I main both WAR and PLD and have played them both in all content from speed running dungeons to final coil. Ultimately, it comes down to personal preference and playstyle as neither WAR nor PLD outclasses the other in a way that would make the other tank obsolete. Each class simply fills different niches of tanking. As such, I recommend leveling both for a few different reasons. 1) You may find you prefer one over the other and not the one you expected to like. 2) Both tanks require cross-class abilities from one another. 3) When you get into 8-24 man content, where there are more than one tank, it's important to know just how the other tanks function in tandem with each other.
(PLD) Paladins are your classic mitigation tanks. They have lower HP than their Warrior counterparts, but make up for it with a latent 20% damage mitigation from Shield Oath and several other buffs which reduce the amount of all incoming damage by significant percentages. However, these abilities are on long cooldowns, which is where the trick of playing PLD effectively comes in - which is cooldown management. Knowing when to pop which cooldowns and sticking to a cooldown rotation in order to maximize your mitigation and minimize Healer's resources keeping you up.
PLDs generally are not (but can be!) strong attackers. They have a single Enmity (Hate/Threat) weaponskill combo which you'll spam until the end of time to gain hate. And an additional weaponskill which restores Mana for Flash. PLDs have two AoE spells Flash and Circle of Scorn which are useful in gaining enmity on multiple enemies, but overall these abilities are kind of lackluster for overall hate generation.
I consider PLD the easier of the two tank classes to learn and is a solid choice for folks new to tanking in FFXIV or in general.
(WAR) Warriors, on the other hand, are your soak tanks and they can dish it almost as well as they take it. These tanks sacrifice damage mitigation for higher HP pools and moderate HP regeneration. Warriors generally have a better hate generation than your average PLD also because, unlike their PLD counterparts, Warriors must alternate weaponskill combo trees to maximize their damage or weaken their enemies' damage as well as maintain enmity against one or many enemies.
Warriors have an enmity tree, a damage tree, and a mitigation tree. And each of these weaponskill trees builds a stack of "Wrath." Each stack of Wrath improves a Warrior's critical hit rate and at 5 Stacks a Warrior can choose to spend these stacks on one of three high-powered abilities which function in tandem with the above weaponskill tress. You have one ability for AoE enmity (Steel Cyclone), one ability for damage (Unchained), and one for mitigation (Inner Beast). As a Warrior you'll need to learn when to use these abilities as their effects are short lasting.
Warrior is the more complex of the two classes (IMO), but, for me, it's more fun as WAR you are always busy maintaining buffs/debuffs/Wrath in an effort to hold hate and stay alive. WAR is for those adrenaline junkies who love watching their HP dive like a bungee jumper.
As for RP and Lore, Chachan did a pretty good job of that so there's really not too much to add. ^^ But if you have more specific lore questions feel free to ask! Or specific WAR/PLD tanking questions - I can answer those too. Hope this helps! ^^
(PLD) Paladins are your classic mitigation tanks. They have lower HP than their Warrior counterparts, but make up for it with a latent 20% damage mitigation from Shield Oath and several other buffs which reduce the amount of all incoming damage by significant percentages. However, these abilities are on long cooldowns, which is where the trick of playing PLD effectively comes in - which is cooldown management. Knowing when to pop which cooldowns and sticking to a cooldown rotation in order to maximize your mitigation and minimize Healer's resources keeping you up.
PLDs generally are not (but can be!) strong attackers. They have a single Enmity (Hate/Threat) weaponskill combo which you'll spam until the end of time to gain hate. And an additional weaponskill which restores Mana for Flash. PLDs have two AoE spells Flash and Circle of Scorn which are useful in gaining enmity on multiple enemies, but overall these abilities are kind of lackluster for overall hate generation.
I consider PLD the easier of the two tank classes to learn and is a solid choice for folks new to tanking in FFXIV or in general.
(WAR) Warriors, on the other hand, are your soak tanks and they can dish it almost as well as they take it. These tanks sacrifice damage mitigation for higher HP pools and moderate HP regeneration. Warriors generally have a better hate generation than your average PLD also because, unlike their PLD counterparts, Warriors must alternate weaponskill combo trees to maximize their damage or weaken their enemies' damage as well as maintain enmity against one or many enemies.
Warriors have an enmity tree, a damage tree, and a mitigation tree. And each of these weaponskill trees builds a stack of "Wrath." Each stack of Wrath improves a Warrior's critical hit rate and at 5 Stacks a Warrior can choose to spend these stacks on one of three high-powered abilities which function in tandem with the above weaponskill tress. You have one ability for AoE enmity (Steel Cyclone), one ability for damage (Unchained), and one for mitigation (Inner Beast). As a Warrior you'll need to learn when to use these abilities as their effects are short lasting.
Warrior is the more complex of the two classes (IMO), but, for me, it's more fun as WAR you are always busy maintaining buffs/debuffs/Wrath in an effort to hold hate and stay alive. WAR is for those adrenaline junkies who love watching their HP dive like a bungee jumper.
As for RP and Lore, Chachan did a pretty good job of that so there's really not too much to add. ^^ But if you have more specific lore questions feel free to ask! Or specific WAR/PLD tanking questions - I can answer those too. Hope this helps! ^^
