Defiance still lacking in comparison to Shield Oath

[Hachiko]

I find it confusing that people are arguing PAL CD's are actually worse than WAR CD's.

Paladins have unequivocaly better CD's.

20% damage reduction
40% damage reduction
60% bonus block
Invulnerability
30% healingreceived
20% increased defense
25% physical damage to HP

(and that's not counting awareness).

War CD's have better uptime for them. But the problem is they aren't remotely as effective. Bulwark is leaps and bounds ahead of bloodbath which just ends up being ~600-800 healing over 30 seconds at best.

The biggest issue is, imo, if you look at everything a WAR gets from 40 to 50, and everything a PAL gets from 40-50, the discrepancy is huge.

WAR's get too many relatively worthless skills: Holmgang, Steel Cyclone, Improved Maim, and Vengeance. It's just too many skills which do nearly nothing to help you tank at all, or really do anything else for that matter. WAR caps out on defensive CD's at about level 34/44. PAL get them all the way to 50.

It's not even just about the fact that paladins have stronger damage reduction. They have far stronger mitigation overall because of the way WAR skills fall off at 40. If Any of our skills past 40 had any defensive use whatsoever (even self healing) it would probably be more even.

Ultimately there is no real excuse for having as many blatantly worthless skills as WAR's have.

[Kitru]

Paladins have unequivocaly better CD's.

Except that 2 of those that you mention are MAR additionals that they get. You're also, once again, forgetting about the uptime issue. Just because they're really strong while they're up doesn't mean that they're *better*. That's the mistake that people keep making. WAR CDs are lower effect but usable more often and last longer. PAL CDs are amazing while they're up, but they can't be used nearly as often. The argument that the PAL CDs are somehow better only works when you completely ignore the actual advantage that the WAR CDs are designed to utilize.

[Hachiko]

That's the mistake that people keep making. WAR CDs are lower effect but usable more often and last longer. PAL CDs are amazing while they're up, but they can't be used nearly as often. The argument that the PAL CDs are somehow better only works when you completely ignore the actual advantage that the WAR CDs are designed to utilize.

It does mean they're better. You keep talking about uptime, but the biggest boon to uptime for WAR is Bloodbath which is easily the least effective defensive cd in the game. You don't get to say "it lasts for 30 second! Huge uptime!" when it's really only about 30 healing per second. It is outshined significantly by Inner Beast for example. It's a decent skill for maintain. But it's 100% no replacement for an actual defensive cooldown. It doesn't help you survive burst damage, and it only really helps with prolonged sustained damage over time.

You ask any experienced main tank what they would rather have: 40% damage reduction for 10 seconds or 20% damage reduction for 20 seconds, every decent main tank will go for 40% reduction for 10 seconds. Efficacy matters more than uptime in almost every situation. With the way damage works in this game, where you can avoid many AOEs, it makes the more powerful short duration CD's even better.

WAR don't need to have equivalent CD's to PAL at at all. But it's silly to not recognize that WAR's biggest weakness is our CD's when it comes to tanking.

[Kitru]

You ask any experienced main tank what they would rather have: 40% damage reduction for 10 seconds or 20% damage reduction for 20 seconds, every decent main tank will go for 40% reduction for 10 seconds. Efficacy matters more than uptime in almost every situation.

Except that we're not just looking at half of the duration with double the effect. The bigger consideration is actually the CD. PAL CDs are *all* longer than their effective match for a WAR.

Any main tank worth its salt would also rather have an ability with a 5 second duration on a 45 sec CD as opposed to a 10 second duration with a 90 sec CD. People keep ignoring the fact that the WAR CDs come back *way* faster than the PAL ones.

Also, a CD is only useful insofar as it lets you survive the situation for which you need it. If it's overkill for the given situation, you're not getting anything appreciably useful out of it. The WAR CDs are enough to keep a WAR alive through the "oh shit" situations that the CDs are needed for, and they can be used for *more* of those situations throughout the course of a fight as well as be used more readily because you're not having to weigh against future need nearly as much. Yes, you'll take more damage while they're active, but survival is the thing that matters.

Once again, I'm not saying that the PAL CD suite is worse than the WAR CD suite. They are simply *different*. The PAL CD suite is high value, low use rate. The WAR CD suite is comparatively low value with high use rate. A WAR that knows how to leverage those CDs (especially by stacking CDs) can do wonders with them. It's all about knowing how to utilize the tools given to you rather than expecting the tools to behave in exactly the same way just because you want them to.

[Sephirah]

I'm not saying that the PAL CD suite is worse than the WAR CD suite. They are simply *different*. The PAL CD suite is high value, low use rate. The WAR CD suite is comparatively low value with high use rate. A WAR that knows how to leverage those CDs (especially by stacking CDs) can do wonders with them. It's all about knowing how to utilize the tools given to you rather than expecting the tools to behave in exactly the same way just because you want them to.

Agreed.

[Duelle]

You ask any experienced main tank what they would rather have: 40% damage reduction for 10 seconds or 20% damage reduction for 20 seconds, every decent main tank will go for 40% reduction for 10 seconds. Efficacy matters more than uptime in almost every situation. With the way damage works in this game, where you can avoid many AOEs, it makes the more powerful short duration CD's even better.

This is very true. If damage were completely unavoidable like in older games, you could argue that WAR and PLD's mitigation and self-healing balance each other out over the same period of time. Problem is, a good chunk of damage can be avoided by not standing in the fire, which notably increases the value of cooldowns that are therefore useful in high damage situations.

Enhanced Mercy Stroke and Enhanced Fracture kinda rub me the wrong way. Fracture isn't that useful. Yeah sure it's a dot, but I don't feel it really adds anything special.

I'd go the Rend route and tie some sort of benefit to threat or mitigation while Fracture is up on the mob.