If Paladin is "specialized in defense" shouldn't its defense be better always?

[Phoenicia]

Wow, wow, slow down. Nothing tied to Deliverance is "vital" to your survival. What you mentionned is how to push WAR in both mitigation AND dps.

Yeah, but nothing you mentioned is tied to either mitigation nor DPS. Come on, Shield Bash? lol

On my PLD i184, I have 555 skill speed, which put my GCD at 2.42s. When I do RoH > GB > RA, STR Down falls during my next RoH and DoT is refreshed at 1s. So, another GCD and each would fall.

GB is 24s, that's 9.6 GCDs. You need 9 GCDs from GB to GB again, leaving you with 0.6s. Any additional Skill Speed should give you 1 more GCD.

Actually, the design team seems to disagree with you when they gave us Clemency...and PLD is still the one supposed to have knowledge of conjuring skill, mainly healing. And it's not like PLD's concept included healing spells in almost every FF entry.

In the Japanese version, the job is called "Knight". In every FF entry, no "Knight" had the ability to heal except the one in FF1, and it had Cure 1 only.

Again, we're talking about pushing your job, not leisurely surviving encouters.

Again, when added DPS does not conflict with added mitigation, there is no "complication".

Well, yes, because defense is supposed to be their specialty, and not WAR's...

Based on that logic, PLD losing DPS when stance dancing is totally justified since it's WAR's specialty, not PLD's.

Well, you don't stance dance on PLD or DRK for less than 10s too, it would be a DPS loss.

Grasping at straws. PLDs and DRKs pay 1 GCD as a penalty. WAR pays 10s lockout and loss of skills. That's my point. Do not try to twist it and make it as if PLDs and DRKs lose far more than WAR.

Yeah, the "rest" of its MP...MP that are used for for a whole bunch of other skills and constantly drained. Ok, let WAR lose 1 stack. If would be enough to change stance dancing.

That same MP is also constantly recovered.

I don't mind WAR losing 1 stack when swapping. There is only 1 scenario where we get full stacks then swap for FC, and that is during Unchained. Any defensive Scenario means we get 5 stacks > swap > Vengeance/Raw Intuition > Inner Beast. So no real changes in the big picture. But if it means to shut people like you up then fine. Sadly, it won't. People will still come online, log onto these forums and still complain that WAR can still stance dance at "no cost".

Yes, I know. And I specifically said to keep Vengeance as it is now. And with THAT Vengeance, T5 with swap tank "would have been" perfectly viable.

Old WAR tanked T5 with tank swap just fine.

Well, Defiance being useless "before" the damage is exatcly what a reactive skill heal. The major boost of Defiance is how it helps healing the WAR after he receives damage.
For example, if you don't have Defiance before the hit and put it on just after, it will help recovering from this hit with the healing boost. Thus, reactive.
Do the same with Grit or Shield Oath, you'd have taken the full damage and it doesn't help you recover from hit. Thus, proactive.

If you don't have Defiance before the hit, you lose 25% HP layer, hence taking more damage and require more healing than you would otherwise. No it's not reactive. It's a proactive stance. It's not something you activate because you took damage. It's something you activate in order to take less damage, not so you get healed more.

Any heal received while in Grit or Shield Oath is 5% (spells) or 20% (abilities) better than Defiance. So used reactively after receiving damage, those stances are still better.

Because PLDs are weak, things always take longer, which puts more work on everyone involved. Fights last longer, DPS must burn more, and healers have to heal more, all while the tank is taking more hits cause the things are living longer than it would with a DRK or WAR. The extremes constantly break the game shoving the ugly truth about PLDs in your face, up your nose and down your throat, if you hadn't already caught on. It is just terrible.

Oh please, it's not like PLD does 0 DPS and WAR does 3500.

PLD does 650~750 DPS while tanking. If you do less than that, reconfigure how you approach the encounter.