[Takelli]

Nins and Plds are the only tanks!

I'm tired of getting this when I ask another job to tank for me in parties. Blus, Dncs, Wars, all say this to me.

Blu: Great dmg out put, and great way to negate damage, and can hold hate pretty damn well.

Dnc: Great way to hold hate. If subbing war they get voke as well. Self heals.

War: Voke, and defensive abilities.

Why wont people change how they play? Hell, if I played as Blu, I'd offer to tank, same with Dnc. I even tanked as Dnc, and it was fun as hell! War tanks, yea, they are Mp Sponges, but they don't lose hate though. The DDs can deal tons of damage with a War tank, as the War tank is dealing tons of damage too. They arent that much of a Mp sponge.

I've even seen Drgs, and Sams tank fairly well, but very few people will actually change their play style and try to tank. Whats with everyone and not wanting to try to change their play style? There are less and less Plds, and Nins seeking due to easier solo-ability, and them not wanting to tank as well. (Well at least on my server).

So... what are your thoughts about other jobs tanking besides just Nin and Pld?

[Kailea]

This was discussed a little back, but its all about keeping hate, and people not wanting to do any work.

I have tanked before as DNC, its crazy, but fun ;p

PLD/WAR and NIN/WAR are the two main types of tanks, because of survivablity.

DNC/WAR can do it to, in a way, and so can BLU, but blues and DNC are both abit on the squishy side ;p

[Armando]

Short answer: Because NIN (or WAR/NIN pre-37) and PLD get the job better at almost any level range. People will only accept another job as a tank if there's no other option, because there's no point in choosing a job that tanks worse. At the same time, because NIN and PLD are the only jobs consistently prepared to tank, players on other jobs generally don't have the desire, experience, and equipment for proper tanking.

[Takelli]

Originally Posted by Armando

Short answer: Because NIN (or WAR/NIN pre-37) and PLD get the job better at almost any level range. People will only accept another job as a tank if there's no other option, because there's no point in choosing a job that tanks worse.

But a Blu can hold hate just as well as a Nin, even close to a Pld. They have self heals, and can dish out dmg. They can even dominate hate if they wanted too.

Also... Nin tanks suck at lower levels. I've had 5 nin tanks in my last few parties. 15-33. All of them kept loosing hate.

As for the lazy-ness thing. Thats just plain stupid though, I'd rather tank than wait for an invite for 3 hours. The last party I had, I asked a blu to tank, and they shot it down instantly. Three hours later and two levels, the same blu was STILL seeking. I think its more that they are stubburn. But its more to what you guys think than what I think.

[Armando]

BLU doesn't have Sentinel, Size 3 shields, Flash, or Cover. PLD still has better survivability while going toe-to-toe for hate generation with anyone. Without native hate tools, BLU has to waste extra MP to get hate back; PLD has JAs to fall back on.

[Takelli]

Blu has a self refresh, Haste, cures, damage dealing tools.

Pld has pure defensive abilities. Sure, a blu may lose hate every so often, but they can get it back fairly fast. Ballad + Haste + Refresh. They aren't going to need to stop for a while. I have seen blu tanks, and they are great! They even have AoE cures whhich generate TONS of hate as well.

I'd rather go with a tank that can deal damage rather than have some one that cant deal as much. Blu>Pld IMO.

[hexx]

Originally Posted by Armando

BLU doesn't have Sentinel, Size 3 shields, Flash, or Cover. PLD still has better survivability while going toe-to-toe for hate generation with anyone. Without native hate tools, BLU has to waste extra MP to get hate back; PLD has JAs to fall back on.

True, but having played both jobs, I can tell you that BLU's survivability is up there with a PLD as well. I for one HAVE tanked as BLU/NIN and BLU/WAR and I hardly take any damage. As far as hate generation is concerned, any well placed spell will pull good hate, on top of the fact that a lot of BLU spells are cheap and quick to cast, I can pull hate with JUST Head Butt! Add voke to that and a few cure spells and sheesh, you have a monster there. Not to mention BLU's customizable Job Traits (I can generate a defense AND attack bonus on my BLU lol) such as Auto-Regen, Defense Bonus, and damage lowering spells DO go a long way as far as tanking is concerned.

The only problem is, as most people realize, a lot of players are afraid to think outside the box as far as what your job's role is. SAM, WAR, NIN, PLD, BLU, and such can tank, just need to be properly equipped for it (as Armando stated) which requires extra gil and additional skill ups at times. Plus, most DD's are so stupid, all they care about is their e-peen WS damage /sigh.

Originally Posted by Takelli

Blu has a self refresh, Haste, cures, damage dealing tools.

Pld has pure defensive abilities. Sure, a blu may lose hate every so often, but they can get it back fairly fast. Ballad + Haste + Refresh. They aren't going to need to stop for a while. I have seen blu tanks, and they are great! They even have AoE cures whhich generate TONS of hate as well.

I'd rather go with a tank that can deal damage rather than have some one that cant deal as much. Blu>Pld IMO.

As for the bolded section, HELL NO. BLU is great and all, has awesome survivability, but in no way does it beat a PLD.

[Armando]

Blu has a self refresh, Haste, cures, damage dealing tools.

PLD also has auto-refresh, at a lower level; and also has self-Cures. Any tank should be getting Haste from the backline by default, so the ability to self-Haste is kind of moot in a tanking context. Ballad can be given to a PLD by a BRD just as easily as it can be given to a tanking BLU, so that's also moot.

I'm not saying BLU can't compete. It's just that PLD not only works, it also works well at any level (Auto Refresh and Refueling don't come until much later for a BLU, a non-self Cure doesn't come until 30...). By that time PLD already has one extra hate tool at 15, the king of all hate tools at 30, followed shortly by Cover at 35 and Flash at 37. PLD has a bigger safety net overall as well, between the ability to use Flash and Cover to shield party members from harm temporarily. Tanking on PLD is so easy a chimp can do it; BLU requires a bit more of finesse and proper understanding of how hate works since you can't just jam all your JA macros when shit gets dicey.

It's also a /sea thing. If you need a tank you're going to do /sea all NIN or /sea all PLD, followed shortly by /sea all WAR if you're hard-pressed to find something. Beyond that, it's hard to go /sea all BLU and check who's willing to tank. It's not the sort of thing you bump into on Search Comments often.

[Takelli]

I actually don't ask people who arent seeking. In fact I hate it. I hate when people do it to me so I dont do it to others. I'm not a hyprocrit.

As for the tanking, I just like to have other jobs that can tank. SE needs more pure tanking jobs rather than DDs, and Support which is what SE has started to do. Its also how people generalize jobs when a new one comes out.

[Aylmer]

I wonder how a WAR/DNC 30+ would do as a tank? No as squishy and self healing up to a cure 3 capability and an extra possible voke ability with Animated Flourish come 40.

[Takelli]

I did War/Dnc post 30. It was fairly fun. I did have a few hate issues, but other than that, it did its job of what its supposed to do.

And to Hexx. This is just about exp parties, not end game stuff.

I have had my share of bad Pld tanks. As a Bad Blu tank, they can hold hate better than a bad pld tank. I am not talking about expert players, just average players. The average player can pick up Pld fairly fast and tank, same as blu. Blu also has more dmg mitigation abilities than Pld does. Thats why I think Blu CAN be better than Pld. I wasn't saying it is, I am saying it can be.

[Armando]

Blu also has more dmg mitigation abilities than Pld does.

In practice, it most certainly does not. Without Size 3 shields, Sentinel, Reprisal, and less importantly Rampart, it's hard to argue BLU mitigates damage better. Especially since they don't get Flash until 74 and it's still on a longer timer than PLD's, and Zephyr Mantle isn't accessible 'til 65 (along with the fact that Zephyr Mantle takes 7 seconds to cast.)

Of course BLU can create damage on the demand, so that's a fair trade-off.

[hexx]

Originally Posted by Takelli

I did War/Dnc post 30. It was fairly fun. I did have a few hate issues, but other than that, it did its job of what its supposed to do.

And to Hexx. This is just about exp parties, not end game stuff.

I have had my share of bad Pld tanks. As a Bad Blu tank, they can hold hate better than a bad pld tank. I am not talking about expert players, just average players. The average player can pick up Pld fairly fast and tank, same as blu. Blu also has more dmg mitigation abilities than Pld does. Thats why I think Blu CAN be better than Pld. I wasn't saying it is, I am saying it can be.

I think what armando is trying to get to is that PLD is less risky in the long run vs a BLU, which I agree with. In order to be an effective BLU tank at the lower levels, you gonna need to be properly refreshed and hasted, otherwise once the MP is gone, youre dead and so is the PT =P

[Takelli]

Originally Posted by Armando

In practice, it most certainly does not. Without Size 3 shields, Sentinel, Reprisal, and less importantly Rampart, it's hard to argue BLU mitigates damage better. Especially since they don't get Flash until 74 and it's still on a longer timer than PLD's, and Zephyr Mantle isn't accessible 'til 65 (along with the fact that Zephyr Mantle takes 7 seconds to cast.)

Of course BLU can create damage on the demand, so that's a fair trade-off.

With the way parties are now. The Shields wont make much of a difference. A lot of the plds have a low shield skill because of the level sync (Not talking about the good plds).

Yes, sentinal, Reprisal, and Rampart are nice skills to have as well. But you can never go wrong with a low lvl SS, and decent damage mitigation. Blu obtains a few good damage mitigations before Pld, but in the end, pld does have the best defense in game hands down. I am not saying that Iw ont use a Pld as a tank, but I will go for a Blu over a pld because they can do a good amount of damage in a matter of seconds if needed.

If the blu has a good Haster, and refresher, then its a good tank, especially if they know what they are doing as well.

Pld needs refresher and a haster as well to help them keep hate, but they don;t have the increased amount of damage.

So when it goes down to basics. Blu is good for fast kill parties, Pld is good for parties that have longer kill times IMO.

I do understand what you two are saying, I'm just trying to figure out why no one will change their play style so they don't have to sit in jeuno for 3 + hours seeking for a party lol.

[Armando]

With the way parties are now. The Shields wont make much of a difference. A lot of the plds have a low shield skill because of the level sync (Not talking about the good plds).

Believe me, it still counts for a lot even if your skill isn't capped, and that goes double after Reprisal which causes shielding rates to skyrocket.

Pld is good for parties that have longer kill times IMO.

PLD is just as good for fast kill parties, but most PLDs suck and don't know how to do anything beyond strapping themselves with as much Defense and VIT as possible. But if you're going with the average PLD, then yes.