Paladin adjustments = PALLY BUFFS!

[Syzygian]

snip

TW and Cover are working as intended though.

TW is essentially knockback protection. The difference is unlike WAR/DRK it does not have to expend its oh-shit-button/withhold oGCD DPS to achieve the same end. There's different ways to look at that of course, but the ability works as intended.

Cover is still fantastic utility as MT or OT, the main difference being that this raid tier didn't have many mechanics to take advantage of it. Stop me if I'm wrong, but in A3S for example, a PLD OT could have easily lightened the blunt-resistance stack load on their MT by using Cover. Its an ability that again, works as intended, but just didn't see many opportunities for use due to raid design.

The same couldn't be said for Clemency/DV which are now "fixed".

Either way, a PLD brings arguably equal utility as an MT and better utility as an OT now compared to DRK. So now what DRK brings is higher MT DPS, and that gap just got noticeably smaller with the changes to ShO and potency buffs.

DRK really really really needed something to make it a competitive choice as an OT and now it continues to have only one raid slot (MT) for which any serious raid group will consider it. SE completely missed the mark there. The only thing that DRK truly has going for it is that it is still the highest potential raid DPS contribution for the MT slot, which is likely to be less valued according to the fact that DPS checks are not going to be the primary challenge during this prog cycle.

On the other hand, depending on raid design (as always) PLD could turn out to be VERY good in this coming tier, and poof, SE just fucked up tank balance again, putting DRK where PLD was last tier, which several people pointed out as a possibility and warned us against. GG.

Obviously there will still be groups sticking to the DRK/WAR combo, but it can easily be argued that the DPS gains of that combo just became much less substantial for a much greater loss of potential raid mitigation and utility.