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

[Phoenicia]

Yes, I need 9. Add one GCD, like Shield Swipe or change stance, that makes 10, and GB will fall, or even having to retreat for an AoE. And RoH falls earlier.

Hence I'm right. GB is reapplied right as it falls off at 10 GCDs.

FFI : Knight -> White Magic
FFIII : Knight -> White Magic
FF IV : Paladin -> White Magic
FF V : Knight -> No White Magic but this is the job than learn to use Two-handed to do massive damage. We can go that way, if you want
FF IX : Both Knight for Steiner and PLD for Beatrix. Either massive physical DPS or White Magic, pick one.
FF XI : Paladin -> White Magic up to Cure 4
FF XII International : Knight -> Advanced White Magic, up to Regen and Curaja, Bravery and Faith
FF Tactics : Knight -> Powerful debuff

In FFIII: Knight had Defend, not White Magic. Even if it did, it didn't pass level 1.
FFIV: Paladin, not Knight.
FFV: Knight, no white magic.
FFIX: Steiner was Knight, no white magic. Beatrix was "Holy Knight", she had White Magic.
FFXI: PLD was also called Knight in the JP version but it had high levels White Magic spells its skill ratings were A- healing, A+ divine and C buffs.
FFXII International: Even when they added the zodiac job system, jobs weren't true to their origins. SAM used magical swords and NIN didn't dual wield.
FFT: Knight, no white magic. Cool debuffs. Wish FFXIV PLD was half as cool!

This agrees to my point though: Traditional Knight didn't always have White Magic. And all of this is irrelevant as this is FFXIV. WAR was never the self-healer in FF history:

FFI: WAR had attack and defend. WAR used all weapons in the game.
FFIII: WAR had Advance, 25% more damage but take 25% more damage. (Traditional Berserk). WAR used most weapons.
FFV: WAR was... Knight? lol
FFXI: WAR had provoke. Why does GLD have it in XIV?! WAR also used all weapons in the game except (great)Katana.
FFT: Squire? lol..

Yes, of course they lose DPS, I'm fine with that. But good PLD try to minimize this loss by changing stance at the right moment.

So it's justified? Great, we agree. WAR already loses lots of defenses switching to Deliverance. So we're even!

No, it's not. If a PLD spent less that 10s after stance dancing, he's just playing bad, and can't be considered as a reference. It's a if you say "You see, PLD can stack Sheltron+Rampart+Sentinel+Convalesence to have a far more instant mitigation than WAR. Yes, but a PLD doesn't do that.

WAR popping all its CDs aside from HG has 214% eHP (44% mitigation + 20% max HP) on magical and with RI it goes up to 267% physical eHP.
PLD popping all its CDs aside from HG has 207% eHP (48% mitigation) and on a block it goes up to 259% ~ 287% (Kite ~ Tower Shield) physical eHP.

Funny, WAR actually wins this one. I do not bring it up because you never realistically stack this many CDs.

You'll always lose one stack. Nowadays, you can build 4, then swap, then pop berserk for your fifth stack, and Fell Cleave immediatly. If you lose one, you'll need to burn an additional CD, which can bite you, of start a new combo.

As I said, WAR can get around that easily and people will still come to the forums and complain about it. Trust me, if WAR's stance dancing was unfair, SE would've already addressed it the moment they added Deliverance and Grit into the game.

hallowed ground seriously ins't that good smh

it's 8-9 seconds (it's NEVER a full 10, the thing has a damnable animation delay before it activates that still ticks down the duration), on a cooldown so long it can only be used once per any given encounter, and maybe twice or thrice in a dungon if you pop it early.

Fights last between 11 to 15 minutes. You can use Hallowed Ground 2 or 3 times in a fight. Realistically twice. The buff starts and ticks after the animation delay, check it again.

I will say this to you as I said it to another PLD:

In 2.1 and after, WARs told PLDs: "WAR is equally good as MT", their reply? "No, we have Hallowed Ground!"

Now that we're saying "PLD is actually good because of Hallowed Ground", you say "it is not good enough"?

Please PLDs, grow up. You are still the best tanks in terms of mitigation. You will not do any more DPS as long as that fact remains.

[SpookyGhost]

Few things I just wanted to say because I've had this argument one too many times and don't want to go through it all again:

1. Thanks for the information about DA + Soul Eater, I actually didn't know it healed for that much. I suppose it only overlaps with fairy heals and Regen/Med2 ticks, which isn't as bad and similar to Block/Parry.

2. Though Phoenica covered pretty much everything, I think the key thing to acknowledge is that WAR's mitigation and damage is GCD to GCD, whereas DRK and PLD only use GCDs for damage. Anyway, I'm not trying to have a schlong measuring fight with what I said, I just really love WAR and it's complexity - when I played PLD I barely felt like playing the game at all anymore. You can disagree, it doesn't really matter, my point was mainly that difficulty of a job shouldn't justify any massive difference over the other 2 tanks. I feel like SE benefits all 3 tanks too much and should be given to everyone.

3. HG is the best defensive CD in the game. It allows healers to entirely ignore you for 8~10s and you can take any amount of damage in that time. Even on it's incredibly long CD (which is how it's balanced), it's still the best button you can press at any given time.

[Reynhart]

In 2.1 and after, WARs told PLDs: "WAR is equally good as MT", their reply? "No, we have Hallowed Ground!"

What I said to WAR from 2.1 until 2.5 was more like, "Please, go MT, you're doing far more damage than I do. And since you're here with Storm's Eye, I'm doing a little more damage than you do if I OT, let's crush numbers together"
Now, that WAR has Deliverance and DRK is there, they say to us "Sorry, not good enough has an OT"

[Gooner_iBluAirJGR]

The Quote Wars have begun again!

[RiisWolf]

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.

I didn't say they're powerless, and this isn't about me. It's about the system as it is now. And since PLD defensive effectiveness is pretty much similar to WAR and DRK if not just worse even mildly, nobody will pick them in a number crunching game especially if their defenses aren't significantly better than the tanks who CAN do significantly more damage than them. That's how the game works, and no amount of skill is going to change being underpowered.

[Anger]

Hallowed ground. while this ability stays as it is you have no right to complain about pld being weak.

I have every right to complain about anything I'd like to complain about.

Further, one ability doesn't make up for the differences between the tanks. Two of them do considerably more DPS and can tank the same fights without problem.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

Rage of Halone
12% of damage the target does is immediately healed by the Paladin. This generates a little enmity.
(This generates aggro for the paladin. It also does not prevent one-shots.)

Delirium
5% of target's damage done is prevented and reflected back to the caster.

Storm's Path
Same

Fixed, easy. Now everyone has their own version of Storm's Path.

[SpookyGhost]

The "problem" right now with Path vs Delirium vs RoH is that they are roughly equal.

Let's say Path reduces 10% damage from every damage type, RoH reduces 10% damage from every physical damage type, and Delirium reduces 10% damage from every magical damage type.

You would always want WAR in your party, because you will always be + on damage reduction over DRK + PLD. DRK + PLD will reduce a flat 10% damage from everything the boss has, which is literally just Path. But when you combine Path with Delirium, now you're looking at 10% damage reduction overall PLUS 10% extra damage reduction from magical damage.

So, I have a solution but it's not without it's flaws. Bring Path down to 5% or bring Delirium/RoH up to 15%. Let's assume we're bringing Path down to 5%, basically what you're looking at now is Delirium + RoH being their current 10% decrease of overall damage. But if you bring PLD + WAR you're now looking at a 15% decrease to physical damage and a 5% decrease to magical damage. Same with DRK + WAR.

The flaws with this, at least as far as I can tell, are:

1. PLD + DRK would reduce the most overall damage, but WAR would still be best for any fight where one damage source is focused over the other. A4S is an example where PLD + DRK would shine, but then you've got fights like A1S where double DRK would be optimal, or A3S where PLD + WAR would be optimal.

2. WAR + WAR would be the worst defensive comp imaginable. But I guess it would make up for it with high DPS? I dunno.

What I've learned from thinking about this, though, is that Path/Delirium/RoH balance is very finicky. It's like Jenga or something. However, I don't think Path is actually the real problem right now - while Path is great, it isn't what's stopping DRK + PLD groups from existing. The issue is the lack of a slashing debuff, which is why I think giving all the tanks Eye would allow for DRK + PLD to exist without feeling severely underpowered compared to the other comps.

[Anger]

Fixed, easy. Now everyone has their own version of Storm's Path.

I wish they would do that.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

New Class Solution

Why not make a class like "Red Mage" Or "Samurai (dps)" with a Slashing Debuff.

You should not nerf a class just because its more effective. You should buff the other classes to be unique themselves.

Warriors are a fine class. They don't need no shave or nerf. Paladin and Dark Knight just need buffs and a DPS class needs a slashing debuff.

A Samurai with a Katana sounds like the perfect Candidate.