the history of switching stances is inbedded in many old raider memories. Warrior being able to do it ogcd and do huge damage in their window was phenomenal and tense so long as the healers adjusted and focused on them alone
Indeed! In coordinated groups that really could get value out of it, it was awesome! I have a bad feeling that if these stances still existed today though, some sort of optimization would cause a lot of tanks to simply refuse to use them because a guide told them it wasn't necessary or something
@CaetsuChaijiCh that's exactly how it was. PLD was relegated to OT status pretty much all the time since they had to go through AT LEAST 3 GCDs in shield oath whereas a DRK might be able to pull without grit and a WAR could most definitely just pull in Deliverance since inner release built a ton of enmity but if your dps were also hitting very hard everyone wanted a ninja so they could shadewalker the WAR along with every DPS popping diversion pre pull. It was something that definitely required some skill and planning but it also kinda sucks that it made PLD mandatory OT since their personal DPS would take a massive hit if they had to MT.
Good vid. Just FYI *UPDATED* for new players. PLD has been reworked at this time (Currently patch 6.45 when I wrote this). Attack rotation has changed and Divine Veil no longer requires you to be healed to activate (use it just like Warrior's "Shake it Off" now).
Thank you! And this is very true! Thank you for the addition! As of the rework, I would probably rank paladin as a significantly easier job to pick up at max level as it's rotation is now far more flexible and less punishing. Plus the removal of weird interactions like divine veil! 😊
Idk what it was about the gunbreaker, but I switched to it as my main over Dragoon without even realizing it. Theres just something about the impact of the skills and how unleashing its gauge clicks. I think the 3 classes that hooked me are Dragoon, Gunbreaker and Dancer. Dancer when I want to chill, Gunbreaker when I want intensity, and Dragoon when I wanna do the funny jumps. I really love this game, each class really feels unique, the fact I put in 130 hours in 2 weeks is really telling how amazing this game is.
I don't even play FFXIV, I just put your videos on and let the dulcet tones of your voice gently carry me to the realm of dreams. Seriously, I love your voice.
@@CaetsuChaijiCh I have to admit, i was joking about not playing lol. I love FFXIV. The comment about your voice was serious though. It's very soothing
ironically i picked gunrbreaker as my first tank class just because they look sooo cool It's still my main class to this day. Love it. but i gotta admit it was a very steep and hard learning curve as i was transitioning from DPS So not only i didnt have any experience as a tank. i was also dealing with the hardest tank class now im going for dark knight and its feeling a lot less intense compared so far.
@@CaetsuChaijiCh Im the type that is more motivated to do something that I want to do or find more fun otherwise I lose that motivation soon. Thats why i took the decision of going the harder path because since its what i liked, i would be motivated enough to eventually get used to the class
@@CaetsuChaijiChame here, the funniest thing is that I dived from dragoon into GNB right away, and I was 2 weeks into the game, as it being my first MMORPG too. I’m GNB for 2 weeks now, but the fact that I spent too many time during the prior 3 weeks, that I lost my sprout, and that I only play on controller kinda made me suffered a lot in dungeons, you can imagine me totally clueless at the start XD
I agree with most of the video but think the paladin mastery is the hardest of all the tanks. There are stupid amounts of meaningful fight to fight rotational adjustments.
That is fair! I might have underestimated paladins mastery difficulty because to me the difficulty mainly falls into knowing which opener to roll with, and then dealing with skipping parts of your rotation because of down time and things like that! But I might have missed some crucial points in that 😊 I'm glad you agree with most of the guide though!
Square enix is going to change the job. They made Monks and summoners braindead easy classes. I'm guessing they're going to do the same for Paladins. I think SE is aiming to make all classes easy so newer players can enjoy the game and keep playing, which is something I agree with.
I don't mind if a job is made such that you can play decently well without it being too hard, but it is more fun when there is some space to optimize! And at least monk has plenty of super specific things they can optimize with still! 😊
@@Scrappy_ill_fold_ya_Doo Monk rework is well designed, I think all jobs should have a low kill floor but a high skill ceiling and monk definitely achieves this
lv 72 paladin: i have holy shi- ... holy circle lv 72 gunbreaker: i have fated circle lv 72 warrior: i dont have circle, cyclone goes like brrrr new lv 72 dark knight: i dont obtain anything at lv 72 i have a good aoe all my life old lv 72 dark knight: *flashbacks of seventh umbral calammity and mana issues for darkside buff and living death*
Old Lvl 72 DRK: Finally, AoE MP regen! 😄 Actually Warriors 1-2 AoE combo doesn't generate any resource until level 74, which can be inconvenient in its own right 😊
@@CaetsuChaijiCh exactly and in low lv withuot the seocond finishher of the combo you only can obtain the buff of warrior doing the aoe combo but whitout beast gauge
I'm cautiously optimistic about Paladin's rework in 6.3. I'd consider it a success if it just made some of the actions available far earlier because it really feels like a budget tank when you even go back to level 70 content and don't have your gap closer or your AoE magic spell - feels bad man. Gladiator was also my first job so I hope they do right by it going forward.
Moving some magic actions earlier would certainly help! If they could have like a weaker version of the heals attached to them at lower levels that would also be great - but I have a feeling the rework is related to making them work better with the two minute burst which I think is the reason a lot of pld mains are worried!
I love all tanks, but Paladin is my absolute favorite! I like having the ability to be able to be more hands on with party protection. I value that more than slightly more damage.
@@CaetsuChaijiCh i find that i keep myself alive as warrior easily, but many times when i see someone struggling, theres only so much i can do if bloodwetting is on cooldown. But as a paladin ive been able to save multiple people almost simultaneously in the nick of time
@@never5930 That is true! Warrior can maybe save one person every 25 seconds in a pinch, and then with Shake It Off maybe do a bit more, but that is that. For Paladin, you can really get a lot of healing through when you need to. I think it may be possible in longer fights for a paladin to reliably keep alive both itself and 2 DPS in, say, a dungeon or normal difficulty trial or raid encounter!
GNB still my favourite, HoC is just such a wildly OP skill. I love it during the chaos of DF content, being able to 1-button shield and heal any party member is a giant help in those sub-optimal situations. Also I think it bears mentioning that the sync level of the job+content can radically change the power of a tank. At some levels some tanks are clearly better then at other levels this changes, ex a L84 GNB is a LOT more tanky than a L81 GNB with HoC and x2 Aurora.
This is true! Gnb has some excellent spot healing tools just in general! And indeed when syncing down, certain level ranges *heavily* favor certain tanks at times!
As someone who started as a Paladin and swapped over to Gunbreaker when I got to the end of Heavensward, I have to admit that it was the absolute best decision I have ever made. I have every tank at at least level 80 at this point, working on leveling classes on by one. In my experience Paladin is my least favorite, given the difference in magic and physical rotations. It feels like they don't really match nicely, and feels more like a chore to go from one to other, while for Warrior, Dark Knight and Gunbreaker it remains the same flow of damage output. That said, for me I'll always prefer a faster playstyle like Dark Knight and Gunbreaker.
Yes I can see what you mean, how the three other tanks each has one specific style throughout the rotation. But paladin changes between two completely different rotations almost half and half by level 90! It is a great insight that you know your preference for faster rotation jobs like dark knight and gunbreaker! That let's you focus more on what you enjoy rather than feeling like maybe you have to do everything 😊
@@CaetsuChaijiCh Exactly, and I have heard many of Tank buddies ask me; 'How do you weave in your buffs and such during raids, while you have your No Mercy window?' and I just tell them that it has become second nature.
Good thing you are in minority and devs dont give a fk about your opinion. Also your mumbling doesnt even make any sense. "How do you weave in your buffs and such during raids", you mean oGCDs, you dont weave many buffs on GNB. Also no, they didnt, DRK have much more weaving and its much more intense since its very time sensitive (otherwise you overcap on resources or CDs), meanwhile GNB is just "do everything in no mercy window" style. Much less to memorise and much more wiggle room. So thanks for letting us know that you dont have any tank buddies.
I actually started tanking with GNB just because 8 is one of my favorite FFs and have never fallen out of love with it. For me PLD is the most awkward to play because of that magic phrase.
That is also a great way to get motivated to try a new role! On the bright side, the awkwardness of the paladins magic phase has been toned down a bit with the rework, at least in my opinion, but I can understand why you might feel that way 😊
Started as DRK and switched over to GNB for my party and love it, but it is tough to keep up with GCDs with those 30 second windows. Moving changing bloodfest from 90 to 120 seconds almost gave me a stroke. It's a very fun job to do, but I hate to see it done badly when there is so much potential for blastin.
@@CaetsuChaijiCh yeah I am kind of drunk on 30 second cooldown power now, so thanks for asking. Just optimized my rotation for better end game parsing and holy God is it way more fun than I've ever had. THE BALANCE
As a new player that feel in love with tanking in this game, WAR and GNB are my go to classes with a heavy preference to GNB since the class is just so cool. Usually i do Dungeons with WAR and Trials/Raids with GNB. PLD doesn't really interest me and the squishyness of DRK puts me away from the class although I really like its aestetic.
I found you thanks to the blessing of the almighty algorithm and have loved your content. I've been interested in becoming proficient in all roles but have been afraid of anything beyond normal content. I'm now starting to feel I may be able to do harder content after all.
Thank you! I'm really glad to hear you enjoy my content! 😄 Ultimately the only way to truly get prepared for harder content is to jump right into it. If you want to prepare yourself as much as you can before you jump in, I do have a starter guide on everything you can do to prepare yourself! Here is a link: th-cam.com/video/FtomquU84-o/w-d-xo.html Good luck with your journey into harder content if you do choose to do it! 😁
I play WAR and DRK...DRK is more fun, more busy, more fluid...but...WAR is more satisfying... You feel like an unkilable raid boss and that is wonderful. One day I'll learn to be one of these WAR that solo the boss from 50 to 0.
Thanks for this video! I’ve been enjoying playing warrior, but this is my first real mmorpg and this kind of combat is completely new to me… there’s so much to learn 😅
I'm glad to hear you found it helpful! If you are interested, I do have both a starter and a high level guide for Warrior that you may find helpful! Starter Guide(1-50): th-cam.com/video/o85OMqC6-Sc/w-d-xo.html High level guide(51-90): th-cam.com/video/E9tt7wb4iTs/w-d-xo.html There is definitely a lot to learn, but I am sure you will get it! 😁
@@CaetsuChaijiCh yeah I believe I actually saw the starter guide already, I’ve been watching a ton of your vids so I finally subbed! They’re all super helpful, and I like how you present the information
won't lie i stepped right into the deep end with GNB being my very first Tank job sure the biggest thing that stood out from all the jobs i had prior in the dps department besides being the heaviest hitting tank was mainly there defensive last ditch button causing me quite a spook unnecessarily the first few times i ever was forced to use it but overtime once i got comfortable i found my self liking the rotations it offered especially from lvl 80 onwards being able to have a full powder gauge ready after the first set comes in real handy. lol
I've actually heard quite a lot of DPS players enjoying jumping straight into gunbreaker! I suppose the more involved rotation is less overwhelming if you played a job with a more involved rotation beforehand! Then the difficult part just becomes the tanking portion! 😊 It's great to hear you enjoy gunbreaker! 😄
thanks what attracted me to it was mainly the looks though i suppose for rotation sequences SAM helped out a lot with that for knowing when to time the damage window's and the positioning but I'm also graceful for GNB's more liner rotation to keep the sequence simple and easily recoverable if for whatever reason I'm forced out of melee range but in general i like the guides you did and the difficulty with GNB seems to more or less match the experience for first timer's like my self.
Favorite tank, dark knight, easiest to heal, and if they have to activate their invuln, I can just physic or lustrate, Worst tank for me, gunbreaker I've met 1 gunbreaker that's good, the rest of them is "oh hey I'm fully healed in less then 2 seconds, thanks for your best and long cooldowns heals, SUPERBOLIDE, do it again" Also, people say dark is the hardest to heal because they are squishy, no gun breaker is squishy, yes they have a shield, that's small Dark has a shield thats about a quarter of it's heslth
If a dark knight activates their invuln, they'd prefer you don't heal them at all, since it causes them to heal for a lot, and only properly activates when they "die" 😊 Gunbreakers' equivalent tool to dark knights shield is heart of corundum which reduces damage taken and specifically only heals if they drop below 50% hp, or the timer runs out, like excogitation. So if you keep them topped up at all times, they will find it very difficult to heal. Certainly, the predictability of the dark knight not really offering very much self healing but prefers to offer the blackest night shields can be easier to deal with for some players 😁 And the common issue of gunbreaker and healer miscommunication with superbolide is a classic!
I love your guides! So thorough but compact. I started as a GLD/PLD in ARR and switched to DRK when HW came out but WAR is my current love. I'm a smoothbrain so WAR and WHM are my go-tos haha. If I ever decide to to get back into the other tanks I know where to look for help :)
Thank you so much! 😁 That's a long journey, and I wish I had the opportunity to try HW DRK, I've heard so much about it! (parry procs, a dot, and more besides!) I totally understand preferring to play the less mentally taxing jobs as a main, as I also play primarily jobs that I feel are very simple and easy 😊
@@CaetsuChaijiCh not that I didn't have fun stance dancing or the cool mechanics of DRK. I'm honestly too obsessed with PvP to dedicate any more game time to PvE lmao
Dont be me: > Be a sprout > want to play DRK > muscle memory your entire thing > now you can't play any other class because DRK damage rotation is that much in your head
I believe in your ability to fight your way out of muscle memorying only DRK! 😄 A tip for learning other jobs is to try and make keybinds that are similar: For example, having similar defensive cooldowns on the same buttons. Having combo actions in the same places, things like that! This can cover a huge part of just all the Tanks, but of course, that helps very little for many other roles --- but it is a start!😁
Thank you so much! Fortunately, I have actually increased the volume quite significantly since this video, so I hope you will find it easier to hear in my newer videos! 😊
Personal preference : Carry : Warrior Fun : Paladin Mediocre : DRK Need a healer : GNB Sadly i started with my first tank being GNB, had very hard times but also pocket healers keeping me alive, felt weak AF then i took WAR, i literally need no heals, thats the pref Tank because if the healer is bad or first timer you won't lean on them, you will solo bosses pretty much after LVL 67+- but many times it's such a waste of time when healers are healing me ALREADY FULL but can't do much thought there is casual players everywhere, many gonna take 3k hours or more to start playing better and knowing rotations.
I started off the game as a gladiator. By the time I hit level cap as PLD in Endwalker my confidence in tanking had... tanked lol. I actually find it more awkward than current GNB. WAR is definitely a good starting point. It just FEELS good to play. The gauge resource management is satisfying enough between bursts and all the weaponskills have satisfying animations and sounds. Levelling is also smoother because everything builds on each other.
Personally in some aspects I also feel gunbreaker can be easier to play than paladin, but I felt the specifics in terms of optimization meant there were more difficulties in perfecting gunbreaker (in my opinion 😊). But indeed, paladin sure has a bunch of awkward features 😅 That description of warrior is really on the nose! It just works so well! 😊
As a rare crazy person who is leveling all jobs simultaneously while going through the msq, I appreciate this video as a glimpse of what's qto come in terms of rotation and team coordination. I'm just getting to the end of hw now, so I'm about to grab the gunbreaker. Currently, darknight feels the weakest by far because of the lack of self heals. I think I prefer the paladin at this level, but as my magic pool starts to be used for dps and not just heals, I will have to see if it changes my opinion.
I'm glad to hear that! I hope you enjoy this extended journey by leveling everything! 😊 DRK is commonly known to be the weakest tank defensively in dungeons, primarily due to its severe lack of self healing. It is still perfectly viable of course though! It also gets a significant survivability boost when it gets the blackest night at 70 😁
When I leveled Paladin and DK alongside each other, they felt like, well, day and night, defensively. Once you get to 70 and get TBN, DK feels so, so much better, and is even my favorite dungeon tank, due to how TBN gets used differently between trash and bosses.
Hi gunbreaker main here OwO)/, it is somewhat little bit stressing using no mercy in short time when that skill active, also when we on combo/burst and the boss/mob decided to do something invincible OAO)_ and they ruin every burst or combo we do... It makes me want do Superbolide 10x OAO)_
Haha yeah, it is the worst when the boss decides to peace out right when you are about to use all your big cooldowns! Especially if you just clicked No Mercy! I always call it... "The saddest No Mercy window" when that happens! 😅
@@CaetsuChaijiCh And my tactics is give them double down, blasting zone, 2 DOT then renzokukem but some times I prepare 1 final cartridge to get hypervelocity
I've tried 3 out of the 4 tank classes so far (refusing to try WAR on the same character, I plan to try it in an alt.) Recently I'm doing DRK, and boi I regret not trying that class during my HW MSQ. I've done PLD before on free trial, it's ok but it made me feel like tanking wasn't for me. But in my current main account my first tank is GNB and I'm having fun with it so far. But I never thought that DRK is the one I'm most compatible with until I actually tried it recently. I've heard stuff about how DRK is the most difficult of the four classes because it lacked the self-sustain the other three have. But not only did DRK quest surprisingly suit the lore of my Xaela Au Ra WoL, I've also managed to clutch dungeons using DRK compared to when I tanked using GNB. The feeling of being a badass after clutching a boss battle using Living Dead is so exhilarating.
Yeah dark knights weakness in terms of self sustain is only truly visible once you get closer to endwalker, because paladin similarly has a massive self sustain issue (despite clemency existing), because it has no attacks that heal it until level 84! Dark knight is perfectly fine in all content though, so as long as you use your toolkit effectively, you should not have any issues! And yes, living dead has become incredible after they added the self healing part of it (and also added that you don't lose the invulnerability when you heal fully! 😂 It used to be quite a mess!)
every few months i get the idea in my head that i want to try tanking. then i watch one of these kinds of videos and see how unnecessarily complicated the tank jobs are, and I'm like, nope I'm good.
That's fair! If you try a tank from the start, then you have plenty of time to get acquainted with the buttons before it gets overwhelming, and especially tanks like warrior and paladin nowadays have very simple attack rotations as well 😊 But if you'd rather not, that's alright!
DRK DPS output is greater than GNB, tho I agree with the entire video. I can understand why some people see PLD harder than the rest but I think its low APM and how cyclical it is makes it 2nd easiest.
From what I've found it feels like whether dark knight or gunbreaker does ever so slightly more varies a bit. We can probably agree that they are extremely close at the very least 😊
DRK dmg is better under party buffs so depends on the content you’re doing. With a static raid party in an optimised context, drk will push ahead but in dungeons where there are less buffs/party finder where people are more likely to have buffs drifting all over the place, gnb should be higher.
@@kleverklogs well at max percentile in dungeons WAR is the strongest (and the one who gets more parses), then DRK and PLD almost the same, and finally GNB. Still the difference between them is tiny. I'm really curious to analyze those numbers
I started with paladin and played nothing else until my pally hit 90. About 5 seconds after i hit 90 with it i did other stuff and then suddenly they reworked paladin to make it more flexible but also still get most of the important features super late. Knowing what i know now i would recommend people start with Warrior, especially if their new to this concept. Warrior is reliable and can keep itself safe even at low levels as healing is worked into its GCD combos, with an alternate finisher providing a damage buff. if anything the thing that seems to go up the most as it levels is its damage. Paladin by comparison has few tools to keep itself alive until fairly high up(does have a lot of mitigation but the spells and recovery aspect is a much later feature) but does have reasonable tools to help others and itself. I consider it a class designed to keep others alive through their mistakes(outside of content where its pointless). Dark knight is a bit of each as it has recovery built into the GCD combo, but also a few other tools, so performance is fairly consistent with a few oddball(but not bad) skills later on. Gunbreaker starts at high levels yes, but can be picked up fairly quickly and has a heal/self shield in its GCD combo in addition to the dedicated DPS combos, multiple recovery and shield options making very survivable but also very high DPS as well. It's also flashy. If your trying to go through later story content solo fast(as a tank) then i'd recommend Warrior to 60 then Gunbreaker from there to get through MSQ( i was catching up with players who have been playing since it came out so i kinda rushed).
Excellent video, well thought out and explained across the board. I've been playing tanks on and off as my mains, since Stormblood and you hit the nail on the head for all of them. Though as much as I love DRK, it feels arguably the weakest defensibly, in comparison to the other three tanks. Mostly due to the fact we have to gamble on TBN, and only have abyssal drain for heals. While the other three have arguably more powerful defensives and self heal gimmicks that are strong af. I'm hoping they inevitably re-design DRK in a way that keeps it's core identity, while lining it up defensibly with the other tanks.
Thank you so much! Ooooh that is actually a good idea! Imagine if they re-designed DRK to have a lot more self-healing built into the job, but also a lot of actions that spent HP! A bit like how it works in PvP! I wonder if that could work in a reasonable way for a tank in FF14 😊
The reason why DRK feels the weakest defensibly is because their entire defensive power is The Blackest Night and, for some odd reason, Square has buffed everyone's defenses EXCEPT DRK's, having them continue to focus entirely on TBN [which also means that tanking in levels before getting TBN is just annoying since you literally do not have your big defense skill compared to the others]. Another of DRK's issues also come from the fact that it's a full on tank in FFXIV when, in previous iterations, it's more of a tanky DPS that sacrifices HP to do damage. Bit hard to sacrifice HP when you're THE TANK.
@@AzureRoxe Tbh as a dark knight main... Im just here like why isnt there a 3rd aoe that heals... Like how the single target has a fp recovery then heal. The aoe combo would be amazing if it had a 3rd combo piece that healed.
"Dark Knight doesn't have to deal with cursed openers" Me making the DPS pull because I can't pop TBN in my opener otherwise: "Are you sure about that?"
Edit: oh my God I just realized I completely misread what you said. Yes that is a cursed opener 🤣 I am so sorry! I will leave the original message as is though, for some reason I read it as "I can't USE TBN otherwise" which really confused me 😅 Hmm the common DRK opener is to cast blood weapon and TBN just before hard slash (as you pull with hard slash), so having someone else pull for you shouldn't be necessary 😊 although if you aren't the main tank, you would of course have to place TBN on your co tank instead. Blood weapon is cast just before pulling so it doesn't take up space in the opener itself that is already quite full. TBN is cast before the opener so that the MP from blood weapon doesn't go to waste. Besides, the probability that TBN is spent on the first few swings from the boss is quite high still. You go blood weapon - TBN - hard slash, and go from there. That should be fine 😊 If you have a specific example of a boss fight where you need to have dps pull for you to use TBN, I'd love to hear about it - I have heard very strange situations for most tanks already so it isn't out of the question!
Ironically Gunbreaker was my first tank(well technically Stormblood Dark Knight, but I took a hiatus until Endwalker just as Shadowbringers came out) and it's also the first job I can confidently say I mastered. Able to get the rotation down most of the time(I still muck it up sometimes, but that's a rite of passage for gaming ^_^)
You've got to turn the audio up in your video, even with video 100% and pc 100% you're still slightly above a whisper. This isn't hate but you've gotta make the mic louder
DRK was my first lvling wise. Loved the story and esthetic hated the lvl 90 "jam every OGCD and the kitchen sink into burst" part of the job. Cant get all the buttons to nicely flow on controller (PC controller player here). Also the MP management sucks for me. And I hate plunge animation as a gap closer. It feels clunky. I then tried WAR for simple rotation and found it boring and I tend to forget the 1,2,3 buff button a lot. Fellcleave doesn't do it for me. Dungeon immortality is sweet though! WAR did help me learn the tanking role. Very good starter tank class. I agree with akward beserk and being more complex than later levels. It's hard to downsync with WAR. Especially below lvl 56 (no Raw intuition). Then I did PLD more for tank lvling completion. I thought I would settle on GNB for my Main tank. But I absolutely fell in love with PLD. I think the rotation, though strict, helps me to continue doing damage and not forget anything. Easy to mitigate and doing rotation for me. I don't do savage, so maybe that's why I think PLD is easy for me. Love the range option and slow PLD rotation. Hate it when downtime happens just when I pressed Req of FoF. Cover sucks. Healing in dungeons is good. Not allpowerfull like WAR. But Req phase heals a ton. I like GNB more than DRK in bursting. Easier than DRK for me. Love the FF8 nostalgia. Don't like the aoe animations as much as PLD. Explosion circle is nice, but sound doesn't match the animation imo.
Thank you for describing your journey through the tanks! 😊 I can definitely see how a lot of the things you described match. For example, the sheer amount of different buttons you need in your fast burst as DRK might be difficult to deal with on a Controller. I dont know if Paladin feeling easy is related to you not playing savage, as I believe the Slow Paladin has a much more easy to start rotation without a weirdly long pulltimer or something. I can totally see what you mean by the sound of Fated Circle not matching the animation, too! I am glad you found some tanks that you really enjoy playing, considering how much time you have invested in it! 😄
@@CaetsuChaijiCh thanks for the confirmation on fated circle. Thought I was the weird one out. Through you video I did try WAR and GNB last night. WAR was a chill experience in normal raiding. In dungeons its weird not needing to mitt a lot of the time cause of bloodwhetting chaotic cyclone is so insanely busted. GNB is still very nice to play, but getting used to resource management. I still had to do Eden Normal, so do this as GNB, for nostalgia, Squall glam and shorter que times 😇. I agree it plays a bit like PLD (FoF damage boost button) and as DRK (burst). Less strict as PLD, you can enter burst or spend a bit of resource if overlapping. That's nice. Also nice to be able to help others by casting aurora and Heart of Corundrum. Also that same HoC is crazy powerfull. You can Superbolide into HoC and aurora and heal to full (when not taking dmg). DRK still didn't touch, I want to revisit it, but have to rework my controller. I think I just like playing Tank, and pick up whatever I feel like that day. And yeah it's a lot of time, but I like lvling and trying all the different classes. And through this I want to have a top 1 or 2 per role to have as go to if I want to play melee/ caster/ ranged dps, or tank, or healer. And it helpt becoming a better all round player. Plus Amaro mount.
@@CaetsuChaijiCh o and yeah slow PLD has a more logical start. I did learn fast PLD first. I make mistakes, but can recover and because its casual it's not as punishing if I make a rotation mistake. Maybe it doesn't feel that difficult to me, because I'm not that good at it. Like some people don't find BLM difficult as casuals, because the rotation isn't that difficult. The execution in more movement heavy fights for BLM. (I do think BLM is difficult). Slow PLD does have the craziest PLD opener. Cause you can min max by casting FoF almost 30 secs before pull. That's the most crazy slow PLD opener I know of. But in casual of course no one bothers.
Yeah that is a good point. Black mage isnt too difficult to play at its base level, but once you start to try to master it, you realize there is sooo much depth it can be difficult to take it all in! Regarding your example with slow paladin opener, I looked a bit into it and fortunately (?) slow paladins optimal opener combined with its looping rotation requires fight or flight to be available at a point that you cannot use it as a precast in your opener (you need it around 30 seconds or so into the opener), so this sort of option is exclusive to fast paladin 😊
Good guide. Id say what level of tempo youre used to on other roles might make some jobs easier than for other people if they played a job with a slower tempo previously. I went from AST to GNB and it felt great since i was already used to very busy burst windows with lots of weaving within a 15s window whereas WAR and PLD had their charm in ways but just dont feel anywhere near as entertaining as DRK and GNB do to me. That and seeing a double down crit for 80k damage just hits different lol.
Oh wow, this is kinda funny to me. I just completely didn't understand PLD for like 55~ levels and was regularly struggling with it, but I tried gunbreaker and everything clicked instantly and I mained it all the way through Stormblood and Shadowbringers. The easiest class made no sense to me and the hardest felt perfect lmao. My struggles with paladin mostly came from mitigation and healing, most of the other tanks give you a small, consistent heal that would let me wall to wall pull without overtaxing the healer (usually). I was regularly having difficulty pulling more than 2 packs at a time and staying alive, but also while on healer I noticed my healing/dps ratio was wayyyyy different when I ran with a PLD in dutyfinder. I feel like I'm using all my mitigation tools but I'm clearly doing something wrong. This is probably just a skill issue on my part lol.
Yeah for the first many many many levels Paladin is very limited on its self-healing! This is actually only properly fixed at level 84 when your attack spells start to do some regular healing. This little change actually makes Paladin incredibly good at keeping itself alive, it is just far too late to learn a trait like this 😅 Weirdly this is unchanged with new paladin too! It makes sense that the things that would be difficult with paladin are the self-healing and the defensive section since that is specifically the two departments Paladin has been lacking in for a long time. New Paladin is a lot better with defensive cooldowns, but the self-healing is still very rough for most of the leveling experience!
I like the idea of playing a tank for open world/MSQ content because they have more attack skills than a healer and more self healing than a DPS. A happy medium between DPS and healer. Unfortunately, I really don't like that the tank has the pressure of knowing where to go in dungeons, memorizing boss mechanics, etc. It has deterred me from really giving the tank classes a fair shot.
In more recent dungeons, there typically is only one path forward, so tanks don't have to be burdened with knowing the way. This is also more the case in older dungeons that have had a rework 😊 Everyone has to start somewhere, and I am sure if you let your group know you are a bit new to the role, that people are more lenient! A lot of dungeons can also be done with duty support so if you really want to, you can safely go in and do it with NPCs so you can practice without being pestered by anyone! 😊
@@CaetsuChaijiCh That's encouraging to hear! Thank you! I like the concept of Gunbreaker, but if it's the most complex, I'll maybe give Marauder or Paladin a try. 🤗
@benjaminfast5496 paladin is very simple to start. Warrior becomes simpler at higher level, but has better defensives. Overall both of them are excellent starter tanks! 😊 Good luck! 😄
I'm sorry to hear that! I went a bit overboard with a too calm voice and then didn't give the audio very much boost back when I made this video, so it might be very difficult to hear on some devices or audio sources! I hope you found a solution that at least allowed you to enjoy the video 😔
@CaetsuChaijiCh I turned the audio up. It's not so much an issue as a mild annoyance. I forget to turn it back down and get blown out by a video from another creator. But I always find my way back here. Keep making the good stuffs.
I'm kinda forced in my static to use Dark Knight and for the love of god I can't get into its rotation. I almost got the opener right but can't get into the mindset of resource capping for another burst. I use everything practically on CD and then I end up with grey parses lol
Your static is forcing you to play Dark Knight? Is there a particular reason for this? I know that its very easy for me to say as an outside source, but if it is Damage output related, the average DPS of a Dark Knight is only about 3% more than Paladin (Who happens to appear to be lowest at the very instant I am writing this) If you are doing grey parses, it can probably be assumed you are not doing the average performance though, and if you are far more comfortable with any other tank, then an average parse of any tank is better than a grey parse for a tank you are not comfortable with. Not to mention, that if you don't actually enjoy playing Dark Knight, then you will not feel very interested in improving it, while if you played a tank you really enjoyed, you would play the tank more in general! However, if you DO enjoy Dark Knight but are just expressing frustration in learning it, then the good news are that Dark Knight is very difficult to perfect, so if you put in time to practice, I am sure you can get it down quickly! The scary thing is that because maximizing your burst involves The Blackest Night, you can't get the perfect practice on a striking dummy. Whatever the reason is, I hope you are still enjoying raiding with your static. You are very welcome to ask here for more specific advice if you think I can help 😊
Optimal rotations are vastly overhyped and just serve to intimidate people. Every player should look up their general GCD rotation, but you can definitely shove all your oGCDs in a macro to spam and perform at like 95% (seriously, try on the dummy), which is a lot more than the average player will trying to master rotation, weaving and raid windows, and will clear you every piece of content in the game save savage progression they won't even be doing anyway. While I find these kinds of videos useful, I always feel it kind of misrepresents the jobs to the players you are likely making them for, since those who will actually go this couple % optimization don't need the guidance, and those who do will look at this and nope out.
I don't exactly agree on the macro thing since just mashing a macro with a Mish mash of ogcds on it tends to get quite janky. But I get what you are going for, and I appreciate the feedback, for when I maybe will remake these comparison videos, probably changing some of the areas of focus 😊
@CaetsuChaijiCh First thank you for the response. I get where you're coming from, and I understand that if you're gonna make a video, might as well show things "properly", but I feel the 2 min burst mindset is more of an elite raider thing, and that is not a level at which most people can play or will ever have to. In my experience with players that were struggling or trying to find their place/rythm/class, focusing on more important basics (simple rotations, staying out of fire) yields the best results in every metric, from performance and continued growth to just enjoyment of the game. You can't just redirect a casual player to an Icy Vein 3-page essay with 22 icons charts and expect them to improve and have fun. I find FFXIV landed in a weird meta that isn't necessarily in its best interest. It is stale and only comes together for 15% of the fights duration.
I’m a warrior main and but I wanted to try something different. Been an interesting journey so far. I played paladin for a good while but it always felt horrible when you trip up on the rotation in the slightest, didn’t stick with it in the end. I haven’t touched dark knight yet but my friends tell me it’s easy once you get the opener down saying after that it’s pretty much “1-2-3 hit OGCDs when ready” I want to pick up gunbreaker because it’s aesthetic is really cool plus FF13-2 lightning is one of my favorite characters ⚡️🙂
If you like the way warrior plays, it is not uncommon to say in terms of attacks that dark knight is just a way faster warrior 😊 You could say with the way gunbreaker works that it also sort of fits into the "1-2-3" waiting room until buttons light up situation, you just have to master fitting the things in no mercy, so the cooldowns align again later! If you like how gunbreaker looks I'd totally recommend you try it 😁
Either one works. It's entirely up to what you would like to try next 😊 A dps would probably have less responsibility while you get acquainted with being more in melee range
Is tanking difficult? I was thinking of getting back into ffxiv but ive only ever played monk, ninja and dragoon up to level 60 before stormblood released. I like the look of the paladin class but a bit nervous as ive never tanked in an mmorpg
It can be challenging at first, but it is just a slightly different way to play the game at the end of the day 😊 I do have starter guides for all the tanks as well as videos going over tips and tricks for tanks, that you might find helpful to get started. One way to be able to practice tanking completely at your own pace to start is to do the first dungeon, sastasha, using duty support, so you have NPCs to help you instead of players that might get impatient! 😊 Edit: also in shadowbringers they simplified the way enmity is generated a lot, so compared to the times you played the game, this aspect is a lot easier to deal with!
That is a good question! Unfortunately it is going to be a vague answer! It depends - With patch 6.3 that released right at the start of this year, you can see when an attack is physical (a blue sword next to the damage) or magical (a purple wand) or "unique" (a green explosion..? Often means you can't reduce the damage at all) But ultimately, there isn't really a formula to it. You could argue that Raid Wide damage tends to lean towards magic damage more often, and that Raid wide damage might be more common in alliance raids for example, but that isn't very helpful. The best you can do is approach it on a case by case basis. I do believe the current raid tiers P8S is supposed to have an overwhelming amount of magic damage if that helps!
@@CaetsuChaijiCh I ran a Troia a couple of days ago where the healer disconnected after a couple of minutes. Instead of waiting, our tank (Warrior) was just like "let's keep going until they reconnect." We finished the entire dungeon without the healer. I was a little worried about Scarmiglione's big transition attack, but with Shake It Off it was barely a tickle. Warrior is god.
I think that the sprout icon might stay if your character is younger than 3 months but I am honestly not entirely sure 😅 And yes, warrior is insane! If the raid wide damage is happening rarely enough, warrior can keep multiple people alive with nascent flash too!! 😁
@@mattstanford9673 You lose the sprout when you complete the last quest in Shb AND have 300 hours. If someone story skips an alt, they will be a sprout in Endwalker content until they have 300 hours on the character.
Me as well. I got really attached to it and I can't really imagine leaving it behind. I'm leveling warrior rn but I dont like it nearly as much as dark knight, probably cause it's an ARR job so it's a very long level up. And all of its defining features are kinda late so I'm not having fun. At least the story is funny but it's just because of curious gorge is genuinely for real the mentors name. And blackest night and living dead are so clutch. I've soloed bosses a few times cause of LD and it rules.
Gnb was my first tank. Drk is probably my worst tanking experience. It seems to have a learning curve that I find difficult. Blood mp racking my brain meats lol
Hmm well I think the reason for that is because the game officially technically has five roles in regards to things like the party bonus! And there's only three mages. Adding one more melee dps would make it 6 melee and 7 ranged / mage dps options. I understand it can be frustrating if you specifically prefer a certain role to not see new additions to it though! 😅😊
I'm sure this is a good guide, but I fell asleep with the low vocal volume. Might be better suited for Nat Geo photo shoot vids. Thank you for the content though.
I am glad to hear it was still helpful despite the difficulty! Thank you for the kind words! 😊 I have worked on putting a bit more volume in my voice in videos since this one so I hope you won't have as much of an issue with hearing my guides in the future 😊
The lame part about cover in pve is that you can't eat the redirected damage with invulnerability. I wish it is the same as pvp although that is somewhat broken.
That is a strange interaction! I haven't tested that recently, does that mean that if you use cover and Hallowed ground the damage is just not redirected?
@@CaetsuChaijiCh I don't know if order of skill matters. I always take off my gear for the 506067080 roulette so l always get the 2 easiest dungeons. The green man dungeons have these untargetable big green man that hits you very hard. There is one device that you will always run into one of these big green man, so l always use hallowed ground At that big pull. Occasionally, l will get sprout healers that get killed by these big green man, so l cover them. And l found out l will take damage. Hallowed ground didn't reduce redirected damage to 0.
That makes sense! As I did say warrior is in more of a priority system and the intensity is very low, it is definitely a job without much flow at all 😊 but a job with great flow certainly would be gunbreaker! I think that is something people often praise that job for
Whoa Paladin a 4/5 for damage and warrior a 3/5, they practically have been doing the same if not paladin a bit less in savage and obv in dungeons warrior is king so paladin defo needs reducing to a 3 and its even lower after the rework
You might be right on that, of course, the ratings are just my opinion, and based on what I have observed! At the time of making this comparison, all four tanks were closer than they are now, and Warrior was strictly at the bottom. While the average damage of Paladin and Warrior at the time was almost exactly the same, the warrior had much less variance, meaning the paladin had the capability to do significantly more damage based on crit luck and things like that - that was at least my reasoning for giving Paladin a 4! At the time Warrior was also known for having notoriously low damage for a tank in single target fights, while paladin was known to just have a really awkward rotation. After Paladins rework, it is safe to say that the ratings that I gave Paladin here are somewhat off ^^'
I have significantly increased the volume of my voice in future videos based on feedback like this. 🙂 I am sorry to hear that, but I hope you found the comparison interesting nonetheless!
Really good video overall, but there are definitely a few things I think you missed out on or didn't quite get right: 1. It was a bit odd that you didn't mention paladin's self-healing when talking about its defensives, especially regarding Divine Veil. Paladin's entire magic rotation gives you self-healing now, so not only can you proc Divine Veil yourself by simply using one of your magic attacks, but you can also heal yourself to full over the course of 8 GCDs. Additionally, Holy Sheltron gives you a very nice regen heal. 2. Speaking of self-healing, I could not disagree more regarding your take that gunbreaker's is almost on par with warrior's. While Heart of Corundum and Aurora are respectable, in no way can they compete with the healing that paladin and warrior can do. Also, you didn't mention that Brutal Shell gives you a heal, though it doesn't change my point. 3. While dark knight does have a ridiculous number of OGCDs you have to cram into your two-minute bursts, by no means is it not feasible to fit them all in. You do have to plan ahead a bit, but it's actually quite easy to do because of how insanely flexible dark knight is overall when it comes to its rotation. 4. I think you're giving too much credit to how flexible gunbreaker is. While it's true that gunbreaker has much more room to play around with openers than paladin does, you're basically locked into your rotation past that point. Gunbreaker arguably has more optimization than paladin currently because of the flexibility afforded by paladin's slow rotation. In fights with forced downtime -- think P5S and both phases of P8S for this savage tier -- you have to manage your cartridges extremely carefully. This can manifest in some weird ways, like using your AOE rotation in the second phase of P8S just to build cartridges faster before High Concept goes off. And if you let Gnashing Fang/Blasting Zone drift, your DPS will suffer a ton. Paladin's the only other tank that has that level of strict rotational adherence right now. 5. While difficulty is mostly subjective, I don't see how you think paladin is easier to master than dark knight. Having done paladin, gunbreaker, and dark knight in high-end content (savage, ultimate, speed kills, etc.), dark knight is far and away the easiest to do at a high level. Dark knight might be kind of quirky because of using TBN to get a Dark Arts proc before your two-minute burst starts, but other than that, it has almost no limitations on its flexibility. There's no "true" opener like paladin and gunbreaker have, you don't have to use your abilities in any specific order to achieve high DPS, and 10% of your overall damage comes from pressing one button -- Living Shadow -- every two minutes. While I do agree that paladin is easier to pick and up play, it has the highest skill ceiling and the data definitely back that up. 6. Regarding the gear dependency metric, I'm not sure I totally understand what that's supposed to mean. I'm assuming you're using it to mean how your gear will affect your skill speed, in which case paladin and gunbreaker should be at the same level. As you mentioned in the video, both can have entirely different rotations depending on their skill speed, so they have the same level of dependency on gear and materia melding. And I know you made this video for beginners, but given the fact that you brought skill speed up as a topic, it should be said that all tanks are at their best with a 2.5 second GCD speed in this tier. Skill speed hasn't mattered less since early in Shadowbringers. Hopefully that's not too nit-picky. I do think this video is really good for people just getting into tanking and wanting to decide which job to play, but the information could use some work as you delve into the more advanced aspects of each job.
Thank you for the detailed comment Logan! Let me try to respond to each point: 1. I decided not to mention Paladin's significant healing from its spell burst because as I see it, the paladin's healing from their spell attacks is there to compensate for the fact that Paladin is the only Tank that does not have a built in heal as part of any of its 1-2-3 combos. Granted, I could've mentioned explicitly that the someone that has to cast a heal could be yourself, but that was sort of a broad gesture that it could be you or someone else. The fact that an attack spell that as a side product heals you also counts is a detail I could've been more direct about! 2. Looking it over a second time, you are right that Paladin's self healing combining Requiescat and holy sheltron does outmatch Gunbreaker very handily. I think I may have underestimated Paladin in this regard and simultaneously overestimated the value of Heart of Corundum heals when needed, however, comparing the self-healing of any tank with Warrior on AoE is more of a joke given how absolutely ludicrous Warrior's AoE healing is in the first place. I believe my thought process in the green tank joke was more related to being able to heal other players, where Paladin needs to cast Clemency to do this at all. You are however right in the fact that Paladins self healing is very impressive! And regarding not mentioning Brutal Shell, this is given by the same reason that Souleater and Storm's Path isn't mentioned either, and by extension the Paladin's Healing from spells. 3. The fact that the Dark Knight is far less dependent on HAVING a lot of resources to perform the majority of its burst makes it a lot more flexible than Gunbreaker, which is the reason why the mastery rating I gave Gunbreaker is 5 stars, compared to Dark Knights 4 stars. Personally, I find very intense rotations with a lot of abilities to cram in difficult to master. The MP stockpiling combined with the optimization of keeping a TBN proc for burst also adds some complexity to Dark Knight on top of that. The comment about the feasibility of fitting all the oGCDs in the Dark Knight burst is intended as a small joke about the sheer amount of oGCDs the Dark Knight has in comparison to the other tanks. You are correct that when done correctly, you can fit everything in there! 4. A fight with an unusually large amount of downtime can certainly get in the way of the Gunbreaker, and your example of P8S using AoE attacks to just be able to stockpile cartridges in time really does highlight this! I feel that each tank has its own weaknesses in certain fights. Having a strict rotation can both be a downside and an upside, as some players may find it easier to consistently perform it when it is set in stone! 5. As you say yourself, difficulty is mostly subjective, and I believe that more intense jobs, namely with a lot of oGCD casts in quick succession, leads to a higher difficulty. If you are already a master of the general optimized gameplay loop in a savage context, such as planning your 2 minute burst, then Dark Knight, whose gameplay revolves heavily around stockpiling resources to do just that, would make it far, FAR easier to play and master. On the other hand, Paladin is trying its hardest to fit into this 2 minute burst window mold that has been built around it, which can make it difficult. However, as I see it, if you start your opener right as paladin, all you have to do is follow the order consistently, and then you don't even need to worry about when raid cooldowns come up, your rotation will line up naturally with it. This leads to the main difficulty for Paladin being in counting steps you need to skip due to downtime or other things that delay your rotation. I may be simplifying things a lot here, but that is the way I see it 🙂 6. Yes, the Gear dependency metric is entirely based on the fact that Paladin and Gunbreakers rotations are significantly impacted by their skillspeeds. The reason why I ranked Paladin as more heavily gear dependent than Gunbreaker is because paladin's break point between fast and slow is exactly at a breakpoint where most jobs tend to land if you just grab a full set of gear (for instance, the crafted set will typically plant you squarely in 2.45), but changing just one or two pieces can pull you over to Slow paladin instead. The reason why this is also significantly more impactful on Paladin is because the rotational difference between Fast and Slow paladin is massive, whereas for Gunbreaker, the rotation is very similar regardless of your skillspeed, however, slow enough and your No Mercy loses a weaponskill, and you may have some difficulty with consistently getting 3 cartridges for every No Mercy (And I will own that in this case, I actually discovered that this was not uncommon AFTER this video was finished!) I very much appreciate your detailed comment Logan, and as you can see, for the most part my reasonings are either related to comedy, lack of knowledge, or different opinions, and that is all okay! As a matter of fact, I highlight a reference to my more detailed job guides as each job is introduced in the i-cards in the top right, because I believe this comparison is nowhere near detailed enough to use as a guide on how to play any of the four jobs showcased. The comparison does however lead to some good entertainment (I hope), and helps players to get a general understanding of each job, which I get the impression you agree that the video does succeed on 😊
@@CaetsuChaijiCh Thanks for the response! Some more thoughts: 3. I can see where you're coming from and appreciate your perspective there. I too found this to be difficult when I first learned dark knight, but it became very easy for me when I understood that the order in which I used the abilities didn't matter much at all. But I can certainly see how the average player would find it to be difficult, especially when progging an encounter. 4. This is something I think an entire video could be made about. I don't necessarily disagree with you there, as I think the execution of strict rotation jobs like paladin and gunbreaker isn't all that difficult, but the planning that goes into optimizing those rotations is very hard. I sometimes struggle with it even with the experience I have as a paladin main and gunbreaker enjoyer. 5. My point was less about how difficult a given rotation is to execute, and more about how severely mistakes will affect your DPS. For example, using Fight or Flight/No Mercy in the wrong place or entering a burst with only one or two cartridges will have a profound impact on your DPS. Whereas dark knight's design doesn't lend itself to being able to even make mistakes like those to be begin with. Aside from holding your Shadowbringer charges for your two-minute windows and your Plunge charges for every burst, you basically just use all your abilities on cooldown. Even if you decide to not play into the two-minute meta on dark knight and use all your stuff on cooldown and not hoard MP for bursts, your rDPS won't actually suffer. That's getting into the weeds quite a bit and begins to depart from the topic of the video, but that's my mindset. Since even the best players in the world make mistakes, though, it's a topic worth discussing. 6. So, dropping a GCD during your damage buff is actually preferred right now on paladin and gunbreaker -- it's the foundation on which the slow rotation for each job is built. With the current BiS, the tradeoff in increased direct hit you get from not prioritizing skill speed outweighs the benefit of cramming the 11/9 GCDs into their respective buff windows. 2.47 seconds is realistically the slowest GCD speed you can achieve that result on both jobs, but almost no one actually plays with that build. With gunbreaker specifically, there's no issue with building cartridges fast enough even with the 2.5 GCD speed builds (other than the downtime examples I mentioned, but that's not specific to any particular GCD speed, as far as I'm aware). While I agree that the differences between the fast and slow rotations on gunbreaker aren't huge, I do believe they're significant enough to be mentioned. This is the first video of yours that I've seen, but I'll be on the lookout for what you do in the future, especially when it comes to tanking.
I feel like With PLD the mastery difficulty is way way higher then any other tank (Entry level it's pretty easy), the job is certainly known for being the one most hardest to optimise for fights, with DRK/GNB the entry seems to be a bit more difficult because of how much you have to weave. Nice video otherwise, just felt odd that PLD was pretty low compared to the other two in that ranking.
You are not the only one that feels that way~ I ranked the mastery difficulty of paladin lower because as I saw it, the main difficulty is knowing how to start the fight with the best opener, and then how to deal with down time in between, mainly by keeping track of what things to skip and what not to skip. For example Compared to gunbreaker who can run into having no mercy ready but no resources to spend with it if there is too much downtime, makes gunbreaker stand out as harder to master by having to work around these things, combined with the intensity. At least to me! I think I mainly ranked paladin lower on mastery difficulty based on how big of a factor the set in stone looping rotations plays overall, and that it has less ogcds it needs to use in the burst making it less intense than drk and gnb 😊 but I totally understand and appreciate your perspective! Thank you!
@@CaetsuChaijiCh I understand that haha, I do feel like PLD can be underestimated at times with how much it can take to master them, but in a general sense, following a normal rotation as PLD is generally fine. GNB Especially can be harder to position and use defensives while in burst (same as DRK but I feel like only really applies in 120's). I do think generally Gunbreaker is generally the best tank right now if you are good at it. I'm wondering how things would change for 6.3 with PLD I'm thinking they will get more busy during raid buffs, but have less Jank with it, Unsure how that will effect things in the future. Looking foward to but also worried about PLD changes.
@@pootisspencer4866 I agree! Not to mention that however they choose to change PLD might set a precedence for how they plan to change AST and DRG later on as we also got promised! So it is very exciting and scary at the same time. I certainly hope those that already main PLD will continue to like the job after the change, most of all 😊
@@protrainingtips Yeah I get that, it is quite different! Personally I feel the fact that Holy Spirit has a more prominent space in the rotation as a whole, rather than being that button you press four times in a row every minute, is a good thing. But it does mean the rotation is very very different now!
I get that. I should probably have added that. I decided to leave out the spoiler warning because out of context for new players (at least those that haven't seen this content yet), it looks mostly like generic combat footage. Some players may be more sensitive to those kinds of spoilers than others, but I imagine they know what's coming when the footage fades in 😅
@@CaetsuChaijiCh it's unlucky for me I just met blue bird girl in elpis so seeing her at a max level dungeon is just unfortunate but I am HEAVILY reading into it. Most people would probs not care though so don't worry
Leveling all the tanks currently.. gunbreaker only one I dislike. It doesn't hold aggro very well. I swear the aoe radius is lower than the others. Warrior the easiest, basically heal yourself, and Darknight the funnest for me as it isn't overly complicated by 70 anyway so far and runs really strong with its survival without being to the point of an easy snooze fest like war or frantic struggle to get all the mobs like gnb
Thank you for your perspective! I think the reason gunbreakers aoe feels weird is because the animation is slightly delayed, and might look bigger than it is! While learning the exact way to get the mobs in one swing you can use danger / blasting zone, bow shock and provoke to hit the stragglers you missed, which can smooth it out if you miss a few 😊
I honestly hate your compare videos. All i hear is "If you choose to play this spreadsheet, this will be your headache flavor. If you play this spreadsheet, your headache changes slightly." I don't get excited about any jobs when i hear you talk about them, it actually turns me off to the whole thing.
ok so you don't know tanks very well so this is the real list SSS: pally, because who cares about damage rotation...like your damage as a tank DOES NOT MATTER, you could spam shield throw, tamahawk or whatever in place of a rotation and the boss will only take about 5 seconds longer. that being said, pally has all the "not die forever" buttons you could want paired with the fact they take alot less than other tanks.....also you use cover for board wide attacks when you know someone is going to die, like a black mage at half HP or even a healer, you use that paired with a damage reducer and everyone lives. S rank warrior/gunbraker: gunbraker does have ALOT of buttons and is alot of fun to play and warrior doesn't have as many buttons but is just as fun, each one is pretty great tanks, warrior takes a bit less damage but thats the only big difference B rank: dark knight yeah I dropped from A but dark knight is just eggy warrior was a less fun rotation and doesn't quite have as many "don't die buttons" and has one button that is useless most of the time. if this was a carbon copy of warrior id be fine but its just very slightly worse than warrior and gunbraker the logic is I can't give it a A rank because its the worst of all the tanks that being said I can't give it any lower than a B because it still works and if you like big dumb swords and dark magic then have fun, I will never shit on anyone for using or wanting to play any tank over the others but at the end of the day as long as your keeping your party from being attacked and you don't die quickly your doing a SSS+ rank job! also do yourself a favor and learn a loose rotation, like I staid at the very start damage is not important when your tanking, as a matter of fact healers can out DPS you most of the time so the less damage you take the more time the healers can spend healing, casting res on dead party members or just DPSing so the DPS stays up longer because DPS will die, alot of them are going to be black mage and its ok when the black mage dies, they have to keep in a rythem of casting to get huge fucking numbers, if you want to worry about roations and big numbers play black mage or samurai lol
Tanks can do around 2/3rds of the damage of a dps. If you just spam shield lob (which is the actual name of that action you called shield throw by the way), the fight would take significantly longer. Welcome to final fantasy 14, everyone's a dps, some of us just have additional responsibilities 😉
Bro you’re WHISPERING I’m literally having to focus on listening closely so I can hear what your soft little voice is saying. Put some bass in your voice boy
Have all 4 tanks at 90 for quite awhile. GNB is my least played, do not like the rotation. War is no brainer easy and simple. Love drk for its glam and pally is my main, love passage of arms/cover. Clemency is nice in a pinch with insta cast.
Yeah, every tank has its perks! I can totally understand why Gunbreaker isn't for everyone too, with its sort of strict rotation in some ways 😊 And Paladin's cover is always a surprise - every time I see a paladin use it, there is a chance I discover a new mechanic you can mess with by using it!
![[FFXIV] How Tanks Work But From a Healer's Perspective](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/qCR8b6YfAtI/mqdefault.jpg)
I'm a big fan of the star summary when introducing jobs, you don't really hear about aspects like gear dependency in other videos. Keep it up!
Thank you! I'm glad to hear that the star ratings are appreciated! 😊
That Warrior to Dark Knight segway was 10/10 brilliance.
Hehehe thank you so much! 😁
the history of switching stances is inbedded in many old raider memories. Warrior being able to do it ogcd and do huge damage in their window was phenomenal and tense so long as the healers adjusted and focused on them alone
Indeed! In coordinated groups that really could get value out of it, it was awesome! I have a bad feeling that if these stances still existed today though, some sort of optimization would cause a lot of tanks to simply refuse to use them because a guide told them it wasn't necessary or something
@CaetsuChaijiCh that's exactly how it was. PLD was relegated to OT status pretty much all the time since they had to go through AT LEAST 3 GCDs in shield oath whereas a DRK might be able to pull without grit and a WAR could most definitely just pull in Deliverance since inner release built a ton of enmity but if your dps were also hitting very hard everyone wanted a ninja so they could shadewalker the WAR along with every DPS popping diversion pre pull. It was something that definitely required some skill and planning but it also kinda sucks that it made PLD mandatory OT since their personal DPS would take a massive hit if they had to MT.
Good vid.
Just FYI *UPDATED* for new players.
PLD has been reworked at this time (Currently patch 6.45 when I wrote this).
Attack rotation has changed and Divine Veil no longer requires you to be healed to activate (use it just like Warrior's "Shake it Off" now).
Thank you! And this is very true! Thank you for the addition!
As of the rework, I would probably rank paladin as a significantly easier job to pick up at max level as it's rotation is now far more flexible and less punishing. Plus the removal of weird interactions like divine veil! 😊
Say what you want about Paladin, its one of the only classes that doesn't look out of place during cutsceenes
Very informative guide btw keep it up ^^
Paladins always look heroic! 😁
Thank you! 🥰
Yeah. I always use my Paladin for doing msq.
Idk what it was about the gunbreaker, but I switched to it as my main over Dragoon without even realizing it. Theres just something about the impact of the skills and how unleashing its gauge clicks. I think the 3 classes that hooked me are Dragoon, Gunbreaker and Dancer. Dancer when I want to chill, Gunbreaker when I want intensity, and Dragoon when I wanna do the funny jumps.
I really love this game, each class really feels unique, the fact I put in 130 hours in 2 weeks is really telling how amazing this game is.
I don't even play FFXIV, I just put your videos on and let the dulcet tones of your voice gently carry me to the realm of dreams.
Seriously, I love your voice.
Awww thank you so much! It really means a lot that you'd tune in for just my voice! 🥰
@@CaetsuChaijiCh I have to admit, i was joking about not playing lol. I love FFXIV. The comment about your voice was serious though. It's very soothing
ironically i picked gunrbreaker as my first tank class just because they look sooo cool
It's still my main class to this day. Love it.
but i gotta admit it was a very steep and hard learning curve as i was transitioning from DPS
So not only i didnt have any experience as a tank. i was also dealing with the hardest tank class
now im going for dark knight and its feeling a lot less intense compared so far.
Some people really benefit from jumping right into the deep end 😁 it sounds like it was the right choice for you though! 😄
@@CaetsuChaijiCh Im the type that is more motivated to do something that I want to do or find more fun otherwise I lose that motivation soon. Thats why i took the decision of going the harder path because since its what i liked, i would be motivated enough to eventually get used to the class
@@CaetsuChaijiChame here, the funniest thing is that I dived from dragoon into GNB right away, and I was 2 weeks into the game, as it being my first MMORPG too. I’m GNB for 2 weeks now, but the fact that I spent too many time during the prior 3 weeks, that I lost my sprout, and that I only play on controller kinda made me suffered a lot in dungeons, you can imagine me totally clueless at the start XD
I agree with most of the video but think the paladin mastery is the hardest of all the tanks. There are stupid amounts of meaningful fight to fight rotational adjustments.
That is fair! I might have underestimated paladins mastery difficulty because to me the difficulty mainly falls into knowing which opener to roll with, and then dealing with skipping parts of your rotation because of down time and things like that! But I might have missed some crucial points in that 😊
I'm glad you agree with most of the guide though!
Square enix is going to change the job. They made Monks and summoners braindead easy classes. I'm guessing they're going to do the same for Paladins.
I think SE is aiming to make all classes easy so newer players can enjoy the game and keep playing, which is something I agree with.
I don't mind if a job is made such that you can play decently well without it being too hard, but it is more fun when there is some space to optimize! And at least monk has plenty of super specific things they can optimize with still! 😊
@@Scrappy_ill_fold_ya_Doo Monk rework is well designed, I think all jobs should have a low kill floor but a high skill ceiling and monk definitely achieves this
@@Scrappy_ill_fold_ya_Doo monk is definitely easier than before, but i do very much still find it difficult 😅
lv 72 paladin: i have holy shi- ... holy circle
lv 72 gunbreaker: i have fated circle
lv 72 warrior: i dont have circle, cyclone goes like brrrr
new lv 72 dark knight: i dont obtain anything at lv 72 i have a good aoe all my life
old lv 72 dark knight: *flashbacks of seventh umbral calammity and mana issues for darkside buff and living death*
Old Lvl 72 DRK: Finally, AoE MP regen! 😄
Actually Warriors 1-2 AoE combo doesn't generate any resource until level 74, which can be inconvenient in its own right 😊
@@CaetsuChaijiCh exactly and in low lv withuot the seocond finishher of the combo you only can obtain the buff of warrior doing the aoe combo but whitout beast gauge
I'm cautiously optimistic about Paladin's rework in 6.3. I'd consider it a success if it just made some of the actions available far earlier because it really feels like a budget tank when you even go back to level 70 content and don't have your gap closer or your AoE magic spell - feels bad man. Gladiator was also my first job so I hope they do right by it going forward.
Moving some magic actions earlier would certainly help! If they could have like a weaker version of the heals attached to them at lower levels that would also be great - but I have a feeling the rework is related to making them work better with the two minute burst which I think is the reason a lot of pld mains are worried!
I love all tanks, but Paladin is my absolute favorite! I like having the ability to be able to be more hands on with party protection. I value that more than slightly more damage.
I totally get that 😊 I prefer warrior for very similar reasons, and my choice in jobs tend to not consider dps potential anyway!
@@CaetsuChaijiCh i find that i keep myself alive as warrior easily, but many times when i see someone struggling, theres only so much i can do if bloodwetting is on cooldown. But as a paladin ive been able to save multiple people almost simultaneously in the nick of time
@@never5930 That is true! Warrior can maybe save one person every 25 seconds in a pinch, and then with Shake It Off maybe do a bit more, but that is that. For Paladin, you can really get a lot of healing through when you need to. I think it may be possible in longer fights for a paladin to reliably keep alive both itself and 2 DPS in, say, a dungeon or normal difficulty trial or raid encounter!
GNB still my favourite, HoC is just such a wildly OP skill. I love it during the chaos of DF content, being able to 1-button shield and heal any party member is a giant help in those sub-optimal situations. Also I think it bears mentioning that the sync level of the job+content can radically change the power of a tank. At some levels some tanks are clearly better then at other levels this changes, ex a L84 GNB is a LOT more tanky than a L81 GNB with HoC and x2 Aurora.
This is true! Gnb has some excellent spot healing tools just in general!
And indeed when syncing down, certain level ranges *heavily* favor certain tanks at times!
As someone who started as a Paladin and swapped over to Gunbreaker when I got to the end of Heavensward, I have to admit that it was the absolute best decision I have ever made. I have every tank at at least level 80 at this point, working on leveling classes on by one. In my experience Paladin is my least favorite, given the difference in magic and physical rotations. It feels like they don't really match nicely, and feels more like a chore to go from one to other, while for Warrior, Dark Knight and Gunbreaker it remains the same flow of damage output. That said, for me I'll always prefer a faster playstyle like Dark Knight and Gunbreaker.
Yes I can see what you mean, how the three other tanks each has one specific style throughout the rotation. But paladin changes between two completely different rotations almost half and half by level 90!
It is a great insight that you know your preference for faster rotation jobs like dark knight and gunbreaker! That let's you focus more on what you enjoy rather than feeling like maybe you have to do everything 😊
@@CaetsuChaijiCh Exactly, and I have heard many of Tank buddies ask me; 'How do you weave in your buffs and such during raids, while you have your No Mercy window?' and I just tell them that it has become second nature.
Good thing you are in minority and devs dont give a fk about your opinion. Also your mumbling doesnt even make any sense. "How do you weave in your buffs and such during raids", you mean oGCDs, you dont weave many buffs on GNB. Also no, they didnt, DRK have much more weaving and its much more intense since its very time sensitive (otherwise you overcap on resources or CDs), meanwhile GNB is just "do everything in no mercy window" style. Much less to memorise and much more wiggle room. So thanks for letting us know that you dont have any tank buddies.
I actually started tanking with GNB just because 8 is one of my favorite FFs and have never fallen out of love with it. For me PLD is the most awkward to play because of that magic phrase.
That is also a great way to get motivated to try a new role!
On the bright side, the awkwardness of the paladins magic phase has been toned down a bit with the rework, at least in my opinion, but I can understand why you might feel that way 😊
please increase input volume.
Thank you for the feed back! Future videos after this one actually have significantly increased voice volume 😊
Started as DRK and switched over to GNB for my party and love it, but it is tough to keep up with GCDs with those 30 second windows. Moving changing bloodfest from 90 to 120 seconds almost gave me a stroke. It's a very fun job to do, but I hate to see it done badly when there is so much potential for blastin.
Good to hear that you had a good experience switching job for your team! Sometimes this can turn out badly when this happens! 😅
@@CaetsuChaijiCh yeah I am kind of drunk on 30 second cooldown power now, so thanks for asking. Just optimized my rotation for better end game parsing and holy God is it way more fun than I've ever had. THE BALANCE
I main dps and I'm a huge fan of FF8 so GNB was the one and only option on tanks... GG!
Thats a great inspiration to try out tanking! 😁
As a new player that feel in love with tanking in this game, WAR and GNB are my go to classes with a heavy preference to GNB since the class is just so cool. Usually i do Dungeons with WAR and Trials/Raids with GNB. PLD doesn't really interest me and the squishyness of DRK puts me away from the class although I really like its aestetic.
I've got all the tanks leveled to 90, and honestly WAR is probably my favorite, with GNB being a close second.
That sounds like a great way to mix things up with how different those two tanks can feel to play! 😊
I found you thanks to the blessing of the almighty algorithm and have loved your content. I've been interested in becoming proficient in all roles but have been afraid of anything beyond normal content. I'm now starting to feel I may be able to do harder content after all.
Thank you! I'm really glad to hear you enjoy my content! 😄
Ultimately the only way to truly get prepared for harder content is to jump right into it. If you want to prepare yourself as much as you can before you jump in, I do have a starter guide on everything you can do to prepare yourself!
Here is a link: th-cam.com/video/FtomquU84-o/w-d-xo.html
Good luck with your journey into harder content if you do choose to do it! 😁
I play WAR and DRK...DRK is more fun, more busy, more fluid...but...WAR is more satisfying... You feel like an unkilable raid boss and that is wonderful. One day I'll learn to be one of these WAR that solo the boss from 50 to 0.
As long as you also enjoy playing the warrior, I think that is a great thing to aim for! 😊
Thanks for this video! I’ve been enjoying playing warrior, but this is my first real mmorpg and this kind of combat is completely new to me… there’s so much to learn 😅
I'm glad to hear you found it helpful! If you are interested, I do have both a starter and a high level guide for Warrior that you may find helpful!
Starter Guide(1-50): th-cam.com/video/o85OMqC6-Sc/w-d-xo.html
High level guide(51-90): th-cam.com/video/E9tt7wb4iTs/w-d-xo.html
There is definitely a lot to learn, but I am sure you will get it! 😁
@@CaetsuChaijiCh yeah I believe I actually saw the starter guide already, I’ve been watching a ton of your vids so I finally subbed! They’re all super helpful, and I like how you present the information
Oh excellent! 😄
Thank you so much! I am glad to hear that 😃
won't lie i stepped right into the deep end with GNB being my very first Tank job sure the biggest thing that stood out from all the jobs i had prior in the dps department besides being the heaviest hitting tank was mainly there defensive last ditch button causing me quite a spook unnecessarily the first few times i ever was forced to use it but overtime once i got comfortable i found my self liking the rotations it offered especially from lvl 80 onwards being able to have a full powder gauge ready after the first set comes in real handy. lol
I've actually heard quite a lot of DPS players enjoying jumping straight into gunbreaker! I suppose the more involved rotation is less overwhelming if you played a job with a more involved rotation beforehand! Then the difficult part just becomes the tanking portion! 😊
It's great to hear you enjoy gunbreaker! 😄
thanks what attracted me to it was mainly the looks though i suppose for rotation sequences SAM helped out a lot with that for knowing when to time the damage window's and the positioning but I'm also graceful for GNB's more liner rotation to keep the sequence simple and easily recoverable if for whatever reason I'm forced out of melee range but in general i like the guides you did and the difficulty with GNB seems to more or less match the experience for first timer's like my self.
Favorite tank, dark knight, easiest to heal, and if they have to activate their invuln, I can just physic or lustrate,
Worst tank for me, gunbreaker
I've met 1 gunbreaker that's good, the rest of them is "oh hey I'm fully healed in less then 2 seconds, thanks for your best and long cooldowns heals, SUPERBOLIDE, do it again"
Also, people say dark is the hardest to heal because they are squishy, no gun breaker is squishy, yes they have a shield, that's small
Dark has a shield thats about a quarter of it's heslth
If a dark knight activates their invuln, they'd prefer you don't heal them at all, since it causes them to heal for a lot, and only properly activates when they "die" 😊
Gunbreakers' equivalent tool to dark knights shield is heart of corundum which reduces damage taken and specifically only heals if they drop below 50% hp, or the timer runs out, like excogitation. So if you keep them topped up at all times, they will find it very difficult to heal.
Certainly, the predictability of the dark knight not really offering very much self healing but prefers to offer the blackest night shields can be easier to deal with for some players 😁
And the common issue of gunbreaker and healer miscommunication with superbolide is a classic!
@@CaetsuChaijiCh I only heal the dark when their healthing isn't enough, or the fight is with 1 enemy such as raid boss,
I love your guides! So thorough but compact. I started as a GLD/PLD in ARR and switched to DRK when HW came out but WAR is my current love. I'm a smoothbrain so WAR and WHM are my go-tos haha. If I ever decide to to get back into the other tanks I know where to look for help :)
Thank you so much! 😁
That's a long journey, and I wish I had the opportunity to try HW DRK, I've heard so much about it! (parry procs, a dot, and more besides!)
I totally understand preferring to play the less mentally taxing jobs as a main, as I also play primarily jobs that I feel are very simple and easy 😊
@@CaetsuChaijiCh not that I didn't have fun stance dancing or the cool mechanics of DRK. I'm honestly too obsessed with PvP to dedicate any more game time to PvE lmao
Dont be me:
> Be a sprout
> want to play DRK
> muscle memory your entire thing
> now you can't play any other class because DRK damage rotation is that much in your head
I believe in your ability to fight your way out of muscle memorying only DRK! 😄
A tip for learning other jobs is to try and make keybinds that are similar: For example, having similar defensive cooldowns on the same buttons. Having combo actions in the same places, things like that! This can cover a huge part of just all the Tanks, but of course, that helps very little for many other roles --- but it is a start!😁
i love your videos, but they would be better if you increase the volume because it sounds really low
Thank you so much! Fortunately, I have actually increased the volume quite significantly since this video, so I hope you will find it easier to hear in my newer videos! 😊
Personal preference :
Carry : Warrior
Fun : Paladin
Mediocre : DRK
Need a healer : GNB
Sadly i started with my first tank being GNB, had very hard times but also pocket healers keeping me alive, felt weak AF then i took WAR, i literally need no heals, thats the pref Tank because if the healer is bad or first timer you won't lean on them, you will solo bosses pretty much after LVL 67+- but many times it's such a waste of time when healers are healing me ALREADY FULL but can't do much thought there is casual players everywhere, many gonna take 3k hours or more to start playing better and knowing rotations.
I started off the game as a gladiator. By the time I hit level cap as PLD in Endwalker my confidence in tanking had... tanked lol. I actually find it more awkward than current GNB.
WAR is definitely a good starting point. It just FEELS good to play. The gauge resource management is satisfying enough between bursts and all the weaponskills have satisfying animations and sounds. Levelling is also smoother because everything builds on each other.
Personally in some aspects I also feel gunbreaker can be easier to play than paladin, but I felt the specifics in terms of optimization meant there were more difficulties in perfecting gunbreaker (in my opinion 😊). But indeed, paladin sure has a bunch of awkward features 😅
That description of warrior is really on the nose! It just works so well! 😊
@@CaetsuChaijiCh Yeah, GNB optimisation is rough for sure. Def a lot easier since the bloodfest change though!
After you get Raw intuition yeah WAR is smooth, but before that it's rough to lvl WAR. And it's logicall and easy to understand for sure!
Have you played PLD since the 6.3 rework? It used to be the most difficult tank to optimise for and is now the easiest.
As a rare crazy person who is leveling all jobs simultaneously while going through the msq, I appreciate this video as a glimpse of what's qto come in terms of rotation and team coordination.
I'm just getting to the end of hw now, so I'm about to grab the gunbreaker.
Currently, darknight feels the weakest by far because of the lack of self heals. I think I prefer the paladin at this level, but as my magic pool starts to be used for dps and not just heals, I will have to see if it changes my opinion.
I'm glad to hear that!
I hope you enjoy this extended journey by leveling everything! 😊
DRK is commonly known to be the weakest tank defensively in dungeons, primarily due to its severe lack of self healing. It is still perfectly viable of course though!
It also gets a significant survivability boost when it gets the blackest night at 70 😁
When I leveled Paladin and DK alongside each other, they felt like, well, day and night, defensively. Once you get to 70 and get TBN, DK feels so, so much better, and is even my favorite dungeon tank, due to how TBN gets used differently between trash and bosses.
Hi gunbreaker main here OwO)/, it is somewhat little bit stressing using no mercy in short time when that skill active, also when we on combo/burst and the boss/mob decided to do something invincible OAO)_ and they ruin every burst or combo we do... It makes me want do Superbolide 10x OAO)_
Haha yeah, it is the worst when the boss decides to peace out right when you are about to use all your big cooldowns! Especially if you just clicked No Mercy!
I always call it... "The saddest No Mercy window" when that happens! 😅
@@CaetsuChaijiCh And my tactics is give them double down, blasting zone, 2 DOT then renzokukem but some times I prepare 1 final cartridge to get hypervelocity
I've tried 3 out of the 4 tank classes so far (refusing to try WAR on the same character, I plan to try it in an alt.) Recently I'm doing DRK, and boi I regret not trying that class during my HW MSQ.
I've done PLD before on free trial, it's ok but it made me feel like tanking wasn't for me. But in my current main account my first tank is GNB and I'm having fun with it so far. But I never thought that DRK is the one I'm most compatible with until I actually tried it recently.
I've heard stuff about how DRK is the most difficult of the four classes because it lacked the self-sustain the other three have. But not only did DRK quest surprisingly suit the lore of my Xaela Au Ra WoL, I've also managed to clutch dungeons using DRK compared to when I tanked using GNB. The feeling of being a badass after clutching a boss battle using Living Dead is so exhilarating.
Yeah dark knights weakness in terms of self sustain is only truly visible once you get closer to endwalker, because paladin similarly has a massive self sustain issue (despite clemency existing), because it has no attacks that heal it until level 84!
Dark knight is perfectly fine in all content though, so as long as you use your toolkit effectively, you should not have any issues! And yes, living dead has become incredible after they added the self healing part of it (and also added that you don't lose the invulnerability when you heal fully! 😂 It used to be quite a mess!)
every few months i get the idea in my head that i want to try tanking. then i watch one of these kinds of videos and see how unnecessarily complicated the tank jobs are, and I'm like, nope I'm good.
That's fair! If you try a tank from the start, then you have plenty of time to get acquainted with the buttons before it gets overwhelming, and especially tanks like warrior and paladin nowadays have very simple attack rotations as well 😊
But if you'd rather not, that's alright!
DRK DPS output is greater than GNB, tho I agree with the entire video. I can understand why some people see PLD harder than the rest but I think its low APM and how cyclical it is makes it 2nd easiest.
From what I've found it feels like whether dark knight or gunbreaker does ever so slightly more varies a bit. We can probably agree that they are extremely close at the very least 😊
Had a PLD in a dungeon tell me that it was too hard to keep agro and that the only reason I didn't think so was because I main'd one. Like whut
DRK dmg is better under party buffs so depends on the content you’re doing. With a static raid party in an optimised context, drk will push ahead but in dungeons where there are less buffs/party finder where people are more likely to have buffs drifting all over the place, gnb should be higher.
@@kleverklogs well at max percentile in dungeons WAR is the strongest (and the one who gets more parses), then DRK and PLD almost the same, and finally GNB. Still the difference between them is tiny. I'm really curious to analyze those numbers
love these videos so much!
Thank you so much! That makes me really happy to hear! ☺
I started with paladin and played nothing else until my pally hit 90. About 5 seconds after i hit 90 with it i did other stuff and then suddenly they reworked paladin to make it more flexible but also still get most of the important features super late. Knowing what i know now i would recommend people start with Warrior, especially if their new to this concept.
Warrior is reliable and can keep itself safe even at low levels as healing is worked into its GCD combos, with an alternate finisher providing a damage buff. if anything the thing that seems to go up the most as it levels is its damage.
Paladin by comparison has few tools to keep itself alive until fairly high up(does have a lot of mitigation but the spells and recovery aspect is a much later feature) but does have reasonable tools to help others and itself. I consider it a class designed to keep others alive through their mistakes(outside of content where its pointless).
Dark knight is a bit of each as it has recovery built into the GCD combo, but also a few other tools, so performance is fairly consistent with a few oddball(but not bad) skills later on.
Gunbreaker starts at high levels yes, but can be picked up fairly quickly and has a heal/self shield in its GCD combo in addition to the dedicated DPS combos, multiple recovery and shield options making very survivable but also very high DPS as well. It's also flashy.
If your trying to go through later story content solo fast(as a tank) then i'd recommend Warrior to 60 then Gunbreaker from there to get through MSQ( i was catching up with players who have been playing since it came out so i kinda rushed).
Excellent video, well thought out and explained across the board. I've been playing tanks on and off as my mains, since Stormblood and you hit the nail on the head for all of them. Though as much as I love DRK, it feels arguably the weakest defensibly, in comparison to the other three tanks. Mostly due to the fact we have to gamble on TBN, and only have abyssal drain for heals. While the other three have arguably more powerful defensives and self heal gimmicks that are strong af. I'm hoping they inevitably re-design DRK in a way that keeps it's core identity, while lining it up defensibly with the other tanks.
Thank you so much!
Ooooh that is actually a good idea! Imagine if they re-designed DRK to have a lot more self-healing built into the job, but also a lot of actions that spent HP! A bit like how it works in PvP! I wonder if that could work in a reasonable way for a tank in FF14 😊
The reason why DRK feels the weakest defensibly is because their entire defensive power is The Blackest Night and, for some odd reason, Square has buffed everyone's defenses EXCEPT DRK's, having them continue to focus entirely on TBN [which also means that tanking in levels before getting TBN is just annoying since you literally do not have your big defense skill compared to the others].
Another of DRK's issues also come from the fact that it's a full on tank in FFXIV when, in previous iterations, it's more of a tanky DPS that sacrifices HP to do damage. Bit hard to sacrifice HP when you're THE TANK.
@@AzureRoxe Tbh as a dark knight main... Im just here like why isnt there a 3rd aoe that heals... Like how the single target has a fp recovery then heal. The aoe combo would be amazing if it had a 3rd combo piece that healed.
I love geeseedee. Thanks so much for the guide I was planning to be a Warrior
Haha!
I am sure you will have lots of fun with it 😁
"Dark Knight doesn't have to deal with cursed openers"
Me making the DPS pull because I can't pop TBN in my opener otherwise: "Are you sure about that?"
Edit: oh my God I just realized I completely misread what you said. Yes that is a cursed opener 🤣 I am so sorry! I will leave the original message as is though, for some reason I read it as "I can't USE TBN otherwise" which really confused me 😅
Hmm the common DRK opener is to cast blood weapon and TBN just before hard slash (as you pull with hard slash), so having someone else pull for you shouldn't be necessary 😊 although if you aren't the main tank, you would of course have to place TBN on your co tank instead.
Blood weapon is cast just before pulling so it doesn't take up space in the opener itself that is already quite full. TBN is cast before the opener so that the MP from blood weapon doesn't go to waste. Besides, the probability that TBN is spent on the first few swings from the boss is quite high still.
You go blood weapon - TBN - hard slash, and go from there. That should be fine 😊
If you have a specific example of a boss fight where you need to have dps pull for you to use TBN, I'd love to hear about it - I have heard very strange situations for most tanks already so it isn't out of the question!
You generally cast TBN pre-pull at -3 seconds.
Ironically Gunbreaker was my first tank(well technically Stormblood Dark Knight, but I took a hiatus until Endwalker just as Shadowbringers came out) and it's also the first job I can confidently say I mastered. Able to get the rotation down most of the time(I still muck it up sometimes, but that's a rite of passage for gaming ^_^)
You've got to turn the audio up in your video, even with video 100% and pc 100% you're still slightly above a whisper. This isn't hate but you've gotta make the mic louder
I appreciate the feedback. I have changed a lot about the audio on my videos since this one though 😊
DRK was my first lvling wise. Loved the story and esthetic hated the lvl 90 "jam every OGCD and the kitchen sink into burst" part of the job. Cant get all the buttons to nicely flow on controller (PC controller player here). Also the MP management sucks for me. And I hate plunge animation as a gap closer. It feels clunky.
I then tried WAR for simple rotation and found it boring and I tend to forget the 1,2,3 buff button a lot. Fellcleave doesn't do it for me. Dungeon immortality is sweet though! WAR did help me learn the tanking role. Very good starter tank class. I agree with akward beserk and being more complex than later levels. It's hard to downsync with WAR. Especially below lvl 56 (no Raw intuition).
Then I did PLD more for tank lvling completion. I thought I would settle on GNB for my Main tank. But I absolutely fell in love with PLD. I think the rotation, though strict, helps me to continue doing damage and not forget anything. Easy to mitigate and doing rotation for me. I don't do savage, so maybe that's why I think PLD is easy for me. Love the range option and slow PLD rotation. Hate it when downtime happens just when I pressed Req of FoF. Cover sucks. Healing in dungeons is good. Not allpowerfull like WAR. But Req phase heals a ton.
I like GNB more than DRK in bursting. Easier than DRK for me. Love the FF8 nostalgia. Don't like the aoe animations as much as PLD. Explosion circle is nice, but sound doesn't match the animation imo.
Thank you for describing your journey through the tanks! 😊 I can definitely see how a lot of the things you described match. For example, the sheer amount of different buttons you need in your fast burst as DRK might be difficult to deal with on a Controller.
I dont know if Paladin feeling easy is related to you not playing savage, as I believe the Slow Paladin has a much more easy to start rotation without a weirdly long pulltimer or something. I can totally see what you mean by the sound of Fated Circle not matching the animation, too!
I am glad you found some tanks that you really enjoy playing, considering how much time you have invested in it! 😄
@@CaetsuChaijiCh thanks for the confirmation on fated circle. Thought I was the weird one out. Through you video I did try WAR and GNB last night. WAR was a chill experience in normal raiding. In dungeons its weird not needing to mitt a lot of the time cause of bloodwhetting chaotic cyclone is so insanely busted.
GNB is still very nice to play, but getting used to resource management. I still had to do Eden Normal, so do this as GNB, for nostalgia, Squall glam and shorter que times 😇. I agree it plays a bit like PLD (FoF damage boost button) and as DRK (burst). Less strict as PLD, you can enter burst or spend a bit of resource if overlapping. That's nice. Also nice to be able to help others by casting aurora and Heart of Corundrum. Also that same HoC is crazy powerfull. You can Superbolide into HoC and aurora and heal to full (when not taking dmg).
DRK still didn't touch, I want to revisit it, but have to rework my controller.
I think I just like playing Tank, and pick up whatever I feel like that day.
And yeah it's a lot of time, but I like lvling and trying all the different classes. And through this I want to have a top 1 or 2 per role to have as go to if I want to play melee/ caster/ ranged dps, or tank, or healer. And it helpt becoming a better all round player. Plus Amaro mount.
@@CaetsuChaijiCh o and yeah slow PLD has a more logical start. I did learn fast PLD first. I make mistakes, but can recover and because its casual it's not as punishing if I make a rotation mistake. Maybe it doesn't feel that difficult to me, because I'm not that good at it. Like some people don't find BLM difficult as casuals, because the rotation isn't that difficult. The execution in more movement heavy fights for BLM. (I do think BLM is difficult).
Slow PLD does have the craziest PLD opener. Cause you can min max by casting FoF almost 30 secs before pull. That's the most crazy slow PLD opener I know of. But in casual of course no one bothers.
Yeah that is a good point. Black mage isnt too difficult to play at its base level, but once you start to try to master it, you realize there is sooo much depth it can be difficult to take it all in!
Regarding your example with slow paladin opener, I looked a bit into it and fortunately (?) slow paladins optimal opener combined with its looping rotation requires fight or flight to be available at a point that you cannot use it as a precast in your opener (you need it around 30 seconds or so into the opener), so this sort of option is exclusive to fast paladin 😊
@@CaetsuChaijiCh ah ok that's good to know. I think I attributed a fast variant opener to the slow build. Thanks for clearing that up!
Good guide. Id say what level of tempo youre used to on other roles might make some jobs easier than for other people if they played a job with a slower tempo previously. I went from AST to GNB and it felt great since i was already used to very busy burst windows with lots of weaving within a 15s window whereas WAR and PLD had their charm in ways but just dont feel anywhere near as entertaining as DRK and GNB do to me. That and seeing a double down crit for 80k damage just hits different lol.
Yeah that is very true! 😁 Thank you! 😄
Oh wow, this is kinda funny to me. I just completely didn't understand PLD for like 55~ levels and was regularly struggling with it, but I tried gunbreaker and everything clicked instantly and I mained it all the way through Stormblood and Shadowbringers. The easiest class made no sense to me and the hardest felt perfect lmao.
My struggles with paladin mostly came from mitigation and healing, most of the other tanks give you a small, consistent heal that would let me wall to wall pull without overtaxing the healer (usually). I was regularly having difficulty pulling more than 2 packs at a time and staying alive, but also while on healer I noticed my healing/dps ratio was wayyyyy different when I ran with a PLD in dutyfinder. I feel like I'm using all my mitigation tools but I'm clearly doing something wrong. This is probably just a skill issue on my part lol.
Yeah for the first many many many levels Paladin is very limited on its self-healing! This is actually only properly fixed at level 84 when your attack spells start to do some regular healing. This little change actually makes Paladin incredibly good at keeping itself alive, it is just far too late to learn a trait like this 😅 Weirdly this is unchanged with new paladin too!
It makes sense that the things that would be difficult with paladin are the self-healing and the defensive section since that is specifically the two departments Paladin has been lacking in for a long time. New Paladin is a lot better with defensive cooldowns, but the self-healing is still very rough for most of the leveling experience!
I like the idea of playing a tank for open world/MSQ content because they have more attack skills than a healer and more self healing than a DPS. A happy medium between DPS and healer. Unfortunately, I really don't like that the tank has the pressure of knowing where to go in dungeons, memorizing boss mechanics, etc. It has deterred me from really giving the tank classes a fair shot.
In more recent dungeons, there typically is only one path forward, so tanks don't have to be burdened with knowing the way. This is also more the case in older dungeons that have had a rework 😊
Everyone has to start somewhere, and I am sure if you let your group know you are a bit new to the role, that people are more lenient! A lot of dungeons can also be done with duty support so if you really want to, you can safely go in and do it with NPCs so you can practice without being pestered by anyone! 😊
@@CaetsuChaijiCh That's encouraging to hear! Thank you!
I like the concept of Gunbreaker, but if it's the most complex, I'll maybe give Marauder or Paladin a try.
🤗
@benjaminfast5496 paladin is very simple to start. Warrior becomes simpler at higher level, but has better defensives. Overall both of them are excellent starter tanks! 😊 Good luck! 😄
why is the video so quiet? no matter what device i try to watch this on i have to turn the volume way up to hear ANYTHING.
I'm sorry to hear that!
I went a bit overboard with a too calm voice and then didn't give the audio very much boost back when I made this video, so it might be very difficult to hear on some devices or audio sources! I hope you found a solution that at least allowed you to enjoy the video 😔
@CaetsuChaijiCh I turned the audio up. It's not so much an issue as a mild annoyance. I forget to turn it back down and get blown out by a video from another creator. But I always find my way back here. Keep making the good stuffs.
Gunbreaker was my first tank and its the only one I like.
That is understandable! A lot of players enjoy the specific kind of busyness the gunbreaker brings to the tank role 😊
I'm kinda forced in my static to use Dark Knight and for the love of god I can't get into its rotation. I almost got the opener right but can't get into the mindset of resource capping for another burst. I use everything practically on CD and then I end up with grey parses lol
Your static is forcing you to play Dark Knight? Is there a particular reason for this? I know that its very easy for me to say as an outside source, but if it is Damage output related, the average DPS of a Dark Knight is only about 3% more than Paladin (Who happens to appear to be lowest at the very instant I am writing this)
If you are doing grey parses, it can probably be assumed you are not doing the average performance though, and if you are far more comfortable with any other tank, then an average parse of any tank is better than a grey parse for a tank you are not comfortable with. Not to mention, that if you don't actually enjoy playing Dark Knight, then you will not feel very interested in improving it, while if you played a tank you really enjoyed, you would play the tank more in general!
However, if you DO enjoy Dark Knight but are just expressing frustration in learning it, then the good news are that Dark Knight is very difficult to perfect, so if you put in time to practice, I am sure you can get it down quickly! The scary thing is that because maximizing your burst involves The Blackest Night, you can't get the perfect practice on a striking dummy.
Whatever the reason is, I hope you are still enjoying raiding with your static. You are very welcome to ask here for more specific advice if you think I can help 😊
Optimal rotations are vastly overhyped and just serve to intimidate people. Every player should look up their general GCD rotation, but you can definitely shove all your oGCDs in a macro to spam and perform at like 95% (seriously, try on the dummy), which is a lot more than the average player will trying to master rotation, weaving and raid windows, and will clear you every piece of content in the game save savage progression they won't even be doing anyway. While I find these kinds of videos useful, I always feel it kind of misrepresents the jobs to the players you are likely making them for, since those who will actually go this couple % optimization don't need the guidance, and those who do will look at this and nope out.
I don't exactly agree on the macro thing since just mashing a macro with a Mish mash of ogcds on it tends to get quite janky. But I get what you are going for, and I appreciate the feedback, for when I maybe will remake these comparison videos, probably changing some of the areas of focus 😊
@CaetsuChaijiCh First thank you for the response. I get where you're coming from, and I understand that if you're gonna make a video, might as well show things "properly", but I feel the 2 min burst mindset is more of an elite raider thing, and that is not a level at which most people can play or will ever have to. In my experience with players that were struggling or trying to find their place/rythm/class, focusing on more important basics (simple rotations, staying out of fire) yields the best results in every metric, from performance and continued growth to just enjoyment of the game. You can't just redirect a casual player to an Icy Vein 3-page essay with 22 icons charts and expect them to improve and have fun. I find FFXIV landed in a weird meta that isn't necessarily in its best interest. It is stale and only comes together for 15% of the fights duration.
Great video mate! I love all the tanks, for different reasons.
Thank you so much! And me too! 😊
I’m a warrior main and but I wanted to try something different. Been an interesting journey so far.
I played paladin for a good while but it always felt horrible when you trip up on the rotation in the slightest, didn’t stick with it in the end.
I haven’t touched dark knight yet but my friends tell me it’s easy once you get the opener down saying after that it’s pretty much “1-2-3 hit OGCDs when ready”
I want to pick up gunbreaker because it’s aesthetic is really cool plus FF13-2 lightning is one of my favorite characters ⚡️🙂
If you like the way warrior plays, it is not uncommon to say in terms of attacks that dark knight is just a way faster warrior 😊
You could say with the way gunbreaker works that it also sort of fits into the "1-2-3" waiting room until buttons light up situation, you just have to master fitting the things in no mercy, so the cooldowns align again later! If you like how gunbreaker looks I'd totally recommend you try it 😁
So I have always played casters/healers but I want to change up would it be better to start as a Melee DPS or Tank?
Either one works. It's entirely up to what you would like to try next 😊
A dps would probably have less responsibility while you get acquainted with being more in melee range
Is tanking difficult? I was thinking of getting back into ffxiv but ive only ever played monk, ninja and dragoon up to level 60 before stormblood released.
I like the look of the paladin class but a bit nervous as ive never tanked in an mmorpg
It can be challenging at first, but it is just a slightly different way to play the game at the end of the day 😊 I do have starter guides for all the tanks as well as videos going over tips and tricks for tanks, that you might find helpful to get started.
One way to be able to practice tanking completely at your own pace to start is to do the first dungeon, sastasha, using duty support, so you have NPCs to help you instead of players that might get impatient! 😊
Edit: also in shadowbringers they simplified the way enmity is generated a lot, so compared to the times you played the game, this aspect is a lot easier to deal with!
Which fights are heavy on magic damage?
That is a good question! Unfortunately it is going to be a vague answer!
It depends - With patch 6.3 that released right at the start of this year, you can see when an attack is physical (a blue sword next to the damage) or magical (a purple wand) or "unique" (a green explosion..? Often means you can't reduce the damage at all)
But ultimately, there isn't really a formula to it. You could argue that Raid Wide damage tends to lean towards magic damage more often, and that Raid wide damage might be more common in alliance raids for example, but that isn't very helpful. The best you can do is approach it on a case by case basis. I do believe the current raid tiers P8S is supposed to have an overwhelming amount of magic damage if that helps!
All of them. The vast majority of unavoidable damage is magic damage,
"What tank should you start out with?"
Warrior: "Heh heh. Bloodwhetting go brrrrrrr."
😆
If you can make it to level 56 and get raw intuition then warrior becomes very very nice to learn with absolutely!! 😊
This threw me off: how were you in Troia with sprouts? o.O
@@CaetsuChaijiCh I ran a Troia a couple of days ago where the healer disconnected after a couple of minutes. Instead of waiting, our tank (Warrior) was just like "let's keep going until they reconnect." We finished the entire dungeon without the healer. I was a little worried about Scarmiglione's big transition attack, but with Shake It Off it was barely a tickle.
Warrior is god.
I think that the sprout icon might stay if your character is younger than 3 months but I am honestly not entirely sure 😅
And yes, warrior is insane! If the raid wide damage is happening rarely enough, warrior can keep multiple people alive with nascent flash too!! 😁
@@mattstanford9673 You lose the sprout when you complete the last quest in Shb AND have 300 hours. If someone story skips an alt, they will be a sprout in Endwalker content until they have 300 hours on the character.
I fully admit that DRK is my preferred tank mostly for their Job quest storylines.
That is also a valid reason to have a favorite 😊
Me as well. I got really attached to it and I can't really imagine leaving it behind. I'm leveling warrior rn but I dont like it nearly as much as dark knight, probably cause it's an ARR job so it's a very long level up. And all of its defining features are kinda late so I'm not having fun. At least the story is funny but it's just because of curious gorge is genuinely for real the mentors name.
And blackest night and living dead are so clutch. I've soloed bosses a few times cause of LD and it rules.
Gnb was my first tank. Drk is probably my worst tanking experience. It seems to have a learning curve that I find difficult. Blood mp racking my brain meats lol
Yeah I can understand that 😊 two resources to keep track of can be more confusing than just one, and then DRK also has lots of cooldowns to use 😊
Click content to watch video ❌
Click content to read comments hopefully find more direct informations ✅
The devs just gave DRK lots of dope fashion options then called it a day 😢
On the bright side, dark knight is very strong? 😅
Instructions unclear. Gunblade is stuck in the Toaster.
Run before it explodes!
Healers adjust pls.
Hmmmm...I mainly play DRK and BRD and I can tell that when I play I only push skill button according to my feeling.
Is it just me or is it dumb that the next two Jobs to be added are DPS roles..... FOUR TANKS! FOUR!!!!!!
Hmm well I think the reason for that is because the game officially technically has five roles in regards to things like the party bonus! And there's only three mages. Adding one more melee dps would make it 6 melee and 7 ranged / mage dps options.
I understand it can be frustrating if you specifically prefer a certain role to not see new additions to it though! 😅😊
I'm sure this is a good guide, but I fell asleep with the low vocal volume. Might be better suited for Nat Geo photo shoot vids. Thank you for the content though.
Well that makes it a good goodnight video to put on I guess! 😂
I have fortunately(?) put a bit more volume in the voice over on newer videos since! 😅
Good guide was just hard to hear you cause you soft spoken and I am Hard of Hearing lol. Thanks for making such a good guide appreciate it
I am glad to hear it was still helpful despite the difficulty! Thank you for the kind words! 😊
I have worked on putting a bit more volume in my voice in videos since this one so I hope you won't have as much of an issue with hearing my guides in the future 😊
I'm a paladin main and ye it's fun but teh button bloat is real. I feel like I'm always forgetting to do something.
Axe goes brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrings us to dark knight. Lmfao well played
😁😁 Thank you! 😉
The lame part about cover in pve is that you can't eat the redirected damage with invulnerability. I wish it is the same as pvp although that is somewhat broken.
That is a strange interaction! I haven't tested that recently, does that mean that if you use cover and Hallowed ground the damage is just not redirected?
@@CaetsuChaijiCh I don't know if order of skill matters. I always take off my gear for the 506067080 roulette so l always get the 2 easiest dungeons. The green man dungeons have these untargetable big green man that hits you very hard. There is one device that you will always run into one of these big green man, so l always use hallowed ground At that big pull. Occasionally, l will get sprout healers that get killed by these big green man, so l cover them. And l found out l will take damage. Hallowed ground didn't reduce redirected damage to 0.
Oh that is very interesting! Thank you for giving a super concrete example, I might take some time to look into this! 😊
Gunbreaker. Started as warrior. Felt little bored by rotation of it. I want good flow and damage. So gunbreaker it is
That makes sense! As I did say warrior is in more of a priority system and the intensity is very low, it is definitely a job without much flow at all 😊 but a job with great flow certainly would be gunbreaker! I think that is something people often praise that job for
@@CaetsuChaijiCh no it’s just that in duegeon ques when I solo finish off the boss as gunbreaker. Players are “WOW” at me. Feels good
The best part about Gunbreaker is There's straight trash players so when you're not trash you look even better.
Why the audio so low?
At the time I was more focused on not being too loud, which incidentally led to rather low audio unfortunately! ^^'
Whoa Paladin a 4/5 for damage and warrior a 3/5, they practically have been doing the same if not paladin a bit less in savage and obv in dungeons warrior is king so paladin defo needs reducing to a 3 and its even lower after the rework
You might be right on that, of course, the ratings are just my opinion, and based on what I have observed!
At the time of making this comparison, all four tanks were closer than they are now, and Warrior was strictly at the bottom. While the average damage of Paladin and Warrior at the time was almost exactly the same, the warrior had much less variance, meaning the paladin had the capability to do significantly more damage based on crit luck and things like that - that was at least my reasoning for giving Paladin a 4! At the time Warrior was also known for having notoriously low damage for a tank in single target fights, while paladin was known to just have a really awkward rotation.
After Paladins rework, it is safe to say that the ratings that I gave Paladin here are somewhat off ^^'
Maaaan, I should've picked the axe class lol
Haha!
It's never too late to switch over! 😁😊 The annoying part is mostly in having to level up again, but if you enjoy the job, that will be a breeze!
YOUR VIDEO ARE BEST INDEED FOR NEWBS LIKE ME
Thank you 😊 I really appreciate it!!!😁
dude your audio is soooo low. This is the content i was looking for, but i can barely hear you
I have significantly increased the volume of my voice in future videos based on feedback like this. 🙂
I am sorry to hear that, but I hope you found the comparison interesting nonetheless!
Really good video overall, but there are definitely a few things I think you missed out on or didn't quite get right:
1. It was a bit odd that you didn't mention paladin's self-healing when talking about its defensives, especially regarding Divine Veil. Paladin's entire magic rotation gives you self-healing now, so not only can you proc Divine Veil yourself by simply using one of your magic attacks, but you can also heal yourself to full over the course of 8 GCDs. Additionally, Holy Sheltron gives you a very nice regen heal.
2. Speaking of self-healing, I could not disagree more regarding your take that gunbreaker's is almost on par with warrior's. While Heart of Corundum and Aurora are respectable, in no way can they compete with the healing that paladin and warrior can do. Also, you didn't mention that Brutal Shell gives you a heal, though it doesn't change my point.
3. While dark knight does have a ridiculous number of OGCDs you have to cram into your two-minute bursts, by no means is it not feasible to fit them all in. You do have to plan ahead a bit, but it's actually quite easy to do because of how insanely flexible dark knight is overall when it comes to its rotation.
4. I think you're giving too much credit to how flexible gunbreaker is. While it's true that gunbreaker has much more room to play around with openers than paladin does, you're basically locked into your rotation past that point. Gunbreaker arguably has more optimization than paladin currently because of the flexibility afforded by paladin's slow rotation. In fights with forced downtime -- think P5S and both phases of P8S for this savage tier -- you have to manage your cartridges extremely carefully. This can manifest in some weird ways, like using your AOE rotation in the second phase of P8S just to build cartridges faster before High Concept goes off. And if you let Gnashing Fang/Blasting Zone drift, your DPS will suffer a ton. Paladin's the only other tank that has that level of strict rotational adherence right now.
5. While difficulty is mostly subjective, I don't see how you think paladin is easier to master than dark knight. Having done paladin, gunbreaker, and dark knight in high-end content (savage, ultimate, speed kills, etc.), dark knight is far and away the easiest to do at a high level. Dark knight might be kind of quirky because of using TBN to get a Dark Arts proc before your two-minute burst starts, but other than that, it has almost no limitations on its flexibility. There's no "true" opener like paladin and gunbreaker have, you don't have to use your abilities in any specific order to achieve high DPS, and 10% of your overall damage comes from pressing one button -- Living Shadow -- every two minutes. While I do agree that paladin is easier to pick and up play, it has the highest skill ceiling and the data definitely back that up.
6. Regarding the gear dependency metric, I'm not sure I totally understand what that's supposed to mean. I'm assuming you're using it to mean how your gear will affect your skill speed, in which case paladin and gunbreaker should be at the same level. As you mentioned in the video, both can have entirely different rotations depending on their skill speed, so they have the same level of dependency on gear and materia melding. And I know you made this video for beginners, but given the fact that you brought skill speed up as a topic, it should be said that all tanks are at their best with a 2.5 second GCD speed in this tier. Skill speed hasn't mattered less since early in Shadowbringers.
Hopefully that's not too nit-picky. I do think this video is really good for people just getting into tanking and wanting to decide which job to play, but the information could use some work as you delve into the more advanced aspects of each job.
Thank you for the detailed comment Logan! Let me try to respond to each point:
1. I decided not to mention Paladin's significant healing from its spell burst because as I see it, the paladin's healing from their spell attacks is there to compensate for the fact that Paladin is the only Tank that does not have a built in heal as part of any of its 1-2-3 combos. Granted, I could've mentioned explicitly that the someone that has to cast a heal could be yourself, but that was sort of a broad gesture that it could be you or someone else. The fact that an attack spell that as a side product heals you also counts is a detail I could've been more direct about!
2. Looking it over a second time, you are right that Paladin's self healing combining Requiescat and holy sheltron does outmatch Gunbreaker very handily. I think I may have underestimated Paladin in this regard and simultaneously overestimated the value of Heart of Corundum heals when needed, however, comparing the self-healing of any tank with Warrior on AoE is more of a joke given how absolutely ludicrous Warrior's AoE healing is in the first place. I believe my thought process in the green tank joke was more related to being able to heal other players, where Paladin needs to cast Clemency to do this at all. You are however right in the fact that Paladins self healing is very impressive! And regarding not mentioning Brutal Shell, this is given by the same reason that Souleater and Storm's Path isn't mentioned either, and by extension the Paladin's Healing from spells.
3. The fact that the Dark Knight is far less dependent on HAVING a lot of resources to perform the majority of its burst makes it a lot more flexible than Gunbreaker, which is the reason why the mastery rating I gave Gunbreaker is 5 stars, compared to Dark Knights 4 stars. Personally, I find very intense rotations with a lot of abilities to cram in difficult to master. The MP stockpiling combined with the optimization of keeping a TBN proc for burst also adds some complexity to Dark Knight on top of that. The comment about the feasibility of fitting all the oGCDs in the Dark Knight burst is intended as a small joke about the sheer amount of oGCDs the Dark Knight has in comparison to the other tanks. You are correct that when done correctly, you can fit everything in there!
4. A fight with an unusually large amount of downtime can certainly get in the way of the Gunbreaker, and your example of P8S using AoE attacks to just be able to stockpile cartridges in time really does highlight this! I feel that each tank has its own weaknesses in certain fights. Having a strict rotation can both be a downside and an upside, as some players may find it easier to consistently perform it when it is set in stone!
5. As you say yourself, difficulty is mostly subjective, and I believe that more intense jobs, namely with a lot of oGCD casts in quick succession, leads to a higher difficulty. If you are already a master of the general optimized gameplay loop in a savage context, such as planning your 2 minute burst, then Dark Knight, whose gameplay revolves heavily around stockpiling resources to do just that, would make it far, FAR easier to play and master. On the other hand, Paladin is trying its hardest to fit into this 2 minute burst window mold that has been built around it, which can make it difficult. However, as I see it, if you start your opener right as paladin, all you have to do is follow the order consistently, and then you don't even need to worry about when raid cooldowns come up, your rotation will line up naturally with it. This leads to the main difficulty for Paladin being in counting steps you need to skip due to downtime or other things that delay your rotation. I may be simplifying things a lot here, but that is the way I see it 🙂
6. Yes, the Gear dependency metric is entirely based on the fact that Paladin and Gunbreakers rotations are significantly impacted by their skillspeeds. The reason why I ranked Paladin as more heavily gear dependent than Gunbreaker is because paladin's break point between fast and slow is exactly at a breakpoint where most jobs tend to land if you just grab a full set of gear (for instance, the crafted set will typically plant you squarely in 2.45), but changing just one or two pieces can pull you over to Slow paladin instead. The reason why this is also significantly more impactful on Paladin is because the rotational difference between Fast and Slow paladin is massive, whereas for Gunbreaker, the rotation is very similar regardless of your skillspeed, however, slow enough and your No Mercy loses a weaponskill, and you may have some difficulty with consistently getting 3 cartridges for every No Mercy (And I will own that in this case, I actually discovered that this was not uncommon AFTER this video was finished!)
I very much appreciate your detailed comment Logan, and as you can see, for the most part my reasonings are either related to comedy, lack of knowledge, or different opinions, and that is all okay!
As a matter of fact, I highlight a reference to my more detailed job guides as each job is introduced in the i-cards in the top right, because I believe this comparison is nowhere near detailed enough to use as a guide on how to play any of the four jobs showcased. The comparison does however lead to some good entertainment (I hope), and helps players to get a general understanding of each job, which I get the impression you agree that the video does succeed on 😊
@@CaetsuChaijiCh Thanks for the response! Some more thoughts:
3. I can see where you're coming from and appreciate your perspective there. I too found this to be difficult when I first learned dark knight, but it became very easy for me when I understood that the order in which I used the abilities didn't matter much at all. But I can certainly see how the average player would find it to be difficult, especially when progging an encounter.
4. This is something I think an entire video could be made about. I don't necessarily disagree with you there, as I think the execution of strict rotation jobs like paladin and gunbreaker isn't all that difficult, but the planning that goes into optimizing those rotations is very hard. I sometimes struggle with it even with the experience I have as a paladin main and gunbreaker enjoyer.
5. My point was less about how difficult a given rotation is to execute, and more about how severely mistakes will affect your DPS. For example, using Fight or Flight/No Mercy in the wrong place or entering a burst with only one or two cartridges will have a profound impact on your DPS. Whereas dark knight's design doesn't lend itself to being able to even make mistakes like those to be begin with. Aside from holding your Shadowbringer charges for your two-minute windows and your Plunge charges for every burst, you basically just use all your abilities on cooldown. Even if you decide to not play into the two-minute meta on dark knight and use all your stuff on cooldown and not hoard MP for bursts, your rDPS won't actually suffer. That's getting into the weeds quite a bit and begins to depart from the topic of the video, but that's my mindset. Since even the best players in the world make mistakes, though, it's a topic worth discussing.
6. So, dropping a GCD during your damage buff is actually preferred right now on paladin and gunbreaker -- it's the foundation on which the slow rotation for each job is built. With the current BiS, the tradeoff in increased direct hit you get from not prioritizing skill speed outweighs the benefit of cramming the 11/9 GCDs into their respective buff windows. 2.47 seconds is realistically the slowest GCD speed you can achieve that result on both jobs, but almost no one actually plays with that build. With gunbreaker specifically, there's no issue with building cartridges fast enough even with the 2.5 GCD speed builds (other than the downtime examples I mentioned, but that's not specific to any particular GCD speed, as far as I'm aware). While I agree that the differences between the fast and slow rotations on gunbreaker aren't huge, I do believe they're significant enough to be mentioned.
This is the first video of yours that I've seen, but I'll be on the lookout for what you do in the future, especially when it comes to tanking.
I feel like With PLD the mastery difficulty is way way higher then any other tank (Entry level it's pretty easy), the job is certainly known for being the one most hardest to optimise for fights, with DRK/GNB the entry seems to be a bit more difficult because of how much you have to weave.
Nice video otherwise, just felt odd that PLD was pretty low compared to the other two in that ranking.
You are not the only one that feels that way~ I ranked the mastery difficulty of paladin lower because as I saw it, the main difficulty is knowing how to start the fight with the best opener, and then how to deal with down time in between, mainly by keeping track of what things to skip and what not to skip. For example Compared to gunbreaker who can run into having no mercy ready but no resources to spend with it if there is too much downtime, makes gunbreaker stand out as harder to master by having to work around these things, combined with the intensity. At least to me!
I think I mainly ranked paladin lower on mastery difficulty based on how big of a factor the set in stone looping rotations plays overall, and that it has less ogcds it needs to use in the burst making it less intense than drk and gnb 😊 but I totally understand and appreciate your perspective! Thank you!
@@CaetsuChaijiCh I understand that haha, I do feel like PLD can be underestimated at times with how much it can take to master them, but in a general sense, following a normal rotation as PLD is generally fine. GNB Especially can be harder to position and use defensives while in burst (same as DRK but I feel like only really applies in 120's). I do think generally Gunbreaker is generally the best tank right now if you are good at it.
I'm wondering how things would change for 6.3 with PLD I'm thinking they will get more busy during raid buffs, but have less Jank with it, Unsure how that will effect things in the future. Looking foward to but also worried about PLD changes.
@@pootisspencer4866 I agree! Not to mention that however they choose to change PLD might set a precedence for how they plan to change AST and DRG later on as we also got promised! So it is very exciting and scary at the same time.
I certainly hope those that already main PLD will continue to like the job after the change, most of all 😊
i want to solo ff14 as im a casual player. i think warrior would be best :)
Warrior is a good job for most all content so that is not a bad idea 😊
thank you :D@@CaetsuChaijiCh
Best tank was Heavensward drk, best tank now is war
I wish I had had the opportunity to try HW DRK, but aside from that I do agree, my favorite is, also warrior 😁
Good info.
Very hard to hear you, it's like you are whispering...
Paladin 4 Life!
That's the spirit! I hope the paladin rework landed well with you! 😊
@@CaetsuChaijiCh honestly I am not a fan how my magic is triggered now. Made me change my rotation muscle memory.
@@protrainingtips Yeah I get that, it is quite different! Personally I feel the fact that Holy Spirit has a more prominent space in the rotation as a whole, rather than being that button you press four times in a row every minute, is a good thing. But it does mean the rotation is very very different now!
you forgot Blue mage
/s
Your mic volume is too low
I have increased this in future videos, but hopefully you can increase your local volume to overcome it in this case!
Cool guide but a spoiler warning may have been nice, considering there's some footage of endwalker dungeons. Just a nitpick though
I get that. I should probably have added that. I decided to leave out the spoiler warning because out of context for new players (at least those that haven't seen this content yet), it looks mostly like generic combat footage. Some players may be more sensitive to those kinds of spoilers than others, but I imagine they know what's coming when the footage fades in 😅
@@CaetsuChaijiCh it's unlucky for me I just met blue bird girl in elpis so seeing her at a max level dungeon is just unfortunate but I am HEAVILY reading into it. Most people would probs not care though so don't worry
That is a good point! Curse those dialog boxes! I hope it didn't ruin the story for you 🙁
Leveling all the tanks currently.. gunbreaker only one I dislike. It doesn't hold aggro very well. I swear the aoe radius is lower than the others. Warrior the easiest, basically heal yourself, and Darknight the funnest for me as it isn't overly complicated by 70 anyway so far and runs really strong with its survival without being to the point of an easy snooze fest like war or frantic struggle to get all the mobs like gnb
Thank you for your perspective!
I think the reason gunbreakers aoe feels weird is because the animation is slightly delayed, and might look bigger than it is!
While learning the exact way to get the mobs in one swing you can use danger / blasting zone, bow shock and provoke to hit the stragglers you missed, which can smooth it out if you miss a few 😊
You're bad at Gunbreaker. That's all it is.
@@qwerty-dm8gr probably, but to say warrior isn't easiest to level up is just ignorance. Your heals are dumb
Why are your whispering??
I am simply speaking calmly 😊 I didn't find it necessary to yell! 😂 Anyway, in my newer videos I've gotten a bit more oomph in my voice 😉
why is your sound so low, crappy?
Took me a while to figure out how much volume it needed to be easy to hear on any speaker. 😅 I have since figured that out
I honestly hate your compare videos. All i hear is "If you choose to play this spreadsheet, this will be your headache flavor. If you play this spreadsheet, your headache changes slightly." I don't get excited about any jobs when i hear you talk about them, it actually turns me off to the whole thing.
I am sorry to hear that you feel that way! I will try to keep this in mind if I revisit this kind of video format in the future! 😅
ok so you don't know tanks very well so this is the real list
SSS: pally, because who cares about damage rotation...like your damage as a tank DOES NOT MATTER, you could spam shield throw, tamahawk or whatever in place of a rotation and the boss will only take about 5 seconds longer. that being said, pally has all the "not die forever" buttons you could want paired with the fact they take alot less than other tanks.....also you use cover for board wide attacks when you know someone is going to die, like a black mage at half HP or even a healer, you use that paired with a damage reducer and everyone lives.
S rank warrior/gunbraker: gunbraker does have ALOT of buttons and is alot of fun to play and warrior doesn't have as many buttons but is just as fun, each one is pretty great tanks, warrior takes a bit less damage but thats the only big difference
B rank: dark knight yeah I dropped from A but dark knight is just eggy warrior was a less fun rotation and doesn't quite have as many "don't die buttons" and has one button that is useless most of the time. if this was a carbon copy of warrior id be fine but its just very slightly worse than warrior and gunbraker
the logic is I can't give it a A rank because its the worst of all the tanks that being said I can't give it any lower than a B because it still works and if you like big dumb swords and dark magic then have fun, I will never shit on anyone for using or wanting to play any tank over the others but at the end of the day as long as your keeping your party from being attacked and you don't die quickly your doing a SSS+ rank job! also do yourself a favor and learn a loose rotation, like I staid at the very start damage is not important when your tanking, as a matter of fact healers can out DPS you most of the time so the less damage you take the more time the healers can spend healing, casting res on dead party members or just DPSing so the DPS stays up longer because DPS will die, alot of them are going to be black mage and its ok when the black mage dies, they have to keep in a rythem of casting to get huge fucking numbers, if you want to worry about roations and big numbers play black mage or samurai lol
Tanks can do around 2/3rds of the damage of a dps. If you just spam shield lob (which is the actual name of that action you called shield throw by the way), the fight would take significantly longer.
Welcome to final fantasy 14, everyone's a dps, some of us just have additional responsibilities 😉
Bro you’re WHISPERING I’m literally having to focus on listening closely so I can hear what your soft little voice is saying. Put some bass in your voice boy
I'm sorry to hear that. I have fortunately increased the volume of my voice in future videos.
I'm so excited for when you find out volume sliders exist, all grown up
Sorry man, had to give you a thumbs down because your audio is so low compared to every other video.
Thats alright 😊 a while after this video I fixed this audio issue but that doesn't change that it is on it.
Have all 4 tanks at 90 for quite awhile. GNB is my least played, do not like the rotation. War is no brainer easy and simple. Love drk for its glam and pally is my main, love passage of arms/cover. Clemency is nice in a pinch with insta cast.
Yeah, every tank has its perks! I can totally understand why Gunbreaker isn't for everyone too, with its sort of strict rotation in some ways 😊
And Paladin's cover is always a surprise - every time I see a paladin use it, there is a chance I discover a new mechanic you can mess with by using it!