Savage Alexander and the Paladin Exodus

[Ladon]

The problem is that right now he could switch to DRK with 0 esoterics gear and do even better than his pld in every way. This is the core of the issue.

No the core issue is that you can switch out DRKs and PLDs all day long but you are a complete fool to take either of them over a Warrior.

Notice how no groups doing anything worthwhile are doing it with a DRK and PLD? This is your main problem right here.

[Kyne_Lyons]

I wouldn't say it's just one problem, but the fact that I play Dark Knight with 6 ilvls lower and perform my role as a tank better is a bit insulting. It underscores the massive difference between the two jobs. Paladins on A4S are just so bad that taking one, regardless of how much gear your group has, is detrimental to progression and it's true for A3S as well.

The balance issue is also multi-faceted. Spending nearly 2000 Esoterics on Paladin means that I have to not spend that currency on Dark Knight, or I have to make the conscious choice to be under-geared in order to support multiple jobs. If that's what the developers intended, great. I just want that signal before diving head first into what is currently the worst tank in the game right now. On top of that, the mitigation difference between Paladin and Dark Knight is negligible in practice. It's been all over the tank forums, people can talk all they want about how much better Paladin is at mitigating damage, but do the encounters, read the parses, and you'll see that Paladin doesn't take much less than a Dark Knight does. In fact they often end up taking more since Dark Knight can spend a greater portion of the fight in Grit, taking 20% less damage while Paladin has to get blasted in order to put out comparable numbers.

A lot of people have mentioned just waiting until everybody has more gear, and that's why I made the thread to begin with. Paladin is the tank you take if you're okay spending an additional month or so on content. If you're okay waiting several content patches to get your clear, sure, play Paladin. If you want to clear the content now? Sorry, Paladin isn't for you.

[Ultimatecalibur]

No the core issue is that you can switch out DRKs and PLDs all day long but you are a complete fool to take either of them over a Warrior.

Notice how no groups doing anything worthwhile are doing it with a DRK and PLD? This is your main problem right here.

This is pretty much caused by the Warrior not needing anyone else in order to max out their DpS. Both the Dark Knight and Paladin need either a Ninja or a Warrior on their target in order for them to be in a similar area to a Warrior's solo DpS.

[Kyne_Lyons]

To say nothing of the fact that Storm's Path is the most important debuff in the game and Warrior is the only job in the game that brings it.

[Ditto]

I don't understand this. Are people really following what world first groups use in their setup like it's a religion?

Paladin is a HELL of a lot better off than Drk is right now. In fact, Paladin mitigates BETTER than Drk in 3 of the 4 floors. I seriously do not understand where Paladins are getting this mindset that they're garbage compared to Drk's in Savage from. Maybe they're all just bad?

A1S is ALL physical save for the cleave and the buster. Those of which are spaced out by 2 minutes, and you will only ever see 3 in the fight. Everything else is physical. The total amount of damage a Paladin can mitigate in A1S completely destroys what a Drk can mitigate, from Hollowed Ground alone. Hollowed is raw immunity. Living Dead still requires you to be healed for 100% of your HP so you don't instantly die, and if you are healed for 100% of it, you lose your immortality. Paladins don't. This means healers now have to worry about the 10 second timer Walking Dead gives them to heal up the Drk, otherwise it's a wipe. And using a CD like benediction to counteract the negative side of another CD is not good. The only exception RI + Awareness on Wars, because it plays completely in the War's favor alone without adding an extra thing with a 10 second timer to the list of things the Healer needs to worry about.

A2S is all physical. In fact Paladin is the best tank here by default simply due to their crazy mitigation, and the fact that they can cheese an entire wave with Hollowed. The runner up is War, who can output more AOE DPS than a Drk can while still mitigating physical better, at no real cost. You try to compete with a War who's good at maximizing his DPS and you'll go OOM before the next wave even comes in. Which isn't good, because MP is the only way a Drk can manage AOE enmity. If your group can not manage to push out enough damage with a Paladin in the group, then that is a personal problem your group has with it's DPS. It isn't the Paladins fault for not bringing Warrior axe swinging crazy DPS.

A3S is majority physical, and the only magic is in the form of the AOE's, which you heal through, you don't mitigate them. The tether blast I'm fairly sure is the only tank buster-like magic hit you will ever take in that fight. That alone doesn't make Drk better.

A4S is probably the only turn where Drk may actually trump Paladin in terms of mitigation, but only due to Dark Mind.

Yet honestly? People need to lose the static position mindset for the tanks and move on already. Paladin is a good OT now. They do the nearly the same DPS that a Drk OT does, while bringing more to the table for the group. Hell they were always strong OT's damage wise, and Wars were always good MT's. It just took more skill than it does now to MT as a War in 2.0.

And Warriors are ridiculous MT's now. They're the best in fact because simply due to how easy they can stance dance and maximize their damage while MT. Yet somehow people formed another mindset where they are better off as the OT to better 'utilize' their damage. It's the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Put a good War as the MT and a Paladin or Drk as the OT and you'll have MORE DPS between the two than you'd have the other way around so long as the War is maintaining slashing resist, which he should be anyway for himself.

World first groups are all about maximizing damage, not mitigation, hence why Drk was a good option to take. Though there are different ways to go about maximizing your damage, it allowed your group to not take a Monk, which at the time wasn't the highest physical DPS. Instead Dragoon was, while also bringing Litany. Monks were buffed however and now that only puts Drk in a worse spot. Sure they deal more MT damage than Paladin, but they aren't role locked to Main Tanks. Just like War isn't role locked as an Off Tank, and does more MT damage than both Paladin and Drk. And on top of that, War has an answer to everything. Their raid spot is without competition simply because of how much value they are to the group.

When it comes down to it, the only thing Drk brings to the group is less than War but higher than Pld MT damage, and less than War OT damage. Delirium is completely trivial as it's fluff damage mitigation, and is absolutely no different than STR down is. In fact STR down, of which Paladin is the only class with, is more useful right now because 3 of the 4 floors has constant physical damage going. The only magic is in the form of AOE's your healers deal with themselves, which a Paladin can help with through Veil, and tank busters. But when it comes to tank busters and the way mitigation works, Int down has the absolute lowest value on top of all of your other mitigation. The higher your mitigation gets, which is going to be high for tank busters anyway, the less Int down adds to your total mitigation. I'm talking around the 3%'s here, because it's multiplicative, and takes from your other mitigation in order to fit itself in.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3247940

That post sums things up nicely, with math for all of you nonbelievers. The Dark side isn't as good as people think it is

tl;dr

Paladins are fine. They could use a couple of tiny, mostly QoL tweaks, and an enmity buff that SE said they'd look into, but save for those they're completely fine. It's the "Gotta maximize DAMAGE" stigma people are taking Drk's for simply because world first groups included them. You can include any tank and still be world first, as it's about finding what position they're best in.

And you have to keep in mind that these world firsts are all done on either the week of release, or shortly after. These people aren't decked out in i200/210's and are missing a lot of the damage having better weapons would have given them. Ontop of that, they're also performing during a time where SE is still looking into overall balance, thus if any buffs come later, like the Monk/Astro buff, they performed without it.

The better gear gets, the more things are 'generalized', the more value Paladins will have as MT to your common raid static.

tl;dr again

The "Drk is better than Pld" stigma is a false image people created in their heads during a time where world first groups were trying new jobs out, and looking for ways to completely optimize their group performance in order to BE world 1st. This image added in with the "Pld is only allowed to MT, and War is only allowed to OT" is a recipe for disaster when all of the Paladins who feel threatened because another MT-like tank was introduced catches wind.

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To say nothing of the fact that Storm's Path is the most important debuff in the game and Warrior is the only job in the game that brings it.

I wont argue with this, but it's 10% raw mitigation. People seem to forget that Paladins have the ONLY STR down debuff in the game, which when it comes to physical, is around an 8% mitigation. Exactly the same as Int down, only 2 jobs have to compete on why their Int down is more important. And when it really comes down to it, there is more value in STR down on auto attacks and fluff physical damage than there is in Int down on magic tank busters only. Reverse the Int and STR down in that sentence, and it still applies, because multiplicative mitigation completely destroys the value in in mitigation that is that small an amount to begin with.

Also, Drk does have Reprisal, but it's completely reliant on a parry, which only works if you can actually parry what you're being hit by. Meaning say goodbye to Reprisal in AS4 if you're the MT. Also with it's cooldown, it only has a 66% up time compared to Path, assuming you actually parry every time it's about ready to be reapplied, and can be thrown up the immediate it's off cooldown.

[Wizhard]

Delirium is not useful? Path is worse than Halone? Are you insane or what?
Why have a paladin MT if the war or drk can mitigate all the required busters and do more damage, while bringing more utility?
Why have a paladin OT if war or drk does more damage?

[Ditto]

Delirium is not useful? Path is worse than Halone? Are you insane or what?

Don't think you quite understood what I said. Might want to reread it and just let it sink in for a while until you understand.

Why have a paladin MT if the war or drk can mitigate all the required busters and do more damage, while bringing more utility?

Because Drk doesn't bring more utility. They hardly even bring more mitigation in a magic environment. The only thing from a MT situation they bring, is more damage than Paladin. But damage isn't the only thing that matters in your general raid group, otherwise in 2.0, Paladins would have never been the Main Tanks. However there were still groups that had a War MT while the Paladin was the OT, in order to maximize damage. They were spread thin.

War on the other hand is built so well to the point where they bring the highest damage, crazy mitigation compared to 2.0, and valuable utility for more than just themselves.

Why have a paladin OT if war or drk does more damage?

Why have a Drk as OT if Pld can do as much damage while bringing undefeated safety net tanking utility and group wide benefits? Drk is ahead on raw dummy damage by a very, very tiny amount only.

War is a different case, because people are glued to the 2.0 mindset of War only ever being allowed to be an OT.

People really need to stop using Drk's as a way to try to bring attention to what they think are Paladins unjustified flaws when it is really the other way around, because the only reason they're even relevant right now is because SE is promoting them as being a MT who specializes in magic, when they really don't mitigate magic that well for it to be their forced niche. And people for some reason think that Alexander is a magic heavy raid, when it really isn't. More so than some previous raids, maybe, but the only magic heavy part of Alex is A4.

[Kyne_Lyons]

Arguing that INT-Down from Delirium is bad in content signals that you don't raid so...I will feel free to not address everything you've written seeing as you don't raid Savage, don't play Paladin (this is probably the most important part of this thread), and don't have anything concrete to contribute to the discussion.

[KariArisu]

Nobody cares about mitigation. All three tanks can mitigate just fine for all of the encounters in the game.

PLD doesn't bring the damage. That's it.

[Kyne_Lyons]

I actually mitigate more damage as Dark Knight on A3S simply because I can meet the DPS check and use Grit for most of the fight, meanwhile A4S moves faster now even with weaker i190 gear so making the switch to Dark Knight has been a huge win. I just hope that SE will address what is happening among the (ex)Paladin community.