Clive's Paladin Compiilation

[Donjo]

It's not a reputation. It's a fact. PLD utility is just worse than DRK and WAR.

Oh boy. Guess we need to take a deeper look. Utility!

Reducing Outgoing Damage
DRK: Delirium(-10% INT) and Reprisal(-10% ALL, no 100% uptime)
WAR: Storm's Path(-10% ALL, 100% uptime)
PLD: Halone(-10% STR) and Divine Veil(Absorb 10% of PLD's Max HP)

Winner: Unless -10% damage needs to be on the boss 100% of the time, DRK generally wins at reducing outgoing damage. Divine Veil might be the best skill among the Tanks for defending against an individual hit, but it can't be up often enough to beat Delirium since most hits that target the entire party are magical and less than 120 seconds apart. PLD's ability to reduce physical damage is better at protecting Tanks themselves, but damage directly to the Tank usually isn't the biggest concern for healers...

Bonus Dungeon Trash Round!
PLD: Flash(Blind)
DRK: DA+DD(Evade) and DA+DP(Blind)

Winner: DRK can become the god of dodging in trash packs. Whee!

Increasing Incoming Damage
WAR: Storm's Eye(-10% Slashing Resist)

Winner: Well, there's only one option here. I feel like maybe one of the others should get a Slashing Resist debuff too so that a PLD/DRK party isn't so much of a laughing stock, but that's neither here nor there.

Interrupts
DRK: Low Blow(Stun)
WAR: Brutal Swing(Stun)
PLD: Shield Bash(Stun), Shield Swipe(Pacify), Spirit's Within(Silence)

Winner: PLD is the only job in the game who possesses all three interrupts. Even though pacify isn't useful in raid content and PLDs are the last people you want on silence duty, they're still there and can save lives when they're necessary. Why can't DRK silence again?

At this point, we've exhausted WAR and DRK utility. Their few tools in comparison to PLD are undeniably powerful and desired, but PLD still does have the likes of Protect, Stoneskin, Clemency, Cover, and Tempered Will sitting around. I feel comfortable dropping Protect though because I'm in agreement with the notion that if things are far enough gone to require that the PLD cast Protect then the fight's probably a lost cause anyway.

Sometimes a kid wins the talent show not by having the singular best talent, but by having the most kind of cool talents :P

Any perceived overall ranking aside, Tank utility shines best when two Tanks combine and we're currently in a situation where any combo can combine well. Kudos to SE for making sure that none of the Tanks step on each other in this regard. Of course, the DPS meta forces WAR into most parties but sometimes PLD gets to play with DRK. Believing that any Tank is the one who "doesn't bring much to the table" is just an exercise in ignorance. They all bring enough to the table.

[Brian_]

...

The statement wasn't who brings enough to the table. It was who brings more or less. So, congrats on the TLDR. It really didn't say anything anyone hasn't already said here numerous times and didn't really prove anything despite the "deeper" look.

DRK has utility? They have a lot of ways for dealing damage and do it well but you can't really argue they have better utility by any measure.

Seriously? Delirium and Reprisal matter more than anything PLD has other than DV. At this point, I am still surprised that people do not understand the full scope of raid comps. Having your INT debuff covered by your DRK allows you to bring DRG/NIN if you don't need traited Mantra. As jobs, DRG/NIN have way more impactful utility than the alternative you would be forced to bring to cover the INT debuff, MNK.

As Sarcatica has already detailed, while the initial write up was nice, the reality is a bit different and almost all of the PLD utility is fluff in Midas Savage. In terms of meaningful and consistently impactful utility, WAR and DRK are generally better.

[Kitfox]

Seriously? Delirium and Reprisal matter more than anything PLD has other than DV. At this point, I am still surprised that people do not understand the full scope of raid comps. Having your INT debuff covered by your DRK allows you to bring DRG/NIN if you don't need traited Mantra. As jobs, DRG/NIN have way more impactful utility than the alternative you would be forced to bring to cover the INT debuff, MNK.

Well, if you want to compare compositions, DRK/NIN/DRG against PLD/MNK/DRG, you're basically trading Reprisal/Trick Attack for RoH/Mantra. The PLD setup is also more friendly to AST instead of a WHM so there's the cards too. At that point, in my humble opinion, the differences are more of wash than "way more impactful."