Dark Knight, or Paladin?

[Freyyy]

Bulwark is inferior to Dark Dance in A2 for instance

Stop with Dark Dance, it's shit. Block rate is much higher than parry rate, +30% parry rate is scaling really really low while +60% block rate is actually scaling really good even with tower shields (which are focused on block strength). At equal values, say if they both did +60%, Bulwark would give more block rate than Dark Dance would give in parry rate.
And evasion is useless in raids. You cannot dodge anything even with evasion buffs. It's not because Dark Dance has only 60 sec CD that it's superior to Bulwark. Dark Dance is unrealiable while Bulwark is.

[Calib0s]

Bulwark is inferior to Dark Dance in A2 for instance

This is untrue *especially* in A2 because for many of the packs you aren't even going to be hit, or won't be hit enough to warrant any cooldown. You specifically have to go for maximum uptime for Dark Dance for it to even be equivalent to Bulwark in average damage mitigation over the duration of a fight (For which neither is especially high), but you don't just blow all of your cooldowns back to back in any realistic scenario, you save them for when you need them.

There are several packs where you don't need *any* cooldowns, and several packs where you need *major* cooldowns. You will have Bulwark up for the times that the impact will be meaningful, and it will be giving far more value during those times when it is available. For packs when Bulwark isn't up you have your natural block chance, which provides significantly more average damage mitigation than even having maximum uptime on Dark Dance.

Having commonly available cooldowns is better than having stronger ones with lengthy cds

What? Do we play the same game? Basically every fight in this game is trivial fluff damage and periodic huge damage spikes that require a cooldown. High value / low uptime cooldowns are vastly superior for nearly every encounter than high uptime / low value cooldowns.

[pandabearcat]

Natural block is something like 15-30% chance, even assuming 30% chance it is a whopping 6% damage mitigation...woohoo...

[Calib0s]

Natural block is something like 15-30% chance, even assuming 30% chance it is a whopping 6% damage mitigation...woohoo...

Which is 3 times more significant than popping Dark Dance on cooldown, for free, in addition to all of the other physical mitigation tools PLD has.

This will also continue to increase in value as the ilvl of your shield increases, whereas Dark Dance will always be 2% in an absolute best case scenario. DRK's other relevant cooldowns in A2S are Shadow Skin (matched by rampart) and Shadow Wall (Strictly inferior to Sentinel).

In return, DRK brings some mediocre AoE damage (It's not great in A2 because you get low or no value out of blood price on most packs). If you care about the damage, DRK isn't the answer in A2 - just bring warriors for the turn. They'll put out significantly more AoE DPS than either of the other tanks and do a better job of mitigating on most packs than DRK. I put out about 1100 DPS on A2S as Warrior this week, and I'm by no means the best.

[Faytte]

Stop with Dark Dance, it's shit. Block rate is much higher than parry rate, +30% parry rate is scaling really really low while +60% block rate is actually scaling really good even with tower shields (which are focused on block strength). At equal values, say if they both did +60%, Bulwark would give more block rate than Dark Dance would give in parry rate.
And evasion is useless in raids. You cannot dodge anything even with evasion buffs. It's not because Dark Dance has only 60 sec CD that it's superior to Bulwark. Dark Dance is unrealiable while Bulwark is.

The best tower shield blocks for 28% atm vs 20% on block. The difference is not that significant given there isnt a physical buster with a large number value being thrown against the difference like there was in Ravana EX. If you couple in the fact dark dance lasts 33% longer than bulwark, and that you can pop it 3 times for bulwarks one, it does better. Is it as good within the window its up? No--but as a power is it better? Yes.

[Faytte]

Which is 3 times more significant than popping Dark Dance on cooldown, for free, in addition to all of the other physical mitigation tools PLD has.

This will also continue to increase in value as the ilvl of your shield increases, whereas Dark Dance will always be 2% in an absolute best case scenario. DRK's other relevant cooldowns in A2S are Shadow Skin (matched by rampart) and Shadow Wall (Strictly inferior to rampart).

In return, DRK brings some mediocre AoE damage (It's not great in A2 because you get low or no value out of blood price on most packs). If you care about the damage, DRK isn't the answer in A2 - just bring warriors for the turn. They'll put out significantly more AoE DPS than either of the other tanks and do a better job of mitigating on most packs than DRK. I put out about 1100 DPS on A2S as Warrior this week, and I'm by no means the best.

All the other physical mitigation tools a Paladin has?
What? Sheltron? its eaten up by an auto attack, you can time it sometimes with a dolls smack, and thats really about it. Other than that...theres what? The shield itself? Towers don't block particularly often (in terms of overall mitigation through a fight, you are better off with a kite shield, but thats not really great with sheltron as you are basically just forcing a parry).


Drk has fantastic AoE--I'm not even sure what you are comparing your AoE against; certainly not paladins. Then what? Drk AoE dps is better than wars (save in burst, where wars are clearly better) which allows them to get ahead on A2 packs understandably. EDIT: Clarification--I'm not saying DRKs beat War dps in A2. It is still however, very very good--and leagues ahead of Paladins.

Also talking about what bulwark --could-- be in the future is largely irrelevant. We are discussing the content as it, the classes as they are, the equipment as it is today.

Notably, this isnt saying DRK is OP--no one is making that argument. They are clearly in the middle atm, but there isnt much debate I feel that Pld atm is not in a good position. The shield that they route for their 'great physical mitigation' is not incredibly useful thus far in Alex (A1 favor drk and war, a2 favors war--then drk, a3 was not able to be completed with a paladin, and was done just fine with war and a dark main tank).

Low damage does not work with heavy dps checks.
High cooldown defensives do not work with the timing of busters
Beyond that, they have a slightly better shadow wall and the best immunity out of the three---but hardly a reason id pick the class.

[Freyyy]

The best tower shield blocks for 28% atm vs 20% on block. The difference is not that significant given there isnt a physical buster with a large number value being thrown against the difference like there was in Ravana EX. If you couple in the fact dark dance lasts 33% longer than bulwark, and that you can pop it 3 times for bulwarks one, it does better. Is it as good within the window its up? No--but as a power is it better? Yes.

I think you misunderstood my point. I was speaking about increasing parry rate vs increasing block rate. It doesn't scale the same way at all. 30% parry rate is not 30% block rate. Block rate scales much better. Dark Dance is unreliable.

[Seku]

I think you misunderstood my point. I was speaking about increasing parry rate vs increasing block rate. It doesn't scale the same way at all. 30% parry rate is not 30% block rate. Block rate scales much better. Dark Dance is unreliable.

It doesn't matter. It's obvious what the choice is. Drk and Pld are virtually worthless. It's time to pick up the Axe for optimization. Double WAR all the things

[Freyyy]

It doesn't matter. It's obvious what the choice is. Drk and Pld are virtually worthless. It's time to pick up the Axe for optimization. Double WAR all the things

Let's swing dat axe

[Wournsfeik_Untawhasyn]

It doesn't matter. It's obvious what the choice is. Drk and Pld are virtually worthless. It's time to pick up the Axe for optimization. Double WAR all the things

Pretty much how all comparisons at this point have gone boiled down to their basic component.

"DRK is better than PLD"
"PLD is better than DRK"
"But if you know what you're doing WAR is still leagues better than both."

But to watch this enmity fest here, you'd think the greatest enmity skill was 'Post on Official Forums' with its one hundred times multiplier in PVP.