Paladin vs Warrior - ARR better set roles!

[Radaghast]

Breaking news, some jobs are more efficient in different situations. Welcome to a game where you'll have multiple jobs that offer different aspects to the same role. Enjoy your stay.

[Velhart]

Not really, we just take into account the fact that niche gameplay sucks in the long run and it sucks even more when it involves roles like tanking and healing.
Shame on you for bringing the pure vs hybrid nonsense to this thread. Not to mention, as you have seen here some are asking for WAR to be either DPS or a tank.
Why would anyone have to nerf WAR's damage into oblivion? If you can't wrap your head around the idea of WAR (a two-hander wielder) and PLD (a sword & board user) being tanks and performing equally to the point they're replaceable, I'll give you an example.

This guy and this guy could both main tank a raid in WoW. Both were close to equal performance and were more than acceptable for the task. Both could even work together in encounters that required multiple tanks and one was not inferior to the other at the end of the day. One is a death knight wielding a two-handed sword/mace/axe, and the other one is a prot warrior wielding sword/mace/axe and shield.

So it can work, believe it or not. Adjustments on both ends will have to be made, but it's not as outlandish as some claim it is.

I don't believe the issue is revolved around two different tanks taking on something. I believe it is the idea of WAR being a hybrid of DPS/tanking and PLD only tanking is the beef people are having.

One side says: It isn't fair that WAR get to DPS/tank and PLD only gets to tank. This side believes that if you get to be hybrid, you have to be restricted compared to someone who is tank only.

Other side says: WAR shouldn't be gimped in tanking and SE should be left as is.

In all honesty though, with how different the new battle system is, it is hard to determine how this will work out. Dev's have clearly said that "roles" of jobs won't change, but their "concept" might. Warrior was directly pointed at when they mentioned it. They have also said how different Monk has changed. From being an elemental brawler to a DPS that focuses on chains that keep going faster and faster the more you go. It is a pretty significant change. So it leads myself to believe that both PLD and WAR will get some change in their concept. Perhaps one that meets a criteria that will satisfy both sides of the debate (Hah, yeah right).

Everyone here (myself guilty) keep dwelling too much into how 1.xx worked. We need to wait until beta to get a full understanding of how the battle system for the classes/jobs work, and then formulate criticism or perhaps bring the debate back up for topic and discussion. Like I said in a earlier post, I do believe the Dev team has found a good place for PLD, WAR, and all other jobs to make them feel like they are in the right place. If not...that is what shouting and complaining is for.

[Asael]

I can't really say a whole lot on this issue given I was only able to get in about 7 months of play time before the servers shut down, but during that time paladin was my core role. Granted I don't think it's gimp but it could stand for some polishing in some areas so the "paladin" in the job can really shine.

In my experience one of the things that I thought the job lacked was hp. I always thought it to be quite odd to DECREASE the max hp the player has upon becoming a paladin. It's a tank, it's meant to have a deep hp pool in order to take greater amounts of damage than other jobs for longer periods of time. It can indeed do this, but it still feels like it comes up a little short.

Second, defense is decent given all of the abilities that are available to PLD, but it's still lacking. Even in decent gear like the AF set I would sometimes find myself taking mass amounts of damage I felt were a little over the top for what a PLD should be capable of mitigating. Especially when I have things like rampart, sentinel, and protect up, and still take damage into the upper hundreds and even 1000 or 2000+.

Finally, the one area I felt PLD was sorely lacking in was its ability to keep hate. When you're in a pt that consists of you, a WHM, and 6 DDs it becomes insanely difficult to stay at the top of an enemy's hate list. Particularly when you have WARs spamming steel derpclone every half second and BLMs hitting the mob with every spell in the book. I understand that has more to do with the tactics of the team, but most of the time it's ultra-difficult to make your party understand how enmity works and that they need to back off every now and then so the tank can re-establish hate priority. But for me that's one of the things that PLD is supposed to be about, it’s a hate generator for the soul purpose of tethering/anchoring mobs so the DDs can deal damage with little to no concern. The very fact that after a few seconds of DD spam I can completely lose hate is a serious flaw in one of the job’s core functions. The whole purpose for having a high defense and large hp pool becomes pointless if you cannot keep hate directed at the tank for more than ten seconds.

Long story short, I have a very generic idea on what a PLD is supposed to be and the role it is meant to play in the team. 1. Abundant health for durability, 2. high defense, 3. mild dps, and 4. unmatched enmity generation. I know that there are other PLDs who experienced the job differently, but that’s just my take on it.

[Duelle]

Sorry to burst a bubble, butr "it sucks" doesn't a valid balance argument make.

How about "severely limits the options of people wanting to play a certain role"? Or "severely gives way to pigeonholing, which as a whole hurts the community more than help"? Or "makes putting groups together even more difficult than it normally is because the lesser class for a role may be available but you want the prime class for the role instead"?

You're not making much of an argument for yourself, because the reasons niche gameplay hurts the game are pretty damn obvious to anyone that has been around for the last 10 years or so. Hell, even FFXI had issues with party dynamics because of it. And no, "you can just switch jobs" is not the fix, nor the solution, nor the answer.

Can't be either a DPS or a tank. There are already enough pure DPS classes in the game

2:1:3. Tank : healer : DPS (bard is an outlier and therefore doesn't count). The ratio is still actually pretty good, as I mentioned in an earlier post. Call me when we hit 2:1:18.

"But it works in wow!" does not a valid balance argument make. WoW is a completely different game, with a completely different userbase and completely different mechanics and class balance synergies.

And XIV just happens to be looking at it for inspiration, to the point Garuda and Nael were pretty much WoW bosses but with worse latency (Garuda is basically Hagara the Stormbinder meets Sapphiron, for one). Yoshida himself has said they're looking at WoW and other games from that generation (GW2 and TOR).

Try to get a frame of reference instead of planting yourself on what seem to be ideas established from FFXI (which is a pretty horrible place to get class ideas from based on how WAR, RDM, NIN and SMN played out), and do make sure to not go into "LALALAICANTHEARYOU" mode the moment someone brings example of designs that make certain changes possible.

Past experience has shown what you want does not work. You get people going for the "ideal" class as per the community, and the other class is either set aside or used in another way that doesn't fit the intent of the design. This is why having a tank that is purposely inferior to another doesn't help. The key is balancing tanks against each other instead of balancing tanks to DPS and heals.

A roster of four tanks where the four perform equally yet have unique aesthetics, mechanics, procs and reactionary abilities wins because if you don't like tank A and like tank B you can still main tank content because they're interchangable. That alone is MILES ahead of having a master tank and a weaker tank that can (but won't) be used for handling adds or off-tanking, for one because you suddenly have a larger tank pool given the more options open to the players. This also applies to healers and has always applied to DPS.

[SwordCoheir]

Alright... I'm surprised at the lack of Career Paladin input in this thread.

There is this GIANT misconception that PLD is bad. PLD was easily the strongest class in 1.0...

I agree to an extent friend, but there were some various factors to take into account and it wasn't really till the last few months of 1.0 that PLD really stood out on it's own. I'm not saying there wasn't situations where PLD didn't shine, but until they adjusted SC, Rampage, Parry, and Collusion on WAR and gave PLD some boosts to Shields WAR had a distinct upper edge over PLD in 95% of most situations.

I do feel they were more on even ground by the end of 1.0, however they need to be mindful of the usefulness of Defense and not let the level difference utterly handicap it, and make sure Shields can hold their own in the end as well. After all Shields were supposed to give the defensive edge over WAR w/o buffs, but with shields being broken, half of PLD's abilities explicitly requiring shields, and with parry being turned off with shields equipped it really put PLD in a disadvantageous state defensively and offensively.

[Shougun]

. . . WAR being a hybrid . . .

Hybrids are a bitch :P lol, you cant make them better then their parent specializations but you dont want to make them suck either.

I suppose that is what made WoW's -sort of- hybridness work as there were talent trees and many items that where cross classes such that a warrior could tank end game just as a paladin just as a druid (and hybridism really was a choice then), of course even then there are preferences on which one does better in which scenario but I believe the difference was minimal compared to FFXIV's - late game even more so past TBC - or so I follow (Blizzard has really worked on that). (As well I was not as disappointed to have a Paladin, Warrior, or Druid in my party as I am to have a FFXIV Paladin in my non-dungeon party - and this I feel must be changed).


But as you said and I 100% agree that who the hell knows what is the truth now as the battle system is changed, and the classes/jobs are changed (some more then others).

[Abriael]

How about "severely limits the options of people wanting to play a certain role"?

Only, it doesn't. You can still tank as a warrior. You just won't be the first choice, or you will be an off tank. Separating the tank and off tank roles brings diversity, not limitation.

Past experience has shown what you want does not work.

Actually in quite a few MMORPGs separation between tank and offtank classes works perfectly, and hybrid tanks have a role without needing to be on par with pure tanks.

of course you completely neglected to respond to the most important part of my post, because obviously you don't have an answer, so I'll repeat it for your convenience.

Everything in a balanced game needs to come at a price, to preserve balance.

Paladin pays for its defense abilities with it's inability to deal decent damage.

DPS classes pay for their high attack with their inability to tank.

What does warrior pay for it's defense abilities with again? And no, having to wear a silly horned helmet doesn't count.

If Warrior pays no price for its defense ability (or an inferior price than Paladin does, for the same defense), then balance isn't preserved, and warrior becomes automatically more desirable than Paladin. It's elementary, and unavoidable.

[fusional]

Stylistic decision!

first of all, 2 white mages are *required* for this. the healing load is simply too heavy for one healer to carry. using paladin allows you to switch out one healer for another dps, which both helps with getting down nails and increases damage output on ifrit, shortening the fight and therefore lessening chances for things to go wrong.

second, if you have any experience and/or understanding of the fight, you know that the main reason warrior is EXTREMELY UNRELIABLE as a tank for ifrit extreme is because if cracks pop under both healers it almost always results in a dead tank, as they cannot keep themselves alive long enough for *both* healers to run out and back.

third- notice FIVE WARRIORS. warrior single target dps is atrocious. as a result, if they ever pull hate through dps, the tank is awful. if they were stacking geared, skilled dragoons or even if they had a single BLM pushing dps to shorten the fight, the warrior would find it almost impossible to hold hate as without the ability to cure themselves and others their enmity generation is just too low.

finally- jumps. warrior doesn't have nearly as many enmity generating tools at their disposal so in addition to taking longer to reach the enmity ceiling, they can't ramp up as fast as paladin either. this is a critical weakness when it comes to the hate reset after jump. everyone else has to wait for the warrior to firmly establish aggro before doing anything, the chances of accidentally pulling aggro, getting hit by breath and putting sear on the raid skyrockets, etc etc. it's just messy.

you can call it a "stylistic decision" if you want, but that does the entire debate disservice because it absolutely isn't that simple. if people 'prefer' taking warrior to ifrit extreme, that's their choice- but it's essentially like saying you'd rather drink urine than water.

does warrior have the ability to tank ifrit extreme? yes, but they end up handicapping your entire effort. paladin suffers none of these setbacks, and as a result was preferred across the board by LSs who cared at all about winning.

[Andrien]

no, you're missing the logic and projecting onto me.

idiotic. if paladin is superior to warrior in ALL situations, and therefore preferable in ALL situations, in this scenario the community would just wait until they could find a paladin rather than running with a suboptimal tank. the shouts would demand paladin and warriors would be shunned. if you think any differently, you are completely naive.

Your logic is flawed. You're suggesting that a job dedicated for tanking which suppose to have the best DEF overall, and survival abilities is considered as a second or as an equal option. That in my opinion is wrong. Your thoughts and ideas is misplaced.

what did pugs bring to CC? blackmages. how often did you hear about pug monks being accepted? rarely, almost never. why? because blackmage was better than monk in nearly every situation in that dungeon. so it was never a "ehhh no blackmages available, grab the monk" it was "ehhhh wait for another blackmage, or force that guy to switch to blm"

Somewhat relevant to the discussion. It was an unbalance design flaw made by the devs. Players simply abused it. You should know this...

you mean like how WAR and PLD play differently? oh. oh yeah. so here you underscore my point. different DPS thrive in different situations (monk for MM, dragoon for princess, blm for coincounter...) and different tanks do as well (aoe tanking vs. single target, fast hitting vs. slow hitting mob, heavy healing requirement vs. light healing requirement)

This is in an essence of what I'm talking about. War and PLD do play differently yes. One is a dedicated tank, the other a good back up tank and have the ability to dps. I said this already. However players will abuse this if there is a way to exploit if the design has flaws. which it does in 1.0

go ahead and try to patronize me, though. it won't end well for you, kiddo. but let me just say that it's funny that you're taking the haughty UGH GOD Y I HAVE 2 EXPLAIN 2 U route when you're *contradicting yourself* in the first place. no, it's me that shouldn't need to explain this *to you*

If this is suppose to make me feel bad then you're delusional. You don't have a valid point.

i've already said what they're good for and i've provided evidence. disagree all you want, but you'd either be living in a fantasy land or a land of woefully outdated information/experiences.

Listen closely "kiddo.." You might actually learn something if you pay attention. Now pay close attention.

Consider the following for outdated. Once upon a time in FFXI, when Ninja was molded into a tank by the community, a design flaw made by the devs. Ninja with the ability to DD, and tank without taking damage was the ideal choice for exp party, and not to mention blink tanking or kiting on HNMs. As a tank job dedicated for tanking PLD, it was seen as a black sheep. No exp invites etc. Where did that leave PLD? Even in Abyssea it was unwanted until Voidwatch showed up. One content where it was good at.

1.0 was riddle with that flaw for awhile, but was still there, very subtle.


That is all I have to say to you on this matter. If you still don't get it, then I'll tell you in advance that I'm afraid I've ran out of patience to elaborate any further.

[fusional]

You heard me. There was flatly more HP to play around with on your average Warrior.

i disagree on practically all accounts.

first of all, there wasn't that much difference between PLD and WAR HP. if 3500-4000 paladin HP wasn't enough for your healers, then i don't know what to tell you. just keeping regen on the tank and throwing curagas on the melee is often enough to keep any tank topped off.

secondly, two words: plasma acoustics. this is the only truly dangerous part of the fight for a tank, and a good paladin should always be able to predict it and block it. any HP of the warrior is just a visual safety net. in practice it was irrelevant. once they get the defense down from acoustics, darnus still cuts through their HP like butter whether they're a PLD or a WAR

and relating to that: paladin had an "OH SH*T" button in the form of invincibility. warrior didn't.

so i don't really buy the argument that warrior was safer. not at all.