Xeno believes paladin should NEVER be main tank

[Maero]

Fairly certain 2.X PLd was MT for the most part with War being OT? I could be wrong.
And who is Xeno???

[Sarcatica]

Sorry but absolutely wrong, the worst thing you can do to a drk is taking away the MT slot to gimp the potential of a drk. Losing the MT slot costs you a lot mp from blood price, costs you reprisal and low blow procs. Theres nothing more nice than gritless MT and swimming in MP due to blood price and weap on cd. Also about enmity if you open a fight and use depending on the fight 1 or 2 enmity rotas in grit in best case with a nin using shadewalker you are safe to drop grit and ignore powerslash there wont be enmity problems. If a war OT happens to rip enmity while the rest of the pt got a lot leeway the fault isnt at the MT but rather the warrior who is setting their 20 potency gain from block over eye as more valuable than the 80 pot a pld loses or the 884 mp 10 pot and 10 tp a drk loses.

DRK is kinda special because of the interaction with the 2 OGCDs, 1 being able to keep resetting if lucky. I was referring to PLD co-tanking.

[Reynhart]

Fairly certain 2.X PLd was MT for the most part with War being OT?

Indeed, it was.
But there was no "reason" behind that. In 2.0, WAR was lacking any form of mitigation, so it was a very bad tank. From 2.1 onwards, I suppose the stigma stayed, and thus PLD was the de-facto MT.

But even in 2.x it was better, DPS wise, to bring a WAR MT and a PLD OT.

There is also the fact that we only had 2 tanks back then, and that stacking was a bad idea...so no tank was left behind.

[Sarcatica]

Fairly certain 2.X PLd was MT for the most part with War being OT? I could be wrong.
And who is Xeno???

2.x is a bad example IMO. Most people tunneled into having PLD doing the MT job (Shield Swipe still was a GCD) when in reality WAR had more potential to do more DPS while MT-ing, even more because most of the stacks are used for IB exclusively. Not too mentioned there were a very low % of WAR able to do MT well enough, at least what I have seen in my server alone. On top of also having to compete with PLD doing RoH combo over and over which prolly isn't that fun for the WAR to keep aggro.

Xeno (Xenosys Vex) is a personality behind popularizing the aggressive way of tanking as WAR (when STR wasn't butchered yet). Think he was the main reason why WAR got a huge spotlight in the SCOB era++. Can be wrong tho, got to see his contents a little bit too late coming to end of 2.3 patch. See youtube.

[SpookyGhost]

Indeed. The problem is that even if min/maxing is not as required as 3.0, why would people chose to use a suboptimal setup ? As long as tank DPS matters, then people will always move towards the highest. And designing content where it doesn't, while doable, will quickly feel pretty lame.

I mean, based on my experience in casual raiding I just take what I can get. Right now we have a DRK and a MNK in my group - a DRK and a NIN or a PLD and a MNK would be better, but they don't want to play those jobs so why would I force them to? If this were 3.0 and fights were still tuned so tight there might be an argument for it, but there's really no reason to pick and choose right now. If someone is willing to play either job and you discover that one is better than the other for whatever fight, then sure tell them you'd prefer them on that job. But if all they want to play is, say, MNK and they're a really good MNK, would you kick them out just to get a NIN? I dunno, seems silly to me. I think this trickle down effect is all in people's minds, they want to maximize their effectiveness in all aspects even when they're not pushing for world first - it's a video game, try to have a bit of fun with it.

e: Also, just to throw this information out there, WAR was only better MT when Defiance was necessary. When it wasn't, PLD not only retained all of it's CDs in SwO, it also did more damage than WAR in the same spot (largely due to the ridiculousness that was Shield Swipe). These days it's more a question of "What does a tank lose when OT/What does a tank gain when MT?" - PLD loses Shield Swipe (and the entire use of it's shield) as OT, WAR loses Vengeance counters, and DRK loses Low Blow procs + Reprisal. Vengeance is very strong, but is only available every 120s and sometimes needs to be held for mitigation rather than damage - the only counter to this is when the WAR is pulling, as long as they won't be absolutely needing the Vengeance mitigation in the next 2 minutes. So generally, PLD is more efficient DPS-wise as MT as long as you have the WAR pull first to get the maximum effectiveness out of both tanks (PLD never has to RoH or go into ShO, WAR gets it's Vengeance counters and builds a healthy aggro lead).

[Seku]

Indeed. The problem is that even if min/maxing is not as required as 3.0, why would people chose to use a suboptimal setup ?

Because not everyone has WAR up and there will always be people that choose not to level it up. If you're not aiming for World First for the bragging rights, I'd say it's more efficient to learn to play with what you like with a group that can work around it for a better time spent ratio, because the road from 1-60, gearing up the job, and then actually learning to play it to actually go into these "ideal" play styles, that only a small portion are going to be able to do, takes time a lot of time, and will take even longer as the level cap continues to raise. Not to mention we're only looking at the current min-max as of today. As of 3.3, 3.4, 4.0, tomorrow, today, or any day, this could all change and yet again you and your entire team would have to learn to play with the "optimal" job set-up again and that is why people play with a sub-optimal setup.

Though I do still think that SE needs to take a step back and look at a re-design of the 3 tanks, but this probably won't happen until 4.0. =/

[KuraiKiserogeru]

Oh this is not new information, Its been said since FCoB.

[Reynhart]

PLD loses Shield Swipe (and the entire use of it's shield) as OT, WAR loses Vengeance counters

Considering that you rarely need mitigation as OT, PLD loses Rampart, Sentinel, Sheltron and Bulwark, while WAR loses Vengeance and Raw Intuition.
BUT, even when OT, Vengeance and Raw Intuition still have an effect, by giving you one stack of Abandon. It's not much, but it's what allows the triple-Fell Cleave burst.

If PLD's CD could have some kind of side effect on top of damage mitigation, it would also make PLD more appealing as OT. And it's a good thing to push PLD in the OT spot, but like "PLD is useful when OT" and not "Move away, WAR's better than you".

Hmmm....what if Rampart and Sentinel applied their damage reduction on the member with the highest enmity in the party ? Or if Cover's CD was reduced to 60s, so that you can pair it with every mitigation CD ?

[Seku]

Or if Cover's CD was reduced to 60s, so that you can pair it with every mitigation CD ?

This would only work if they first made it to where the mitigation cd's stacked with cover. Only shield blocks work while covering.

[Reynhart]

This would only work if they first made it to where the mitigation cd's stacked with cover. Only shield blocks work while covering.

Which is pretty stupid as it is now...