Minor tank balancing ideas. (WAR & PLD)

In my opinion, Paladin is mostly balanced except for Awareness and Cover.

My suggestion is a little bit more... radical. Awareness remake suggestion:

Zeal
Grants 10s Zeal buff. 60s CD

Holy Zeal (trait)
Lower Zeal cooldown to 30s.

Zeal buff effect
Improves the effect on a certain next skill used by Paladin:
Rage of Halone: Increases attack potency to 400, regardless of combo state. Animation change: larger slashes.
Riot Blade: Added effect: restores XX% of TP. Animation change: sparks coming out from the enemy will get absorbed by the Paladin?
Sentinel: Increases duration by 10s, reduces next recast time by 20s. Animation change: Paladin body will glow white during the buff duration.
Shield Bash: Can be executed with off-GCD, cancels current skill animation instantly. Animation change: Bash will generate large amount of white electricity / spark.
Circle of Scorn: Second AoE slash with 200 potency will be executed after initial attack.

Cover remake:
Magic circle emits around the Paladin. Other players standing on the magic circle will gain 20% damage reduction buff. The Paladin does NOT get the buff.

That way, Paladin can have more utility (single-target nuke, TP regeneration, extra defense, emergency stun, increased AoE capability) without making all of them available at the same time. The skill can only be activated every 30s, hence should be used as tactical decision rather than something that being spammed.

As for the Cover, activating Cover at the moment during end-game dungeons means suicide. This ought to change that.

Remove Awareness from Paladin cross-skill, allow the new Cover being used by Warrior.

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Originally Posted by Lemon8or

It's hard to count.... Overpower drains 130 TP without means to get it back besides sitting there and wait. Steel Cyclone takes wrath stacks that interfere with our ability to mitigate damage. PLD's damage mitigation is off GCD and can be used without any sort of drawbacks sans animation lock but every jobs have to deal with that too. Flash, lol, we have enough MP to flash three times and no Riot Blade to gain back MP. See the balance there?
Surian, if you still believe warrior does far more damage, self-heals and that 25% more HP actually not balanced with Shield Oath 20% Damage Reduction, I have nothing to tell you except go play a warrior then judge for yourself.

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In a purely crowd control situation

WAR can use 10 OP before running out of TP and 4 Flash and 1-2 Steel Cyclone
PLD can use 8 Flash

WAR has 25% more max HP and the ability to self heal via Thrill of Battle + Blood Bath and chaining AoE attack skills.
In a situation where you need to have crowd control, mitigation isn't the deciding factor as trash mobs don't deal high enough damage to play to damage mitigation's strengths

WAR also has approximately 50 higher DPS over PLD's average of 145, this is verified via parsing the DPS output of both my WAR (i90) and PLD (i90) that is around 35% more DPS output.

In situation where you'll need to take large hits e.g T5, a WAR is still the better choice due to the ability to almost perpetually keep a 30% damage reduction on for DS and this is on top of WAR's 25% greater max HP and its ability to self heal through Inner Beast, Storm's Path, Thrill of Battle and in the event additional mitigation is needed, Vengeance is an available option with Holmgang as an oh shit skill.

In this situation, if a player plays a WAR well, he can take both hard hitting content and crowd control content plus the ability to deal more DPS, this is perhaps why WARs are currently the preferred tank.

Only thing i would add for PLD would be...

Cover should give MP back when blocked.

Shield Swipe does something useful.


If WAR needs adjustment.. i would say a damage mitigation ability. nothing else.

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Originally Posted by ReiszRie

stuff

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Comparing Warrior using 16 GCDs worth of AOE and PLD using 8 is not exactly fair. Sure you can blow all that and be left with 0 TP while the PLD still has 1000 TP and some mana gained back from Riot Blade.
25% more HP and self-heal via Bloodbath(not counting Thrill of Battle since it IS a Cooldown and if warrior can use a Cooldown, who's stopping the Paladin from popping his) is balanced by 20% Damage Reduction from Shield Oath. Defiance alone is slightly worse than Shield Oath and Bloodbath is supposed to make up for that.
True that for Death Sentence, WAR has a slight edge in that he can have 30% damage reduction for every DS but who's stopping you from bringing a WAR to the fight as OT, put Storm's Path up and as PLD MT, you'll still benefit from that debuff. Again, you're comparing warrior using their Cooldowns with Paladins not using theirs. Inner Beast and Storm's Path heal are minimal compared to the damage being dealt in that turn. You don't think a Paladin should tank Twintania with just Shield Oath and never pop Rampart (same DR as Inner Beast), Sentinel (which is better DR than Vengeance), Hallowed Ground (inarguably better than Holmgang by far) and Bulwark do you? Do I need to remind you that Paladin can cross-class Bloodbath (albeit 30 seconds shorter but the heal is minimal) and Foresight while Warrior can't cross-class Rampart?
If a warrior plays well, they'll be on par with a well played Paladin. There is NO difference like you're trying to make it out to be.

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Originally Posted by Synapse

Cover should give MP back when blocked.

Shield Swipe does something useful.

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I agree cover seem to be very limiting, either by range, by recast time, duration and/or effect (and the effect is very limiting as it doesn't cover everything).

As for shield swipe, it's has a great effect...if it actually worked on content other than trash mobs. "Fully resisted!" Why in the world would did SE add something that in all tense and purposes doesn't affect boss mobs? It already has a resist build component.

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Originally Posted by Lemon8or

-snip-

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Well, i was merely comparing their AoE crowd control abilities which it certainly is undeniable that WAR has a greater repertoire of crowd control skills

PLD's CDs reduces damage taken but does not replenish lost HP, more than often, I can recover the HP lost as a WAR by the use of ToB>Bb>SC>Infuriate>SC it is again undeniable that WARs are better for crowd control and being able to self-sustain in that situation

Even with a WAR as OT to apply Storm's Path, the PLD still does not enjoy 25% increase of max HP and does not have access to HP recovery skills and we all know that even 100 hp can mean the difference between a dead tank or a live one, therefore the obvious choice for WARs to MT in T5

PLD's CDs are far too long to be constantly kept up for damage mitigation, damage mitigation only works when it is used before the damage was dealt not after the fact. In the event that Twintania does a 6K DS followed by a 1.2k scratch after 1 second, a PLD that isn't at full health will most likely fall but a WAR will still remain standing as during that 1 second, a WAR can pop ToB to survive the scratch.

Rampart and Sentinel cannot be kept up perpetually but WAR's damage mitigation can be kept up perpetually, this is again undeniable and I'm sure you'd agree.

Hallowed Ground is great for that oh shit moment but the long cast animation makes it not very useful, Bulwark, increases block rate of shields but the fact that its not a guaranteed damage mitigation makes it risky to be used as primary damage mitigation.

Warrior can cross-class Internal Release, Second Wind, Convalescence, Feather Foot, Awareness.

There is a difference and this is from my personal experience playing both at i90 although admittedly PLDs are still a tad harder than WARs and easier to play but if a player knows what he is doing, a WAR can easily be the more capable tank

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Originally Posted by ReiszRie

but if a player knows what he is doing, a WAR can easily be the more capable tank

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That's because Wars destroy things with an ax while Paladin hides behind a shield :D

How about Bulwark? Are most Paladins OK with it right now? It doesn't really feel worth a 2 min CD to me.

Man, why don't you see that your 20% Damage reduction is effectively 25% extra HP AND 25% extra healing. Here's a simple example anyone can understand: Say PLD has 7k HP, WAR will have 8.75k HP. Something that does 6k damage to WAR will do 4.8k to PLD. That means PLD is now at 2.2k HP or 31.42% HP while WAR is at 2.75k HP or also (surprise!) 31.42% HP. So in essence, a WAR not popping CD with Storm's Path and just Defiance is THE SAME as a PLD not popping CD with Storm's Path and Shield Oath. Why can't you see that and keep blabbering about 25% extra HP???? I don't get it. PLD doesn't have access to HP recovery skills because they are the tank that mitigate BEFORE the damage is dealt. Sure WAR can do it now too but not to the extent that PLD can. Somewhere on the forum if you dig up, you'll find that overtime PLD's CD is still slightly better than WAR. PLD is just as capable to tank turn 5 as WAR. Many people have done so unless you're spewing this because your OT is also a PLD then well, it's your setup that is the problem.
Inner Beast cannot be kept up perpetually (never ending). It lasts only 6 seconds and takes 5 Wrath stacks to use. In the best case scenarios, it'll still be down a couple seconds. Storm's Path can be kept up 100% but again, a WAR off-tank can keep it up just as good AND Storm's Eye. If you're refusing to use WAR+PLD, well it's your problem since that is supposed to be better than WAR+WAR and PLD+PLD.
Don't tell me about the long casting animation of Hallowed Ground like Holmgang doesn't have it. I play both too and the animation last equally as long. If you can time Holmgang, you can time Hallowed Ground and come out very far ahead since you're taking no damage compared to be left at 1 HP. Sure Bulwark increase block rate and not guaranteed mitigation but it's just like Featherfoot, slightly better in fact considering Featherfoot for WAR only increase dodge by 15% compared to Bulwark increasing block by 60%.

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Originally Posted by Lemon8or

Sure Bulwark increase block rate and not guaranteed mitigation but it's just like Featherfoot, slightly better in fact considering Featherfoot for WAR only increase dodge by 15% compared to Bulwark increasing block by 60%.

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Yea I kinda made the comparison to featherfoot in my head, it's only 15% but can be used twice as often as bulwark.. The main thing I see in FF's favor is a one or two dodged attacks can outweigh most all of the mitigation CDs. I've dodged several mountain busters with FF up so I'm rather fond of it (biased maybe? lol).. But I understand it's not reliable.

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Originally Posted by Lemon8or

Man, why don't you see that your 20% Damage reduction is effectively 25% extra HP AND 25% extra healing.

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What part about of our mitigation cooldowns only lasting a few seconds, while Warriors always have 3k+ more HP than Paladins, do you not understand?

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Originally Posted by therpgfanatic

What part about of our mitigation cooldowns only lasting a few seconds, while Warriors always have 3k+ more HP than Paladins, do you not understand?

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Because the extra HP is already made up by 20% Damage Reduction on Shield Oath. And for a Warrior with the same gears as a Paladin to "always" have 3k+ more HP, the Paladin needs 12k+ HP so your math is fail. Thrill of Battle only lasts 20 seconds and is one of the defensive Cooldowns so it doesn't count. Shield Oath doesn't last a few seconds, just like Defiance and it's better. You are trying to make PLD looks underpowered compared to WAR when it's not.

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Originally Posted by therpgfanatic

What part about of our mitigation cooldowns only lasting a few seconds, while Warriors always have 3k+ more HP than Paladins, do you not understand?

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It's the same... Constant 20% DR (from Shield Oath) = Warrior constant 25% more HP and 20% healing boost. Per Nate's example:

PLD
7000 HP
4800 damage (6000 attack - 20% DR)
2200 HP / 31.42% HP remains
Cure for 1000 HP
3200 HP / 45.71% HP remains

WAR
8750 HP.
6000 damage
2750 HP / 31.42% HP remains
Cure for 1200 HP (1000 cure + 20%)
3950 HP / 45.14% HP remains


Shield oath is arguably better, because damage that is mitigated does NOT need to be healed. Though Wars have higher HP pool, that damage MUST be healed back.

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Originally Posted by therpgfanatic

What part about of our mitigation cooldowns only lasting a few seconds, while Warriors always have 3k+ more HP than Paladins, do you not understand?

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Paladins in Shield Oath take 20% less damage innately.

Warriors have 25% more HP but take full damage.

They equalize.

6000HP PLD Shield Oath -> 5000 DMG (-20% Damage) -> 4000DMG = 2000 HP left (33.33% HP Total remaining)

6000HP WAR +25% HP -> 7500 HP -> 5000DMG = 2500 HP left (33.33% Total HP remaining)

It's called eHP.


edit: Post above mine used more detailed numbers read that one.

Shhh, don't bring logic to these forums. Doing math for some people is hard. ;)

If they are so equal why do people prefer Warriors for Twintania?

Spreadsheet theorycrafting vs actual play.

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Originally Posted by therpgfanatic

If they are so equal why do people prefer Warriors for Twintania?

Spreadsheet theorycrafting vs actual play.

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I'm going to assume that you are making that statement based on your personal experience for a small population of people who are vocal around you and not an actual reflection of what the entire user base is doing.

ie. I tend to see more PLD requests than WAR requests for Twin. On my server. During the evenings. When I'm in Wineport for 5 min from the shouts I see in my chat log. So, that means people prefer PLD over WAR! Actual play vs spreadsheet theorycrafting!

/cough

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Originally Posted by therpgfanatic

If they are so equal why do people prefer Warriors for Twintania?

Spreadsheet theorycrafting vs actual play.

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Now you're just changing the discussion to one that involves the application of using other abilities. Warriors are preferred because of other abilities they bring to the table, not because Defiance>Shield Oath.

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Originally Posted by Errors

I tend to see more PLD requests than WAR requests for Twin. On my server. During the evenings. When I'm in Wineport for 5 min from the shouts I see in my chat log.

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Maybe they already have a War? Like the one's that shelved it to roll PLD before 2.1 lol

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

Maybe they already have a War? Like the one's that shelved it to roll PLD before 2.1 lol

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In all honesty, I don't pay attention that much to the shouts or party finder requests. I've been running content with my friends/static/freecompany mates since pretty much release. So, I tend to filter out anything that in the shout channel. Who knows maybe there are more requests for DRG to be a tank in Turn 5 I'd be pretty oblivious to that trend. XD Gogogo long stick pokey tank!

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Originally Posted by Errors

In all honesty, I don't pay attention that much to the shouts or party finder requests. I've been running content with my friends/static/freecompany mates since pretty much release. So, I tend to filter out anything that in the shout channel. Who knows maybe there are more requests for DRG to be a tank in Turn 5 I'd be pretty oblivious to that trend. XD Gogogo long stick pokey tank!

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Well there was that 7000 HP dragoon tread a while back.. lol

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Originally Posted by therpgfanatic

If they are so equal why do people prefer Warriors for Twintania?

Spreadsheet theorycrafting vs actual play.

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lol they don't. They just run with whoever they have or request warrior cause ... wait for it ... they already have a Paladin. Hard to accept I know.

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Originally Posted by therpgfanatic

If they are so equal why do people prefer Warriors for Twintania?

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99% percent of the time in PF, you will see 1 PLD and 1 other tank (either PLD or WAR) or sometimes 1 of each tank if they have specified which tank job they want at all. I have never once seen 1 WAR and one open tank slot. This is for...all of coil including t2 on the off chance they actually are going to go with two tanks.

Why? Shield Bash, Spirits Within, Tempered Will, Hallowed Ground, Cover. There are no WAR abilities that can compare with these. (That's not to say WAR isn't a great tank job by any means and I'm leveling it right now, but anybody who thinks PLD needs a buff is delusional.) Dreadknights, Snakes, Divebombs, Liquid Hell, double Dreadnoughts, the swarm at the start of t4 p6 going straight for the WHM, High Voltage...for every one of these mechanics, PLD is the preferable tank. Death Sentence is the one mechanic in Coil that WAR does better than PLD, and thank goodness it's there.

What? SE actually designed an encounter that brings out the best in both tank jobs?! Impossible.

Incidentally, I do coil on PLD. There's...much more demand for it than any other job (except maybe Scholar...oh and turn 2 is a ***** to pug a group for unless you're a healer)

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Originally Posted by therpgfanatic

If they are so equal why do people prefer Warriors for Twintania?

Spreadsheet theorycrafting vs actual play.

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this is just plain false. Especially considering how pre 2.1, WAR were discriminated agenst in coil and yoshi admiting pld's mitigation was a bit too strong.

Left the masses thinking you need a pld for the real tanking.

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Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

That still doesn't make things equal considering overpower has an enmity modifier... Damage-wise, a full CoS does twice as much damage as overpower, so you would also have to get rid of the DoT effect to keep things balanced (and probably add TP cost as Nate mentioned)

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Or, you know, just give PLD cross classed overpower. I don't see any problem with that and it would balance out the AoE threat (PLD is definitely lacking in comparison here). I'm sure PLD would also appreciate a cross class skill that isn't just marginally useful.

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Originally Posted by therpgfanatic

If they are so equal why do people prefer Warriors for Twintania?

Spreadsheet theorycrafting vs actual play.

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http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...nt/detail/747/

Seems a poor choice of words, considering.

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...nt/detail/680/

ಠ_ಠ

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Originally Posted by therpgfanatic

If they are so equal why do people prefer Warriors for Twintania?

Spreadsheet theorycrafting vs actual play.

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Preference is not always the same across servers. However, in the specific instance where you have an ability (like death sentence or Titan HMs Mountain Buster) that trigger every 30 seconds, the WAR will have Inner Beast always available to mitigate this (in addition to other cooldowns they can stack to further mitigate the hit). The PLD on the other hand will always run out of cooldowns at some point and will need some additional outside help to mitigate a hit every so often (virus, e4e, stoneskin, etc).

That's the one specific benefit of WAR tanking. But Inner Beast only lasts 6 seconds, so it's only better when you can accurately predict when you'll need it. PLD cooldowns tend to be longer in duration and are very potent. PLD also have a shield for blocks, shield oath is slightly better, and PLD can even stoneskin themselves if needed. PLD mechanics are also very simple, which allows the tank to focus more on the fight than his rotation of abilities. This can lead to a preference for the tank class that is more idiot proof on some servers.

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Originally Posted by therpgfanatic

If they are so equal why do people prefer Warriors for Twintania?

Spreadsheet theorycrafting vs actual play.

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Actually you want both for both damage reduction debuffs, because contrary to your belief this game is actually well balanced

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Originally Posted by Lemon8or

Man, why don't you see that your 20% Damage reduction is effectively 25% extra HP AND 25% extra healing. Here's a simple example anyone can understand: Say PLD has 7k HP, WAR will have 8.75k HP. Something that does 6k damage to WAR will do 4.8k to PLD. That means PLD is now at 2.2k HP or 31.42% HP while WAR is at 2.75k HP or also (surprise!) 31.42% HP.

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I'm not even sure why you have to get so riled up over a discussion.

you can talk about eHP but you're not taking into account the ability to perpetually have SP on, or, for hard-hitting content, the ability to have SP and IB on. PLD does not have this luxury of a perpetual damage mitigation.

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Originally Posted by Lemon8or

So in essence, a WAR not popping CD with Storm's Path and just Defiance is THE SAME as a PLD not popping CD with Storm's Path and Shield Oath. Why can't you see that and keep blabbering about 25% extra HP???? I don't get it. PLD doesn't have access to HP recovery skills because they are the tank that mitigate BEFORE the damage is dealt. Sure WAR can do it now too but not to the extent that PLD can. Somewhere on the forum if you dig up, you'll find that overtime PLD's CD is still slightly better than WAR. PLD is just as capable to tank turn 5 as WAR. Many people have done so unless you're spewing this because your OT is also a PLD then well, it's your setup that is the problem.

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SP has no CD, its just a combo chain, PLD's CD are well, CDs. PLD's CD cannot possibly ensure a consistent popping of Rampart and Sentinel, a PLD only has 2 effective DM CDs and they don't CD fast enough to enable you to use them for every incoming big hits.

I'm spewing this because I've played both for T5 and I've experienced with and without WAR's difference so don't keep going round with your "there is no difference" talk, groups would rather do T5 with 2 WARs than with 2 PLDs these days simply due to WARs being easier to keep alive for DS and DK stunning can be done with just 1 WAR + Slow or Stun from another DPS.

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Originally Posted by Lemon8or

Inner Beast cannot be kept up perpetually (never ending). It lasts only 6 seconds and takes 5 Wrath stacks to use. In the best case scenarios, it'll still be down a couple seconds. Storm's Path can be kept up 100% but again, a WAR off-tank can keep it up just as good AND Storm's Eye. If you're refusing to use WAR+PLD, well it's your problem since that is supposed to be better than WAR+WAR and PLD+PLD.

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IB can be kept up perpetually for DS, any WARs that have done T5 knows this.

If you have 2 WAR for content, you can have SP + SE constantly applied, what I'm saying is that you could easily run content with 2 WAR and currently, there is little that PLDs bring to the table.

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Originally Posted by Lemon8or

Don't tell me about the long casting animation of Hallowed Ground like Holmgang doesn't have it. I play both too and the animation last equally as long. If you can time Holmgang, you can time Hallowed Ground and come out very far ahead since you're taking no damage compared to be left at 1 HP.

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The cast animation for Hallowed Ground reduces its effectiveness as an "oh shit" button and often isn't a requirement to be used to defeat an encounter, I'm not saying that Holmgang doesn't have a cast animation, you simply assumed it as such because you mis-construes my comments for being "anti WAR" and asking for nerfs.

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Originally Posted by Lemon8or

Sure Bulwark increase block rate and not guaranteed mitigation but it's just like Featherfoot, slightly better in fact considering Featherfoot for WAR only increase dodge by 15% compared to Bulwark increasing block by 60%.

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You're now comparing things that doesn't really matter, Bulwark and FF isn't significant enough to make any effective difference but I'd rather have DM + FF than DM + Bulwark simply because FF gives a chance to entirely mitigate an incoming damage.


Ultimately, I'm not even sure why you're delving into a PLD vs WAR argument when all I'm saying in my initial comment is to have PLDs have more crowd control skills, don't worry, I'm not saying WARs needs a nerf, so you can rest well knowing that.

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Originally Posted by eagledorf

99% percent of the time in PF, you will see 1 PLD and 1 other tank (either PLD or WAR) or sometimes 1 of each tank if they have specified which tank job they want at all. I have never once seen 1 WAR and one open tank slot. This is for...all of coil including t2 on the off chance they actually are going to go with two tanks.

Why? Shield Bash, Spirits Within, Tempered Will, Hallowed Ground, Cover. There are no WAR abilities that can compare with these.

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Seems like mileage differs, for T2 Enrage, there is no reason not to solo-tank with a WAR when they output higher DPS, almost all the LS groups i Know of switches to WAR for T2 Enrage tanking.

Shield Bash, replaceable with Brutal Swing albeit with a CD but off-GCD. Spirits Within, I'm not sure why you're having the tank do the silencing but if thats your setup then yeah. Tempered Will can prevent a wipe on Titan if you mess up but if you don't, you wouldn't need to use it, the only other time you'd use Tempered Will is on T5's DB but even then, that is assuming DB targets you for its last DB and you couldn't dodge that. Cover, well, barely used and barely useful.

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Originally Posted by ReiszRie

PLD does not have this luxury of a perpetual damage mitigation

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PLD has two forms of perpetual damage mitigation. First is the -10% STR debuff from Rage of Halone and second is the fact that you can equip a shield. Blocking will mitigate significantly more than parrying for any physical attack (so you know...almost everything Twintania does to you). Since PLD has the same parry rate as WAR, this is pure extra mitigation that a WAR does not get. Furthermore, you can blind a lot of things in t5 (I've never tried, but I strongly suspect you can't blind Twin...), so you effectively have increased evasion almost half the time if you time your Flashing correctly.

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Seems like mileage differs, for T2 Enrage, there is no reason not to solo-tank with a WAR when they output higher DPS, almost all the LS groups i Know of switches to WAR for T2 Enrage tanking. [snip] Spirits Within, I'm not sure why you're having the tank do the silencing but if thats your setup then yeah. [snip] Cover, well, barely used and barely useful.

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For the record (and because I cut it out of the quote) I don't need Tempered Will for Divebombs either, but it's nice that you can use it if you want.

WAR doing higher DPS is (largely) a myth. The tanking stance penalty for WAR is 5% more than the tanking stance penalty for PLD to make up for things like Unchained. I remember seeing somebody somewhere suggesting a WAR in Defiance could do like 10-20 DPS more than a PLD in Shield Oath if they really tried, but that both were too pathetically low to be worth consideration. I don't think these people even took into consideration Shield Swipe which is a DPS increase for PLD (though, obviously, not available in t2).

Personally I've always gone with PLD for t2. There's the fact that you can escalate your cooldowns without holes if you get stacks of the debuff where a WAR cannot, can use HG to reset the stacks to 0 if the healers aren't keeping up, can just wait for all your cooldowns between every encounter since you're waiting for enrage anyway, and the fact that I almost always do the silencing in alternation with a Bard since Spirits Within is off GCD. SCH or MNK can do it too, but often they would rather not so I just do it.

Cover+Hallowed Ground is a really great skill on p6 of t4. Everything (except maybe the rook, I don't know since a DPS always gets it) does pDPS there and you can just let the WHM gather all the mobs in the room to the middle for you to pick up without any worry at all. You can also use Cover on the other tank in some encounters to circumvent some mechanics or save them from a bad healer (sometimes it just doesn't matter at all if OT dies and matters a LOT if MT dies)

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Originally Posted by eagledorf

PLD has two forms of perpetual damage mitigation. First is the -10% STR debuff from Rage of Halone and second is the fact that you can equip a shield. Blocking will mitigate significantly more than parrying for any physical attack (so you know...almost everything Twintania does to you). Since PLD has the same parry rate as WAR, this is pure extra mitigation that a WAR does not get.


For the record (and because I cut it out of the quote) I don't need Tempered Will for Divebombs either, but it's nice that you can use it if you want.

WAR doing higher DPS is (largely) a myth. The tanking stance penalty for WAR is 5% more than the tanking stance penalty for PLD to make up for things like Unchained. I remember seeing somewhere numbers being thrown around suggesting a WAR in Defiance could do like 10-20 DPS more than a PLD in Shield Oath, but that both were too pathetically low to be worth consideration. I don't think these people even took into consideration Shield Swipe which is a DPS increase for PLD (though, obviously, not available in t2).

Personally I've always gone with PLD for t2. There's the fact that you can escalate your cooldowns if you get stacks of the debuff where a WAR cannot, can use HG to reset the stacks to 0 if the healers aren't keeping up, and I almost always do the silencing in alternation with a Bard since Spirits Within is off GCD. SCH can do it too, but often they would rather not so I just do it.

Cover is a really great skill on p6 of t4. Everything (except maybe the rook, I don't know since a DPS always gets it) does pure pDPS there and you can just let the WHM gather all the mobs in the room to the middle for you to pick up without any worry at all.

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-10% STR does not affect a number of boss's attacks, but -XX%damage mitigates all incoming damage. There is no doubt that PLDs are "harder" but for big attacks such as DS, you'll find that a WAR with SE + IB to be significantly more survivable than a PLD.

WAR does do approximately 40-50 more DPS over a PLD, that is around 30-35% more damage, this is of course with the WAR using Unchained + Berserk + IB, the DPS difference is from 3 separate parses of equal duration on training dummies.

PLDs is certainly easier to play and easier for healer's to heal in T2 Enrage but assuming that you have competent healers, WARs are the better choice simply due to their ability to off Defiance and being able to output respectable amounts of DPS

in P6 of T4 we have always went with the OT gathering all the mobs, Cover is useful in situations where the OT fails to gather and hold all the mobs but I wouldn't use that as a primary strategy.

What i'm trying to say here is that some of PLD's skills are so situational that it is only useful for very specific situations or if you use an unorthodox strategy that uses those skills.

I believe that the -10% STR and extra shield mitigation effect everything Caduceus, Twintania, or the Dreadnoughts do to you directly (so...everything in coil that is hard). I also believe Liquid Hell is an exception, but might be mistaken and chain-Liquid Hell is a mechanic in t5 where a PLD MT will probably just pop Hallowed Ground anyway. Yes, IB+SE is better and easier to get off than Halone+SS, but PLD is perfectly viable as MT for Twintania (hell, I've tanked all 4 of the opening mobs until the start of p2 when RNG decided all the Liquid Hells should go for the MT right as Death Sentence was coming with little difficulty)

I (everybody?) also do(es?) with OT gathering all the mobs in t4. Cover is a handy trick for if the OT is also a PLD (obviously, MT is usually too far away to cover the healer and probably worried about other things when the second Dread drops) or if the healer doesn't understand the concept of stacking.

[edit: snip] If the maximum DPS difference is 50, its doubtful you'll be contributing significantly by switching to WAR. Shield Swipe is a DPS increase for PLD and withholding IB or choosing to save Wrath by not using Unchained are both DPS losses for WAR that aren't accounted for on a dummy. In any case, these numbers are not in line with what I've been shown. That's neither here nor there.

The real point being, the tanks are really well balanced now. You shouldn't be having trouble finding parties on PLD unless you're...doing something mean to people or something.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by eagledorf

-snip-

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Shield swipe being on GCD makes it less useful, if Shield Swipe is off-GCD, it'd certainly be more useful, currently, a WAR have the option of throwing out good DPS or being tanky simply by the choice of skills to use, PLDs don't have that option to do so, the most we can do is Sword Oath + FoF which honestly is nowhere near the full DPS output of a WAR, there is little doubt that WARs can throw out a good deal more DPS than a PLD.


Well, I'm not saying that PLDs needs to be buffed or WARs nerfed, I'm fine with PLDs to having the DPS potential of WARs but I just feel that PLDs needs a larger repertoire of actively usable skills to make the class more fun, as of now, PLDs are immensely boring to play. I also feel that tweaking some of the existing skills e.g making Shield Swipe off-GCD but with 2s CD in between and having a tad more AoE skills can also be useful without breaking the current paradigm.

Shield Swipe is an average potency increase for that GCD over the Halone combo. It's 7 extra potency or something totally minuscule like that, but still a potency increase.

The numbers I've seen for Sword Oath actually have all put PLD slightly above WAR, even with Infuriate->Unchained->Berserk/IR->IB->Defiance off, but you'll believe what you've seen and I'll believe what Ｉ've seen so it's not really worth discussing.

As for PLD being boring...well I think the class is different to play by design. I personally use every one of my skills on PLD pretty frequently. I kind of wish we got more useful cross-class skills myself (Stoneskin is awesome, but I have a slot that I just don't know what to do with)

Edit: As I'm posting, on my server there are three groups recruiting for coil. Of those, two insist on PLDs over WARs and the last one doesn't care. This is not to suggest a balance problem, but presented as evidence that if any bias exists at all, it's in favor of PLD.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by eagledorf

Edit: As I'm posting, on my server there are three groups recruiting for coil. Of those, two insist on PLDs over WARs and the last one doesn't care. This is not to suggest a balance problem, but presented as evidence that if any bias exists at all, it's in favor of PLD.

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You guys...we're all on the same server :)

My static seems to be very 2.0. I don't know if we'll ever try a Warrior tank in any of our T1 - T5 runs, because we're very used to our own strategies, which usually involve 2 Paladins. If anything, people who are more in favour of PLD still retain the 2.0 mindset.

Shield Bash:
Delivers an attack with a potency of 1/2 of Block Strength. (Off Global Cooldown, no TP cost.)

that skill is already useless and u want it useless even more?

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Originally Posted by juniglee

You guys...we're all on the same server :)

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ಠ,ಠ

You win, though I'm not sure what, exactly. You are probably correct that many strategies were worked out when PLD was the only viable tank and have not changed now that WAR is also viable, though I can't actually think of any that require one tank or the other.

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Originally Posted by Dhex

They equalize...

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Tho the math looks logical on the paper, in real fight situation.. and In the long run the % reduction will win.

Even in a scenario where a mobs uses 2 attack with 1 sec in between....just enough to throw a single cure.


PLD:

Monster does 5000dmg.

PLD(6000HP) = remaining PLD(2000HP)

Healer cures for 3000hp > PLD(5000HP)

Monster Attacks 5000HP (Immediately following one cure).

PLD(5000HP) > PLD(1000HP).


WAR:

Monster does 5000dmg.

WAR(7500HP) = remaining WAR(2500HP)

Healer cures for 3000hp > WAR(5500HP)

Monster does 5000. (Immediately following one cure).

WAR(5500HP) > WAR(500HP)


Of course, i could have tweaked the numbers so the WAR would die and PLD would live with some HP.

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Originally Posted by Synapse

snip

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If you're giving the PLD a 3000 cure, you need to give the WAR a 1.2x3000=3600 cure due to defiance healing bonus. Your numbers end up as:

PLD:

Monster does 5000dmg.

PLD(6000HP) = remaining PLD(2000HP) ~33.33% HP remains

Healer cures for 3000hp > PLD(5000HP)

Monster Attacks 5000HP (Immediately following one cure).

PLD(5000HP) > PLD(1000HP). ~16.67% HP remains


WAR:

Monster does 5000dmg.

WAR(7500HP) = remaining WAR(2500HP) ~33.33% HP remains

Healer cures for 3600hp > WAR(6100HP)

Monster does 5000. (Immediately following one cure).

WAR(6100HP) > WAR(1100HP) ~14.67% HP remains

As a side note: if you heal the PLD to full from here, the WAR is left with 7100/7500 HP, or 94.67% HP remaining. If the fight continues this way, the gap gets wider. From my experience, however, it just means it's easier to overcure a PLD. Also, IB does a really, really good job of helping to close that gap.