There are already two dps-tank jobs, please don't make Paladin the third.

[Phoenicia]

Snip.

There is a lot of misconceptions going on out there when it comes to tank mitigation (and in-game data in general). I will address it in a sec.

In physical fights PLD should generally mitigate more....

Not to underline your knowledge of tanking, Spooky. (You are one of the few tanks I respect on these forums.) But this triggers me... Just because a tank can reduce more damage, it doesn't mean it mitigates more.

Disclaimer:I do not main a tank anymore. And the rest here is just a wall of text trying to open an insight of general tanking that a lot of people do not fully grasp. I do not mean any disrespect nor do I mean to sound condescending to anyone!

The difference in dealing with the different tools of mitigation, and healers' misconceptions of what is easier to work with rather than what is more "effective" gives a wide-spread misconception out on these forums. But they're just misconceptions.... Here is why:

1. Damage Mitigation is not necessarily damage reduction. Damage mitigation is all about reducing the severity of that damage. Hence improving survival. How do we measure survival? Simple, how many hits does the boss need to do to kill you without healer's intervention. Mathematically it is referred to as "effective" Health or damage.

While damage reduction IS one way to mitigate (and probably the most common). Healing post damage and HP padding (Thrill of Battle, Stoneskin, Adloquiem and IB's pre-damage heal) are other VERY good form of mitigation. As a matter of fact, unless an attack outright removes 81+% of your MAX HP, ToB mitigates more damage than Ramps/IB/Shadowskin. Combine ToB with IB and its effectiveness is sky rocketed. Let's not forget ToB gives 20% max HP regardless of your current HP while Ramps and co only increase effective HP of whatever you currently have.

Basically, if you have 100 HP and boss does 10 damage. Reducing damage by 20% and increasing your health by 25% has the same effect, the boss will need 13 hits instead of 10 to kill you. At the same time, healing 2-3 damage post-damage will net the same result. Or healing once for 25-30% of your HP. All those tools "mitigated" the severity of the boss's attacks from 10 hits to die to 13 hits to die. Only difference between those tools is how the healer and tank should go at coordinating between those tools.

2. Magnitude isn't everything! PLD's "spectacular" damage reduction is VERY WELL countered by the effy, near terrible, up time. Hallowed Ground may have the strongest "effect" from a defensive CD, but due to its obscene CD, it is probably one of the least effective in a fight. It will never reduce as much damage as Rampart, Sentinel or IB over the course of 7 minutes. Though it may prevent deaths and cheese some mechanics... It will do so at a much lower frequency than the equivalent tools the other two tanks have, albeit it will require the least healer intervention.

Frequency of availability makes CDs "better". There is a reason Vengeance and Inner Beast are the "best" defensive tools. And that is their availability for every other tank buster (And in some cases EVERY buster) in the case of vengeance. And availability for EVERYTHING that is not Auto Attack in the case of Inner Beast. True, turtling on WAR is a lot of wasted potential DPS, but we're talking "mitigation" here.

3. Number of CDs mean nothing, if those CDs are too situational to matter. I see a lot of people count PLD's "defensive" CDs and say they're 10 or so...

• Convalescence is not a mitigation CD, it's a healing boost (A recovery CD if you may).
• Cover is there for thematic purposes and is almost useles.
• People cry about how "useless Iron Will" is, even though it's barely "defensive" as it is a utility CD, not defensive. And I'm one of the ones saying it's useful.
• Awareness is difficult to calculate in terms of eHP and you can never predict what damage it prevented. Unless it's used in a scenario where crits are 100% guaranted.
• Bulwark is iffy at best being only physical and never 100% reliable. Has an obscenely long CD of 3 minutes and a laughable up time of 15 seconds. Compare it to Raw Intuition... Heck, compare it to Dark Dance... I don't care if your tower shield blocks 50% damage, the unpredictability and laughable up time make it a CD I only use to supplement another. Such as the laughable Foresight.
• Sheltron shoots itself in the foot with its timing and bosses not stopping auto-attacks while casting potentially popping the block with an auto only so you eat that 23k buster and blocks never precede crits. Again, damage type limited CD.
• Hallowed Ground has an eternity for a CD... Heck we delay when we pull because of how retardedly long that CD is.

Basically, PLD's "reliable" defense is really down to: Rampart and Sentinel. Of course, Shield Oath.. But I like to treat tank stances as "baseline" defense.

4. Practicality; This in part could belong to the above point, but clutchy and clunky tools are only that, clutch and clunk..

Doesn't matter if you can pretend to be able to heal yourself for 1200 potency and or pad your HP by 10% if the reaction time for those is retardedly long. Paladin doing anything trying to cast those will first have to wait 2.5 seconds GCD, then cast for 3 seconds. If you can get hit for more than 10% of your max HP, you risk getting interrupted... And those bosses are merciless. Compare those to the instant, oGCD, CD boostable Equilibrium, Inner Beast and Second Wind? Souleater is more mitigation than the PLD's shield and Clemency combined over the course of any fight. Physical be it or magical.

We can clearly see who has the "better" tools.

Divine Veil, while in theory blocks a LOT of damage, is very clunky and requires healer intervention. Divine Veil is probably one of (if not THE) most impractical defensive tools in the game currently.

TL;DR: The better tank is the tank that takes the most hits, having the most effective health while needing the least heals, where self heals + healing received from healers is the most effective. Tanks are roughly VERY close to one another based on encounter with WAR having the most effective health and PLD receiving most effective healing, and WAR and DRK both having more effective self heals than PLD. However, outside of Hallowed Ground, PLD is probably the furthest from being the best combination of both among the three tanks.

The reason there is a blatant problem with PLD: PLD is taxed by lower DPS and 0 raid DPS contribution for an imaginary defensive advantage that does not exist, nor is needed in the current meta.

The issue was so deep that SE had to change the tank's main damage stat, re-evaluating and looking at tank traits, AND shifting from sever DPS checks to mechanic checks in the upcoming savage instead of just simply buffing PLD and/or nerfing the other tanks.

Again, I do not mean disrespect or to sound condescending to anyone. But this topic has been triggering me for a while when people tell a tank to change the job they like playing (and play better at) because it's a WAR/DRK and not PLD or whatever.