Enough is enough

[Praesul]

Too many men and crabs in this post.



WAR is not "required" for any hard content. It is just that WAR is so good that there is no group willing to run without one. Same thing can be said about SCH and DRG. For the entirety of 2.x, this was also true for BRD, but MCH gave us another option.

Also while WAR was mathematically better than PLD as a MT in 2.xx, most groups required the PLD to MT. I was one of the few WARs to main tank during progression of SCoB and FCoB. In situations where I switched to DPS was because our PLD didn't play a good DPS for solo tank content. But that doesn't change the fact that the majority of the community demanded PLD main tank (just like how they demand a WAR tank in any tank composition now).

Yeah, but we're not saying these issues shouldn't be fixed. What I'm personally saying is this should be fixed without "breaking" the balance. You don't "balance" a class based on the current content, you balance it against the other classes. As I said before, DRK is in a good place only because the content allowed it. If the content had physical tank busters, DRKs will be the tanks on these forums demanding defensive buffs (which they need, mind you!). PLD getting the offense of the other two to fit in today's DPS race of Alex.Savage (which is what most paladins are asking for) would simply shelf one of the other two tanks permanently (Read: DRK) as PLD would have defensive superiority AND the same offense as DRK or WAR (whichever SE takes it up to).

The way this should be fixed is not by making PLD stronger, but by making it so there is an actual benefit to non-WAR comps. Right now, whatever small benefit you get from DRK + PLD setups just wanes compared to WAR's overall raid DPS benefits. That's not even taking Storm Path into account even though its benefit is less than what people make it.

Storm Path is great and all, but due to the multiplicative stacking nature of buffs, on busters the 10% damage from SP is reduced by whatever % of CDs you throw (Veng + IB is 44% so SP is actually reducing damage by 5.6% on that buster) and with SCH + WHM doing Medica 2 and Indomitability or Emergency Tactics + Succor will top anyone off even if they were critically low. SP is nothing to laugh at, but it's not the holy grail of all utility as people make it.

An example fix would be making the slashing debuff available to DRK (If it's not feasible on PLD). Two of three tanks having it means you will always have it no matter what composition of two you have, unless you run double PLD.

In my long post on the other thread, I suggested removed clunk from PLD utility and added utility to DRK. If PLD/DRK combo adds safety that any WAR comp doesn't have, people will consider them. Along with the above Slashing R. Down suggestion or inclusion of NIN (PLD+DRK Don't need monks) and you have a "solid" set up.

TL;DR: We're not against making all 3 tanks wanted, but buffing PLD's DPS is not the way to go.

I'm not saying that PLD DPS should be buffed, because all that would happen is we'd go back to WAR + PLD comps. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure what CAN be done to balance the 3 tanks so any tank combination (outside of doubles of 1 job, which I argue should be suboptimal anyway outside of weird edge cases). My point is that it's silly that many people argue that the balance is fine currently, and that anything can be cleared with any tank combination (even if that's true).

My opinion is that the game should strive to always be better balanced no matter what. Even if things are "okay" and "doable"...Doesn't sit well with me, and I don't understand why people are satisfied with their jobs being less than what they could be. Just because PLD or DRK think that some changes need to be made, doesn't mean that it's useless whining, or that we think other jobs should be nerfed. Because despite what some people think, I don't want WAR to be nerfed. I think that WAR is a good example of how tank balance SHOULD be. It brings really great raid utility, does very good damage, fits the MT and OT role equally well, and has no resource problems. ALL tanks should have something along those lines, PLD or DRK are lacking in some departments here.

Also from what I understand, the way the buffs are calculated, is that storm's path reduces damage dealt by the target while defensive buffs reduce damage taken so that they stack additively rather than multiplicatively. I know defensive buffs stack multiplicatively because it's % increases working with each other, but I don't think storm's path works the same way. Don't quote me on that though, I just remember reading that somewhere but I've not tested it myself.