Which Tank is Better Off MT?

[Lambdafish]

DRK should always be mt over pld. DRKS lose so much damage and their only utility as an OT, why would you ever force that on them?

Because a fight is mostly physical damage, and PLDs are far better suited to mitigating physical damage. Like I said in my original post, it is highly dependent on the fight. Just because you lost damage and utility as OT doesn't automatically make DRK a better MT than PLD.

Edit: The real answer is that you should never run a DRK/PLD combo and the tank meta sucks.

[ArdorGrey]

Because a fight is mostly physical damage, and PLDs are far better suited to mitigating physical damage. Like I said in my original post, it is highly dependent on the fight. Just because you lost damage and utility as OT doesn't automatically make DRK a better MT than PLD.

Edit: The real answer is that you should never run a DRK/PLD combo and the tank meta sucks.

Iunno. The idea of an "MT" and "OT" period is kinda stupid. Everything goes smoother when tanks share uptime-assuming healers aren't stupid, but they usually are.

That aside, plds can bring some decent hurt in OT stance(I'd be curious in serious mathers revisiting the 2.x revelation that war MT/pld OT was actually higher dps than the opposite) and have way more OT utility than drk. The only advantage of bringing drk as ot or mt is only damage over pld, and a little bit from riposte when MTing.

Some of the most DF fun I've had is OTing as pld and using cover in abusive situations and stoneskinning during downtime breathers. I used to occasionally see OT plds that did stuff like this in 2.x(and these few awesome souls are actually what inspired me to level pld in 3.x), but since 3.x plds are 100% in the already popular "I HAZ SHIELD SO MAEK WAY FOR OBVERUS MT!" camp. Even your entire argument for pld MT ignores the fact that pld can throw cover on the MT while OTing and thus add their own formidable physical defense on top of the other tanks already more than plentiful physical mitigation. Drk OT is just a jankey dps. :/

[Msugi]

I was just thinking about this when I showered. My PLD is 58 now, and since I enjoyed both WAR and DRK so much, it makes me think whether having a 60 seemingly simplistic PLD is going to be of any use at all. But then it came to me that PLD is just like the NIN/BRD of tank classes; the skills that I thought rather useless (Cover, Healing Skills, and Stoneskin) only can be optimized when we're not so busy tanking. Even Hallowed Ground can be used sparingly in DF dungeons to let the healer switch to Cleric Stance and burn down the boss for the next 10 secs.

Yes, maybe Sword Oath PLD will never beat DRK and WAR OT stance, but its utilities may come in handy either as a raid utility dps boost or raid survivability in Savages (Pardon me if I'm wrong, never tried any savage so it's not really my place to make the claim). Maybe now in DRK/PLD situation I will let the DRK MT while I'm being the supportive PLD, because I never really sure what to do when there's no WAR around. I simply assume that if the other tank doesn't have the tank stance on, it means they want me to MT lol.

[Launched]

Because a fight is mostly physical damage, and PLDs are far better suited to mitigating physical damage. Like I said in my original post, it is highly dependent on the fight. Just because you lost damage and utility as OT doesn't automatically make DRK a better MT than PLD.

Edit: The real answer is that you should never run a DRK/PLD combo and the tank meta sucks.

If, for some reason, you had PLD+DRK (party finder/raid finder etc.), you'd lose a lot more by having PLD MT. Reprisal is a lot more important than PLD taking slightly less physical damage, because DRK can tank everything fine and still drop Grit to get the most out of Blood Weapon. There's no fight where having a PLD MT greatly reduces the strain on healers.