Is Paladin in a Bad Spot?

[Phoenicia]

Stuff.

I do not see anywhere in my post where I mentioned tank busters happening before every IB is available or that prolonged CD durations are what makes PLD "special". What prolonged CDs offer is "easier timing" and "easier healing". Pop rampart and you're set for 20 seconds. Pop Hallowed Ground and EVERYONE is set for 10 seconds. WAR is no where close. Add the required GCD for IB and you can see you cannot tunnel vision in a fight as WAR. You CAN mistime IB (pop too early, pop too late).

Most Busters are preceded or followed by a moderately high hitter. Death Sentence had Plummet. Raven's Beak had Raven's Claw (the cleave, whatever it was called). Titan Extreme does a rock buster before mountain buster. Flatten is preceded by Flare Breath. Blinding Blade is preceded by Atma Linga. Taking these into account when timing CDs can make a huge difference.

A clear example how it is easier to time is Akh Morn in T13. PLD can mitigate ANY of the Akh Morns with HG. WAR's best attempt is the third Akh Morn. And WAR could not do Holmgang on the fourth. It just doesn't last long enough.

Another example, also from T13, was when a PLD Rampart was enough to mitigate the Flare Breath before Flatten, ALONG with Flatten and all three Flare Breahts following Flatten. WAR's Inner Beast alone doesn't. WAR actually pops IB to mitigate Flare Breath, then infuriates, pops a CD and IB again for Flatten and IB won't be up for the last 1-2 Flare Breaths. Do not neglect CD duration because some busters are one hit per x minutes/seconds.

Also if you read carefully you will see that I said "All three tanks are equally good in mitigation". With WAR pumping its EHP the highest.

Another thing is DRK has the same "theme" as PLD when it comes to major CDs. Lasting the same duration on the equivalent CDs (Rampart vs Shadowskin, Sentinel vs Shadow Wall). Why does that put PLD in a bad spot but not DRK? As a matter of fact, the short CD durations is a WAR-only "disadvantage" if anything.

For me I don't think pld is terrible but I do have to ask, how is drk not just a better pld? They have essentially the same cooldowns except drk has an extra magic defense one, the same tanking stance, drk has more damage, better threat, and some self healing they can use as part of their normal damage routines.

PLD has better physical mitigation than DRK. That much is clear. PLD handles magical damage better than DRK handles physical damage.

PLD is still "safer" than DRK by a bit. specially when using Hallowed Ground, which is a LOT cheesier than Living Dead.

The extra DPS is somewhere between 50~100, means NOTHING in the grand theme of things. Raid DPS is what? 7k? what's 50 gonna do to that?

Threat, while behind the other tanks, doesn't matter as long as it is ahead of all the DPS?

As I mentioned in my OP, DRK and WAR self healing make up the lack of shield (and 2% deficiency in effective healing in the WAR's case).

It is not Black and White as to who the better tank is.

I personally prefer WAR MT over both DRK and PLD. I also prefer DRK over PLD because I do not see the need for that much safety. If a repeat of T5 happens (where tank buster has a higher rate of 1 buster per 40 seconds), WAR is obviously the best MT. If a repeat of T4 or T1/Shiva (where boss gains damage stacks over time and high damage streams for prolonged periods), PLD will be the best tank. But that's a whole different story.