My Opinion on why WAR is the superior Tank.

[ZDamned]

... As much as you'd like to just call people 'bad' for not healing enough, stuff happens. If stuff didn't happen, we would all be 1 shotting all of Coil. Your example of a DPS switching to a class and grabbing provoke is ridiculous, and not even close to the scenario of PLD with Stoneskin.

It really sounds like you should be playing a DPS the way you are prioritizing your fights.

Are you honestly saying that in Turn 6, your focusing on your party's HP so much to the point that your Paladin understands when healers are preoccupied and he has to cast stone skin on someone himself? Because that's just unrealistic in a fight that is clearly a DPS race with how most of the community chooses to clear it. There isn't much damage going out to the DPS, unless THEY screw up themselves. What people seem to be proposing is carrying bad players, instead of fixing up bad player skill.Your in essence reinforcing bad habits by allowing people to take unnecessary damage.

And I do what I can to make my raid efficient. When an enrage timer is strict, the entire group needs to be at their best to beat the encounter. Turn 7 will wipe the entire group at 11 minutes in 1 shot. So taking anyone off DPS is a terrible idea.

Paladin Stone Skin on a DPS is a barrier of at best 500 damage. IF a DPS is in danger of taking enough damage to both be totally expended of their entire HP bar of 4800~ that they need the extra SS, then clearly they are doing something wrong, or your healers are not keeping them topped.

The only fight where DPS can take unexpected damage in excess of their entire HP bar is in T6 when they have the Honey de-buff, and have to get devoured. Once they are spit out, it's very possible that they can get Swiped hard, but there is absolutely 0 damage going out on anyone once he starts his Vine/Devour/Spit combo, so there is plenty of time to Stone Skin that person before he is eaten with an 18% shield from a WHM.

[Dhex]

Tactical off-tank Paladin Stoneskin saves MP/Enmity/DMG for yourself, your main-tank, and the party as a whole.

In a straight race my iL92/3 PLD barely outpaces my iL92/3 WAR on damage in initial short spurts, WAR gaining DPS advantage overtime **expending Wrath carelessly and immediately coupled with Berzerk can obviously overcome PLD Fight or Flight advantage but there is no reason to do so; in fact I'd consider that a very bad move. So yeah WAR gets higher DPS but that's not entirely relevant to tanking or utility within a party dynamic.

I would say they are equal when you get into functional and actual situations - PLD being easier to off-tank as with utilities like Stoneskin; Cover and it's assortment of defensive cool-downs that can be blanketed onto either the main-tank or a healer make it invaluable in critical situations. PLD has the ability to apply two important debuffs (STR Down & Blindness) in most encounters. In most fights a PLD can dance in and out of Shield/Sword Oath based on the phase and the nature of incoming attacks to increase DPS while minimizing need for incoming healing. A Paladin in Sword Oath will outpace damage of a WAR in Defiance but won't over take them on enmity - and is still able to support the party while doing so.
I think people also underestimate the boost Shield Block + Shield Swipe can give a PLD in a tight situation. It's very effective use of TP for high returns even without the Pacification effect landing on the target. PLD also tends to have high Critical itemization.


WAR has a more complex play style but it's raw damage advantage (as it were) is gated by Wrath mechanics (Crit building), Defiance's reduction (also HP loss), or buff expenditure (Unchained/Berserk) and banking on Crits. Dropping out of Defiance obviously gives you a higher DPS output - but you lose HP by doing so and swapping back into a tanking stance will require healer's attention. Aside from a slight raw DPS increase you contribute a single debuff and nothing else to the survival of the party. WAR's "on demand" burst mitigation is very easy to work with and it's overall survival over time is tremendously boosted by a PLD off-tank backing them up with Stoneskin. Add a blind from flash coupled with Feather foot, and Path coupled with Rage of Halone and you'd got a very high functioning tanking duo on a very fundamental level.


There is really no reason to claim one is superior to the other - because it will never be true in all aspects. They work best when paired.