I'm not sure whether to Tank or DPS

[Akamukai]

Scratch that. New comment. xD

For tanks, your wait time will indeed be shorter, but honestly I'd just make friends with somebody who likes tanking sometimes also. People always talk like this game is a solo-game with the ability to queue, but there's a community out there. If you haven't found some in-game friends to do content with, you're missing out.

Regarding pressure on Tank vs. DPS, I don't really see a huge difference. On easy/standard content, nobody will be pressured because it's casual. On harder content, DPS can wipe the party as easily as the tank, because mechanics require everyone to do them. You'll naturally have some more attention as the tank since you aren't stacked, but if you're messing up as a DPS, we'll notice. Rather than trying to focus on a DPS vs. Tank, I'd play around with the specific classes themselves. My bard and Samurai felt quite different, as did DRK and PLD. A great way to play around with classes is to spam some Palace of the Dead. Good XP, and its a fast way to test out the classes.

[JediFirefly]

If you don't do progression raiding with a static, there's no particular need for you to main anything.

I'd say this is your best advice right here. I tend to bounce back and forth between everything. My current "main" is actually SCH lol.

Although I'm the exact opposite, I find tanking relaxing and DPS to be stressful.

[Cythil]

Thanks for the responses everyone. I've decided to go with DPS first (specifically Dragoon) and then once I've gotten to max level on that I'll begin leveling Paladin to max.

[Shougun]

Thanks for the responses everyone. I've decided to go with DPS first (specifically Dragoon) and then once I've gotten to max level on that I'll begin leveling Paladin to max.

Good luck and have fun!

[Leathium]

Well I used to be a bard when Stormblood was the end game, I had fun being a ranged dps role for quite sometime and it started to feel boring, so I decided to try tanking and I picked Dark knight as a starter and now I became addicted to tanking, but well whatever you feel enjoying more go with it, I honestly love to lead and always call things out or try to control how the battle goes, so I prefer to play tanks. ^^

[ZattanaWen]

I would definitely recommend DPS first. It's a less stressful way to get acclimated to the game, learn the dungeons, learn the role dynamics, etc.

And right now with so many people playing GNB, the queues are not as instant as they used to be.

A good way to kill time during DPS queues is to level gathering/crafting jobs. But really there's no end to the things you can do while you wait.

[Renato]

I may be the odd man out but I actually find DPS-ing to be more stressful than tanking. You're expected to memorize mechanics as well as your rotations and maintain DoTs for the highest damage output. It sounds and looks easy but for me personally, once the AoEs, target markers and other fight mechanics start getting thrown out, it throws me off.

I've been tanking for years and yes, it seems like a daunting task but literally for dungeon pulls, you run head first into combat, AoE then focus on damage mitigation, postioning and dodging over DPS. Boss fights are mostly the same, point the enenmy away from the party and focus on reducing damage to stay alive. I find it really satisfying using a party-wide AoE shield or using skills like Darkest Night, Cover or Intervention protecting party members from damage. Honestly, with the changes made to Tanks, they feel more like DPS with enmity skills in my opinion.

I would try both. Tanking really isn't as bad as people make it out to be. It's actually really satisfying.

[van_arn]

Do what you want to improve.

If you like optimizing defensive cooldowns, party-wide positioning, and enjoy thinking on a more strategic level then play a tank.

If you like the biggest numbers and want to find all of the ways to cheat death to make those numbers as big as they can possibly get then play dps.

If you don't want to take either path you don't want to be a dps or a tank. That doesn't mean you should play a healer.

If you don't want to improve, you don't want to play.

[Fhaerron]

Go tank.

It's far more easier to achieve your 100% DPS then on a DPS job.
Tank rotations are the easiest there is in the game.

The extra bonus is that you don't have to wait +30 min for your story dungeons.

[EdwinLi]

In my opinion...

go both but consider only for...

Tank for the causal dungeon contents so you can farm the tomestones faster.

DPS for the Raids so you can focus more on the boss and mechanics rather than boss, mechanics, team, your own HP, defense reduction time, and etc.


Tank Job is very heavy on responsibility when it comes to keeping yourself a live and trying to make things easier for the entire party but casual content should not have much issue with how you tank as long the group understands there should not be much of a big deal with casual contents since with small pulls healers have more room to DPS with the group and big pulls put Healer more focus on healing and less DPSing.