Thoughts on Tanks so far in Endwalker

[Sqwall]

Warrior is my main and the other tanks are 80 still.

So here goes in the form of grades.

Damage: A

Warrior has always been a great contributor to damage, and I feel they aren't slouches in this department. Inner Release now being on a 60 sec timer, Upheavel no longer using Beast Gauge, and no longer having to cram in onslaught anymore really makes the warrior opener just pretty straight forward. Primal Rend is strong, Inner Chaos is strong, Fell Cleave is still strong. I just don't think it can compete with GNB for top tier. Maybe a toss up between 2nd spot with some good DRK players.

Sustain: S

Personally, I have always felt warriors near impossible to kill. With the sustain they have now they just simply don't want go down easily. A warrior in the hands of a good player they live longer, but in the hands of a GREAT player....they just flat out live...and then solo the boss. Just the fact that thrill of battle adds to your HP AND heals you, AND increases incoming HP + Equalibrium on a 60 CD, with a regen effect now. And don't get me started on Bloodwhetting! Bloodwhetting + AOE = God Mode, and it's pretty good against single target. Shake it off is also incredibly good now that it's a heal. Warrior sustain is top Tier

Mitigation: C+

Warrior just don't have that much to mitigate like the other tanks. Vengeance and Bloodwhetting are about it, outside rampart which all tanks get. I suppose you could throw in Holmgang also since it's on such a short CD, and it's 10sec now. I use Holmgang quite often. Vengeance is strong, but so is nebula, and sentinel. The only difference being that Vengeance is great in AOE situations as it also damages, not much, but it's something. Besides warriors don't need mitigation when they can just heal themselves.


Feel: A-

Warrior has felt comfy to play since 5.3. It's just a simple tank to play and it's also very satisfying to put into practice. Nothing beats that Fell Cleave sound, and gives me that shot of dopamine every time I hear it. Primal Rend is one of those skills i'm back and forth on. Should I use it....should I hold onto it for a gap closer? So that may be the ONLY skill that i'm on the fence about. Warrior is still the Wombo Combo master, and it just feels good to play.


Rotation: C+

The rotation is just....there. Nothing to hard, but nothing to easy. And I kind of like that for a tank. Gives me time to think about other things like mechanics rather then a ability is coming off of CD. Compared to the other tanks Warrior does have the simplest rotation, but that's also kind of liberating in a way. It's very run of the mill and straightforward. Some might like, and some might hate how slow it is. I think it's just right.

[Vortuna]

At least for Pld and War so far, as a healer I'm not forced to use a gcd heal in the middle of big pulls (or even leave some of my ogcd heals unused so I could save it for the next pack), which is good.

[Alkimi]

I'm wondering if tank busters will hit a good deal harder in savage than they currently do in these extreme trials. Tanks and healers have so much mitigation they can pile on, with short cooldowns, that it's barely making a dent in the HP pool. The DRK I was with the other day even asked that I stopped using Intervention because half the time tank busters weren't breaking his TBN.

I guess we'll find out in a few weeks.

[Ultaniku]

I can only speak on DRK as it is the one I have capped and have been playing. My damage output feels very good but when it comes to my defense I do think it dips below what I think it should be. Even popping my various cooldowns at appropriate intervals I do get a twinge of nerves when I see my health dip. Even popping TBN doesn’t solve that, and I can’t say it is the healers. I can see them, giving it all they’ve got, for the most part, to keep my going. Sustaining oneself on DRK doesn’t feel good compared to what I’ve seen on PLDs and WARs when I’ve had to heal for them.

[Ixon]

Defensively GNB is awesome with stacks of Aurora and Heart of Corundum. I too have also been able to stay alive and kill bosses from the lvl90 dungeons with a healer perma dead. My only issue with GNB is the forced requirement of the three cartridges needed for every burst, every minute. From Dungeons to EX Trials this feels clunky and feels more like a speed bump in what used to be a very smooth rotation. My temporary solution would be to reduce the cost of Double Down to 1 or 0 cartridges(there have been discussion about maybe make the requirements for Double Down a separate, additional gauge), and increase the duration of NM to roughly 21-22sec to include the Hypervelocity following an ending Burst Strike.

[Hammerhorn]

Paladin FEELS really good to play a lot of issues have been improved, his single target damage is low , very low compared to the other tanks , that makes it feel bad, very bad. Hopefully a small potency increase soon.

[Keagian]

From what I've tested with a friend this is what we we've come up with.

WAR:
Exceptional AoE Sustain, Okay Single Target sustain.
Great AoE Damage, Good Single Target Damage.
Buttons feel Satisfying to use.

PLD:
Great AoE Sustain, Good Single Target Sustain
Good AoE Damage, Bottom of the pack for Tank damage, still better then Healers.
Buttons feels good but is still strict on rotation for maximum performance

GNB:
Okay AoE Sustain, Great Single Target Sustain
Great AoE Damage, Great Single Target Damage
Buttons are fun to press but now you have to account for Double Down for No Mercy Window. Can feel good or bad depending on the player.

DRK:
Horrible AoE Sustain, Horrible Single Target Sustain. Shrugs off TBs but needs to be baby sat for eating boss Autos.
Great AoE Damage, Amazing Single Target Damage
Buttons still feel clunky and sometimes moves don't line up with Buffs. Having AD and CnS share CD feels bad. Has a very long downtime before they get to burst again and their burst phase can be hectic.

[Argyle_Darkheart]

snip

Not sure why you make it sound like PLD and GNB have superior single-target sustain compared to WAR when they simply do not (unless you want to count Clemency).

[Gerbary]

I still haven't finished EW, so I don't know about endgame trials but... Playing a PLD feels amazing. Single-target feels kinda low as I've seen by questing, but AoE is quite better than before. You also have lots of tools at your disposal for whatever you want to do, and sustain during the magical phase is good *(albeit lacking during physical). Combo is also free-flow-ier than before; maximizing it is easy and if you screw it up, due to the long timers on Atonement and Requiescat, you can change things around without much pressure. The shareable regen on Sheltron / Intervention is fun to use, and Divine Veil healing too makes it good even if you whiff it by exploding it after the raidwide AoE.

That said, the only thing that bothers me is Clemency cannot be used during physical due to stopping combos, and neither during magical because it consumes requiescat charges and gives nothing in return. I did make a threat about changing something on that, but no responses, so maybe I'm alone in that. Would give it guaranteed crit so it can recover the power it had in the last expansion without letting it reach numbers as stupid as they were then.

[Ampheni]

I like drk being highest dps, because I think it should for how it lacks in both personal cds and raid wide mitigations and living die is hot garbage unless you planned it out for specific strats. That being said...they should REALLY make dark missionary works for both physical and magical damage, drk does deserve a bit of love in the party util department, and blood weapons really should really be changed to be like delirium, and maybe give some life drain effect on blood weapon....please...? Or have some sustain for bloodspiller or quietus perhaps....?

That being said I think pld feels like it's a bit behind in damage. In my opinion, no amount of utilities or sustain pld got justify the dps loss when things like War sustain and GNB exists. I am not saying pld need to have as high dps as GNB or DRK, but I think PLD should at least have around the same damage potential as warrior does if not slightly higher. As they are both tanks with great toolkits specialized in two different things. PLD have the best party utils and War have the best personal util/sustain, so i don't see why pld shouldn't have at least the same dps as WAR does, hopefully we get a slight potency boost for pld.