Which DPS is the Tankiest?

[Travel]

So, something I was curious about; which DPS is considered to be the tankiest or has the most survivability out of the available jobs? I've noticed that a lot of the DPS jobs tend to move towards being glass cannons in my experience - high damage, but low health. Basically, I wanted to know which DPS job was the closest to a tank; something with good health/defense/damage mitigation/ just general survivability.

I've done some looking myself; I've found a few old posts on Reddit and other places saying that Monk was the Tankiest of the DPS jobs. Other, older posts say that Summoner was the DPS job with the most survivability. Me, personally; I've found Red Mage and Reaper to be the best at surviving things currently, though with my general lack of experience with many jobs - only RPR is at 90, currently - I'm certainly not the best at judging everything.

So, what do you guys think? What DPS job have the most survivability?

[Imragarn]

DRG/RPR => more physical defense, blood bath, second wind for both, DRG have a lot of Ogcd Ogcd for more heal with bloodbath, RPR have a shield + HoT with a small CD.

RDM can self heal a lot but you need mana, And it's a GCD so you survive but you don't kill enemy !

[Quor]

MNK, probably. As Imragarn noted, RPR/DRG have better physical defense but MNK has the advantage of RoE giving them dmg% reduction. I've seen savage/EX fights where a MNK eats a tank buster that they end up surviving due to a combo or RoE, a tank helper CD and a bit of quick shielding from the healers. A combo of TBN, Oblation, Haima and CI has seen the MNK in my static through more than a few misplaced tank busters during prog. While RPR and DRG do have the better armor class, the dmg% reduction on MNK makes a really big difference when it tends to matter most.

But in terms of regular incoming damage, like during a solo duty, RPR/DRG have it the best. The extra def from their armor class goes a long way towards lowering total damage taken, and the regen RPR has or the extra life steal for DRG from Life Surge beat out MNK with just Second Wind and Bloodbath. Putting aside RDM self-healing, I think RDM and SMN are close seconds. RDM with their dmg% reduction buff and SMN with their personal Carby shield.

[Imragarn]

If we talk for a tankbuster, NIN have the same def than MNK but they have a 20% max HP shield, it's better than 10% reducted damage since the more % reduc you have, the less they give no ?

[Quor]

If we talk for a tankbuster, NIN have the same def than MNK but they have a 20% max HP shield, it's better than 10% reducted damage since the more % reduc you have, the less they give no ?

Yes and no. HP% shields are stronger the weaker the attack is. A savage tank buster - designed to be threatening to an actual tank - is something else entirely. Assuming 60k HP at level 90 (for easy math) a 20% HP shield is 12k. In order for RoE to beat out a 20% HP shield, you just need an attack of at least 121k damage. Most tank busters are at least that much damage unmitigated so the 10% reduction you get from RoE ends up going a long way, even if stacked with other defensives, due to the fact that MNK doesn't have any innate DR% like a tank does. The bigger the tank buster the better RoE becomes relative to NIN's shield, although there's a certain maximum amount of damage you can reasonably expect a MNK to be able to tank without the healers and tanks kitchen-sinking them with their CD's. Right now, something up to 150kish damage would be realistically survivable without blowing every single defensive CD available to keep the MNK alive, but anything more than that and you're simply dumping too many CD's into a single mechanic.

[CelestiCer]

Though I am sure SAM isn't the most tanky, I do tank more often then I'd like to as SAM when aggro is being mismanaged or 1 or both tanks die. I'll even channel my burst outside of raid-buffs into my bloodbath for more healing if that's what it takes to stay alive. This happens so much, that I even have a designated macro for when I do tank. The macro says the following...

" Hey look! I am tanking :3 ... Oh Crap D: !! IM TANKING DXX!!! "

[SpeckledBurd]

If we talk for a tankbuster, NIN have the same def than MNK but they have a 20% max HP shield, it's better than 10% reducted damage since the more % reduc you have, the less they give no ?

Yes and no. HP% shields are stronger the weaker the attack is. A savage tank buster - designed to be threatening to an actual tank - is something else entirely. Assuming 60k HP at level 90 (for easy math) a 20% HP shield is 12k. In order for RoE to beat out a 20% HP shield, you just need an attack of at least 121k damage. Most tank busters are at least that much damage unmitigated so the 10% reduction you get from RoE ends up going a long way, even if stacked with other defensives, due to the fact that MNK doesn't have any innate DR% like a tank does. The bigger the tank buster the better RoE becomes relative to NIN's shield, although there's a certain maximum amount of damage you can reasonably expect a MNK to be able to tank without the healers and tanks kitchen-sinking them with their CD's. Right now, something up to 150kish damage would be realistically survivable without blowing every single defensive CD available to keep the MNK alive, but anything more than that and you're simply dumping too many CD's into a single mechanic.

Riddle of Earth isn't 10%, it's a 20% reduction so the difference between Shade Shift and Riddle of Earth for taking a buster is even more Monk's favor in terms of the amount of damage it can mitigate. When you factor in that Monk gets 3 charges of it, that it lasts for 4/5 seconds up to 10 seconds if you don't attack and prioritize surviving and it regenerates on a 30 second cooldown then you start to realize that it's comparable to untraited Sheltron or Heart of Stone before they got their Endwalker giga traits.

The 10% number is what it was at the end of Shadowbringers, but in that case the defense percent scaled with the number of remaining Riddle of Earth stacks you had. Immediately after popping it Monk had a 30% defensive modifier meaning it actually used to be even stronger.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Riddle of Earth isn't 10%, it's a 20% reduction so the difference between Shade Shift and Riddle of Earth for taking a buster is even more Monk's favor in terms of the amount of damage it can mitigate. When you factor in that Monk gets 3 charges of it, that it lasts for 4/5 seconds up to 10 seconds if you don't attack and prioritize surviving and it regenerates on a 30 second cooldown then you start to realize that it's comparable to untraited Sheltron or Heart of Stone before they got their Endwalker giga traits.

The 10% number is what it was at the end of Shadowbringers, but in that case the defense percent scaled with the number of remaining Riddle of Earth stacks you had. Immediately after popping it Monk had a 30% defensive modifier meaning it actually used to be even stronger.

Forgive me going "akchually", but actually:

Pre-5.4 it was granting a 30s duration buff if you got hit, nullifying all direction requirements and granting -10% dmg taken for 30s.

5.4 it had the following changes:

The effects of this action have been revamped. Riddle of Earth now functions as follows:

• Reduces damage taken by 10% and nullifies all action direction requirements.
• Duration: 6s
• Maximum Charges: 3
• Recast time has been reduced from 60 to 30 seconds.

This was a duration-based effect, so nothing difficult to understand here.

5.5 saw another revision of the action:

The effects of this action have been completely revamped. Riddle of Earth now functions as follows:

• Grants 3 stacks of Riddle of Earth, each stack reducing damage taken by 10% and nullifying all action direction requirements.
• Duration: 10s
• Maximum Charges: 3
• Effect ends when time expires or upon execution of three weaponskills.

The difference is that the action now let you do 3 weaponskills without positional requirements based on stacks rather than duration. This allowed for some leeway for movement while retaining stacks, but also leeway regarding how long the mitigation lasts.

Individual stacks did not increase the mitigation however, it was consistent at 10%. It simply expired after three weaponskills. The final revision was moving the 10% mitigation to 20%, which is a consolidation of the Fist Stances (Fists of Earth in this case).

[Silhart]

Individual stacks did not increase the mitigation however, it was consistent at 10%. It simply expired after three weaponskills.

Riddle of Earth was indeed 30% mitigation at full stacks. Here's a screenshot from The Balance server taken on the day of patch 5.5's release:

The numbers here are consistent with what you'd expect from a 30% reduction in damage

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Riddle of Earth was indeed 30% mitigation at full stacks. Here's a screenshot from The Balance server taken on the day of patch 5.5's release:

The numbers here are consistent with what you'd expect from a 30% reduction in damage

What the f***...? Okay that is surprising, but... does this apply to the current system? I mean from what I could tell it is essentially the same stack system, or am I seeing something wrong?

"Grants 3 stacks of Riddle of Earth, each stack reducing damage taken by 20%.
Duration: 10s
Maximum Charges: 3
Effect ends when time expires or upon execution of three weaponskills."

Does this actually do the same as 5.5 RoE and actually is 3 x -20% dmg taken?
(which would be (0.8 x 0.8 x 0.8) - 1, resulting in -48.8% dmg taken, but that sounds ludicrous!)