World First WoW Raider Reacting to Tanks in Final Fantasy XIV 

Paladin has had a mild rework since that guide. "Fight or Flight" buffs all your damage, not only physical. Goring Blade isnt a dot anymore, i that does all its damage up front being a 1 min CD now. Divine Veil doesnt need a healing spell anymore to trigger it and also applies its shield to the user too. Edit: I forgot about Bulwark they re-added back into the game. It blocks attacks for 10 seconds with 90s cooldown.

Best description of the Warrior experience is "local man literally too angry to die"

Dark knight is "themed" like a BDK but warrior is actually a BDK.

you can play all the tanks in one character so i think its worth to try all of them o/

Welcome to pally. I'm just about to hit level cap on mine and it's been such a fun job to learn, I love how it has a ton of team buffs that let you really exercise your game knowledge and reactions in content.

Paladin invuln is used in dungeons a lot on the first pull so healer doesn't have to worry about healing and tank doesn't burn through any other CDs on that pull. Then they usually get it back for at least 1 more use by the end of dungeon as well

Hope you enjoy your dive into FFXIV! Look forward to watching! I'd like to point out though that the Paladin guide in this video is out-of-date and inaccurate. You might want to look for a newer one. The entire damage rotation was changed in patch 6.3 and it functions almost completely differently than how it's displayed here. Most notably they don't have to manage DoTs anymore. You can use Holy Sheltron about every 25s. You get 5 gauge every auto attack, and you need 50 gauge to use it. But if you have 100 gauge, you can use it back to back.

good to see you in this game, gonna be fun to watch.

Things to note : paladin and warrior had a small rework during Endwalker. For the Paladin, they had "Bulwark" reworked into the job which is a 90s OGC that makes you block all attacks for 10s. the attack spells have been somewhat integrated into the normal combo using a buff you get when you finish either your single target or AoE combo called "Divine Might" (along with Sword Oath). "Divine Might" allows you to cast either Holy Spirit or Holy Circle without cast time and increased power once and "Divine Might" will take priority over your Requiescat stacks. "Fight or Flight" now also buffs ALL damage instead of simply physical damage and "Goring Blade" no longer has a DoT effect but is instead a 60s GC ability that deals heavy damage. The usual rotation I use for the regular combo these days is : ST : Fast Blade -> Riot Blade -> Royal Authority -> Holy Spirit -> Atonement x3 MT : Total Eclipse -> Prominence -> Holy Circle For the Warrior, Overpower used to be a cone attack but has been changed into an AoE around the Warrior to better combo with Mythril Tempest (which is also an AoE centered on the Warrior). As for tanks in general, each of them have an equivalent 30% mitigation move that lasts for 15 seconds with the Warrior having that 55 potency counterattack on top of it. So Sentinel, Vengeance, Shadow Wall and Nebula are pretty much their own take on the same thing. Note on Sheltron and Holy Sheltron for the Paladin is that they use 50 Oath Gauge like your other gauge abilities so as long as you have at least 50 Oath Gauge, you can use either Sheltron or Holy Sheltron. So since you gain 5 Oath Gauge on auto-attacks that land, that means you would have one use of those every 30 seconds or so as long as you are dealing auto-attacks and up to two of them with a full gauge.

WAR is easily the chillest of the tanks (if not all jobs) in the game, its thematically cool, all most all the weapons look great, the rotation is simple but flows well (except weaving those 3 fuckin dashes) you hang out do your thing and look if someone needs a nascant flash (heal) occasionally, everything else just happens naturally as you do your rotation.

Good luck man!

If you ever do deep dungeon, shield bash will be useful because you can use it to stun some mobs to interrupt their casting. Because interject only works on cast bar that blinks

@Andybrew, Mouse over are not as needed in XIV as the GCD is slower (2.3~2.5 sec ish) which lets you do a lot in between with either abilities not on the GCD or target shenanigans.. Also XIV has sub-targets which is not a thing that exist in WoW. A sub target is like... you keep targeting the boss as normal, but after you can sub target or sometimes called soft target another mob or playerto cast your next ability on... that soft/sub target goes away as soon as you cast your ability... all without ever loosing your main target... The default keybinds for that are Dpads or 4-6 on numpad for mobs, and 2 and 8 to go up or down the party list. I recommend rebinding them and making use of those they are something I WISH wow had soooo much.

For mouseovers, you can use them. But since you are a world raider, to bypass the extra time a mouseover macro has due to how macros are coding, you can do target macros which is what we use for for example casting Blackest Night on your fellow tank. You setup it so the second party member is always your offtank (I think this is by defaul), then you have one key for that so you click it to give them your defensive when they are taking a tank buster or something. Other than this, you should do a mouse over macro that isn't your main ability macro, for example for clemency, you should do a mouseover macro anyway. It's slower yes, it always causes problems if spammed too much yes. But if you are using clemency on other people something has already gone wrong and the extra second you lose on the animation skill isn't what you are worried about imo.

A big plus is that you can have all the jobs at once since one character can learn and use all 19 jobs

Looking forward for this series, also, just play them all every single tank it's unique in a way

if anything you'll love the spectacle of the raids as you progress, the variety and the difficulty is a real treat cause it was INTERNALLY tested. Im sure you'll see some dope weapons/armor/mounts, hopefully its not overall too stimulating and remember all the effects/HUD can be adjusted to your liking. ZERO need for add-ons.

Welcome! Hope enjoy your time here, I'll watch your progress with great interest.

a stand out memory I have as a WAR Main, was in an expert roulette. This healer, while we waited for the sprouts to watch the cut scene, takes one look at me like 'Soooo... how confident are ya?' Me: .. Fel cleave goes brrr.. Healer: Aight, I get to be green dps~ Smooth dungeon, and had a lot of fun~ Fel cleave indeed went brr~

Good luck finding yourself a group who'll take you completely blind synched through Coils because that sure is an experience that's worth the effort to get.

I've been a paladin main for like 7 years and I don't see it changing! I adore the class. ♡

Hopefully you enjoy your time in FFXIV! I main WAR and I love it. It's not as hard hitting as GNB and DRK but it still hits pretty hard. You're fairly self sufficient and have A LOT of self heals. Lastly the giant Axe glam with Lalas is HILARIOUS. I also love all the WAR job glams that have come out since the Barbarian feel is super cool.

Don’t know if anyone ever explained it, but you can absolutely do mouse over abilities, without plugins. You can make a macro that uses the tag and it will be a mouse over ability. I main healer and all of my targeted heals are mouse over heals using the mouse over macro.

Im sure many would be able to get the points thru of how fun and different it is, but i’ve also learned how not-time-locked the raid contents are - like the instant u get thru ARR you could do Coils of Bahamut (first raid series that was maybe a bit too rough), and the moment u get thru HeavensWard u can unlock and try out the first series of Savage raids - Alexander. U can do them with easy mode (unsync), moderate (just go in with existing gear, probably will be quite strong for the level), or deliberately select Minimum Itel Level and (optional) No echo, and u will get a petty cutthroat experience of “how its supposed to feel when it was released”- from ‘old’ content that is not current :D

I don't know if it's still the case but I remember there was a time when Gunbreaker's invuln had a tiny window between when you drop to 1 and become invuln. This tiny window meant that bad timing would cause the skill to kill you, lol.

Hi! Tank main here! Paladin was my first tank that i picked up and PLD's Magic sword combo was what kinda got me into 14 (like Archer's unlimited blade works!!) PLD is hella comfy and has the job fantasy i really enjoy WAR is fun as hell and you can get away with a lot of things. GNB has a stellar rotation and plays similarly like a DPS. Then, theres DRK. Hella busy, hella fun, and The Blackest Night (TBN) is one of the best skills a tank could ever ask!

Considering the latest expansion is gonna come this year im not sure it still stands but Gunbreaker is pretty balanced tank rn, it has everything for any situation and the rotation is really easy to follow up and to experiment with hope you enjoy tanking in ffxiv man

JoCat's tanking guide is a fun watch.

As an experienced FF14 player, I can comferm that Dark Knight and Gunbreaker are not only the two most popular raiding tanks but also the two most fun ones to play. Warrior is allso a lot of fun but can feel overpowered due to all it's healing and does less DMG then the Dark Knight. I usually start as a warrior and shift to Dark knight at lvl50 (you cant get to it before lvl50 if you have not done the MSQ) after that I play through the game as Dark Knight and train Gunbreaker as I feel fit ones my Dark Knight hit lvl60. Best of luck to you and I hope you will have a great time with us in FF14

8:40 who on earth told this guy he can't use mouse over macros without plugins. I have made a mouse over for EVERY single skill that can be targeted on a party member. Never had any issues. Do not listen to them

Also i don't know if life chat mentioned it but mitigation wise all tanks are kind of similar in specific terms. Everytank has a role action Rampart which is 20% mitigation for 20s, every tank also gets Reprisal which is an aoe debuff on enemies to reduce their damage by 10%. What all tank have in common is, they all get a big 30% mitigation skill which lasts 15s. Also then all tanks get a similar low cd (25s) mitigation which is normally 10% but additional effect changes like bloodwhetting with the shield, the extra 10% and the selfhealing. or dark knights tbn which is not a percentage mitigation but a 25%hp shield. pld and war have different partymitigation tools than drk and gnb. what war and pld do is a shield on the party with the addition of pld passage of arms which is a flat mitigation for ur party behind you. gnb and drk instead give u a magical mitigation, which covers mostly everything in the game since the most raidwides are magical damage anyways. drk gets speciallity with a extra big mitigation abillity, which is a magical mitigation for 20% on himself. Giving in Savage most Tank Buster are physical, this Ability gets rare use. In Ultimates however like DSR and TOP they give DRK a more likely to be picked, because of the extra Mitigation they have to plan with.

In the current expansion, they gave every job a very short CD with powerful mitigation that rewards good timing for incoming damage. For Paladin, Warrior, and Gunbreaker, this amount to an ~8s 15% mit PLUS a ~4s 15% mit, with an additional effect such as healing. Dark Knight doesn't have this, but they do have that big shield they can give allies also on a short cooldown, as well as a separate button that can give 10% mitigation. I mention this because, in the current ultimate raid, there is a pair of tankbusters that do insane damage. Essentially, one tank will use tons of their mitigation, while the other will invuln, party mit, and give their cotank their short CD mit. If they do not do this, their cotank will die. In Savage raids, there are not any tankbusters that hit nearly this hard, and usually the off tank will just give the main tank their short CD whenever possible to mitigate auto attack damage or help them with an upcoming buster. (The exception is Dark Knight, because if you give the shield and it doesn't pop, you don't get the free damage proc. So you just have to make sure you only give it when you know it will pop.) Quick review of the classes if you want: Warrior is the easiest to play and is very desired right now because of its safety with self and party healer as well as high damage thanks to a recent buff and its auto-crit skills, and crit is stronger at the end of an expansion because of gear numbers. The de facto "main tank". Dark Knight is memed to be "made of paper" as it's personal mit isn't as strong as other classes, but it has insane burst. Very powerful in some encounters/phases. Has gauge management. Paladin has the most versatile mitigation in the game and can attack from range frequently reducing some forced downtime (minor), but the long invuln cooldown restricts how your party may approach tankbusters. Gunbreaker is very strong and has powerful party mitigation, but you will lose damage if you have any downtime because its rotation is very strict, you won't be able to generate enough cartridges if you stop attacking the boss for one or two casts. Overall if you're fighting a full uptime boss, as most encounters are designed as such nowadays in this game, I feel like Gunbreaker is a great choice. Warrior is also a fantastic choice, especially for main tanking. I would say personally that, in terms of easiness to play at a high level, it would be Warrior > Dark Knight > Paladin > Gunbreaker. But once you know the rotation for your job, it's all easy. Just some are more forgiving for mistakes than others.

Welcome to FFXIV! If you ever need any help learning tanks, I've been a Gunbreaker main for two expacs now (since it dropped) and would be happy to help you figure things out. Tanking in FFXIV is pretty straight forward since they removed hate management, you're effectively a DPS with cooldowns and a few unique mechanics per fight (mostly tank swaps) but it's a lot of fun.

Paladin is a good starting point if you wanna play gunbreaker as they have pretty similar basic rotations.

When he said "I'm already a lala" i pressed subscribe! XD

You can aslo use cover in place of a tank swap if your being the off tank.

I didn't even hit max on my paladin when i was playing but the single target rotations in this game are way more fun and interesting than wow. Paladin has two offensive cds and you press different buttons during each. If i had friends that play this i think if play more. Need at least a small group to raid though.

*The BIGGEST difference in Raiding FF14 is: The use of Addons.* *All Raids are Tested and Completed by the Developers to be done without any form of help.* *The use of Modification/Addons/External-program etc. to help you clear a fight is a Bannable offense,* *And are usually looked down upon by other Raiders, as they take away the Achievements of clearing it legit.*

funny that you bring up Fate Stay night at the end :D take a look at bard :P

What? Yes you can do mouse-over healing, you just need to setup a quick macro for it (which is a part of the vanilla game), people just are parroting something that they don't fully understand. Even with over 130ping I use mouse-over macros for healing non-MT players even on Savage with no issue other than cussing at the one who made me heal them (because most of the times if a DPS fucks up in savage, they will need a heal and a shield to maybe survive their fuck up)

Most of the tanks are pretty easy to play, apart from differences in apm. If you want some more complexity I'd recommend monk or ninja, they feel very rewarding to learn. You can make mouse over macros but they only really work well if you use them with ogcd skills, trying to tie gcd skills to complex macros screws your gcd and cd timers up.

A few things in this have changed but just to clear some things up Every tank has Rampart, a 20% damage mitigation for 20 seconds Every tank also has a 30% damage mitigation for 15 seconds, not just Dark Knight (There's also a 10% aoe mit every tank has) I think where it may have gotten mixed up is Dark Knight has a strong mitigation with a 15 second COOLDOWN, lasts 6 seconds, The Blackest Night (big shield) However, Warrior's Raw Intuition / Bloodwhetting is also super strong with a 25 second cooldown, Raw Intuition lasts 6 seconds and Bloodwhetting is 8 seconds (every weapon skill heals based on enemy hit so aoes give massive heals) The other 2 tanks don't QUITE have an ability that strong at that low of a CD, Gunbreaker has a 25 second cooldown, lasts 7 seconds and 8 seconds when it levels up, (15% mit, but when it levels up also grants a heal when the target reaches 50% hp or the 8 second buff ends) Paladin's Sheltron is kind of their low cooldown mit, it should be up every 25 seconds but if you're not doing auto attacks like the boss is out of range it doesn't build up, that lasts 4,6, and 8 seconds when it levels up, and at the final level grants extra mit for 4 seconds with a regen

i used to have a macro for mouse over with clemency , did they remove that from the base game?

Gunblade was my first ever tank, in any game. I never wanted to do it because if you didn’t like the main tank mechanics usually they all kind of ran the same. So I usually rolled healer for short queue times lol. Then got into magic dps and physical dps all with the same character. The class system of ffxiv is above . I love how different a class could be from another and still fill a roll, like ffxiv allows. I’m definitely itching to play the new expansion. I’ve been gone for 2 years

I'm sure you've been told several times, but there have been some tank updates since this video released. Using ranged attacks no longer interferes with combos or abilities like Inner Release. Paladin especially changed a bit so it's less awkward to go between magic and physical attacks. Both PLD and Warrior got buffs to their party heals. Also, every tanks has a 'big' mitigation that's stronger than Rampart but longer cooldown, they just work slightly differently from tank to tank. Then each tank tends to have a number of more midline mitigations or healing abilities that provide the actual job flavor (outside DPS style). Speaking of flavor GNB and especially DRK are more dps-oriented and their raid cooldown is raid mitigation. PLD and WAR are a bit more support oriented and their raid mitigation heals, shields and WAR also adds a HoT to everyone (vs PLD getting a whole nother ability to Passage of Arms instead of HoT). DRK is the only one whose short CD mitigation doesn't actually heal, which is fine for raid but can be a little squishy in dungeons with many mobs. Edit: rechecking the big cooldowns, only WAR has an actual noticeable difference in Vengeance. I guess the streamlining really did make them nearly identical moreso than i thought.

I've seen a warrior solo the last 40% of a dungeon boss when everyone else was dead

Tanks in general are very similar in their defensive aspects and are fairly balanced in their dps differences, their main differences are how their dps rotations differ, so feel free to play which you like the look or feel of better. For mits, in addition to reprisal and rampart, all tanks have a 30% mit for 15s w/ 2 min cooldown (with only WAR's having the minor difference of the phys damage thorns effect), they have a 90s cd smaller mit and a 2 min cd raidwide mit that varies in effect depending on job, and all have an invuln that varies in how they work. It wouldn't hurt to try all the tanks a bit when you reach the point to unlock them, with being able to do all the jobs on the same character, and all share the same gear for the most part with the exception of weapons.

Let's goo!!!

Yes, Lalas are one of my favourite races. Au Ra is prob my second, but also the one I have the most characters and retainers of XD

Try out any of them that seem cool to you or even all of them. Maybe the aesthetic of one or the playstyle of another will win you over. Warrior is definitely the most chill/easy to stay alive with, Paladin has the most party-applicable mitigation, Dark Knight slaps the hardest, and Gunbreaker is the speediest/needs the most buttons per second. Pick what you vibe with! Other than the class-specific sets, they all share the same gear, so the visuals of their moves are what you want to look at if aesthetics are really important to you.

I have literally gotten into a level 90 dungeon, had the Warrior tell the healer to just DPS, and then proceeded to heal themselves successfully the entire dungeon. It's an incredible tank to raid with, too, with lots of strategy options/advantages. It doesn't have the highest DPS, but it's a lot of fun to play.

Wait, is vanilla mouseover actually bad? I've only used it on alts like for mage tp but i don't remember having had an issue with it

Those videos are very well made in term of decribing the abilities but don't speak about the general mood of the job: for example dark knight and gunbreaker are very busy jobs (gnb with a more rigid rotation, drk with a few more clicks) while war has way more space for thought

As someone who's raided on Tank a lot I can give you a quick and easy blurb on how each tank plays: Paladin: It's basically split between Physical Burst and Magic Burst, Some of it's buttons are kinda wonky, but it has a bunch of fun party mit like Divine Veil which gives the entire party a Shield that will mitigate damage AND a regen, Cover which you can place on another player (usually the other tank) and you will take All of the damage they are taking while it's active (Note: it is a bit buggy and doesn't work on some attacks), and Passage of Arms which gives you Giant Wings behind you and will make you take less damage and make the party take 85% less damage. It has probably the best Invuln in Hallowed Ground which makes to take no damage for 10s but it's balanced by having the longest cooldown of all the Invulns It's not my favorite and admittedly I have the least experience on it. Dark Knight: Dark Knight is the tank that does the Most damage out of all 4. There's a joke that goes around a bunch that it's opening burst can do more damage than some DPS which is true, but unfortunately because it does so much damage it has less reliable mitigation. It's built as a Magic Defense tank as two of it's mitigation tools only work on Magic Damage which kinda makes it less powerful in fights that do more physical damage. It also doesn't have a lot of self healing. It's only form of self healing is it's 1-2-3 combo which is very little. It has one skill called Abyssal Drain that can heal based on the damage you do, but it's only an AoE skill and shares a cooldown with a Single Target ability that does more damage so it will never be used. It's Invuln is called Living Dead and in my opinion is the best one in the game. It makes you unable to go below 0 while active and makes your main attacks heal you and you can heal yourself up to full in 2-3 attacks. Overall Dark Knight is a very fun Job but has some short comings. I'd say it has a high Skill Floor, but also a high Skill Ceiling. Gunbreaker: Gunbreaker is basically a Tank that plays like a DPS. It's burst has a lot of buttons to press, but because of that it can feel a little bit clunky. Two of it's skills have a combo skill called Continuation which makes it so in your burst you can only weave one more ability on top of the Continuation which kinda stretches out it's burst a little. Due to this, some people with high ping may have trouble playing this Job. It's a super fun job regardless, feels like you're doing a bunch of damage with explosions. It's Invuln is called Superbolide which is a Healers worst nightmare as it will cut your hp down to 1 and make you invulnerable to all damage for 10s. Your healers will hate you if you do this right after they used their big heals. Overall I don't have many complaints about this job. I just wish they would fix the clunkiness and it'd probably one of my favorite jobs. Warrior: Now we come to my Favorite Tank. Warrior is just Unga Bunga incarnate. You all your time out of burst building up Gauge to then spend on Fell Cleave. When in doubt, Fell Cleave. It has one of my favorite Attacks in all of FFXIV called Primal Rend where your character just jumps up in the air and does a flip and slams down on the enemy. It also has in my opinion one of the best mitigations in the game in Bloodwhetting. It gives you a shield, gives you a 10% damage reduction, and makes your attacks heal you for the duration all on a 25s cooldown. On top of that you have Vengeace which is a 30% damage reduction AND gives back small damage to the boss when it hits you with Physical damage. Overall it's a very easy Tank to learn, but it's super fun and I hope you have fun Fell Cleaving everything. All Tanks: Now something I wanted to add on the end here is that this game makes sure that any and all content can be cleared on any and all jobs. Every tank has similar abilities that do the same thing. Every tank has a 30% and 20% mit, every job has a stun, interject, and shirk. You can't go wrong on any job. At the end of the day it comes down to personal preference. What really matters is that you enjoy the fight. Don't let others drag down your enjoyment of it. Have fun and don't get sucked into Limsa Lominsa!!

Probably been said, but Goring Blade is now just a damage bomb and Divine Veil no longer needs to be procced. Its just a button that shields the group. And inner release charges are now only consumed by beast guage attacks.

Class balance is great in FF14 and tank balance is probably best of all. Pick the one you like most.

I love using Primal Rend as my opener in a boss fight.

You can make a macro for mouseover casting. You do not need anything third party and it's not against ToS. I recommend just googling the lines needed for the macro to work, they are pretty easy to make in game. Might be able to find somebody with an exact Clemency mouse over macro ready to go you can copy and paste. I have one set up for my monks thunderclap to dash to the nearest ally to my mouse pointer when I use the skill.

You can make mouseover macros using the in game macro system. It is incredibly beneficial for some abilities.

For Superbolide, a lot of peoples memes on it but it's really one of the best Mitigation in the game, 10 seconds invuln in a mob pack is insanely strong, but you want to play on the edge with it, use it last second before an attack kill you, because if you sacrifice 100k HP of 3 you get the same invuln, you if you know you're taking an average of 8k DPS you want to use use when around this threshold... Basically a near death experience and the most thrilling invuln for me

you dont need plugin to do mouse over casts, you can use the in-game macro. they are not optmal because you cant queue macro, but hey, better to clip one gcd than wipe and need to restart the boss

5:40 I haven't played for a while but I don't think they've changed the healing requirement for walking dead. It's not "to max" it's "for max" HP. So if your max HP is 50k you need to be healed for 50k. You don't have to get to your max HP you can be at 10k and still have been healed for 50k if you've been taking damage at the same time.

Remember, by Choosing to be a Lalafel, you didn't just choose a race.......You chose a Lifestyle, one there NO going back too! XD

Been awhile since I played WoW so might not have things accurate with how the tank specs are now, last time I played actively was during Legion through the middle of SL for frame of reference. As others said, DRK visually looks a lot like Blood DK but I'd consider their defensives a bit more like Prot Warrior with The Blackest Night being sort of like Ignore Pain as a strong damage absorb with a low CD, albeit DRK has heavier magic damage mitigation like BDK. Their OH SHIT button, Living Dead is very powerful when used at the right time, when they pop it and they take fatal damage they become invulnerable for several seconds and their attacks give them huge lifesteal during this time, this invuln buff fades as soon as they're healed to full health but if they don't get healed to full by the time it ends they die for real, overall just one or 2 of their own AOEs will ensure they heal to full so you can pop it, wait a couple of seconds and then do some DPS. Warrior funny enough is sort of the opposite as the tank with heavy heavy focus on self heals, they even have strong party heals which arguably make them pretty damn OP especially considering their damage rotation is very simplistic and yet also fairly powerful during their burst windows. They also have the ability Vengeance which on top of the damage mitigation deals some damage to attackers as well, a minor thing to note is that using this and the role ability Arms Length together would be a DPS loss as mobs attacking slower means they're getting hit back slower as well. Their OH SHIT button, Holmgang is also fairly simply and straightforward, simply making it so that their HP cannot drop below 1 (besides for special boss mechanics). Paladin is pretty much Prot Paladin with their shields providing extra parry rate as well as more party utility defensives and their OH SHIT button, and as another comment said, they've had a few reworks since that other video was made, overall beefing up their burst damage phase which is pretty visually satisfying with all the massive holy swords dropping down and smiting your enemies. Hallowed Ground is pretty much bubble, it's definitely the most potent defensive as it's the only one that blocks all damage completely, thus is why it also has the longest CD compared to other tanks' OH SHIT buttons. Lastly Gunbreaker is a bit of a unique tank that's a bit hard to compare to WoW tanks, maybe a bit like Vengeance DH in terms of its fast paced offensive rotation combined with its well rounded defensives. The biggest thing I'd note is their OH SHIT button can be a tricky one to work with, it works similarly to Warrior's as it makes it so that their HP can't go below 1 for several seconds, however immediately after they activate it their current health immediately drops to 1, so it's meant to be used when their HP is already low but you gotta make sure you and your healers are on the same page, all too often I've seen healers popping their most powerful heal to top off a low Gunbreaker only for them to immediately bring their HP back down to 1 and they better hope they and the healers are ready to keep them alive when the buff runs out while they're still getting wailed on. They're still very strong despite this little quirk, just something to keep in mind. Overall all the tank jobs in FF14 are solid with their own strengths and weaknesses and while I'm not a hardcore raider, the thing I've heard most say is that the differences between each tank's performance is very negligible. Warriors seem to be a very popular option with their insane self heals as well as simple playstyle allowing for more attention on raid mechanics, but they're not the end all in the meta and it's best to find what you enjoy the most. And given FF14 lets you unlock, level, and switch between all jobs on one character it's not like you have to worry too much about picking the right one on character creation.

Just gonna add no matter what non true Dark Knight main tells you, TBN used to be the best mitigation, it's not now.

Warrior is the tank job that actually plays how you would think Dark Knight would play (leech tank). Warrior is its own off-healer - I main White Mage and with a Warrior tank, I often only need to keep HoTs running on them.

You can do mouse-over spells with macros and

Shaltron has a 5sec cd but you can't spam it because you can only use it at 50 oath which you get 5 of every AA

Any lala class...your sorted!

Another echo member joins the fray! We welcome you

You don't need to use plugins to do mouse-over heals on other characters. there's already an option to do it in the settings that have existed for years.

As tank main, I can say that normally in game all tanks are well-balanced but they follow roughly this form Paladin - Best Protection, Best Healing, Low Damage, Great Sustainability Warrior - Medium protection, Good Healing, Good damage, Incredible Sustainability Dark Knight - Great protection, No healing, Great Damage, Low Sustainability Gunbreaker - Good Protection, Great Healing, Good damage, Good Sustainability Protection means overall mitigations for self or party members. Healing means healing that you can give to yourself or party members Damage - Duh Sustainability - ability to survive encounter without a healer Paladin and WAR can easily solo most of normal content (unless mechanics require Limit Break or other party members to survive), Gunbreaker will occasionally be better than them, occasionally will struggle and Dark Knight... well, Dark Knight needs a healer to sustain him. While high level tanks have at least 3+ ways of self healing or adding barrier (GNB has GCD combo+HoC+Aurora, WAR has Bloodwetting+Equilibrium+Thrill of Battle, Paladin has Holy Circle+Holy Spirit+Clemency+Divine Weil), Dark Knight can only do so much with their toolset (GCD combo, Abyssal Drain that shares recast with single target ability + TBN). TBN is good, but it doesn't resolve issue with DRK's abysmally bad healing unless you do Living Dead, which is janky to say the least.

Just keep in mind only two of these are available at the start of the game. Similar to hero classes in wow. Dark Knight is only available at level 30 (tho that doesn't take long) and Gunbreaker at 60. DRK doesn't have much mitigation at lower levels tbh.

Try them all out. See which one you like the most. Remember, one character can play EVERY JOB/CLASS.

I use mouseover macro's in the game that aren't from plugins. They work totally fine, it's pretty much the only type of macro that doesn't screw your gcd.

I say try them all. That's what I did. You can try them out in Duty Support if you're not sure at first, but the only way to know which job is right for you is to try them.

There are Macros you can write that can do Mousover stuff you dont need plugins or mods for that by the way.

now i see... when you compared warrior to guardian druid, now i know why i liked druid so much (i main warrior at ffxiv)

As a fellow GNB, I do not apologize for 'Bolindin' at seemingly random. It's funny, it makes my tiny tank brain make the feel good juice..

Definitely go for dark knight (or gunbreaker). They're the highest APM tanks and the smoothest to play. Warrior is only fun in dungeons because of the crazy self healing during aoe and paladin is only fun if you want to be a 'support' tank.

Every tank is super fun to play imo I main Dark Knight, myself Paladin and Gunbreaker nowadays have nearly identical rotations And then Warrior is just unga bunga fell cleave never die I've had raid runs where I was the only one left alive on Warrior and solo'd a quarter of the boss' hp by the power of my self sustain I've also had runs not on tank where the healers died and the Paladin or Warrior kept the party alive with their heals while I also provided what little heals I could on whichever dps I was using Most recent instance of that I recall is in the Ruby Weapon trial, we had 2 Paladins and 2 Dancers who kept the run alive after both healers went down

There’s plenty of time to play both games since both have ample down time. It would be easier if SE and Blizzard would release on alternating years. But they seem pretty dedicated to going head to head. Even then you can play both just play your favorite on release and catch up on the other during down time.

War self healing is powerful, about 1/4 to 1/3 HP bar I supposed.

One of us !!! (LalaCultists)

PLA got a bit of a rework. Some of the more useless abilities are still there, but it got a lot of quality of life improvements, e.g. for divine veil and healing interactions.

If you don’t mind picking up all of them, then go for it! You can figure out which job you prefer

Yoshida will bring a M+ like to FF this year, I BELIEVE, PRAYGE kek

just a note, you probably worked it out by now though, but you can actually play all roles, including all tank roles. My suggestion, just to get used to things, would be to start off marauder (warrior) as its simplistic to use compared to rest, allowing you to get used to the game style and boss mechanics (to start off with I mean, example, being able to identify the situations like when a tank buster is going to hit, when to group up on the targeted abilities, movement (which is much more involved than wow ever was) and more) Just my suggestion though, main thing is to enjoy the game, and dont rush it, take time with the story and immerse yourself in it as that really is the main feature of this game

Just a heads up Paladin got a rework after this. So it's a bit out of date.

I'm sure you've realized this by now, but you can only play as Gladiator (Paladin) or Marauder (Warrior) at the start of the game. You won't get access to the others until WAY later. You'll also need to complete a LOT of story to get there, so if you are just wanting to focus on Raids and such, expect to play for a few hundred hours before you can get to a point where that's you're sole focus. I'm not a tank expert by any means. I play DPS/Healer classes. However, when I did try Warrior, the gameplay was fun and fluid. But, once I got that Berserk Aura starting to whip around my character CONTSTANTLY I couldn't handle it anymore and quit that job. If you don't use it up before ending a battle, it will stay there indefinitely until you engage again and deplete it. I found it super distracting! If that doesn't bother you, it's supposed to be one of the best classes in the game for simple/fun rotations and sustainability. Paladin, while Sword/Shield classes don't usually appeal to me in most games, feels more appealing to me in FFXIV because of the Holy Magic aspect, which feels quite fitting for a Warrior of Light. It also, from my understanding is tied with having the MOST skills to manage in the game which has also deterred me from trying it out. But if that doesn't bother you (perhaps you like that kind of challenge more than I do, lol), I bet it will be a great choice! Welcome to the game!

Just know some basic things: in dungeons you always use AOE to keep mobs, or you will lose aggro. You dont need to provoke them, if you have tank stence on you will be fine. This is a tiny bit different than WoW but it is way simpler actually. Just click your designated tank stence button before starting to run in the dungeon and you never need to provoke. Again, use AOE for mobs (AOE deals less dmg, but you need it for aggro), you can use single target on bosses, or if you have 2 mobs only. In Raids and trials, where you have two tanks, you may have more tasks. But unless you go savage or extreme, you will never need to do tank swap or anything super difficult. I hope you and your GF will enjoy playing together. Ease into it. Dont rush. People can be a bit overly "nice", which is VERY different from WoW, so dont get surprised if you shittalk someone, you will get a lil reporty :) Very important PS for high end: Each tank has an invulnerability. Each has a different cooldown. Paladin is usually called the best in invul, but paladin has the longest cd on it... and paladin has so much freaking buttons in game, so, gotta learn the kit. Warrior has the lowest cooldown cd on their "invul" but its not a true invul. Most invuls work a tiny bit differently, its very important that before you go to higher end gaming, you learn the differences. It is not just important for you to know your own job, but you need to know your co-tank so you can strategize how to approach some mechs (who starts, who takes over the boss at certain mechs, etc). Further, its important for you to know your healers. Lot of tank players know that white mages have an instant full hp heal on them, so they make a makro "hey bitch imma invul dont heal me now but when its over". Well not like that but you know what I mean :D

So mouse over action can be realised vanilla via macros u can define ingame. Macros don't profit from the skill queuing system which make them a little unresponsive. While Macros are totally fine to use and accepted for crafting, gathering and ogcd's, building a macro for a gcd spell like Clemency or Heal gcds on healer are rlly bad, cause the clip ur gcd, since u cannot queue it. Ppl mentiined addons which are against tos, but also not "detectable" if u dont show or talk abt them. There is a plugin which uses a override for skill execution to make skill queueable but function with mouseover, making them more responsive and still benefitting the skill queue system

Wait until he see the Blue Mage tank with 90% mitigation lol.

Tanks are designed in a spectrum: Selfless Off Tank to Selfish Main Tank. Tanks are placed in this order. Paladin < Gunbreaker Dark Knight > Warrior. Yes. Paladin is the de-facto off tank. They even were the first to get a DPS stance, before that was removed. They're the only tank in the game that can take hits for other players while sharing defenses with someone else. They also have a skill to block all damage for everyone behind them, but you can't attack during it. You are the Selfless defender with your shield and white magic. But make no mistake, you are vicious with a sword. They are also the only tank with immunity that does not require healing to survive. Also you are the only tank who can chain stun. Gunbreaker is a bodyguard. They defend others while helping them fight together. They have the most fire & forget types of support, there is literally no reason to withhold any of it. They suck at healing and will not be able to do 1HP mechanics on their own, but that's OK. You wield whatever magic you want (barriers, explosions, lightning, etc) and even steal power from your enemies. Based on how the main character of FF8 fights, yes, you hit people a lot. Non-stop beatdowns and explosions. Dark Knight is a warrior of justice. They are knights who excel moderately in black magic. Black magic has next to no healing spell that isn't Drain. So obviously, you have the least self healing. But you have the best defenses. So much that upgrades to other tanks' defenses are based on what the dark knight already has. They are the only tank who can summon a friend and outright ignore mechanics. They defend others by killing their enemies fast, and with your destructive black magic, you do a great job at that. Sacrifices have to be made, but it is on you to make the difference. Otherwise, it's pointless. Warrior is a meat shield. The most selfish tank with little of note than being a fighter and unleashing the beast on any unfortunate to suffer your wrath. They don't command magic at all. They gotta give up defenses to protect someone else. But they're great at defending others simply by being first in line. Diving head first into hell and fighting off any and everything in their way. It's why they have the most attacks dedicated toward ensuring there is no escape. You also have the most abilities that makes you unmovable. You are the de facto main tank. And your ability to boost your max HP also makes everyone's HP based defenses on you much more powerful. Yes. You are the only one who can benefit from The Blackest Night better than the Dark Knight himself can because it is based on the 25% of the target's max HP. Among many other things. Also, you are the only tank with a defensive ability that retaliates upon being hit. You are here to fight.

I hope you have fun with this! Would definitely follow any content. The biggest issue with me playing FF is that it felt unresponsive (like shouting orders down the corridor at my guy instead of controlling), and the server infrastructure and net code being truly awful. That all being said, in know these things don't bother many, and I am sure you guys will have a great time regardless

Holmgang is really funny for healers making them shit their pants seeing the tank suddenly drop to 1HP

To summarize Paladin is the most defensive tank Warrior is the most heal-centric tank Dark Knight and Gunbreaker are the most DPS-centered with Gunbreaker being straightforward and Dark Knight being Technical. I hope you enjoy yourself when you join.

Idk which chatter said that but mouseovers are extremely useful for a LOT of abilities (heals, single target party defensives, dashes, single target buffs etc) and situations. 3rd party tools are entirely unnecessary.

My husband and I have been playing since the beta testing. Paladin is fun but you need to pay attention a bit more than you used to. Warrior is just "tank go brrrrrrr" according to my husband. I main White Mage and occasionally smack stuff with my Dark Knight for fun

So as a FFXIV player, do keep in mind that the best part of FFXIV compared to WoW is that you can play every job. If you pick one and then don't like it, you can just pick up another one. You don't have to make a new character or anything. You can just level the job and off you go. Your stats are 100% adjusted by your gear and you swap between jobs just by equipping the gear of the job you want to play. So feel free to test them all and find your favorite! There's no penalty!