Quote Originally Posted by Violette View Post
Not to argue that war's constant 10% damage down isn't approaching broken levels of stupidly useful, but PLD's Divine Veil is an extremely useful and easy to activate defensive skill that for progression can be the difference between wipe now or wipe l8r.
Useful, sure, but there is a limit to how useful it actually is, even in progression raids.

The bottom line is that there is no fight in the entire game in which Divine Veil cannot be easily done without or replaced by adequate healing. If the healers can mitigate or heal the dmg without the use of DV, then that extra defense is unnecessary or not even used. Depending on the circumstances and how well or poorly the raid is preforming, DV can literally have no effect whatsoever on anything, regardless of when it's used. It does not negate the need for healing following raid wide damage, so healers still have to cast. Heals work off of fixed potencies, so the amount healed is the same regardless of how much dmg the shield mitigated (so long as that value is below 100%). That means that healers get no additional Dps time and no mana conservation through the use of DV, assuming they weren't already falling behind. The only time it's useful is if your party is already struggling, or if the shield is enough to save a party member from certain death.

Compare that to the Slashing Resistance Debuff granted by Storm's Eye. There is literally never a time in which this is not being used. Even if all of your dps are casters and your second tank DC's, the War who applied the buff is still using it. Applying it is an instant increase to Dps, and there is literally no limit to how much Dps a party can use. No one ever says, "good job on that dps check guys, but I think we need to slow it down a bit."

In the end we're comparing utility ceilings in which one move simply has no ceiling. There is a limit to how much defense is actually used by a party, but there is no limit to how much Dps is used by a party.