If Paladin is "specialized in defense" shouldn't its defense be better always?

[Isius]

@ Ladon

I agree with everything you said. But as I said in another thread having pld/drk as specific physical or magic dmg mitigation tanks was a poor decision by SE. This only leaves pld/drk fighting for a spot, while warrior gets away scott free, since they will always get away being the better choice as ot, why can't the other tanks be as capable as war as ot? But are still capable of mting fine like pld/drk? But I still stand from what I said in this thread too even if SE gets rid of physical/magic dmg specific dmg, which is extremely unlikey since this will affect every job ingame. Plds still either needs a small boast in dps since the mmo meta is always more dps the better, or to give pld more def capabilities to actually make it the qoute in qoute best def tank, so others can do the dps for us easier, namely healers. Either or idc which one really.

[Reynhart]

Let's keep PLD as the king of physical mitigation and DRK as the king of magical mitigation. I hope they'll balance physical and magical buster so that each one has enough content to shine.

There's a "solution" to make WAR not stepping too much on their ground, since DPS is its ground (Confirmed by Yoshi-p)
Reduce their mitigation.

Yeah, yeah, I know, "nerf" is a bad word, but it's one kind af adjustment.

"But, you'll say, if WAR has less mitigation, don't they risk not being able to main tank really difficult content ?" And I'll say, "Yes, but only as long as they MT alone"

Generally, when you have several bosses, or even trash mobs, you take far less damage than when facing a big bad guy. For these "easier" foes, WAR would keep enough mitigation to survive efficiently.
But for the big bads, you'd need to tank swap because you couldn't maintain a cooldown rotation to keep the boss on you 100% of the time.

This would still follow the view where "every setup can clear every content", it would just require a different strategy.
For example : Brong back the old Inner Beast but other skill as they are now. You can mitigate one tank buster fine, but you'll probably need to swap for the next.

Of course, it would need really precise testing so that WAR mitigation is really lower than PLD or DRK but still enough for content when you need to "MT".

[Isius]

^ waiting for the Warrior uproar. lol

I rather have each tank with different playstyles, while each are also fully capable as mt or ot. They can each still have thier own strengths and weakiness, but thier stengths better make up for those weakiness. High def, less offense or low def, high offense. Not like Plds are now slighty mirginally higher defense to other tanks, with noticable lower offense capabilies. So increase plds def or plds dmg idc which.

I would prefer a system that reflects that then physical/magic tank method. Or some other system that doesn't segregate classes so much. Personally Pld/Drk needs to be reworked not Warrior.

[Ladon]

I think the slashing debuff needs to be moved off Warrior and onto Paladin as a first step to aligning the three tanks better and creating a better situation where any combination of tank works as well as the others.

I really don't think mitigation can be tweaked around to the point that all three tanks are viable yet urges the use of one over the other in fights with a triad of jobs. I think the better solution here is not to balance the individual tanks against the others but make it so that the combined toolset and abilities is nearly identical if you go PLD-DRK, PLD-WAR, or WAR-DRK in a party.

The root cause of the issues right now is that there is no PLD-DRK synergy in a party and Warrior has retained the massive amount of synergy it was given to fight the PLD-PLD meta. This simply does not work in the current three tank game. Abilities needs to be shuffled/tweaked around on the three tanks better so that all three tanks complement each-other as was done to make Warrior complement PLD better after 2.0.

[SpookyGhost]

There's a "solution" to make WAR not stepping too much on their ground, since DPS is its ground (Confirmed by Yoshi-p)
Reduce their mitigation.

Nah, the solution is give every tank an Eye debuff. Only reason you bring WAR always as OT now is because it provides Eye. Path is great, but with PLD + DRK you'd have an INT debuff and a STR debuff, which is only slightly worse than Path.

WAR is by no means OP, but it does provide something none of the other tanks do and is a straight DPS gain vs any other composition. Give that to everyone and you can take any of the 3 tanks with no issues.

PLD excels at physical mitigation, DRK excels at magical mitigation, and WAR is the in-between. If it weren't balanced this way you'd just end up with the one optimal comp (tankiest + most dps) and no variation at all. The problem isn't how the tanks mitigate damage, the problem is that WAR has a guaranteed spot and both DRK and PLD have to fight over the raid spot.

Ideally, you can bring any of the 3 and clear the content just fine. And you can, given enough gear. PLD + DRK has cleared A1S and A2S, I'm sure A3S will soon follow (if it hasn't already). That doesn't mean there isn't an imbalance, but it's not as big of a deal as some people would have you believe. This is the trouble with the world first race, people look at what was min/maxed to beat X encounter and think that without that composition you're going to be dealing too little DPS or have too little survivability and therefore won't beat it.

Also I love the "PLD CAN'T MITIGATE MAGIC DAMAGE SO UM PLS BUFF???" argument because there's never a point where they recommend DRK's physical mitigation be buffed. I wonder why...

[Reynhart]

Nah, the solution is give every tank an Eye debuff.

Ok, maybe I don't see the big picture but isn't than somehow the same as "Increase tank DPS" ?

Because, it's the only thing Storm's Eye does, in fact, even if it does it good.

[Zdenka]

Solutions for PLD's lesser DPS to make it more... fair?

Make Shield/Sword Oath instant swap
Add Piercing Debuff to Royal Authority so that PLD can replace DRG, like DRK can replace MNK.

It isn't that far behind but those changes would help without totally breaking it.

[SpookyGhost]

Ok, maybe I don't see the big picture but isn't than somehow the same as "Increase tank DPS" ?

Because, it's the only thing Storm's Eye does, in fact, even if it does it good.

It increases NIN DPS as well, as with PLD + DRK the NIN would need to keep up DE (and without a NIN you're going to have less tank damage). WAR still does the highest DPS out of the 3 tanks, giving SE to everyone wouldn't step into WAR's "best DPS" territory, but it would allow for PLD + DRK to be a thing without heavy repercussions.

As an example, look at A4S. You've got the boss which only deals magic damage, you've got the add in Quarantine that specifically deals physical, and you've got the Straf Doll that specifically deals physical. PLD + DRK would be a great defensive oriented core here... but since their DPS would plummet without a slashing debuff, you bring DRK + WAR.

Anyway, that's just what I've noticed. I'd personally love all 3 tanks to be equally viable, but I don't think nerfing/changing mitigation is the solution. WAR has to work GCD to GCD to maximize damage and mitigation, and we don't even get the best damage reduction for either physical or magical. We don't need a buff, but we most certainly don't need a nerf.

Something I think that would help, aside from the Eye debuff, is giving DRK a shield equivalent that only works on magic and increasing PLD's DPS to DRK levels. That way DRK and PLD are equal in their respective mitigation departments and DPS. So all tanks could do all content, PLD would excel in physical fight mitigation, DRK would excel in magical fight mitigation, and WAR would be in-between + provide more DPS than the other 2 tanks. Which is how I think SE intended for the jobs to be balanced, and they're nearly there, but the tiny differences in Savage become significantly bigger.

Add Piercing Debuff to Royal Authority so that PLD can replace DRG, like DRK can replace MNK.

Unfortunately, as nice as this solution would be, that's not how it works. The reason DRK can "replace" MNK is because DRK brings the INT down bit of MNK's DK debuff. The other part of DK is blunt resistance down, which only affects MNK's damage. If PLD had DRG's piercing debuff, you would still want a DRG for Battle Litany and the higher sustained DPS. The only thing you would get with PLD having DRG's piercing debuff is being able to not use a DRG and bring a MNK instead, but you would have lower DPS than just using DRK + DRG.

[Reynhart]

Anyway, that's just what I've noticed. I'd personally love all 3 tanks to be equally viable, but I don't think nerfing/changing mitigation is the solution. WAR has to work GCD to GCD to maximize damage and mitigation, and we don't even get the best damage reduction for either physical or magical. We don't need a buff, but we most certainly don't need a nerf.

All tanks now have 3 combos in their rotation, WAR is not that much more complicated. And the additionnal GCD for Damage and/or Mitigation is not a big deal and helps them recover TP. You could say that PLD has also some GCD to manage if he wants to stun or use Shield Swipe.

Something I think that would help, aside from the Eye debuff, is giving DRK a shield equivalent that only works on magic

I think Dark Mind is already a powerful skill to reduce magical damage, and DRK can drain life back with DA+Soul Eater. So, they don't have constant mitigation but constant self-healing (And I'm pretty sure they're close in terms of eHP)

So all tanks could do all content, PLD would excel in physical fight mitigation, DRK would excel in magical fight mitigation, and WAR would be in-between + provide more DPS than the other 2 tanks. Which is how I think SE intended for the jobs to be balanced, and they're nearly there, but the tiny differences in Savage become significantly bigger.

The problem with the "in-between" is when it's far enough. In magical figths, PLD really lacks mitigation. In physical fights, DRK lacks mitigation. But, either in magical of physical, having Inner Beast so often gives WAR sufficient mitigation to be MT all the time. And when mitigation is "sufficient", anything more quickly becomes a waste.

Yes, a DPS increase is a simple solution, but it bugs me to make all tanks more and more similar. I'd really like some adjustment that really change the strat between each tank.
That's why I suggested something to make WAR manage fights very differently.

When I look at WAR in 2.0 it had absolutely no mitigation, and no permanent healing boost. That was clearly not enough to survive content because of the damage scaling. But maybe it could have worked with only some of the changes from 2.1.

[Isius]

Something I think that would help, aside from the Eye debuff, is giving DRK a shield equivalent that only works on magic and increasing PLD's DPS to DRK levels. That way DRK and PLD are equal in their respective mitigation departments and DPS. So all tanks could do all content, PLD would excel in physical fight mitigation, DRK would excel in magical fight mitigation, and WAR would be in-between + provide more DPS than the other 2 tanks. Which is how I think SE intended for the jobs to be balanced, and they're nearly there, but the tiny differences in Savage become significantly bigger.

^ Could live with that. I already know Drk's Grit Stance is meh compared to Plds that has shields, which they seem to be the exact opposite to Plds. Shields to block physical dmg, and idk "Dark Aura" for Drks to block magical dmg. If Plds got a dps increase comparable to Drks. But when I think about it there is no toolset for Drk for a magic block, and if they did it would be way too op. Kinda why I think the mass majority of tank busters will stay as magic dmg in future patches. Reasoning why is because of Plds Sheltron quickly becomes way too op against physical tank busters. Hive Shield already gives 28% mitigation, and this will only grow in future patches. This could quickly make plds single tanking encounters if there is no need for 2 tanks.