Hi there, not only can tanking be a stressful role and one of many people don't like to vent you down, but also choosing the right tank is near impossible without some insider information. This video will give you all the ins and outs of each playstyle so you can pick up your next tank job. Before we jump in, I have a survey sponsorship and this is the final chance for you to be able to support the channel with 45 seconds of your time, filling out the survey located in the description box and pinned down in the comments. It is a survey about your experience with Final Fantasy 14 and what you like and don't like, so thank you in advance for helping me with filling out this survey. Let's talk tanks. First up, Paladin starts at level 1 in Ulda. Paladin is your OG tank playstyle. You have a sword in a shield, a lot of shield mitigations, and now even on par with some self hills. Though, still not as good as warrior. Paladin job abilities use what we call the Oathgage which you receive with each auto attack that lands. With this Oathgage, you will have access to a few different job abilities as you level, but the most usability will be Shelteron which blocks incoming attacks for 6 seconds. Now this is block mitigation damage and there's all sorts of things we can talk about to expand upon this, but basically it lessens the damage you take. Paladin playstyle is exactly how it should feel, especially with the new abilities and endwalker. It's a slow feeling sword and board playstyle. Since we are at Paladin, we do have access to MP abilities that do damage and heal yourself. Paladin almost feels like the perfect tank in my personal opinion more specifically at level 90. When leveling, you have a very decent gap of damage mitigation abilities for beginner players who want to just ease their way into tanking. The regular damage GCD abilities at first seem underwhelming, but ramp up at later levels, balancing out the slow sword playstyle by switching into a white magic S rotation with Resquiat which allows the second half of your rotation and instant use of Holy Spirit for single target or Holy Circle for AOE. Now I believe Paladin is the best tank at the current moment playstyle wise by that I mean visuals, how the job feels and balancing of abilities. The reason for this is the addition of their level 90 abilities blade of faith, blade of truth and blade of valor. These were the missing pieces for me personally in making Paladin my main tank job to use. These allow Paladin to catch up on higher damage numbers that the other tanks already had in previous expansions. These alone are the reason why I will keep main Paladin for this expansion. If you'd like a strong, safe and now very visually satisfying job to play, then Paladin just might be for you. Now that doesn't mean that the other tanks are lacking in any other way. Dark Knight. But there might be one. Next up Warrior starts at level 1 in Limza Limza. Warrior has the highest self survivability between all the tanks. Yes Paladin can heal itself with clemency, but Warrior is not only outputting a good amount of DPS with everyone's favorite combo, fel cleven inner chaos, but the self heal abilities raw intuition, a 10% damage reduction, plus an HP recovering effect for 6 seconds, equilibrium, 1200 potency self heal, plus regen for 15 seconds, cause why not. Through a battle, 20% increase your own HP and restores the same amount, as well as increases healing actions by 20%. Shake it off, barrier for a whole entire party of 15% of max HP and another regen for 15 seconds. It's just kinda getting ridiculous at this point. If you ever hear why running a dungeon with the Warrior is almost every healer's preference, this is why. Now not only do you have these self heals and party heals that make you almost into the party's third healer, but you also have regular tank cooldown as well as one Warrior defensive cooldown. Warrior job abilities are the Beast Gauge, which gives you access to all your hard hitting job abilities like decimate and fel cleave, which further get upgraded by the use of the ability Berserk, which gives you access to chaotic cyclone and inner chaos, which are two of my favorite personal visual abilities for Warrior. Warrior play style is very ungebunga of swinging a big double sided axe and hurling yourself into your abilities, which I gotta give kudos to square enix as they've nailed how to make these shops feel so related to the name. When I am playing Warrior, I feel like I'm just rampaging through enemies. There's only one drawback for Warrior, and honestly the only reason I do not main Warrior is for this alone, and that is the initial cone AOE ability. Yes, I'm being very serious. The cone AOE ability is such a nuisance to have to worry about, since all the other tanks are circular and not cone, which makes this pretty easy to miss some enemies on your first trash mob pools for dungeons. For this reason alone, Warrior is my second tank if I cannot play Paladin. The Warrior is so pretty beginner friendly, especially with so many self-hills, and the rotation is a little bit more fluid than Paladins when being able to adapt to situations better. If you want to go burr and toss that big axe around, then Warrior is the job for you. Dark Knight unlocks at level 30 in Heaven's Ward, expansion main city of Ishgard. Dark Knight has almost the opposite feel of Paladin, whereas we turn to the Light and Justice for Paladin, we delve into the shadows for Dark Knight. As soon as you have Dark Knight, you will immediately notice one thing, and that is the feel of when you're using the GCD combos. They have somehow managed to add weight to the strike to make it really feel like you're physically holding a gigantic heavy sword. Dark Knight also relies on MP similar to Paladin, but in a very different way, where we utilize MP to do damage. The job gauge is a blood gauge, which when it accumulated can be used for two abilities, blood spillers, your single target damage ability, and quietiss, your AOE damage ability. Now this is job very focused on MP usage for increasing your DPS, as well as managing your tank cooldowns perfectly, as we have very few compared to the other tanks unfortunately. Now even though we use MP for abilities, we want to make sure to always have 3000 MP for one of the most often used abilities, the Blackest Knight, which creates a barrier that absorbs 25% of your max HP, and when broken, usually used for tank busters, then you get a free edge of shadow or flood of shadow, which are your other two MP costing damage abilities. A really high note for Dark Knight is the visuals of its AOE abilities, it is a very satisfying visually to watch over and over again. The downside is you get your first AOE at level 6, which is unleash, and your second one stalwart soul at 72. Seems like a bit of a jump to me. There is only one other reason why you should play Dark Knight, or at least level it to 80, and that is for the job story. It is one of the best job stories I have ever experienced in Final Fantasy XIV hands down. Now I don't put Dark Knight as a beginner class to start with, nor is it when I think it's up to par with other tanks. It's lacking something at its current moment and in some desperate need of attention from Square Enix for a smoother job rotation. If you want a little bit of a challenge, using the Dark Arts and diving into the darkness, then Dark Knight might be for you. Lastly we have Gunbreaker, and locks at level 60 in Gridonia. Using aetheric cartridges to power up your explosion, Gunbreaker kind of feels like a DPS class trying to be a tank with more focus on DPS abilities than actual tanking abilities. Your job gauge is called the powder gauge, to which you gain cartridges just by doing your regular GCD combos. Now we use these in order to access our gnashing fang combo, which is what you hear about most when it comes to gunbreaker. A quick explosiony succession of a few abilities that put Gunbreaker on the higher to try list for those who really hate tanking. The gameplay for Gunbreaker feels a lot faster than any of the other tanks with a bit more weaving involved. I am having a hard time convincing you though that Gunbreaker is a go-to tank honestly, and it falls right in the middle for me, not as very exciting as Paladin or Warrior, but not as bad as Dark Knight either. You have a gunblade that goes boom when you hit enemies, what's not to love? We do have some Gunbreaker-esque cooldowns like Heart of Stone that gets a pretty cool update later that is similar to Scholar's ex-cogitation, which puts a buff on you that once you hit below 50% health, you'll get a huge cure potency of 900. Now of course this isn't a healer's version of cure potency, so it isn't as strong, but this has turned out to be very clutch ability when I was leveling as you get access to it around every 25 seconds. If you want to play a DPS, I mean a tank with a huge explosion rotation, then Gunbreaker might be the tank for you. Now as far as what tank you should play, I never really give a straight answer in most of the videos that I do when it comes to comparing jobs, but this is probably the first time that I will. Paladin and Warrior are just far too superior to this expansion in terms of playstyle, abilities, job feel, and ease, so if you haven't started tanking yet or you're just getting into it, then Paladin and Warrior are my go-to recommendations. Now does that mean Dark Knight and Gunbreaker are bad or unplayable? Absolutely not. It's just more of the opposite. Paladin and Warrior just feel so strong and powerful that the others just kind of feel like me for me in this current expansion. Hopefully we see some job changes coming out soon for both of those jobs as they feel pretty unfinished to me personally. Now if you have a Paladin and Warrior to 90 and looking for your next job, I would go with Dark Knight as you need some tanking experience for later dungeons, and I see many tank struggle when Dark Knight is their first job they tank with. No matter what you play though, as long as you're happy, that's all that matters. Cops out. I hope this video at least helps a little to break down the differences between each tank in which one you should pick on your next tanking journey. I want to thank you for watching this video. If you want to connect with me on my public discord, you can find those links down below. 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