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MRD/WAR or GLD/PLD for tanking?Follow

#1 Oct 10 2013 at 8:10 AM Rating: Default
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Maybe I should move this to the job forum?

Anyway, I have been wondering, who is the true tank in FFXIV? In FFXI it is clear who the tank is. I also have eight years in FFXI so I know what they do/did for all situations. In FFXIV I don't have a lot of experience in endgame content so I don't know what's what but it appears that WAR and PLD have an equal roll as a tank.

I love the MRD/WAR job at the moment and I think its a damn good tank. I am interested in being a full-time tank but don't want to waste time. I also don't care to level GLD/PLD. Will I have a role/job as a MRD/WAR in endgame or will PLD be the "only" tank and MRD/WAR will turn into... the Monk of FFXI?

Opinions?
#2 Oct 10 2013 at 8:28 AM Rating: Good
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The Role classification system in 14, combined with gearing, and the current ability sets prevents Jobs from really doing anything outside of their Role.

With that being said, PLD and WAR are tanks. Period. They are both good tanks, and both have their pluses and minuses. Personally I prefer Pld, but that is primarily because I haven't gotten a good weapon for my War yet, so I haven't bothered using it.

At the Darklight/steel level of gear, the gear is 100% interchangable. Meaning, you gear up WAR, your PLD is geared.

You will be fine with War tank. The only off classifications I have seen is, WAR tends to be a better adds tank, while Pld is the best stunner in the game (I have been relegated to stunning in Chimera and Ifrit, and I am fine with it, while another PLD or WAR does the tanking).
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#3 Oct 10 2013 at 9:42 AM Rating: Decent
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I've yet to notice any significant diffirence between the two either.

They use the same armor and the same damage rating weapons.

There was a whole discussion earlier, several times infact, about who was better. It doesnt matter. Regardless of what the data might say.

Personally i'm a fan of Paladins. I like to think the shield offers an extra level of damage resistance. And i like throwing out Passifications when my shield does block something, it's a few extra seconds of preventing special attacks or spells that wont get in the way of stun. There are probably more Paladin walking around and i do agree that a LOT of them are (knowingly) gimping themselves in gear and weapons.

At the same time, Warriors are BEASTS. Self-sufficient as hell, can heal themselves for large amounts of HP through damage and have really impressive HP pools. Definitely a little jealous of their AoE attacks too that they can spam at will.

You can argue that it's a little harder to cure a WAR and that they might take a little more damage, but at the end of the day. If the person playing the job is good, they perform pretty much the same and you'd be happy to have either one of them.

tl;dr : The best tank job is the one with the better player on it.
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#4 Oct 10 2013 at 9:48 AM Rating: Excellent
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PLD is mathematically better but WAR works great on everything, coil is only place where a difference is actually noticeable and even then WAR is still viable.
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#5 Oct 10 2013 at 9:49 AM Rating: Good
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PLD is better, War is capable.
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#6 Oct 10 2013 at 10:25 AM Rating: Decent
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There is a general outcry for SE to "fix" WAR, but it seems more like a desire for balance between WAR and PLD. I don't know how far the gap truly is, but here is a thread with some discussion on the topic (see the second original post for a comparison between the two):

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/101009-XIV-WAR-Tanking-Baseline-Mitigation-and-PLD-comparison

Although some of the criticism of WAR might be valid, I am still going to level it because MRD/WAR is awesome.
#7 Oct 10 2013 at 1:54 PM Rating: Decent
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The biggest discussion point I've heard is the lack of defensive abilities that a WAR can keep up vs. a PLD. Something like Mountain Buster on Titan (HM), a PLD can mitigate the damage through it's defensive cooldowns, where a WAR isn't able to have their abilities up often enough to be able to keep up.

This is more from what I've been researching. Still not quite that far up, but plan to have both at 50 regardless
#8 Oct 10 2013 at 2:59 PM Rating: Decent
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From healer perspective I prefer PLD tanking, I feel that they are less "spiky" (sorry don't know what words to use) to heal. Please note this is just my opinion.
#9 Oct 11 2013 at 9:06 AM Rating: Decent
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Toyototoyo wrote:
From healer perspective I prefer PLD tanking, I feel that they are less "spiky" (sorry don't know what words to use) to heal. Please note this is just my opinion.


I understand that. To go with the post above you if there were more defense skills or stats for the WAR then this might not be such a burden on you are the other healers. As a WHM in FFXI, I know what its like to have an MP sponge at the front of the battle. Perhaps SE will add a skill or something to help that problem. Time the skill right and it could be a huge help, I can picture.


So it seems like WAR has a life. That's good. Some fights like Titan may ask for a PLD but others, either will do. It also seems like a WAR is a great compliment to a PLD in the aspect that if you have a WAR its a good DPS but if something goes wrong they can step in an help. Main target or Adds. If no PLD then WAR can handle it but I am guessing, depending on the situation, they would need to be skilled and understand what's what and how/when to use different things. Not someone who speed up to 50 and didn't learn from the job quests or dungeons.

This sounds great to me. Nice conversation, thank you for the input.
#10 Oct 11 2013 at 1:35 PM Rating: Good
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Long story short, if you are going to have a "blood" tank then you might as well make it like the Death Knight in WOW (don't kill me for mentioning that game).

IMO, they either need to have a blood shield type thing or add a very large self healing buff to the Defiance trait. So that every single action we do heals us for a large quantity, which will ease the burden on healers. I personally would much rather that type of approach rather than increasing our defensive cooldowns, making it a viable tank but not being the "same" type as the PLD.

Just having the extra HP doesn't make us a good tank, our self heals are laughable, especially considering that to self heal worth a damn we have to use all of our stacks of wrath which then removes our healing and enmity buff. All that works fine in common leveling dungeons but it just is really hard to manage at the endgame scene where bosses can throw down some serious damage to the tank.

We just take to much damage in comparison to the PLD, if they are going to leave it like that then obviously our healing/self healing needs to be increased to compensate. Over a longer fight the healers just have an issue keeping MP, especially in an AOE intensive fight.
#11 Oct 11 2013 at 4:08 PM Rating: Default
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One thing im often reminded of is that level 50 is most likely not the level cap. Just like in FFXI where it was raised over time, I have a feeling it will raise in FFXIV as well, perhaps with the next expansion. With that comes better weapons, armor and more abilities, so things will still change. I only have a level 29 GLD but from what I read it seems MRD could use a slight boost but are still great in most situations, like the user said above where multiple mobs are involved. All in all, I expect more tank classes and balances to come in the future, not for Paladin to be the only option.
#12 Oct 12 2013 at 1:13 PM Rating: Decent
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I think it works exactly as you'd expect. Paladins are great at one-on-one fights, perfect for boss fights, and Warriors are great at many-on-one fights, perfect for trash and adds. But it's not to say they can't flip roles. It's just what distinguishes one from the other.
#13 Oct 12 2013 at 1:38 PM Rating: Default
Xoie wrote:
I think it works exactly as you'd expect. Paladins are great at one-on-one fights, perfect for boss fights, and Warriors are great at many-on-one fights, perfect for trash and adds. But it's not to say they can't flip roles. It's just what distinguishes one from the other.


Paladins can tank trash and adds just as well, maybe better.

Can anybody think of a time where they thought "man a warrior would make life much easier right now"?
#14 Oct 12 2013 at 5:47 PM Rating: Default
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before i get into it, i have both war and pld 50, and my current opinion is this:
WAR is a better tank for multiple targets (you see this through flash/steel cyclone)
PLD is a better tank for a single target (you see this from all their single target abilities. for a PLD to secure a bunch ofadds they need to spam flash)

now, besides the fact that both tanks specialize in different ways of tanking, there is 1 thing that sets PLD above WAR for tanking.

You would have to do the math since i don't have time right now to crunch the numbers, but PLD's ton of damage mitigation is superior than WAR's health pool. What i'm talking about here is effective HP.

A WAR will have say, 7,500 HP, and a PLD will have 5,600. a WAR will tank based on the fact they have a higher HP, however they don't mitigate damage like a PLD would, so when a healer is healing a WAR they are giving them a straight cure of say, 1000. The difference is though, that when a PLD uses something like rampart (20% damage reduction) they are increasing their effective health, which would then make the cures from healers worth more than the actual amount healed. So that 1000 for a PLD would be more along the lines of 1,200 in actuality (not exact numbers, just an example). So although WAR has more health than a PLD, keeping them alive is less cost effective than keeping a PLD alive.

If anyone can crunch out the numbers, or has a link to any actual numbers people have done that would be great. But what i mentioned above is the general idea behind why currently PLD is seen to be better than WAR.
#15 Oct 12 2013 at 5:57 PM Rating: Decent
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Although both are viable tank right now, it's quite clear that the game favour PLD more on high-end content.

As of right now:
WAR better multi-target tank at low lvl.
WAR better tank on 4 man dungeon because the bosses are typically weak.
PLD better multi-target tank at high lvl because Flash also Blind, and Healer does not pull aggro as much due to damage mitigation.
PLD better tank on very hard hitting bosses due to multiple damage mitigation.

What they need to do to 'fix' WAR IMO is increase WAR damage, because WAR is supposed to trade damage mitigation with self-healing (all are damage related) and more damage than PLD (as evident by highest dmg boost given by Berserk). Also give Steel Cyclone an increased enmity effect to make WAR the supposedly multi-target tank.

If I remember correctly, WAR does have higher base VIT and STR than PLD (who has higher DEX and MND/PIE), so in effect WAR does have higher base HP (ignore the Defiance and Shield Oath mechanic because they work out the exact same way).

Edited, Oct 12th 2013 7:59pm by Khornette
#16 Oct 12 2013 at 7:01 PM Rating: Default
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Rampart: flat reduction to damage taken
Foresight: increases defense

Really just need to give WAR some better defensives. I prefer WAR tanking because their on demand burst threat is insane, the self-healing is just wonderful, and they actually have the option to DPS which is great when you out-gear content that is a mandatory farm (AK).

I have a feeling, though, as the average ilevel of players changes, so too will the preference on tanking. How often did you see a PLD in a merit party? :P


Edited, Dec 13th 2013 7:31am by HitomeOfBismarck
#17 Oct 13 2013 at 11:07 AM Rating: Decent
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HitomeOfBismarck wrote:
Rampart: flate reduction to damage taken
Foresight: increases defense

Really just need to give WAR some better defensives. I prefer WAR tanking because their on demand burst threat is insane, the self-healing is just wonderful, and they actually have the option to DPS which is great when you out-gear content that is a mandatory farm (AK).

I have a feeling, though, as the average ilevel of players changes, so too will the preference on tanking. How often did you see a PLD in a merit party? :P

Edited, Oct 13th 2013 8:57am by HitomeOfBismarck


The problem for war though, is if you give them too much damage mitigation they would be OP because of their superior health pool. I agee something needs to be done though because i think they are a little UP at the moment.

Also, PLD can do some DPS as well. I use sword oath for running CM and AK all the time as long as i know healers can keep up. If not ill use shield oath, but overall sword oath makes runs faster.
#18 Oct 13 2013 at 12:22 PM Rating: Good
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Quote:
Can anybody think of a time where they thought "man a warrior would make life much easier right now"?

"Much easier"? No. "Easier"? Sure. Any time multiple mobs don't hit hard and a WAR can actually hurt them in addition to holding their attention, a WAR will speed things up. No one's talking about giant differences here, just strengths.
#19 Oct 13 2013 at 1:40 PM Rating: Default
Caesura wrote:
Quote:
Can anybody think of a time where they thought "man a warrior would make life much easier right now"?

"Much easier"? No. "Easier"? Sure. Any time multiple mobs don't hit hard and a WAR can actually hurt them in addition to holding their attention, a WAR will speed things up. No one's talking about giant differences here, just strengths.


We will have to agree to disagree. In my experience you can put a paladin in the spot of the warrior, pop a regen, and speed the fight up more with nukes. More than 3 mobs and the war is taking way too much damage. The problem imo is that paladins are as good or better than warrior at their own strength. This is just what I've seen through Titan hm since I haven't touched coil yet. Oh and paladins make good stun whores.

I'm not here to bash warriors; my wife plays as a warrior and has been a great tank. I'm pro-warrior. I've also ran with other wars and paladins. Imo warrior needs something because it's just inferior right now. I'd like to see something change to give people a real reason to want warriors other than not being able to find a paladin. Perhaps with tomorrows changes WP will be worthwhile to run and warriors will shine in a major way.
#20 Oct 13 2013 at 1:42 PM Rating: Decent
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I really, really want to try out tanking as a WAR now. I'm leveling a PLD and I tank like an iron wall, it's great.
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#21 Oct 13 2013 at 7:49 PM Rating: Good
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Keysofgaruda wrote:
HitomeOfBismarck wrote:
Rampart: flate reduction to damage taken
Foresight: increases defense

Really just need to give WAR some better defensives. I prefer WAR tanking because their on demand burst threat is insane, the self-healing is just wonderful, and they actually have the option to DPS which is great when you out-gear content that is a mandatory farm (AK).

I have a feeling, though, as the average ilevel of players changes, so too will the preference on tanking. How often did you see a PLD in a merit party? :P

Edited, Oct 13th 2013 8:57am by HitomeOfBismarck


The problem for war though, is if you give them too much damage mitigation they would be OP because of their superior health pool. I agee something needs to be done though because i think they are a little UP at the moment.

Also, PLD can do some DPS as well. I use sword oath for running CM and AK all the time as long as i know healers can keep up. If not ill use shield oath, but overall sword oath makes runs faster.


Then perhaps gear will bolster them!

How do you hold threat with sword oath? I pop it only for demon wall. I know most tanks can't hold threat off of my BLM even with shield oath up. I can't imagine how you would without it. :X
#22 Oct 14 2013 at 10:15 AM Rating: Excellent
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HitomeOfBismarck wrote:
How do you hold threat with sword oath? I pop it only for demon wall. I know most tanks can't hold threat off of my BLM even with shield oath up. I can't imagine how you would without it. :X

There was a post on Reddit a couple of weeks ago - how's that for a high quality citation of source? - with testing which IIRC stated that the enmity increase and damage reduction multipliers from Shield Oath are reciprocal such that the effective enmity output is roughly equivalent in either stance. This actually makes Shield Oath vs. Sword Oath an interesting choice: your threat's the same either way, you get to choose between a doing more damage and taking less damage.
#23 Oct 14 2013 at 11:51 AM Rating: Decent
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Quote:
before i get into it, i have both war and pld 50, and my current opinion is this:
WAR is a better tank for multiple targets (you see this through flash/steel cyclone)
PLD is a better tank for a single target (you see this from all their single target abilities. for a PLD to secure a bunch ofadds they need to spam flash)


Sorry, I strongly disagree and believe you are spreading bad info. You definitely don't want to use Steel Cyclone to hold a group, you lose infuriate and don't ge the added healing bonus when you need it most. Now keep in mind I am a WAR tank and will continue to do so. It's only a matter of time before they make adjustments, it was like this in FFXI way back when as well. But right now PLD is just a better tank, and I hate saying that.

PLD can tank a group just as well if not better than WAR. PLD has an AOE (Circle of Scorn on a 25 sec cooldonw, which is not that bad) that does AOE damage and also adds a DOT to everyone). You pull, Flash, Circle of Scorn then flash again and they are stuck on you, period. War can grab a group with flash (doesn't blind with us and our MP lets us use it 3 times max before waiting for more MP) and spam Overpower but then you will run out of TP quick. At least circle of scorn adds a dot that keeps the damage ticking and work swell with flash. Now the big difference is while both are holding the group the PLD is taking less damage than the WAR, that is amplified with a large group of adds. Try having a WAR grab a group of more than 3 and you will see your healer flip out quick. I wish they would have Steel Cycle do like Circle of Scorn, then it would be worth while using, as long as you can pop infuriate right afterwards to pump back up your healing received.. Right now it is basically a low damage AOE that makes you lose infuriate and decreases your healing received.

We don't need more defensive cooldowns, that is obviously not what they wanted to do with WAR. Even if they bring back Hasso from 1.0 (when we crited it gave us that amount back in health) that would be a huge step in the right direction. We need a more reliable form of self healing than using all out our stack of wrath for one large cure (around 850 as average) and then building it back up.

Just my opinion of course...........every day I am tempted to switch to my PLD for tanking :(

Edited, Oct 14th 2013 1:53pm by Techsupport

Edited, Oct 14th 2013 1:53pm by Techsupport
#24 Oct 14 2013 at 12:10 PM Rating: Decent
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Techsupport wrote:
Quote:
before i get into it, i have both war and pld 50, and my current opinion is this:
WAR is a better tank for multiple targets (you see this through flash/steel cyclone)
PLD is a better tank for a single target (you see this from all their single target abilities. for a PLD to secure a bunch ofadds they need to spam flash)


Sorry, I strongly disagree and believe you are spreading bad info. You definitely don't want to use Steel Cyclone to hold a group, you lose infuriate and don't ge the added healing bonus when you need it most. Now keep in mind I am a WAR tank and will continue to do so. It's only a matter of time before they make adjustments, it was like this in FFXI way back when as well. But right now PLD is just a better tank, and I hate saying that.

PLD can tank a group just as well if not better than WAR. PLD has an AOE (Circle of Scorn on a 25 sec cooldonw, which is not that bad) that does AOE damage and also adds a DOT to everyone). You pull, Flash, Circle of Scorn then flash again and they are stuck on you, period. War can grab a group with flash (doesn't blind with us and our MP lets us use it 3 times max before waiting for more MP) and spam Overpower but then you will run out of TP quick. At least circle of scorn adds a dot that keeps the damage ticking and work swell with flash. Now the big difference is while both are holding the group the PLD is taking less damage than the WAR, that is amplified with a large group of adds. Try having a WAR grab a group of more than 3 and you will see your healer flip out quick. I wish they would have Steel Cycle do like Circle of Scorn, then it would be worth while using, as long as you can pop infuriate right afterwards to pump back up your healing received.. Right now it is basically a low damage AOE that makes you lose infuriate and decreases your healing received.

We don't need more defensive cooldowns, that is obviously not what they wanted to do with WAR. Even if they bring back Hasso from 1.0 (when we crited it gave us that amount back in health) that would be a huge step in the right direction. We need a more reliable form of self healing than using all out our stack of wrath for one large cure (around 850 as average) and then building it back up.

Just my opinion of course...........every day I am tempted to switch to my PLD for tanking :(

Edited, Oct 14th 2013 1:53pm by Techsupport

Edited, Oct 14th 2013 1:53pm by Techsupport

I disagree a little with all that though. Circle of Scorn is too infrequent (and doesnt get a lot of hate), and also has just a potency of 100. You're not going to see miraculous numbers from that, nothing that keeps monsters away from the group.

Only AoE thing that can grab hate in a group that PLD has is Flash. And that's not really all that great. It gets a reasonable amount of hate, dont get me wrong. But your MP pool is finite, and you cant attack during it since everything is on the same GCD.

I really hate having to keep large groups away from things as PLD. I much prefer a Warrior to do that with ease. Even just with overpower (which by the way has 120 potency, more than Circle of Scorns).

I really feel both tanks are equal, just certain roles preferable to one or the other.


Edited, Oct 14th 2013 8:10pm by KojiroSoma
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#25 Oct 14 2013 at 12:27 PM Rating: Good
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I guess I don't see Circle of Scorn as too infrequent. I find the main problem to be actually grabbing all of there attention from the get go, after that it is easy sailing. A good flash, followed by circle of scorn then followed by another flash and they are all stuck. I vie wit as kind of an opener, not a spammed ability.

I guess my true hop is that they give us another job off the marauder platform that is a duel one handed axe wielding melee DPS and then I will tank with PLD and then get medieval with that class :)
#26 Oct 14 2013 at 11:55 PM Rating: Good
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cartec wrote:
HitomeOfBismarck wrote:
How do you hold threat with sword oath? I pop it only for demon wall. I know most tanks can't hold threat off of my BLM even with shield oath up. I can't imagine how you would without it. :X

There was a post on Reddit a couple of weeks ago - how's that for a high quality citation of source? - with testing which IIRC stated that the enmity increase and damage reduction multipliers from Shield Oath are reciprocal such that the effective enmity output is roughly equivalent in either stance. This actually makes Shield Oath vs. Sword Oath an interesting choice: your threat's the same either way, you get to choose between a doing more damage and taking less damage.


I remember bookmarking this to read it! Thank you for the reminder.

That is truly awesome. I am going to give sword oath a shot tomorrow.
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