Paladin weakest Tank now

[LittleImp]

The fastest run of P4S part 2 yet documented is 8:10. A WAR/PLD team did it in 8:16. That 8:10 is gonna be beat soon, but the 8:16 isn't high level optimum outliers either. Their SMN was having a bad number day, they were using an AST which is the lowest rDPS even with cards. This was a really normal run. If you think a 6 second difference is "really struggling" in a fight with an 11 minute enrage timer then I don't know what to tell you.

Paladins have been constantly getting blamed for problems meeting the enrage check in P4S doorboss, as the enrage often comes down to margins as small as 6 seconds. I've seen parties locking both PLD and DNC out. I've had many, many, many p4s doorboss runs that would have cleared if I had been playing any other tank.

That's an awful feeling, made even worse when strangers openly start talking about replacing me for my job choice despite being one of the most mechanically consistent members of the party. The job is under-tuned in respect to the requirements of the current content.

[RatCopter]

Not to say that PLD doesn't need a few potency buffs, but if you're failing a savage enrage by less than 1% and you, as the PLD, have made minimal mistakes if any at all, you are not the thing preventing that party from clearing. 300-600 less dps doesn't cause that unless somebody else isn't pulling their weight.

That somebody, more often than not, tends to be the one complaining about what jobs are present.

[Weetzlo]

Paladins have been constantly getting blamed for problems meeting the enrage check in P4S doorboss, as the enrage often comes down to margins as small as 6 seconds. I've seen parties locking both PLD and DNC out. I've had many, many, many p4s doorboss runs that would have cleared if I had been playing any other tank.

That's an awful feeling, made even worse when strangers openly start talking about replacing me for my job choice despite being one of the most mechanically consistent members of the party. The job is under-tuned in respect to the requirements of the current content.

That is a rough experience and I don't want to discount it. I would argue that is a problem with the encounter itself, not PLD though. The slowest recorded kill is 7:12 so that's enrage in a fight with 20.89m HP. 48,356 DPS would then be the goal to meet and the fastest team with their best comp has been able to push out 53,516 in P1S which has all the uptime and everything you could realistically ask for. 5,000 DPS wiggle room between DRKs and reapers slamming potions and getting crits against a big striking dummy, and just getting through the P4S door with all it's mechaincs and everything. I don't know if they were trying to artificially extend the world race by gear gating it or what, but a fight with razor margins like that shouldn't be a litmus test for overall balance IMO. The difference between DRK and PLD DPS is like 291 IIRC, while the difference between the 1 and 4 DPS spots is 316 and their damage isn't deliberately tiered out like the DRK/GNB and WAR/PLD division. I could see an argument for raising all tanks' damage for sure, but singling PLD out feels silly to me.

[Undeadfire]

The fastest run of P4S part 2 yet documented is 8:10. A WAR/PLD team did it in 8:16. That 8:10 is gonna be beat soon, but the 8:16 isn't high level optimum outliers either. Their SMN was having a bad number day, they were using an AST which is the lowest rDPS even with cards. This was a really normal run. If you think a 6 second difference is "really struggling" in a fight with an 11 minute enrage timer then I don't know what to tell you.

They ran the strongest melee comp and Bard on top which can essentially carry groups, you cannot reach this kill speed unless it was done by a couple players as alts, or a practice clear with the raid weapon, 8:16 is 9s faster than enrage and fastest 1st clears were done 4s, this isn't a good comparison. Another mix add in Act 2 can be up timed.

Paladins best opener is cutting off 16s of FoF before starting a fight, this is how busted it is at the moment, and the lack of power Atonement outputs.

Astrologian carries early weeks in that fight, Macrocosmos is a 8x AOE Benediction and that fight has a healer check called Curtain Call, Whm is terribly bad in the fight, and Sage has the highest DPS output.

[Undeadfire]

Rebalancing to keep jobs in roughly the same range is fine and all, but Stormblood and Shadowbringers seem to have set players up with the mindset that PLD is supposed to automatically be top tier in their damage output on top of their superior utility. It's nice that the devs have finally taken steps to reel back that expectation a bit in keeping with job aesthetics. What part of you was thinking 'this will let me do a ton of extra damage' when you picked up an oversized shield to bunker up behind?

Paladin wasn't top tier in Shadowbringers lol... Dark Knight/Gunbreaker were, Paladin only pushed slightly higher than Dark Knight in 5.4, the Crit/DH numbers increase allowed optimised Paladin to overtake. Stormblood had a balance issue with Dark Knight lacking DPS, and god knows why they were ignored.

[LittleImp]

The difference between DRK and PLD DPS is like 291 IIRC, while the difference between the 1 and 4 DPS spots is 316 and their damage isn't deliberately tiered out like the DRK/GNB and WAR/PLD division. I could see an argument for raising all tanks' damage for sure, but singling PLD out feels silly to me.

At the 99th percentile, the difference in aDPS between DRK and PLD on P4S p1 is actually approaching 600 dps. GNB is around 400 ahead. I cannot emphasize how enormous this difference is in a fight where people are frequently failing to meet enrage by margins of under 100 dps.

Not to say that PLD doesn't need a few potency buffs, but if you're failing a savage enrage by less than 1% and you, as the PLD, have made minimal mistakes if any at all, you are not the thing preventing that party from clearing. 300-600 less dps doesn't cause that unless somebody else isn't pulling their weight.

That somebody, more often than not, tends to be the one complaining about what jobs are present.

You aren't wrong, but something existing at what is essentially minimum viability just isn't healthy for the community or the players that play it. The general 'fair' tank expectation in that fight is around 5k adps. Any other tank can achieve that number with fairly minimal optimization, and even a bunch of dropped GCDs. Paladin has to play pretty well to achieve the same number, and has to maintain extreme consistency across many potential pulls. It's very easy for a PLD to drop below that 5k threshold right now if they make a mistake, where that simply isn't a problem for GNB/DRK.

Part of the reason I tend to play so hard is because I like to provide wiggle-room and reduce some of the pressure for others. Right now I feel like my job does the exact opposite, and it's just miserable.

[Undeadfire]

At the 99th percentile, the difference in aDPS between DRK and PLD on P4S p1 is actually approaching 600 dps. GNB is around 400 ahead. I cannot emphasize how enormous this difference is in a fight where people are frequently failing to meet enrage by margins of under 100 dps.

Little is correct, Paladin mainly runs on rDPS, Gnb/Drk/War mainly runs on aDPS, Paladin has no capability to adapt with raid cooldowns.

400-600 is a big difference in current stats, you can downtime Warrior multiple times and it will still beat Paladin to a pulp, Paladin has a pack of their DPS emphasis on auto attacks.

[Hammerhorn]

I mean if this is the way things are gonna go with the tanks fine just give Fight or Flight a team buff of 2% damage while it’s up so PLD can be carried by their team in lack of personal dps just like AST , DNC and NIN. What’s that ... that would create imbalance?! Gotta get that 500dps from somewhere!

[Sacrilegion]

Seriously, while pld can use a dps increase for sure, the lack of dps sounds like the DPS' problem. You sure they're hitting their rotations properly? If the healers are using raise constantly as well, you might as well wipe and redo. Weakness is a bitch in savage and lowers damage output by a significant margin.

[Ramzal]

I cleared P2S a few days back and was excited to jump into P3S but… knowing full well Paladins are getting excluded due to their low dps is kind of demotivating. I don't even blame the community for it. Hopefully the devs will give Paladin some well needed buffs. I wonder if giving Holy spirit a 100-150 pot cure aoe would be asking for too much.