Tank Balance

[Iagainsti]

Good job ignoring everything that has changed from 2.X to 3.X that has hurt PLD in real and quantifiable ways. People are hardly being unreasonable and facetious when they point out the issues with enmity, now unusable skills, etc. But, you don't play PLD and have never played PLD so of course you wouldn't understand.

Reg: If you want to join the People's Front of Judea, you have to really hate the Romans.
Brian: I do!
Reg: Oh yeah, how much?
Brian: A lot!
Reg: Right, you're in.

[Anyndel]

I'm honestly surprised how people is obsessed with minmaxing in this game, specially with tanks and healers doing dps... Unless your party is behind on damage for the fight, which then is the DPSs fault, the tank shouldn't have anything to do with it.
I understand people wanting to maximize their dps as a warrior since you can deal some serious damage that can be compared to the dps jobs and also increase your self healing on doing so since the job's motto is more like "kill it fast before it hurts you", but stuff like people used to do like determination on PLD shield for almost no dps increase at all, why? you can perfectly clear stuff by playing normally and I would take parry over determination anytime when tanking (and yeah, I do know the "if you have block parry loses value" but still almost no parry gain > almost no dps gain).

I always end up getting into the discussion of "WAR can't do this" or "PLD can't do that" like the "WAR can't MT T9" but then you have a video of people 4manning it with a WAR tanking (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbYYx7_G3NM).

I think tanks are just fine and people is just picking on numbers, the only thing I see lacking is the PLD aggro/enmity and I do think it should get a buff, even since I started playing. Still got a lot to see about DRKs since they're still kinda new but I don't think PLD is so bad outside of the enmity, it has less dps and higher mitigation like it always did and is still picked as the standard MT. Don't get so caught on numbers and just enjoy your class, unless it's completely broken and unplayable; hardcore players gonna love their numbers and nitpick on taking this or that tank based on this or that minimal benefit but if you're so hardcore just go and change class instead of crying bout it, you can have all of them in a single character and each one of them is obviously best at something.

[Wizhard]

I'm honestly surprised how people is obsessed with minmaxing in this game, specially with tanks and healers doing dps... Unless your party is behind on damage for the fight, which then is the DPSs fault, the tank shouldn't have anything to do with it.

Yes, you go tell that to Living Liquid and his friend, Living Limb when they perform the Hand of Pain on you.
Although i must admit it was the case in the raids before the expansion.

[Anyndel]

Yes, you go tell that to Living Liquid and his friend, Living Limb when they perform the Hand of Pain on you.
Although i must admit it was the case in the raids before the expansion.

And it should keep being the case! The problems there are with this expansion content is probably just SE still adjusting their numbers.

[carbonx]

I'm honestly surprised how people is obsessed with minmaxing in this game

When you're not overgearing the content, you need to min/max. Since we are early in the expansion and raid content, people want to min/max tank and healer DPS to meet content that is otherwise impossible in current gear.

And, yeah. The 4man you show is probably a group of people in BiS i130 gear, so it's hardly an example of what could be done when T9 was released. Even in lower gear, WAR could MT T9, but they were not the best tank for the job.

The easiest way to buff PLD enmity? Give them more DPS. More DPS = more enmity, which is why the other tanks have an easier time of it, as they both have ways to negate or lessen the DPS penalty in their respective tank stances, while Paladin does not.

[Anyndel]

When you're not overgearing the content, you need to min/max. Since we are early in the expansion and raid content, people want to min/max tank and healer DPS to meet content that is otherwise impossible in current gear.

I believe with the release of the expansion SE is probably just still pinpointing boss damage and DPS checks with the new numbers, and if the DPS checks are too hard or even impossible without leaving aside one tank for another just because of the DPS output I think this is a bad way to look at it, more than saying "Please buff my tank class DPS so it's competitive" you should be saying "please adjust DPS checks".

The easiest way to buff PLD enmity? Give them more DPS. More DPS = more enmity, which is why the other tanks have an easier time of it, as they both have ways to negate or lessen the DPS penalty in their respective tank stances, while Paladin does not.

But then again that's the whole point of being a WAR or a DRK, take more damage, deal more damage. Put an extra strain on the healers and increase overall DPS. If something like that is given to the PLD we might as well just go with the WoW model where every tank has the same skills with minimal tweaks: just increase the enmity multiplier of shield oath or the enmity generation of RoH, no need to increase their DPS.

Having different tanks with different mechanics implies them having stronger or weaker points which implies them being picked one over another for specific stuff, but it also gives you the unique job you're playing. There's 3 tanks which means one WILL be left aside in a party and if the DPS is the deciding factor for that, well, as I've said, problem of SE encounter tweaking and not class balancing since DPSs should be able to clear it by themselves.

[carbonx]

"Please buff my tank class DPS so it's competitive" you should be saying "please adjust DPS checks".

You have to understand, this content was not tuned to be feasibly cleared in i190 (except probably A1S) by the majority. I'm not saying PLD's DPS needs to be buffed. I run PLD in Alex, we clear DPS checks just fine. However, you asked why players were so "obsessed" with minmaxing right now - I answered you.

PLD should not be a damage tank; it's not their image, never has been. They get extra raid utility the others do not. But... We still have 20% damage loss in Shield Oath that cannot be altered with skills like the other two. Early groups tended to have DRK instead of a PLD because they could compensate with exceptional play and still get the extra DPS. Then, you have the rest of the world watching going "PLD must be the weakest tank". Some early groups cleared with a PLD with large Sword Oath uptime utilizing Shadewalker for enmity. Right now I think people are saying, a WAR can DPS better and mitigate just as well, so there is no reason for so large a penalty on damage.

[Xenosan]

I agree I can imagine Tempered Will being a self-esuna. (As is though I find use for it plenty in PvP and in some trials)

But if buffing Tempered Will, another route I can imagine: preventing cast interruption. In 2.x a Surecast effect didn't seem plausible for PLD because they didn't have a cast spell that wasn't cross-classed. But with Clemency now I feel like it could be appropriate. TW > Clemency could find it's way against magical tank busters

And just to go the whole way, an OP Tempered Will: Prevent cast interruption, whilst in PLD* cast animation, incoming damage reduced by 20%.

The thing with Divine Veil for me, if it were a lvl 30-50 job ability I'd have a different opinion on it. But by 52+ I feel like it's another drop in the bucket, dunno..

[Rbstr]

I dono why Divine Veil gets so much crap.

It's an extra, stacking, shield for raid-wide damage. It will automatically deploy on a Succor. Or, if the Scholar is Deploying an Adlo, they can cast it on you.
Plenty of fights past have had big raid-wides that required Stone Skin+Succor and even Sacred Soil on top of it in order to keep squishy DPS alive. Veil is fantastic for that.

[karateorangutang]

I dono why Divine Veil gets so much crap.

It's an extra, stacking, shield for raid-wide damage. It will automatically deploy on a Succor. Or, if the Scholar is Deploying an Adlo, they can cast it on you.
Plenty of fights past have had big raid-wides that required Stone Skin+Succor and even Sacred Soil on top of it in order to keep squishy DPS alive. Veil is fantastic for that.

It's a fantastic ability. It's also one of the only skills in the game that require an outside trigger, which makes people feel uncomfortable. It's taking control out of the hands of the person playing tank.

We play tank... because we like that control.