Tank Balance

[Strident]

I know that I tend to write long posts, but please try to read the entire thing if you intend to directly reply to me.

You spent half of your post explaining how using Tempered Will to not get killed by Landslide(and other similar generic situations) is a bad way to use it... when I previously stated that:

1. Tempered Will is useful if you're caught in a situation where you cannot dodge the normally dodgeable knockback/draw-in attack. The specific Titan EX instance I mentioned referenced an undodgeable Landslide, which can happen from the MT's point of view.
2. Using Tempered Will solely to be lazy is a waste of the skill.

That being said, Safety Net does not mean "pop Tempered Will and then purposely get hit by the attack because I'm safe now". That's lazy, which... see above.

And this brings us to Cover now as well. Cover, along with Tempered Will, are probably most intended to be used as Safety Net skills. Safety Nets exist to catch us if we fall. Tempered Will is only effective if it is used proactively; ie. before the unwanted movement effect in question happens. Unless you have a specific niche plan(such as a maximize uptime on the boss strategy) then the ideal use for Tempered Will is to, if you ever feel like you're in danger of being moved around, pop it... and then continue attempting to avoid the effect. It isn't there to foster laziness; it's there to save your bacon is you make a mistake.

Cover, on the other hand, is a Safety Net skill that usually lends itself to reactive use. Enemies should typically be targeting Tanks with physical attacks, but if anyone makes a mistake that causes an unwanted target to start getting hit, Cover is a Safety Net that can catch them before they die. While Tempered Will has a good number of situations where it can be utilized in a useful manner outside of just being a Safety Net, Cover has fewer of these situations and will thsu most often be used to respond to an error.

If you think about things in terms of Safety, it can be seen that these two skills fit the aesthetic of the Paladin very well. After all, they're the "safe" Tank. Okay to Good Paladins may see these kinds of skills, think "when will I ever need this? Off the hotbar you go!", and go on their merry way. A Great Paladin will survey the battlefield, keep an eye out, and use them to help maximize the safety of the party should things go sour. Aside from fixing the "only one combo is boring!" situation, Paladin's new skills just make things even safer. Sheltron? A free block and a decent chunk of free MP to help power Clemency, a useful emergency heal. And Divine Veil? It does require a bit more work than what is perhaps strictly necessary to get its benefit, but some damage absorption is always okay in these endgame fights that oh so love to attack the party.

These abilities are all integral parts of what makes a Paladin a Paladin, and they don't need to go anywhere.

And Ercaporte? You're so eager to complain about Paladin that you are literally blind to what it does well and greatly exaggerating its weaknesses. Iagainsti is right. You should chill out a bit.

You misinterpret what I said. From the beginning, I stated that "I debate your contention that those described usages are of good design." This is not about good or bad ways to use a skill. This is about the poor design of Tempered Will.

I claimed that the usage of Tempered Will to potentially prevent being knocked back by a landslide is "absolutely not what a well designed skill should do." Using Tempered Will in this situation comes down to either successfully dodging the landslide, which is extremely easy as the MT (there are no undodgeable landslides unless you are tanking Titan wrong), or getting hit by it and not getting knocked back. In other words, either the skill is useless, or you messed up and just get a slap on the wrist. Unlike the case of using Tempered Will to enable the MT to inflict additional damage by not being displaced, in this case the landslide can and SHOULD be avoided, Tempered Will or no.

In contrast, what I claim is that the optimal usage, and more importantly a well designed usage for Tempered Will, is to prevent Upheaval and gain uptime on damaging Titan. In this scenario, the knock back is, in fact, undodgeable. The knockback produces the negative effective of "being outside of melee range". Using Tempered Will here to do damage to Titan is an interesting and empowering usage of this skill, as opposed to "meh, well maybe I'll mess up here so why not". However, this skill is on a 3 minute cooldown for such a weak usage, and PLD's lack of key debuffs they need to refresh and low damage do not make this a very compelling skill either. I understand what you mean by safety net, and I am arguing that safety net skills are NOT well designed skills if they cannot be employed in an empowering manner, especially if they are as limited and as gated as Tempered Will. If the cooldown was much shorter or the effect much stronger, then this skill could be good. However, I do not think it is worth the effort to keep it since all it promotes is basically laziness. Of all the skills in the Paladin skill set, I find this to be the most underwhelming, excluding Shield Swipe which is unfortunately still living in 2.X.

Cover, in contrast, has many usages even outside panic moments. A great use in a 8 man party situation is when both tanks are tanking different enemies. The PLD can cover the other tank and then use a defensive cooldown, such as Hallowed Ground, which essentially extends the effect of the cooldown to the other tank for physical damage without changing the overall enmity layout. Even in Titan, you can use it to absorb Mountain Buster for the other tank, allowing the other tank to use their offensive stance over the duration while you absorb weaker hits. Cover acting as an extension of your defense skills and its ability to work with the second tank make it a much more intriguing ability, with several situational but often occurring usages.

Finally, I am very confused by this "safe" Tank identity. In the context you are using it ("safety net"), you make it sound like you mean this as "Paladin is the safest Tank because they can make a lot of mistakes," which is design (keyword) that I absolutely cannot agree with. The identity, or "paradigm", of Paladin has been quote-unquote "more defensive". This is not analogous to being simple or allowed the make mistakes. Being a defensive Tank should mean are larger, more varied and powerful toolkit for damage mitigation and should also take more investment than "well, I popped this one thing." I don't think Paladin is in that state right now, and I don't think Tempered Will helps as I consider it not only a weak but a poorly designed cooldown, even compared to Cover which of course also has its own problems, though not particularly by design.