Future WAR Tanking Capabilities...90+WAR/MNK Or 90+WAR/DNC

Trying to mitigate the damage you're going to take with Counterstance up is pretty dumb because your damage will turn to garbage, which I assume is your primary reason for wanting a DD tank (otherwise why not use a PLD?).

Counterstance is also not the same as Retaliation. Counterstance negates the damage by countering (duh?).

Using Defender with Counterstance on is ridiculous. It's a 25% boost to your defense and with Counterstance on your defense is calulated using your VIT only (songs as well I think but lolMinne).

it would be neat to see some more blood tanking, some things to blood tank and some to blink tank but unfortunately since ninja or ninja sub for tanking has become standard... square, in efforts to make mobs more "challenging" again, has made mobs that you basically need to blink or you will get torn up (i.e. ixion) and i anticipate this will be the indefinite future of tanking until this game dies

The update really didn't change anything for drk tanking. The only things I can think of where you would use unengaged drks in the first place is lowman omega and ultima. Drk is still easily the best option for both those fights. Assuming a very obtainable 15% haste +25 enmity set, fighting a 240 delay mob with carnage elegy on, you are gaining 2200 CE a minute from aspir/stun/absorb-tp, and losing 250 CE a minute to shadows. That is also assuming you never evade, and that stuns don't actually stun. In reality you won't go through 10 shadows a minute solo tanking, and you probably have a co-tank. My last omega parse shows me taking 1 floodlight and 1 hyper pulse for 228 each. So that's another -600 CE. Obviously it doesn't take very long to cap out CE, and VE is just as easy but with the benefit of starting out with an initial 5000 VE spike.

The real question is, why would you wanna tank on warrior? I don't wanna nuke on my drk, I leveled blm for that.

Retaliation isn't a tanking tool at all. You still take dmg with it, the only thing that can be argued is that the tp you get from it could be used to help hold hate, assuming what you're fighting takes melee dmg well, especially while ur in a tank set for the majority of the time.

You may argue war gets voke, but BLM was recently given mana wall, just because it mitigates dmg doesn't mean you want BLM to start tanking now, or that it can do it well.

IMHO, leave the tanking to plds, nins and the few drks that know how. If you wanna be a tank level those jobs, if you want be a DD who can emergency tank temporarily, do WAR.

You missed drk and blu too, at the very least.

I said drk.

I've never seen BLU tank anything worth a ***though aside from the "super tanking" a lot of weaker mobs that need high defense for and them hold it. Not saying they can't I just never seen it. Are you saying they can tank something like Ixion, Cerb or Faf? If they can't I don't see why they are classified as a tank? Could be wrong, just never heard of them doing it.

My mistake about drk.


And yes, blu can tank those. Just like anything, they need to know what they're doing. I have a blu friend on Bahamut that I trust to tank anything more than any pld/nin/drk I've seen on Bahamut.

So they spam sleep spells and actinic burst ect?

I still don't see the point in doing stuff like that unless you have someone who's only job 75+ is blu, then I can see you trying to find ***for him to do. A plds only real job in anything ever is to tank, I wouldn't wanna be taking that away from them. It might cause SE to *** something else up for blu while trying to nerf there tanking ability.

But you're trying to justify having no one else tank. If a blu can tank as well as a pld or nin and they specialized blu to tank, why not let them tank?

My friend lvled pld to 75 because she liked tanking on blu, but hated pld. And as I said, she tanks better than anyone else I've seen on this sever.

You can tank on any job, I mean counting to 3 on shadows isn't very hard. The problem is that pld will always be the optimal tank because it can cure itself and has the most survival tools. Obviously this makes pld less of an MP sink as tank than any other job, at least now that rdm is gone. The only time you'd use another tank would be when you don't need that survivability. For example having a PLD tank fafnir is fail, you can DD tank it easily. On the same token having a blu tank Fafnir would be equally fail; it can't even damage fafnir effectively. Ultimately the best low man setups consist of a PLD main tank and a DD off tank. This allows for most content to be easily duo tanked without sacrificing the ability to kill the mob in a timely manner. Most often my LS uses an aegis pld + an apoc drk to tank.

I'm just curious since I haven't read all the information that was released with the update. What was it that killed rdm tanking? Thanks for any input :D

Nerfed the hate from sleep, sleepII, bind, and blind. Makes it impossible for rdm to effectively hold hate now.

Ah that's flam ;; thanks

If the best tank on your server is a BLU you have a shitty server. Abilities and spells do have a limit of effectiveness, even if you are the greatest BLU tank alive, PLD and NIN are still given superior tanking spells and abilities. A great BLU tank can be out tanked by a mildly decent PLD or NIN b/c that's just how the game is built. With timers fixed, haste limit capped and enmity gear laid out it is impossible to out weight the potential of PLD and NIN with BLU.

Don't forget Atonement either. I'm not sure what crazy good + consistant ws/spell BLU gets but jeeeez Atonement is hard to beat if it can damage w/e it is you're fighting. Most fun tanking I have is x2 PLD/NIN tanking Gotoh Zah the Redolent. With Joytoys in hand, Atonement spam ftw lol. It's nice to see Atonement constantly do 730~750 damage which usually chips 2% health :D. I almost cried though the first time I tanked Tinnin and Atonement NOR Spirits Within did ***to him ;; lol.

Well i personally am not one to rule out the possibility of needing a WAR to tank temporarily in order allow the PLD's to get their ***together again. I tanked Odin as WAR/SAM after both pld's got dropped in quick succession. Granted it's not something that you will intentionally do but it's great to have the ability in rough spots. As for PLD/NIN being a better DD then WAR/MNK... that's just lol. Nevertheless it will be interesting to see how the "WAR tank" will adjust as the updates progress. (Sorry i didn't put this earlier, been drinking for my b-day all night long).

so this thread got me thinking a bit on war actually tanking,
now before you pick me apart on how war shouldn't be tanking and to let the Paladin do it. lets just assume its for solo/lowman situations where no pld is available and the said mob is actually tankable.

first off, lets revisit some of the new stuff Squenix gave War with the latest update( copasta from wiki) :

45 Fencer -
* Game Description: Increases rate of critical hits when wielding with the main hand only. Grants a TP bonus to weapon skills.
* Increases rate of critical hits by 5% when wielding with the main hand only. Grants a 40 TP bonus to 1-handed type weapon skills. (See discussion for test info)
* Job Traits are always active.
* Does not function with 2-handed weapons or while dual wielding.
* Functions normally with a shield equipped.

80 Shield Mastery

80 Shield Defense Bonus -
# Game Description: Reduces damage taken when blocking an attack with a shield.
# Job Traits are always active.

i believe these were added to try and move war into being able to tank (not saying you should). when we combine these new traits with lvl 80 War/Pld we get some interesting stuff.
/40 PLD gives you:
~Job Traits:
05 Undead Killer
30 Defense Bonus II
35 Auto Refresh
40 Resist Sleep II

~Job Abilities:
05 Holy Circle
15 Shield Bash
30 Sentinel
35 Cover

as well as Flash spell and Cure3.

also i might add, war gets access to the new shield from Abyssea:

Seigneur Shield RareEx
[Sub] All Races
DEF:25 +20 "Magic Def. Bonus"+5
LV 77 WAR PLD

need someone to put this to the test, im thinking a well geared war/pld with a phalanx2 up on him might actually not do half bad in a situation that does not require blink tanking, and you don't have access to a paladin or tank job lol. (def+ buffs,food,defender as well).

Sword weapon skills blow (for non PLDs), WAR's shield skill isn't high enough, Holy Circle and Cover aren't hate tools, Sentinel and Shield Bash have five minute recasts (and Sentinel's effect is nerfed as /PLD), and you'll have crap for MP.

You're better off /SAM with an actual weapon.

I'd assume he'd be using axe, no reason to use sword, but still a bad idea in general

Because they're almost always less effective than a different tank. If you can't engage it, BLU wins. If you can engage it, MNK SAM DRK win. PLD's draw is that it's a one-size-fits-all tank.
The other "big" target that comes to mind fitting your description is Tiamat. I was mostly referring to situations where you couldn't DD at all though. If you can maintain capped CE long enough to get back to a DDable form, by all means tank it on DRK.
BLU is less reliant on support and generates CE better than an unengaged PLD. It's basically RDM -1 for tanking. Exuviation is an extremely powerful hate tool for instance, along with the rest of our arsenal. It's not done much because until recently it was marginally less efficient and RDM did it better anyway, not to mention most BLU don't even realize they have the tools to tank to begin with.
PLD can tank most anything just fine, so if that's your spin on things then go for it. If you have the choice between a tanking-ready BLU and a PLD, situationally the BLU is the optimal choice.
Get the *** out. Also, NIN tanking died a few weeks ago. Thought you'd like to know.
The PLD doesn't have to turtle up and their WS will pretty much always do 750 damage. Yes, the PLD will outDD your lolWAR/MNK.

True. I just figured if he wanted to play pretend PLD he'd go with a Sword to complete the look. My bad.

We all know blm/warx2 swap tanking with mana wall is the way of the future.

With aerial armor rotations!

OMG! HOT! BLU or SCH SS rotations too!

I was referring to situations where you don't DD at all too. Those numbers were purely enmity from JA and spells. Engaging omega or ultima with a group of 6-8 is just counter-productive.

Iv tried a lot of methods using WAR with an axe and shield, /dnc is the best for it imo, Retaliation seems to proc quite often with 1 axe, that fuels tp, with new abilities like fencer and the shield blocking one, it gives us a little boost, i would say tho if WAR's do this you need defense, a lot, i don't know what /dnc is like at 80 yet im only 77, but it hasnt failed me yet for small scale battles, with the new perle set which has haste, a bit of VIT and a lot of DEF who knows could be ok lol,when it comes to main tanking, as long as the mob does physical attacks hate shouldent be an issue if retaliation works.... the only issue is consistant curing... i need to do testing...

im pretty sure IRON LS were co tanking HNMs with war/whm back in ... 2006?

so im sure it could work at lvls up to 99.

i agree there, /whm is good :), but only if you know how to use it xD, its not noob friendly >:P

Ok guys, just a heads up this is going to be a long post. I was about to make a new thread, but I saw this one and figured it was good enough place as any to include i

First off I wanted to clearly state that this is all completely theoretical, the information used in this was not personally obtained, it was acquired from several information databases (ffxiclopedia, etc.). Also this theory HAS NOT been tested by myself, again, it is completely THEORETICAL.

What I propose is a level 80 Warrior to sub Paladin (I know this sounds stupid, but just keep reading and ponder it)

What i'm basically trying to do is make a Warrior spam the new HP drain WS (I was told WAR can use it, with propery merits and Sword skill + gear).

Why sub PLD? Well let's take a look...

Subbing PLD will give WAR Shield Mastery II, (Yes you'll be using a shield! Don't give up on me yet!) Which, correct me if i'm wrong, should give 4TP per shield block.

Also subbing PLD will give access to Sentinel.

Now that's we've got that covered, the WAR needs to use a Ridill(Iknorite? @_@) and a Sipar shield (Hidden effect 90% block rate) which coupled with the Shield defense damage reduction job trait Warrior has should supposedly bring the blocks to 20-25% damage reduction.

With Haste(and of course haste gears), and march and/or march II, shield blocks, and Retaliation, the WAR should be able to reach 100% TP fairly quickly using a Ridill, while reducing some of the damage taken through the shield/and or Sentinel.

Now, the WS seems to drain a % of the damaged dealt, depending on TP(50% @100%TP, 75% @200%TP, 100% @300%TP). And since WAR is using only 1 hand weapon, the job trait fencer will be active, which will add 5% crit rate, PLUS a 40TP bonus to WS, which would mean at 100%TP, the WS would drain roughly 62% of the damage dealt. To improve this further, with max Savagery Merits and Warcry up, another 50TP bonus to WS would be applied. Which means @100TP, the amount of HP drained would be roughly 72% of the damage dealt. So, pop Warrior's Charge before that(and with the high crit rate from combined merits/Fencer/gear) It could possible be a very nice HP return, especially if repeated every 10 seconds(excluding the JA's back to back).

Also a few things I want to add are if you're wondering about accuracy problems with the sword, Aggressor can IMPROVE this problem, but not fix. And i'm thinking there should be a nice DoT with the high crit rate that is complimented by the crit hit damage job trait and/or new back armor slot.

Another idea would be using and Ethereal Earring, combined with the auto-refresh from /PLD, and maybe a RDM refresh, you could throw in some Cure III's if abosolutely necessary(low chance of getting interrupted with the high shield block rate). Also maybe using Nocturnus with the absorb physical DMG trait with this setup?

Anyways, I know all of this is probably stupid and won't work, i'm not claiming it will, just an idea i came up with off the top of my head. Like I said I have not tested any of this. Also I have not come up with any gearsets for this kind of setup, feel free to add/take away anything that I was said, and by all means don't take my word for it, test it yourself iif at all possible.

You are not going to simultaneously achieve a sufficient level of damage mitigation and damage generation (*** acc how does it work, Defender/lack of offensive stats, etc) on anything requiring a tank by bloodtanking on WAR. If you manage to stay upright for any length of time then you've brought too many mages and you'd be better off having some of them come DD, getting a good blinktank, and killing both faster and cleaner.

Also, good luck getting anything approaching a decent Sanguine Blade number on WAR vs high level or really any target... Not nearly enough MAB and to be frank your options for mods (especially dINT) are lacking.