Is Paladin in a Bad Spot?

[Adrasteia]

To add to the above post, it doesn't help at all that the design of Alexander Savage effectively works to undermine Paladin's defensive superiority by rendering Bulwark, Sheltron and passive shield mitigation nearly useless in every fight but A2S. It boggles my mind that they'd add Sheltron, a fun skill that finally gives PLD something of a skill ceiling with its need to be timed somewhat precisely, and then make it absolutely and completely useless in the current raid because there isn't a single big tank hit that Sheltron can do anything for.

Exactly. They're going to either have to dumpster Dark Mind or figure out more ways of representing physical damage tankbusters, or no one will ever take anything except a DRK for MT.

[Faytte]

Exactly. They're going to either have to dumpster Dark Mind or figure out more ways of representing physical damage tankbusters, or no one will ever take anything except a DRK for MT.

A better option is to step away from the idea of having physical and magical tanks, since that means that one or the other tank will be good/terrible on either fight.

I think it was a terrible idea from the very start. All tanks should be pretty close in tanking each set of content, and their differences should lie elsewhere. I.E Paladin having lower damage but better group effects and healing, warriors excelling in damage and personal effects, dark knights excelling in debuffing, stealing enemy stats and the like.

Sadly its not how it came out. Having a physical and magical tank was the silliest thing they could have ever have done.

[NFaelivrin]

It doesn't help that having a "physical tank" and a "magical tank" works incredibly poorly with the current tome gear, which, being iconic job armor, is locked to a specific job instead of the role like Poetics were in 2.4-2.55.

[Dante_V]

I actually like that the gear is job specific.

[NFaelivrin]

I actually like that the gear is job specific.

I don't mind it on itself, but it runs into a problem where the endgame raid is balanced in such a way that you want to bring PLD for A2s and DRK for everything else since you can't have one of your tanks just freely swap jobs for each floor, not without losing ilevel at least.

[Giantbane]

I don't mind it on itself, but it runs into a problem where the endgame raid is balanced in such a way that you want to bring PLD for A2s and DRK for everything else since you can't have one of your tanks just freely swap jobs for each floor, not without losing ilevel at least.

Do we know what A4s is like yet? We're just assuming because MT damage is all magic in A4 that anti magic will be all that's important in A4s. But I'm curious if PLDs superior anti-physical set may work better staying alive in what is likely to be a more dangerous vacuum to get sucked into, leaving WAR & DRK to fight over MT duties.

[GeekMatt]

It doesn't help that having a "physical tank" and a "magical tank" works incredibly poorly with the current tome gear, which, being iconic job armor, is locked to a specific job instead of the role like Poetics were in 2.4-2.55.

We have philo and Myth again rather than Sol/Poe again. It's very possible we repeat the same process as in ARR with additional tomes--though a lot of people were complaining about the shared gear due to very undesirable stats.

[Adrasteia]

Do we know what A4s is like yet? We're just assuming because MT damage is all magic in A4 that anti magic will be all that's important in A4s.

Unless they do some weird complete 180' from NM A4, the floor is about 90% magic damage, and the most critical part of it (the tankbuster) is magic.

[Naelle]

Tanks are not dps. Tanks should differentiate themselves from the others based on taking damage not dealing it.

Paladin is a shield. Big self buffs and healing magic. Cool. Warriors are rampaging berserkers that only use their defense when needed (timing cooldowns/stance dancing). Sweet. Dark Knight slowly drains the life of his enemy, making it his own. Unique spells and mp mechanics. Rad.

Now you have three tanks with varied play styles to make them unique. Dps should not be involved in determining which tank to bring. Utility and flavor should be. I'm not saying that tanks shouldn't do damage; the numbers just need to be closer. If bard did 200-300 more dps than machinist there would be a problem. Why is it ok for tanks?

[rawker]

The issue here is that the other tanks scale better with player skill while PLD has already reached its peak earlier and nothing much more to offer. Even worse, PLDs are considered as training wheels. If WAR has to manage their stacks to either use it up either offense or defense, PLD could also follow the same method but obv not taking the stack route. SE must determine how to make PLD dps a challenge(possible) but is rewarding if achieved. WARs and DRKs already have it. We're not asking to be the best among the competition but at least give us equal footing with them by giving us a different flavor on how to achieve it.

People always love to use the argument that PLD allows healers to dps more but then again, healers need to be constantly be aware of their MP and at any given point, they will slow down whereas tanks, if threat is ni longer an issue and damage taken is manageable, they have nothing else to do but to contribute more to the overall dps of the team.