Savage Alexander and the Paladin Exodus

If players must play more than one job in end-game content, no problem. I leveled 2 tank jobs in case something happened, and I perform better as Dark Knight with less gear anyways. I would simply like the developers to acknowledge that Paladin is currently being intentionally left out of A4S by groups because due to current design they are a drain on resources for poor performance compared to the other two tanks. If the intention is that players must swap jobs in the middle of progression, then they should say so and tell players to plan on switching since Paladin is an underperforming job to bring to a raid. Spending nearly 2000 Esoterics on Paladin would hurt more if using i190 gear as Dark Knight would mean I would be a weaker tank. That's currently not the case.

I think if the community as a whole took on the philosophy of Roles (Tanks, healers, magic dps, melee dps) are Jobs, and Jobs are specs these issues wouldnt even matter as much.

I know the underlying argument will be gear lockouts but in reality you can get 2 eso weapons in a 5 weeks as with full alex i190 that all tanks can share. Sure, the counter argument to that is its not optimal, but its absolutely plenty to clear the content up to AS4 and in that time your getting 210 gear as well and you provide your static with versatility for current and future raids. By the time you your knocking on AS4 you can choose what eso gear you pour into which spec and guess what, a few weeks later 24 man comes at i200! Voila.

My opinion is theres a mindset that dictates we need the highest ilvl possible. The only thing it does is cushions your mistakes and thats no excuse not to roll 2/3 tanks, healers, dps.

If the next cutting edge raid is mostly physical damage then drk is in the same boat and thats fine. Spec up!

I'm performing better than Paladin anyways with my i190 set on Dark Knight so I should be good. If the next raid is mostly physical damage, Paladin will still suffer from inferior DPS.

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Originally Posted by Kyne_Lyons

I'm performing better than Paladin anyways with my i190 set on Dark Knight so I should be good. If the next raid is mostly physical damage, Paladin will still suffer from inferior DPS.

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Exactly. FFXIV "tanking" is all about doing the most damage you can while barely meeting the survival stat requirements. Paladin is and always has been the worst at this. Until this changes, Paladin will not have a spot in early raid progression now that a third tank job exists.

It almost feels that SE want you to have multiple jobs and switch to what the content is dictating, at the moment it favours high dps tanks, so you should have at least all three tanks leveled up. And have a 200i weapon for the current tank job that is required, in this case WAR / DRK. Either that or SE has got some hidden trick or something.

Balance is overrated.

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Originally Posted by Donjo

Making more enrages soft(but not every enrage),

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I miss soft enrage timers. If you were around for Titan hard-mode when ilv.70 was legit, Titan would use more Tumult's (AoE raid wide damage) the longer the fight progressed making it more and more difficult to keep the party alive if you were slow.
Coils T1 had something like this as well with Caduceus gaining damage stacks over time.

Even the instances with Hard Enrage timers in the 2.xx series were survivable to an extent. Coils T2, the room would pulse massive raid wide damage if you were slow—Coils T4 had the same thing.

Regarding the OP, I think more soft enrage timers would go a long way towards fixing the issues Paladins have in this meta but there are still other changes that would definitely be welcomed.

p.s. Hard Enrage timers are still fun but I think they've gone overboard lol. Every boss says "Fuc* You, I aint got time for this" after 8minutes in 3.0.

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Originally Posted by Gooner_iBluAirJGR

2.0-2.1 Experiences

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Oh, yes. I was there. Although I was braving Titan HM for a Monk Relic at that time, not a Tank Relic.

Having to switch between jobs for different fights are a really bad excuse... Especially since you can't optimize with Eso spending. SE wants several possible combinations of jobs in groups, they don't want everyone to switch to one job.

I like that content have a high DPS check, but I would prefer if tanks actually played like real tanks, and not DPS with more defense... They could make bosses attack in such a way, that having a PLD with better defense, would be a good pick, and going for all out DPS would be impossible until you're a lot more geared.

Overall, the tanks are designed to have as little defense as possible for staying alive, then focus all on DPS... So if you don't need that extra defensive capability of PLD, they're not bringing anything to the fight.

So... PLD is the worst tank in the game at the moment. A4S might be the fight where it really shows, but it's not like they're much better(or better at all) in other fights...

Also, saying that SE intended for players to have better gear when doing A4S doesn't change anything... Their DPS would still be behind the others if everyone have better gear, and it would still be a problem for groups that isn't world first competitors. It's not like all groups do the same amount of DPS as Elysium or Lucrezia, and are held back by something else. It's the DPS that's holding back the groups, and even if the extra DPS isn't technically needed for these groups when they're more geared, it's needed for them.

I think the biggest issue highlighted here can be called back to the current set of weekly gear. Having each set be exclusive to individual jobs means you have to commit to a job before you can even gauge the current content. The way loot tables are handled this round with its linearity also throws a wrench into things. Any serious progression group worth their salt has players willing to switch jobs in their role to better suit what the party needs for a fight, but it's not so simple with hard gear checks.

A decision needs to be made on how developers expect players to gear up and progress. Back in BCoB, AF+1 was job exclusive, but every single turn had a handful of large meaningful pieces of loot, so teams could easily get enough gear from each floor to quickly be able to switch if they ever felt like it.

Except now your weekly token gear is job locked AND your raid gear comes in a linear fashion, with all your big pieces at the very end.

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Originally Posted by Lyone

The problem is that right now he could switch to DRK with 0 esoterics gear and do even better than his pld in every way. This is the core of the issue.

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No the core issue is that you can switch out DRKs and PLDs all day long but you are a complete fool to take either of them over a Warrior.

Notice how no groups doing anything worthwhile are doing it with a DRK and PLD? This is your main problem right here.

I wouldn't say it's just one problem, but the fact that I play Dark Knight with 6 ilvls lower and perform my role as a tank better is a bit insulting. It underscores the massive difference between the two jobs. Paladins on A4S are just so bad that taking one, regardless of how much gear your group has, is detrimental to progression and it's true for A3S as well.

The balance issue is also multi-faceted. Spending nearly 2000 Esoterics on Paladin means that I have to not spend that currency on Dark Knight, or I have to make the conscious choice to be under-geared in order to support multiple jobs. If that's what the developers intended, great. I just want that signal before diving head first into what is currently the worst tank in the game right now. On top of that, the mitigation difference between Paladin and Dark Knight is negligible in practice. It's been all over the tank forums, people can talk all they want about how much better Paladin is at mitigating damage, but do the encounters, read the parses, and you'll see that Paladin doesn't take much less than a Dark Knight does. In fact they often end up taking more since Dark Knight can spend a greater portion of the fight in Grit, taking 20% less damage while Paladin has to get blasted in order to put out comparable numbers.

A lot of people have mentioned just waiting until everybody has more gear, and that's why I made the thread to begin with. Paladin is the tank you take if you're okay spending an additional month or so on content. If you're okay waiting several content patches to get your clear, sure, play Paladin. If you want to clear the content now? Sorry, Paladin isn't for you.

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Originally Posted by Ladon

No the core issue is that you can switch out DRKs and PLDs all day long but you are a complete fool to take either of them over a Warrior.

Notice how no groups doing anything worthwhile are doing it with a DRK and PLD? This is your main problem right here.

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This is pretty much caused by the Warrior not needing anyone else in order to max out their DpS. Both the Dark Knight and Paladin need either a Ninja or a Warrior on their target in order for them to be in a similar area to a Warrior's solo DpS.

To say nothing of the fact that Storm's Path is the most important debuff in the game and Warrior is the only job in the game that brings it.

I don't understand this. Are people really following what world first groups use in their setup like it's a religion?

Paladin is a HELL of a lot better off than Drk is right now. In fact, Paladin mitigates BETTER than Drk in 3 of the 4 floors. I seriously do not understand where Paladins are getting this mindset that they're garbage compared to Drk's in Savage from. Maybe they're all just bad?

A1S is ALL physical save for the cleave and the buster. Those of which are spaced out by 2 minutes, and you will only ever see 3 in the fight. Everything else is physical. The total amount of damage a Paladin can mitigate in A1S completely destroys what a Drk can mitigate, from Hollowed Ground alone. Hollowed is raw immunity. Living Dead still requires you to be healed for 100% of your HP so you don't instantly die, and if you are healed for 100% of it, you lose your immortality. Paladins don't. This means healers now have to worry about the 10 second timer Walking Dead gives them to heal up the Drk, otherwise it's a wipe. And using a CD like benediction to counteract the negative side of another CD is not good. The only exception RI + Awareness on Wars, because it plays completely in the War's favor alone without adding an extra thing with a 10 second timer to the list of things the Healer needs to worry about.

A2S is all physical. In fact Paladin is the best tank here by default simply due to their crazy mitigation, and the fact that they can cheese an entire wave with Hollowed. The runner up is War, who can output more AOE DPS than a Drk can while still mitigating physical better, at no real cost. You try to compete with a War who's good at maximizing his DPS and you'll go OOM before the next wave even comes in. Which isn't good, because MP is the only way a Drk can manage AOE enmity. If your group can not manage to push out enough damage with a Paladin in the group, then that is a personal problem your group has with it's DPS. It isn't the Paladins fault for not bringing Warrior axe swinging crazy DPS.

A3S is majority physical, and the only magic is in the form of the AOE's, which you heal through, you don't mitigate them. The tether blast I'm fairly sure is the only tank buster-like magic hit you will ever take in that fight. That alone doesn't make Drk better.

A4S is probably the only turn where Drk may actually trump Paladin in terms of mitigation, but only due to Dark Mind.

Yet honestly? People need to lose the static position mindset for the tanks and move on already. Paladin is a good OT now. They do the nearly the same DPS that a Drk OT does, while bringing more to the table for the group. Hell they were always strong OT's damage wise, and Wars were always good MT's. It just took more skill than it does now to MT as a War in 2.0.

And Warriors are ridiculous MT's now. They're the best in fact because simply due to how easy they can stance dance and maximize their damage while MT. Yet somehow people formed another mindset where they are better off as the OT to better 'utilize' their damage. It's the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Put a good War as the MT and a Paladin or Drk as the OT and you'll have MORE DPS between the two than you'd have the other way around so long as the War is maintaining slashing resist, which he should be anyway for himself.

World first groups are all about maximizing damage, not mitigation, hence why Drk was a good option to take. Though there are different ways to go about maximizing your damage, it allowed your group to not take a Monk, which at the time wasn't the highest physical DPS. Instead Dragoon was, while also bringing Litany. Monks were buffed however and now that only puts Drk in a worse spot. Sure they deal more MT damage than Paladin, but they aren't role locked to Main Tanks. Just like War isn't role locked as an Off Tank, and does more MT damage than both Paladin and Drk. And on top of that, War has an answer to everything. Their raid spot is without competition simply because of how much value they are to the group.

When it comes down to it, the only thing Drk brings to the group is less than War but higher than Pld MT damage, and less than War OT damage. Delirium is completely trivial as it's fluff damage mitigation, and is absolutely no different than STR down is. In fact STR down, of which Paladin is the only class with, is more useful right now because 3 of the 4 floors has constant physical damage going. The only magic is in the form of AOE's your healers deal with themselves, which a Paladin can help with through Veil, and tank busters. But when it comes to tank busters and the way mitigation works, Int down has the absolute lowest value on top of all of your other mitigation. The higher your mitigation gets, which is going to be high for tank busters anyway, the less Int down adds to your total mitigation. I'm talking around the 3%'s here, because it's multiplicative, and takes from your other mitigation in order to fit itself in.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3247940

That post sums things up nicely, with math for all of you nonbelievers. The Dark side isn't as good as people think it is

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tl;dr

Paladins are fine. They could use a couple of tiny, mostly QoL tweaks, and an enmity buff that SE said they'd look into, but save for those they're completely fine. It's the "Gotta maximize DAMAGE" stigma people are taking Drk's for simply because world first groups included them. You can include any tank and still be world first, as it's about finding what position they're best in.

And you have to keep in mind that these world firsts are all done on either the week of release, or shortly after. These people aren't decked out in i200/210's and are missing a lot of the damage having better weapons would have given them. Ontop of that, they're also performing during a time where SE is still looking into overall balance, thus if any buffs come later, like the Monk/Astro buff, they performed without it.

The better gear gets, the more things are 'generalized', the more value Paladins will have as MT to your common raid static.

tl;dr again

The "Drk is better than Pld" stigma is a false image people created in their heads during a time where world first groups were trying new jobs out, and looking for ways to completely optimize their group performance in order to BE world 1st. This image added in with the "Pld is only allowed to MT, and War is only allowed to OT" is a recipe for disaster when all of the Paladins who feel threatened because another MT-like tank was introduced catches wind.

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Originally Posted by Kyne_Lyons

To say nothing of the fact that Storm's Path is the most important debuff in the game and Warrior is the only job in the game that brings it.

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I wont argue with this, but it's 10% raw mitigation. People seem to forget that Paladins have the ONLY STR down debuff in the game, which when it comes to physical, is around an 8% mitigation. Exactly the same as Int down, only 2 jobs have to compete on why their Int down is more important. And when it really comes down to it, there is more value in STR down on auto attacks and fluff physical damage than there is in Int down on magic tank busters only. Reverse the Int and STR down in that sentence, and it still applies, because multiplicative mitigation completely destroys the value in in mitigation that is that small an amount to begin with.

Also, Drk does have Reprisal, but it's completely reliant on a parry, which only works if you can actually parry what you're being hit by. Meaning say goodbye to Reprisal in AS4 if you're the MT. Also with it's cooldown, it only has a 66% up time compared to Path, assuming you actually parry every time it's about ready to be reapplied, and can be thrown up the immediate it's off cooldown.

Delirium is not useful? Path is worse than Halone? Are you insane or what?
Why have a paladin MT if the war or drk can mitigate all the required busters and do more damage, while bringing more utility?
Why have a paladin OT if war or drk does more damage?

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Originally Posted by Wizhard

Delirium is not useful? Path is worse than Halone? Are you insane or what?

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Don't think you quite understood what I said. Might want to reread it and just let it sink in for a while until you understand.

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Originally Posted by Wizhard

Why have a paladin MT if the war or drk can mitigate all the required busters and do more damage, while bringing more utility?

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Because Drk doesn't bring more utility. They hardly even bring more mitigation in a magic environment. The only thing from a MT situation they bring, is more damage than Paladin. But damage isn't the only thing that matters in your general raid group, otherwise in 2.0, Paladins would have never been the Main Tanks. However there were still groups that had a War MT while the Paladin was the OT, in order to maximize damage. They were spread thin.

War on the other hand is built so well to the point where they bring the highest damage, crazy mitigation compared to 2.0, and valuable utility for more than just themselves.

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Originally Posted by Wizhard

Why have a paladin OT if war or drk does more damage?

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Why have a Drk as OT if Pld can do as much damage while bringing undefeated safety net tanking utility and group wide benefits? Drk is ahead on raw dummy damage by a very, very tiny amount only.

War is a different case, because people are glued to the 2.0 mindset of War only ever being allowed to be an OT.

People really need to stop using Drk's as a way to try to bring attention to what they think are Paladins unjustified flaws when it is really the other way around, because the only reason they're even relevant right now is because SE is promoting them as being a MT who specializes in magic, when they really don't mitigate magic that well for it to be their forced niche. And people for some reason think that Alexander is a magic heavy raid, when it really isn't. More so than some previous raids, maybe, but the only magic heavy part of Alex is A4.

Arguing that INT-Down from Delirium is bad in content signals that you don't raid so...I will feel free to not address everything you've written seeing as you don't raid Savage, don't play Paladin (this is probably the most important part of this thread), and don't have anything concrete to contribute to the discussion.

Nobody cares about mitigation. All three tanks can mitigate just fine for all of the encounters in the game.

PLD doesn't bring the damage. That's it.

I actually mitigate more damage as Dark Knight on A3S simply because I can meet the DPS check and use Grit for most of the fight, meanwhile A4S moves faster now even with weaker i190 gear so making the switch to Dark Knight has been a huge win. I just hope that SE will address what is happening among the (ex)Paladin community.

Balance impacts a lot more than just bleeding edge progression.

The other day, I switched from PLD to WAR for AS1. After doing so, I was left thinking "this is absolutely stupid."

I have no esoterics gear on my WAR (outside of the belt which is shared between all tanks), no real end-game experience with WAR, and very little actual practice with the job.

This is compared to PLD which I have played since joining the game and have 5 pieces of esoteric gear on. I've tanked everything outside of some Savage content on PLD and have a firm understanding of the job.

Even without using optimized gear to hit SS break points or enough ACC to cap frontal requirements, I was pulling 200+ more DPS on faust and 100-200 more DPS on oppressors without being given the time to pre-infuriate. On PLD, I actually have to work to build enmity. That means opening with Shield Oath and using RoH instead of RA and gimping your DPS. On WAR, Unchained + Berserk openers with BB being your highest potency combo means you basically can full time DPS the rest of the fight with no chance of anyone ever overtaking you and minimal DPS loss. And, having oGCD stances gives you so much more flexibility with damage management (both incoming and outgoing). CD management was a walk in the park for WAR. You have Thrill, Vengeance, and Inner Beast up for every tank buster and Holmgang up for 2 of the 3. After taking the hit, you can infuriate IB, Equilibrium, and go right back to DPSing with full HP. On PLD, you're tight rope walking with trying to squeeze in that 3rd combo hit before dancing back to Shield Oath ahead of a tank buster with enough time to also fit in all your CDs. Again, it's stupid. Ridiculously stupid.

Like... I don't get why anyone plays PLD anymore. It's a total mess right now.

Because I like Paladin?

Hate generation is annoying. Warrior has hate mod on highest potency combo. There is no choice there. They don't have to choose between hate or damage.

I'd be more fine with PLD dps being lower if the clunk wasn't there. RA is my top level ability. If I'm MT, I don't get to use it much because my OT will rip hate. That's just making the dps thing worse.

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Originally Posted by Ditto

A1S is ALL physical save for the cleave and the buster. Those of which are spaced out by 2 minutes, and you will only ever see 3 in the fight. Everything else is physical. The total amount of damage a Paladin can mitigate in A1S completely destroys what a Drk can mitigate, from Hollowed Ground alone. Hollowed is raw immunity. Living Dead still requires you to be healed for 100% of your HP so you don't instantly die, and if you are healed for 100% of it, you lose your immortality. Paladins don't. This means healers now have to worry about the 10 second timer Walking Dead gives them to heal up the Drk, otherwise it's a wipe. And using a CD like benediction to counteract the negative side of another CD is not good.

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On this alone I can't take anything you say seriously. "Outside of the majority of the significant damage in AS1, everything else is physical! PLDs are fine!" Really? Is that what you're saying? No educated tank gives two craps about auto attack damage. And, due to DA+DM, DRKs can mitigate the three tank busters without ever needing to use Living Dead so it's actually a pure luxury button for them, a button that PLD doesn't have during AS1 because PLDs actually need to use HG in their CD rotation because of their garbage tier magical damage mitigation.

DRKs can go Shadow Skin + DA + DM for first buster, Shadow Wall + DA + DM for the second, and Shadow Skin + DA + DM for the third and are fine. If you want to LD one, you free up some CDs to reduce the general damage you take otherwise and increase DPS uptime. PLDs go Rampart + Sentinel for the first, HG for the second, Rampart + Sentinel for the third. Otherwise, they won't have CDs to stack. You clearly have no idea how PLD plays and yet continue pull stuff straight out of nowhere.

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Originally Posted by Ditto

And people for some reason think that Alexander is a magic heavy raid, when it really isn't. More so than some previous raids, maybe, but the only magic heavy part of Alex is A4.

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Yeah, its not like Royal Fount, Hyper-compressed Plasma, Cascade, Sluice+protean wave, Drainage etc are threatenning magical busters or raid-wide aoes. Right? Now tell me what ability requires str down debuff to more safely cruise through? Oh and the only other thing that is somewhat usable is divine veil, which is not up for even every other cascade, unlike delirium, path or probably even reprisal, which can be up on EVERY cascade.

the main issue with tanks in mmorpgs is that :

all the tanks need to be able to MT: check

all the tanks need to be able to OT: check

the issues arise when 1 of the tanks does way more dmg or bring more to the table than the others , or 1 of them bring nothing.

and thats the case with pld , if WAR and DRK can MT and OT aswell as PLD , and on top of that bring more dmg , 10% slashing debuff , -10% dmg taken (WAR) , or INT debuff (-Magic dmg taken) ....

why any1 will take a pld over war/drk now? better mitigation? , but the issues is that war has enough to survive (so does drk of course)

alex savage is all about tight dps checks (because we lack gear ) , if u have a palading in the setup u gonna need to wait 1 or 2 weeks more than others raids in order to pass this dps checks (get more gear), and thats plain unfair.

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Originally Posted by Warlyx

If u have a paladin in the setup u gonna need to wait 1 or 2 weeks more than others raids in order to pass this dps checks (get more gear), and thats plain unfair

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This is the unfortunate reality Paladins face right now.

Aye, I think any player that actually plays a PLD will overtime realize how much PLD starts to lack behind the other two tanks. From not meeting dps checks to cumberson skills, and skills lacking in any real usefulliness for encounters(bloat skills). It all really just stinks in overtime how underwhelming PLD feels in Savage.

I saw this divide in tanks when I heard PLD/DRK will be focus mitigation tanks in HW, one physical, the other magic, and it would have lead to possible problems in endgame progression with one tank being possibly being left out. But in reality that is only a portion of the problem. The other part is dps/skillsets. And yes, I know PLD is only a little behind on dps versus a DRK with them both being in thier dps stance respectfully. But there is a real noticable gap in dps when they are both in thier tank stance, and also WAR. So what I am getting is PLD has to be outside of thier tank stance, and more into thier dps stance to even meet the dps a DRK gets while just staying in tank stance, aka PLD taking more risk to be able to do the dps of other tanks can do to meet the needed dps checks in Savage. So in Alex Savage I got both the short end of the straw playing a PLD that mitigates less magic dmg, and also provides less dps. In Alex Savage dps has become the primary concern while mitigation is secondary.

Overall bringing a PLD just hurts your group. So saying to groups that it will take 2-3 weeks longer to beat content because they have a PLD is EXTREMELY demoralizing to a progression group, and why should you let 7 others suffer, and wait that long? WHY!? And why to those that say Alex 1-4 Savage is not PLDs raid content just wait for the next one. Again why should we WAIT, and you do know the other tanks will be choosen over PLD if they can live through the content in the next raids, which they WILL. SE is not going to design raid content which one tank has zero chance of living through with thier mitigation cds properly up. Seriously PLDs are just going to remain behind the other tanks at this rate.

PLD in Savage is getting very old to talk about. There really is zero point in posting in the tank forums anymore like Kyne said, with a few very outspoken individuals that point out "HOW FINE" PLD is in Savage with calculations, fudged up videos comparing dps, and with videos showing off PLD is able to perform Alexander Floors fine. WHEN THEY DON'T EVEN PLAY THE CLASS THEMSLEVES IN SAVAGE! Throwing mitigation numbers/values is all fine, but this does not at all 100% represent actual performance of a class in ACTUAL CONTENT. Simply put it is easier to pass Savage content with a DRK/WAR, so why play a PLD when all you are doing is making things harder for yourself, and your group? It's very frustating as a PLD main to read the tank forums knowing your class needs some sort buffs right now somewhere, but you have outspoken people screaming "LET THIS THREAD DIE!" While clearly showing a bias against PLDs, when they were the go to mt in ARR, basically feels like butthurt WARs(atleast what I can gather from) that have something against PLDs, and now they are soaking it up as they are the MOST needed tank now in Savage. I dealt with this crappy type of attitude back when I was a 2.0 Warrior main, and I got the same crap...git gud, or I know your class is broke but you are not me oh well. LOL...yeah whatever I don't pin people as PLD/WAR/DRK just bad players, and people. So WARs gloating over PLDs is nothing new to me, but is very old, when I already dealt with it once. (I still remember several times this happened. In 2.0 someone says in a Ifrit HM, "Two Warriors?" *that person leaves* and group falls apart. lol That is not even Coil but you get it.)

I am burnt out feeling PLD is underpowered. I am burnt out reading the tank forums PLDs needing a buff, and burnt I am out on playing my PLD in Savage, when I know it is the lesser of the three tanks. Something clearly needs to be done with PLD, but nothing in 3.07 except devs thinking about changing enimty values on combos down the road. I am fortunate enough to be in a chillax static, and one that prefers to have a PLD in a group, but with me playing my PLD more, and more in Savage it just feels like I could possibly hold the group back in the future, and it would be better if I played a different tank class. I told my static lead I am done with PLD in Savage today. So I am basically going to swap back over to my 2.0 main, Warrior.

I think Kyne is right about the supposed Exodus of PLDs in Savage Alexander. The tank forums SEEM to be dying down with PLDs needing buffs, but this is more likely due to players realizing the truth, and already swapped to another tank away from PLD. Or they are just plain burnt out having to continuely defend PLDs do need buffs somewhere. I fear SE will take it oh...PLDs are fine now with less discussion about it on the forums. When people just swapped tank classes, or just lost hope in possible PLD buffs after nothing in 3.07.

But whatever, I said my peace, vented, and I am tired of this as a whole. peace.

I would veer from pitting the community against each other with the Warrior gloating bits and such. That said, you raise a lot of excellent points, and Paladins that are raiding Savage at a serious level can probably echo a lot of what you said. I struggled against my better judgement for a long time to convince myself that Paladin was "fine" but Savage Alexander, especially A3S, makes it hard to justify Paladin's current position in end-game raid content. A4S as Paladin was the final nail in the coffin. I really wanted to finish this raid tier on my favorite job, but unless I want to tell the rest of my group to wait around to get more gear and be so selfish as to stop our progression to a halt for the sake of my own ego, I have to make the right decision for the group as a whole. No more.

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Originally Posted by Kyne_Lyons

I would veer from pitting the community against each other with the Warrior gloating bits and such. That said, you raise a lot of excellent points, and Paladins that are raiding Savage at a serious level can probably echo a lot of what you said. I struggled against my better judgement for a long time to convince myself that Paladin was "fine" but Savage Alexander, especially A3S, makes it hard to justify Paladin's current position in end-game raid content. A4S as Paladin was the final nail in the coffin. I really wanted to finish this raid tier on my favorite job, but unless I want to tell the rest of my group to wait around to get more gear and be so selfish as to stop our progression to a halt for the sake of my own ego, I have to make the right decision for the group as a whole. No more.

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And I agree

I personally want to say I have nothing against Warrior, it's nothing more then a class just like Paladin, but each class has different play style to suit a wider variety of players. I for one would like to see all tanks balanced leading to people able to choose what class they want to play, and not where I felt I needed to go PLD back in 2.0 before WAR buffs, and now back to WAR in 3.0. I would like to see WAR/PLD/DRK to be able to MT/OT as fine as the last. So the community doesn't pit itself against eachother. There is nothing to be gained from pitting against one another just a chance of lost. There really is nothing more to say about it. Sorry if it came out wrong. It's just from my personal experience it's frustrating to have to go through this twice once in 2.0, and again in 3.0 to only see the samething happening again.

Paladin mitigation isn't superior enough to justify their huge damage output inferiority.

some changes to pld i'd like to see:

remove oaths from gcd, or at the very least make them not break combos.

remove shield swipe from gcd, or lower the tp cost.

increase enmity on goring blade and royal authority.

I'm barely leveling my PLD through HW content right now, and I'm curious.

In practice, what exactly is the PLD's strength over the other two tanks at the moment? Usually a random forum goer just off-the-cusp goes, "They have good mitigation!" And yet I don't see my statics DRK/WAR dying to random damage very often.

It's certainly not AoE damage
It's not single target
It's not TP management
It's not enmity generation.

Are they just slightly better at mitigating physical attacks? A mechanic that is hardly present in current raiding?

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Originally Posted by CosmicKirby

I'm barely leveling my PLD through HW content right now, and I'm curious.

In practice, what exactly is the PLD's strength over the other two tanks at the moment? Usually a random forum goer just off-the-cusp goes, "They have good mitigation!" And yet I don't see my statics DRK/WAR dying to random damage very often.

It's certainly not AoE damage
It's not single target
It's not TP management
It's not enmity generation.

Are they just slightly better at mitigating physical attacks? A mechanic that is hardly present in current raiding?

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The usual argument WAR/DRK will give is the shield argument. They somehow say parry is crap but think shields r OP. Hypocrites everywhere.

Shield will give like 4-7% passive mitigation depending on ilvl (Hive is like 4.5% averaged) against blockable attacks
+bulwark
+sheltron
+hallowed ground

that's the usual stuff that gets cited as an advantage. HG is really the biggest one, but a lot of fights are built around forcing the pld to use it as a tank buster mitigator.

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Originally Posted by Brannigan

HG is really the biggest one, but a lot of fights are built around forcing the pld to use it as a tank buster mitigator.

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That's the one that chaps my ass right there. Like, we have the awesome-ness that is Hallowed Ground, but we can't ever even use it to be awesome. It's forced to be used on a tank buster. At least on Bahamut, I didn't have to use it until the 4th Akh Morn (using it first on the first Flatten), which felt amazing. But on almost every other encounter that uses a repetitive tank buster mechanic I could never count on HG to be used for what I thought it was originally intended to be used... an "OH SHIT!" button to help keep the group from wiping. But here we are being forced to use it for an otherwise (should be) mitigatable attack (cooldown stacking, etc.) I'm sure WAR feels the same about being forced to use Holmgang, but if I could use HG more than once in an 8:30 enrage timer, I probably wouldn't be so annoyed about it.

HG was never actually intended to be an OH SHIT! button, that's why there's a delay. You use it like any other CD - to mitigate predictable damage spikes.

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

HG was never actually intended to be an OH SHIT! button, that's why there's a delay. You use it like any other CD - to mitigate predictable damage spikes.

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I suppose you'll use that excuse for why there was the same delay to Benediction, which also got a reduction in delay at the same time as Hallowed Ground.

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Originally Posted by Klamor

I suppose you'll use that excuse for why there was the same delay to Benediction, which also got a reduction in delay at the same time as Hallowed Ground.

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Because people were using them for their unintended use. That said, the reason you use Hallowed on x tank buster is because your party already knows the fight and you can freely use your HG there to increase healer DPS/strain the healers less. You can still use it as an OH SHIT! button, it's just better used predictably rather than reactively. Same goes for Benediction, Holmgang, and Living Dead.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

Because people were using them for their unintended use. That said, the reason you use Hallowed on x tank buster is because your party already knows the fight and you can freely use your HG there to increase healer DPS/strain the healers less. You can still use it as an OH SHIT! button, it's just better used predictably rather than reactively. Same goes for Benediction, Holmgang, and Living Dead.

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I agree with this, but that doesn't diminish the excuse of being forced to use a 7-minute cooldown on a predictable ability when the encounter could just as easily be designed to require only standard cooldown use (Rampart/Sentinel, and w/e equivalents that WAR/DRK have). This isn't a simply FF point of view on this long-cooldown usage either. This is coming from the experience of several MMOs that left their longest cooldown abilities as their "last resort" sort of purposes.

For your second portion, the encounters simply don't allow the use of HG as anything other than a Tank Buster Soaker. Because even in A1S, if I didn't stack Rampart and Sentinel, and instead stacked Sentinel with every other cooldown I have (of which, Foresight would be the only real benefit) I wouldn't be able to survive said Buster that otherwise requires HG's use. (Barring the fact that this particular buster is magical and Foresight is absolutely useless for it, anyhow.)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CosmicKirby

In practice, what exactly is the PLD's strength over the other two tanks at the moment?

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Paladin is the only tank out of the three that can block, parry and evade attacks. Unfortunately none of those forms of mitigation matter in raid content because you can't evade anything besides auto-attacks, and parry and block are mute against magical attacks. I use to think PLD's strongpoint was physical dmg mitigation, but taking a look at all of the tank's skills side by side I saw that they didn't even excel THAT much in it.

PLD Can block. Rage of halone 10% STR debuff.
Foresight: 20%+ Defense 90s CD.
Rampart: 20% -dmg 90s CD
Sentinel: 30% -dmg 180s CD
Bulkwark: 60% +Block rate 180CD
Hollow Ground: God mode status 360s CD.
Stoneskin: -dmg=10% of your max HP. <== Really should be used more often.

DRK Delirium 10% INT debuff.
Foresight: 20%+ Defense 90s CD.
Shadowskin: 20% -dmg 90s CD
Shadow wall: 30% - dmg 180s CD
Dark dance: 30% +Parry 20% +Evasion 60s CD
Dark Skin: 30% -Mdmg 60s CD

War Storm's Path 10% -dmg. Storm's eye -20% Slash resist. Defiance now comes with up to 10% added parry.
Foresight: 20%+ Defense 60s CD.
Vengeance: 30% -dmg 120 cd
Inner Beast: 20% -dmg on demand.
Thrill of Battle: 10% +max HP 120s

From a glance, PLD's magical mitigation really doesn't seem that far off from DRK or WAR provided you have a MNK in your static. However, the most well-rounded and impactful of the tanks is undeniably warrior. Aside from multi-purpose mitigation, they provide added dps to the raid via both Storm's eye and their OT stance and that's something no serious raid will ever consider throwing away regardless of what tank has better mitigation vs whatever specific fight.

TL;DR They all have about the same mitigation but WAR+DRK > WAR+PLD in terms of DPS.