Current/Upcoming War changes and current tanks, let's talk about that.

[Paikis]

So in Patch 2.1 from what I see, PLD is getting ZERO changes while every other class is?

Maybe I am wrong so maybe someone can inform me if any changes are for PLD in 2.1?

Be thankful. If PLD were to be changed, right now they would be getting nerfs.

[AurickSchiffer]

Be thankful. If PLD were to be changed, right now they would be getting nerfs.

Maybe some reduced Cool Downs lol... Aww man, well thanks anyway for at least that, Guess that clarifies my answer... but also doesn't awareness have a bug that healers can't crit heal you either with it on? (Not sure if it was fixed, don't really use it)

[Paikis]

Yeah, that's a bug fix rather than a change. I do think that needs to be fixed though.

[AurickSchiffer]

Well that is cool, I really would have enjoyed any upgrade to a PLD but it's all good, I have a Level 50 DRG and PGL thanks anyway Paikis!

[PiedPiper]

Sorry, but this doesn't make sense, at least not without absolute perfect timing and a fair amount of luck. Not to mention that Bulwark won't always mitigate, and Convalescence does very little on its own if you get one-shotted, or take a quick combo. Warrior WILL have a more steady source of mitigation towards Death Sentence, however whether or not it will balance up Paladin's overall better mitigation I don't know.

When discussing Twin, I feel we can both agree its fair to assume any tank seriously attempting the fight will be pretty well geared (7+ i90 pieces). At that level a pld and war will both have pretty high ehp. For reference I have 6781 hp, 579 parry, and 368 str (placing me in the next parry tier) at only 10/13 i90.

I did explicitly state that conv only works if you already have enough max hp to avoid being one shot out right. Which.. well regardless of class you kinda need that to reliably tank any fight. I did point out that conv does pair with scholar to help increase your ehp before the hit. Also, the most dangerous part of death sentence isn't the hit itself, its the debuff that follows it (as this makes it difficult for healers to replenish your hp). Conv directly counters this debuff, trivializing DS into little more than an ambitious mountain buster.

Because all hits against a paladin are checked for a parry, and if that fails then checked for block, having bulwark up amounts to an extremely high chance to either parry or block the hit. Even should you fail to block the DS itself, odds are heavily in your favor to block the hits surrounding the DS. In this respect, bulwark is a powerful and reliable cool down (After all, a block is actually stronger than rampart at this gear level as you will block for 27%+ and parry for 24%+). Anecdotally, in our month on twin, I have yet to fail to block a DS when bulwark was up (as you already have a very high chance to block with i90 shield).

As to the timing... its not really that bad. If you get the timing correct on the first cycle, all you need to do is use them almost as soon as they come back up as you will already be in line with her attack pattern. Just because something is hard doesn't mean we can't expect it to be done.

One thing in warrior's favor: IB will be much easier and more forgiving to ensure you have it up for every death sentence. Its short duration, however, will make even small timing mistake quite costly as well as mean that most of the time you are under the effect of infirmity you will be taking full damage hits. Again, the danger on DS is the difficulty in returning your health to full, not so much surviving DS itself (normally you will die to the first few hits after ds, not just ds as the healers struggle to catch up).

I could be wrong on this point: I read someone else's math, and did not check it, but my understanding is that if you assume both IB and rampart are used absolutely as quickly as possible, over time, rampart does end up with a slightly higher up time. My intuition is that IB might have slightly better up time, but that it will be quite close. In either case, IB will not make up for the 4.5% healing advantage that shield oath has versus defiance.

[Leiron]

Be thankful. If PLD were to be changed, right now they would be getting nerfs.

I do not see a reason to nerf Paladin.

[Paikis]

I do not see a reason to nerf Paladin.

Well you wouldn't. However the Devs do:

A:
Warrior
We're hearing a lot of talk saying that warrior is weak compared to paladin, but there are a couple of points I'd like to go over, so I'll go over them one by one.

First, I'd like to talk about the boss monsters in the Binding Coil of Bahamut Turn 1 and 4. We designed them so that even tanks could not withstand their attacks when they have buffs stacked; however, at the moment only paladin is able to survive through a method we had not thought of. Our original vision for this was that players would clear these encounters by properly removing enemy buffs or kill them all before it got to the point where they would one-shot players.

Since this is content that has already been released and strategies have already been established, we won't be making adjustments to these encounters. Instead we'll be looking into making adjustments to warrior so they can withstand this like paladin is able to.

[Leiron]

I really like how you take the devs at their word.
Paladin is able to survive through a method we had not thought of.

What was this mysterious method?
Using their cooldowns?
There was no method they didn't think of, they did faulty testing. Which is the same thing they did with Absolute Virtue and Pandemonium Warden.
Unless you believe that the community of FFXI could not find the "right' strategy in all the time PW was around, and was only killed the "right" way after a level cap bump.

Don't try to suggest that WAR is in their rightful place or that PLD's were overpowered.
WAR's were horribly underpowered, and while it might be a shock to your pride, they needed to be changed from the get go.

[Paikis]

I really like how you take the devs at their word.
Paladin is able to survive through a method we had not thought of.

What was this mysterious method?
Using their cooldowns?
There was no method they didn't think of, they did faulty testing. Which is the same thing they did with Absolute Virtue and Pandemonium Warden.


Don't try to suggest that WAR is in their rightful place or that PLD's were overpowered.
WAR's were horribly underpowered, and while it might be a shock to your pride, they needed to be changed from the get go.

WARs are fine as is and Paladin is overpowered. I also think I am in a much better position to say this than you are. God forbid you have to actually get some gear to tank the last fight in the game, instead of being able to do it in full Darklight. I still think they should have just nerfed PLD.

[Leiron]

WARs are fine as is and Paladin is overpowered.

Okay and where is your justification?
I just illustrated that the statement made by the dev is full of holes.

I also think I am in a much better position to say this than you are.

Thinking isn't your forte if this is what you believe.
Experiencing the content does not beat out mathematical data.
You can't "magically" beat math when that is what the game is at its core.
And you're not doing anything to support your argument besides state "I've completed t5."
That's not an argument, that isn't evidence, thats just you trying to desperately to avoid having your fault argument made even more obvious.

God forbid you have to actually get some gear to tank the last fight in the game, instead of being able to do it in full Darklight.

Except that the gear that should have been there, which was Crystal Tower gear Could not be obtained.

I still think they should have just nerfed PLD.

They didn't nerf Paladin because Paladin didn't need to be nerfed.
It was in a position that was good, because it would constantly scale with the encounters.
WAR did not, which means that even if they chose to leave things alone, WAR would have continued to fall further and further behind as encounters became more and more damage intensive.
That is just the reality.