PLD highest DPS tank single target

[Ryahask]

The problem with this is that the different categories are not equivalent, and having better damage is almost always better than better support. Abilities like divine veil and cover are great to have but will not be used very often, whereas better damage is always used, this is why people want more damage for PLD. My point was simply that fixing this issue should follow PLDs design rather than cloning abilities from the other tanks.

Actually fight design is the issue as opposed to the categories listed. Non-instant defensive support plays a limited role in fights as it's simply unnecessary, it's a crutch - not a mechanical necessity. This is partly due to the design of fights and partly due to Job design, in that only 2 Jobs have significant defensive cool-downs which aren't and as such they cannot be required.

I agree that PLD's should have more distinction, but I think that about every Job. Despite liking FF14 there's one area which is frankly atrocious and that's the level of homogenization present in every role. However, I personally don't agree that PLD's require buffs at this point.

WAR has the "least" mitigation because of how people play. If tanks are forced to be in tank stance, WAR will come ahead due to frequent IB + Infuriate. It's a trade off of either dealing huge DPS or mitigate damage.

What's relevant in in mitigation with Warrior is the reliability. Effectively all tanks have equal mitigation, but reliability is important. WAR's defensive CDs compete for resources with WAR's offensive CDs. This is untrue of the other two tanks. A WAR having to emphasize mitigation loses a substantial portion of their DPS, far more than a DRK or PLD doing so. This is all while requiring very precise timing, which even among good Warriors leads to massive numbers of wipes, and having to hold back resources on a constant basis. To give you a basic example of this - Warriors tend to have a difficult time managing the Serpent (no legs) add in Nidhogg Ex as most players don't time busters and to survive the second stack safely requires IB + Storm's Path + Vengeance, the third (if DPS is low) requires Holmgang.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting WAR is weak - not even close. My point is that people have a very optimistic view of what WAR can accomplish, the reality is a great deal less significant - unless the fight allows. Content where WAR can stay in Deliverance is an issue; that's where WAR starts to creep ahead of other tanks. Unfortunately there are a large number of fights designed in this manner, or with incredibly easy to predict timing which facilitates stance swapping. I want more tanks to see the spotlight than just WAR, but I hope SE accomplishes it through improving fight design rather than buffs which will likely leave one or more tank behind.

[Sarcatica]

What's relevant in in mitigation with Warrior is the reliability. Effectively all tanks have equal mitigation, but reliability is important. WAR's defensive CDs compete for resources with WAR's offensive CDs. This is untrue of the other two tanks. A WAR having to emphasize mitigation loses a substantial portion of their DPS, far more than a DRK or PLD doing so. This is all while requiring very precise timing, which even among good Warriors leads to massive numbers of wipes, and having to hold back resources on a constant basis. To give you a basic example of this - Warriors tend to have a difficult time managing the Serpent (no legs) add in Nidhogg Ex as most players don't time busters and to survive the second stack safely requires IB + Storm's Path + Vengeance, the third (if DPS is low) requires Holmgang.

I can't help to feel that DRK/PLD are used to mitigate huge damage while WAR gets the title of being the best reliable tank. Think about it, how hard is it to generate 5 stacks from attacking? You need a total of 8 GCDs to get that and use it for IB, and you also have Infuriate to do double IB if needed, coupling with other CDs are even better with up to ~50% mitigation on the high priority tank busters. Sadly of course the game rarely needs that much constant mitigation that people are better off using those to enable DPS stance more.

Off my experience, 3rd magical tank buster will wreck anyone, so you have to use Holmgang/HG/LD to survive, hence why you will want the other tank to swap earlier. Even then, this is mainly a DPS issue (all the adds melt so quickly in a good farm party) that shouldn't exist in a normal gameplay although there are so many players still doing subpar DPS that it's not funny anymore.

There are a lot of situations where using DRK/PLD to tank tank busters better. For example as the few hardest tank busters in the game, A8S Final Punches can be tank with a single tank with good amount of CDs, last Final Punch is where LD/HG shine.

[Lambdafish]

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I agree with all of your points here. Whether it is fight design or it's skill set I still do feel that PLD is underappreciated, though that has improved since 3.0 (thordan and sephirot gave PLD a lot of love in the MT department). The only place I disagree slightly with is that PLD does need improvements to it's AOE toolkits, as it is extremely lackluster in comparison to the other tanks, with no obvious advantage in any other area of multi-target tanking, but that is my only complaint, and is something that we will not see addressed until 4.0 I don't think

[IskarJarak]

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I think the AoE (or lack thereof) is fine. Pld's are designed to be kings of single targets. Pld's can still hold hate with AoE fine, and a Whm can out dps dps on big AoE pulls and feel special... I think because of Pld's lack of AoE dps they should have higher single target dps tho. Even if it was something like ShO having the same auto attack buff as SwO... nothing drastic or game changing, just something to make up for the offensive abilities of the other two tanks.

[Lambdafish]

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PLD aren't the kings of single target though, in fact the other two are better at single target as well. I'm not asking for PLD to be stronger in that area, in fact they can still have the worst AOE of the three, but they need to have more AOE to even be considered ok. Not taking into consideration Flash (because it is cross class and also questionable in how good a skill it is) WAR has Overwhelm, Steel cyclone, and Decimate and DRK has Unleash, Salted Earth and Abyssal Drain. All of these skills are far better than PLDs ONLY unique AOE move, Circle of Scorn. I would happily trade in skills like awareness, tempered will and shield swipe in favor more AOE tanking skills.

[Kitfox]

I think the AoE (or lack thereof) is fine. Pld's are designed to be kings of single targets.

That is bad design when the 2 other tanks can do both. Tanks should be balanced, for single target they mostly are, for multi-target they aren't.

[Sarcatica]

I think the AoE (or lack thereof) is fine. Pld's are designed to be kings of single targets. Pld's can still hold hate with AoE fine, and a Whm can out dps dps on big AoE pulls and feel special... I think because of Pld's lack of AoE dps they should have higher single target dps tho. Even if it was something like ShO having the same auto attack buff as SwO... nothing drastic or game changing, just something to make up for the offensive abilities of the other two tanks.

"highest single target dps on PLD" will make PLD as the OT, and switcharounds on meta are going to be messy(DRK left out to dust, WAR as MT and PLD as OT), not to mention PLD is so easy to DPS with the static GB>RA>RA repeat. Also to add, PLD was supposed to be your most defensive tank which is really not true as any tank can clear any content just fine. If any, PLD needs huge utility buffs for teams to consider further whether to just get DRK or stick with PLD after clearing to do better DPS(PLD/MNK is great btw). Straight buffs to PLD's DPS is a very low approach and it's a lazy solution since DRK/WAR are much harder to effectively do DPS, thus DRK/WAR topping the optimal DPS should be natural.

AOE is a good enough concern that needs to be addressed sooner or later when you compare to other tanks. Flash doesn't do any damage, the more you do it the lower your DPS is (FoF also doesn't buff your enmity generation for Flash which sucks). Other tanks have more than 1 AOE damaging aggro skills, PLD only has 1.

TLDR: Paladin simply doesn't have to be on par with DRK/WAR in terms of DPS.

Is there any update from SE so far if they are going to re-tweak PLD again? At this point it might as well be PLD/MNK for learning/clearing and then DRK/DRG for weekly and for pushing DPS and time clears.