hello there if you're a beginner file
fantasy 14 player or someone that just
wants to experiment by trying a new role
you might be wondering which of the
tanks available you should play
in this video i'll be comparing the
options and i'll give you a breakdown of
the abilities to help you pick while
endwalker had a more rocky than usual
start in terms of balancing compared to
previous expansions things have pretty
much evened out by now all tanks are
viable and optimization beyond that is
only important if you compete at the
high end of the high end raiders you
know the tippity top of sweatiness
for us mere mortals is way more
important to have a job that we enjoy
and understand because more than
anything else the damage you deal
depends on how well you can press your
buttons changing from a comfort pick to
a job you are unfamiliar with because
it's statistically a few percent better
is a terrible idea especially if you
come from a game like wow you might be
used to particular classes just not
being viable for entire expansions
this is not the case in final fantasy
xiv as all jobs are pretty much looked
after
with that out of the way a few weeks ago
i ran a poll where i asked you which one
your favorite tank was
and a whopping 48 percent of you said
that you like warrior the most if you
look at player numbers in the current
rate here we can see that warrior is
indeed the most played tank right now
warrior is final fantasy xiv's
two-handed axe guy there's a bit of a
stereotype for them being a bit simple
if your healer makes monkey noises when
talking to you that's why
warrior uses basic combo abilities to
gain a resource called beastgage this
beastgage can be spent on heavy hitting
abilities one being single target and
one being aoe once every minute warrior
gets to use these abilities for free
allowing them to deal heavy damage for a
short period of time there are only a
few off gcd abilities to be found
meaning warrior has a relatively quiet
job there's not many buttons to press
the rotation is straightforward and
there's really not much you can mess up
defensively warrior has solid easy to
understand abilities with a particular
focus on self-healing looking at the
numbers here we can see that the other
tanks aren't even close in competition
the on-demand self-healing gives warrior
a reactive playstyle that is beginner
friendly because unlike other tanks they
can shrug off damage after it's already
done meaning they're able to miss
mitigating a few abilities without
making their healers cry when comparing
rdps ranks of all the tanks we can see
that warriors minimum and maximum rank
are closest together out of all the
tanks what this would suggest to me is
that warrior has a low skill floor and a
low skill ceiling meaning it's hard to
mess up and also easy to master in
comparison to other tanks
more experienced players may feel
limited by this job in dungeons warrior
is extremely strong right now this is
due to the self-healing provided by the
ability blood wetting which restores
more hp the more enemies you hit with
your weapon skills during big dungeon
pulls this will effectively restore full
hp bar every 30 seconds
the healing scaling with the number of
enemies is key here because this is not
something other tanks have their ability
to heal themselves makes it so warriors
don't rely on the actual healer to do
that job in youtube roulettes that's a
good thing because you never know who
you'll get cute with being able to do
content independently from how your
party is performing is a huge benefit of
the job and one of the main reasons why
it's so well liked in my opinion all
tanks have an ability that makes them
invulnerable or close to it for a few
seconds wario's invulnerability is
called homegang this tethers the warrior
to a target halting its movement and
making it so the warrior's hp can't be
reduced below 1 by regular abilities as
for the leveling process warrior is a
solid option however it only starts
feeling like a complete job at level 70
when you unlock inner release
this doesn't stop it from being a great
first tank to play for beginners as you
really won't know what you're missing
out on until you unlock it
the next tank on this list is dark
knight the job that scored lowest on my
pull the overall number of passes we can
get from online data would suggest that
it's the least played tank but not by a
wide margin dagner uses a two-handed
sword and has a great overall theme to
it from job specific story the unique
armours available to the idea behind
some of the abilities a lot of people
will pick dark knight just because it's
badass at its core dark knight works in
a similar way to warrior using basic
abilities charges your blood gauge and
this can be spent on heavy hitting
single target and aoe abilities just
like warrior dark knight also gets to
use these for free every minute or so in
comparison however dark knight has a lot
of extra global cooldowns that have to
be used while executing its rotation and
an additional resource to track dark
knight uses mp for two abilities called
flood and edge of shadow which apply a
damage buff called dark sight that has
to be maintained at all times dark
knight's opener is quite busy due to all
the extra cooldowns but after that it
becomes easy to execute looking at
current damage numbers we can see that
all this button mashing is getting dark
knight the highest damage out of all the
tanks right now defensively the job is
looking quite a bit weaker than the
others in end walker
dark knight has access to one of the
most controversial defensive abilities
in the game everyone i've talked to
either loves or hates it the blackest
knight is a large barrier applied either
to the dark knight themselves or a party
member if it gets absorbed completely
dark knight gets to use flood or edge of
shadow for free dealing damage and
applying the buff dark side the
abilities on a short 15 second cooldown
but it uses the same amount of mp as the
equivalent damaging abilities this
creates an interesting problem because
ideally dark knights want to use the
blackest knight on cooldown or is
letting the barrier get absorbed to
provide both protection and also receive
a free cast of the damaging abilities
however in situations where the ability
can't be completely used up reliably
especially high-end players will get
frustrated because it can mess up your
opener rotations or reduce your overall
damage the usability of this is ass it
being tied to your damage is miserable
it's just a pile of dark knight is
the only job that has to balance
mitigation and damage in that way and
it's an interesting dynamic but i
understand that it's definitely not for
everyone other than that dark knight
suffers from a general lack of
additional mitigation in comparison to
some of the other tanks in the game
right now two of the mitigation
abilities apply only to magic damage and
there's a relative lack of self-healing
this makes the drop one of the weakest
defensively almost all of dark knight's
mitigation relies on excellent blackest
knight usage in end game trials dark
knight surprisingly shines in the recent
savage raid tear proc dark knight was
extremely popular as an off tank as
high-end raiders value damage over most
other things
in addition to that the magic damage
mitigation can be situationally useful
for certain fights in particular dark
knight invulnerability is called the
living dead when reaching zero hp with
living dead enabled dark knights will
receive a debuff called walking dead
this stops them from dying but if
they're not healed to 100 of their max
hp they will die once the timer runs out
this can be frustrating for the dark
knight themselves to deal with because
there's no good way of applying
self-healing instead they'll have to
rely on the healer for a clutch save the
barrie healers scholar and sage can
struggle with this immensely as big
heals are locked behind unique resources
and not always readily available the
overall dislike for the job in end
walker can be explained by the
lack of changes since the last expansion
compared to what the other tanks receive
dark knight still plays mostly the same
outside of a few extra cooldowns to be
used making it even busier and spammier
than before many players felt that
bigger changes were needed and dark
knight was left out personally i think
that the job feels bad to level but it's
a fantastic off tank for max level
trials and raids although somewhat
lacking in dungeons
gunbreaker is the next job we're going
to look at it's very popular in endgame
content with a healthy player base the
job uses the iconic gunblade and it's
more fast paced than other tank options
which translates into good damage only
inferior to dark knight at the moment
gunbreaker focuses on heavy hitting
weaving windows forcing the player to
use a large amount of abilities
consistently and to keep track of much
more than the other tanks the job uses a
resource called cartridge which is shown
in the powder gauge this can be used on
certain abilities which ideally align
with the burst window its fast pace
makes tanking a lot more difficult
moving bosses around while keeping up
with the relatively demanding gun
breaker rotation can be a real challenge
especially for beginners because the job
requires a lot of double weaving it's
not really suitable for players with bad
connections either as not being able to
reliably double weave significantly
lowers the overall damage output and
through that one of the prime reasons
for picking this job defensively
gunbreaker has an extremely strong kit
aside from regular mitigation abilities
it gets to use heart of corundum which
not only provides significant mitigation
but also healing the challenging part
here is that the ability only lasts for
a short window and fitting it into
groundbreaker's already busy rotation
can be tricky if you don't want to clip
abilities more than any other tank job
groundbreaker has to look ahead and plan
out the fight to get the most of its
abilities using mitigation well before
tank buses even show up
to be able to continue damage windows
consistently the combination of good
damage and good mitigation makes gun
break a popular option for high-end
raiders in particular allowing for
decent skill expression that other tanks
can lack at times the combination of gun
breaker dark knight was also the most
popular during the last race for world
fast due to its high damage and raid
wide mitigation gunbreaker's
invulnerability is super bowlite this
reduces the tank's hp to 1 but stops
them from taking lethal damage for the
duration of the ability it's a bit of a
meme in the community as many new gun
breakers tend to fat finger the ability
giving their healers a heart attack
personally i would only recommend this
job for more experienced players or
those looking for a real challenge as
playing it well consistently will
require a lot more practice than other
tanks you'll also be pressing what feels
like twice the buttons of other tanks
for basically the same amount of damage
paladin is the last drop on this list
this is your true sword and board tank
most closely resembling what many people
consider a classic tank at least in
appearance the job had a rocky start at
least with high end raiders because of
its comparatively low damage output this
got fixed in a recent patch which now
sees paladin compete very closely with
warrior the job's main rotation is
fairly simple and it revolves around
maintaining a damage buff and using
relatively few off gcds on cooldown
what's unique in comparison to other
tanks is the damage window which has the
part in casting holy spirit or holy
circle arranged ability multiple times
this can feel strange at first but it
works well with the job's identity as
kind of a melee caster tank not unlike
paladins you're already used to from
games like world of warcraft it can be
useful during movement and can help the
pilot and easily position bosses without
the risk of losing uptime due to missing
gcds defensively paladin uses holy
sheltron regularly to block incoming
attacks and provide a steady stream of
healing this ability in combination with
a few others is tied to the unique
resource called oath gauge
in comparison to other tanks paladin
stays relatively healthy all the way
through relying on mitigation rather
than burst self-healing it has a large
amount of party-wide mitigation with
passage of arms intervention divine veil
and cover this utility can be
situationally useful but it shouldn't be
the primary reason for picking paladin
utility just isn't valued as highly as
it used to be because a lot of the
fights are fairly streamlined now
most of the time it just comes down to
whether or not your party can do the
mechanics and the utility available to
paladin will rarely if ever be enough to
single-handedly salvage runs in addition
to this paladin has access to clemency a
single target heal that is on a global
cooldown this has a good potency and can
often help your party in clutch
situations but it comes at the cost of
the pardon's own damage potency
particularly in low level dungeons and
trials paladins can tank bosses and heal
themselves easily even after both
healers die this makes it a good job for
duty roulettes the invulnerability is
called hallowed ground this makes the
paladin impervious to most attacks
many people consider this the best
invulnerability in the game as it can be
used outside of clutch situations where
you're approaching one hp however the
ability is on a long cooldown and you
won't get to use it as often as other
tanks difficulty wise paladin is pretty
much middle of the pack it's not
necessarily busy in its rotation
but it has access to a large amount of
utility and because of that it suffers
from some defensive button bloat that's
just a lot of buttons on the hot bar
more than any other tank and for a
beginner it can be hard knowing which
one of the utility options is actually
any use i don't think i've seen a single
sprout use cover in any meaningful way
in any of my duties up until now so
getting the most value out of palden
requires some more practice than warrior
but it's definitely not as intensive as
the likes of gun breaker to wrap this up
here's who i would recommend each of the
tanks too keep in mind that if you
simply enjoy the playstyle of one of
them in particular you shouldn't
hesitate to give it a try these are just
recommendations based on my experience
and a lot of the downsides that i
mentioned you will only really have to
worry about if you plan on competing in
really high-end content warrior is in my
opinion the best tank for beginners due
to its easy rotation and intuitive
abilities its low skill flow allows
inexperienced players to focus on
tanking mechanics rather than ability
usage dark knight is a good option for
late game raiding and trials mostly as
an off tank even though many players
dislike the job right now it's generally
well liked by parties you won't have any
trouble getting in anywhere gunbreaker
is for players looking for a challenge
solid defensive options in comparison to
dark knight make up for the high skill
ceiling making gunbreaker a good choice
for all kinds of content paladin is kind
of between all of the above steady
mitigation combined with party utility
make the job feel more supportive than
other tanks it's great for players who
want to support their party in more ways
than just by tanking the boss however
you'll have to get used to a lot of
button bloat and you really have to read
all of your abilities to play parliament
to the maximum of its ability that's all
i have for now and if this video helped
you out picking a tank to play please
leave a like down below as it helps me
greatly for now thanks for watching and
i'll see in the next one peace