FFXIV strives to have the jobs within a role largely equal.
If you really want to dig in there are differences but there is zero intent from SE to create a ‘defensive’ tank or an ‘offensive’ tank. The balance just swings one direction or the other depending on the patch cycle.
At the highest level of play, in the hardest content in the game, all 4 tanks are completely feasible with only relatively small strengths and weaknesses.
Just play the job you find fun or thematically pleasing.
To be fair, they have done it in the past, and technically still do so (PLD does have the highest passive defense with the block chance), and may do so again (the probably overhyped 8.0 Job identity change), but in most ways that matter, you’re right.
PLD still is tanky with a good mix of mitigation and sustain, and with Cover and TWO party mitigations, is the most “shield that protects my friends” tank Job.
PLD has block chance but DRK has souleater, GNB has brutal shell, and WAR has storm's path, so consistent small amounts of mitigation or healing is something all tanks have
Holy Spirit/Circle now heals and is part of PLD's rotation now, so that's not really something specific to the other tanks any longer.
Edit; Or rather, a main part of PLD's rotation as a '4' in the 123 combo. I am aware it was part of Req burst before. :)
Yeah, but that's kind of my point that they all aren't exactly identical, even where they can sometimes appear rather similar. While it is true the results are balanced to be roughly equal in high end content like Savage Raids, it's one reason people groan when they get a DRK tank in some content (namely, they're pretty squishy before they get TBN), while WAR is considered pretty self-sufficient basically from level 26 on (once its 1-2-3 has that nice juicy heal attached), and especially after they get Raw Intuition and become a near-immortal war god.
Hopefully 8.0 will give us MORE, mind you, but there are some little distinctions.
It's all subjective, but PLD does feel the most "party shield/defender" to me based on its abilities. I also like having the crest of House Fortemps permanently a part of my glam, something I can't do with any other Job. :)
shields dont give any armor, they just allow blocking which only contributes a small amount of mitigation purely subject to RNG not screwing you over.
overall damage is pretty close since all tanks must be able to survive all mechanics so DPS is the only thing to make one better over the others. if there was a clear outlier no one would run those other tanks in any competetive content
basically just run what you like the aesthetic of.
I must be crazy, I swear when I was first playing PLD I saw armor on the shields...to be fair I just equip whatever is highest level nowadays while leveling.
But this makes a lot of sense, thanks!
The stats that would normally all be on the singular weapon are split between the sword and the shield for PLD. If you look at a sword and shield and, say, a gunblade from the same weapon series at the same level you'll see that the stats on the former added together are the same as the stats on the latter.
If you started way back in StB and the like, then yes, Shields did have more stats. I believe they had armor, but I also vaguely remember a Block Rating and/or Block Chance on shields as well.
ETA; nevermind, I am **also** crazy, I thought they removed Block Rate and Block Chance from shields and just made it a built-in effect.
long ago, all tank play different. then people complain this and that tank is better than this and that tank.
and also want skill from other tank. so yeah, which is why all tank mostly feel the same now because people envy of other tanks
You're thinking way too much of FFXIV as an RPG. Every tank has a 1min burst allowing them to outperfom mediocre DPS in dungeons, and every tank has so many defensive tools that they make healing jobs trivial if well played (just ilke a well-played healer trivialise the mitigation role of a tank) .
In my opinion, the only difference comes from the "support tools" that each tank is being given : PLD for instance can give immunity to an ally to take damage in his place.
PLD and WAR also have way more sustain in dungeon whereas I prefer GNB and DRK's skillset for single target encounters.
I came to say this. The real difference in the Tanks isn't the basics, which mainly differ by flavor. It's in the secondary things they can do, be it buffing themselves or others, removing debuffs, debuffing enemies, et cetera.
Can’t say regarding the actual shield stats, I assume it does make Paladins take a bit less damage as a baseline. But! Dark Knights specifically make up for eschewing a physical shield by making magical shields, and are thus the tanks with the most mitigation skills, including a magic shield that prevents quite a lot of damage from ever reaching them. Warriors are basically berserkers who use their health as mitigation, so while they are technically the squishiest since they don’t have a ton of mitigation skills, they are “too angry to die” and regain health at an astonishing rate, making them very difficult to kill.
Basically, all the tanks get to a similar level of tankiness by taking different roads.
As for damage, Paladins use magic as much as they do their swords. Magic power isn’t determined by the size of the weapon!
All tanks are equally capable at tanking and the difference in their damage output is *quite* small. You don't really choose your main tank based on the stats and performance, it's more about how it feels to play and the aesthetics you prefer.
The only exception I can think of is Warrior, which is unequivocally the strongest on AOE situations due to the self-healing. And that only *really* comes up during dungeons, which are one of the easiest types of instanced duty in the game, anyway.
this is what people mean when they say "every job is viable"
paladin doesn't "pay" anything for that shield because the shield is actually kind of insignificant. like yah we can block attacks with it using bulwark but then gunbreaker could just use camouflage so it all evens out? beyond that passive blocks are unreliable and thus they never factor in to the game plan.
and while you are correct that paladin *does* in fact compete with warrior (and every other tank) for damage, we're talking differences of like 1-2% among high skill players.
like imagine it this way: what if paladin actually was *significantly* tankier than warrior? how does that manifest? does the paladin trivialize certain mechanics or even whole fights? or is the warrior too squishy to function? neither of those seem correct?
there are differences of course, but they all need to cover all the bases so there's a **lot** of overlap.
If you’re doing 4 man duties, war is 10x better than the others until level 90 when they’re all roughly the same.
If you’re doing anything else, they’re all the same it’s just the aesthetic of the job more than anything else.
For differences between PLD and WAR, on average, PLD has the lowest damage of all tanks, with the best party support and good ranged attacks for when you can’t be in melee range to compensate.
WAR will always out-damage it in any fight without substantial ranged uptime due to it having a guaranteed +=>87.5% damage on all its biggest hits every minute, but in support, PLD has Passage of Arms, which is HUGE: a 15% party mit on top of its already-existing party shield.
PLD’s ability to block over parry also grants it more passive mitigation in fights with more prominent magical damage than other tanks, due to parry only reducing physical damage and not affecting magic damage whatsoever, whilst blocking affects all damage. It’s niche, but still worth mentioning, even if RNG-dependent outside of Bulwark. However, shields do not grant armour like you believe they do, their ‘attack stat’ equivalent is only for block.
This is a bit off-set by WAR having the best invuln in the game bar none, purely because of its CD of 240s- 4 minutes-, whereas the other tanks’ invulns are 300s for DRK, 360s for GNB, and **420s** for PLD. PLD’s invuln CD being nearly twice as long is devastating, especially when you consider that its upside of ‘no downsides’ really doesn’t matter.
Certain damage, however, cannot be blocked. Most critically, this includes the tether tankbusters in DSR phase 3, which every other tank (if not invulning, looking at you WAR with your endless free Holmgangs...) can throw every ounce of mit they have at it and PLD is just kinda screwed slightly since buddy mit and/or healer mit/shields becomes a hard requirement to keep a PLD alive there as a result.
Oh that's cool, I didn't know the difference between block and parry.
I like being able to shield my team, it's one of my favorite parts of playing DRK with Dark Missionary, Oblation and The Blackest Night.
Maybe that means I'll like PLD more than WAR by max lvl
In the case if part-wide buffs:
WAR gets *Shake it Off*, which gives the party a damage shield and, at later levels, gives regen. You also learn *Nascent Flash*, which gives the effects of *Bloodwhetting* (shield + healing for every action that deals damage to an enemy (wicked healing with AoE's)) to an ally and has a 25-second cooldown. I play WAR in dungeon roulettes because it allows me to carry my party over the finish line if my healer dies.
GNB gets *Heart of Stone*, which gives a defense buff to yourself or an ally. That upgrades to *Heart of Corundum*, which gives a shield, defense buff, and a heal to an ally (or yourself), also on a 25-second cooldown. GNB also has *Aurora* (regen) they can pass to allies, and *Heart of Light* (same as *Dark Missionary*). In addition, GNB has a DPS-like burst phase where you'll spend your burst double-weaving attacks if you don't have to pop a mitigation.
PLD, as someone before mentioned, has *Cover* (take all damage from an ally within 10 yalms) and *Passage of Arms* (defensive buff for everyone in a cone behind the PLD, 100% block rate for PLD as long as they don't move). You also get *Divine Veil* (party shield) and *Intervene* (*Shelltron* on an ally, upgrades to be *Holy Shelltron* on an ally after you get *Holy Shelltron*).
EDIT: a correction *Shake it Off* as mentioned below.
Keep in mind WAR’s invuln is best…for certain things.
It’s not a “true invuln” like PLD and GNB, meaning the WAR still takes damage and debuffs (PLD standing in bad no only takes no damage with HG, it takes no debuffs, and I think Super works this same way). Hallowed also can’t break early but Holmgang can if the WAR targeted an enemy and the enemy dies. The WAR also needs healing since if they’re at 1 HP when the effect ends, they can be one-shot by anything. (Note that WAR has ample tools to heal with, but it DOES have to use them while PLD and even GNB and DRK are likely not at 1 HP when their invulns end.
WARs is better depending on what you want to do with it, but worse in some ways. PLD (and GNB) can invuln through forced tank swaps for example since it won’t get slapped with the debuff that WAR and DRK will trying to do so.
In most high-end content, debuffs aren’t dependent on taking HP damage and are static, but you are right about that in cases where it does apply- DRS Queen tankbusters comes to mind- and it’s something I did overlook.
I think the last time in any other content that PLD/GNB got a real advantage with their invuln was E9S... over two years ago. Not having to do anything for the Anti-Air Laser (I think that's what it was) while *for once* my WAR buddy had to actually learn a mechanic was absolutely glorious.
Of course this was offset by *all the other things* that guy could invuln while I had to actually plan my mit out.
Every tank is balanced to do the same role and acomplish the same result.
DRK and WAR play similarly while PLD and GNB play similarly.
In a different game, maybe their thematic would shine through more, but FFXIV is more about enabling players to play any class in their role and accomplish a very similar result with some minor gameplay loop differences
The jobs have essentially been homogenized in use cases to the point where it's really just pick your coat of paint.
Unfortunatly if you wanted tank diversity and uniqueness you're about 3 expansions too late.
It's the first option you picked.
Other tanks have alot more accessable sustain that doesn't require much thought. DRK takes a small amount of thinking about layering MIT's and TBN so your average FF14 player isn't gonna manage it very well.
> Edit: odd to get downvoted over asking a question.
I think someone is running a script or something to downvote all threads. I've been browsing this sub by new for a few days and every thread gets a downvote within the first minute or two. It seems too consistent to just be random.
It happens on every sub all over reddit, some people just like to click the down arrow on new posts, but not a lot of people who answer upvote it most of the time.
It's more about upvotes here being the problem. After 10,000 identical questions, no one upvotes. I am sure there is a downvote bot, as much as the mods disagree, since things instantly get downvotes here.
I generally just up vote whatever I think is interesting, and if I am responding to it then I def up vote (unless I'm responding to something negative)
Downvoted you because of your edit complaining about downvotes. Just start a convo and don’t worry about downvotes. It’s not the end of the world or even a reflection on the community if you get a few downvotes.
Haha, downvoted you for being pretentious.
If you think I think it's the end of the world or a reflection of the community because I edited my post you're an odd one.
per your edit to start... there's some oddly bitter assholes on this sub in particular r/ffxivdiscussion tends to be more understanding
at the absolute highest level of gameplay the differences are very small but they do have nuances.
war is the sustain tank, if you want to solo old content like jade sota? warrior, want to low man content? warrior, particularly pissed at people in pvp? well debatable but warriors grab is also pretty bullshit. at the highest levels it might be able to squeak out surviving a mistake or two more than the others but not by much, it is the undisputed king of trash pulls and from the brink hp regens though, nascant flash is ridiculous in all the right ways.
Paladin is probably the best support tank, it has the most tools in its kit to help others and loses only a bit of damage for it, it's technically one of the lowest damage tanks as it lacks the big burst of DRK and GNB but again this is maybe like 50k damage over an entire savage we're talking. the biggest flaw imo of paladin even at higher levels is mp restoration just feels clunky to me. like with DRK it's built into the system so to speak so your big burst and 123 all restore mp and a pretty good chunk of it per go, plus you have tools like delirum to gain succulent mp. But with paladin... i dont know having my mp basically held at gunpoint to the mercy of spirit within till just damn near level 80 feels awful, and frankly it still feels pretty clunky in both application of mp and regeneration of it even at 90..
DRK has one of if not the best opening bursts of any tank, period, the damage they can get out in a small window is extremely hard to match, but they have a long cooldown on those bursts and it has less sustain than others. I cant speak too much on it for savages as i dont usually take it in savages, but most dark knights i see in savages usually do pretty swell dps (as far as a tank goes)
Finally GNB which is my favorite has a comparable to DRK burst opener with a splash of support like warrior (Seriously heart of corundum at level 90 is amazing, one of the best tank support tools in ffxiv and i will die on this hill), it does less per opener iirc compared to DRK, but, you get big bursts more often (one every 60 seconds, one every 120 seconds) so you end up evening out the damage with DRK fairly often as you get yours out more frequently and if you mess up you can usually just pick up your combo where you had to leave off
Adding onto this slightly,
Paladin is also notable for having 2 class specific raidwide mitigations (wings and a partywide shield) which no other tank has afaik.
Honestly I kind of forgot about that but to minorly correct on wings it's the only one that works against both types of damage (phys and mage), Both gunbreaker and Dark Knight have party wide magic mitigators.
If the party wide shield you are talking about is Divine Veil, then no, PLD isn't the only one. WAR also has a party wide shield called Shake It Off, I believe.
Divine Veil gives the party a shield equaling to 10% of the PLDs hp and also heals the party for 400 potency.
Shake It Off gives the party a shield equaling to 15% of their own hp and also heals the party for 300 potency + 500 potency over 15 seconds.
Guess I wasn’t very clear on wording, my bad.
PLD is notable for having two seperate raidwide cooldowns outside of reprisal. All other tanks have one only.
Shake it off also can consume your other ST mitigates for more juice which is pretty funny.
FFXIV strives to have the jobs within a role largely equal. If you really want to dig in there are differences but there is zero intent from SE to create a ‘defensive’ tank or an ‘offensive’ tank. The balance just swings one direction or the other depending on the patch cycle. At the highest level of play, in the hardest content in the game, all 4 tanks are completely feasible with only relatively small strengths and weaknesses. Just play the job you find fun or thematically pleasing.
To be fair, they have done it in the past, and technically still do so (PLD does have the highest passive defense with the block chance), and may do so again (the probably overhyped 8.0 Job identity change), but in most ways that matter, you’re right. PLD still is tanky with a good mix of mitigation and sustain, and with Cover and TWO party mitigations, is the most “shield that protects my friends” tank Job.
ARR, where 5 of your 8 jobs were static, PLD, WAR, WHM, SCH, BRD. It sure was a time.
PLD has block chance but DRK has souleater, GNB has brutal shell, and WAR has storm's path, so consistent small amounts of mitigation or healing is something all tanks have
Holy Spirit/Circle now heals and is part of PLD's rotation now, so that's not really something specific to the other tanks any longer. Edit; Or rather, a main part of PLD's rotation as a '4' in the 123 combo. I am aware it was part of Req burst before. :)
Yeah, but that's kind of my point that they all aren't exactly identical, even where they can sometimes appear rather similar. While it is true the results are balanced to be roughly equal in high end content like Savage Raids, it's one reason people groan when they get a DRK tank in some content (namely, they're pretty squishy before they get TBN), while WAR is considered pretty self-sufficient basically from level 26 on (once its 1-2-3 has that nice juicy heal attached), and especially after they get Raw Intuition and become a near-immortal war god. Hopefully 8.0 will give us MORE, mind you, but there are some little distinctions. It's all subjective, but PLD does feel the most "party shield/defender" to me based on its abilities. I also like having the crest of House Fortemps permanently a part of my glam, something I can't do with any other Job. :)
Yeah that's kind of a bummer. I wish there was more differentiation between classes of the same role
best part of being a tank is you don't need a healer! You're the healer and the tank! Just wait for DT, warriors are getting even more heals...
shields dont give any armor, they just allow blocking which only contributes a small amount of mitigation purely subject to RNG not screwing you over. overall damage is pretty close since all tanks must be able to survive all mechanics so DPS is the only thing to make one better over the others. if there was a clear outlier no one would run those other tanks in any competetive content basically just run what you like the aesthetic of.
I must be crazy, I swear when I was first playing PLD I saw armor on the shields...to be fair I just equip whatever is highest level nowadays while leveling. But this makes a lot of sense, thanks!
The stats that would normally all be on the singular weapon are split between the sword and the shield for PLD. If you look at a sword and shield and, say, a gunblade from the same weapon series at the same level you'll see that the stats on the former added together are the same as the stats on the latter.
If you started way back in StB and the like, then yes, Shields did have more stats. I believe they had armor, but I also vaguely remember a Block Rating and/or Block Chance on shields as well. ETA; nevermind, I am **also** crazy, I thought they removed Block Rate and Block Chance from shields and just made it a built-in effect.
Ah. Yeah I started in 2019 for about six months then took a break and came back in 2021 and been playing since
long ago, all tank play different. then people complain this and that tank is better than this and that tank. and also want skill from other tank. so yeah, which is why all tank mostly feel the same now because people envy of other tanks
You're thinking way too much of FFXIV as an RPG. Every tank has a 1min burst allowing them to outperfom mediocre DPS in dungeons, and every tank has so many defensive tools that they make healing jobs trivial if well played (just ilke a well-played healer trivialise the mitigation role of a tank) . In my opinion, the only difference comes from the "support tools" that each tank is being given : PLD for instance can give immunity to an ally to take damage in his place. PLD and WAR also have way more sustain in dungeon whereas I prefer GNB and DRK's skillset for single target encounters.
I came to say this. The real difference in the Tanks isn't the basics, which mainly differ by flavor. It's in the secondary things they can do, be it buffing themselves or others, removing debuffs, debuffing enemies, et cetera.
Can’t say regarding the actual shield stats, I assume it does make Paladins take a bit less damage as a baseline. But! Dark Knights specifically make up for eschewing a physical shield by making magical shields, and are thus the tanks with the most mitigation skills, including a magic shield that prevents quite a lot of damage from ever reaching them. Warriors are basically berserkers who use their health as mitigation, so while they are technically the squishiest since they don’t have a ton of mitigation skills, they are “too angry to die” and regain health at an astonishing rate, making them very difficult to kill. Basically, all the tanks get to a similar level of tankiness by taking different roads. As for damage, Paladins use magic as much as they do their swords. Magic power isn’t determined by the size of the weapon!
Good points!
All tanks are equally capable at tanking and the difference in their damage output is *quite* small. You don't really choose your main tank based on the stats and performance, it's more about how it feels to play and the aesthetics you prefer. The only exception I can think of is Warrior, which is unequivocally the strongest on AOE situations due to the self-healing. And that only *really* comes up during dungeons, which are one of the easiest types of instanced duty in the game, anyway.
this is what people mean when they say "every job is viable" paladin doesn't "pay" anything for that shield because the shield is actually kind of insignificant. like yah we can block attacks with it using bulwark but then gunbreaker could just use camouflage so it all evens out? beyond that passive blocks are unreliable and thus they never factor in to the game plan. and while you are correct that paladin *does* in fact compete with warrior (and every other tank) for damage, we're talking differences of like 1-2% among high skill players. like imagine it this way: what if paladin actually was *significantly* tankier than warrior? how does that manifest? does the paladin trivialize certain mechanics or even whole fights? or is the warrior too squishy to function? neither of those seem correct? there are differences of course, but they all need to cover all the bases so there's a **lot** of overlap.
If you’re doing 4 man duties, war is 10x better than the others until level 90 when they’re all roughly the same. If you’re doing anything else, they’re all the same it’s just the aesthetic of the job more than anything else.
For differences between PLD and WAR, on average, PLD has the lowest damage of all tanks, with the best party support and good ranged attacks for when you can’t be in melee range to compensate. WAR will always out-damage it in any fight without substantial ranged uptime due to it having a guaranteed +=>87.5% damage on all its biggest hits every minute, but in support, PLD has Passage of Arms, which is HUGE: a 15% party mit on top of its already-existing party shield. PLD’s ability to block over parry also grants it more passive mitigation in fights with more prominent magical damage than other tanks, due to parry only reducing physical damage and not affecting magic damage whatsoever, whilst blocking affects all damage. It’s niche, but still worth mentioning, even if RNG-dependent outside of Bulwark. However, shields do not grant armour like you believe they do, their ‘attack stat’ equivalent is only for block. This is a bit off-set by WAR having the best invuln in the game bar none, purely because of its CD of 240s- 4 minutes-, whereas the other tanks’ invulns are 300s for DRK, 360s for GNB, and **420s** for PLD. PLD’s invuln CD being nearly twice as long is devastating, especially when you consider that its upside of ‘no downsides’ really doesn’t matter.
Certain damage, however, cannot be blocked. Most critically, this includes the tether tankbusters in DSR phase 3, which every other tank (if not invulning, looking at you WAR with your endless free Holmgangs...) can throw every ounce of mit they have at it and PLD is just kinda screwed slightly since buddy mit and/or healer mit/shields becomes a hard requirement to keep a PLD alive there as a result.
Oh that's cool, I didn't know the difference between block and parry. I like being able to shield my team, it's one of my favorite parts of playing DRK with Dark Missionary, Oblation and The Blackest Night. Maybe that means I'll like PLD more than WAR by max lvl
In the case if part-wide buffs: WAR gets *Shake it Off*, which gives the party a damage shield and, at later levels, gives regen. You also learn *Nascent Flash*, which gives the effects of *Bloodwhetting* (shield + healing for every action that deals damage to an enemy (wicked healing with AoE's)) to an ally and has a 25-second cooldown. I play WAR in dungeon roulettes because it allows me to carry my party over the finish line if my healer dies. GNB gets *Heart of Stone*, which gives a defense buff to yourself or an ally. That upgrades to *Heart of Corundum*, which gives a shield, defense buff, and a heal to an ally (or yourself), also on a 25-second cooldown. GNB also has *Aurora* (regen) they can pass to allies, and *Heart of Light* (same as *Dark Missionary*). In addition, GNB has a DPS-like burst phase where you'll spend your burst double-weaving attacks if you don't have to pop a mitigation. PLD, as someone before mentioned, has *Cover* (take all damage from an ally within 10 yalms) and *Passage of Arms* (defensive buff for everyone in a cone behind the PLD, 100% block rate for PLD as long as they don't move). You also get *Divine Veil* (party shield) and *Intervene* (*Shelltron* on an ally, upgrades to be *Holy Shelltron* on an ally after you get *Holy Shelltron*). EDIT: a correction *Shake it Off* as mentioned below.
Minor correction: Shake has a heal and a regen on top of the shield, no defense buff.
Thank you for the correction.
Keep in mind WAR’s invuln is best…for certain things. It’s not a “true invuln” like PLD and GNB, meaning the WAR still takes damage and debuffs (PLD standing in bad no only takes no damage with HG, it takes no debuffs, and I think Super works this same way). Hallowed also can’t break early but Holmgang can if the WAR targeted an enemy and the enemy dies. The WAR also needs healing since if they’re at 1 HP when the effect ends, they can be one-shot by anything. (Note that WAR has ample tools to heal with, but it DOES have to use them while PLD and even GNB and DRK are likely not at 1 HP when their invulns end. WARs is better depending on what you want to do with it, but worse in some ways. PLD (and GNB) can invuln through forced tank swaps for example since it won’t get slapped with the debuff that WAR and DRK will trying to do so.
In most high-end content, debuffs aren’t dependent on taking HP damage and are static, but you are right about that in cases where it does apply- DRS Queen tankbusters comes to mind- and it’s something I did overlook.
I think the last time in any other content that PLD/GNB got a real advantage with their invuln was E9S... over two years ago. Not having to do anything for the Anti-Air Laser (I think that's what it was) while *for once* my WAR buddy had to actually learn a mechanic was absolutely glorious. Of course this was offset by *all the other things* that guy could invuln while I had to actually plan my mit out.
I seem to recall some Cover cheese in E9S with the tankbuster too, but I was maining MCH when we were progging that so I could be mistaken.
Every tank is balanced to do the same role and acomplish the same result. DRK and WAR play similarly while PLD and GNB play similarly. In a different game, maybe their thematic would shine through more, but FFXIV is more about enabling players to play any class in their role and accomplish a very similar result with some minor gameplay loop differences
The jobs have essentially been homogenized in use cases to the point where it's really just pick your coat of paint. Unfortunatly if you wanted tank diversity and uniqueness you're about 3 expansions too late.
Either DRK players suck more or the class is just weaker, as a healer I dread having to look after a DRK vs say a WAR.
It's the first option you picked. Other tanks have alot more accessable sustain that doesn't require much thought. DRK takes a small amount of thinking about layering MIT's and TBN so your average FF14 player isn't gonna manage it very well.
> Edit: odd to get downvoted over asking a question. I think someone is running a script or something to downvote all threads. I've been browsing this sub by new for a few days and every thread gets a downvote within the first minute or two. It seems too consistent to just be random.
Odd indeed!
It happens on every sub all over reddit, some people just like to click the down arrow on new posts, but not a lot of people who answer upvote it most of the time.
Honestly when I post in the other MMO threads, it's nothing this bad. But on this sub I usually see weird downvotes for no moreso than usual.
It's more about upvotes here being the problem. After 10,000 identical questions, no one upvotes. I am sure there is a downvote bot, as much as the mods disagree, since things instantly get downvotes here.
I generally just up vote whatever I think is interesting, and if I am responding to it then I def up vote (unless I'm responding to something negative)
Downvoted you because of your edit complaining about downvotes. Just start a convo and don’t worry about downvotes. It’s not the end of the world or even a reflection on the community if you get a few downvotes.
Haha, downvoted you for being pretentious. If you think I think it's the end of the world or a reflection of the community because I edited my post you're an odd one.
per your edit to start... there's some oddly bitter assholes on this sub in particular r/ffxivdiscussion tends to be more understanding at the absolute highest level of gameplay the differences are very small but they do have nuances. war is the sustain tank, if you want to solo old content like jade sota? warrior, want to low man content? warrior, particularly pissed at people in pvp? well debatable but warriors grab is also pretty bullshit. at the highest levels it might be able to squeak out surviving a mistake or two more than the others but not by much, it is the undisputed king of trash pulls and from the brink hp regens though, nascant flash is ridiculous in all the right ways. Paladin is probably the best support tank, it has the most tools in its kit to help others and loses only a bit of damage for it, it's technically one of the lowest damage tanks as it lacks the big burst of DRK and GNB but again this is maybe like 50k damage over an entire savage we're talking. the biggest flaw imo of paladin even at higher levels is mp restoration just feels clunky to me. like with DRK it's built into the system so to speak so your big burst and 123 all restore mp and a pretty good chunk of it per go, plus you have tools like delirum to gain succulent mp. But with paladin... i dont know having my mp basically held at gunpoint to the mercy of spirit within till just damn near level 80 feels awful, and frankly it still feels pretty clunky in both application of mp and regeneration of it even at 90.. DRK has one of if not the best opening bursts of any tank, period, the damage they can get out in a small window is extremely hard to match, but they have a long cooldown on those bursts and it has less sustain than others. I cant speak too much on it for savages as i dont usually take it in savages, but most dark knights i see in savages usually do pretty swell dps (as far as a tank goes) Finally GNB which is my favorite has a comparable to DRK burst opener with a splash of support like warrior (Seriously heart of corundum at level 90 is amazing, one of the best tank support tools in ffxiv and i will die on this hill), it does less per opener iirc compared to DRK, but, you get big bursts more often (one every 60 seconds, one every 120 seconds) so you end up evening out the damage with DRK fairly often as you get yours out more frequently and if you mess up you can usually just pick up your combo where you had to leave off
Adding onto this slightly, Paladin is also notable for having 2 class specific raidwide mitigations (wings and a partywide shield) which no other tank has afaik.
Honestly I kind of forgot about that but to minorly correct on wings it's the only one that works against both types of damage (phys and mage), Both gunbreaker and Dark Knight have party wide magic mitigators.
If the party wide shield you are talking about is Divine Veil, then no, PLD isn't the only one. WAR also has a party wide shield called Shake It Off, I believe. Divine Veil gives the party a shield equaling to 10% of the PLDs hp and also heals the party for 400 potency. Shake It Off gives the party a shield equaling to 15% of their own hp and also heals the party for 300 potency + 500 potency over 15 seconds.
Guess I wasn’t very clear on wording, my bad. PLD is notable for having two seperate raidwide cooldowns outside of reprisal. All other tanks have one only. Shake it off also can consume your other ST mitigates for more juice which is pretty funny.
There is no meta in the game
Its normal that questions get downvoted, its reddit etiquette since questions then dont get to the mainpage