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

[DBelmont]

PLD needs to catch up on offensive utility and that by no means makes PLD a dps tank.

[JackFross]

You flatter WARs too much with this. No DPS that is playing their job optimally should be out-DPSed by a WAR of the same gear level. Even MCHs and BRDs should be about 200 DPS ahead of a balls-to-the-walls WAR even w/o the piercing debuff.

It is definately less then 200 dps of a difference. More like 100 at most and that is still pretty darn close for a tank to be encroaching on the pure dps territory. Bards are about as much utility as other pure dps when mana/tp song is not even used in raids. Boggle at why tanks are given utility and dps on par with bards/machinist. Warrior brings a melee reduction, damage debuff along with strong off tank dps skills.

@both of you: More like 200 at best, 100 at worst. Ninja has shit AoE while WAR has amazing AoE, hence A2S. But regardless, the drop off between BRD/MCH to WAR/DRK is the same as the one from WAR/DRK down to PLD.

A1S - http://www.fflogs.com/statistics/7/#...set=90&boss=18
A2S - http://www.fflogs.com/statistics/7/#...set=90&boss=19
A3S - http://www.fflogs.com/statistics/7/#...set=90&boss=20
A4S - http://www.fflogs.com/statistics/7/#...set=90&boss=21
Overall - http://www.fflogs.com/statistics/7/#...Any&dataset=90

And before we make unfounded comments on the A4S rankings, keep in mind that the optimal strategy in that fight is to sacrifice 6 (often 9) players in two groups of 3 which always include the BRD/MCH and the WAR, while the DRK gets to stay alive the whole fight. It's usually [BLM|SMN] / [BRD|MCH] / [WAR] for 1 and [WHM] / [BRD|MCH] / [WAR] for 2. 3 is just whoever wants to throw themselves on a grenade since enrage is close.


Tank DPS is fine.

PLD DPS is not.

[Brian_]

Or, why are the so many WARs and DRKs now, and so few PLDs? You run through the same Ildyshire as I do, you have to have seen this phenomena.

It's because PLDs suck in Savage and all the old PLD players switched to DRK and WAR because of that. A lot of statics refused to recruit PLDs or asked PLDs to switch to a different tank job. If Savage was designed a lot more like Thordan EX, then you would see a very different split in the tanking population. People play the jobs that are effective in content.

That was only for early clears. Once Paladins had ground out a 200 item level set, they were fine and it became more common to clear A-S with them. If Savage demonstrated anything, it's that Paladins are extremely gear dependent for their success, which is a definite weakness that should be ironed out.

Paladins weren't dependent on their own gear. They were waiting (for 4 weeks to be specific) for their DPS to be geared enough to make up for their lack of DPS.

@both of you: More like 200 at best, 100 at worst.

This still ignores how much added DPS BRD brings through battle-voice foes and paeon. WARs might bring storm's eye but that only impacts the other tank's DPS and NIN's aeolian edge usage. BRD has much higher overall raid DPS contribution than their raw DPS output.

[LinarUnders]

1. Tempered Will - ... Not sure what buff would be appropriate for it.

It can be reworked and used as TP/MP balancing tool. Transfer 25% of TP into MP and visa versa depending of which is higher. If %TP > %MP then 25% of TP transfers into MP. If %MP > %TP then 25% of MP transfers into TP.

For example PLD have 1000 MP max and 100 TP max.
If during the fight PLD have 750 MP (75%) and 10 TP (10%) then after using [TW] he will have 500MP(50%) and 35 TP (35%). Same for MP=>TP transfer. 200 MP (20%) and 55 TP (55%) after [TW] will became 450 MP (45%) and 30 TP (30%).
Transfer rate may be different.

7. Clemency - ...

IMO, any cast time abilities for tank is silly. Clemency should be instant (or even oGCD instant), but have high potency only if applied to PLD himself. If applied to any other party member potency should be reduced for, let's say, 80%.

[Violette]

It's because PLDs suck in Savage and all the old PLD players switched to DRK and WAR because of that. A lot of statics refused to recruit PLDs or asked PLDs to switch to a different tank job. If Savage was designed a lot more like Thordan EX, then you would see a very different split in the tanking population. People play the jobs that are effective in content.

Actually, Paladins are very useful in A2S/A3S, more so than Dark Knights, if we assess them based on their skillsets. Paladins are much better at tanking multiple mobs (due to shield), as well as the physical based damage of A3S (minus splash).

Paladins weren't dependent on their own gear. They were waiting (for 4 weeks to be specific) for their DPS to be geared enough to make up for their lack of DPS.

They were dependent on their gear because they couldn't put out enough damage/enmity. Given the amount of damage other classes could put out, without a ninja for enmity control they would be an incredible dps loss. So then you gotta take a war because ninja demands war, then you gotta take a monk for A1S/A4S Dragon Kick + highest sustained dps.

This still ignores how much added DPS BRD brings through battle-voice foes and paeon. WARs might bring storm's eye but that only impacts the other tank's DPS and NIN's aeolian edge usage. BRD has much higher overall raid DPS contribution than their raw DPS output.

War's bringing storm's eye as part of their dps combo actually contributes a lot of dps, especially if the MT is a dark knight. Ninja's get a more beneficial (see higher dps) opener and Dark Knight's get a lot of their dots/boosted SE's.

Paladins are no doubt an OK class (lol ast/mch/smn), but they are lacking in a few key areas which made them A) Highly gear dependent/composition dependent, B) Lacking defensively in key ways and C) not a stand out in their given roles, I.E. Physical tank (largely negated by Inner Beast for Wars and having a war as a drk), healing off tank (lol 2 healers already) and capable debuffer (enemies resist most status effects(fu blind)). In the end, the reason they're still not recruited, is that they are lacking in damage, which means they lack in enmity (especially due to ShO modifier). Because of that, you gotta shoe horn your static around them to make up for what is lost.
Gotta have a war, gotta have a ninja, probably gonna need a blm or a monk as well.

[SpookyGhost]

Unless PLD's mitigation means that the fight is unkillable without it or you end up at a group DPS loss without it (which has yet to be the case), then no, PLD isn't more useful than DRK in A2S/A3S. PLD is only currently good as a safety net and honestly you'd be better off just bringing 2x WAR if you really needed all that excess mitigation.

[Violette]

Unless PLD's mitigation means that the fight is unkillable without it or you end up at a group DPS loss without it (which has yet to be the case), then no, PLD isn't more useful than DRK in A2S/A3S. PLD is only currently good as a safety net and honestly you'd be better off just bringing 2x WAR if you really needed all that excess mitigation.

Given that Paladins have bulwark/shelltron/passive shield/cover/hallowed ground over the dark knights higher damage/dark dance/living dead, for progression (where it was indeed a safety net), it is more useful. It provided more defensive utility and due to it's passive tankiness with the shield vs all the physical damage it was the preferred choice. It was not until A3S with it's massive cliff to climb that all safety was thrown out in favor of maximum possible damage.

Of course now, given we know the fights inside out and can crush it with ilvl, why wouldn't you take war/war/smn/smn/whm/sch/driver/w/e.

[Jpec07]

I personally doubt they'd make Paladins suddenly potent damage dealers - that does nothing to contribute to the identity that SE has been trying to puns of Paladins as the most defense-oriented tank out there. My guess is that we'll see a minor overhaul to the class, similar to what Warriors got in ARR to make them more viable as main tanks. What exactly they'll do is really anybody's best guess at this point, but we've got just over a week before we find out (and even less than that before we see the preliminary patch notes so we can get an idea).

At this point, I'm just glad they're listening.

[Syzygian]

Given that Paladins have bulwark/shelltron/passive shield/cover/hallowed ground over the dark knights higher damage/dark dance/living dead, for progression (where it was indeed a safety net), it is more useful. It provided more defensive utility and due to it's passive tankiness with the shield vs all the physical damage it was the preferred choice. It was not until A3S with it's massive cliff to climb that all safety was thrown out in favor of maximum possible damage.

Of course now, given we know the fights inside out and can crush it with ilvl, why wouldn't you take war/war/smn/smn/whm/sch/driver/w/e.

I don't mean to sound... well... how this is going to sound no matter how I word it, but PLD needs all that extra mitigation (which is not as much as people make it out to be given how retardedly long its recast times are (short recast-high uptime CDs are ideal in A2S, imo) and the fact that there is no true TB in A2S for Sheltron to be anything other than a guaranteed stray block from an AA) due to how slow everything dies with its lack of AoE. You could argue even that DRK is better due to the fact that the more targets there are, the more powerful its sustain is (MP and self-healing).

[Februs]

At this point, I'm just glad they're listening.

Don't get your hopes up too high. So far, SE has been tight lipped about the whole thing, and they really did not say anything to inspire much confidence. They only said that there will be adjustments to all the tanks, and they singled out Pld in particular. Given that SE has been rather ... reluctant, to even admit that there is a problem, I'm not overly convinced that they are actually listening to even half of the general complaints surrounding Pld.

Like you, my biggest hope would that Pld sees a massive overhaul similar to what War's got back in 2.1, but my biggest fear is that SE is going to slap yet another band-aid (on top of a band-aid, which is on top of another band-aid) and say that it's "fixed." It wouldn't be the first time. You might recall their minor enmity adjustments to Flash that didn't really fix anything, or perhaps their small adjustments to Cos ... which also barely did anything. They've been singing the same tune about Pld's "working as intended" for so long that I don't even want to speculate on what they might be changing now, because I'm liable to get disappointed.

Still ... I really can't help but hope that they'll get it right. I've been wanting them to fix it for so long that it's hard not to hold my breath over this.