Possible Paladin Rework...

[Donjo]

Also, tank DPS matters. ... It's not only important in world first progression, it's important for getting the turn over as quick as possible and dealing with less mechanics. That, in itself, is a form of mitigation. So don't just think because you're a tank you can slack on DPS, that same argument can be made for healers not DPSing because their primary job is to heal. If you aren't dead, and they aren't doing anything else, they should be DPSing. You have NO excuse because tanking and DPSing go hand in hand (you're going to have to hit the boss to tank it).

Let's make some numbers appear. You're in a high level instance, fighting a boss. You and your Co-Tank are running mitigation builds. Each of your DPS are putting out approximately 500 DPS. You and your Co-Tank are each putting out 200. Since you're beefy and survivable, both of your healers have many chances to throw DPS spells out. Let's say that they're each putting out 40 DPS, which takes into account misses.

This is a total of (500 x 4) + (200 x 2) + (40 x 2) = 2480 Party DPS.

Now, let's say that both you and your Co-Tank decide that you're surviving more than well enough in the fight, so you're going to go all in on STR. You both manage to increase your DPS by 10%. You're now both tossing out 220. However, your healers now need to work harder to keep you both alive. They can't DPS as much. They're now contributing 30 DPS to the fight each. The reality is probably lower, but let's highball them anyway.

This is a total of (500 x 4) + (220 x 2) + (30 x 2) = 2500 Party DPS.

Your efforts at stacking STR have increased your group's DPS by 0.8%. To this, I ask: How much faster will this really end the encounter? You'll end the fight 0.8% faster. You'll end trash fights that go for an average of 1 minute less than a second faster. But, bosses are what's important here. Let's take a 10 minute fight. You've ended the fight 4.8 seconds faster. However, fights these days are even longer than that. Let's go 13. It ends 6 seconds faster. So, yes. It adds up eventually. However, what you'll end up mitigating by missing those very few seconds is quite random. It could just be an autoattack. It could be the Tank Buster(tm). Or, it could be the actual Enrage mechanic of the fight. Some fights are indeed heavily scripted, but human performance is variable enough that you'll never finish a fight at an exact minute and second every time. So, that means that contributing 0.8% more damage to the group at the expense of more than 0.8% of your survivability for the purpose of mitigation has an element of uncertainty. Sort of like... Parry! You never know when a Parry is going to happen and you never know exactly what the boss would have done to you if it were alive for another 6 second. However, Parry can happen over the entire course of most fights but this only happens at the end. If your Parries in a fight would prevent an amount of damage equal to the amount of damage the boss would deal to you in 6 seconds, then it's smarter to use Parry than Strength. Regardless, defending this method of mitigation is, as I've said in a previous thread, hypocritical of the argument that Parry is not worth using.

But, no matter what, and this needs to be made absolutely clear, the benefit of the Tanks dealing 10% more damage each in the full party situations where you're deeming it most useful is so, so small in comparison to the survivability they lose that there is literally no reason to sacrifice so much survivability.

[SpookyGhost]

Now, let's say that both you and your Co-Tank decide that you're surviving more than well enough in the fight, so you're going to go all in on STR. You both manage to increase your DPS by 10%. You're now both tossing out 220. However, your healers now need to work harder to keep you both alive. They can't DPS as much.

If you are compromising your group's DPS or your healer's DPS, then you aren't optimizing your DPS correctly.

As an example:

Turn 5. Do you, as a PLD, need 8,000 HP to tank it without giving your healers heart attacks? No. You don't need that much HP. I'm going to go with a high number here because I've no idea what the actual HP threshold is for T5, but let's say you need about 7,000 HP to comfortably survive any DS + Crit Auto Attack. That is the maximum amount of HP you need for the turn, and the rest is essentially going to waste (no healer is going to be like "well, he's at 1,000 HP, I'll keep DPSing!"). So, what do we do with all that extra VIT? Throw it into STR, of course! See, the thing is, VIT actually has diminishing returns that vary from encounter to encounter. However, STR never actually hits a point where you have Too Much of it. That extra 1,000 HP is completely wasted because you're never going to sit at that HP after a big attack and not be healed up. I know a lot of people believe more HP = more healer DPSing, but that's just not how it works, especially not in this game where all the encounters are scripted and big attacks come on a timer.

So, even if the STR you gain only contributes as little as 0.8% group DPS, it's still better than a completely wasted chunk of VIT.

[Ceodore]

-Stuff-

Umm, as someone who has had a lot of bad groups for T5, all the defense you can get is an understatement for this fight. I was sitting pretty at 8.5k HP without echo buff, with, I was clearing 10k, and even when going with warriors who were topping 12k (They wanted stun locks afterall) The warrior was still getting pummeled down to death with DS, and a few hits. The issue arose from TT's debuff from DS which reduced healing. Now, after completing it, I was sure it was an issue with the groups I had, cause the group I did it with only used one tank and one healer and it was murder. But that is a superb group of players, and it was only because the other tank, (A Paladin, they asked me to dps) went all out on defense. He was clear 10k hp, and all the same ilvl as my Paladin.

Stuff

I want my Circle of Scorn spam! It's so pretty! I will agree, that it does seem a little like Warrior's Defiance. Perhaps something that is catalytic. Here's another idea. If we block a target, the Circle of Scorn debuff will refresh on that target. I'd prefer this effect over a single high damage effect on a block, because it's something that lingers, and it gives you a time frame of, hey, better hope you block another attack from this target in 15 seconds, or you'll have to refresh Circle of Scorn, but people will still refresh it anyways because agro.

[Donjo]

As an example:

Turn 5. Do you, as a PLD, need 8,000 HP to tank it without giving your healers heart attacks? No. You don't need that much HP. I'm going to go with a high number here because I've no idea what the actual HP threshold is for T5, but let's say you need about 7,000 HP to comfortably survive any DS + Crit Auto Attack. That is the maximum amount of HP you need for the turn, and the rest is essentially going to waste (no healer is going to be like "well, he's at 1,000 HP, I'll keep DPSing!"). So, what do we do with all that extra VIT? Throw it into STR, of course! See, the thing is, VIT actually has diminishing returns that vary from encounter to encounter. However, STR never actually hits a point where you have Too Much of it. That extra 1,000 HP is completely wasted because you're never going to sit at that HP after a big attack and not be healed up. I know a lot of people believe more HP = more healer DPSing, but that's just not how it works, especially not in this game where all the encounters are scripted and big attacks come on a timer.

So, even if the STR you gain only contributes as little as 0.8% group DPS, it's still better than a completely wasted chunk of VIT.

0. This isn't terribly relevant, but a full i90 PLD focusing on mitigation had 7000 HP. Twintania still gave healers heart attacks at that HP.

1. When the big attacks are on a timer and that's the only time big damage comes out, the healer DPS opportunity is between the big attacks.. Having 1000-1500 extra HP in that situation is one more auto-attack that can be weathered before a heal is necessary, which is 1 extra DPS spell per cycle of the big attack. If the healer throws out said extra attack and deals 250 damage, that makes up for 62.5 seconds of you dealing 10 additional damage per attack. Being so tanky that your healers can comfortably provide more DPS provides more damage for the raid than forcing them to pay more attention to you will.

2. There is literally no such thing as wasted HP. Stop spreading this around. What happens if you're at the minimum and someone makes a mistake? The healers aren't going to toss a heal at them because they can't leave you alone for a second. That person dies. What happens if the healer(s) makes a mistake? You die. Your ability to survive isn't just about you surviving; it's about the entire party surviving. Any reduction to your HP is a direct reduction to their chances to survive should something go wrong. Any amount of HP that you consider to be wasted is a measure of your party's ability to screw up without wiping. No party is consistently perfect enough to make literally zero mistakes in the most stressful fights in the game. A comfortable one shot is always, always better than a risky potential one shot that will end 6 seconds faster.

[SpookyGhost]

post

0. This is a case of "really horrible healers". If you happen to have really horrible healers, then your max HP required goes up. If you don't have really horrible healers, what I said sticks.

1. Okay, let's take a real world scenario here, yeah? Let's say you're still a 7,000 HP PLD and you're still fighting Twintania. DS has happened, you've been healed up to full. At no point after this should you be dropping to 1,000 HP. Your healers aren't going to be like "ehhhh one more auto attack won't kill him!". Is this just straight up theorycraft world where the rules of actual encounters don't apply? Where all your HP is specifically to allow the healers to DPS during auto attacks and never ever touch you until the big hits come? Because that's sorta not how that works. Your healer is never going to let you drop low at the expense of DPS, because all that DPS goes to waste if you die and the party wipes. I feel like you have this.. like... concept in your mind that I'm talking about going stupid low on HP and then being like "WELL DA STR DOE???!11". Remember when you were talking about how world first groups want to pump out as much DPS as possible which is why (apparently) the tanks needed to pump out DPS too? Now, consider the following: a lot of the MTs in those groups (most if not all) used i90 Ruby accessories for T10, T11, and potentially even T12. T13 is obviously another story due to a higher HP check, especially during early progression, but eventually most MTs will be swapping to i90 Ruby. Off Tank BiS for early progression was also i90 Ruby accessories for every turn. Why is that? Why don't they wear i110 VIT accessories? Why aren't they using i120 or i130 ones? Why aren't they completely maxed out on HP? Why did everyone migrate to i110 STR accessories in SCoB or Ruby? Are you saying that everyone, but you and this other guy, are wrong? Is the popular method somehow incorrect despite providing results?

2. So, there's a few things wrong with this. Firstly, this is another scenario wherein your healers are bad which will, in fact, bump up the required HP for the fight. That sucks, because it also lowers your groups overall DPS and you're essentially forced to carry someone. If someone makes a mistake, as a tank, it is your job to pop a CD to compensate for the healing, not to just Have Extra Health on the off chance someone fucks up and the stars align so that you are at low HP AND a big attack that could kill you is coming up. Personally, this really really really low percent chance occurrence doesn't factor into how much HP I think I'll need for the encounter. If my healers suck and decide they want to DPS while letting me fall to 1,000 HP and there is some reason that the event you describe can occur, then yes, more HP would be better in that scenario because I'd be at 2,000 HP instead of 1,000 and would survive the... 1,000 damage attack that's coming up. Does this not sound completely ludicrous to you? Is it only me? Are healers out there just super bad or have I been blessed with the most incredible healers in all of Eorzea?

But yeah, if you want extra fluff HP because you're super paranoid that some event may happen wherein someone makes a mistake and this causes you to Outright Die, then that's fine. More HP definitely helps bad players, the Echo buff proves that. Sometimes even Echo can't help bad players. But y'know, if you and your healers are good, then converting that extra HP into STR is a good idea, at least in my opinion. I could be wrong but I reaaaaally don't think this argument of "IF EVERYONES BAD YOU NEED AS MUCH HP AS YOU CAN GET" sways me. I do agree with it, mind you, but that wasn't the scenario I was going for when I gave the T5 example. People can make mistakes, but if both the tank and the healer are competent, neither you nor that person will die. Again, the possibility of you being super low on health (shouldn't happen) + someone making a mistake (can and will happen more often than not) + both healers completely leaving you alone to heal the DPS (extremely unlikely) + the next attack that comes up after this string of events will outright kill you (see: previous parenthesis) + both healers are stuck in their GCD and the attack happens so fast that you die (uh) is such a low percentage that I couldn't give you it if I wanted to. You're clearly convinced that VIT 100% is the way to go, though, so I'll let you keep on trucking with that. If you'd like to get the last word in, feel free to, I'm personally done derailing this topic into STR's weight for a tank.

[Ceodore]

Stuff

I am going to cut the middle ground here and say both of you are right, for all the right reasons you posted. If your raid IS talented and mistakes AREN'T going to happen, there is no reason why not to switch to strength. I've even said in my other posts that in fights where it's just too easy, I switch to strength trinkets. You are totally, 100% right, especially when you bring into the fact that a healer really should for the most part heal, because it's annoying when they try to switch Cleric Stance off and fail and wonder why their pitiful little 600 cure 2 isn't doing the job. So just let me DPS and don't worry about it.

Stuff

I am going to cut the middle ground here and say both of you are right, for all the right reasons you posted. If your raid ISN'T as talented and mistakes are LIKELY to happen, there is no reason to switch to strength other than a desire to watch the boss futt buck the rest of your raid. I've even agreed with you in previous posts that a tank who goes with more defense can't go wrong. You are totally, 100% right, especially when you bring into the fact that a healer can dps, or on some fights, you can just take 1 healer and more dps instead. The healer that doesn't have to heal you for a little bit can even switch into Cleric Stance and dps, as long as they properly switch back and heal when things start to get critical. This way I can take let them DPS and not have to worry about it.


So, kiddies, in the end, what have we learned? Take a swap of trinkets, this way you won't be a one trick pony.

[Sokerimuro]

Just posting to bump this thread a bit, as the discussion is in my opinion relevant and should not die out. Paladin as a class is fine, but it could use a tweak or two, mainly in the dynamic section.

Also, lets get back on track, as the thread derailed into pseudo-TankDPS thread (which still in the end is a relevant discussion, just not on this thread mayhaps)

[Donjo]

Just posting to bump this thread a bit, as the discussion is in my opinion relevant and should not die out. Paladin as a class is fine, but it could use a tweak or two, mainly in the dynamic section.

Also, lets get back on track, as the thread derailed into pseudo-TankDPS thread (which still in the end is a relevant discussion, just not on this thread mayhaps)

Yeah, I stopped when that was directly mentioned. The person I was arguing with also mostly directly called all VIT Tanks bad players as well, which was just too much flame fuel to dare trying to light. The DPS Tank paradigm is more effective on WAR than PLD anyway, so what the hey.

Of the arguments actually introduced in this thread in favor of changing PLD, adding enmity to CoS and increasing the potency of Flash(again) were the only ones that have made it in so far. Guess SE is keeping our niche/situational skills exactly that.