My Opinion on why WAR is the superior Tank.

[ZDamned]

Tank DPS IS important, but in regards to PLDs ONLY there are some fights where your DPS in very important (In Levi X I switch to sword oath and rotate CDs during spumes to get them down faster), but in some fights (most often occuring in progression runs) damage mitigation may be much more valuable (a life-saving stoneskin prevents a DPS from eating dirt. A dead DPS is going to be a much greater DPS loss than me using Rage of Halone once). I recall stone-skin spamming the Bard while feeding slimes in T1 back when the bard had like 3600 hp.

If a Paladins SS is what saved his life, then your healers are the problem with clearing content, not your mitigation.

[Ehayte]

If a Paladins SS is what saved his life, then your healers are the problem with clearing content, not your mitigation.

Not the point #strawman

[Menae]

Time to ignore a lot of fluff here.
Tanking is tanking, and DPS is DPS like Kitru said.
If were looking at the game objectively, the best way to help your group is to kill the boss as fast as possible. (T6) So Tank DPS is important. End of Story. (Not Stone Skin, not Cure, Shield Swipe, and Attacks)
Warriors are likely more than 10% higher on DPS than a Paladin in Sword Oath.

My latest test in ilvl 96 DPS Accessories on my Paladin yielded 245 DPS in Sword Oath.
My Warrior is ilvl 90 was able to achieve 230 DPS in full Tank gear. (Defiance off)

Its worth noting that with a Warrior in the party, my test would have been higher because of Storms Eye, but I have not tested that yet on a training dummy to see how high my Paladin can go.

Just be careful not to eliminate healer dps. Healers get much better returns when they DPS than tanks do; if you don't have a whm and casting stoneskin means your scholar doesn't have to use a GCD for healing, it might be a dps gain to cast it yourself.

Like we've said, dps is dps. That also means that healing is healing.

[ZDamned]

The TANK being required to cast Stone Skin is indicative of a bad player in your party who you are being forced to pick up slack for, IF you are being forced to Stone Skin your party members as a Paladin. What if you ran Double Warrior? Do you plan your raid configurations for having that Paladin in there in order to heal once enmity is generated? I don't think so.
White Mage DPS is very inefficent, so they will run out of MP in tough Coil Encounters, and there is honestly no situation in which a Paladin should be required to stop DPSing in order to cast Stone Skin on a DPS class.

I can relate this to asking a Damage Dealer to swap over to his Class, and Pick up Provoke when the Main Tank is low on HP. Noone would do that, because it's not the DPS class's Job to do so in a raid.

I'm not saying healers can't DPS, but that they should be more focused on keeping everyone alive. If we use T6 for example, the WHM is going to keep Aero 2 up, but other than 1 GCD, they will be non stop AOE healing until the boss dies. Palaidn Stone Skin won't help AT ALL, EVER in that case.

[Traek]

The TANK being required to cast Stone Skin is indicative of a bad player in your party who you are being forced to pick up slack for, IF you are being forced to Stone Skin your party members as a Paladin.

...

I can relate this to asking a Damage Dealer to swap over to his Class, and Pick up Provoke when the Main Tank is low on HP. Noone would do that, because it's not the DPS class's Job to do so in a raid.

I don't think anyone is saying PLD should be 'forced' to stoneskin. Anytime I see an OT PLD stoneskinning people at opportune moments, I know they are 99% of the time an awesome player. 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.

[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.

[cearka]

3. Damage
The highest hit I've done so far on WAR is 966 with an Inner Beast, and that can still go higher

gods yes. I usually break 1200 on IB and Butcher's block if I crit it with all buffs up. It's delicious.

that aside, I don't think I can say warrior is a better or worse tank as they both tank really differently. I would definitely say warrior is the more "fun" tank. Tanking aside, Warrior is fun period. Paladin is super borrrrrriiiinnnng. It's like if you had two uncle's teaching you somethin' and one uncles all pedantic and textbooky (paladin) and the other one's all like "screw it! flip a table! feel it with your gut! ok you got it lets go get some ribs" (Warrior)

[bokchoykn]

I'm with Kitru and ZDamned on this one.

Tank DPS is very important and only good tanks seem to realize this. A tank should maximize his DPS, just like a DPS should maximize his DPS, as long as it doesn't come at a crippling compromise to his survivability or anything else.

There is no fight in the game where Paladin Stoneskin is important. You probably want to Stoneskin between phases if the boss jumped/teleported/whatever and there's nothing to hit, just because there's nothing better to do. Aside from that, the circumstances where a Paladin should cast Stoneskin is extremely few and far between. Casting Stoneskin comes at a direct compromise to tank damage. Also, a Paladin cannot Block or Parry while casting Stoneskin.

There are exceptions to every rule, and there might be obscure situations where clutch PLD Stoneskin is the best thing for the party, but for the most part it is not as valuable as the DPS he could have been doing instead.

If I saw a Paladin Stoneskinning people mid fight, I would assess the situation and ask myself "Was there a point to that at all?" and if there wasn't, I'd probably question the Paladin's decision making and his understanding of his own class.

[Kitru]

There is no fight in the game where Paladin Stoneskin is important.

I'll agree that there aren't any where it's *important*, but I'll qualify that by saying that there are plenty where it's useful and doesn't come at the cost of DPS (at least, not much). On any fight where there is a tank spot, the point when the other tank is pulling off of the PLD is a great time for the PLD to toss a stoneskin or two on the other tank since it lets them contribute without generating much aggro and threatening to rip aggro away due to a lucky crit. The same could be said for any enforced empty GCDs, such as when the primals are doing their ultimates.

If the PLD is actually tanking something, however, I don't see any reason for them using Stoneskin outside of some *very* rare situations (boss is nearly dead and healers are low because of death/oom; spamming stoneskin on yourself can actually keep you alive for a surprisingly long time). A PLD also shouldn't be using Stoneskin if the group's WHM is actually tactically applying Stoneskin (which a good WHM will do).

Because of this, stoneskinning on a PLD is something I'm ambivalent about because it can either be indicative of a PLD making excellent use of the skill or just wasting time. I generally withhold judgment until I can suss out the situation and whether we need a bit more survivability or damage.