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

[Anger]

According to Live Letter XXIII, when asked about Paladin and Dark Knight DPS the response was:

As an off tank, dark knights can also utilize the benefits from this debuff’s effect and that will also allow them to output similar amounts of damage. Paladins are specialized in defense so their damage output is a little bit lower.

--

If Paladin has lower damage than the two tanks in an extremely high-DPS check environment shouldn't it -always- be the strongest defender? Whether it be Magic or Physical? I mean, if it's the king of defense and all I believe it should fulfill that role better and not be edged out under any circumstances in that department.

Here's an A1S video with the Paladin at 442 and the Warrior at 633. Both tanks mitigate the same damage one deals 35% more damage doing it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6DwKeAkKX0

between V1 = 442 and V2 = 633

( | V1 - V2 | / ((V1 + V2)/2) ) * 100

= ( | 442 - 633 | / ((442 + 633)/2) ) * 100
= ( | -191 | / (1075/2) ) * 100
= ( 191 / 537.5 ) * 100
= 0.355349 * 100

= 35.5349% difference

[Ralvenom]

Um...SHIELD.

[Launched]

PLD has Hallowed, and 99% of enemies have physical attacks that you have a chance to block. There's no huge difference in mitigating tankbusters.

[Adrasteia]

PLD has Hallowed, and 99% of enemies have physical attacks that you have a chance to block. There's no huge difference in mitigating tankbusters.

There's a huge difference, considering the prevalence of Magic-based tankbusters. The difference between healing a DRK MT in A4 and a PLD MT in A4 is pretty well night-and-day, speaking from personal experience. I'd gladly toss Hallowed Ground in the garbage if it meant I could get 30% Magic DR every minute.

[Anger]

There's a huge difference, considering the prevalence of Magic-based tankbusters. The difference between healing a DRK MT in A4 and a PLD MT in A4 is pretty well night-and-day, speaking from personal experience. I'd gladly toss Hallowed Ground in the garbage if it meant I could get 30% Magic DR every minute.

That's exactly what I'm getting at. If all we're bringing is "superior defense" and have less damage than the other tanks, at no point, should they be able to "out defend" us.

It's amusing that 100% of the time, if played correctly, they can "out damage" us, though.

[Ercapote]

It's amusing that 100% of the time, if played correctly, they can "out damage" us, though.

this is exactly the current problem with Paladins and the reason why we have a threat with 300+ post discussing what's wrong with pally

(PALADIN MIGHTY DEFENSE IS NOT SO MIGHTY, don't tell me we have shield,hollowed ground more "cd" or just better defense) paladin has the same chances of survival than the other tanks, and the other tanks even better chance of survival since they have their defense stronger and on a "ready to use all the time" situation

all this has already been discussed on other threats and it's just clear as water that there's a huge balance issue when it comes paladin.

[Launched]

There's a huge difference, considering the prevalence of Magic-based tankbusters. The difference between healing a DRK MT in A4 and a PLD MT in A4 is pretty well night-and-day, speaking from personal experience. I'd gladly toss Hallowed Ground in the garbage if it meant I could get 30% Magic DR every minute.

I've healed A4 too. There isn't much of a difference. Thanks to diminishing returns on mitigation, Shadow Wall and Dark Mind is 51% mitigation while Sentinel is 40% by itself. That doesn't make any difference to healing, and PLD can use Hallowed to completely mitigate one set of tankbusters.

[Adrasteia]

I've healed A4 too. There isn't much of a difference. Thanks to diminishing returns on mitigation, Shadow Wall and Dark Mind is 51% mitigation while Sentinel is 40% by itself. That doesn't make any difference to healing, and PLD can use Hallowed to completely mitigate one set of tankbusters.

10% is a pretty significant extra piece of reduction (see: Storm's Path), especially in a fight with a tankbuster chaining into party-wide damage. The key point is that Dark Mind on its own is still 30%, and can be used every minute, whereas PLD has two consistent options to deal with Magic damage (one of which DRK has a literal clone of). This wouldn't be such a big deal if the majority of tankbusters in the content released thus far weren't Magic-based... but they are, and that leaves the tank with the on-demand Magic DR ahead in defensiveness.

[Anger]

I've healed A4 too. There isn't much of a difference. Thanks to diminishing returns on mitigation, Shadow Wall and Dark Mind is 51% mitigation while Sentinel is 40% by itself. That doesn't make any difference to healing, and PLD can use Hallowed to completely mitigate one set of tankbusters.

I'd still rather take the tank that can shrug off magic damage and annihilate a Paladin in DPS instead.

[Marveth]

I'm not saying PLD is in a good spot. In fact, because I dont have a PLD I tend to stay out of those discussions. But DRK doesn't have nearly the same dps as WAR does even with debuffs applied. If anything War should be the one with inferior defense while pld focus on physical and drk on magical defense.