Dungeons, WAR vs DRK

[winsock]

Hello, PLD main here. Im looking for some recommendations on whether to push WAR or DRK to 80. I'll eventually do both regardless, but idk what they're like in ShB or what I might prefer more.

I'm really just looking for another tank class to change things up occasionally, but being a PLD main, I only really plan on using the other tank class for dungeons / roulettes every so often.

In particular, one of the things I like most about PLD is just how hard in can carry a dungeon pug when the going gets rough, such as a healer dying. I recently got GNB to 80 and it just doesn't have the sustainability I was hoping for in a dungeon PUG, so I was wondering: If the healer bites the dust in a dungeon, does WAR or DRK fair better?

[Lucy_Pyre]

-snip-

If your primary concern is being able to salvage things if a healer dies, then Warrior is by and far superior to Dark Knight, with one caveat. That caveat is under the assumption that at least one of your DPS remains alive. If that happens then Warrior can use Nascent Flash every 25 seconds to heal through the boss's damage and eventually kill it. However, if both of the DPS and the healer dies then Warrior is as screwed as any non-PLD tank.

Outside of that very specific niche, I would say that Dark Knight is superior in dungeons. Not only is TBN amazing in every piece of in-game content, but Dark Knight's AoE is extremely powerful. This is not to say that Warrior's is bad, but as with everything about Warrior it comes in very short burst spurts that is entirely tied to Infuriate and Inner Release; once those cooldowns have been used you're left spamming your basic AoE combo with only the occasional AoE gauge spender that, outside of Inner Release's direct crits, doesn't do a whole lot of damage. Dark Knight, on the other hand, has what more or less equates to Inner Release + Decimate spam with Delirium + Quietus spam. However, it has other things to use on top of that. Flood of Shadow is a 300 potency line AoE that can be used either with 3,000 MP or by consuming a Dark Art's proc (granted by having TBN's shield be broken via damage, making the ability a net 3,000 mana positive skill, as you get the 3,000 mana worth of shielding and, once it breaks, can consume Dark Art's for a use of Edge/Flood of Shadow which would otherwise cost another 3k mana). Plus, Dark Knight's damage isn't entirely linked to Delirium like Warrior's is to Inner Release, so even if you start a trash pull and/or boss with that on cooldown you still have access to multiple other DPS cooldowns in the form of Blood Weapon and Living Shadow.

The overall winner, by a landslide, is Dark Knight imo. That is not to say that Warrior isn't functional, it very much still is. Dark Knight just does the job better. The only real potential negative for Dark Knight is that if you outgear dungeons significantly (my tanks are all BiS [470] and Twinning, for instance, is a 410 ilvl instance. So I'm 60 ilvls over it) then it's possible for TBN to actually be too powerful. Meaning that the mobs do such little damage that it's possible that TBN will not be broken before its 7 second duration expires. However, this mostly only ever happens if you pair TBN with a cooldown like Rampart/Shadow Wall. My recommendation for mobs is to gather them all up, TBN yourself, and only after it breaks to them pop Rampart, Shadow Wall, Reprisal, or Arm's Length. Rather than pairing the shield with a cooldown in these types of situations you would treat it like its own separate cooldown and rotate it between other cooldowns instead.

Edit: Plus, let's be honest, who doesn't giggle at pressing TBN before a boss does a tankbuster and then seeing a big "0" pop up above your character when it hits you? Yep, at 470 ilvl against bosses in Twinning and Akadaemia, Dark Knight can block the full damage of tankbusters with TBN (not even needing to add a cooldown like Rampart or Shadow Wall to do it). Only after the following auto attack from the boss will the shield break at that high of an ilvl. It's quite amusing.

[ReiMakoto]

If youre just doing dungeons it doesn't really matter as they can be cleared with 4dpsm but if youre looking for that "carry potential" then WAR has more than DRK as Nascent Flash allows them to keep another party member and themselves healed up, as well as equilibrium giving war great burst healing, if you know what youre doing most dungeon bosses would be soloable on either if everyone bites the dust, but when it comes to soloing drk has the edge because Nascent Flash has a targetting requirement. Both of them however should make dungeons go pretty smooth in general, both of them require far less healing than a pld due to nascent flash and TBN making them largely more tanky in large packs, and dealing way more uniterrupted damage, as well as having more cds in the case of WAR.

[winsock]

oh wow, thanks guys. Originally, I came into this thinking DRK. I've heard TBN is really good and that either one would just need to sustain the best they could and just let the dps do as much as they could before they inevitably died. I had no idea WAR could keep a party member alive. I'm sold. Thanks for the info!

[Malmstrom]

Obligatory "they are both the same job now" comment.

[Rubytoe]

Drk = more AOE damage, less defense.
War = less AOE damage, more defense.

If your healer is good, your gear isn't terrible, and you actually use your defensives correctly... then Drk will clear a dungeon faster.
This applys for lvl 30 - 80 dungeons.

If warrior had inner release for every big pull then it would trash drk in Aoe damage, but sadly it does not.

[DRKoftheAzure]

GNB and PLD has more Damage output than both WAR and DRK, though GNB plays more like a DPS, and PLD can still carry a dead group if you're really good at PLD healing...

[Hierro]

In my opinion, because I play DRK and WAR extensively, I think they're both equal in dungeons when it comes to clearing trash. In terms of soloing bosses, WAR is better but DRK can be surprisingly resilient when you neglect bloodspiller in favor of accessing your SE heal as much as possible while spamming TBN too.

Now, despite the fact I think they're both equal, I would recommend DRK because WAR's style of using nascent flash tends to scare a lot of healers-- Healers seeing a yo-yoing HP bar tend to turn into curebots. Not always, and not with healers who can understand what's going on, but that's not something that happens with DRK.

[Nedkel]

GNB and PLD has more Damage output than both WAR and DRK, though GNB plays more like a DPS, and PLD can still carry a dead group if you're really good at PLD healing...

GNB has higher dps on single target, but AOE is almost 2 times weaker than that of DRK. His aoes are lackluster and im not taking the number out of thin air, but from logs looking at the top dps tank players.

OP if you are looking for the best tank to do dungeons with then go for DRK, he is phenomenal tank thanks to the shield and good amount of AOE damage.

[VenKitsune]

DRK and WAR are the two most defensive tanks now, so either works, its not like dungeons are very hard content so it really doesnt matter what you play in them. That being said, i prefer DRK in dungeons over WAR for two reasons - #1: TBN and #2: WAR's aoe's start with a cone, which is annoying.