PLD feels underwhelming lately

well the biggest difference between war and pld is not what they can tank but in utility.

PLD
- chain stun up to 10 sec 6/3/1
- silence
- cover
- hallowed ground 10 sec invul without the need for healing and pld can move
- tempered will 10 sec duration, pld can move, faster activation than holmgang and dont waste invul CD
- halone debuff

WAR
- storm's path
- storm's eye
- holmgang (maybe?) 3in1 skill 6 sec duration. You usualy need only one of the 3 things this can do but have only 1 cooldown and use all 3 at once which is not always good.
- cyclone for realy good aoe agro without the need of target, its better and faster than tab/tomahawk for mobs that spawn and you need high enminty fast. you can have caduceus flared on split and still have aggro, this is not possible with flash.

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Originally Posted by Umbeliel

It stands true for pre-endgame as well. Additionally, a lot of people seem to be ignoring the RoH debuff which, though not effective as Path, is a thing that exists. On top of that, the fact that IB is effectively just shield block ondemand and that it more or less just turns a Warrior into a paladin with just shield oath and 25% extra HP for six seconds is also a thing- While doing lower Coils on a Paladin, especially with Echo, if you legitimately need that extra Warrior 25% or 20% reduction your healer is probably a huge mess.

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Is this real life? "shield block on demand" is a ridiculously huge asset. A well played warrior can out perform any PLD in any fight with predictable spikes, aka all challenging content in the game. I should probably note that I don't believe this to be a bad thing given how the classes are currently designed, but I just wanted to point out you are massively downplaying something that makes WAR incredibly powerful.

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Originally Posted by Codek

This is a fine tuning issue as there is literally nothing else to complain about between the two classes (in regards to balancing them). I'm far more concerned with the lack of on the go decisions players have to make while playing a Paladin then compared to a Warrior. If SE were to make changes to the classes, then this is what I prefer to be prioritized. It gets far too stale to play Paladin through the fights having only 1 go to combo and predetermined points in time where cooldowns should be burned.

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This is my stance too. PLD just doesn't have any complexity or choice in it, and is painfully boring as a result. In many ways 2.1's WAR changes were influenced by PLD's design, moving forward I would love for them to do the reverse and have PLD take some cues from WAR's design and add some much needed complexity. Certain classes will always have a higher skill ceiling or lower floor, but as it stands PLDs are stuck in fetal position to fit in the room. This is the most "underwhelming" aspect of PLD to me.

I play both WAR and PLD for farming tomestone in low-level dungeons.
What troubles me is the fact that all PLD combos are obtained before you even unlock PLD. So basically, you're doing the same weapons skills for more than twenty levels.
As for WAR, you only get the full enmity combo before unlocking the job, and you only use all full combos at level 50.

Add the fact that WAR get three 3-step combos, and you'll see why PLD seems a little "boring"

Well there's alot more to pld than just halone.
The thing that for me makes it boring are situations where youre basically "forced" to spam flash.
Though i wouldnt mind some buffs to make shield swipe more rewarding, or reducing cd of scorn to 15s :P

PLD isn't just Halone. But basically, PLD plays the same as GLA...with one stance that you launch at start and forget about.

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Originally Posted by BadRNG

Is this real life? "shield block on demand" is a ridiculously huge asset. A well played warrior can out perform any PLD in any fight with predictable spikes, aka all challenging content in the game. I should probably note that I don't believe this to be a bad thing given how the classes are currently designed, but I just wanted to point out you are massively downplaying something that makes WAR incredibly powerful.

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The point isn't that it's somehow completely useless, the point is that it's not good enough. It's not equal. That 20% for six seconds is the same 20% a paladin has -anyway-, and in most cases is completely sufficient. Shield Block/Parry itself is just icing on the cake. Filed under "Things that can save you if something went awry, but not inherently necessary." It comes out to be comparable to Shield Block in term of effectiveness, but the 20% "on demand" is more directly comparable to the permanent 20% reduction that Paladins always have simply by being in stance (Which, no, even with 2.1 buffs Defiance does not match perfectly and even then, most of the benefit is only available via heals- which you should always have anyway, but the inequality is in usefulness and versatility. A paladin survives and clears content by simply not taking a whole lot of damage. A warrior clears content because...... At least they don't die.) Inner Beast, with that in mind, is serving the exact same purpose it always did even pre 2.1 when it was just a self heal, except we don't lose the bonus heals and the net damage nullified in high level content is increased, but the overall utility is lower. It is and always has been compensation for lack of what a paladin does automatically anyway.

Also just to establish, that first bit isn't true at all. Ultimately the old status quo is maintained- a bad paladin will do better than a bad warrior. A good warrior can maybe outperform a good paladin. A perfect paladin will outperform a perfect warrior.

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Originally Posted by Umbeliel

Which, no, even with 2.1 buffs Defiance does not match perfectly and even then, most of the benefit is only available via heals

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The benefit of Defiance comes from both the increased eHP and reduced incoming healing required. Acting as if the eHP meant nothing just shows how ignorant you are (especially since the devs absolutely love spike damage, which is what eHP is all about).

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A paladin survives and clears content by simply not taking a whole lot of damage. A warrior clears content because...... At least they don't die.

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This further elaborates the extent to which you have no idea what you're talking about. There's no difference, whatsoever, between reducing damage taken and reducing healing required while having a larger hp pool. None. Whatsoever.

Also, WAR has plenty of damage reduction. IB is DR, which gives WAR as much DR as a PLD gets out of Rampart, and Vengeance, which provides a *hell* of a lot more than Sentinel does (15 sec v. 10 sec; 120 sec v. 180 sec; the 30% v. 40% is dramatically overshadowed). The only reason that people act as if PLD is the damage mitigation king is because of Hallowed Ground (uber CD so... not really a major factor in the total performance of a class/job) and Shield Oath, which, as previously mentioned, is basically the same thing as what Defiance provides.

WAR and PLD going to require virtually identical external healing, which is what matters. It doesn't matter if you take 1000 damage or take 2000 damage but get double the healing: you still require the exact same heal to bring you back to full.

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Also just to establish, that first bit isn't true at all. Ultimately the old status quo is maintained- a bad paladin will do better than a bad warrior. A good warrior can maybe outperform a good paladin. A perfect paladin will outperform a perfect warrior.

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I seriously have to wonder how a "perfect paladin" will outperform a "perfect warrior". The entire reason why a bad paladin will do better than a bad warrior is because there's so little you can do as a paladin that affects your performance. A vast majority of PLD functionality is either passive or painfully obvious and universal. WAR, on the other hand, has tools specific for specific events that actually require reasonably tight timing. IB on its own already lets a perfect WAR beat the living shit out of a perfect PLD. Combining those with the rest of the WAR CD suite, which rewards the tank for *using* the CDs rather than sitting on them all the time, just means that a WAR is just icing.

PLD and WAR are damned close when played proficiently. But the entire reason why WAR does well in a good player's hands is also the reason why a perfect WAR is going to outperform a perfect PLD: getting to pick the exact moments you want to have increased mitigation counts for a *crapload*.

Yeah, Warrior has a higher skill cap than Paladin (by a lot) and Warrior is a much more dynamic class.

There is more room for a Warrior to make mistakes and there is also more room for a Warrior to be outstanding.

Management of Wrath and timing of IB. Uptime of debuffs without compromising enmity generation. Sheer damage output. These are elements that are unique to Warrior or at least more prominent with Warrior.

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Originally Posted by Kitru

The benefit of Defiance comes from both the increased eHP and reduced incoming healing required. Acting as if the eHP meant nothing just shows how ignorant you are (especially since the devs absolutely love spike damage, which is what eHP is all about)...... snip snip snip stuff

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To rephrase your entire post in not so much of a needlessly condescending, messy, and douchey fashion, "eHP is identical and so a Warrior can tank stuff as well as a Paladin"- which is well and fine. You're going on about something completely irrelevant. Warrior, skill for skill, is weaker than a Paladin. The eHP is more or less equal..... But in the same way I "act like eHP means nothing" you're also pretty meaninglessly going out of your way to act like eHP is everything. It's not. Being able to clear content and the concept of flexibity + utility are two completely different things. The 2.1 bandaid fixed one of those two problems.

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Originally Posted by Umbeliel

To rephrase your entire post in not so much of a needlessly condescending, messy, and douchey fashion

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You have never partied with a truly good Warrior, evidently.

Paladin "wins" in exactly two areas (aside from aforementioned uberCD Hallowed Ground): having more CDs to stack together (virtually never a good idea anyways), and Stoneskin (extremely limited mid-fight applications). If you want to elaborate on what a "perfect PLD" does over a "perfect WAR", feel free.