Is it pointless to lvl Paladin?

[Riki_Namu]

Prior to shield oath you do have to spam flash quite a bit. I got Qarn NM last night in leveling roulette and I could barely keep hate even off the scholar. I think that's what he was referring to, perhaps.

Pretty much, everything before oath is a straight up struggle 3 flashes min against any sort of decent dps.... on my DRK one unleash and I have hate all day long even when not in tank stance. I can rip threat off a PLD without provoke also in full sized partys with a standard rotation, both in tank stance. So ya, theres that. My main reason for not leveling one.

[Februs]

Prior to shield oath you do have to spam flash quite a bit. I got Qarn NM last night in leveling roulette and I could barely keep hate even off the scholar. I think that's what he was referring to, perhaps.

Oh ... well then yes. If we're talking pre-ShO then you'd be spamming flash like it's going out of style, but Post-ShO is a different story. Once you get your Pld to 50 there is no excuse for a Flash spam... except maybe Speed runs in which AoE dmg is far exceeding your skill speed (thereby exceeding your ability to split enmity).

I can rip threat off a PLD without provoke also in full sized partys with a standard rotation, both in tank stance. So ya, theres that. My main reason for not leveling one.

I still find this a little odd though.

At lvl 50, with ShO it should be pretty damn hard to take threat from a Pld without voke. Before 3.0 came out I could actually steal threat from War MT's while in SwO, and it wasn't just me. It was a common problem caused by the fact that Pld's only rotation was an enmity rotation. Added attack potency from dropping ShO caused all kinds of problems in Raids and Full party situations. It's one of the theories for why SE has yet to adjust Pld's threat multiplier on their RoH combo. Post-50 they need the extra threat and it would level the playing field against Drks and Wars, but Pre-50, it would make their threat overpowered compared to other Tanks, because the only combo they have to rotate before lvl 50 is RoH, which generates threat. I imagine this little problem gets thrown around meeting tables at SE HQ whenever they discuss fixing the Pld job (if they ever discuss it, that is).

[whiskeybravo]

It shouldn't be that odd. I've only had drk at 60 for a week and it didn't take me long to realize 1 power slash combo is pretty much enough for any fight xD. Plus Drk has the 15% bonus from Darkside, so on top of 40 more potency they get a damage buff too.

[Februs]

It shouldn't be that odd. I've only had drk at 60 for a week and it didn't take me long to realize 1 power slash combo is pretty much enough for any fight xD. Plus Drk has the 15% bonus from Darkside, so on top of 40 more potency they get a damage buff too.

Oh I'm not questioning whether or not Power Slash generates more threat. It definitely does... but stealing hate from a Pld at lvl 50 without using Provoke? Assuming the Pld started with Hate (say, 1 full RoH combo), then even if the Drk were using nothing but their Power Slash Combo they'd have to dramatically out-gear the Pld, or the Pld would have to be doing something very very wrong (like completely ignoring their Shield Swipe/CoS/FoF) for that to happen. I mean, I've stolen hate off of Drk's and War's at lvl 50 too, but I don't blame their threat gen for it. I blame them thinking that they can get away with a pure Dps combo when the Off Tank's only combo generates enmity.

Also, (I could very well be wrong on this, so someone feel free to correct me if I am), but FoF makes a huge difference when used correctly. Whereas Pld attack power and potency is lower, they also suffer no reductions at the beginning of the fight. Darkside allots 15% dmg by itself. With Grit (20% reduction in dmg) you're actually -5% dmg while both Grit and DS are up. That still exceeds a Pld's ShO dmg (which is also a 20% reduction) by 15%... only FoF increases Pld dmg by 30%. This increases Pld dmg by 10% over Oath (15% over Drk's Stance effects), and is almost always used at the very start of the Pld's opening rotation. A Pld using FoF effectively begins every fight with 10% increase to their base dmd (which is probably another reason why they haven't fixed Pld enmity gen... and probably also had a lot to do with how hate theft from War MT's was such a big issue in the 2.x days... Kinda makes a lot more sense now...)

[fm_fenrir]

probably also had a lot to do with how hate theft from War MT's was such a big issue in the 2.x days...

This is 100% why PLD's enmity on Halone hasn't been changed (yet). Even in SwO, Halone will tear right off a Defiance/Grit MT in 50 cap content.

Also yes, FOF is the best offensive skill in the game; any DPS would punch a nursery full of babies to get a 33% uptime, +30% damage skill with no penalties.

[Brian_]

This is 100% why PLD's enmity on Halone hasn't been changed (yet). Even in SwO, Halone will tear right off a Defiance/Grit MT in 50 cap content.

Also yes, FOF is the best offensive skill in the game; any DPS would punch a nursery full of babies to get a 33% uptime, +30% damage skill with no penalties.

Maybe if they're god awful at tanking and you severely out-gear them.

The only time the enmity on Halone is ever an issue is when you are WAR / DRK MT without Defiance / Grit in synced 50 content. Why you would have the PLD OT in that situation fails the test of basic logic, though.

[Theodric]

If, like me, you're willing to stomach PLD for the sake of their unique armour and sword/shield...then I'd say go for it. If you're not big on their overall aesthetics, however, then you'd likely be better off going WAR or DRK.

[Phoenicia]

Also, (I could very well be wrong on this, so someone feel free to correct me if I am), but FoF makes a huge difference... etc.

You are correct, you got this very wrong. Correcting the math:

Buffs stack multiplicatively, meaning they apply one over the other. So when you say PLD in ShO uses FoF, they gain 30% damage of their new 80% damage output, putting them at 104% of base (not 110%). Considering FoF uptime (33% of the time), it's an avarage of 10% increase, in ShO that translates to 8% overall. You end up doing 88% of your base damage. If the fight has jumps and invulnerability phases, that can go slightly higher than that.

Now that that's established, let's compare PLD to WAR and DRK:

Grit DRK operates at 115% (Darkness) x 80% (Grit) or 92% of base damage. DRK's enmity multiplier is x5.5 on Powerslash (x6.5 with DA), and PS is 300 potency (40 higher than PLD). Regardless of fight phasing, DRK's DPS output is 92% of base. However DRK is capable of bursting through their ridiculous oGCDs.

Defiance WAR operates at 120% (maim) x 75% (defiance) or 90% of base damage. WAR has Unchained which increases their DPS by 33% (by dropping the 25% penalty from Defiance) and have the "best offensive CD" in Berserk's 50% damage increase. With buffs combined WAR is dealing 120% x 150% = 180% of base DPS. During this time not even DPS can catch up to WAR. Again, fight phasing can increase the uptime of these buffs, making WAR burst the stronger among the 3 tanks. Enmity multiplier is again x5.5 on Butcher's Block and BB has 280 potency (20 higher than PLD).

Based on the above:

PLD enmity on RoH: 260 x 5 = 1040. Or 1354 with FoF up.
DRK enmity on PS: 300 x 5.5 = 1650. or 1897.5 with Darkside. DRK unbuffed PS beats PLD's "fully buffed" RoH.
WAR enmity on BB: 280 x 5.5 = 1,540. 1848 with Maim, 2457.8 during Unchained, 2772 during zerk, and woopping 3686.8 during Unchain and Zerk.
Multiply all these numbers by 2.3 to know the total potency in tank stances.

EDIT: Very late edit, but fixed the potencies on Butcher Block.
Also, Berserk is 50% strength, which results DIRECTLY into 50% damage. Check up the formula by Dervy here.

The formula for Weapon Skills is:
((Potency*0.01005)*(WD*0.0400573+1)*(STR*0.1104171)*(DET*0.0001368+1)*BUFFS)-1

Adding 50% damage boost will replace the "BUFFS" part with 1.5. But since multiplication has distributive and associative properties, moving the 1.5 multiplier next to STR would affect it just the same, making the equation as follows:

((Potency*0.01005)*(WD*0.0400573+1)*(STR*0.1104171*1.5)*(DET*0.0001368+1)*1.2)-1

The red 1.5 is from zerk, the red 1.2 is from Maim. /END EDIT

So even if the PLD is doing nothing but RoH, the enmity multiplier and damage output allows DRK to stay ahead by simply throwing a PS combo every third combo (not counting in DA). WAR's optimal rotation alternates BB with SE combos. While WAR can drop its aggro combo for 4 combos after an unchained, zerked BB, they will still use BB as it is their optimal go to combo. PLD (and DRK) will never catch up to WAR.

From experience, the most trouble I had was in T10. At the time, the PLD was 2 ilvs ahead of me on the left side and wore fully melded accessories against my mix of 3 VIT and 2 STR accessories. I MT'd as WAR and my PLD went SwO, the PLD was doing 385 DPS and I roughly 350 by dropping Defiance off and on (to mitigate Critical Rips). By the time he got dangerously close to me in aggro unchained was back up and I would re-establish my enmity lead.

Morale of the story: At the same gear and item level, PLD, at any point in time and all level ranges, will never beat DRK's enmity. The only time PLD beats WAR's enmity is between the levels 26 and 30 since PLD gets RoH and DRK gets PS at 26, while WAR gets BB at 30.

Back on topic however...

Enmity is no pissing contest. It doesn't matter which tank has more enmity as long as the only other class that can pull enmity from you is also a tank.

Enmity is only an "issue" if someone who shouldn't have it can have it. Read; It is only an issue if your tank going all out can't hold it again a non-tank going all out.

The above, however, is not an issue since a PLD doing RoH in FoF will never lose enmity to DRG/MNK/BLM bursts, and PLD using Flash 3 times will have enough enmity to hold again a SMN using Raging Strikes + Dreadwyrm Trance + Tri-Disaster + Bane + Painflare x 2 + Deathflare (the highest AoE DPS in the game currently).

Who cares if a WAR in defiance will rip off Cenus or Echidna or Lyuba off you? If the WAR in the other alliance in VA wants to flaunt his e-peen at you by showing you he can generate more aggro, let him have the boss, switch to SwO, relax and DPS while he deals with main tanking silly bosses. You still win the fight.

As for raid setups and statics you should be communicating with your other tank and members as to who should tank what and when.

As for Paladin viability, it is a great class. Lackluster? Maybe. It has some of the strongest CDs in the game. They're a bit long and are meant to be used on their own. Unlike WAR and DRK who work by stacking multiple (shorter) CDs or require healer help to get a similar effects. Just be mindful that PLD's mitigation isn't that far ahead of the other tanks (if at all). However, PLD's mitigation is consistent and reliable (aside from the shield which is RNG or a bit iffy to time with Sheltron). Hallowed Ground for example will always give you its 100% mitigation effect and then continue off with your HP levels where you started, whereas Living Dead and Holmgang only work if the DRK/WAR are under the threat of dying (actually reaching the 1 HP). PLD wouldn't require the healer attention while DRK would die without healer intervention. While WAR can buffer his HP back up with Inner Beast, Equilibrium and Thrill of Battle, it wouldn't stay alive for long without healer input again. Also Holmgang is arguably the worst option among the three because of the self root and target requirement.

Again, play the class you like the most. Be it because of the aesthetics, class theme, play mechanics or whatever. A class you're passionate about would probably allow you to get creative with to achieve similar levels of efficiency as the other classes. Which is a lot better than forcing yourself to play a class which you don't like and would just have you spend the bare minimum to reach "acceptable performance".

EDIT: Very late edit to correct the potency on Butcher Block.

[Februs]

Maybe if they're god awful at tanking and you severely out-gear them. The only time the enmity on Halone is ever an issue is when you are WAR / DRK MT without Defiance / Grit in synced 50 content.

This is actually not true. It may not be the case now, but I can tell you from first hand experience that before 3.0 I was stealing hate off of War MT's all the time while in SwO, even at equal level. By the time I was full geared at 130 I had to resort to rotating Riot Blade in between my primary combo just to make sure I didn't steal aggro from other Tanks, and even then I would be red-lining my enmity if the War was slipping up even a little. If Drk's were around back then they might have had it different, but they weren't around back then so it's hard to say.

Why you would have the PLD OT in that situation fails the test of basic logic, though.

Truly illogical, and it basically boiled down to envy.

War's had the big stick and all the Dps, so they felt that they had to MT to display their dominance, especially in the cesspool that was CT/ST/WoD... Alright, I'm picking on War's a bit. When it came to the Crystal Tower Raids, everybody wanted to be the star of the show in there (Pld's and War's both), and there would be an inevitable tug-o-war between two of the tanks trying prove they had the bigger manhood. It got so bad that I just started Que-ing in SwO just to try to avoid the other two Tanks... only to end up tanking every single boss anyway because I was exceeding everyone's enmity despite being in SwO. It was a pretty frequent occurrence and lead to me utterly hating those Raids because of it's toxic Tank environment.

As for other raids, there are some that required Tank swaps (like T6, for example). Pld could not be tanking the whole time, and it was a pain in the butt to try to nerf your own enmity so that the War didn't lose hate when it was their turn.

[AriaEnia]

This is actually not true. It may not be the case now, but I can tell you from first hand experience that before 3.0 I was stealing hate off of War MT's all the time while in SwO, even at equal level.

Paladin OT DPS is actually good, only few people are complaining bout that, actually the MT DPS is the problem from what I see.
Anyway, now I think you have a reason to lvl a PLD, those relic sword and shield though...