How would you rate Tank DPS rotations/abilities?

[KenZentra]

So I play a ton of WAR. I like how simple it is, and I do think there needs to be a simple option available. That being said, WAR rotation sucks and its kinda the baseline in my eyes on every tank's rotation.

Build up resource. (in this case Beast Gauge, but its also GNB Charges and DRK Meter)
Deal Extra Damage using Hard hitting action(s) with resource. (Fell Cleave, Bloodspiller, Gnashing Fang Combo/Burst Strike)
Use minute (or so) cooldown that gives access to burst damage. (FoF and/or Requiescat, Inner Release, Delirium, Bloodfest & Double Down)
Weave in dashes at melee range for free extra damage.
Repeat forever.

Its really dull.

I feel like I should mention too, that (aside from The Blackest Night) all of your mitigation abilities are like a pocket of stuff you use separate from the rest of your kit. I mean one of them, Rampart, is given to every tank. Shadow Wall, Sentinel, Nebubla, Vengenace (aside from the thorns effect) are all the same ability, Reduce damage taken. Wow, so deep. Vengance used to atleast combo well with Bloodbath with it healing off the thorns effect, which was great for Wall to Wall pulls by refunding some of the damage taken, but now we have Bloodwhetting which does either is pretty nice, but completely busted in dungeons. Just feel like there needs to be more interconnectivity throughout all of the kit, and rewarding tanks with more mitigation before rewarding more damage.

Also, I really think doing your rotation correctly should reward more mitigation, not damage. Not that we cant have burst abilities, thats all well and good, but I feel like doing your rotation should be rewarding you with what your role is supposed to do, and that is taking and mitigating damage.

Edit: Btw, I dont really want them to be super complex when it comes to doing a rotation necessarily, but a lot of their kits is just building toward doing big damage (for tanks), while the actual tank abilities are just slapped on. Making tanks (as they are now) just simple DPS with big HP pools and mits in their pockets.

[RoboYumi]

I cant speak for Paladin much, so I'll be leaving it out.

Gunbreaker is a blue DPS and is easily among the top 5 most fun jobs to play in the game. In fact, competes for the top spot overall.

Warrior is horribly designed, its job makes no sense. The level of healing it has, be it self healing or otherwise, doesnt really fit the Guy-with-giant-axe motif, but then neither does being a tank at all. However, I'm about 11 years too late with this complaint
Its fun to play, and Thrill of Battle is a great designed ability, but Warrior just has far too much, while ironically having the least damage despite 7 back to back C+DH

Dark Knight is a fun wizard tank that should have the kind of healing Warrior has, but its the ideal tank job design. The only reason its not my favorite tank is because Gunbreaker is officially a tank, despite not playing like one at all.

Paladin: 7.75/10
Warrior: 4/10
Dark Knight: 8.5/10
Gunbreaker: 11/10

Overall, though, I feel like tanks (that aren't Warrior) should have more defensive abilities going into 7.x, taking warrior's focus on guaranteed crits away and just giving them additional damage abilities, having no need for any further tank actions. That, and retooling existing ones to be more mitigation and less self-healing. Or just gut the healing from Bloodwhetting to something a little more reasonable in dungeons. The general design philosophy for tanks is good, and I hope it stays going forward

[Mekhana]

DRK: Nothing to do between 1min and 2 mins. Same boring, ugly 1-2-3 combo from 30s to 90s. Aoe stuff needs shorter cooldowns except shadowbringer. TBN doesn't actually proc until a whole tick unlike other tank shields Same with Living Dead. Too much other crap I've bellyached enough in this forum. Literally WAR but worse.

Kusoge/10.

[Oizen]

I don't find the tanks all that different from eachother in terms of damage rotation.

WAR feels like a slower, more boring Dark Knight that centralizes entirely on one attack. People like it, I only think its a fun job defensively, offensively its very boring.
GNB feels really strict for the sake of it, it feels a bit clunky to me, and I've generally disliked super rigid rotation jobs. Continuation is fun to press though.
Can't give much feedback on PLD, I didn't enjoy how the job played before with how many hoops it had to jump through to do basic things, and I havent bothered to try it now.

Dark Knight is a weird one, and the one I've put the most time into. I like its completely flexible rotation mixed with high apm gameplay. I like how it mits in savage fights, how much power comes from its flexibility in mitigation there.
I do not like how dull it is post burst windows, I dont like how overly centralized it is around Living Shadow, that skill drifts like nothing else, and is already "late" to any buff that only lasts 15s. I dont hate it like others do, but it definitely needs something to round it out. I don't agree that MP management isn't a real factor at the highest end, it definitely is, and I'd argue that DRK has to watch its gauges harder than any other tank.
Its not just a factor of don't overcap, its find a spot before the next burst window to pick up a Dark Arts stack, and still have there be enough time to generate the mp you spent on TBN back before the burst window, without overcapping.
Similar situation with the blood gauge, you need enough to mash living shadow on cooldown, but not enough to cap but still can bring an additional Bloodspiller into a burst that way. Darkside is the only resource that isn't really notable as a thing you have to really try to upkeep.

Its AOE game is also a mixed bag, I like the fact its the only tank thats frequently mixing AOE types (Lines for Flood/Shadowbringer, Circles for everything else). But then you get issues like Abyssal Drain, which is just comically underpowered for the role its trying to fill. It either needs a shorter cooldown or 2 charges, but now that its stapled to Carve and Spit, its very hard to buff it. Honestly that skill needs to be reworked entirely, probably back to a GCD.
Living shadow is also really awkward in AOE, its borderline not even worth using, as it only has 2 aoe attacks, takes forever to get out, to the point where mob packs are usually dead by the time that it does, or in the best case scenario it gets its aoes off then burst down one guy, who would have died with the rest to the aoe spam anyway.

I like how it plays more than the other tanks at the very least.

[SargeTheSeagull]

Talking purely about their offensive kits... And for reference, I haven't tanked much this expac due to my distaste for tank changes in 6.0/6.3.

PLD 4/10. I preferred it before the rework, though I don't hate post rework PLD. Most of my problem with it boils down to how burst focused it is and how resource management is nearly nonexistent. Divine might in principal isn't a bad idea but in practice it just ends up with PLD's filler being 1-2-3-4 instead of 1-2-3. If Atonement and DM could be spent on something other than atonement and HS respectively that would be nice. I'd also like changes to how you access BoV combo and confetior but idk what exactly.

WAR 3/10. First job i played fun fact. Inner release being 1 minute and pressing fell cleave 6 times a minute makes it feel less impactful than it did when I mained war. I don't like how upheaval doesn't consume beast gauge anymore. Also don't like the level 90 capstone (idr the name) being tied to inner release like it is. If it were the type of thing you'd gain access to after maintaining storm's eye for X amount of time or Y uses of fell cleave or... anything else. Generally I just really hate abilities like it or starfall dance or ogi namikiri where you get a heavy hitting skill for free for using a CD and under no other circumstances.

DRK 1/10. It's warrior but edgy. It's nearly as boring as healers' dps kits. Resource management is gone, delirium is more boring inner release, darkside is effortless to maintain, living shadow is a 2 minute press and forget. I want a full rework in 7.0.

GNB 6/10. Though GNB isn't my cup of tea, I think it's the best tank rotationally. Double down sucks and sonic break is one of the most meaningless buttons in the game, but other than those I have very few complaints. I also don't play GNB enough to complain about it though.

In general they aren't much fun imo. Side note, I'd love more combo's to come back. 1-2-3 and always 1-2-3 (or 1-2-3-4 for PLD and the occasional 1-2-4 on warrior) is just boring. Tanks really need some spice in dawntail.

[LilimoLimomo]

Paladin:

• I'm impressed with how much I like Paladin's rotation right now. Getting a quick spell cast at the end of a combo feels like a fun reward, and all them magic swords feel like a great bit of power to drop once a minute. If I wanted to really nitpick, I'd say that I think Atonement is adding more clunk than fun, so maybe toss it out. Also Requiescat and Fight or Flight should be fused into a single move, since you're always going to want to cast them at the same time.

Dark Knight:

• It's not great. Probably the worst of all the tanks, and that's coming from someone who dislikes Gunbreaker. Needs pizazz. Needs buttons that are fun to press, that feel cool to do. Dark Knight's biggest moves unfortunately don't feel cool, even when they're doing big damage. And you only do them once every 2 minutes, because you want your Living Shadow (conceptually neat, but doesn't feel like doing a cool attack) to do 2 Shadowbringers. It's a shame that Shadowbringer isn't remotely as cool as any of Paladin's magic swords, especially when DRK seems like it should be the one of the pair to be going more all-out when it comes to offense.

[Rithy255]

Paladin:

• I'm impressed with how much I like Paladin's rotation right now. Getting a quick spell cast at the end of a combo feels like a fun reward, and all them magic swords feel like a great bit of power to drop once a minute. If I wanted to really nitpick, I'd say that I think Atonement is adding more clunk than fun, so maybe toss it out. Also Requiescat and Fight or Flight should be fused into a single move, since you're always going to want to cast them at the same time.

If you removed Atonement PLD wouldn't really feel better, It would be 1, 2, 3, 4(holy spirit) which isn't really much better from how PLD feels now. I've played stormblood dungeons as new paladin it just feels about as unfun as current PLD.

I think the baseline of Paladin works, Gaining holy spirits through combo but their needs to be more Varity in GCD actions, such as a alternative combo... Almost like goring blade sort of broke up the same cycle and made paladin less clunky rotation wise.

Should we add old goring blade? No. but I do think goring blade needs to be reworked though as another Combo finisher with some sort of benefit. It's current form serves no real purpose other then to be pressed once every minute, which mind you is the entire point of Req, with FOF? again fof feels a bit out of place. Almost like they could give you 5 stacks (one for a empowered req HS, rest blades) and just remove Goring blade in its current form and no one would really notice.

I think I'd love current PLD if it focused more on having different combos in down time (even just a goring blade finisher would be nice), with Divine might HS being your option you can hold for ranged/sustain during down time. I'd like to Keep Atonement, Unsure if they should rework "sword oath" and how you get atonements but I just like the idea of PLD having fun sword play followed by magic burst.

[LilimoLimomo]

Should we add old goring blade? No. but I do think goring blade needs to be reworked though as another Combo finisher with some sort of benefit. It's current form serves no real purpose other then to be pressed once every minute, which mind you is the entire point of Req, with FOF? again fof feels a bit out of place. Almost like they could give you 5 stacks (one for a empowered req HS, rest blades) and just remove Goring blade in its current form and no one would really notice.

I agree that Goring Blade is a bit odd at present, as it could be baked into Req+Friends, or removed entirely, and it would probably feel about the same. This is just my personal preference, but I've never been a fan of branching combos, so I am actually a much bigger fan of Goring Blade now than I was previously; since one of my biggest struggles with the game is button bloat, combos are my bane! One of them is fine for me, as I understand that it gives us something slightly involved to do when nothing else interesting is happening, and I get that every second of play can't be the coolest parts. But at least for me, more combos would just make my experience worse. So if combo time does feel too spacious and dull — which it sounds like it does for you, and that's completely valid! — my hope is that they can address that by giving us something more interesting to do to break that up. Like if Req is now on a 30-second cooldown, but on the 30 second mark it's doing Big Magic Swords while on the 60 second mark it's doing something else, kind of like how Bahamut toggles into Phoenix. Or heck, I'm not entirely opposed to more combos, but I need them to consolidate or remove plenty of the other buttons so that I have hotbar space! I'm already using so many macros to try to keep it all comfy and reachable...Anyway! all of that is just to say that I want your problems to be solved and my problems to be solved, and hopefully the devs can find a harmonious way to make us both happy ^^

[Rithy255]

I agree that Goring Blade is a bit odd at present, as it could be baked into Req+Friends, or removed entirely, and it would probably feel about the same. This is just my personal preference, but I've never been a fan of branching combos, so I am actually a much bigger fan of Goring Blade now than I was previously; since one of my biggest struggles with the game is button bloat, combos are my bane! One of them is fine for me, as I understand that it gives us something slightly involved to do when nothing else interesting is happening, and I get that every second of play can't be the coolest parts. But at least for me, more combos would just make my experience worse. So if combo time does feel too spacious and dull — which it sounds like it does for you, and that's completely valid! — my hope is that they can address that by giving us something more interesting to do to break that up. Like if Req is now on a 30-second cooldown, but on the 30 second mark it's doing Big Magic Swords while on the 60 second mark it's doing something else, kind of like how Bahamut toggles into Phoenix. Or heck, I'm not entirely opposed to more combos, but I need them to consolidate or remove plenty of the other buttons so that I have hotbar space! I'm already using so many macros to try to keep it all comfy and reachable...Anyway! all of that is just to say that I want your problems to be solved and my problems to be solved, and hopefully the devs can find a harmonious way to make us both happy ^^

I love branching combos maybe that's where we can just agree to disagree on as I think as a "old pld player" why I get bored with new PLD is the lack of combos during down time. I think Branching combos add a lot of fun during downtime. but I don't want the game to feel worse for others, This is why I think auto combo is good if it's optional, because it allows everyone to be happy.

I just want the job to feel a bit more interesting outside of burst windows, I'm not really a fan of pressing the same DPS button even if it's flashy, I think it's fine for bursts... but I like pressing a lot of different buttons personally.

I think in terms of PLD Bloat issues we can change a few things

• Merge Holy Sheltron/Intervention into a targetable defensive on self or others, reduce it's cd to 1s (as its on gauge and for double tank busters) and add that effect cannot apply (will be cancelled) to players already under the effect of Holy Sheltron.
• Merge Holy Spirit/Holy Circle Into a Cleave attack
• Fof removed, move Req and magic to be eariler (both serve very similar purposes).
• Circle of scorn removed, instead you have Expiacion every 20s and make Shield bash a 20s 150 potency attack off global that stuns, all enmies in a cone 2 stacks (remove gap closer Damage and let you charge to allies).

I'm sure theirs plenty more that you can do aswell these are just the common skills I'd see changed

[Nicola_Kunu]

I haven't played WAR or DRK enough to give meaningful feedback.


PLD pre-rework (6.3): 8/10
PLD post-rework (6.3): 7/10

+ Small optimisations with Holy Might is a welcome change, as well as the potential to go into single either Holy Spirit or Holy Circle.
+ Still has the class fantasy of protecting your friends with various tools (Passage of Arms, Intervention, Cover)
+ Ranged combo still feels very good and has good skill expression in finding how to ensure uptime on a fight alongside some raid buffs (e.g. P4S P2 Act 2 towers, P10S worm turrets)
~ Divine Veil rework reduces skill expression as it no longer rides/requires a healer GCD. Would prefer a middle ground where it functions as a variant to AST's Horoscope: A shield when used, and if a GCD heal is performed on the player who received the Divine Veil within a set time period, also provides extra healing. I feel this would give an accessible skill floor of proactively shielding the party and buffs the next heal that comes after. The skill ceiling is that the ideal timing would be different per fight, as healers do not use GCD heals on every raidwide. The current skill expression is to have it after a raidwide/instance of party damage but within 30 seconds of another raidwide/instance of party damage, which is almost always.
~ Button bloat on PLD is still quite high. Because I mostly play Savage/Ultimate content, I don't actually have my AoE spells on easy to access buttons anymore as I just don't use them enough.
- Rework homogenised the overall feel of the job to be a 2-minute meta job. I personally consider it GNB-Lite, but I've heard it called WAR-lite as well. I personally liked the consistent damage output (but I'm under the impression that with recent savage/ultimate fight design where the boss goes untargetable for set periods of time, they may have felt it too punishing for the PLD or too difficult to tune the damage to still be relevant. Any problems I had with clearing content before were not related to the damage output of PLD.)
- Boring Blade
- Shield Bash should be wrapped into something else at this point.

I have my bias and am more critical towards PLD because it's been the main job I fell in love with since I started playing. My feedback is also biased towards Savage/Ultimate content. I find most content easier than normal raids to be a complete snoozefest at this point, but that's not a class criticism, just giving context.


GNB: 8.5/10

+ Excellent skill expression in managing abilities alongside mitigation, feels constantly active
+ Filler abilities are good as it mixes normal Gnashing Fangs and Burst Strikes and are not reserved exclusively for burst windows, so you need to manage cartridge stacks.
+ Great animations
+ Interesting mitigations and friendly support with Heart of Corundum + Aurora
~ Some skills aren't as visually interesting as the others (e.g. Sonic Break)
- Due to tank homogenisation, doesn't stand out as much amongst the rest.

Whilst I still prefer playing PLD due to personal preferences, I consider GNB to be the best currently designed and complete job in the game.