Tanking with style

[DRKoftheAzure]

For style it depends on what you like. Gritty/tough animations, go with Gunbreaker. Pearlescent, nacreous animations, go with PLD. Shadowy and sensual, go with DRK.

Yeah it's mostly animations that tend to sell a class more over the others...

DRK's lost the most animations over the years, and PLD's never really lost any(I don't count the loss of certain defensives because they basically just Hallowed -1). Of course, DRK has also gained new animations this expansion... and if it still had the Power Slash combo, I'd probably never play anything else.

That is a mood right there, though "balance comes before fun" pretty much killed DRK for me...

WAR's animations suffer from basically being a lack of animation. Outside of its combos there's Fell Cleave and Decimate with truly noticeable animations, but Steel/Chaotic Cyclone basically get drowned out by the direct crits appearing on screen. I guess if you like staring at the damage text, then that's a style all its own, but honestly the animations themselves are mildly disappointing. It's lost the second most animations across tanks.

I never really liked WAR... only leveled it in Heavensward for it's cross class skills for DRK and boosted it to 60 and the grind the rest of the way... Never liked Fell Cleave spam and it killed my immersion of the class and any other class with Fell Cleave spam(PLD was the First with Holy Spirit Spam though I kind give PLD a pass though I do not like how the WAR and DRK got their own versions and DRK getting 2 discounted version)

Why PLD gets to to keep everything and only get better every expansion is beyond me, but there are other jobs like that as well so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Actually PLD lost Shield Swipe but kept Shield Bash... that one is beyond me...

GNB's single target rotation is very sexy and always feels fun at 70+. It's very cool looking. Its AOE rotation on the other hand is dog shit from an aesthetics stand point, since it's literally the same animation twice(one's CW other is CCW, whoopie), followed by that same animation, but now with booms, when you get the Powder Gauge AOE in the 70s. I kinda wish they'd lower the recast on Bowshock, as it's really cool looking, but GNB doesn't need to get any stronger.

Move Continuation to level 60, but lower its potencies by 100, make a trait that boosts the potencies by 100 per skill, and the level 90 trait boosts it even further by another 100 per skill. But GNB animations really sold me to play GNB and it's playstyle. As for Bow Shock I expect a trait that lowers its recast in the next expansion.

PLD's got some of the coolest animations now. I've never liked Royal Authority, it's too prissy for my tastes, but Atonement, Requiescat, Confiteor, Holy Circle, and Goring Blade really get my groove on.

Sword Oath spam could flow really nicely if you got Atonement spam at level 50 PLD quest, Rage of Halone replaces the last 2 Atonements at level 60 PLD quest, and Royal Authority replaces the second Rage of Halone at level 70 PLD quest(requires bringing back Savage Blade to actually work as how I described)