What they mean by "change the damage calculations of tanks"?

[Cynric]

snip.

Shadowskin is 20% same as rampart so no that's wrong.
Shadow wall is indeed weaker by 10% but that's negligible. And only one CD. We can easily time reprisal to replace that using Dark Dance. Reprisal also stacks with Storms path and works on all damage types. We also have a special 15/30% CD on a short cooldown for magic damage specifically that paladin does not have.

So the trade off for having to use reprisal or another minor CD with shadow wall to be equivalent or a little less than sentinel is the ability to also mitigate 15/30%+ more magic damage than a Paladin can?
Paladin's best mitigation tools over Dark Knight are hallowed ground and the ability to cross class stone skin.

And yes paladin can block more damage than parry can, but RNG is still RNG. I would hope they don't balance encounters based on whether a shield block or parry goes off during a tank buster.

[DarioSkydragon]

Paladin's best mitigation tools over Dark Knight are hallowed ground and the ability to cross class stone skin.

And yes paladin can block more damage than parry can, but RNG is still RNG. I would hope they don't balance encounters based on whether a shield block or parry goes off during a tank buster.

Dont forget traited Conva + Bulwark + Sheltron + Clemency + Shield (passive block).

PLD is the Physical Mitigation King.

[Cynric]

Dont forget traited Conva + Bulwark + Sheltron + Clemency + Shield (passive block).

PLD is the Physical Mitigation King.

Convalescence isn't physical mitigation. You could argue it enhances Shields like Adlo and Noct sect however that's general mitigation and also present on Dark Knight as well.

Sheltron blocks one attack and if you aren't the best at timing it or you experience latency, it can block an auto attack.

Clemency is healing and mostly interrupted, Not sure how this is mitigation.

Bulwark increases the block rate for a short time.

Dark dance increases the parry rate for a short time. Either way RNG is still RNG.

Passive block is RNG.

[Alahra]

What now?

Purely in terms of physical mitigation, here's how the two of them break down:

DRK can Parry, but PLD can also Parry and Block. In terms of passive physical mitigation, PLD is stronger here. Whether or not these tools are RNG isn't necessarily relevant when comparing their total ability to mitigate physical damage.

Shadowskin and Rampart are exact clones of each other, so there's no difference here. They both have access to Foresight.

DRK's Shadow Wall is 30% reduction, while PLD's Sentinel is 40%. PLD is again stronger for this cooldown.

Reprisal lowers damage by 10%, and its nearest equivalent is Rage of Halone, which lowers STR by 10%. Reprisal is somewhat based on RNG and can't be kept up 100% of the time because of its cooldown, so (in terms of physical mitigation only), Rage of Halone is better than Reprisal.

Dark Dance and Bulwark are roughly comparable: Dark Dance offers 20% Parry, while Bulwark offers 60% Block, but with a cooldown three times as long as Dark Dance. Dark Dance has a slightly longer duration, meaning that, over time, it ends up better for physical mitigation than Bulwark.

DRK has no real equivalent to Shelltron, so PLD has one physical mitigation tool that DRK lacks.

DRK also has no real equivalent to Stoneskin, which gives PLD one more tool for physical mitigation (it also applies to magical mitigation but that's not what we're discussing here).

The last point of comparison is between Living Dead and Hallowed Ground, the former of which sort of provides mitigation, but it places an undue burden on healers, which makes Hallowed Ground stronger for mitigation than Living Dead.

So PLD is better than DRK in terms of physical mitigation in the following ways:

• Passive Mitigation (Parry+Block > Parry alone)
• Sentinel vs. Shadow Wall
• Rage of Halone (because of its 100% uptime, it is better at physical mitigation--the fact that Reprisal mitigates all damage isn't relevant when debating the statement "DRK's physical mitigation is weaker than PLD's")
• Shelltron
• Stoneskin
• Hallowed Ground vs. Living Dead

DRK is better than PLD for physical mitigation on the following items:

• Dark Dance vs. Bulwark

So, overall, yes, PLD has an edge when it comes to physical mitigation over DRK. Is that edge great enough to really matter? They're probably not perfectly balanced since DRK's edge in magical mitigation is probably a bit larger than PLD's edge over DRK in physical mitigation.

But it is entirely correct to say PLD is better-equipped than DRK for physical mitigation.

[Cynric]

snip

I would definitely agree that Block > Parry in terms of amount mitigated (though in it actually happening the same amount when comparing is up for debate)
However Paladin parrying and blocking isn't quite the same. Yes they can Parry or Block but if they block they can't parry. Increasing your chance to block(ie, shield , bulwark, or just using sheltron) effectively negates the other rate at which you parry. Blocking happens before parrying gets checked, so it's not like you really have the chance to do both. Though I do like that point.

I've already agreed to stoneskin and hallowed ground. Stoneskin is a great mitigation tool and more valuable with a higher health pool. Conversely Living dead is a terrible mitigation tool and less valuable with a higher health pool. Hallowed ground definitely outshines pretty much anything in the game mitigation wise.

Rage of Halone does not mitigate 10% damage. It decreases Strength by 10%. They are very different mathematically. Damage being mitigated by 10% is straight up reduction, A stat being decreased by 10% really depends on the stat. There's also the fact that yes Rage of Halone "can" be up the entire encounter, however (in the current meta) if you want to maximize your damage as a Paladin realistically Halone will not be up the entire encounter due to it's duration (I actually was really hoping they'd buff this but they said no ), the same goes with Delirium, it's going to be there when it matters, but if you're using Soul Eater as much as possible there will be times when Delirium isn't up.

My main point is your last point. While yes Paladin has a very tiny advantage in the physical department, these things can be made up on Dark Knight a number of ways and Dark Knight isn't vastly outclassed in terms of physical defense when compared to Paladin. Where as paladin unfortunately is slightly outclassed in terms of magical mitigation. They still mitigate just fine but a 30% extra mitigation on top of Delirium, and reprisal(maybe, this isn't guaranteed especially in full magic based fights such as Ramuh where both Paladin and Dark knight have similar weaknesses, no block,parry,DRK just makes it up by having DM,Delirium)

[Nektulos-Tuor]

I would definitely agree that Block > Parry in terms of amount mitigated (though in it actually happening the same amount when comparing is up for debate)
However Paladin parrying and blocking isn't quite the same. Yes they can Parry or Block but if they block they can't parry. Increasing your chance to block(ie, shield , bulwark, or just using sheltron) effectively negates the other rate at which you parry. Blocking happens before parrying gets checked, so it's not like you really have the chance to do both. Though I do like that point.

I've already agreed to stoneskin and hallowed ground. Stoneskin is a great mitigation tool and more valuable with a higher health pool. Conversely Living dead is a terrible mitigation tool and less valuable with a higher health pool. Hallowed ground definitely outshines pretty much anything in the game mitigation wise.

Rage of Halone does not mitigate 10% damage. It decreases Strength by 10%. They are very different mathematically. Damage being mitigated by 10% is straight up reduction, A stat being decreased by 10% really depends on the stat. There's also the fact that yes Rage of Halone "can" be up the entire encounter, however (in the current meta) if you want to maximize your damage as a Paladin realistically Halone will not be up the entire encounter due to it's duration (I actually was really hoping they'd buff this but they said no ), the same goes with Delirium, it's going to be there when it matters, but if you're using Soul Eater as much as possible there will be times when Delirium isn't up.

My main point is your last point. While yes Paladin has a very tiny advantage in the physical department, these things can be made up on Dark Knight a number of ways and Dark Knight isn't vastly outclassed in terms of physical defense when compared to Paladin. Where as paladin unfortunately is slightly outclassed in terms of magical mitigation. They still mitigate just fine but a 30% extra mitigation on top of Delirium, and reprisal(maybe, this isn't guaranteed especially in full magic based fights such as Ramuh where both Paladin and Dark knight have similar weaknesses, no block,parry,DRK just makes it up by having DM,Delirium)

I think that is bad game design though and both classes should be made more like Warrior: Which is good for BOTH Magic/Physical.

[Alahra]

Dark Knight isn't vastly outclassed in terms of physical defense when compared to Paladin.

This is true. But your original question was:

How exactly is dark knight weaker in physical defense?

DRK doesn't have to be "vastly outclassed" to be weaker in physical defense. In fact, if it were vastly outclassed, there would be a pretty big balance issue. PLD arguably isn't vastly outclassed in magical defense, either, but no one would argue that DRK isn't better at magical defense.

And as a small aside, relating to Rage of Halone--even against a physically attacking mob in Azys Lla, the Halone debuff reduces physical damage by about 10%, so it'll reduce at least that much on the typical raid boss (and probably more since the boss should have a higher STR score).

[Cynric]

snip

You are 100% correct on my original question. It just doesn't feel like it's that much of a difference to say "Dark Knight should have higher defense" like the original poster I replied to wanted.

I guess I should have worded it better more so along the lines of, "How is it enough of a difference to warrant a buff on DRK in terms of Phys mitigation." My fault.

I think the important thing as far as mitigation goes is. The amount where a Dark is weak Physical wise compared to Paladin isn't anything to write home about. I think we both agree on this.

I don't think we've really disagreed with each other much over the discussion, though I do wonder how the effectiveness of Dark Dance would weigh in over the course of a fight if we actually used more parry, since it can be paired with a major cooldown every time a tank buster is incoming(for now..) and can always be paired with a minor CD when it's up if necessary, and every other dark dance you get awareness.

I still feel like reprisal would edge out halone in actual practice though but only on the hits that matter (tank busters), But that itself depends on the Strength stat versus the amount of incoming damage without halone. So that's not set in stone.

Fun conversation to have though. I think what I have gathered from this discussion though is I doubt dark knight's physical defense definitely wouldn't affect them making tank busters stronger. Though I don't think it's necessary to make them very much stronger either.

[Alahra]

Shadowskin is 20% same as rampart so no that's wrong.

I could have sworn traited Rampart was 30%, but you're correct on that point.