Warrior Tank?

[reaper1228]

Can warrior be considered a tank job? Having a debate with my friend and she is saying warrior is DD and can tank briefly only. My argument is that it can tank a lot of things, but not as efficiently as a paladin or ninja but it can still do it which makes it a tank job.

[orson]

Absolutely a tank. War early on is one of the best tanks. Granted on same level Sam and other DDs could probably be considered to be tanks. The main reason War is a tank though is provoke and massive selection of tanking gear they have. War's only real disadvantage as tank compared to Pld and to lesser extent Nin is that War has no way to generate CE. War is pretty much stuck subbing Nin or Sam to tank so it's also limited in hate tools. It's obvious SE wants War to tank but it's very hard to make such a strong job better without breaking it. If SE ever fixes hate loss through damage on tanks and makes defense and vit worth while then War should become more of versatile tank but right now it's pretty much stuck tanking stuff that it can melee.

[Damane]

War can tank, the problems for War tanking start at the late 40 begginning lvl 50, you wont get around then without a THF sticking SATA on you. The problem is you need a good VIT/DEF build to not get a huge MP sponge but on the other hand you need enough Damage output to maintain hate.

Its actually the same what orson said. WARs have no naturaly Ability that gives big chunks of CE other then their Damage Dealing.
At lvl 75 tough things change because /NIN and Utsu: Ni. You can tank every exp mob fine and even some HNMs like Fafnir or Nidhogg.

[-Ant-]

I stand by a theory that anything /NIN (and in situations, /SAM) can tank effectively if they know a damn about game mechanics, hate generation and of course survivability.

WAR pretty much has to be a tank, if they know what they are doing

Its certainly not a PLD or a NIN/DRK, NIN/RDM (whatever) for situations like Cerb, Khim, etc - as far as a "safer" tank goes (shit, I've tanked stuff like cerb on DRK and WAR before. I even tanked Byakko on WAR/WHM ages ago. Some people even tanked Jorm WAR/WHM awhile back. I can't say picking WAR to tank stuff like that nowadays is as smoothe as PLD or NIN, but whatever gets the job done I guess.) Anyway to answer your question, WAR has much more hate tools than defensive tools, which makes it more challenging to tank with (imo) but it certainly shouldn't be ruled out or questioned as a "tank".

[Ferien]

WAR can effectively tank anything that it can melee, be it XP mobs or HNMs. For anything harder than xp mobs, however, your healers really need to be on point, as a WAR will take a truckload of damage when it gets hit.

I tanked a good portion of the way through my 60s on both WAR and SAM, simply because tanks couldn't hold hate off of me and it was easier to just do the job myself. I've also been using my WAR to tank in Salvage for the last 8 months or so, and I vastly prefer it as a main tank to MNK.

For anything harder than that though, it requires a near-perfect gear and party setup for the mob you're fighting, or you either won't do enough or will take too much damage to hold hate. Provoke is nice, but without a full enmity setup for it, it will never overlap itself enough to create a steady stream of hate, and you have to rely on your damage.

[Pro]

War is most definitely a tank. The only problem, as everyone said, is that it has no way to gain enmity through abilities outside of provoke warcry and tomahawk. WAR tanks are very reliant on Damage output to be able to tank. I've tanked things like Fafnir, Omega, Ultima, Nidhogg etc etc, many major endgame things with no problem(Co-tank on some, solo on others). Just stack enmity when using abilities, and pump out damage. War is not as good as Paladin, and maybe even NIN, but it definitely is viable if you play the job correctly, and have good gear to match.

[burytheweak]

HELL NO. Warriors CANNOT tank.
1. WAR that don't have Utsusemi up get destroyed, they have niether Evasion (ninja) or strong VIT (palading) to back up being hit straight up.
2. Making a WAR a tank is holding down a DD. Every WAR tank is gonna try to get in some damage, which is where they start sucking at tanking. WAR innately shouldn't be tanks because most WAR just wanna go nuts on the mob.
3. If WAR seriously want to tank they need to use a shield or something other than just axe/axe or sword/axe etc.

[Furionstormrage]

I use my WAR to tank everything "small" like Salvage, missions, Assault, Jeuno HNMs, anything I can damage well.

I find myself not using my NIN much all at, except for things that are better EVA tanked (Charby for friends, etc), I tend to always tank bigger things on PLD and everything else on WAR. For me it's fun to tank on WAR, and I have MDB, Enmity, Defense swaps for the job so that helps make it easier.

Edit: burytheweak, how sad you don't know any WARs that don't suck at the job, are they all ex-RNGs?

[Tordall]

At 70+ war/sam can be a good tank, assuming they're willing to ride seigan. At 74+ War/nin can be a good tank if they know how to count shadows & have good support.

Earlier than that, you either need 2 warriors with similar damage output to bounce hate, or war/monk spamming provoke & boost to hold hate while 2 mages spam cure them (and a vit/def build).

[Ksandra]

HELL NO. Warriors CANNOT tank.
1. WAR that don't have Utsusemi up get destroyed, they have niether Evasion (ninja) or strong VIT (palading) to back up being hit straight up.
2. Making a WAR a tank is holding down a DD. Every WAR tank is gonna try to get in some damage, which is where they start sucking at tanking. WAR innately shouldn't be tanks because most WAR just wanna go nuts on the mob.
3. If WAR seriously want to tank they need to use a shield or something other than just axe/axe or sword/axe etc.

Look up IRON tanking, then tell me warriors can't tank without utsu. We used to use them all the time for hnm back in the day, until all the PLD buffs were made. War tanking was never nerfed, it's just that nin and pld do it better.

[Shiznicle]

It's obvious that Warriors can not tank as efficiently as Paladins, but there are times when you might not have enough people or might not want to sacrifice a DD slot for just a tank. That's where Warriors can come into play. For things like Salvage or Nyzul, Warriors can provide the DD output needed to climb floors and defeat the bosses while tanking at the same time. Warriors can also tank most of the smaller HNMs, and some larger ones like Hydra.

So basically, Warriors are best at DD, but they can tank certain things while doing so.

[Pro]

HELL NO. Warriors CANNOT tank.
1. WAR that don't have Utsusemi up get destroyed, they have niether Evasion (ninja) or strong VIT (palading) to back up being hit straight up.
2. Making a WAR a tank is holding down a DD. Every WAR tank is gonna try to get in some damage, which is where they start sucking at tanking. WAR innately shouldn't be tanks because most WAR just wanna go nuts on the mob.
3. If WAR seriously want to tank they need to use a shield or something other than just axe/axe or sword/axe etc.

LOL- wut?

[Darkmoon]

Depending on the Event, anything with shadows and can generate hate can tank.

The question shouldn't be:
"Can WAR Tank?"
it should be:
"At (Event or Mob X) can WAR tank effectively?"

Stuff like Limbus, Salvage, Merits, low lvl exp, WAR is a fine tank, in Salvage for my group we use 2-3 WAR tanks to tank everything including all the chariots.

If your going to Jorm, or Tiamat, WAR "could" tank, but its not going to be nearly effective or efficent as a PLD, NIN or RDM.

WAR would mostly suck at tanking JoL etc due to hate tools, but they "could" do it.

Honestly as said above, anything with shadows and understanding of hate can tank. We had a goofly Proto-Ultima, where we had the one PLD take a Crit Wire cutter for 2.5k (never seen that before this one time) then he turned and Antimatter > Crit the other tank droping both PLD/nin, we only had 2 DD/thf so they weren't going to hold Ultima well, we just had the WHM/nin tank it until the PLDs were back up. So in that situation you can say the WHM is a tank.

So I know the term "its situational" gets beat to death around here, but it really is a fact of FFXI. No one job is perfect at everything, and any job can do a lot of diffrent things depending on the situation.

[Zidiane]

Where is the option for both, imo war is a tank and DD, Sub depdant ofc.
War's sheer dmg can help it hold hate alot of times, in simple, there dmg is one of the best hate tools they have.

[Pro]

The thing is that WAR can use most heavy armor that PLD can use, so the arguement that WAR doesn't have DEF/VIT is null. I've tanked almost everything(Excluding stuff like JoL) on war(/nin /whm) and have done a good job at it.

As said though, everything is situational, and 99.9% of the time PLD will do a better job (Cause I don't like saying 100% ;D)

[Vedder]

Simple answer is yes. There's a WAR in my LS who has at some point tanked just about any mob we've ever fought... all sky triggers (except maybe MG, kite ftw!), all sky gods, anything in Dynamis, anything in Nyzul Isle, anything in Limbus, etc. etc... merit/XP parties, obviously yes.

I'll take a smart WAR over a dumb PLD anyday when it comes to tanking. Good PLDs can tank the world, cause they've been buffed up over time, but there's nothing wrong with a WAR tank that knows what they're doing.

[Drex]

palading

lol'd, DD tanking is hot if their gear doesn't suck and they know how to count shadows

[SephYuyX]

Im not sure why this is a question.
WARs purpose in FFXI was to be a tank, it's just that when PLD was unlocked it was over shadowed, and then when NIN came out and made that a tank, it got even more overshadowed, but at the same time WAR gained a little back due to shadows.

Do WARs make perfectly fine tanks? Yes, but people dont gear them too. Do people go out of their way and make WAR tanks? No.

[Berdysh]

You can tank pretty much anything in this game on Warrior, but it doesn't mean you should. WAR/NIN on a grand wyrm, or any similar mob that is not very susceptible to melee, ends up being a Paladin without the cures and Sentinel spike in terms of hate hold, and like others have said has basically no way of accumulating CE on a mob of this type. In the other 90% of the game where DD tanks shine, Warrior is probably up there with Samurai as the best all-around at the moment. Einherjar, Limbus, Salvage, Dynamis, Assaults, merits, etc., Warrior is a versatile DD tank that can toss on dmg mitigation gear in a pinch and tune its sub to the situation (Rune Chopper WAR/SAM let my relatively low-numbers shell clear Tier III Einherjars reliably), with the best set of pure mob-shredding JAs and weapon skills. So yes, it's a tank - it's just never going to do a PLDs job (nor does a PLD do a WARs job nearly as well).

[Kerberoz]

Depends entirely on the mob/event... you wouldn't want to use a WAR tank on anything hard, but it's great for Nyzul, Salv, etc.