PLD dps needs to be buffed, current dps a joke

[Giantbane]

In a magical damage fight, WAR has every disadvantage the PLD has minus the DPS. WAR loses on parry and Raw Intuition (can still use it for wrath/abandon I guess?) just like how PLD loses shield and Bulwark/Sheltron.

Come on now, PLD loses parry too. It's really Raw Intuition and 90s Foresight vs. 120s Foresight and Shield/Bulwark/Sheltron. It's a bigger loss on the PLD.

My point is WAR isn't far ahead (if at all) of PLD in non-physical fights.

I think you're seriously underestimating the usefulness of being able to have SP up 100% of the time and Inner Beast ready every 20s (less actually).

[NFaelivrin]

A thing that could help PLD's shield oath DPS (sword oath is fine) would be adjusting shield swipe to be an actual DPS gain once more, either a flat potency increase or something like "ignores the damage penalty from shield oath" since its, well, a shield attack. Using shield swipe is fun but at the moment its only occasionally viable and only used for its TP restore.

[Giantbane]

A thing that could help PLD's shield oath DPS (sword oath is fine) would be adjusting shield swipe to be an actual DPS gain once more, either a flat potency increase or something like "ignores the damage penalty from shield oath" since its, well, a shield attack. Using shield swipe is fun but at the moment its only occasionally viable and only used for its TP restore.

Would be nice if shield swipe granted a shield spikes buff, where blocked attacks return damage (sort of like vengeance but only on blocked attacks). Would make the move worthwhile in a normal rotation, gives sheltron a purpose outside of large physical tank busters (force refresh) and helps with PLD's seriously lacking AoE damage too.

[NFaelivrin]

Also the only other thing both PLD and DRK need is a means to restore TP. Putting a TP restore on Tempered Will would probably be okay, and maybe letting, I dunno, Dark Arts Carve and Spit drain some TP would make it a more interesting skill than what it currently is.

[Phoenicia]

Come on now, PLD loses parry too. It's really Raw Intuition and 90s Foresight vs. 120s Foresight and Shield/Bulwark/Sheltron. It's a bigger loss on the PLD.

Congrats, you lose the worst stat on the class where it scales the worst anyways. My point was the bonus from wrath which people, for some reason that eludes me, seem to envy us for. lol

Are you seriously trying so hard to exaggerate the physical mitigation issue? Foresight? youserious? I mean REALLY? Foresight? Arguably the WORST CD IN THE GAME.

lolBulwark has always been considered a shitty CD for tank busters anyways. It's not guaranteed. Sheltron + Bulwark are what make shield block equivalent to Raw Intuition. Reliability and reuse are very important! Raw Intuition is guaranteed 20s of 20% physical reduction. EDIT: Let's not forget it's 90s CD vs 180s.

Sheltron can be popped by the auto attack right before your buster even if you time it well. Bulwark is only 60% boost, with a tower shield it's poop, with a kite shield you still have a 20% chance of it not working. Bulwark at its best is 15s of 10~20% average physical damage reduction, making Bulwark an over-glorified Foresight. Most PLDs couple Bulwark with Foresight anyways lol. Coupling two meh CDs to make a good one. EDIT: WAR loses a better CD in Raw Intuition than PLD in Bulwark and Sheltron.

I think you're seriously underestimating the usefulness of being able to have SP up 100% of the time and Inner Beast ready every 20s (less actually).

Do you play WAR? Because I think if you do, you wouldn't bring up Storm Path all the time.

1- If you have a WAR and ANY other tank, ALL TANKS benefit from Storm Path.
2- ANY WAR worth their salt will not put up SP 100% of the time. SPECIALLY as MT. Putting SP 100% means you either can't do SE (Your combo is SP > BB) to keep sub-optimal enmity, or you lose 50 potency each time you apply SP compared to BB, and lose massive enmity.

So based on point 2, WAR's enmity and DPS plummet if they keep SP up 100%. Since everyone here is crying about WAR DPS being high, that won't be relative anymore.

Oh, and as if there is any situation in this game where a WAR will pop IB every 20s or less because they need to. WARs spend most of their time in Deliverance for FC. Again, every IB used is 1 less FC used, lowering WAR's DPS, which is the whole reason for this forum outrage. Even when main tanking, WAR will slip into Deliverance during fluff damage and go back to Defiance to IB busters.

Let's stop talking about things in vacuum and talk about practical uses.

Comparing mitigation options in a magical fight:

WAR combines either ToB+IB for 150% eHP, or Veng+IB for 178%, or all three for 214% max eHP. In all cases, WAR is behind 4~15% effective healing (specially when ToB is used). WAR can, but has no reason to, incorporate Holmgang to save CDs on a buster. But it's very risky and stresses healers.
PLD uses Rampart for 125% eHP, Sentinel for 166.67%, or both for 207% max eHP. All cases PLD's effective healing received is increased by as much. PLD can effectively take 0 damage by incorporating HG into its CD rotation.

In a magical fight, WAR has his own SP, yes. PLD will receive SP or INT Down or both from the OT and/or MNK. So WAR bringing its own SP is irrelevant. Remember, this is a team game.

No matter how you spin it, WAR is not in a "clear" advantage over PLD.

Stop arguing that in vacuum one tank is better than everyone else, specially when disregarding party set ups. It's stupid.

[Giantbane]

Congrats, you lose the worst stat on the class where it scales the worst anyways. My point was the bonus from wrath which people, for some reason that eludes me, seem to envy us for. lol

definitely not clear and the benefit from wrath parry is less than the benefit from normal parry to the PLD.

blah blah blah foresight

Reread it, foresight is mentioned for completeness. It's also better for the WAR so it represents a bigger loss to the WAR, but you'd actually have to stop raging nonsensically to get that.

Shield is a big deal, mostly because it helps smooth out damage and it's always active that you don't even have to think about. Bulwark turns it into something mostly reliable (depending on your initial block rate), and sheltron while iffy due to it's implementation just adds to it.

I also forgot RoH, so there's that. Which, sure, an OT PLD can bring, but if you've got an OT using RoH that's not terribly optimal in terms of raid damage.

I don't see how you can honestly think the WAR loses as much as the PLD when we're talking losing abilities vs. pure physical damage.

Do you play WAR? Because I think if you do, you wouldn't bring up Storm Path all the time.

etc, etc, etc

Stop arguing that in vacuum one tank is better than everyone else. It's stupid.

Inner Beast is enough to put the WAR on par with the PLD against magic, all the rest is extra. Better if we're talking about frequent damage. SP on the WAR just means you can do it on your own and if tanks have to split (A1) or the OT isn't there (A4) then the WAR still gets it. Bringing up the INT down via some other class (DRK/MNK) is sort of pointless because that stacks with SP so it's not an either or situation.

[Phoenicia]

Snip.

I wasn't raging at all. My point is WAR loses as much as PLD in a magical fight. Even if WAR is slightly ahead in mitigation, and it isn't, I provided numbers, and WAR is still behind in effective healing, which is as important.

My point with parry is that DRK and WAR scale completely from parry (even if the scaling is poop). PLD's parry is reduced by whatever block rate they have. Look at the following example:

Let's assume at 750 parry (random number) you get 20% parry chance and assume PLD's shield has a 20% block chance;
WAR has a base of 20% parry chance, and from 22% to 30% based on Wrath. The stat is useless while Raw Intuition is up for 100% parry.
PLD will have a 16% parry chance. Since block precedes parry checks. During Bulwark total 80% block chance, parry chance is down to 4%.

So PLD losing parry isn't the same as WAR/DRK losing parry and is far less impactful.

Foresight is an overlooked CD anyways. WAR wouldn't use it even in physical fights outside of "it's up so I used it". PLDs couple it with Bulwark to increase average mitigation of Bulwark + Foresight.

Inner Beast is pure Awesome. It is the single best mitigation skill in the game. But I didn't argue that. Storm Path is great, and I didn't deny that.

You keep bringing up sub-optimal situationalities as evidence when it isn't. In a fight like A1/As1, you can keep the monk with the PLD that needs the INT down and have the WAR keep SP, there, both tanks have 10% less magical damage received. Any other setup doesn't matter. You also seem to ignore the whole thing about SP isn't optimal to be kept 100% of the time. There, I gave you a more optimized situation.

You are over-glorifying SP when in application it's not that vital or optimal to be up 100% of the time. No good WAR keeps SP up 100% of the time and that's my whole point. I would agree with you if SP had the same potency as SE or BB and SP and SE both lasted 30 seconds. That way WAR's rotation would be to apply SP, SE, then BB. Oh but even then, due to the existence of Fracture and IB/FC, they will drop. So it wouldn't be optimal/possible to keep both up.

Again, you are leaving too many important factors out. WAR is NOT at any advantage over PLD in a magical fight outside of MT DPS.

[Giantbane]

I wasn't raging at all.

all caps, bold, underlined about an ability that was mentioned both for the WAR and the PLD? I don't have any other way to describe that.

My point is WAR loses as much as PLD in a magical fight.

that's the part I disagreed with

Even if WAR is slightly ahead in mitigation, and it isn't, I provided numbers, and WAR is still behind in effective healing, which is as important.

The 4% base healing efficiency isn't as big a deal because of overhealing.

Defiance not boosting healing efficiency is a significant disadvantage. But WAR's mitigation advantage (IB every 20s + ToB every 2min + Vengeance every 2min vs. Rampart every 90s, Sentinel every 3min and HG every ... I forget 5 or 6 min?) pretty much erases that completely and then some.

You keep bringing up sub-optimal situationalities as evidence when it isn't. In a fight like A1/As1, you can keep the monk with the PLD that needs the INT down and have the WAR keep SP, there, both tanks have 10% less magical damage received. Any other setup doesn't matter.

As opposed to WAR/DRK where you could stick the MNK with the WAR? Or drop the MNK for DRG/BRD? WAR being the one with SP means flexibility and doesn't make you reliant on other classes in a way that PLD is in your scenario.

A1 & A4 aren't just "situationalities", they're actual current raiding scenarios where a PLD MT can't just depend on a WAR OT providing SP for him. Which is why you can't just assume the PLD always has access to the relevant debuffs.

You also seem to ignore the whole thing about SP isn't optimal to be kept 100% of the time. There, I gave you a more optimized situation.

You are over-glorifying SP when in application it's not that vital or optimal to be up 100% of the time.

INT down is this amazing debuff that made MNK so desirable for FCoB fights that had magic damage. SP is stronger.

You're also not really losing as much potency going from SE > BB to SE > SP as you think. It's only 40 potency at most every 6 GCD. It's actually less than that with Fracture and IB or FC usage. When you throw in brutal swing and auto attacks, it works out to something like 2%? of your total DPS. So if you're MT pulling out 700 dps, then you lose something like 14 dps whenever you want to have -10% raid damage (all types) up all the time? It's a definite advantage for the WAR in magic fights.

[Phoenicia]

Stuff...

Defiance not boosting healing efficiency is a significant disadvantage. But WAR's mitigation advantage (IB every 20s + ToB every 2min + Vengeance every 2min vs. Rampart every 90s, Sentinel every 3min and HG every ... I forget 5 or 6 min?) pretty much erases that completely and then some.

..other stuff.

Based on the frequency of CD usage, isn't WAR ahead of PLD in physical fights as well then? RI is half the CD of Bulwark and is 100% instead of just 60%. WAR can still parry with IB up and PLD can't parry with Sheltron (assuming PLD and WAR couple Sheltron/IB with another CD). And Sheltron is not as reliable as it should be (kinda sucks, I wish it had more reliability).

Edit: Also throwing all CDs at physical attacks: WAR can stack up to an impressive reliable 267% eHP while PLD is somewhere between 260~272% based on shield type and "successful" blocks. Let's not forget WAR can throw "everything" every 2 minutes while PLD can't until the 3 minute mark.

Sadly though, mitigation isn't looked at at how often you can use the CDs on fluff since CDs are only used for busters.

This gives us a new fact here: The more frequent tank busters are, the more the WAR will mitigate over the other two tanks.

Point is: As long as Tank busters are on a ~1 min or longer timer, PLD will mitigate more physical damage than WAR but roughly the same in magical fights, DRK will mitigate more magical damage than WAR but far behind both WAR and PLD in physical fights.

PLD is still by far the tank with the most utility options. DRK is the tank that got the short stick really.

I don't want to argue any more though. Let's assume you are right and WAR mitigates more magical damage, and I honestly do not think you are. WAR being a versatile tank is the least it can get for being the tank that doesn't "shine" in either situation to keep a reasonable balance. Specially when most statics are forcing their PLDs and DRKs to level DRK and PLD respectively because they want the most optimal MT (and WAR isn't in neither situation).

[Giantbane]

Let's assume you are right and WAR mitigates more magical damage, and I honestly do not think you are. WAR being a versatile tank is the least it can get for being the tank that doesn't "shine" in either situation to keep a reasonable balance. Specially when most statics are forcing their PLDs and DRKs to level DRK and PLD respectively because they want the most optimal MT (and WAR isn't in neither situation).

Alright, but I just want to be clear on where I'm coming from. I don't think WAR is too good or needs to be nerfed. It's mostly in a good place. The only complaints I'd have about it are healing abilities not working in Defiance (which is silly) and Holmgang is trying to do too much for one ability and should be split up into 2 abilities (invulnerability and the lock in place).

I do think the PLD & DRK could use some buffs. Nothing major like WAR 2.0 > 2.1, but they could use a little more help in a few areas.

The only possible nerf all tanks might face is if they're encroaching too closely on the DPS of actual DPS classes. But that's a completely separate issue.