Is Paladin in a Bad Spot?

[Sleigh]

Because drk has more advantages on top of that. More damage, more threat, an extra cooldown pld doesn't get, and self heals. Don't give me clemency, if healers arn't dumb it's almost always overhealing with long cast, not to mention you have to give up even more damage to heal unlike a drk who heals while doing damage. Again I don't think pld is terrible but how is drk not just a better pld?

Shield, more consistent STR down debuff than Reprisal, better CDs when talking about purely physical attacks, Clemency/Protect/Divine Veil, Hallowed Ground.

PLD is more survivable, in virtually every fight in the game (including A3S, which yes world first put PLD out of in favor of DRK's higher MT DPS and Reprisal to ease mechanic damage), mainly from their shield but also core things like Sheltron and better Sentinel/HG. You'd have to put them in a fight like Ramuh where you can argue DRK is just plain better, otherwise there are advantages and disadvantages to both (and I'd argue most fights highly favor PLD's advantages).

[Faytte]

Shield, more consistent STR down debuff than Reprisal, better CDs when talking about purely physical attacks, Clemency/Protect/Divine Veil, Hallowed Ground.

PLD is more survivable, in virtually every fight in the game (including A3S, which yes world first put PLD out of in favor of DRK's higher MT DPS and Reprisal to ease mechanic damage), mainly from their shield but also core things like Sheltron and better Sentinel/HG. You'd have to put them in a fight like Ramuh where you can argue DRK is just plain better, otherwise there are advantages and disadvantages to both (and I'd argue most fights highly favor PLD's advantages).

STR Down is compared to Int Down
Reprisal is a burst mitigation power, which with skill (and dark dance bait) can be added onto important mechanics (like A1S).


Clemency is not a great power outside of the OT role. Casting it as an MT is a challenge at best (in all the hours I watched A3S Paladin almost never used it ever--you just cant, its too slow). Protect---Do you mean Cover? I guess you can cross class Protect but I think you mistyped?

Divine Veil is nice--its not the world. Lets get that out of the way--its 1700 ish health every 3 minutes, useful at certain points.
Hallowed Ground--The reason you still play paladin.

[Sleigh]

STR Down is compared to Int Down
Reprisal is a burst mitigation power, which with skill (and dark dance bait) can be added onto important mechanics (like A1S).


Clemency is not a great power outside of the OT role. Casting it as an MT is a challenge at best (in all the hours I watched A3S Paladin almost never used it ever--you just cant, its too slow). Protect---Do you mean Cover? I guess you can cross class Protect but I think you mistyped?

STR down is not necessarily compared to Delirium Blade, as STR down is unique to PLD. DRK lets you have the INT debuff while keeping MNK out of your comp if you so choose, but if you have a MNK it is of little/no value. For general tank mitigation, RoH is better than Delirium (as my team noticed switching to DRK in A3S, where the first half of the fight has Reprisal as roughly the same value as RoH but without high upkeep). Yes, Reprisal's great for mechanics/tank busting, but in most scenarios where there are largely physical attacks, it is merely a poor man's RoH since it has less uptime, although A1 and A3 both benefit from Reprisal's magic damage down - that said, both A1 and A3 greatly benefit from RoH's 100% uptime too.

Basically what I meant by saying that's an advantage is that RoH is more consistent when you want it, both in an OT role and with permanent uptime. It's not to say RoH > Reprisal.

Clemency, Protect (yes I meant Protect, it's an option to Protect raised players now situationally in a raid scenario, mostly to save healer MP), Cover, and Divine Veil aren't necessarily game changers but they're sure handy, and DRK gets nothing even similar to them in raid healing/utility. All DRK can do is attack enemies, which is fine, but all things being otherwise equal having those tools is great.

I should reiterate that I'm not saying PLD > DRK, just responding to a post asking why even use PLD over DRK.