Easiest rotation to maintain over a long fight

[Equitable_Remedy]

I'm not asking about openers, but rather which tank has the easiest rotation to maintain over the course of a long fight.

I'm leveling my first tank, a DRK, and I'm finding tracking mana, blood gauge, and blood weapon/delirium cooldowns to be difficult on top of tanking/mitigating/etc.—I probably just need to play more as the tanking side is totally new to me. (I also once felt the same about my current main, NIN, and now I find that to feel really good and natural over the course of a long fight. Hitting trick every 60 seconds and setting everything up to be crammed in that 15-second window flows well for me.)

I'm enjoying DRK and still interested in exploring tanking, but I'm trying to decided if I should give the other tanks a try. (I should add that I'm not particularly interested in WAR, so PLD or GNB, really.) I'm not orange parsing the latest savage content, but I don't want to be a scrub.

I'd also appreciate any insight on the topic. Thanks!

[shao32]

DRK and WAR are the most easy tanks of the moment, DRK works with 60s burst windows where they spend 10s throwing all his oGCD and burning they MP betwen soul etaer combo and then spend 50s doing absolutely nothing but soul eater with a ocasional bloodspiller and Delirium spam when it comes that's it, the MP slowly fills up on your extensive 50s downtime to be ready to the next edge spam fest so you basically don't need to look at it much, and ignore his darkside gauge it's totally useless, it's basically the most easy job of the game along WAR right now.

WAR is the same as DRK since both share the same gauge structure but WAR don't have a spam your oGCD window, they instead generate more fell cleaves during his rotation and they have the same dinamic, long downtime until burst window witch is inner release, the delirium twin brother, but WAR have some extra things to focus on it, when it's down is just boring downtime, enjoy.

[ItMe]

WAR by a mile.
I swear to God sometimes it feels like it has almost as few actions per minute as BLM.

PLD has, like, 3 different combos it changes between.
GNB is the busiest tank job to the point where it can be hard to find time to push your tank buttons.
If you're happy with DRK it's a great pick, otherwise I'd recommend giving WAR another try.

[Ultimatecalibur]

PLD has, like, 3 different combos it changes between.

PLD might have the most "combos" and a burst phase that uses a different set of buttons but it is probably the most stable base* rotation that repeats every minute.

GB combo (pop Fight or Flight before hitting GB) ->[RA combo -> Atonement x3]-> GB combo -> RA combo ->[Atonement x3 -> (Requiescat) Holy Spirit x4] -> Confiteor-> Repeat from the beginning

Spirits Within gets pushed on cooldown sometime in the square bracket areas. The only real instability is Circle of Scorn with its 25s cooldown which causes it to drift out of sync with the rest of the rotation.

*This is the base rotation and not the optimized version which keeps GB up 100% and involves Atonement shifting.

[ItMe]

snip

Yup.
They're not hard.
I just find DRK and WAR have the easiest tank rotation to maintain over a long fight.

[Ariel_Valmont]

Definitely Warrior, although Gunbreaker is busy, it’s rotation is more simple than DRK imo and would put that ahead of it, PLD is definitely the most complex, but also feels the most boring for some reason, I’m not sure how they managed that.

[Undeadfire]

PLD might have the most "combos" and a burst phase that uses a different set of buttons but it is probably the most stable base* rotation that repeats every minute.

GB combo (pop Fight or Flight before hitting GB) ->[RA combo -> Atonement x3]-> GB combo -> RA combo ->[Atonement x3 -> (Requiescat) Holy Spirit x4] -> Confiteor-> Repeat from the beginning

Spirits Within gets pushed on cooldown sometime in the square bracket areas. The only real instability is Circle of Scorn with its 25s cooldown which causes it to drift out of sync with the rest of the rotation.

*This is the base rotation and not the optimized version which keeps GB up 100% and involves Atonement shifting.

You pop FoF after Riot Blade if you run 2.43-2.42 GCD, pop before Riot Blade if you run 2.40 GCD. 1st opener it's Atonement 3x due to trick attack + Pot, then you know from the optimal rota. In case of Finicky fights, you can open Goring > Pot > Reqs as a starter, This was the optimal rota for starting E8S.

[FallenWings]

If you ever want to reach that point, GNB is the easiest tank to optimize by far with no changes in their rotation. The class quite literally plays itself every single fight and your only considerations are popping defensive before NM Gnashing Fang windows and movement during Gnashing Fang windows. It is just busy and looks intimidating at first but comparatively is the most unga bunga tank to play at max optimization next to WAR.

DRK by contrast is very easy to play if you don't bother to care about BW and burst windows. Really free flow and low stress for prog.

[Absurdity]

If you ever want to reach that point, GNB is the easiest tank to optimize by far with no changes in their rotation. The class quite literally plays itself every single fight and your only considerations are popping defensive before NM Gnashing Fang windows and movement during Gnashing Fang windows. It is just busy and looks intimidating at first but comparatively is the most unga bunga tank to play at max optimization next to WAR.

DRK by contrast is very easy to play if you don't bother to care about BW and burst windows. Really free flow and low stress for prog.

I don't know how it was last tier or this tier but E4S optimization was a nightmare on gnb to the point where I just gave up and switched back to warrior.

[FallenWings]

I don't know how it was last tier or this tier but E4S optimization was a nightmare on gnb to the point where I just gave up and switched back to warrior.

You just shift your gnashing combo anywhere in the 20 second long No Mercy window if you want to avoid specific disconnect timings. It's really just plain as that. Difficulty is fairly subjective and can be different from person to person.

GNB really has no traps other than Continuation. Everything it does self aligns and theres no real substantial loss for not perfectly fitting in a last gcd, double weaving or even resource management since it gains a whole point out of it's 2 point resource stock for every basic 1-2-3 it does. It's charm is really that it has mini combo changes every 30 seconds to give a little different flavour but on the large it is no different from WAR or DRK. It presses 1-2-3 the majority of the time, spends it on a Fell Cleave/Decimate equivalent and has very neat and rapid aesthetic and animations that give a sense of speed. It's mitigation is also just straight up fire and forget % reductions the majority of the time and aurora is virtually used on cooldown.

DRK has just about as much CPM with a 4 less different GCD buttons to press but more flexible resources and oGCDs which makes Edge much more forgiving than Continuation in general play. It has a couple more trappings in trying to fit double/triple spiller and quad Edge in the trick window without overcapping. Sudden bursts of resources during Blood Weapon if not managed and could lead to overcapping if done during Delirium whilst Soul Eater is primed etc. Blood Weapon itself being completely unforgiving and costing you 150 potency if you don't hit the last hit, TBN fishing being required for Quad Edges in trick and dependent on encounter and even gear. And the most weave heavy opener of all classes. Thanks to the weight of Living Shadow it is also much more heavily killtime dependent but not to the degree of WAR.

WARs challenge is mostly just doing their best to optimize their Nascent Flash windows with Inner Chaos and trying not to drift Upheaval too much. The general rotation has very few traps and the only big consideration is max usage of Inner Release and Inner Chaos. It is otherwise as flexible as general play DRK and has the advantage of having a pure Gap Closer tool and a very chill oGCD economy.