Savage Alexander and the Paladin Exodus

[Brian_]

Balance impacts a lot more than just bleeding edge progression.

The other day, I switched from PLD to WAR for AS1. After doing so, I was left thinking "this is absolutely stupid."

I have no esoterics gear on my WAR (outside of the belt which is shared between all tanks), no real end-game experience with WAR, and very little actual practice with the job.

This is compared to PLD which I have played since joining the game and have 5 pieces of esoteric gear on. I've tanked everything outside of some Savage content on PLD and have a firm understanding of the job.

Even without using optimized gear to hit SS break points or enough ACC to cap frontal requirements, I was pulling 200+ more DPS on faust and 100-200 more DPS on oppressors without being given the time to pre-infuriate. On PLD, I actually have to work to build enmity. That means opening with Shield Oath and using RoH instead of RA and gimping your DPS. On WAR, Unchained + Berserk openers with BB being your highest potency combo means you basically can full time DPS the rest of the fight with no chance of anyone ever overtaking you and minimal DPS loss. And, having oGCD stances gives you so much more flexibility with damage management (both incoming and outgoing). CD management was a walk in the park for WAR. You have Thrill, Vengeance, and Inner Beast up for every tank buster and Holmgang up for 2 of the 3. After taking the hit, you can infuriate IB, Equilibrium, and go right back to DPSing with full HP. On PLD, you're tight rope walking with trying to squeeze in that 3rd combo hit before dancing back to Shield Oath ahead of a tank buster with enough time to also fit in all your CDs. Again, it's stupid. Ridiculously stupid.

Like... I don't get why anyone plays PLD anymore. It's a total mess right now.

[Nadirah]

Because I like Paladin?

Hate generation is annoying. Warrior has hate mod on highest potency combo. There is no choice there. They don't have to choose between hate or damage.

I'd be more fine with PLD dps being lower if the clunk wasn't there. RA is my top level ability. If I'm MT, I don't get to use it much because my OT will rip hate. That's just making the dps thing worse.

[Brian_]

A1S is ALL physical save for the cleave and the buster. Those of which are spaced out by 2 minutes, and you will only ever see 3 in the fight. Everything else is physical. The total amount of damage a Paladin can mitigate in A1S completely destroys what a Drk can mitigate, from Hollowed Ground alone. Hollowed is raw immunity. Living Dead still requires you to be healed for 100% of your HP so you don't instantly die, and if you are healed for 100% of it, you lose your immortality. Paladins don't. This means healers now have to worry about the 10 second timer Walking Dead gives them to heal up the Drk, otherwise it's a wipe. And using a CD like benediction to counteract the negative side of another CD is not good.

On this alone I can't take anything you say seriously. "Outside of the majority of the significant damage in AS1, everything else is physical! PLDs are fine!" Really? Is that what you're saying? No educated tank gives two craps about auto attack damage. And, due to DA+DM, DRKs can mitigate the three tank busters without ever needing to use Living Dead so it's actually a pure luxury button for them, a button that PLD doesn't have during AS1 because PLDs actually need to use HG in their CD rotation because of their garbage tier magical damage mitigation.

DRKs can go Shadow Skin + DA + DM for first buster, Shadow Wall + DA + DM for the second, and Shadow Skin + DA + DM for the third and are fine. If you want to LD one, you free up some CDs to reduce the general damage you take otherwise and increase DPS uptime. PLDs go Rampart + Sentinel for the first, HG for the second, Rampart + Sentinel for the third. Otherwise, they won't have CDs to stack. You clearly have no idea how PLD plays and yet continue pull stuff straight out of nowhere.

[Wizhard]

And people for some reason think that Alexander is a magic heavy raid, when it really isn't. More so than some previous raids, maybe, but the only magic heavy part of Alex is A4.

Yeah, its not like Royal Fount, Hyper-compressed Plasma, Cascade, Sluice+protean wave, Drainage etc are threatenning magical busters or raid-wide aoes. Right? Now tell me what ability requires str down debuff to more safely cruise through? Oh and the only other thing that is somewhat usable is divine veil, which is not up for even every other cascade, unlike delirium, path or probably even reprisal, which can be up on EVERY cascade.

[Warlyx]

the main issue with tanks in mmorpgs is that :

all the tanks need to be able to MT: check

all the tanks need to be able to OT: check

the issues arise when 1 of the tanks does way more dmg or bring more to the table than the others , or 1 of them bring nothing.

and thats the case with pld , if WAR and DRK can MT and OT aswell as PLD , and on top of that bring more dmg , 10% slashing debuff , -10% dmg taken (WAR) , or INT debuff (-Magic dmg taken) ....

why any1 will take a pld over war/drk now? better mitigation? , but the issues is that war has enough to survive (so does drk of course)

alex savage is all about tight dps checks (because we lack gear ) , if u have a palading in the setup u gonna need to wait 1 or 2 weeks more than others raids in order to pass this dps checks (get more gear), and thats plain unfair.

[Kyne_Lyons]

If u have a paladin in the setup u gonna need to wait 1 or 2 weeks more than others raids in order to pass this dps checks (get more gear), and thats plain unfair

This is the unfortunate reality Paladins face right now.

[Isius]

Aye, I think any player that actually plays a PLD will overtime realize how much PLD starts to lack behind the other two tanks. From not meeting dps checks to cumberson skills, and skills lacking in any real usefulliness for encounters(bloat skills). It all really just stinks in overtime how underwhelming PLD feels in Savage.

I saw this divide in tanks when I heard PLD/DRK will be focus mitigation tanks in HW, one physical, the other magic, and it would have lead to possible problems in endgame progression with one tank being possibly being left out. But in reality that is only a portion of the problem. The other part is dps/skillsets. And yes, I know PLD is only a little behind on dps versus a DRK with them both being in thier dps stance respectfully. But there is a real noticable gap in dps when they are both in thier tank stance, and also WAR. So what I am getting is PLD has to be outside of thier tank stance, and more into thier dps stance to even meet the dps a DRK gets while just staying in tank stance, aka PLD taking more risk to be able to do the dps of other tanks can do to meet the needed dps checks in Savage. So in Alex Savage I got both the short end of the straw playing a PLD that mitigates less magic dmg, and also provides less dps. In Alex Savage dps has become the primary concern while mitigation is secondary.

Overall bringing a PLD just hurts your group. So saying to groups that it will take 2-3 weeks longer to beat content because they have a PLD is EXTREMELY demoralizing to a progression group, and why should you let 7 others suffer, and wait that long? WHY!? And why to those that say Alex 1-4 Savage is not PLDs raid content just wait for the next one. Again why should we WAIT, and you do know the other tanks will be choosen over PLD if they can live through the content in the next raids, which they WILL. SE is not going to design raid content which one tank has zero chance of living through with thier mitigation cds properly up. Seriously PLDs are just going to remain behind the other tanks at this rate.

PLD in Savage is getting very old to talk about. There really is zero point in posting in the tank forums anymore like Kyne said, with a few very outspoken individuals that point out "HOW FINE" PLD is in Savage with calculations, fudged up videos comparing dps, and with videos showing off PLD is able to perform Alexander Floors fine. WHEN THEY DON'T EVEN PLAY THE CLASS THEMSLEVES IN SAVAGE! Throwing mitigation numbers/values is all fine, but this does not at all 100% represent actual performance of a class in ACTUAL CONTENT. Simply put it is easier to pass Savage content with a DRK/WAR, so why play a PLD when all you are doing is making things harder for yourself, and your group? It's very frustating as a PLD main to read the tank forums knowing your class needs some sort buffs right now somewhere, but you have outspoken people screaming "LET THIS THREAD DIE!" While clearly showing a bias against PLDs, when they were the go to mt in ARR, basically feels like butthurt WARs(atleast what I can gather from) that have something against PLDs, and now they are soaking it up as they are the MOST needed tank now in Savage. I dealt with this crappy type of attitude back when I was a 2.0 Warrior main, and I got the same crap...git gud, or I know your class is broke but you are not me oh well. LOL...yeah whatever I don't pin people as PLD/WAR/DRK just bad players, and people. So WARs gloating over PLDs is nothing new to me, but is very old, when I already dealt with it once. (I still remember several times this happened. In 2.0 someone says in a Ifrit HM, "Two Warriors?" *that person leaves* and group falls apart. lol That is not even Coil but you get it.)

I am burnt out feeling PLD is underpowered. I am burnt out reading the tank forums PLDs needing a buff, and burnt I am out on playing my PLD in Savage, when I know it is the lesser of the three tanks. Something clearly needs to be done with PLD, but nothing in 3.07 except devs thinking about changing enimty values on combos down the road. I am fortunate enough to be in a chillax static, and one that prefers to have a PLD in a group, but with me playing my PLD more, and more in Savage it just feels like I could possibly hold the group back in the future, and it would be better if I played a different tank class. I told my static lead I am done with PLD in Savage today. So I am basically going to swap back over to my 2.0 main, Warrior.

I think Kyne is right about the supposed Exodus of PLDs in Savage Alexander. The tank forums SEEM to be dying down with PLDs needing buffs, but this is more likely due to players realizing the truth, and already swapped to another tank away from PLD. Or they are just plain burnt out having to continuely defend PLDs do need buffs somewhere. I fear SE will take it oh...PLDs are fine now with less discussion about it on the forums. When people just swapped tank classes, or just lost hope in possible PLD buffs after nothing in 3.07.

But whatever, I said my peace, vented, and I am tired of this as a whole. peace.

[Kyne_Lyons]

I would veer from pitting the community against each other with the Warrior gloating bits and such. That said, you raise a lot of excellent points, and Paladins that are raiding Savage at a serious level can probably echo a lot of what you said. I struggled against my better judgement for a long time to convince myself that Paladin was "fine" but Savage Alexander, especially A3S, makes it hard to justify Paladin's current position in end-game raid content. A4S as Paladin was the final nail in the coffin. I really wanted to finish this raid tier on my favorite job, but unless I want to tell the rest of my group to wait around to get more gear and be so selfish as to stop our progression to a halt for the sake of my own ego, I have to make the right decision for the group as a whole. No more.

[Isius]

I would veer from pitting the community against each other with the Warrior gloating bits and such. That said, you raise a lot of excellent points, and Paladins that are raiding Savage at a serious level can probably echo a lot of what you said. I struggled against my better judgement for a long time to convince myself that Paladin was "fine" but Savage Alexander, especially A3S, makes it hard to justify Paladin's current position in end-game raid content. A4S as Paladin was the final nail in the coffin. I really wanted to finish this raid tier on my favorite job, but unless I want to tell the rest of my group to wait around to get more gear and be so selfish as to stop our progression to a halt for the sake of my own ego, I have to make the right decision for the group as a whole. No more.

And I agree

I personally want to say I have nothing against Warrior, it's nothing more then a class just like Paladin, but each class has different play style to suit a wider variety of players. I for one would like to see all tanks balanced leading to people able to choose what class they want to play, and not where I felt I needed to go PLD back in 2.0 before WAR buffs, and now back to WAR in 3.0. I would like to see WAR/PLD/DRK to be able to MT/OT as fine as the last. So the community doesn't pit itself against eachother. There is nothing to be gained from pitting against one another just a chance of lost. There really is nothing more to say about it. Sorry if it came out wrong. It's just from my personal experience it's frustrating to have to go through this twice once in 2.0, and again in 3.0 to only see the samething happening again.

[AcaciaTyrannia]

Paladin mitigation isn't superior enough to justify their huge damage output inferiority.