Quote Originally Posted by Phoenicia View Post
snip
Some imbalances translate across all levels of play. The reason is because some imbalances scale down proportionately with skill.

When you look at imbalances in fighting games, RTS games, and, yes, other MMORPGs, you will see a lot of situations where an imbalance at the highest level translates to lower level play.

Like I said earlier, an exceptionally skilled DRK will output exceptional DPS and sufficient survivability while a good DRK will output good DPS and sufficient survivability. An exceptionally skilled PLD will output exceptional DPS and sufficient survivability while a good PLD will also scale down proportionately. Outside of cases where there is a real difference in learning curve that gates access to differing levels of skill, this is generally true. A good PLD is not going to magically out DPS a good DRK.

So when you look at lesser statics, the same issues exist, just on a different scale. Gear helps make up for that gap in player skill but it doesn't make up for that gap in job balance unless one class scales better with gear than another. Eventually, the gear will be enough to carry players past content but that still says nothing of job balance. We'll just be having this same discussion the next raid cycle if the meta doesn't change. Regardless of which class is screwed the next cycle, shouldn't the goal be to balance so that no class is screwed?

Since ASTs are in a similar position but seemingly without this strange territorial defensiveness from their co-healers, let's look at their situation. Everyone with any ounce of sense will say that while AST can work, there are some obvious issues with balance. On the other hand, people deny clear facts and truth when judging PLD and it's puzzling.

Why this keeps going in circles is because the few people against helping out PLD fail to address the key issues in a meaningful way.

Given equal terms, PLD DPS will always be lower than DRK and WAR.

Given equal terms, PLD mitigation and survivability will not always be higher than DRK and WAR.

The current tanking meta is to meet an eHP threshold and then go full DPS thereafter. So, even if PLD has a situational eHP advantage, it's irrelevant because it's above the eHP threshold. As seen in live environments, it's not like the other tanks require drastically different healing while bringing more DPS.