Quote Originally Posted by Dizzy_Derp View Post
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I'm not talking about what was fixed this tier. I'm talking about the reality of HW.

As someone who ran as a paladin let me say that Divine Veil was trash that had an awkward cooldown that didn't align with boss timers. Clemency was slow and people would usually die or get healed before you had a chance to do anything. Also, using it lowered your already poor damage. TP was a constant struggle even on fights with jumps. Shield Bash was a liability on Manipulator. Tempered Will was mediocre, Cover was useless, and paladin had zero AOE for the occasions that AOE actually happened. Dark Knight and Warrior both outclassed paladin in damage, utility, and defenses. Also, damage is always a consideration. How much utility does it take to make up for not skipping a phase? For eating an extra tank buster because the transition was slow? For needing assistance to deal with an add on time? This doesn't have much to do with tanks, but even in 2.x bringing higher DPS was way better than almost any amount of utility or defense you could bring.

Paladin was in a terrible place until pretty much 3.4, and even then it was just "kinda bad." Partially because of party compositions, partially because the entire expansion was designed to counter it, and partially because it was a shitty job that only had half of a working kit and poor damage. So let us stop laying the blame solely at the feet of the almighty meta.