which tank?

[Jilliebeans]

hey! I am looking to try out tank but I never play a tank before in any MMO so I do have a few questions about being a tank.

Which tank is the easiest?
Which tank doesnt have too many skills or rotation required? I am looking at PLD right now and it seem a bit overwhelmed with too many skills =/

thank you!!

[Mchappy]

I reckon you’ll be getting a variety of replies depending on the person’s preference. My experience with tanking is very small but I’ll try to help out.

If you’re looking for a tank that doesn’t have too many skills, I’ve heard that WAR is fairly easy to pick up this expansion. Almost boring (but again, that’s coming from tank mains).

If you’re looking for something fun, to me, GNB feels the most rewarding. It has a fair amount of skills but it’s not too hard to learn. It’s new, flashy, and feels pretty good in the damage department.

[Leiron]

Do you like big crits? Warrior.
Fast paced gameplay? Gunbreaker
More utility? Paladin
Impressive visuals? Dark Knight

All the tanks are equally capable of tanking.
In terms of damage, the only ones lagging behind is dark knight according to fflogs.

Otherwise, you can play anything and succeed.

[ItMe]

Which tank is the easiest?

Not GNB (it has a GCD combo and an GCD combo and doing them both can get in the way of using your tank abilities if you're not ready for things).

Which tank doesnt have too many skills or rotation required? I am looking at PLD right now and it seem a bit overwhelmed with too many skills =/
thank you!!

Paladin's rotation is basically: combo A, combo B, combo A, combo C, repeat.
It's pretty simple, though DRK and WAR have even more straightforward rotations if that's still sounding overwhelming.

[Sqwall]

I would like to mention PLD, and WAR start at level 1 unless you buy a level skip potion.

DRK and GNB start at 30 and 60 respectively. DRK may have a leg up here in understanding the job over GNB since the level 60 dungeons are very wall to wall pull style, where the lower level dungeons from 30 tend to have more team oriented and job knowledge mechanics to them. Temple of Quarn, Brayflox Longstop, Dazmel Darkhold, etc.

I would like to also say PLD and WAR have really good opportunities to level and understand tanking in general with less emphasis on tense moments during dungeons.

WAR is the scrappy tank imo. At low levels it's great DPS that stays with it throughout it's leveling to 80. At 80 it is SOOOO good at staying alive, and from a healer point of view...I LOVE healing warriors. They life steal with Nascent Flash, large insta heal with equilibrium, and great high damage avoidance with Thrill of Battle. With mitigation that rivals other tanks WAR is very bombastic and never seems down for the count when against the ropes. WAR is the comeback tank to me.

PLD is THE turtle tank! At low levels it is very hard to get the upperhand on a paladin when tanking. They have the best mitigation in the game as far as a WHOLE kit goes. Sentinel, Sheltron, Divine Veil, Intervention, Passage of Arms, Hallowed Ground. It's VERY hard to kill a GOOD paladin, and even harder to drop a full group with paladin present. It's combo is separated with physical and then magic. Paladin is elegant to me.

DRK is just....very spring operated. It feels like it's wound up and then releases the pressure. The feeling of building pressure is amazing with DRK and when it unwinds? WOW! DRK mitigation is on the level of GNB or WAR, but with one glaring exception. The Blackest Night. This skill is the crux of DRK and is the single most best mitigation skill in the game for the tanks. Short cooldown, strong mitigation, and when preformed correctly rewards with a free oGCD damage buff/extender. DRK is VERY resource management heavy, but has great rewards if done well. DRK has to constantly be going back and forth with when to mitigate and when to damage. I would say this job needs the most practice and self control to play.

GNB is basically Devil May Cry in FFXIV and is crazy fast DPS. Continuation makes the class what it is and you don't get that until level 70. GNB is what happens when SE fat fingers the role button and hit's tank instead of DPS.

[shao32]

Tanking in SHB is braindead easy right now and with the simplification of the jobs any tank is to easy to pick and master for the good and the bad, DRK and WAR are the most simple and less complex tanks of the moment, pretty easy to pick and use, the jobs are just to simple to operate you basically will spend a lot of time watching netflix when playing with them when you know how they work and turst me DRK mp management is as easy like PLD since the usage it's almost the same, PLD and GNB are more rigid and complex to play and require to stay more focus on they rotations but not so much compared to WAR and Dark WAR, still very rewarding to play when you now how to use them so if you feel atracted by PLD give it a try, all tanks are way more simple than any of the DPS so there is no wrong choice for casual tanking.

[Baxcel]

Tanking has become very easy since ShB released.. if you've never tanked before I would suggest starting with Warrior or Paladin the low level start an fleshed out quests really hell to show the ropes on starting to tank..

Once you have a grap on the basics of tanking.. probably do some content that requires tank swaps to get use to swaps and being main an off tank in one fight.. then look at Dark Knight an Gunbreaker.

Overall Drk an War are currently built the same.. build a Guage an use a burst mode for damage.

Gun plays like a pds class an feels a bit more squishy compared to the other tanks (my current main)

Pally has a lot of utility with its magic an physical rotations an self heal.. its mostly played as offtank but can easily main tank too.

The choice really comes down to what feels good for you, but I really would recommend starting with the 2 tanks that begin at lv1

[Jirah]

i recommend do a YT search on all of their basic performances in trials and dungeons, I don’t recommend looking up guides as they are long and somthing on deaf ears if you dislike the job