My Opinion on why WAR is the superior Tank.

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I actually considered that WAR might have a higher natural Parry chance than WAR

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LOL Well that some damn nice logic going on here :D(Btw just poking fun Kitru <3)

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Originally Posted by Kitfox

I've heard you say this on a number of threads and I'm kinda curious what makes you think this way. From limited numbers between me and my friend, PLD's parry+block rate seems to equal WAR's parry rate, at least to the degree that they're comparable. Just glancing over something I got from running brayflox HM: as PLD I was getting around 8% parry and 17% block, give or take RNG, while I heard from my raid tank doing some parry testing that he was getting around 25% parry rate. From this I'm assuming blocks are calculated before parry, and since you can't parry and block at the same time PLD's get a significantly lower parry rate.

Maybe I'm missing something really obvious here, but I don't really see how PLD's block provides any kind of advantage over WAR's parry.

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What are your respective parry numbers? What was he testing parry on? Need a little more hard info before I'm going to reject the hypothesis that both classes get x% parry from y parry.

Since when has tanks doing more damage ever made a difference?

i usually see plds at around 90 dps as the average while tanking
for wars its around 110

Im pretty sure that wont be making or breaking fights.

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Originally Posted by Menae

What are your respective parry numbers? What was he testing parry on? Need a little more hard info before I'm going to reject the hypothesis that both classes get x% parry from y parry.

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I did a controller test yesterday of 2886 hits and seems like my live numbers were skewed a lot. Probably forgot to factor out the dodges and most like had a ton of hits from unblockable angles. At 506 parry and 193 block rate I ended up at 16,0% parry and 25,5% block. So it was just me jumping to conclusions without having controlled numbers. Posting more numbers in the parry thread incase they help someone.

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Originally Posted by o3o

Since when has tanks doing more damage ever made a difference?

i usually see plds at around 90 dps as the average while tanking
for wars its around 110

Im pretty sure that wont be making or breaking fights.

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Let's say, as an example, you need 20 more collective DPS to push a phase or beat an enrage timer. It doesn't matter where that DPS comes from.

You don't think this happens?

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Originally Posted by o3o

Since when has tanks doing more damage ever made a difference?

i usually see plds at around 90 dps as the average while tanking
for wars its around 110

Im pretty sure that wont be making or breaking fights.

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Leviathan is a good example. Tanks can solo down their spumes while dps focus on non tank spumes. A good WAR can solo theirs completely. Of course it depends on your group, but there are many instances where this is useful.

OT in a fight like Garuda ex. A good tank will use dps accessories and even drop defiance/Shield Oath quite a bit to speed up the kill process. A good tank with a mind to deal damage when appropriate and safe (and with dps gearsets for applicable fights) will deal more than 110 dps.

It's also not all about total fight average dps. That won't tell you the whole story. Tank dps is also very useful for pushing burst phases and dealing with specific mechanics.

RE: WARs only outdmging PLDs by a small amount.

Without having a parser (Because I'm not a dirty cheater and I play on PS4 - : D) I'm going to say that a good WAR will greatly out-dps a good PLD, while a good WAR and an average or below average PLD will have a closer DPS spread.

The reason? Stoneskin.

A good PLD will stoneskin recently killed allies, Healers about to take dmg (Ifrit X, Levi X, T5), themselves, the MT/WAR, etc. They should also use the new and improved Cover (which rocks btw, you actually take the dmg you were meant to). An RoH spamming PLD using SW/CoS on CD is kind of a sucky PLD, to be completely honest. If you just look @ Titan X, my opening rotation is:

Fast Blade > Spirits > Savage > Circle > Rage > FB > SB > RoH > Stoneskin Self > FB > Rampart > SB > RoH

That gives me a 700 hit point shield against MB #1, as well as mitigating 20% of it - after that, I'll look at my enmity, and start Stoneskinning DPS during tumults if I have room in the enmity gauge.

WHEREAS, I cannot think of a WAR skill that doesn't do some kind of damage to the target, besides Foresight and Holmgang. WARs should be constantly spouting damage while PLDs should be constantly putting up shields, preventing abilities, and using skills like Cover to save group mates and Flash to blind enemies (if you don't have a SMN).

Which is why I think theorycrafting is total garbage

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Originally Posted by o3o

i usually see plds at around 90 dps as the average while tanking
for wars its around 110

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I regularly push 160 as a WAR (in parry stacked gear), and the PLDs I run with tend to average 120-130 so you're not running with tanks that can actually show you what tank DPS can really look like. An extra 30-50 DPS is an extra 30-50 DPS, no matter if it's coming from a DPS or a tank (or a healer if yours actually use their downtime to swap into CS and throw some DoTs). Tank DPS matters in the exact same way that DPS DPS matters. For specific situations, any time that you've got a DPS race, it behooves the tank to push their DPS: in t1, I can solo my snake from 5% in the time it takes everyone else to kill the OT's snake; in t2, I'm regularly top DPS in pugs and 65-75% or so of a skilled DPS in planned runs; in t4, when I'm add tanking, I can break the stoneskin on soldiers and bring knights down to 50% before the DPS even touch them during single dread runs; as mentioned before, on Levi EX, I can crank the living hell out of spume kill times and when the OT brings the fear add over to me so that I can help (or I pick it up and he comes over to me to stunlock it), it almost always dies before it even gets to its first fear cast because of the extra DPS I push out.

There are plenty of occasions where tank DPS benefits the group, not because it's DPS coming from the *tank* but because it's simply extra DPS for the group. Unless you're doing something else with your time, like Stoneskin, kiting, or waiting for preparing to IB before a big hit, if you're not doing as much damage as possible, you're not contributing as much as you could.

Time to ignore a lot of fluff here.
Tanking is tanking, and DPS is DPS like Kitru said.
If were looking at the game objectively, the best way to help your group is to kill the boss as fast as possible. (T6) So Tank DPS is important. End of Story. (Not Stone Skin, not Cure, Shield Swipe, and Attacks)
Warriors are likely more than 10% higher on DPS than a Paladin in Sword Oath.

My latest test in ilvl 96 DPS Accessories on my Paladin yielded 245 DPS in Sword Oath.
My Warrior is ilvl 90 was able to achieve 230 DPS in full Tank gear. (Defiance off)

Its worth noting that with a Warrior in the party, my test would have been higher because of Storms Eye, but I have not tested that yet on a training dummy to see how high my Paladin can go.

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Originally Posted by ZDamned

Time to ignore a lot of fluff here.
..... So Tank DPS is important. End of Story. (Not Stone Skin, not Cure, Shield Swipe, and Attacks)

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Tank DPS IS important, but in regards to PLDs ONLY there are some fights where your DPS in very important (In Levi X I switch to sword oath and rotate CDs during spumes to get them down faster), but in some fights (most often occuring in progression runs) damage mitigation may be much more valuable (a life-saving stoneskin prevents a DPS from eating dirt. A dead DPS is going to be a much greater DPS loss than me using Rage of Halone once). I recall stone-skin spamming the Bard while feeding slimes in T1 back when the bard had like 3600 hp.

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Originally Posted by Ehayte

Tank DPS IS important, but in regards to PLDs ONLY there are some fights where your DPS in very important (In Levi X I switch to sword oath and rotate CDs during spumes to get them down faster), but in some fights (most often occuring in progression runs) damage mitigation may be much more valuable (a life-saving stoneskin prevents a DPS from eating dirt. A dead DPS is going to be a much greater DPS loss than me using Rage of Halone once). I recall stone-skin spamming the Bard while feeding slimes in T1 back when the bard had like 3600 hp.

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If a Paladins SS is what saved his life, then your healers are the problem with clearing content, not your mitigation.

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Originally Posted by ZDamned

If a Paladins SS is what saved his life, then your healers are the problem with clearing content, not your mitigation.

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Not the point #strawman

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Originally Posted by ZDamned

Time to ignore a lot of fluff here.
Tanking is tanking, and DPS is DPS like Kitru said.
If were looking at the game objectively, the best way to help your group is to kill the boss as fast as possible. (T6) So Tank DPS is important. End of Story. (Not Stone Skin, not Cure, Shield Swipe, and Attacks)
Warriors are likely more than 10% higher on DPS than a Paladin in Sword Oath.

My latest test in ilvl 96 DPS Accessories on my Paladin yielded 245 DPS in Sword Oath.
My Warrior is ilvl 90 was able to achieve 230 DPS in full Tank gear. (Defiance off)

Its worth noting that with a Warrior in the party, my test would have been higher because of Storms Eye, but I have not tested that yet on a training dummy to see how high my Paladin can go.

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Just be careful not to eliminate healer dps. Healers get much better returns when they DPS than tanks do; if you don't have a whm and casting stoneskin means your scholar doesn't have to use a GCD for healing, it might be a dps gain to cast it yourself.

Like we've said, dps is dps. That also means that healing is healing.

The TANK being required to cast Stone Skin is indicative of a bad player in your party who you are being forced to pick up slack for, IF you are being forced to Stone Skin your party members as a Paladin. What if you ran Double Warrior? Do you plan your raid configurations for having that Paladin in there in order to heal once enmity is generated? I don't think so.
White Mage DPS is very inefficent, so they will run out of MP in tough Coil Encounters, and there is honestly no situation in which a Paladin should be required to stop DPSing in order to cast Stone Skin on a DPS class.

I can relate this to asking a Damage Dealer to swap over to his Class, and Pick up Provoke when the Main Tank is low on HP. Noone would do that, because it's not the DPS class's Job to do so in a raid.

I'm not saying healers can't DPS, but that they should be more focused on keeping everyone alive. If we use T6 for example, the WHM is going to keep Aero 2 up, but other than 1 GCD, they will be non stop AOE healing until the boss dies. Palaidn Stone Skin won't help AT ALL, EVER in that case.

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Originally Posted by ZDamned

The TANK being required to cast Stone Skin is indicative of a bad player in your party who you are being forced to pick up slack for, IF you are being forced to Stone Skin your party members as a Paladin.

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I can relate this to asking a Damage Dealer to swap over to his Class, and Pick up Provoke when the Main Tank is low on HP. Noone would do that, because it's not the DPS class's Job to do so in a raid.

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I don't think anyone is saying PLD should be 'forced' to stoneskin. Anytime I see an OT PLD stoneskinning people at opportune moments, I know they are 99% of the time an awesome player. As much as you'd like to just call people 'bad' for not healing enough, stuff happens. If stuff didn't happen, we would all be 1 shotting all of Coil. Your example of a DPS switching to a class and grabbing provoke is ridiculous, and not even close to the scenario of PLD with Stoneskin.

It really sounds like you should be playing a DPS the way you are prioritizing your fights.

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Originally Posted by Traek

... As much as you'd like to just call people 'bad' for not healing enough, stuff happens. If stuff didn't happen, we would all be 1 shotting all of Coil. Your example of a DPS switching to a class and grabbing provoke is ridiculous, and not even close to the scenario of PLD with Stoneskin.

It really sounds like you should be playing a DPS the way you are prioritizing your fights.

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Are you honestly saying that in Turn 6, your focusing on your party's HP so much to the point that your Paladin understands when healers are preoccupied and he has to cast stone skin on someone himself? Because that's just unrealistic in a fight that is clearly a DPS race with how most of the community chooses to clear it. There isn't much damage going out to the DPS, unless THEY screw up themselves. What people seem to be proposing is carrying bad players, instead of fixing up bad player skill.Your in essence reinforcing bad habits by allowing people to take unnecessary damage.

And I do what I can to make my raid efficient. When an enrage timer is strict, the entire group needs to be at their best to beat the encounter. Turn 7 will wipe the entire group at 11 minutes in 1 shot. So taking anyone off DPS is a terrible idea.

Paladin Stone Skin on a DPS is a barrier of at best 500 damage. IF a DPS is in danger of taking enough damage to both be totally expended of their entire HP bar of 4800~ that they need the extra SS, then clearly they are doing something wrong, or your healers are not keeping them topped.

The only fight where DPS can take unexpected damage in excess of their entire HP bar is in T6 when they have the Honey de-buff, and have to get devoured. Once they are spit out, it's very possible that they can get Swiped hard, but there is absolutely 0 damage going out on anyone once he starts his Vine/Devour/Spit combo, so there is plenty of time to Stone Skin that person before he is eaten with an 18% shield from a WHM.

Tactical off-tank Paladin Stoneskin saves MP/Enmity/DMG for yourself, your main-tank, and the party as a whole.

In a straight race my iL92/3 PLD barely outpaces my iL92/3 WAR on damage in initial short spurts, WAR gaining DPS advantage overtime **expending Wrath carelessly and immediately coupled with Berzerk can obviously overcome PLD Fight or Flight advantage but there is no reason to do so; in fact I'd consider that a very bad move. So yeah WAR gets higher DPS but that's not entirely relevant to tanking or utility within a party dynamic.

I would say they are equal when you get into functional and actual situations - PLD being easier to off-tank as with utilities like Stoneskin; Cover and it's assortment of defensive cool-downs that can be blanketed onto either the main-tank or a healer make it invaluable in critical situations. PLD has the ability to apply two important debuffs (STR Down & Blindness) in most encounters. In most fights a PLD can dance in and out of Shield/Sword Oath based on the phase and the nature of incoming attacks to increase DPS while minimizing need for incoming healing. A Paladin in Sword Oath will outpace damage of a WAR in Defiance but won't over take them on enmity - and is still able to support the party while doing so.
I think people also underestimate the boost Shield Block + Shield Swipe can give a PLD in a tight situation. It's very effective use of TP for high returns even without the Pacification effect landing on the target. PLD also tends to have high Critical itemization.


WAR has a more complex play style but it's raw damage advantage (as it were) is gated by Wrath mechanics (Crit building), Defiance's reduction (also HP loss), or buff expenditure (Unchained/Berserk) and banking on Crits. Dropping out of Defiance obviously gives you a higher DPS output - but you lose HP by doing so and swapping back into a tanking stance will require healer's attention. Aside from a slight raw DPS increase you contribute a single debuff and nothing else to the survival of the party. WAR's "on demand" burst mitigation is very easy to work with and it's overall survival over time is tremendously boosted by a PLD off-tank backing them up with Stoneskin. Add a blind from flash coupled with Feather foot, and Path coupled with Rage of Halone and you'd got a very high functioning tanking duo on a very fundamental level.


There is really no reason to claim one is superior to the other - because it will never be true in all aspects. They work best when paired.

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Originally Posted by Huntington

3. Damage
The highest hit I've done so far on WAR is 966 with an Inner Beast, and that can still go higher

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gods yes. I usually break 1200 on IB and Butcher's block if I crit it with all buffs up. It's delicious.

that aside, I don't think I can say warrior is a better or worse tank as they both tank really differently. I would definitely say warrior is the more "fun" tank. Tanking aside, Warrior is fun period. Paladin is super borrrrrriiiinnnng. It's like if you had two uncle's teaching you somethin' and one uncles all pedantic and textbooky (paladin) and the other one's all like "screw it! flip a table! feel it with your gut! ok you got it lets go get some ribs" (Warrior)

I'm with Kitru and ZDamned on this one.

Tank DPS is very important and only good tanks seem to realize this. A tank should maximize his DPS, just like a DPS should maximize his DPS, as long as it doesn't come at a crippling compromise to his survivability or anything else.

There is no fight in the game where Paladin Stoneskin is important. You probably want to Stoneskin between phases if the boss jumped/teleported/whatever and there's nothing to hit, just because there's nothing better to do. Aside from that, the circumstances where a Paladin should cast Stoneskin is extremely few and far between. Casting Stoneskin comes at a direct compromise to tank damage. Also, a Paladin cannot Block or Parry while casting Stoneskin.

There are exceptions to every rule, and there might be obscure situations where clutch PLD Stoneskin is the best thing for the party, but for the most part it is not as valuable as the DPS he could have been doing instead.

If I saw a Paladin Stoneskinning people mid fight, I would assess the situation and ask myself "Was there a point to that at all?" and if there wasn't, I'd probably question the Paladin's decision making and his understanding of his own class.

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Originally Posted by bokchoykn

There is no fight in the game where Paladin Stoneskin is important.

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I'll agree that there aren't any where it's *important*, but I'll qualify that by saying that there are plenty where it's useful and doesn't come at the cost of DPS (at least, not much). On any fight where there is a tank spot, the point when the other tank is pulling off of the PLD is a great time for the PLD to toss a stoneskin or two on the other tank since it lets them contribute without generating much aggro and threatening to rip aggro away due to a lucky crit. The same could be said for any enforced empty GCDs, such as when the primals are doing their ultimates.

If the PLD is actually tanking something, however, I don't see any reason for them using Stoneskin outside of some *very* rare situations (boss is nearly dead and healers are low because of death/oom; spamming stoneskin on yourself can actually keep you alive for a surprisingly long time). A PLD also shouldn't be using Stoneskin if the group's WHM is actually tactically applying Stoneskin (which a good WHM will do).

Because of this, stoneskinning on a PLD is something I'm ambivalent about because it can either be indicative of a PLD making excellent use of the skill or just wasting time. I generally withhold judgment until I can suss out the situation and whether we need a bit more survivability or damage.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

Because of this, stoneskinning on a PLD is something I'm ambivalent about because it can either be indicative of a PLD making excellent use of the skill or just wasting time. I generally withhold judgment until I can suss out the situation and whether we need a bit more survivability or damage.

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Yeah, exactly.

I think Turn 7 was used as an example earlier in this thread. To me T7 isn't a DPS race. It's a battle of attrition. At some point, a good Paladin might decide "Okay, we're stable now but my WHM is running on fumes. My SCH has Cursed Shriek and needs to hide. My WAR just picked up the Lamia Prosector. At this point, we're much more likely to wipe due to a dead tank than lack of damage. I'm gonna pop some CDs and Stoneskin Spam the Warrior."

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Originally Posted by Danko

I think the reason people think that WAR is so much greater than PLD in damage is that WAR can push larger bursts than PLD. Berserk/Unchained/Maim/Storms Eye/Internal release is not something a PLD can compete with for burst phase damage. In reality their damage output over time is comparable...but the burst-y nature of Warrior damage makes it a bit more visible.

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Warrior's DPS advantage over Paladin is no illusion. People have parsers, remember? The results are very conclusive.

Warriors do slightly more damage than Paladins when in tanking stance. Warriors do slightly more damage than Paladins when in damage stance.

Where Warrior DPS really pulls ahead of Paladins' is in situations where they have to swap between the stances:

• Warriors have Unchained, allowing them to ignore the damage penalty in Defiance for 20 seconds. The uptime on this ability is 20s duration / 120s cooldown or 16.6%. When two tanks are swapping back and forth and splitting the tanking duty 50/50 (eg. Turn 6, Titan EX), the implied uptime on this ability is doubled to 33.3%. When the Warrior is off-tanking and is only required to be in Defiance some of the time (eg. Turn 7, Turn 9), the implied uptime on this ability can be substantially higher.
  
  
• Warriors don't lose GCD's for changing stances. Paladins lose two GCD's: One for Sword Oath, one for Shield Oath. Warriors don't have their combos interrupted by changing stances. Paladins do.
  
  
• Warriors have Fracture and the Maim combos, giving them low-enmity options for when the Paladin has Provoked or is about to Provoke. This is allowing them to continue to DPS interrupted without fear of ripping aggro back from the Paladin. Paladins need to worry about hitting Halone just as the Warrior Provokes. They either have to pause DPS or use Riot Blade.

So, the minor advantages they have when tanking and when not tanking becomes a huge advantage when they frequently switch between the two. If you've done your testing on dummies, you'll conclude that their damage output is "comparable". In actuality, the difference is very, very significant.

People are comparing paladin to war dps, instead of tank to healer or actual dps.

Tank dps is the worst dps. Maximizing the worst dps doesn't make sense unless there is nothing better to do. Instead, maximize dd dps, followed by healer dps.

Tank dps matters when establishing threat, but beyond that, it's low priority.

Stoneskin is pretty handy for OT. Maybe not for super elite groups or whatever, but pretty much any fight where healers have to move can provide an opportunity for PLD to OT Stoneskin. It's also handy if healers are getting behind. Throw on some SS to ease up the pressure.

Or let's say a dps just died ... SS the MT a couple times. That gives healers more time to deal with the problem that just popped up without having to worry about the MT health as much. And getting up an actual dps more smoothly or keeping a situation from getting worse is more useful than doing a tiny amount of extra dps.

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Originally Posted by IndigoHawk

Instead, maximize dd dps, followed by healer dps.

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Maximizing tank DPS is not mutually exclusive with maxing the DPS of the other 2 roles. That's the problem with the argument you're positing (and that other people have posited time and time again). It's not as it 30 DPS from a tank counts for less than 30 DPS from a healer or DPS. It matters the exact same amount. As long as you're maintaining your survivability, if you're not maxing your DPS as a tank, you're not contributing as much as you could be.

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Originally Posted by bokchoykn

Yeah, exactly.

I think Turn 7 was used as an example earlier in this thread. To me T7 isn't a DPS race. It's a battle of attrition. At some point, a good Paladin might decide "Okay, we're stable now but my WHM is running on fumes. My SCH has Cursed Shriek and needs to hide. My WAR just picked up the Lamia Prosector. At this point, we're much more likely to wipe due to a dead tank than lack of damage. I'm gonna pop some CDs and Stoneskin Spam the Warrior."

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Lol, this was the whole point of the comment. You guys are trying to blanket statement things that simply aren't true. There is plenty of situations a stoneskin can cushion healing required, save a tank/DD/healer or help with MP starved healers. Granted the new Coil bosses don't lend themselves to it quite as much, but looking at old content with fights like Ifrit EX, you could literally spam Stoneskin on the other tank during his stacks and be incredibly helpful to the healers. T5 had plenty of situations where you can at least mitigate some autoattacks/plummets to help with the impending death sentence. Not to mention a WHM moving for liquid hells and whatever else there might be.

My point being, if you can tactfully mitigate heavy incoming damage, you should. Blaming healers for not being perfect, while they are most likely picking up others imperfections is rather silly. Your zomgl33tdps PLD can take a 3 second cast to keep the run moving smoothly. No one is talking just random casting stone skin for the hell of it all across the party.

Times for a PLD to use a stoneskin:

- DPS dies during fight and there is about to be an AE. "DPS shouldn't die," No, but if you are telling me you have never died when you shouldn't have, you are a dirty, dirty, dirty liar. A PLD using this ability could save a fight.

- Healers are under duress (yes, it is certainly possible to identify that from knowing the fight and looking at the party's HP) and there is about to be a lot of dmg coming in on you, the MT (if its not you), a targeted DPS char, a targeted healer, etc. Stoneskin not only prevents damage being done on an overall basis, but it front-loads mitigation, allowing extra time for a heal to go off during consistent damage phases. Its not so much that it prevents 600 dmg, its the fact that it prevents the FIRST 600 dmg, allowing that extra bit of time for a heal to finish casting.

- Nothing to do (jumps, phase chases) obviously.

- Tank swaps: This was brought up, but stoneskin is excellent for tank swaps. It allows you to flat-line your enmity production (for the most part), in additional to provided a useful service to the group in dmg mitigation on the new tanks. This is even more useful given the fact that the healers might have been focusing on you, or the tank swap happened with you at low hp, so they might want to finish that Physik before looking at the new tank, Stoneskin can really smooth out that transition.

- And yes, it can be used to help carry shitty players (to a small degree). Or a buddy who is having a bad day. Or a new player trying to get into the game. It just demonstrates that the player playing PLD is wise enough to recognize a situation in which it might help, regardless of who you are casting it on or if you are carrying someone or trying to help someone less skilled stay alive. It has nothing to do with the fact that that person shouldn't be getting hit. They are, so what are you gonna do about it? Laugh and /em spit on them? Or try to rise above and be an exceptional player? If everyone only played with other players that were perfect at their class, you'd basically be playing a single player game : D

Stone Skin is a PLD's most useful progression skill, imo (besides...like..Rage of Halone, lol).

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Originally Posted by Traek

Lol, this was the whole point of the comment. You guys are trying to blanket statement things that simply aren't true.

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I didn't use any blanket statements. I said that there are exceptions where PLD Stoneskin is worth it. I just said they are few and far between. That's quite the oppsoite of a blanket statement.

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Originally Posted by bokchoykn

I didn't use any blanket statements. I said that there are exceptions where PLD Stoneskin is worth it. I just said they are few and far between. That's quite the oppsoite of a blanket statement.

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Maybe being picky on the details but...

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Originally Posted by ZDamned

Time to ignore a lot of fluff here.
Tanking is tanking, and DPS is DPS like Kitru said.
If were looking at the game objectively, the best way to help your group is to kill the boss as fast as possible. (T6) So Tank DPS is important. End of Story. (Not Stone Skin, not Cure, Shield Swipe, and Attacks)

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Originally Posted by ZDamned

If a Paladins SS is what saved his life, then your healers are the problem with clearing content, not your mitigation.

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Originally Posted by ZDamned

I can relate this to asking a Damage Dealer to swap over to his Class, and Pick up Provoke when the Main Tank is low on HP. Noone would do that, because it's not the DPS class's Job to do so in a raid.

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Originally Posted by ZDamned

What people seem to be proposing is carrying bad players, instead of fixing up bad player skill.Your in essence reinforcing bad habits by allowing people to take unnecessary damage.

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Originally Posted by bokchoykn

I'm with Kitru and ZDamned on this one.

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There is no fight in the game where Paladin Stoneskin is important.

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Seems to contradict this:

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Originally Posted by bokchoykn

I didn't use any blanket statements.

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Originally Posted by Traek

Maybe being picky on the details but...

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They meant that stoneskin isn't *important* in the sense that it make or break a fight but acknowledged that they are *useful* in few situation. Not really a blanket statement.

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Originally Posted by Namasu

They meant that stoneskin isn't *important* in the sense that it make or break a fight but acknowledged that they are *useful* in few situation. Not really a blanket statement.

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But it very well can make or break a fight. Bok even gave an example of it in T7. We can argue over the word "important" but in reality ZDamned (mostly) and others are giving off the idea Stone Skin should be taking a back seat to their own DPS, because their party is bad if they needed it. This is not good information for tanks looking to better themselves, and their raid.

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Originally Posted by Traek

But it very well can make or break a fight. Bok even gave an example of it in T7. We can argue over the word "important" but in reality ZDamned (mostly) and others are giving off the idea Stone Skin should be taking a back seat to their own DPS, because their party is bad if they needed it. This is not good information for tanks looking to better themselves, and their raid.

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You know what else can make or break a fight? A good healer who doesn't need a 3rd person casting stone skin for them.

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Originally Posted by ZDamned

You know what else can make or break a fight? A good healer who doesn't need a 3rd person casting stone skin for them.

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And there you have it. Elitism at its finest.

Yeah, my opinion about warrior and paladin is that warrior is superior, too! all the skills that makes warrior superior are from warrior's skill tree, my opinion!
Paladin kick ass too! With stoneskin I think, but stoneskin is not directly from paladin. So after all, my opinion, Warrrior is superriorrrawr! We got Overpower too, my opinion! Overpower is overpowered!

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Originally Posted by Traek

Maybe being picky on the details but...

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It's a pretty dick move to remove the context of my post (ie. the 90% of it that you omitted) to accuse me of using blanket statements, especially where I clearly stated there were exceptions and later gave an example that you yourself used to support your claim.

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Originally Posted by bokchoykn

It's a pretty dick move to remove the context of my post (ie. the 90% of it that you omitted) to accuse me of using blanket statements, especially where I clearly stated there were exceptions and later gave an example that you yourself used to support your claim.

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Your context makes no difference in what you are conveying. I only culled it to reduce the clutter of text. You were agreeing with ZDamned, who is on quite the extreme side, but later mentioned the T7 example (after your blanket statement). Perhaps I'm wrongly lumping you in too far with ZDamned, but again, to say Stone Skin is unimportant when it can easily prevent wipes or extreme stress on the raid is a stretch.

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Originally Posted by bokchoykn

It's a pretty dick move to remove the context of my post to accuse me of using blanket statements, especially where I clearly stated there were exceptions and even gave an example that you yourself used to support your claim.

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I almost feel bad, because he's using the fact that you agree with my Style, to make you out to disagreeing with him in full.
I literally have no idea why your being grouped up with me like this, but it's just a sign of the immaturity, coupled up with the close minded and inexperienced misconceptions that are flying around this forum.

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Originally Posted by Traek

Your context makes no difference in what you are conveying. I only culled it to reduce the clutter of text. You were agreeing with ZDamned, who is on quite the extreme side, but later mentioned the T7 example (after your blanket statement). Perhaps I'm wrongly lumping you in too far with ZDamned, but again, to say Stone Skin is unimportant when it can easily prevent wipes or extreme stress on the raid is a stretch.

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It can NOT easily make or break any fight!

You can always point out a little thing here and there that will make or break any fight at any point in time. I can use your example totally against you, and bring up my T6 last week where my group killed the boss with only our warrior alive. Had I stopped for even 1 single GCD to cast stone skin on someone, we would have failed the fight. End of Story. I can then perpetuate that as being the golden standard from here to the end of tanking, and say that DPS from the entire party will always be more important than anything else, but in fact it's not the case.
You just want so badly to not be wrong, or called out, that your closing off any other points of view. It's a huge sign of immaturity, and quite honestly,t he way you respond to people with even slightly differing view points is disgusting.

It gets worse with your lack of admitting that your own example is so situation based per fight, that it in itself is a blanket statement.

I can turn by turn show examples of when it is and is not a good idea to cast Stone Skin. But generally, as a MT, you should not be looking at your party's HP, you should be avoiding all MASSIVE damage AOE attacks, and looking at the raid for positioning.

Turn 1
Pre-Split: there are 2 healers. You have no reason to contribute to healing, and unless your group's collectively under geared, you should not even be feeding at all. No reason to remove DPS from the boss.
Post Split: You are officially Co-Tanking. You want all the chances to mitigate damage you can, AND you want to kill th eboss to relieve your healers ASAP. So casting a spell is removing DPS from the boss. Not worth it.

Turn 2
This is such a face roll turn, but there are a TON of AOE attacks that hit Melee, you don't have time to avoid them while casting anything. Sorry, but no. Never worth it here. (When done the intended way)

Turn 4
Nope, Just no. You are doing way too much here to be able to afford not building enmity on everything you see. Wasting a GCD in here means your healers will likely die. If you can afford to cast stone skin on yourself, it's not likely to make any sort of impact on the fight. If you are tanking Double Dreads, you want to be blocking them instead of casting.

Turn 5
If your raid has died a lot, and your healers are almost dead, then yes. in the LAST PHASE, spam Stone Skin on yourself once your Cool downs are all expended.

Turn 6
The only time I can justify it, is the person who gets the Honey Debuff... Even then, it's probably not going to save him if the healers ignored him for too long. I however will be testing this myself, since i'm sick of my DPS getting killed by the incoming cleave.

Turn 7
There is just not much damage going out here... I can't always reach the DPS who is going to get Fire Balled with a Cast ability. The OFF tank is often on the other side of the arena, so i can't even help him after the very first add. So... if you can, try to? But it likely isn't a make or break thing.

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Originally Posted by ZDamned

You know what else can make or break a fight? A good healer who doesn't need a 3rd person casting stone skin for them.

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30 DPS can also make or break a fight, as can Cover. *Anything* can potentially make or break a fight, but that doesn't mean that it will *always* make or break a fight. Casting Stoneskin as a tank is highly situational and, outside of those situations, you're going to be better served by just dumping more damage on the target.

It's for this exact reason that I'm ambivalent about Stoneskin for PLDs: using it is either indicative of a PLD screwing up or a PLD playing as well as possible and, most of the time, if Stoneskin is a legitimate option, there's a fine line between those two potential outcomes.

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Originally Posted by ZDamned

I almost feel bad, because he's using the fact that you agree with my Style, to make you out to disagreeing with him in full.

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I was disagreeing with his "blanket statement" of calling Stone Skin from PLD unimportant:

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There is no fight in the game where Paladin Stoneskin is important.

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If you look at where I first quoted Bok, I was even agreeing with him (his T7 example) and saying that was the whole point. Stone Skin is important, and should be used when applicable. It is far more important then your PLD DPSing an extra Halone if it means a member's death, or wasted CDs/MP. All this at the cost of what in the end will make a difference of a couple % DPS from your total.

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Originally Posted by ZDamned

I literally have no idea why your being grouped up with me like this, but it's just a sign of the immaturity, coupled up with the close minded and inexperienced misconceptions that are flying around this forum.

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Like I said up above, I probably wrongly lumped him in with you. I was taking issue mostly with his wording but responding to most of what you were saying.

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Originally Posted by ZDamned

It can NOT easily make or break any fight!

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It can, and examples of it have already been given. I'm not sure why you are trying to deny it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ZDamned

You can always point out a little thing here and there that will make or break any fight at any point in time. I can use your example totally against you, and bring up my T6 last week where my group killed the boss with only our warrior alive. Had I stopped for even 1 single GCD to cast stone skin on someone, we would have failed the fight. End of Story. I can then perpetuate that as being the golden standard from here to the end of tanking, and say that DPS from the entire party will always be more important than anything else, but in fact it's not the case.

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Again, no one is saying you should be spamming Stone Skin needlessly. Your example makes little sense. There was little to no reason for you to be using Stone Skin during your burn of T6. If you are going for burn method then yes, you pump out every DPS you can. If your MT or DPS had gone down, you'd still have wiped, so it really doesn't turn my example against me. Using Stone Skin as needed is being a smart player. Your PLD DPS saving a fight is far rarer then a Stone Skin doing the same.

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Originally Posted by ZDamned

You just want so badly to not be wrong, or called out, that your closing off any other points of view. It's a huge sign of immaturity, and quite honestly,t he way you respond to people with even slightly differing view points is disgusting.

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rofl, you give yourself too much credit. I could truly care less your thoughts on me, or what I'm saying. Your aggroe attitude is entertaining though. Please hurl some more insults, it is really helping the discussion.

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Originally Posted by ZDamned

It gets worse with your lack of admitting that your own example is so situation based per fight, that it in itself is a blanket statement.

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Isn't this the very point and design of Stone Skin...? Of course it is situation based, otherwise WHM would be spamming SS every second it didn't need to cure right? The very situations Stone Skin is useful is often the most important parts of each fight, if not leading up to them or after them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ZDamned

I can turn by turn show examples of when it is and is not a good idea to cast Stone Skin. But generally, as a MT, you should not be looking at your party's HP, you should be avoiding all MASSIVE damage AOE attacks, and looking at the raid for positioning.

*examples*

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While some of your examples are good, there is always more situations in every fight that could make Stone Skin useful and worth casting, over your DPS. You barely touched the surface of any of it.

Things we can all agree upon, without arguing like children:

• The "best play" varies depending on the situation. Sometimes, making the best play entails doing something you don't normally have to do in that encounter, such as Stoneskinning a DPS. Whether Stoneskin (or any ability) is worth it should be determined on a case-by-case basis. Saying "Paladins who Stoneskin are great players" or "Stoneskin sucks, doing DPS is better!" has no meaning.
  
  
• Act based on what is actually happening rather than what is supposed to happen. The argument of "if my healers were actually doing their job, I wouldn't have to do this." is a piss poor argument. If a healer asked me "Why didn't you pop a cooldown? You knew I was low on mana and fell behind on group healing." and I responded with "If you didn't screw up, you wouldn't have fallen behind. I shouldn't have to pop a cooldown there", I would be in the wrong here. I sometimes take extra damage that I shouldn't be taking as a Tank because I suck. If the healers chose not to heal this because "A good tank wouldn't have gotten hit by that Circle Blade", we wouldn't be a very good team.
  
  
• The cost-benefit ratio of PLD Stoneskin is low. It takes forever to cast and only shields for 10% of the target's max HP. It comes at a compromise to their DPS. It removes their ability to parry and block. This should obviously be taken into consideration when deciding whether or not it's worth it.
  
  
• Tank DPS is very valuable and very significant. To say "If your priorities are on damage output, you should be playing a DPS class, not a DPS class" is a dumb argument.

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Originally Posted by Traek

While some of your examples are good, there is always more situations in every fight that could make Stone Skin useful and worth casting, over your DPS. You barely touched the surface of any of it.

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That's just the point. I never had to SS my group in all of my progression fights, and it never stopped my group from progressing, which in turn means it's not generally important. None of us are saying to NEVER do it, were saying it's not something Paladins should keep at a high priority thought in their heads.
You came up with only a couple examples. Literally only a couple... And I tried to find good times to do it elsewhere, but I can't. Please make a thread and have that thread be the golden standard of times when Paladin Stone Skin should be used, and I assure you it will be short lived.

That being said, I would always like to find ways to help my group out, since I did give examples of when not to, please inform me of the times when I should be using Stone Skin to "Make or Break" my raid. I didn't see you making a counter list against mine to prove that I'm hurting my group.