Paladin or Marauder?

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Originally Posted by DeeBeeP

I had a high level Dragoon in 1.0 and I leveled an Archer in P4 but I've been thinking of switching to a tank role for release. I'm not asking which is better and I know both classes have their own ways of tanking. I just want other people's opinions on which form of tanking is fun for them.

I do have a few questions though:

How is a Paladin's ability to heal?

Is Marauder DPS noticeable when tanking?

Which class plays "faster"?

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As a DD trying a tank class for the first time...

If you feel confident in your skill, then take up the Marauder/Warrior because it will be more familiar. You deal damage, and through that you keep hate and stay alive with self-healing.

If you feel you might struggle with the role, take up the Gladiator/Paladin because it's a safer and easier way to tank. Not better or worse by any means, simply easier to understand.

I played both in P3 and to me Gld was a whole lot more fun. Mrd felt more finnicky and aggravating than tanking on Gld. Will eventually have both leveled though so meh :)

They both have different play styles but, so far, they are both viable tanks. If you like to see big damage and pissing off the target(s), then MRD/WAR is for you. If you like to stand there and laugh whilst enemies try to take you down, PLD is for you. Having both, means you can enjoy both aspects. It also means you can learn and understand just how each play, and that can be a useful bit of knowledge to have, especially if you are a raid leader.

I only have experience of playing Paladin. I have 50 Warrior, but I got that at the end of 1.0 service, so I am missing AF and haven't used it. I find the mechanic very interesting, though, and much more so than 1.0's WAR.

So im planning on having a tank as my second character and as being new to tanking i was wondering which class to choose, i just really want to hold hate and not die, suggestions?

I'm leveling a Gladiator -> Paladin first. I'll start leveling a Marauder -> Warrior soon!

I have WAR and PLD since 1.0 , and can say for sure - if you have to tank a Hard Hitter - you def need use Paladin , for solos WAR use more likely , if battle require more fast damage dealing WAR can be preferred also .

PLD = More defense and better buffs
WAR = More HP and and better dps

Choose what you like most since there really isn't a better one, personally I prefer WAR as I find it more fun to play :)

hey folks, i can't really decide for one or the other.. and i'm a total newbie to tanking :o

the thing is i like the whole 'wall of protection - pala' thing, but tanking with an axe and more active gameplay also interests me.
also i kind of have a group for dungeons with a healer is trust, buut i can see me going into dungeons on my own too.. and from what i read especially as a warrior i need to trust my healer, which isn't 100% given in a PUG..

so i'd be interested if you would still recommend a warrior for a newbie

note: i'm no idiot and surely can adapt my playstyle to both classes, but maybe some would think warrior could be to hard? for someone without tanking experience

Hello. I just unlocked PLD recently and tried it in a dungeon. My gear consists of Heavy Iron Armor and Flanchard and i have rings and earrings that give skill speed, str and vit. I was doing Brayflox earlier with my cousin as a war and he was able to take way more hits than i could. Is there something im doing wrong? I see all my stats go up when i change from GLD to PLD but i took soo much damage from even the first mini-boss of the run and im just not sure what it is im doing wrong. Please help me out with this :P

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Originally Posted by mhaid2000

Hello. I just unlocked PLD recently and tried it in a dungeon. My gear consists of Heavy Iron Armor and Flanchard and i have rings and earrings that give skill speed, str and vit. I was doing Brayflox earlier with my cousin as a war and he was able to take way more hits than i could. Is there something im doing wrong? I see all my stats go up when i change from GLD to PLD but i took soo much damage from even the first mini-boss of the run and im just not sure what it is im doing wrong. Please help me out with this :P

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Paladin is all about mitigating damage mhaid. If you're not using your cooldowns properly you will die much faster than a warrior since you can take but a fraction the of direct hits a warrior can.

Both tanks are viable but each tank is slightly better in specific circumstances. On spike-damage encounters you'll do extremely well with a warrior due to its immense health pool, since it can take bigger hits. On longer fights, with more frequent but less damaging blows a paladin will excel. This doesn't mean either of them isn't viable in opposite scenarios.

Attribute allocation also differs greatly. As a paladin you'll want to allocate most of your points to mitigating and vitality increasing attributes, while as a warrior, you'll focus more on strength.

Strength doesn't merely increase your damage. It also increases the amount of received self-healing and allows for more damage reduction via parries (and blocks for paladins). Dexterity increases the chance of parrying or blocking an attack. Although parrying is a pleasant accidental circumstance, I think it's is a more useful (probably necessary) skill for paladins because they're success depends on how much damage they're able to mitigate.

In a nutshell: As a warrior you can take multiple big hits without being on the threshold of death. Your health pool will fluctuate a lot during fights but you counter this seemingly significant drawback with your self heals (depending on your strength values you can heal for amounts of 2.5k and up). As a paladin you'll rely on correct use of cooldowns and successful blocks. Missing a few blocks in a row or incorrectly timing your cooldows is bound to result in a dead paladin.

Thank you for all the information you provided. It will definately help me to better myself as a PLD.

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Finally, enmity is trivial on WAR and PLD both. Phase 3 enmity multipliers were insane (in Defiance or Shield Oath, you'd get 10x enmity on Butcher's Block -- you're CRUSHING the best DPS in enmity), and due to the 2x multiplier on Defiance, there's a fundamental inability for enmity to ever really matter on Jobs. You have a ton of innate headroom.

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As a 50 WAR and 46 PLD, I really really want to disagree with this. Even if I'm given 5 seconds to build enmity on a boss, it could still be easily pulled off of my by a WHM or a BRD. It has happened before...many times. It's been my experience that NO ONE watches their enmity meters and we can strike that from the list of possible ways to avoid loss of threat. I believe the difference in gear plays too big of a role in enmity management. My WAR's gear isn't horrible for particular fights that I run. I would say it's sufficient to manage certain bosses and dungeons and I attest that proper cooldown management is vital to survivability. The biggest challenge shouldn't be fighting off healer and dps aggro. Which it is. And healers build way too much threat on mobs that I'm not focusing on. If I'm holding 3-4 mobs I need to maintain aggro on all of them, right? So what do I do? Like you said, we cannot spam OP forever. And Flash seems about useless compared to using it as a PLD. So I switch targets and start doing a combo on each mob to try and get a good hold on the mob and pound that healer aggro down so by the time we've killed the primary target, those other adds won't have enough built threat when it dies and I can start over. The flaw in this is...the primary target is no longer being focused meaning dps is beating away on that thing and building threat. It takes about 2.5 seconds per attack for 3 attacks on 2-3 other mobs. Do the math and that's how much time I'm not on the primary target. Bounce around? Primary>add1>Primary>add2>Primary>add3>Primary. Nope. I would have lost add3 by the time I would have finished hitting add2 with Skull Sunder...maybe even before that. I have even thrown out OP in between rotations on the Primary target and STILL lost aggro to the other adds leaving me thinking WTF is the point??

The 2.5sec GCD on top of ability animations makes it extremely difficult to build enmity and especially regain it once I have lost it. The reason why I say "ability animations" is because the abilities that especially generate threat and are NOT on the GCD still cannot be used immediately after using any other ability. I have to wait 1-2 seconds in order to use them. A friend of mine believes it's due to the animations of abilities used. Whatever. It sucks. Off the GCD should mean just that: Off the GCD. This even goes for Brutal Swing! My only interrupt! An ability that plays a critical role in boss mechanics and you can't even use it immediately after abilities even though it's not on the GCD?? What the hell is up with that?!

Anyway...I stopped caring whether or not adds get pulled off me. I was stressing about it way too much. Trying to do my job and it seems out of my control for me to do so. I just worry about bosses now. I was on Hydra yesterday and I had the boss for a good 20 seconds and a WHM pulled him right off me and basically wiped the group.

http://i.imgur.com/Fviqq8u.jpg

If I'm holding 3-4 mobs I need to maintain aggro on all of them, right? So what do I do? Like you said, we cannot spam OP forever. And Flash seems about useless compared to using it as a PLD. So I switch targets and start doing a combo on each mob to try and get a good hold on the mob and pound that healer aggro down so by the time we've killed the primary target, those other adds won't have enough built threat when it dies and I can start over. The flaw in this is...the primary target is no longer being focused meaning dps is beating away on that thing and building threat. It takes about 2.5 seconds per attack for 3 attacks on 2-3 other mobs. [continued...]

The 2.5sec GCD on top of ability animations makes it extremely difficult to build enmity and especially regain it once I have lost it. The reason why I say "ability animations" is because the abilities that especially generate threat and are NOT on the GCD still cannot be used immediately after using any other ability. I have to wait 1-2 seconds in order to use them. A friend of mine believes it's due to the animations of abilities used. Whatever. It sucks. Off the GCD should mean just that: Off the GCD. This even goes for Brutal Swing! My only interrupt! An ability that plays a critical role in boss mechanics and you can't even use it immediately after abilities even though it's not on the GCD?? What the hell is up with that?!

can anyone put a number to how much percentage-wise WAR damage is compared to PLD?