Would PLD be viable if its mitigation was as superior to DRK as its DPS is inferior?

[Gooner_iBluAirJGR]

I don't think their defense needs to be higher per say but if some of their utility-based cooldowns were more functional in top-end content I think they'd be more desirable.

examples:
Cover — Sword Oath effect: Increases target allies Attack Power by X%
Divine Veil — Creates a barrier that absorbs damage equal to 20% of your Maximum HP. Nearby allies are Shielded for 10% of your maximum HP
Clemency — 1.5s cast time

Stuff like that, I think, would make Paladin more desired.

#JustIdeas #BeNice #Opinions

[Ladon]

Making Paladins a viable option to DRKs isn't a solution. All this is going to do is displace DRKs while more and more groups start looking at Warrior-Warrior as the most viable option.

Tank balance is broken until a PLD-DRK group is just as effective as a WAR-Whatever group.

[Dhex]

From what I've seen others post, it seems Paladins are around 10% lower single target DPS than DRK and 20% lower than WAR (AoE is probably a much wider gap).Paladin is supposed to bring increased defensive capabilities in exchange for lower damage. Comparing to WAR is apples and oranges, but DRK is apples to apples as they are very similar.

Compared to DRK, PLD has:
- A physical shield, which people are saying is good for 3-5% on average.
- Shelltron
- 10% higher mitigation in Sentinel than DRK's equivalent (10s with 180s cooldown).
- Hallowed Ground is a lot better than Living Dead (although it is 420s vs 300s cooldown).
- Stoneskin and Clemency, which people don't seem to think highly of (I don't have Clemency yet on PLD myself, so I can't say much for myself).

All-in-all, this doesn't really feel like 10% overall better defensive capabilities than DRK. It feels closer to 5% IMO, less if you put more weight on a magic based scenario like A4S. I wonder if the problem isn't that defensive tank is a useless proposition, but that PLD simply isn't as much better at defense as it is inferior at damage? Most of the discussion has been purely on DPS, not on defensive capabilities.

My question is: If PLD had an across the fight average 10% better defensive capabilities than DRK, would it then be viable in Savage?

Say hypothetically they increased the damage reduction in Shield Oath to 25% (for damage taken, not dealt). Is increasing defensive capabilities a viable alternative to increasing DPS to bring balance? (Note: I am not saying SE should buff Shield Oath, just throwing it out as a hypothetical scenario.)

Better defense doesn't solve any issues.

If every tank can mitigate sufficiently such that they survive tank buster/heavy damage within an acceptable margin the then it comes down to their auxiliary functions within the party; DPS, Status Debuff, & Buffs.

Warrior can mitigate every tank buster; brings top DPS, a 10% damage debuff, and a Slashing buff.
Dark Knight can mitigate every tank buster; brings mid-line DPS, a magic debuff, and a 10% damage debuff when they can Parry & Reprisal.
Paladin can mitigate every tank buster; brings lowest DPS, a physical debuff, and can Block physical attacks occasionally.

If you designed Paladin to "mitigate more" you're implying encounter design where one or more of the other tanks could not survive, or could not survive with an acceptable margin. You'd simply have offset the problem - the problem is WAR - PLD - DRK are not balanced in their auxiliary functions - the FFXIV meta is damage & utility. More mitigation isn't really going to help anyone but bad healers with bad timing or insufficient gear.

Tanks do this; Big hit - Use thingy to reduce Big hit! This is what all 3 tanks already do effectively. If they couldn't do this they wouldn't be tanks. Adding gimmicks to "Use thingy" does not inherently change this outside of making it require procs and we all already hate RNG (Parry Block Reprisal Shield Swipe say hallo). Dark Knight uses the thingy and the other thingy, Warrior uses the thingy and expends the stack thingy, Paladin uses the thingy maybe uses the stoneskin thingy, and has a useless heal thingy that gets interrupted mostly.

Auxiliary functions of these tanks become; Warrior does dps - buffs tank(s) & Ninja damage - reduces raid wide damage taken, Dark Knight does dps - reduces magic damage taken (if you don't have a Monk) and reduces raid wide damage taken if it parries (force that main-tank role on ya), Paladin does less dps - reduces physical damage taken anddd it's extra mitigation is mostly hiding behind a shield (again force that main-tank role).

Why is that ^ an issue - Paladin and Dark Knight are always second fiddle (or at least need to be the one to be getting hit in the face) to Warrior when it comes to a raid. Always. Didn't bring a Warrior? Why? Go get a Warrior. Put your Warrior in the OT slot and enjoy having more damage, and more mitigation. Do it! Do it all the time - every time because DRK and PLD aren't good at off-tank roles because they need to get hit in the face for their shiny extras to work.

Hell even if Cover sucked less it'd need to also allow you to block Covered damage so you could use your other junk - like Shield Swipe since you don't have a TP factory in your butt...

Like Warrior.

And even then - DRK MT with a WAR OT would be better unless the content suddenly was pulling gimmicks like Bahamut's Ahk Morn dookie-dumper followed by Nael's back-scratch attack or whatever.


It's really a balance issue between WAR vs. PLD/DRK; WAR always gets a slot because it reduces both types of damage, and increases it's own damage, and the overall raid damage potential. Oh and it does the most damage too.

[Syzygian]

WAR is not extremely far ahead of DRK in DPS unless they are both out of their tanking stance. A Grit DRK that is being provided the slashing debuff can actually outDPS a Defiance WAR.

All of the following assumes the slashing debuff is up:

MT DPS= DRK>WAR>>>>>>>PLD
OT DPS= WAR>>>>DRK>>>>PLD

PLD currently has no excess fluff damage (not counting passives or things that are kept on 100% uptime like Maim, Darkside, and Fight or Flight which are there mostly to mitigate the damage penalties of the tanking stance) that is present regardless of their stance. WAR has the extremely powerful Berserk and Internal Release, DRK has a whopping 6 oGCDs that provide roughly 2.5K worth of free potency per minute in between their combos. PLD has only two oGCDs, and offensive cooldown that is actually *worse* than Darkside and Maim by themselves regardless of stance, and SwO only equals out to full BW uptime on DRK or the passive buffs of Deliverance. So basically a PLD OT at their highest DPS is only doing about as much damage as a DRK that is not using Plunge/Low Blow/Salted Earth/Carve/Dark Passenger or a WAR that is not using Berserk or Internal Release.

[giantslayer]

Better defense doesn't solve any issues.

If every tank can mitigate sufficiently such that they survive tank buster/heavy damage within an acceptable margin the then it comes down to their auxiliary functions within the party; DPS, Status Debuff, & Buffs.

Warrior can mitigate every tank buster; brings top DPS, a 10% damage debuff, and a Slashing buff.
Dark Knight can mitigate every tank buster; brings mid-line DPS, a magic debuff, and a 10% damage debuff when they can Parry & Reprisal.
Paladin can mitigate every tank buster; brings lowest DPS, a physical debuff, and can Block physical attacks occasionally.[/SIZE]

So if I understand what you wrote, the issue is not so much DRK being better than PLD but WAR being much better than both DRK and PLD?

[Disc]

Compared to DRK, PLD has:
- A physical shield, which people are saying is good for 3-5% on average.
- Shelltron
- 10% higher mitigation in Sentinel than DRK's equivalent (10s with 180s cooldown).
- Hallowed Ground is a lot better than Living Dead (although it is 420s vs 300s cooldown).
- Stoneskin and Clemency, which people don't seem to think highly of (I don't have Clemency yet on PLD myself, so I can't say much for myself).

All-in-all, this doesn't really feel like 10% overall better defensive capabilities than DRK

Rage of Halone alone is roughly 10% mitigation against physical attacks, which account for the large majority of damage tanks take in raids. PLD can also go through the first phase of A3S without direct cures with proper use of Clemency & mitigation abilities. I would say that attacks should not be able to interrupt Clemency, it also should not prevent blocks. Neither DRK nor WAR has to put up with that garbage on their self-heals while putting out more damage.

PLD currently has no excess fluff damage (not counting passives or things that are kept on 100% uptime like Maim, Darkside, and Fight or Flight which are there mostly to mitigate the damage penalties of the tanking stance) that is present regardless of their stance. WAR has the extremely powerful Berserk and Internal Release, DRK has a whopping 6 oGCDs that provide roughly 2.5K worth of free potency per minute in between their combos. PLD has only two oGCDs, and offensive cooldown that is actually *worse* than Darkside and Maim by themselves regardless of stance, and SwO only equals out to full BW uptime on DRK or the passive buffs of Deliverance. So basically a PLD OT at their highest DPS is only doing about as much damage as a DRK that is not using Plunge/Low Blow/Salted Earth/Carve/Dark Passenger or a WAR that is not using Berserk or Internal Release.

You're making the mistake of assuming Blood Weapon makes up for Grit, it doesn't. It offers 5% more bonus than FoF on average. Sword Oath accounts for just over 1400 potency per minute from auto-attack bonuses alone. Both DRK & PLD are losing roughly 23% damage by being in tank stance. The total potency difference between DRK & PLD outside of tank stance comes out to around 1000 potency per minute after counting buffs, assuming no Clemency. OPs guess of 10% less damage output from PLD was fairly accurate, in exchange it takes roughly 10% less damage. In theory this should allow PLD to use SwOath more than DRK can drop Grit, but Royal Authority & Goring Blade were designed to fit the OT slot PLD will never get, so they can't hold hate in SwOath while maximizing damage.

[Dhex]

So if I understand what you wrote, the issue is not so much DRK being better than PLD but WAR being much better than both DRK and PLD?

Precisely; Paladin and Dark Knight both rely on being the primary target for their benefits to count; both lack TP utilities, both tool-sets require that they be attacked - Reprisal and Block are useless when you're not being attacked. Warrior's tools allow it to buff slashing damage, debuff damage, and it has an actual damage stance that puts out more damage while off-tanking. Dark Knight is close but it's also benefiting from content that plays to it's strengths. Paladin does the least damage of the three - and brings no meaningful debuffs when tank-buster & raid-wide damage is primarily magic.

Paladin and Dark Knight need to be balanced in comparison to Warrior such that WAR/DRK or DRK/PLD or PLD/WAR all work equally effectively with any of the three tanks in both the off & primary tanking slots respectively.

Edit:
Why though Dhex!? Because otherwise Dark Knight and Paladin become "flavor of content" tanks that come and go depending on what Square implements next. Warrior is guaranteed a spot because of it's damage and utility.

[Cabalabob]

Unless it's so much more defensive that it can survive an enrage and also keep its party alive through it, no the extra defence will not make up for the lower offensive capabilities.

[Freyyy]

Making Paladins a viable option to DRKs isn't a solution. All this is going to do is displace DRKs while more and more groups start looking at Warrior-Warrior as the most viable option.

Tank balance is broken until a PLD-DRK group is just as effective as a WAR-Whatever group.

[Isius]

Making Paladins a viable option to DRKs isn't a solution. All this is going to do is displace DRKs while more and more groups start looking at Warrior-Warrior as the most viable option.

Tank balance is broken until a PLD-DRK group is just as effective as a WAR-Whatever group.

I have to agree with this statement. I would love to see PLD/DRK as a valid group comp to PLD/WAR, DRK/WAR, since my buddy likes playing his DRK, and I like playing my PLD. But SE basically made both PLD/DRK into mts. Both tanks want to take advantage of thier abilities/traits. PLD - proc blocks/shield swipes DRK - MP regen from getting hit/reprisal a move that requires you to parry a attack first. As a PLD player I really do not care if I mt/ot. I got my T9 clear by going smn for added dps while my co-tank WAR soloed tanked the fight, and again I let my co-tank be mt through out my time in fcob. I don't really care if I mt or ot.

SE really needs to make both PLD/DRK more of a valid choice to mt or ot since there are 3 tanks now with only 2 tank slots. Should WAR be king of the ot spot in HW, no. Maybe WAR does deserve a nerf afterall as some are calling for now. No class should be able to do higher dps versus it's counterparts, while also bringing utility that also increases groups dps even farther, especially with the way endgame content is currently designed. All that does is making WAR a clear-cut REQUIRED tank pick, and those trying to do Savage without one is kinda crazy, or everyone is just way overgeared for the encounter so it doesn't matter anymore.

I personally feel all tanks need some sort adjustments, and not just PLD anymore.