My Opinion on why WAR is the superior Tank.

[ZDamned]

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.

You know what else can make or break a fight? A good healer who doesn't need a 3rd person casting stone skin for them.

[Traek]

You know what else can make or break a fight? A good healer who doesn't need a 3rd person casting stone skin for them.

And there you have it. Elitism at its finest.

[Umero]

Yeah, my opinion about warrior and paladin is that warrior is superior, too! all the skills that makes warrior superior are from warrior's skill tree, my opinion!
Paladin kick ass too! With stoneskin I think, but stoneskin is not directly from paladin. So after all, my opinion, Warrrior is superriorrrawr! We got Overpower too, my opinion! Overpower is overpowered!

[bokchoykn]

Maybe being picky on the details but...

It's a pretty dick move to remove the context of my post (ie. the 90% of it that you omitted) to accuse me of using blanket statements, especially where I clearly stated there were exceptions and later gave an example that you yourself used to support your claim.

[Traek]

It's a pretty dick move to remove the context of my post (ie. the 90% of it that you omitted) to accuse me of using blanket statements, especially where I clearly stated there were exceptions and later gave an example that you yourself used to support your claim.

Your context makes no difference in what you are conveying. I only culled it to reduce the clutter of text. You were agreeing with ZDamned, who is on quite the extreme side, but later mentioned the T7 example (after your blanket statement). Perhaps I'm wrongly lumping you in too far with ZDamned, but again, to say Stone Skin is unimportant when it can easily prevent wipes or extreme stress on the raid is a stretch.

[ZDamned]

It's a pretty dick move to remove the context of my post to accuse me of using blanket statements, especially where I clearly stated there were exceptions and even gave an example that you yourself used to support your claim.

I almost feel bad, because he's using the fact that you agree with my Style, to make you out to disagreeing with him in full.
I literally have no idea why your being grouped up with me like this, but it's just a sign of the immaturity, coupled up with the close minded and inexperienced misconceptions that are flying around this forum.

Your context makes no difference in what you are conveying. I only culled it to reduce the clutter of text. You were agreeing with ZDamned, who is on quite the extreme side, but later mentioned the T7 example (after your blanket statement). Perhaps I'm wrongly lumping you in too far with ZDamned, but again, to say Stone Skin is unimportant when it can easily prevent wipes or extreme stress on the raid is a stretch.

It can NOT easily make or break any fight!

You can always point out a little thing here and there that will make or break any fight at any point in time. I can use your example totally against you, and bring up my T6 last week where my group killed the boss with only our warrior alive. Had I stopped for even 1 single GCD to cast stone skin on someone, we would have failed the fight. End of Story. I can then perpetuate that as being the golden standard from here to the end of tanking, and say that DPS from the entire party will always be more important than anything else, but in fact it's not the case.
You just want so badly to not be wrong, or called out, that your closing off any other points of view. It's a huge sign of immaturity, and quite honestly,t he way you respond to people with even slightly differing view points is disgusting.

It gets worse with your lack of admitting that your own example is so situation based per fight, that it in itself is a blanket statement.

I can turn by turn show examples of when it is and is not a good idea to cast Stone Skin. But generally, as a MT, you should not be looking at your party's HP, you should be avoiding all MASSIVE damage AOE attacks, and looking at the raid for positioning.

Turn 1
Pre-Split: there are 2 healers. You have no reason to contribute to healing, and unless your group's collectively under geared, you should not even be feeding at all. No reason to remove DPS from the boss.
Post Split: You are officially Co-Tanking. You want all the chances to mitigate damage you can, AND you want to kill th eboss to relieve your healers ASAP. So casting a spell is removing DPS from the boss. Not worth it.

Turn 2
This is such a face roll turn, but there are a TON of AOE attacks that hit Melee, you don't have time to avoid them while casting anything. Sorry, but no. Never worth it here. (When done the intended way)

Turn 4
Nope, Just no. You are doing way too much here to be able to afford not building enmity on everything you see. Wasting a GCD in here means your healers will likely die. If you can afford to cast stone skin on yourself, it's not likely to make any sort of impact on the fight. If you are tanking Double Dreads, you want to be blocking them instead of casting.

Turn 5
If your raid has died a lot, and your healers are almost dead, then yes. in the LAST PHASE, spam Stone Skin on yourself once your Cool downs are all expended.

Turn 6
The only time I can justify it, is the person who gets the Honey Debuff... Even then, it's probably not going to save him if the healers ignored him for too long. I however will be testing this myself, since i'm sick of my DPS getting killed by the incoming cleave.

Turn 7
There is just not much damage going out here... I can't always reach the DPS who is going to get Fire Balled with a Cast ability. The OFF tank is often on the other side of the arena, so i can't even help him after the very first add. So... if you can, try to? But it likely isn't a make or break thing.

[Kitru]

You know what else can make or break a fight? A good healer who doesn't need a 3rd person casting stone skin for them.

30 DPS can also make or break a fight, as can Cover. *Anything* can potentially make or break a fight, but that doesn't mean that it will *always* make or break a fight. Casting Stoneskin as a tank is highly situational and, outside of those situations, you're going to be better served by just dumping more damage on the target.

It's for this exact reason that I'm ambivalent about Stoneskin for PLDs: using it is either indicative of a PLD screwing up or a PLD playing as well as possible and, most of the time, if Stoneskin is a legitimate option, there's a fine line between those two potential outcomes.

[Traek]

I almost feel bad, because he's using the fact that you agree with my Style, to make you out to disagreeing with him in full.

I was disagreeing with his "blanket statement" of calling Stone Skin from PLD unimportant:

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

If you look at where I first quoted Bok, I was even agreeing with him (his T7 example) and saying that was the whole point. Stone Skin is important, and should be used when applicable. It is far more important then your PLD DPSing an extra Halone if it means a member's death, or wasted CDs/MP. All this at the cost of what in the end will make a difference of a couple % DPS from your total.

I literally have no idea why your being grouped up with me like this, but it's just a sign of the immaturity, coupled up with the close minded and inexperienced misconceptions that are flying around this forum.

Like I said up above, I probably wrongly lumped him in with you. I was taking issue mostly with his wording but responding to most of what you were saying.

It can NOT easily make or break any fight!

It can, and examples of it have already been given. I'm not sure why you are trying to deny it.

You can always point out a little thing here and there that will make or break any fight at any point in time. I can use your example totally against you, and bring up my T6 last week where my group killed the boss with only our warrior alive. Had I stopped for even 1 single GCD to cast stone skin on someone, we would have failed the fight. End of Story. I can then perpetuate that as being the golden standard from here to the end of tanking, and say that DPS from the entire party will always be more important than anything else, but in fact it's not the case.

Again, no one is saying you should be spamming Stone Skin needlessly. Your example makes little sense. There was little to no reason for you to be using Stone Skin during your burn of T6. If you are going for burn method then yes, you pump out every DPS you can. If your MT or DPS had gone down, you'd still have wiped, so it really doesn't turn my example against me. Using Stone Skin as needed is being a smart player. Your PLD DPS saving a fight is far rarer then a Stone Skin doing the same.

You just want so badly to not be wrong, or called out, that your closing off any other points of view. It's a huge sign of immaturity, and quite honestly,t he way you respond to people with even slightly differing view points is disgusting.

rofl, you give yourself too much credit. I could truly care less your thoughts on me, or what I'm saying. Your aggroe attitude is entertaining though. Please hurl some more insults, it is really helping the discussion.

It gets worse with your lack of admitting that your own example is so situation based per fight, that it in itself is a blanket statement.

Isn't this the very point and design of Stone Skin...? Of course it is situation based, otherwise WHM would be spamming SS every second it didn't need to cure right? The very situations Stone Skin is useful is often the most important parts of each fight, if not leading up to them or after them.

I can turn by turn show examples of when it is and is not a good idea to cast Stone Skin. But generally, as a MT, you should not be looking at your party's HP, you should be avoiding all MASSIVE damage AOE attacks, and looking at the raid for positioning.

*examples*

While some of your examples are good, there is always more situations in every fight that could make Stone Skin useful and worth casting, over your DPS. You barely touched the surface of any of it.

[bokchoykn]

Things we can all agree upon, without arguing like children:

• The "best play" varies depending on the situation. Sometimes, making the best play entails doing something you don't normally have to do in that encounter, such as Stoneskinning a DPS. Whether Stoneskin (or any ability) is worth it should be determined on a case-by-case basis. Saying "Paladins who Stoneskin are great players" or "Stoneskin sucks, doing DPS is better!" has no meaning.
  
  
• Act based on what is actually happening rather than what is supposed to happen. The argument of "if my healers were actually doing their job, I wouldn't have to do this." is a piss poor argument. If a healer asked me "Why didn't you pop a cooldown? You knew I was low on mana and fell behind on group healing." and I responded with "If you didn't screw up, you wouldn't have fallen behind. I shouldn't have to pop a cooldown there", I would be in the wrong here. I sometimes take extra damage that I shouldn't be taking as a Tank because I suck. If the healers chose not to heal this because "A good tank wouldn't have gotten hit by that Circle Blade", we wouldn't be a very good team.
  
  
• The cost-benefit ratio of PLD Stoneskin is low. It takes forever to cast and only shields for 10% of the target's max HP. It comes at a compromise to their DPS. It removes their ability to parry and block. This should obviously be taken into consideration when deciding whether or not it's worth it.
  
  
• Tank DPS is very valuable and very significant. To say "If your priorities are on damage output, you should be playing a DPS class, not a DPS class" is a dumb argument.

[ZDamned]

While some of your examples are good, there is always more situations in every fight that could make Stone Skin useful and worth casting, over your DPS. You barely touched the surface of any of it.

That's just the point. I never had to SS my group in all of my progression fights, and it never stopped my group from progressing, which in turn means it's not generally important. None of us are saying to NEVER do it, were saying it's not something Paladins should keep at a high priority thought in their heads.
You came up with only a couple examples. Literally only a couple... And I tried to find good times to do it elsewhere, but I can't. Please make a thread and have that thread be the golden standard of times when Paladin Stone Skin should be used, and I assure you it will be short lived.

That being said, I would always like to find ways to help my group out, since I did give examples of when not to, please inform me of the times when I should be using Stone Skin to "Make or Break" my raid. I didn't see you making a counter list against mine to prove that I'm hurting my group.