My Opinion on why WAR is the superior Tank.

[bokchoykn]

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.

Yeah, exactly.

I think Turn 7 was used as an example earlier in this thread. To me T7 isn't a DPS race. It's a battle of attrition. At some point, a good Paladin might decide "Okay, we're stable now but my WHM is running on fumes. My SCH has Cursed Shriek and needs to hide. My WAR just picked up the Lamia Prosector. At this point, we're much more likely to wipe due to a dead tank than lack of damage. I'm gonna pop some CDs and Stoneskin Spam the Warrior."

[bokchoykn]

I think the reason people think that WAR is so much greater than PLD in damage is that WAR can push larger bursts than PLD. Berserk/Unchained/Maim/Storms Eye/Internal release is not something a PLD can compete with for burst phase damage. In reality their damage output over time is comparable...but the burst-y nature of Warrior damage makes it a bit more visible.

Warrior's DPS advantage over Paladin is no illusion. People have parsers, remember? The results are very conclusive.

Warriors do slightly more damage than Paladins when in tanking stance. Warriors do slightly more damage than Paladins when in damage stance.

Where Warrior DPS really pulls ahead of Paladins' is in situations where they have to swap between the stances:

• Warriors have Unchained, allowing them to ignore the damage penalty in Defiance for 20 seconds. The uptime on this ability is 20s duration / 120s cooldown or 16.6%. When two tanks are swapping back and forth and splitting the tanking duty 50/50 (eg. Turn 6, Titan EX), the implied uptime on this ability is doubled to 33.3%. When the Warrior is off-tanking and is only required to be in Defiance some of the time (eg. Turn 7, Turn 9), the implied uptime on this ability can be substantially higher.
  
  
• Warriors don't lose GCD's for changing stances. Paladins lose two GCD's: One for Sword Oath, one for Shield Oath. Warriors don't have their combos interrupted by changing stances. Paladins do.
  
  
• Warriors have Fracture and the Maim combos, giving them low-enmity options for when the Paladin has Provoked or is about to Provoke. This is allowing them to continue to DPS interrupted without fear of ripping aggro back from the Paladin. Paladins need to worry about hitting Halone just as the Warrior Provokes. They either have to pause DPS or use Riot Blade.

So, the minor advantages they have when tanking and when not tanking becomes a huge advantage when they frequently switch between the two. If you've done your testing on dummies, you'll conclude that their damage output is "comparable". In actuality, the difference is very, very significant.

[IndigoHawk]

People are comparing paladin to war dps, instead of tank to healer or actual dps.

Tank dps is the worst dps. Maximizing the worst dps doesn't make sense unless there is nothing better to do. Instead, maximize dd dps, followed by healer dps.

Tank dps matters when establishing threat, but beyond that, it's low priority.

Stoneskin is pretty handy for OT. Maybe not for super elite groups or whatever, but pretty much any fight where healers have to move can provide an opportunity for PLD to OT Stoneskin. It's also handy if healers are getting behind. Throw on some SS to ease up the pressure.

Or let's say a dps just died ... SS the MT a couple times. That gives healers more time to deal with the problem that just popped up without having to worry about the MT health as much. And getting up an actual dps more smoothly or keeping a situation from getting worse is more useful than doing a tiny amount of extra dps.

[Kitru]

Instead, maximize dd dps, followed by healer dps.

Maximizing tank DPS is not mutually exclusive with maxing the DPS of the other 2 roles. That's the problem with the argument you're positing (and that other people have posited time and time again). It's not as it 30 DPS from a tank counts for less than 30 DPS from a healer or DPS. It matters the exact same amount. As long as you're maintaining your survivability, if you're not maxing your DPS as a tank, you're not contributing as much as you could be.

[Traek]

Yeah, exactly.

I think Turn 7 was used as an example earlier in this thread. To me T7 isn't a DPS race. It's a battle of attrition. At some point, a good Paladin might decide "Okay, we're stable now but my WHM is running on fumes. My SCH has Cursed Shriek and needs to hide. My WAR just picked up the Lamia Prosector. At this point, we're much more likely to wipe due to a dead tank than lack of damage. I'm gonna pop some CDs and Stoneskin Spam the Warrior."

Lol, this was the whole point of the comment. You guys are trying to blanket statement things that simply aren't true. There is plenty of situations a stoneskin can cushion healing required, save a tank/DD/healer or help with MP starved healers. Granted the new Coil bosses don't lend themselves to it quite as much, but looking at old content with fights like Ifrit EX, you could literally spam Stoneskin on the other tank during his stacks and be incredibly helpful to the healers. T5 had plenty of situations where you can at least mitigate some autoattacks/plummets to help with the impending death sentence. Not to mention a WHM moving for liquid hells and whatever else there might be.

My point being, if you can tactfully mitigate heavy incoming damage, you should. Blaming healers for not being perfect, while they are most likely picking up others imperfections is rather silly. Your zomgl33tdps PLD can take a 3 second cast to keep the run moving smoothly. No one is talking just random casting stone skin for the hell of it all across the party.

[Ehayte]

Times for a PLD to use a stoneskin:

- DPS dies during fight and there is about to be an AE. "DPS shouldn't die," No, but if you are telling me you have never died when you shouldn't have, you are a dirty, dirty, dirty liar. A PLD using this ability could save a fight.

- Healers are under duress (yes, it is certainly possible to identify that from knowing the fight and looking at the party's HP) and there is about to be a lot of dmg coming in on you, the MT (if its not you), a targeted DPS char, a targeted healer, etc. Stoneskin not only prevents damage being done on an overall basis, but it front-loads mitigation, allowing extra time for a heal to go off during consistent damage phases. Its not so much that it prevents 600 dmg, its the fact that it prevents the FIRST 600 dmg, allowing that extra bit of time for a heal to finish casting.

- Nothing to do (jumps, phase chases) obviously.

- Tank swaps: This was brought up, but stoneskin is excellent for tank swaps. It allows you to flat-line your enmity production (for the most part), in additional to provided a useful service to the group in dmg mitigation on the new tanks. This is even more useful given the fact that the healers might have been focusing on you, or the tank swap happened with you at low hp, so they might want to finish that Physik before looking at the new tank, Stoneskin can really smooth out that transition.

- And yes, it can be used to help carry shitty players (to a small degree). Or a buddy who is having a bad day. Or a new player trying to get into the game. It just demonstrates that the player playing PLD is wise enough to recognize a situation in which it might help, regardless of who you are casting it on or if you are carrying someone or trying to help someone less skilled stay alive. It has nothing to do with the fact that that person shouldn't be getting hit. They are, so what are you gonna do about it? Laugh and /em spit on them? Or try to rise above and be an exceptional player? If everyone only played with other players that were perfect at their class, you'd basically be playing a single player game : D

Stone Skin is a PLD's most useful progression skill, imo (besides...like..Rage of Halone, lol).

[bokchoykn]

Lol, this was the whole point of the comment. You guys are trying to blanket statement things that simply aren't true.

I didn't use any blanket statements. I said that there are exceptions where PLD Stoneskin is worth it. I just said they are few and far between. That's quite the oppsoite of a blanket statement.

[Traek]

I didn't use any blanket statements. I said that there are exceptions where PLD Stoneskin is worth it. I just said they are few and far between. That's quite the oppsoite of a blanket statement.

Maybe being picky on the details but...

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)

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

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.

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.

I'm with Kitru and ZDamned on this one.

...

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

Seems to contradict this:

I didn't use any blanket statements.

[Namasu]

Maybe being picky on the details but...

They meant that stoneskin isn't *important* in the sense that it make or break a fight but acknowledged that they are *useful* in few situation. Not really a blanket statement.

[Traek]

They meant that stoneskin isn't *important* in the sense that it make or break a fight but acknowledged that they are *useful* in few situation. Not really a blanket statement.

But it very well can make or break a fight. Bok even gave an example of it in T7. We can argue over the word "important" but in reality ZDamned (mostly) and others are giving off the idea Stone Skin should be taking a back seat to their own DPS, because their party is bad if they needed it. This is not good information for tanks looking to better themselves, and their raid.