I'm really giggling at all the comparisons of Paladins to Warriors and "Who's the better tank?" Let's be straight forward here. A great tank keeps agro on enemies from the rest of his party and takes hits to the face that others would die from while smiling their pretty little broken teeth the whole time. BOTH tanks in this game do this pretty well. Now, if you want to get technical, let's get technical. Warrior has versatility to both tank and DPS rather well. Paladins don't, but last I checked, tanks are meant to take a punch to the face and live, not return the punch. Warriors can parry. So can paladins, and the difference between their parries are almost non-existent. Yes, Warriors have a bit more strength, making their parry a little stronger, but still, almost non-existent.

Let's look at the buffs. Warriors get Defiance, +25% HP (This aspect of this buff is drastically overstated) and +20% healing received (This aspect of the buff is the only one that REALLY matters). As my partner has pointed out to me before (Since I play both tanks and do enjoy them both to an extent), an increase in healing received is what's called an after the fact buff. Meaning, it doesn't matter until after you take a fist to the face. So yes, while a Warrior gets more HP and takes more healing, their actual ease of survivability is actually overstated. Now Paladins get the typical reduction in damage buff... -20% damage. There are great things and bad things about this buff. First, the bad... diminishing returns. As you increase your defense, you decrease the damage you take, thus decreasing how much damage gets mitigated by Shield Oath. Yeah, not a big deal, but I have to find a fault or someone might assume I'm playing favorites. Now, the great things are just plain obvious, -20% damage from all sources. By all sources, this isn't limited to just physical damage, or magical damage, or just single hits, or just damage over time. No, this means it effects everything. So, overall, almost equal to Defiance (While +25% HP is an overstated buff, it's still something). Mind you, this is ignoring the fact that +20% healing received is what is known as an after the fact buff, I will give the benefit of the doubt and assume you are doing what you can already to mitigate damage in other ways such as avoiding heavy hitting AOEs and wipe mechanics. I will assume you should give the same benefit of the doubt that a paladin will do the same thing. We must also conclude that that your healer is doing their job. So They're almost equivalent, with Defiance being slightly better with the HP pool increase.

Now that we have gotten the whole "This toggle is better than that toggle" talk out of the way, let's look at what really matters, the class itself and the tools it has available to use. I'm going to start with Paladins. Hallowed Ground - Let's just stop for a moment right here. Is this really a competition anymore? Negates ALL damage except for wipe mechanics... come on. And for 10 seconds? I mean, I suppose you can throw out Holmgang for Warriors, but can you really even consider it a fair fight between the skills? Holmgang may mean that you can't fall below 1 HP, but it only lasts 6 seconds, and if you're throwing this skill out because the healing isn't enough, you're as good as dead anyways after the 6 seconds are up. With Hallowed Ground, that's 10 seconds of no damage, none at all. Even if you're a warrior and you're using Holmgang to save you, if the healing isn't enough, it's not going to bring you back to full in 6 seconds. It isn't going to save you at all. So right here, I have to draw a point. For true disasters, I mean the real disasters of all hell is breaking loose, Paladin takes the cake with crumbs to spare. Nothing saves a fight like Hallowed Ground. Long Cooldown or not, this skill is like a reset button. Throw it out when you're about to die, and the healers can rocket your HP back to full with 3 or 4 casts. When it drops again, it's like standing back up for round two and a second chance. Holmgang just doesn't compare.

So, to be a good sport, I'll go through the rest of the cooldown skills that are unique to each class, then after, I'll bring in the cross class abilities. Rampart, 20% reduction in damage from (once again) all sources. Yeah, its effectiveness gets a little reduced due to Shield Oath, but it has really good up time for such a strong skill. 20 seconds of duration for a 90 second cool down is actually quite incredible when compared to the countless durability buffing skills seen in dozens of other MMOs. Awareness... ehh... not entirely sure how effective this skill REALLY is, but it's something. Some people say NO crits, some sites just say a reduction in the likelihood of receiving a critical hit. I'm not sure, so I can't speculate. Sentinel... Okay, this is just awesome. First, Paladins get 10 seconds of no damage, then they get 10 seconds of what might as well be half damage? (effectively 50% reduced damage with Shield Oath) I don't know if this is even fair. Tempered Will... I know, I know, not a survivability skill, but isn't it? Draw in and Knockback immunity. Many fights have mechanics that cause these effect... let me think for a moment... Titan Extreme, Twintania, Leviathan Extreme, just to name three that these effects will cause instant death if not negated in an emergency. Bulwark... I'm going to ignore this one for now, as it's much more important for a later point.

So warriors get Inner Beast (I consider this a cooldown since you can't spam it due to wrath being required). Now I have to give some credit here where credit is definitely due. This skill is great. Only on Global Cooldown, and a reduction of 20% damage taken. Pretty nice. It's just too bad that it's balanced by the cooldown of Infuriate (which I usually see get used on Steel Cyclone anyways, cause you know, TP regeneration sucks) and Wrath generation, which usually takes about 2 or 3 full combo cycles to generate enough. So, it's 6 seconds of 20% reduction on effectively a cooldown of about 15-20 seconds (depending on your skill speed) Plus it heals. Pretty good. This skill alone really does boost the prospects of Warriors. Not to mention, if your timing is right, this skill really shines (i.e. Titan Mountain Busters). Holmgang... I'm not going into this one again. Vengence, what can I say about Vengence? It's balanced. 30% reduced damage, less than Sentinel, but with 5 more seconds of duration on a lower cooldown, and with its effectiveness being the full 30% (since Sentinel loses a little to Shield Oath) it's an all around great skill. Thrill of Battle... Yeah, this is nice and all, but it's really just flash in the pan. If your 25% flat increase isn't good enough, then this probably won't be either. But hey, your HP cleared 15k for all of about 20 seconds. Not that it really matters if your healing isn't good enough anyways. This is where the unique cooldowns end for warrior. Not bad, a pretty good fight, but as far as survivability goes, they are only just decent really.

So let's move onto the shared abilities and the differences between them when used by either class. Convalescence - Paladins get 30% healing increase for 20 seconds, Warriors get 20%, which I must point out, is not actually 20%, it's a little bit more than that, since unlike damage reduction skills, which have diminishing returns, healing increasing skills have increasing returns. However, it's still not going to be up to 30% increase. It's more like 23, 24%. Still, it's something. Bloodbath - Do I really have to take this skill seriously? Okay, Paladins get 15 seconds of 25% leech, warriors get 30 seconds... oh come on! This skill is only marginally better than Thrill of Battle! Warriors benefit more from it than a paladin due to higher damage output and more damaging aoes, but its effect is hardly grand given the low damage both classes do compared to others. Foresight... now we're talking. Once again, this is a skill with both good and bad qualities. First, the difference between paladins and warriors. The difference is the cooldown. Paladins have a 120 second cooldown, warriors have a 90 second cooldown, so props go to warriors. Now, for both classes, this skill ONLY (I mean ONLY) effects physical defense. This skill gets confused for a damage mitigation skill sometimes. It isn't. It's a defense boost. Meaning its effect is based on your defense stat. The higher your defense stat is, the more effect this skill has. At lower item levels, it's not as big of a deal as at higher item levels. However, all around, it's a pretty good skill, for both classes. Warriors just have a better up time.

So it's time for me to draw a conclusion from the facts stated above. While I am sure the debate between paladins and warriors will continue, I want to state this much: I am only focusing on survivability, I have already stated above that Warriors have more damage capability. Paladins have just as many cooldowns at their disposal as warriors, most of which have a stronger mitigation bonused than Warriors. Furthermore, the toggles they get are essentially equal, with the benefit of warriors being slightly better due to HP increase, which anyone with half a brain could see why that is hardly anything to scream about (See Thrill of Battle). This isn't to say that warriors cooldowns aren't strong, especially with Inner Beast. Just that their survivability is not the same as a Paladin, despite the hype against such a statement.

Now, I'm going to bring up another point I ignored a little while ago with Bulwark. Bulwark increases block rate by 60% and lasts 15 seconds on a 3 minute cooldown. This... this is B-E-A-UTIFUL! Paladins with a decent shield will find they almost consistently will block 90% of attacks during the duration of this skill, and with a decent shield, will see anywhere from 20-30% reduction in damage taken (I'm a little bit above 30%, but let's not split hairs). This skill brings me to my next point, blocking. So many people ignore the added fact that Paladins have a shield, while Warriors do not. Meaning, while both warriors and paladins can parry, ONLY Paladins can block. Soo... let's re-evaluate things here. Paladins not only have more damage reduction cooldowns (Rampart, Sentinel, Hallowed Ground, Foresight to Warrior's Inner Beast, Foresight, and Vengence) as well as better cooldowns that increase survivability (by survivability, I mean buffs that do things other than increase defense or lower damage - Awareness (lol), Bulwark, Convalescence, Bloodbath (lol) to Warriors Thrill of Battle (lol), Bloodbath (lol), Convalescence, and Holmgang (LOL!)) but they also parry and block while warriors only parry. I'm sorry, but the battle of who makes it look too easy for tanking goes to Paladins. Since both classes can hold aggro, have toggles that are for all real intensive purposes the same, the winner really is the class with more and/or stronger cooldowns, as well as more ways to naturally mitigate damage (Warriors only Parry and Paladins Parry and Block).

Now, the debate over who is the better DPS goes to Warriors hands down, so congratulations Warriors, you can do more damage even though you're a tank. That's great, for what it's worth. As far as Crowd Controlling... Paladins win hands down. Warriors have one stun, with a cooldown of 20 seconds and duration of 5 seconds. Paladins have a stun on global cooldown with a base duration of 6 seconds, plus a Pacification skill with a base duration of 6 seconds (have to mention though that it's only able to be used after a block, so there is a handicap to it). So another important trait of tanking, crowd control really goes to the paladin. Any paladin who knows what they are doing won't be hindered by the fact that Shield Bash can't be used between skills, so this aspect is null in point.

So, Lesbehonest... I am really kicking a dead horse at this point. Despite my points above, I play both warrior and paladin. Certain aspects of the game and certain fights do favor one class over the other. However, in general, I do play Paladin, for reasons that both include and are besides the facts above. Would I like to see a rework of the class? Definitely, I'd love to be a better tank, dps and crowd controller than a warrior. However, do I see it as balanced? Hell no. Warriors have their benefits in certain aspects of the game where their lowered survivability doesn't matter, and their higher DPS is greatly appreciated. As things are, they are fairly well balanced. As someone who (quite obviously) favors Paladins, I understand that because my dps isn't as good, when it comes to tanking a single target, I may lose aggro to a warrior. That doesn't bother me, since I only lost aggro to a tank, not a dps or a healer. As long as that warrior can make the fight go smooth enough for a win, then I'll be just fine with them spamming butcher's block combos all they want.