Possible Paladin Rework...

Great. Now I really want to level GLD - -

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Originally Posted by Brannigan

Paladin is a fun class that has a lot of great tools and can use almost all of its skills effectively... in 4 man dungeons. However, in most 8 man content, Paladin loses a lot of buttons. I think that that, combined paladin having a lot of abilities that either have the same basic function (for example, Rampart/Bulwark/Sentinel/Foresight all reduce damage) or have limited usefulness, make the job fall behind in some areas. Paladin functions well as a tank, and it doesn't need a complete overhaul, but I think a few small changes would make it a lot more fun to play. Abilities I think could use a second look are:

Flash - loses blind effect in 8 man content (with a few exceptions).
Shield Swipe - loses Pacify effect in 8 man content (again, with exceptions), and doesn't work on a lot of 4 man stuff either. The damage increase from using the skill is a bit underwhelming. When you consider that this WS is one of the few "reaction" abilities in the game, it seems really lacking.
Shield Bash - Can't stun most stuff in 8 man. Other class stuns are off-gcd extra attacks. While I'd like to keep Bash on-gcd, I think this skill could be used creatively
Bulwark - The 60% block rate increase for this skill seems like it was just arbitrarily decided. Defensive cooldowns need to be reliable to deal with the big attacks in this game (Flatten, Ravensbeak, Death Sentence).
Tempered Will - Good, but too situation-dependent.
Awareness - This skill has always been bad. Final Coil and Shiva have abilities that were designed to make you want to use it, but it's still pretty bad. Also, it takes up a trait slot.
Riot Blade - Paladin's MP basically goes to three sources: Oaths, Stoneskin, and Flash. Of the three, really only Stoneskin should be done often enough in 8 man content to warrant an MP regen ability. Paladin is the only melee class with the ability to regenerate its own MP, but it doesn't even really use it. This is a huge wasted opportunity, IMO. Warrior has Wrath, paladin should have MP.


This is all just spitballing, and I don't expect anything even remotely like this to be implemented, but I'd like to see stuff along the lines of:

Shield Swipe allowing you to ignore the Shield Oath penalty for a short time (like 1-2 GCDs) after use.
The ability to use Shield Bash for extra damage in some way, with the limiting factor being its extreme TP cost.
Tempered Will getting a greatly reduced cooldown, or granting immunity to bind/heavy for the duration
Bulwark being more reliable and on a much shorter cooldown. Maybe something like 100% block rate for one attack on a 45s-1m cooldown.
More reasons to use MP in general. Riot Blade should be used regularly in our rotation. Alternatively - and this is a straight up nerf - move the STR debuff to Riot Blade.

Right now paladin's biggest weakness is damage dealt while tanking, and changes like those might help address it somewhat, while also making the class more interactive. Anyway, this is all pie-in-the-sky stuff, but with the expansion coming I do think it's important to point out areas where classes can be improved when it comes to core gameplay. Even if paladin ends up underpowered (or overpowered, or just right) in the expansion, I'd really like to be able to use more of my buttons in high end content.

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Lots of good points here.

Aside from the lack of skill variety, one of my larger gripes is that the gain in potency you get by using Shield Swipe is a borderline joke.

The average potency of your core combo is 203, and Swipe lets you trade one of those GCDs off for... 210? I know, every little bit helps, and I know, TP savings, but it just feels so unrewarding when it's one of the rare opportunities to play PLD "better" damage-wise.

Because more random ideas are always fun, what might hit multiple bases with only a couple changes might be:

- Shield Swipe reimagined as a "magic" attack that costs MP (enough to make you want to weave in Riot Blade sometimes in long fights)
- Shield Oath penalty only applies to autoattacks and weaponskills (i.e. not Spirits, Scorn or new Swipe)

Like most things here it's not gonna happen because reasons, but yeah.

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Originally Posted by Sokerimuro

Oaths off the GCD. Manacost could and should stay, but the Oath dancing would add in itself a lot.

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This is what i have been wanting to see aswell, just make it work like NiN's venoms(5s recast while being OGCD). SS could use some tweaking in pve as its currently pretty powerful in pvp but not super useful in pve, Riot could also use some kind of combo or then we simply need more skills that uses mana in general.

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Originally Posted by Sokerimuro

Basically, any changes PLD would get I feel should relate somehow to our shield. Because THAT is what makes us Paladins really

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I'm in agreement, at least conceptually.
I think that PLD should still get that final combo attack to come off riot blade and that a new sword attack or two is warranted with the increased level cap coming in the expansion.
However, moving forward I would really like to see SE emphasize the difference between PLD and WAR by building on stylistic precedents already put somewhat in place.
Plainly I would like them to make it more so that WAR defends by attacking (good example being Inner Beast) and PLD attacks by defending (sort of like shield swipe, but your Porcupine idea would be a better example) and also that WAR does more spread out heavy hits, while PLD does smaller more frequent hits. These differences are already somewhat there, but if they were emphasized more in an intelligent and balanced way I feel that it could really make the tanks feel and play in their own satisfyingly unique way.

I'm really giggling at all the comparisons of Paladins to Warriors and "Who's the better tank?" Let's be straight forward here. A great tank keeps agro on enemies from the rest of his party and takes hits to the face that others would die from while smiling their pretty little broken teeth the whole time. BOTH tanks in this game do this pretty well. Now, if you want to get technical, let's get technical. Warrior has versatility to both tank and DPS rather well. Paladins don't, but last I checked, tanks are meant to take a punch to the face and live, not return the punch. Warriors can parry. So can paladins, and the difference between their parries are almost non-existent. Yes, Warriors have a bit more strength, making their parry a little stronger, but still, almost non-existent.

Let's look at the buffs. Warriors get Defiance, +25% HP (This aspect of this buff is drastically overstated) and +20% healing received (This aspect of the buff is the only one that REALLY matters). As my partner has pointed out to me before (Since I play both tanks and do enjoy them both to an extent), an increase in healing received is what's called an after the fact buff. Meaning, it doesn't matter until after you take a fist to the face. So yes, while a Warrior gets more HP and takes more healing, their actual ease of survivability is actually overstated. Now Paladins get the typical reduction in damage buff... -20% damage. There are great things and bad things about this buff. First, the bad... diminishing returns. As you increase your defense, you decrease the damage you take, thus decreasing how much damage gets mitigated by Shield Oath. Yeah, not a big deal, but I have to find a fault or someone might assume I'm playing favorites. Now, the great things are just plain obvious, -20% damage from all sources. By all sources, this isn't limited to just physical damage, or magical damage, or just single hits, or just damage over time. No, this means it effects everything. So, overall, almost equal to Defiance (While +25% HP is an overstated buff, it's still something). Mind you, this is ignoring the fact that +20% healing received is what is known as an after the fact buff, I will give the benefit of the doubt and assume you are doing what you can already to mitigate damage in other ways such as avoiding heavy hitting AOEs and wipe mechanics. I will assume you should give the same benefit of the doubt that a paladin will do the same thing. We must also conclude that that your healer is doing their job. So They're almost equivalent, with Defiance being slightly better with the HP pool increase.

Now that we have gotten the whole "This toggle is better than that toggle" talk out of the way, let's look at what really matters, the class itself and the tools it has available to use. I'm going to start with Paladins. Hallowed Ground - Let's just stop for a moment right here. Is this really a competition anymore? Negates ALL damage except for wipe mechanics... come on. And for 10 seconds? I mean, I suppose you can throw out Holmgang for Warriors, but can you really even consider it a fair fight between the skills? Holmgang may mean that you can't fall below 1 HP, but it only lasts 6 seconds, and if you're throwing this skill out because the healing isn't enough, you're as good as dead anyways after the 6 seconds are up. With Hallowed Ground, that's 10 seconds of no damage, none at all. Even if you're a warrior and you're using Holmgang to save you, if the healing isn't enough, it's not going to bring you back to full in 6 seconds. It isn't going to save you at all. So right here, I have to draw a point. For true disasters, I mean the real disasters of all hell is breaking loose, Paladin takes the cake with crumbs to spare. Nothing saves a fight like Hallowed Ground. Long Cooldown or not, this skill is like a reset button. Throw it out when you're about to die, and the healers can rocket your HP back to full with 3 or 4 casts. When it drops again, it's like standing back up for round two and a second chance. Holmgang just doesn't compare.

So, to be a good sport, I'll go through the rest of the cooldown skills that are unique to each class, then after, I'll bring in the cross class abilities. Rampart, 20% reduction in damage from (once again) all sources. Yeah, its effectiveness gets a little reduced due to Shield Oath, but it has really good up time for such a strong skill. 20 seconds of duration for a 90 second cool down is actually quite incredible when compared to the countless durability buffing skills seen in dozens of other MMOs. Awareness... ehh... not entirely sure how effective this skill REALLY is, but it's something. Some people say NO crits, some sites just say a reduction in the likelihood of receiving a critical hit. I'm not sure, so I can't speculate. Sentinel... Okay, this is just awesome. First, Paladins get 10 seconds of no damage, then they get 10 seconds of what might as well be half damage? (effectively 50% reduced damage with Shield Oath) I don't know if this is even fair. Tempered Will... I know, I know, not a survivability skill, but isn't it? Draw in and Knockback immunity. Many fights have mechanics that cause these effect... let me think for a moment... Titan Extreme, Twintania, Leviathan Extreme, just to name three that these effects will cause instant death if not negated in an emergency. Bulwark... I'm going to ignore this one for now, as it's much more important for a later point.

So warriors get Inner Beast (I consider this a cooldown since you can't spam it due to wrath being required). Now I have to give some credit here where credit is definitely due. This skill is great. Only on Global Cooldown, and a reduction of 20% damage taken. Pretty nice. It's just too bad that it's balanced by the cooldown of Infuriate (which I usually see get used on Steel Cyclone anyways, cause you know, TP regeneration sucks) and Wrath generation, which usually takes about 2 or 3 full combo cycles to generate enough. So, it's 6 seconds of 20% reduction on effectively a cooldown of about 15-20 seconds (depending on your skill speed) Plus it heals. Pretty good. This skill alone really does boost the prospects of Warriors. Not to mention, if your timing is right, this skill really shines (i.e. Titan Mountain Busters). Holmgang... I'm not going into this one again. Vengence, what can I say about Vengence? It's balanced. 30% reduced damage, less than Sentinel, but with 5 more seconds of duration on a lower cooldown, and with its effectiveness being the full 30% (since Sentinel loses a little to Shield Oath) it's an all around great skill. Thrill of Battle... Yeah, this is nice and all, but it's really just flash in the pan. If your 25% flat increase isn't good enough, then this probably won't be either. But hey, your HP cleared 15k for all of about 20 seconds. Not that it really matters if your healing isn't good enough anyways. This is where the unique cooldowns end for warrior. Not bad, a pretty good fight, but as far as survivability goes, they are only just decent really.

So let's move onto the shared abilities and the differences between them when used by either class. Convalescence - Paladins get 30% healing increase for 20 seconds, Warriors get 20%, which I must point out, is not actually 20%, it's a little bit more than that, since unlike damage reduction skills, which have diminishing returns, healing increasing skills have increasing returns. However, it's still not going to be up to 30% increase. It's more like 23, 24%. Still, it's something. Bloodbath - Do I really have to take this skill seriously? Okay, Paladins get 15 seconds of 25% leech, warriors get 30 seconds... oh come on! This skill is only marginally better than Thrill of Battle! Warriors benefit more from it than a paladin due to higher damage output and more damaging aoes, but its effect is hardly grand given the low damage both classes do compared to others. Foresight... now we're talking. Once again, this is a skill with both good and bad qualities. First, the difference between paladins and warriors. The difference is the cooldown. Paladins have a 120 second cooldown, warriors have a 90 second cooldown, so props go to warriors. Now, for both classes, this skill ONLY (I mean ONLY) effects physical defense. This skill gets confused for a damage mitigation skill sometimes. It isn't. It's a defense boost. Meaning its effect is based on your defense stat. The higher your defense stat is, the more effect this skill has. At lower item levels, it's not as big of a deal as at higher item levels. However, all around, it's a pretty good skill, for both classes. Warriors just have a better up time.

So it's time for me to draw a conclusion from the facts stated above. While I am sure the debate between paladins and warriors will continue, I want to state this much: I am only focusing on survivability, I have already stated above that Warriors have more damage capability. Paladins have just as many cooldowns at their disposal as warriors, most of which have a stronger mitigation bonused than Warriors. Furthermore, the toggles they get are essentially equal, with the benefit of warriors being slightly better due to HP increase, which anyone with half a brain could see why that is hardly anything to scream about (See Thrill of Battle). This isn't to say that warriors cooldowns aren't strong, especially with Inner Beast. Just that their survivability is not the same as a Paladin, despite the hype against such a statement.

Now, I'm going to bring up another point I ignored a little while ago with Bulwark. Bulwark increases block rate by 60% and lasts 15 seconds on a 3 minute cooldown. This... this is B-E-A-UTIFUL! Paladins with a decent shield will find they almost consistently will block 90% of attacks during the duration of this skill, and with a decent shield, will see anywhere from 20-30% reduction in damage taken (I'm a little bit above 30%, but let's not split hairs). This skill brings me to my next point, blocking. So many people ignore the added fact that Paladins have a shield, while Warriors do not. Meaning, while both warriors and paladins can parry, ONLY Paladins can block. Soo... let's re-evaluate things here. Paladins not only have more damage reduction cooldowns (Rampart, Sentinel, Hallowed Ground, Foresight to Warrior's Inner Beast, Foresight, and Vengence) as well as better cooldowns that increase survivability (by survivability, I mean buffs that do things other than increase defense or lower damage - Awareness (lol), Bulwark, Convalescence, Bloodbath (lol) to Warriors Thrill of Battle (lol), Bloodbath (lol), Convalescence, and Holmgang (LOL!)) but they also parry and block while warriors only parry. I'm sorry, but the battle of who makes it look too easy for tanking goes to Paladins. Since both classes can hold aggro, have toggles that are for all real intensive purposes the same, the winner really is the class with more and/or stronger cooldowns, as well as more ways to naturally mitigate damage (Warriors only Parry and Paladins Parry and Block).

Now, the debate over who is the better DPS goes to Warriors hands down, so congratulations Warriors, you can do more damage even though you're a tank. That's great, for what it's worth. As far as Crowd Controlling... Paladins win hands down. Warriors have one stun, with a cooldown of 20 seconds and duration of 5 seconds. Paladins have a stun on global cooldown with a base duration of 6 seconds, plus a Pacification skill with a base duration of 6 seconds (have to mention though that it's only able to be used after a block, so there is a handicap to it). So another important trait of tanking, crowd control really goes to the paladin. Any paladin who knows what they are doing won't be hindered by the fact that Shield Bash can't be used between skills, so this aspect is null in point.

So, Lesbehonest... I am really kicking a dead horse at this point. Despite my points above, I play both warrior and paladin. Certain aspects of the game and certain fights do favor one class over the other. However, in general, I do play Paladin, for reasons that both include and are besides the facts above. Would I like to see a rework of the class? Definitely, I'd love to be a better tank, dps and crowd controller than a warrior. However, do I see it as balanced? Hell no. Warriors have their benefits in certain aspects of the game where their lowered survivability doesn't matter, and their higher DPS is greatly appreciated. As things are, they are fairly well balanced. As someone who (quite obviously) favors Paladins, I understand that because my dps isn't as good, when it comes to tanking a single target, I may lose aggro to a warrior. That doesn't bother me, since I only lost aggro to a tank, not a dps or a healer. As long as that warrior can make the fight go smooth enough for a win, then I'll be just fine with them spamming butcher's block combos all they want.

Did you really see the need to write such a wall of text? I don't see many people reading it.

You really need to get into your head that 20% damage reduction is interchangeable with the combination of 25% more hp and 25% more healing. It is exactly the same effect. So statements like "Defiance being slightly better with the HP pool increase" are just not correct.

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Originally Posted by Ceodore

Lotsastuff.

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I read through all that, just a heads up.

At least for me this thread is not so much about the balance between the two tanking classes, which I deem is very good at the moment, but rather the layout of the Paladin class as opposed to the Warrior class. In terms of options, interactions etc.. I think Paladins have it better in terms of mitigation than Warriors when it comes to physical damage (which is in the end actually true from calculation viewpoint) and Warriors conversely deal better with magic damage and do more damage as a tank. And to get it out of the way, yes tank DPS matters a whole lot! Many of the groups progressing in Final Coil make fine adjustments to the tank gear of OT and even MT, simply to squeeze a bit more damage out over the course of the fight to meet the DPS checks. Anyways without trailing away too much, I personally like the design that Paladin deals little damage and takes a lot of beating, Vanilla shield tank style.

I don't really want the class to deal more damage, what I personally wish to see is the possibility to "Oath dance" better than what it currently is, and some more use for the Shield Swipe skill. Oaths already have a cost in terms of mana as opposed to most of the similar abilities of other classes. To add on top of that the fact that Oaths are on GCD AND break our combo if used. Even the small QoL change of allowing us to switch between Oaths without it breaking our combo would go a long way. Giving the possibility to actually use them off-GCD would be truly neat, with the manacost taking care of any "spammability" issues that could arise.

And Shield Swipe, oh the Shield Swipe. We are a tank with a shield, traditionally this style would find offensive uses for that blocking block, and we DO have skills for that in their very own unique respects. Shame is Swipe is pretty moot as it stands, and I dare say quite useless in proper content. Shield Bash on the other hand is awesome and I state here once and for all, nothing on that skill should change. It is Paladin's unique niché, tactical stunning on demand. Being on GCD and breaking our combo are the big balancing factors here.

And to finally ask it out, why so many people disregard Awareness? That skill is good. Sure you do not see it as straight mitigation like other of our tools, but already there is a specific encounter in the game that benefits a great deal from Awareness. To add on top of that, it is a very good AoE tanking cooldown! By itself not so fancy, but combined with something like Foresight we have a very durable AoE tanking 20 seconds going on. And why is this? Spikes kill tanks. Simple as that. Damage by itself does not, uncontrollable spiky damage does. When making large pulls (speedruns etc.) or simply having to tank 3 mobs that hit hard, the ability to negate critical hits is huge. Singular criticals we eat all the time, it is part of the design, but criticals in multiples are what Awareness is truly for, and shines in. When pulling larger packs there is always the chance that for example 8 out of the 12 mobs decide to crit at the same time. This will often kill the tank.

And to state it yet, yes all our damage mitigation cooldowns come to work with large pulls, that much is granted, but for example Awareness + Convalescence form a very solid CD pair, whereas Convalescence alone does not necessarily mean easier time for the healer.

Peace out.

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Originally Posted by Alphras

Did you really see the need to write such a wall of text? I don't see many people reading it.

You really need to get into your head that 20% damage reduction is interchangeable with the combination of 25% more hp and 25% more healing. It is exactly the same effect. So statements like "Defiance being slightly better with the HP pool increase" are just not correct.

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You are correct Alphras.

For example lets say that there are two tanks, both with 40 HP. Have one tank be a PLD and the other a WAR.

The WAR ends up having 50 HP ( that's 25% more than PLD.)

Both tanks are shot with an arrow that does 10 damage.

The WAR takes all 10 damage each time she is attacked. She will be defeated in 5 hits. (10 x 5 = 50)

The PLD only take 8 damage from each hit ( because of their 20% reduction bonus) but since they have 40 health, they will also fall in 5 hits ( 8 x 5 = 40)

Paladins require less healing to top off (I read somewhere that it was a small %,) and so warriors self healing is in place to offset that.

Both tanks hold hate just fine, so after this it boils down to defensive cooldowns. Between vengeance and inner beast, WAR should almost always have something ready in time for the big hits. Rage of Halone seems to reduce strength while Storms path reduces all damage, so maybe that's supposed to make up for Foresight's shortcomings in the magic defense department.

The tanks seem super close to me. Just gotta do something about Holmgang. I think its low cooldown is a perk. I'd be 100% happier if it had the range of provoke and if less enemies were immune to its snare though.

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Originally Posted by Sokerimuro

And to get it out of the way, yes tank DPS matters a whole lot! Many of the groups progressing in Final Coil make fine adjustments to the tank gear of OT and even MT, simply to squeeze a bit more damage out over the course of the fight to meet the DPS checks.

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There's a bit of a caveat to that, I think. Tank DPS is appearing to matter a lot for T11-13 because these are groups who are trying to progress through the Final Coil at lower gear levels than the content is technically tuned at. I think that if all of the DPS had i120 weapons, the Tanks likely wouldn't have to sacrifice as much mitigation to contribute more than they usually do. As the slower progressing groups up their ratios of Poetics gear, the DPS checks will ease off further. Once everyone's average gear level is between 120 and 130, Tanks will probably be able to go full mitigation again if they want without rendering the fights unwinnable.

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Originally Posted by Ceodore

so congratulations Warriors, you can do more damage even though you're a tank.

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If something is dead, it can't hurt you or your teammates, so yeah it is important.

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Originally Posted by Ceodore

So many people ignore the added fact that Paladins have a shield, while Warriors do not.

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Just like you are sort of glossing over WAR self-heals. PLD gets a shield and WAR gets self-heals, they are two niche abilities that add some decent survivability in different ways.

In the end, as I feel has been pretty well established at this point, the survivability of the two tanks is pretty much equal, with Holmgang being the only real exception.

I think you bring up a great point. The self healing is quite nice, and it would be better if it wasn't based on just % of damage delt, and actually benefited from their buff as well, but as it stands, it's kind of weak. You might find one Inner Beast to be worth maybe 1 tick of a well geared healer's Regen. And yeah, holmgang is such a sad thing. Equal, they might be close. I'd have to say this, a Warrior requires proper timing and skill, much more so than Paladins. An improperly timed skill makes all the difference. Like the healing from Inner Beast, if used too soon, means that they may over heal themselves. So essentially, what you're doing is taking on the job tank and minor healer. I'd say someone who is able to do this would make a great warrior, but an even better Paladin, as we don't really have to worry about performing two jobs at once, and can focus on just tanking. It's like specializations in the work place. It's great if you're good at everything, but that just means with the same effort, you could be better at one thing.

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Originally Posted by Donjo

There's a bit of a caveat to that, I think. Tank DPS is appearing to matter a lot for T11-13 because these are groups who are trying to progress through the Final Coil at lower gear levels than the content is technically tuned at. I think that if all of the DPS had i120 weapons, the Tanks likely wouldn't have to sacrifice as much mitigation to contribute more than they usually do. As the slower progressing groups up their ratios of Poetics gear, the DPS checks will ease off further. Once everyone's average gear level is between 120 and 130, Tanks will probably be able to go full mitigation again if they want without rendering the fights unwinnable.

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Yes, I like you. This ^ is why we are tanks. If I wanted to be a DPS, I'd play on my DPS classes. The whole, tanks need damage because of DPS race just means that your DPS just aren't good enough, and you need people who have better DPS. My job, first and foremost, is to make the lives of my healers easier. Tanks who sacrifice tools of their job in order to DPS should remember that a Healer in Cleric stance will always do more damage than you can. If the tank is really good too, you will only need one healer for a fight, meaning you can actually sacrifice a healing spot to bring a DPS. I believe it's safe to say that 1 dps will do a whole lot more damage than a dpsing tank.

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Originally Posted by Alphras

Did you really see the need to write such a wall of text? I don't see many people reading it.

You really need to get into your head that 20% damage reduction is interchangeable with the combination of 25% more hp and 25% more healing. It is exactly the same effect. So statements like "Defiance being slightly better with the HP pool increase" are just not correct.

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And you don't know what Defiance does apparently. It's not +25% healing, it's +20%. However, I must thank you for bringing my horrible oversight to my attention, if only inadvertently. Defiance is actually not better. It's worse. +20% healing is not interchangeable with -20% damage taken. Allow me to illustrate... or well, mathematate... Two tanks, one warrior, one paladin. Both have base HP of 4000. For a second, let's assume Defiance is just a +20% healing received buff. Both tanks take a hit that would normally be 1000 damage. A Paladin with Shield Oath would take 800 damage. A Warrior would take the full 1000 damage to the gobber. At this point, I'd like to recall my earlier statement of "+20% healing is an after the fact buff" Your healer, let's say, is really crappy, and can only heal 500 with their cure. The paladin recovers a flat 500 HP, meaning they are now at 3700 HP ((4000-800) + 500 = 3700) The Warrior gets the same heal from the same healer and it's now boosted to 600, meaning they are now at 3600 HP. So no, these buffs are not interchangeable. Even with the +25% hp, this buff is still lacking.

However, I must conceded to TouchandFeel on that the self healing is there to make up for this buff. But that's really it. There are a lot of things that Warriors have to do to make up for a buff that isn't on par with the Paladin's flat damage reduction. Then when you still take into effect that Paladin cooldowns are also stronger, plus they also parry and block, and I can cycle through the cooldowns and always have one up with no down time, you're really looking at two tanks, one with all the tools and skills for their job at their disposal, and another that comes off as a patch work job done on an attempt to make a class a hybrid of dps and tank. I've stated it before in other threads, but I suppose I didn't state it yet here. Paladins do not, I repeat, DO NOT, need to be reworked or made stronger in a dps aspect. Things that increase enmity, fine, Flash enmity increase was great, and it was a step in the right direction on a class that is well suited for the role as it is. I do believe though that Warriors need a serious rework and some more umph in the tanking department. Leave it to a Paladin to want the other tank class to be better equipped for their job.

Edit: Since I also see a lot of people complaining about Paladin damage, if it really matters so much, look at your cross class skills too. I use Foresight, Fracture, Bloodbath, Mercy Stroke, and Stoneskin. Keep Fracture up and use Circle of Scorn when you can. I say the same thing to DPS. Spread your DOTs around, you'll do more damage if you have DOTs up on more than one target than just placing the DOT on one target. Tunnel vision is the worst when it's not necessary.

Another Edit: In case people were wondering what the cycle for my Cooldowns I use are so I always have something up. Bloodbath+Fight or Flight 15s, Rampart 20s, Convalescence 20s, Foresight 20s, Awareness 25s, Bulwark 15s, Sentinel 10s, Bloodbath+Fight or Flight 15s, Rampart 20s, Convalescence 20s, Foresight 20s. This is the rotation used during mob pulls. It provides about 200 seconds of constant buffs during trash pulls, where doing extra things like casting Stoneskin is too difficult. During boss fights, I throw in Stoneskin in between each cooldown in order to 1. stretch the time between them out a little to cycle them together. Each stoneskin give me about 5 to 10 seconds of duration each. 2. Hey, at almost a 900 HP shield, it's something worth spending my MP on. and 3. Buttons are fun to press! That's what I want to bring to attention from an earlier post. If you're just mashing the same three buttons over and over, then you really aren't playing this class right, as I am sure the same isn't true for playing Warrior.

There is a 3-4% healing difference between WAR and PLD.

This isn't 2.0. WAR isn't built around self healing anymore. WAR mitigates damage, consistently, no matter what. For every big hit they will always have at least 1 CD to use. That's their thing.

Here is what PLD has that WAR doesn't:

1.) A -STR down debuff
2.) A shield
3.) A silence
4.) Stoneskin
5.) Hallowed Ground
6.) Sword Oath

Here is what WAR has that PLD doesn't:

1.) -10% Slashing Resist
2.) -10% Damage Dealt
3.) Higher damage in tank stance
4.) AOE damage that isn't just a DoT
5.) A NON RNG Shield in the form of Inner Beast
6.) An off the GCD tank stance (meaning you can start tanking or stop tanking without using a GCD)

There's other stuff, but you get the point. Both are fine where they are. They compliment eachother and make up for what the other one lacks. WAR does its job perfectly fine, PLD does its job perfectly fine. The only thing I could see that needs changing on either is Holmgang, only because Hallowed Ground is just such a powerful CD and Holmgang really doesn't compare nor does it bring something that HG doesn't.

Also, tank DPS matters. The entire point of tank DPS and maximizing it is that you don't sacrifice your tanking capabilities for your DPS. If you need more health for that particular encounter, you don't just say "screw it!" and wear full STR accessories. You trade VIT for STR as needed. If you are compromising your group's DPS or your healer's DPS, then you aren't optimizing your DPS correctly. It's not only important in world first progression, it's important for getting the turn over as quick as possible and dealing with less mechanics. That, in itself, is a form of mitigation. So don't just think because you're a tank you can slack on DPS, that same argument can be made for healers not DPSing because their primary job is to heal. If you aren't dead, and they aren't doing anything else, they should be DPSing. You have NO excuse because tanking and DPSing go hand in hand (you're going to have to hit the boss to tank it).

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Originally Posted by Ceodore

If I wanted to be a DPS, I'd play on my DPS classes ... My job, first and foremost, is to make the lives of my healers easier.

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Yes as a tank, your role is to keep your party from taking damage and to make the healer's job of keeping you alive easier, so again I point out a dead enemy cannot damage you or your team which contributes directly to your role as a tank, therefore the damage that a tank can do is very relevant to their role.
Should a tank forego the responsibilities of their role to try to just dish out big hits, of course not, but the damage that a tank can deal out while doing their job and how much that contributes to the success of their team is actually a big deal.

It is not just the responsibility of DPS to damage things and try to kill enemies as quickly as possible, it is everyone's because enemies dying faster contributes to the success of all the roles. A perfect example of this is a WHM going cleric stance and holy spamming a large group of enemies because by killing them faster it prevents more damage than they would have been able to heal if they focused solely on that. Sometimes the best way of reaching a goal is not the direct route.

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Originally Posted by Ceodore

Since I also see a lot of people complaining about Paladin damage, if it really matters so much, look at your cross class skills too. I use Foresight, Fracture, Bloodbath, Mercy Stroke, and Stoneskin. Keep Fracture up and use Circle of Scorn when you can. I say the same thing to DPS. Spread your DOTs around, you'll do more damage if you have DOTs up on more than one target than just placing the DOT on one target. Tunnel vision is the worst when it's not necessary.

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I use those too, as I am sure many other PLD do, but that still doesn't bring PLD in ShO damage close to WAR in Defiance damage. With WAR I consistently do around 20% more damage than with PLD, even more with the Storm's Eye debuff up. Some people may not think that is a big deal, but I think that it is.

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

Also, tank DPS matters. The entire point of tank DPS and maximizing it is that you don't sacrifice your tanking capabilities for your DPS. If you need more health for that particular encounter, you don't just say "screw it!" and wear full STR accessories. You trade VIT for STR as needed. If you are compromising your group's DPS or your healer's DPS, then you aren't optimizing your DPS correctly. It's not only important in world first progression, it's important for getting the turn over as quick as possible and dealing with less mechanics. That, in itself, is a form of mitigation. So don't just think because you're a tank you can slack on DPS, that same argument can be made for healers not DPSing because their primary job is to heal. If you aren't dead, and they aren't doing anything else, they should be DPSing. You have NO excuse because tanking and DPSing go hand in hand (you're going to have to hit the boss to tank it).

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Hit the boss, yes, and it may be just my view as someone who mains Paladin, since Warriors actually mitigate damage through self healing too from their DPS, but I've seen more bonus from being a better defense than offense. But as I said, Warriors benefit defensively from being better DPS than Paladins. If all the reason for me being a better DPS is to push mechanics faster, then I look to my DPS. The only time I will sacrifice my defensive aspects is when the fight is just flat out trivial(i.e. HM farms). Otherwise, the benefit of a little DPS increase that I get for sacrificing so much of my HP is just trivial.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

Yes as a tank, your role is to keep your party from taking damage and to make the healer's job of keeping you alive easier, so again I point out a dead enemy cannot damage you or your team which contributes directly to your role as a tank, therefore the damage that a tank can do is very relevant to their role.
Should a tank forego the responsibilities of their role to try to just dish out big hits, of course not, but the damage that a tank can deal out while doing their job and how much that contributes to the success of their team is actually a big deal.

It is not just the responsibility of DPS to damage things and try to kill enemies as quickly as possible, it is everyone's because enemies dying faster contributes to the success of all the roles. A perfect example of this is a WHM going cleric stance and holy spamming a large group of enemies because by killing them faster it prevents more damage than they would have been able to heal if they focused solely on that. Sometimes the best way of reaching a goal is not the direct route.

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I understand your point. It is quite valid, and I'm not going to say otherwise. I just feel that a loss of 1.5-2k points of my HP pool by changing trinkets is not worth it, especially when all I'll see with equivalent trinkets in DPS is about an increase of 50 in my attacks. I get that it adds up, but it's still a small amount in the scheme of things. About the only time I'm willing to do this are old fights. But, also, I feel this may be a difference in the styles of tanks. Warriors get more mitigation from more damage after all.

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Originally Posted by Ceodore

And you don't know what Defiance does apparently. It's not +25% healing, it's +20%. However, I must thank you for bringing my horrible oversight to my attention, if only inadvertently. Defiance is actually not better. It's worse. +20% healing is not interchangeable with -20% damage taken.

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Of course I know that (lol). I just pointed out how the damage reduction effect translates, since you did seem to think that the +25% HP and the 20% DR are somehow different in terms of eHP and that defense buffs scale differently on PLD and WAR.

Edit: But since you already know that, the statement "Defiance being slightly better with the HP pool increase" seems really strange to me.

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Originally Posted by Ceodore

I understand your point. It is quite valid, and I'm not going to say otherwise. I just feel that a loss of 1.5-2k points of my HP pool by changing trinkets is not worth it, especially when all I'll see with equivalent trinkets in DPS is about an increase of 50 in my attacks. I get that it adds up, but it's still a small amount in the scheme of things. About the only time I'm willing to do this are old fights. But, also, I feel this may be a difference in the styles of tanks. Warriors get more mitigation from more damage after all.

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The reason myself and others have brought up tank dps is the disparity between the two when in tank stance. We were not debating the pros and cons of creating a str/dps build tank, that is happening in other threads. Whether or not a slight dps increase for hp tradeoff through gear is justified will depend more on the individual tank, the content they are doing and the other players they are doing the content with.

I have a problem with the dps disparity because the two tanks, as of 2.1 have pretty much the same level of survivability, accomplished through different means but still equitable. So their defensive capabilities are on par with each other, but their offensive capabilities are not. Now since dps directly factors into the self-heal mitigation of a WAR, I don't want to see them nerfed in that respect. As I stated in a post earlier in this thread, what I would like to see is a damage buff to PLD that only affects them when they are in ShO, such as making Spirits Within ignore the ShO damage penalty just like Inner Beast does since those are the closest dps ability equivalents I could find between the two. Also something like the "porcupine" idea that was presented earlier in the thread would increase PLD tanks stance dps a bit while still staying very thematic to PLD.

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Originally Posted by Alphras

Of course I know that (lol). I just pointed out how the damage reduction effect translates, since you did seem to think that the +25% HP and the 20% DR are somehow different in terms of eHP and that defense buffs scale differently on PLD and WAR.

Edit: But since you already know that, the statement "Defiance being slightly better with the HP pool increase" seems really strange to me.

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You're right, and it was strange, and it was actually wrong, and quite the opposite. The buffs are actually unequal though, with Shield Oath being slightly better than Defiance. The +25% hp and the damage reduction were not what I was trying to compare, it was Defiance's +20 healing and Shield Oath's - 20% damage I was comparing, and quite inadequately comparing I might add, with a very wrong outcome in my comparisons.

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

Also, tank DPS matters. ... It's not only important in world first progression, it's important for getting the turn over as quick as possible and dealing with less mechanics. That, in itself, is a form of mitigation. So don't just think because you're a tank you can slack on DPS, that same argument can be made for healers not DPSing because their primary job is to heal. If you aren't dead, and they aren't doing anything else, they should be DPSing. You have NO excuse because tanking and DPSing go hand in hand (you're going to have to hit the boss to tank it).

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Let's make some numbers appear. You're in a high level instance, fighting a boss. You and your Co-Tank are running mitigation builds. Each of your DPS are putting out approximately 500 DPS. You and your Co-Tank are each putting out 200. Since you're beefy and survivable, both of your healers have many chances to throw DPS spells out. Let's say that they're each putting out 40 DPS, which takes into account misses.

This is a total of (500 x 4) + (200 x 2) + (40 x 2) = 2480 Party DPS.

Now, let's say that both you and your Co-Tank decide that you're surviving more than well enough in the fight, so you're going to go all in on STR. You both manage to increase your DPS by 10%. You're now both tossing out 220. However, your healers now need to work harder to keep you both alive. They can't DPS as much. They're now contributing 30 DPS to the fight each. The reality is probably lower, but let's highball them anyway.

This is a total of (500 x 4) + (220 x 2) + (30 x 2) = 2500 Party DPS.

Your efforts at stacking STR have increased your group's DPS by 0.8%. To this, I ask: How much faster will this really end the encounter? You'll end the fight 0.8% faster. You'll end trash fights that go for an average of 1 minute less than a second faster. But, bosses are what's important here. Let's take a 10 minute fight. You've ended the fight 4.8 seconds faster. However, fights these days are even longer than that. Let's go 13. It ends 6 seconds faster. So, yes. It adds up eventually. However, what you'll end up mitigating by missing those very few seconds is quite random. It could just be an autoattack. It could be the Tank Buster(tm). Or, it could be the actual Enrage mechanic of the fight. Some fights are indeed heavily scripted, but human performance is variable enough that you'll never finish a fight at an exact minute and second every time. So, that means that contributing 0.8% more damage to the group at the expense of more than 0.8% of your survivability for the purpose of mitigation has an element of uncertainty. Sort of like... Parry! You never know when a Parry is going to happen and you never know exactly what the boss would have done to you if it were alive for another 6 second. However, Parry can happen over the entire course of most fights but this only happens at the end. If your Parries in a fight would prevent an amount of damage equal to the amount of damage the boss would deal to you in 6 seconds, then it's smarter to use Parry than Strength. Regardless, defending this method of mitigation is, as I've said in a previous thread, hypocritical of the argument that Parry is not worth using.

But, no matter what, and this needs to be made absolutely clear, the benefit of the Tanks dealing 10% more damage each in the full party situations where you're deeming it most useful is so, so small in comparison to the survivability they lose that there is literally no reason to sacrifice so much survivability.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

I have a problem with the dps disparity because the two tanks, as of 2.1 have pretty much the same level of survivability, accomplished through different means but still equitable. So their defensive capabilities are on par with each other, but their offensive capabilities are not. Now since dps directly factors into the self-heal mitigation of a WAR, I don't want to see them nerfed in that respect. As I stated in a post earlier in this thread, what I would like to see is a damage buff to PLD that only affects them when they are in ShO, such as making Spirits Within ignore the ShO damage penalty just like Inner Beast does since those are the closest dps ability equivalents I could find between the two. Also something like the "porcupine" idea that was presented earlier in the thread would increase PLD tanks stance dps a bit while still staying very thematic to PLD.

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Yeah, I saw the porcupine thing. It's a good idea, but it doesn't really feel like a "Paladin" thing. What I would rather see is something more along the lines of a stacking consumable. I don't believe a buff is necessary, because Wrath already does that, and it would just feel like a copy cat skill. Here's my submission. Take away the Cooldowns on Spirits Within and Circle of Scorn. Instead, make them consume the stacking consumable. This will require a bit more maintenance on Spirits Within, since you will have to make a choice between either more DPS, or saving the stacks for the silence for an important mechanic. Leave the skills as off global cooldown still, since the balance is now the consumables. Also, leave the HP variance on Spirits Within. This would make it have some balance and not be overpowered when compared to Inner Beast, but also still strong.

Now, those changes would be a gross imbalance between Warriors and Paladins. So I'd like to see Warriors lose the global cooldowns on Inner Beast and Steel Cyclone, allowing them to be used between skills too.

So what you now have are two tanks with slightly similar, but at the same time very different mechanics. The people who want more tactical difficulty on Paladins get it, as now you can't just throw the silence out there without some work being put in first. It also means that both tanks have an AOE taunt skill of not so much equal power, but different capabilities. Warriors get their two most critical skills off the global cooldown, meaning Inner Beast can be used more often, resulting in a stronger self healing tank. Then, in exchange for self healing, they can do more AOE agro instead.

Also, take the combo interruption off of Overpower, but take away Flash as a cross class ability. (inb4 rage at loss of Flash) TP maintenance is and always has been an aspect of Warriors. It's time though to really separate these two tanks. Warrior should be more physical themed where Paladin should be more magical themed in their styles.

Edit: Call our stacking consumable something like Halone's Tears or something. And since warriors get a fancy swirling buff around them when they reach 5 stacks, I'd like to see glowy light wings! Purely for aesthetic purposes of course.

Another edit: Now, another aspect I was considering is the whole blocking thing. Since blocking is a pretty big part of our class mechanics. Instead of the buff just generating stacks based on skills used, have it generate a stack based on blocks, so long as Shield Oath is on. And whenever you get say 3 stacks, you can become "Blessed". This would greatly balance the skills based on the situation too. With mob pulls, you block more often, meaning you can use Circle of Scorn more for agro. However, I can see this being a draw back should the silence be needed on Spirits Within. But seriously, I'd give that up to use Rage of Halone more. That skill is pretty!

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Originally Posted by Donjo

Now, let's say that both you and your Co-Tank decide that you're surviving more than well enough in the fight, so you're going to go all in on STR. You both manage to increase your DPS by 10%. You're now both tossing out 220. However, your healers now need to work harder to keep you both alive. They can't DPS as much.

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

If you are compromising your group's DPS or your healer's DPS, then you aren't optimizing your DPS correctly.

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As an example:

Turn 5. Do you, as a PLD, need 8,000 HP to tank it without giving your healers heart attacks? No. You don't need that much HP. I'm going to go with a high number here because I've no idea what the actual HP threshold is for T5, but let's say you need about 7,000 HP to comfortably survive any DS + Crit Auto Attack. That is the maximum amount of HP you need for the turn, and the rest is essentially going to waste (no healer is going to be like "well, he's at 1,000 HP, I'll keep DPSing!"). So, what do we do with all that extra VIT? Throw it into STR, of course! See, the thing is, VIT actually has diminishing returns that vary from encounter to encounter. However, STR never actually hits a point where you have Too Much of it. That extra 1,000 HP is completely wasted because you're never going to sit at that HP after a big attack and not be healed up. I know a lot of people believe more HP = more healer DPSing, but that's just not how it works, especially not in this game where all the encounters are scripted and big attacks come on a timer.

So, even if the STR you gain only contributes as little as 0.8% group DPS, it's still better than a completely wasted chunk of VIT.

I personally feel that the stacking consumable just makes it feel and function too much like wrath stacks, which makes the tanks play more like each other which is something I would like to avoid.

I personally liked the porcupine idea and felt that it was very fitting for PLD because it directly plays off of blocking and the shield is the conceptual setpiece for PLD, that and it has the PLD attacking by defending which was something I brought up earlier as something I would like to see more of in the design of PLD abilities.

Mainly what I see as creating the dps disparities are as follows.
- WAR has attacks that ignore the Defiance damage penalty while PLD does not, with Inner Beast being the main contributor since it is used very often, hence my suggestion for Spirits to get the same and have that unnecessary "%hp reduces potency" part of it just removed.
- Maim can be kept up pretty much most of the time and it provides a nice dps boost, equivalent to what I would say Sword Oath gives PLD. Problem is that when both tanks are in their tank stance, PLD loses the benefits of Sword Oath while WAR can still have maim. That is why the porcupine idea is great imo, it provides that little bit of consistent extra dps like Sword Oath did, but is defensively themed. It is also separate from everything else so its numbers could easily be tweaked for balancing.
- The % slashing damage debuff for WAR. Yeah it can help both tanks when there is one of each in the group, but in 4-man content or solo-tanking it is a big bonus for the WAR and his party. That is why I suggested to finish off a 3-part combo from Riot Blade that has an effect like that, something like a % magic damage debuff or something that would make sense.

Pretty much I am trying to pinpoint where I feel the causes for the disparity come from and then come up with correlative ideas for fixes, not a complete and drastic change up of mechanics.

I feel the biggest problem with PLD is the mixed message developers send in regards to blind, stun and pacification. Sometimes these debuffs work, sometimes they do not but most of the time they don't. I think it would be better to have debuffs or buffs that always work instead of the ones PLD has now. When they aren't working it makes a lot of PLD skills become unnecessary. This makes the class feel even more simplified compared to warrior.

Also, I feel shield swipe feels weak since its tied to a secondary effect that doesn't work most of the time. Maybe it could ignore shield oath penalty? I dunno, just throwing something out there.

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

-Stuff-

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Umm, as someone who has had a lot of bad groups for T5, all the defense you can get is an understatement for this fight. I was sitting pretty at 8.5k HP without echo buff, with, I was clearing 10k, and even when going with warriors who were topping 12k (They wanted stun locks afterall) The warrior was still getting pummeled down to death with DS, and a few hits. The issue arose from TT's debuff from DS which reduced healing. Now, after completing it, I was sure it was an issue with the groups I had, cause the group I did it with only used one tank and one healer and it was murder. But that is a superb group of players, and it was only because the other tank, (A Paladin, they asked me to dps) went all out on defense. He was clear 10k hp, and all the same ilvl as my Paladin.

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Originally Posted by TouchandFeel

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I want my Circle of Scorn spam! :( It's so pretty! I will agree, that it does seem a little like Warrior's Defiance. Perhaps something that is catalytic. Here's another idea. If we block a target, the Circle of Scorn debuff will refresh on that target. I'd prefer this effect over a single high damage effect on a block, because it's something that lingers, and it gives you a time frame of, hey, better hope you block another attack from this target in 15 seconds, or you'll have to refresh Circle of Scorn, but people will still refresh it anyways because agro.

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

As an example:

Turn 5. Do you, as a PLD, need 8,000 HP to tank it without giving your healers heart attacks? No. You don't need that much HP. I'm going to go with a high number here because I've no idea what the actual HP threshold is for T5, but let's say you need about 7,000 HP to comfortably survive any DS + Crit Auto Attack. That is the maximum amount of HP you need for the turn, and the rest is essentially going to waste (no healer is going to be like "well, he's at 1,000 HP, I'll keep DPSing!"). So, what do we do with all that extra VIT? Throw it into STR, of course! See, the thing is, VIT actually has diminishing returns that vary from encounter to encounter. However, STR never actually hits a point where you have Too Much of it. That extra 1,000 HP is completely wasted because you're never going to sit at that HP after a big attack and not be healed up. I know a lot of people believe more HP = more healer DPSing, but that's just not how it works, especially not in this game where all the encounters are scripted and big attacks come on a timer.

So, even if the STR you gain only contributes as little as 0.8% group DPS, it's still better than a completely wasted chunk of VIT.

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0. This isn't terribly relevant, but a full i90 PLD focusing on mitigation had 7000 HP. Twintania still gave healers heart attacks at that HP.

1. When the big attacks are on a timer and that's the only time big damage comes out, the healer DPS opportunity is between the big attacks.. Having 1000-1500 extra HP in that situation is one more auto-attack that can be weathered before a heal is necessary, which is 1 extra DPS spell per cycle of the big attack. If the healer throws out said extra attack and deals 250 damage, that makes up for 62.5 seconds of you dealing 10 additional damage per attack. Being so tanky that your healers can comfortably provide more DPS provides more damage for the raid than forcing them to pay more attention to you will.

2. There is literally no such thing as wasted HP. Stop spreading this around. What happens if you're at the minimum and someone makes a mistake? The healers aren't going to toss a heal at them because they can't leave you alone for a second. That person dies. What happens if the healer(s) makes a mistake? You die. Your ability to survive isn't just about you surviving; it's about the entire party surviving. Any reduction to your HP is a direct reduction to their chances to survive should something go wrong. Any amount of HP that you consider to be wasted is a measure of your party's ability to screw up without wiping. No party is consistently perfect enough to make literally zero mistakes in the most stressful fights in the game. A comfortable one shot is always, always better than a risky potential one shot that will end 6 seconds faster.

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Originally Posted by Donjo

post

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0. This is a case of "really horrible healers". If you happen to have really horrible healers, then your max HP required goes up. If you don't have really horrible healers, what I said sticks.

1. Okay, let's take a real world scenario here, yeah? Let's say you're still a 7,000 HP PLD and you're still fighting Twintania. DS has happened, you've been healed up to full. At no point after this should you be dropping to 1,000 HP. Your healers aren't going to be like "ehhhh one more auto attack won't kill him!". Is this just straight up theorycraft world where the rules of actual encounters don't apply? Where all your HP is specifically to allow the healers to DPS during auto attacks and never ever touch you until the big hits come? Because that's sorta not how that works. Your healer is never going to let you drop low at the expense of DPS, because all that DPS goes to waste if you die and the party wipes. I feel like you have this.. like... concept in your mind that I'm talking about going stupid low on HP and then being like "WELL DA STR DOE???!11". Remember when you were talking about how world first groups want to pump out as much DPS as possible which is why (apparently) the tanks needed to pump out DPS too? Now, consider the following: a lot of the MTs in those groups (most if not all) used i90 Ruby accessories for T10, T11, and potentially even T12. T13 is obviously another story due to a higher HP check, especially during early progression, but eventually most MTs will be swapping to i90 Ruby. Off Tank BiS for early progression was also i90 Ruby accessories for every turn. Why is that? Why don't they wear i110 VIT accessories? Why aren't they using i120 or i130 ones? Why aren't they completely maxed out on HP? Why did everyone migrate to i110 STR accessories in SCoB or Ruby? Are you saying that everyone, but you and this other guy, are wrong? Is the popular method somehow incorrect despite providing results?

2. So, there's a few things wrong with this. Firstly, this is another scenario wherein your healers are bad which will, in fact, bump up the required HP for the fight. That sucks, because it also lowers your groups overall DPS and you're essentially forced to carry someone. If someone makes a mistake, as a tank, it is your job to pop a CD to compensate for the healing, not to just Have Extra Health on the off chance someone fucks up and the stars align so that you are at low HP AND a big attack that could kill you is coming up. Personally, this really really really low percent chance occurrence doesn't factor into how much HP I think I'll need for the encounter. If my healers suck and decide they want to DPS while letting me fall to 1,000 HP and there is some reason that the event you describe can occur, then yes, more HP would be better in that scenario because I'd be at 2,000 HP instead of 1,000 and would survive the... 1,000 damage attack that's coming up. Does this not sound completely ludicrous to you? Is it only me? Are healers out there just super bad or have I been blessed with the most incredible healers in all of Eorzea?

But yeah, if you want extra fluff HP because you're super paranoid that some event may happen wherein someone makes a mistake and this causes you to Outright Die, then that's fine. More HP definitely helps bad players, the Echo buff proves that. Sometimes even Echo can't help bad players. But y'know, if you and your healers are good, then converting that extra HP into STR is a good idea, at least in my opinion. I could be wrong but I reaaaaally don't think this argument of "IF EVERYONES BAD YOU NEED AS MUCH HP AS YOU CAN GET" sways me. I do agree with it, mind you, but that wasn't the scenario I was going for when I gave the T5 example. People can make mistakes, but if both the tank and the healer are competent, neither you nor that person will die. Again, the possibility of you being super low on health (shouldn't happen) + someone making a mistake (can and will happen more often than not) + both healers completely leaving you alone to heal the DPS (extremely unlikely) + the next attack that comes up after this string of events will outright kill you (see: previous parenthesis) + both healers are stuck in their GCD and the attack happens so fast that you die (uh) is such a low percentage that I couldn't give you it if I wanted to. You're clearly convinced that VIT 100% is the way to go, though, so I'll let you keep on trucking with that. If you'd like to get the last word in, feel free to, I'm personally done derailing this topic into STR's weight for a tank.

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

Stuff

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I am going to cut the middle ground here and say both of you are right, for all the right reasons you posted. If your raid IS talented and mistakes AREN'T going to happen, there is no reason why not to switch to strength. I've even said in my other posts that in fights where it's just too easy, I switch to strength trinkets. You are totally, 100% right, especially when you bring into the fact that a healer really should for the most part heal, because it's annoying when they try to switch Cleric Stance off and fail and wonder why their pitiful little 600 cure 2 isn't doing the job. So just let me DPS and don't worry about it.

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Originally Posted by Donjo

Stuff

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I am going to cut the middle ground here and say both of you are right, for all the right reasons you posted. If your raid ISN'T as talented and mistakes are LIKELY to happen, there is no reason to switch to strength other than a desire to watch the boss futt buck the rest of your raid. I've even agreed with you in previous posts that a tank who goes with more defense can't go wrong. You are totally, 100% right, especially when you bring into the fact that a healer can dps, or on some fights, you can just take 1 healer and more dps instead. The healer that doesn't have to heal you for a little bit can even switch into Cleric Stance and dps, as long as they properly switch back and heal when things start to get critical. This way I can take let them DPS and not have to worry about it.


So, kiddies, in the end, what have we learned? Take a swap of trinkets, this way you won't be a one trick pony.

Just posting to bump this thread a bit, as the discussion is in my opinion relevant and should not die out. Paladin as a class is fine, but it could use a tweak or two, mainly in the dynamic section.

Also, lets get back on track, as the thread derailed into pseudo-TankDPS thread (which still in the end is a relevant discussion, just not on this thread mayhaps) ;)

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Originally Posted by Sokerimuro

Just posting to bump this thread a bit, as the discussion is in my opinion relevant and should not die out. Paladin as a class is fine, but it could use a tweak or two, mainly in the dynamic section.

Also, lets get back on track, as the thread derailed into pseudo-TankDPS thread (which still in the end is a relevant discussion, just not on this thread mayhaps) ;)

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Yeah, I stopped when that was directly mentioned. The person I was arguing with also mostly directly called all VIT Tanks bad players as well, which was just too much flame fuel to dare trying to light. The DPS Tank paradigm is more effective on WAR than PLD anyway, so what the hey.

Of the arguments actually introduced in this thread in favor of changing PLD, adding enmity to CoS and increasing the potency of Flash(again) were the only ones that have made it in so far. Guess SE is keeping our niche/situational skills exactly that.

I would like to see a couple changes.

1. Spirits Within: Instead of Silencing, it restores x% of MP. I'd vote for 25%.
2. Blocking/Parry has a 15% chance reset the cooldown on Circle of Scorn.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Aujin

I would like to see a couple changes.

1. Spirits Within: Instead of Silencing, it restores x% of MP. I'd vote for 25%.

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Warriors have a skill like this already, rather see something more original. Spirits Within applies HOT, or removes the 20% damage reduction from Shield Oath for 5 seconds. I'd prefer the removal or the damage reduction.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Aujin

2. Blocking/Parry has a 15% chance reset the cooldown on Circle of Scorn.

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It's a nice idea to reapply the DOT, probably a simpler system than what I suggested earlier about whenever you block a target's attack, if they have Circle of Scorn DOT on them, it gets refreshed on that target.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ceodore

removes the 20% damage reduction from Shield Oath for 5 seconds.

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Well this is kinda meh as it would only affect for 2 skills 3 at tops depending SS, i like the silence even tho its pretty situational at best. Riot and Shield Swipe are really the only skills that could use some tweaking, swipe is already awesome when its debuff works but too bad it doesnt work on content where you really need it.

Interesting ideas. My fav. is Shield swipe off GCD and potential for flash as a combo — Seems fun.