Which DPS is the Tankiest?

[Risvertasashi]

Kind of depends on what sort of survivability/sustain you're looking for. For example, if you just want to survive one big hit, SMN's shield great for that, but other choices are better for more sustain. And the other one I haven't seen mentioned is Dancer. If you want to do healerless runs of content, Dancer is great.

[SpeckledBurd]

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:

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

5.5 saw another revision of the action:

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).

I know the history, I was there and I've written (read: complained) about literally every iteration of Monk at length at this point so I know how it worked at literally every step and when I said "end of Shadowbringers" I meant "end of Shadowbringers", obviously not any of the other points in the patch cycle.

Here's a demonstration of the mitigation you got from Riddle of Earth that I did immediately after the patch dropped in 5.5. As you can see it scaled in that period per stack.

End of Shadowbringers Monk just had an off brand Sentinel/Shadow Wall, it was goofy as hell.

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!)

Current Riddle of Earth doesn't scale like that, it's just a flat 20% at any number of stacks. That isn't having three stacks of Sentinel crazy like it used to be, but it's still the best defensive action on a DPS in terms of both defensive power and the sheer amount of uptime you have with it in the game at the moment.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

I know the history, I was there and I've written (read: complained) about literally every iteration of Monk at length at this point so I know how it worked at literally every step and when I said "end of Shadowbringers" I meant "end of Shadowbringers", obviously not any of the other points in the patch cycle.

Here's a demonstration of the mitigation you got from Riddle of Earth that I did immediately after the patch dropped in 5.5. As you can see it scaled in that period per stack.

End of Shadowbringers Monk just had an off brand Sentinel/Shadow Wall, it was goofy as hell.

Current Riddle of Earth doesn't scale like that, it's just a flat 20% at any number of stacks. That isn't having three stacks of Sentinel crazy like it used to be, but it's still the best defensive action on a DPS in terms of both defensive power and the sheer amount of uptime you have with it in the game at the moment.

Honestly Im really thankful for this info. Im sorry if I sounded a bit high-on-a-horse earlier. This is some cool info.

[Rithy255]

Reminds me when I tanked as sam in variant dungeons ;3 was actually pretty fun!

Most melee dps are pretty tanky I'd say reaper or Monk, reaper generally got "TBN JR" with small regen, while in avatar mode bloodbath is great also, Monk got riddle of earth which is amazing.
Dragoon also is pretty tanky for melee dps.
Samurai got a very frequent defensive.

Ninja likely least "tanky" melee but even Ninja got shade shift, just very infrequent how often it's up, also bloodbath doesn't work with your big hitters I believe.

Overall all melee dps have some form of reduction, which is great for your Healers & Tanks, keeping mind of what support even if its on yourself goes a long way to help them keep you alive.

[MagiusNecros]

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

It's Blue Mage. It's the only DPS with Tank CDs and stats via Tank Mimic. Could probably be quite survivable with Healer mimic too given the party bites it and you pop Basic Instinct for some mega heals.

For the limited jobs out there it's gotta be Monk between Arm's Length, Second Wind, Bloodbath and Riddle of Earth's 20% DR across 9 GCDs.

Reaper would be up there at 6.0 launch with Arcane Crest being a super HoT. You could face tank trash pack bosses with Bloodbath and AC as well as do ok against weak lvl90 bosses and probably take off 10% of their health before a Tankbuster ended you.

[Argyle_Darkheart]

MNK because of Riddle of Earth's higher mitigation and effective duration paired with access to Bloodbath.

[VictorSpoils]

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...alive-the-most

I think MNK won.