Is it time for SE to give PLDs a good bump in terms of DPS?

[SirTaint]

If you are going to give PLD something like unchained, why not give WAR a shield as well?

On a serious note: if you are complaining about the low DPS in Shield oath, then just tank in Sword oath with 110 melded accessories, use FoF and Bulwark together (= high potency shield swipe spam) and watch your DPS skyrocket. Use defensive cooldowns before big hits. It's so easy to reach 350+ DPS with a Paladin MT in FCoB I could cry.

T10-12 were done in i110 gear of course you can sit in SwO at i130. When the new raid comes out you'll be in shield oath again doing 220 dps or whatever the i130 ShO dps is.

[Sessurea]

if plds got a bump in their dps, their gameplay would have to get a bit more complex than 1,2,3....

[Brightsayge]

because playing a warrior is so complex.

[Perzeval]

because playing a warrior is so complex.

It's hard to suck at PLD. It's easy to suck at WAR.

[Sandamar]

It's hard to suck at PLD. It's easy to suck at WAR.

In all fairness it's almost as much hard to suck as paladin than as a warrior.
123 vs 123145 i wouldn't call it a huge difference. Unlimited rampart for warrior. I play both paladin and war and they require the same lvl of knowledge and skill, lets be honest.

IB being on GCD is not an issue considering the huge cast time of every tank crushing mechanic. Don't have stacks? Infuriate is on 60 seconds CD, and building V stacks is fast, still lacking? Vengeance is 2 minutes CD, still lacking ? Thrill of Battle is 180 seconds? Still lacking Holmgang has same CD as sentinel. Still lacking? well gtfo and play something else than tank

In both situation you need to know the boss rotation to perform decently so no there is no difference at all.

[HoodRat]

I've seen more bad paladins than bad warriors. To be fair though, I've seen more paladins than warriors in general. Score one for derp finder.

[stoxastic]

WAR is definitely more complex than PLD unless you decide that doing 200 DPS on WAR is ok. You'd also be surprised at how bad many PLD mains are at IB timings. If you wait until you see the cast bar of the tank killer you will be too late if you are still in a weaponskill animation. Optimizing the use of Infuriate and IB so as to not waste stacks and maximize buff uptime requires more thought that PLD CD rotations.

[Perzeval]

ToB is 120 second btw.

Following your arguments, it's pretty much hard to suck at any class since there is no really super complex rotation involved in FFXIV.

However, there is absolutely no resource management or timing knowledge involved in playing a PLD. Opener? Activate FoF and go leeroy jenkins. The boss is just autoattacking? Do 123. The boss is going for a tankbuster move? Do 123. A WAR at least needs to show some raid awareness during progression to apply SP before the shit hits the fan. A PLD does not need to care. Ever.

And yes, while most tank busters have a cast time, the cast time is usually 3 seconds while the GCD is 2.5 (or 2.4). Depending on server latency, the selfbuff from IB often is not counted towards damage mitigation if you apply it within the last 0.5 - 1 second of the tank buster cast. The swing itself has some animation time and the selfbuff is only applied when the swing actually hits, not when you press the button. And tank busters with longer cast time like Flatten still requires you to time your IB correctly to mitigate the 3 Flarebreaths afterwards.

[karateorangutang]

So... to summarize.

PLD is fine in the DPS department when specced properly. However in the instance where full VIT gear is needed PLD loses out in the tank stance department. So, in the instance of new content where gear doesn't exceed the content PLD would lose out in the tank stance DPS battle.

Yes... we all know that WAR is generally more complicated... but lets be honest there isn't a single role in this game that is truly difficult to play.

[SirTaint]

Well timed stone skins and covers during progression really seperate the good and bad PLDs.

The rest is stance dancing and learning/maxing your CD rotation.