critz... now i see 30k+ AoE critz (no direct hit + critz for now) so it's now a mismatch of really small number and very big number.

GNB : Didn't play it much for now, passing comment for now


Playstyle while WAR and PLD feel like burst dps tank, you wait for you mana/gauge to fill then use your CD and spam your big move until the cd is gone. while GNB and DRK feel more like Sustain by lacing oGCD every where you can for maximum effect.
And here i'm not saying pld / war won't use resource outside there big CD, but there is really no point on pld since you melee rotation part match your mana spam cd, so unless you are away from boss and need to dodge and wait on boss no use in casting holy spirit. War will also use gauge here and there with oGCD or use it to shorten the recast time of inner release, but they will always make sure it will be full for the big burst.
Likewise i'm not saying that DRK and GNB won't wait for there resource to be full when they use there dps increase CD, but there is so many source of cartridge for GNB and good mana regen on DRK to simply sit on full resource until the CD is up, while you could lace oGCD here and there and still be full when the CD is up


For the tanking tool kit the ranking is as follow

#1 PLD
#2 WAR
#3 GNB
#4 DRK

PLD got best invincibility but as longest CD in the game. 2 raid damage protection, passage of arm that reduce ALL DMG by 15% and divine veil a shield of 10% your max hp that protect agains ALL DMG. a gauge use that reduce your dmg by 20% for 6 sec or a 10%+ on any single party member. cover that is now a last resort ass saver with it nerf (we now take full damage and can mitigate it with CD like before) cleamency that critz for 55k healing

WAR invulnerability have the shortest CD with 4 minutes and no weird gimmick on it. allowing WAR to solo nearly all dual tank buster solo in a fight. And they have shake it off to shield the party that block ALL DAMAGE type like PLD. and with "wasting buff" is the best party mitigation skill in the game.

GNB : invulnerability drop you to 1 hp them protect you from damage, I see a chance for waisting benedition here if it's casted a split second before GNB invulnerability. but is other wise nearly as good as the PLD one with a CD a bit shorter. they got good self healing and shielding in there rotation. they got a regen they can cast on self / party. they got a single target 15% reduction and a 10% MAGIC DMG reduction skill for all party.

DRK : INvulnerability is by far the weakest, you need to die under the buff then become invulnerable and will die at the end of the invulnerability unless healed to 100% hp. healer will need to waste resources to keep you alive or dedicate benediction it and making it unavailable as a pin pointed ass saver. They got a 25% hp shield on self or any party member and a 10% MAGIC DMG reduction on all party


So far the meta will be PLD and WAR because dps is close enough to not matter and they are the only tank with raid utility effective against all content.
For exemple Innocence Ultimate is phisical dmg and only pld and war have the toolkit to help the healer.


If i was a balancing staff member i'll do the following change:

WAR : either increase the duration of storm eye buff to allow more flexibility on rotation or give the buff to a oGCD like all other tank have
PLD : noting to change
DRK : increase there party magic resit from 10% to 15% and making them 20% easier to heal during there living dead buff
GNB : Switch there magic resist party buff to physical resist and buff it from 10% to 15%. In doing so, any combination of tank will have either a physical or magical party damage reduction with the other tank covering the other damage type with it's toolkit.