what happens if second half of Alex is all physical?

[ErzaScarlet77]

will we see the same cries for buff except this time for DRK?

[Sapphidia]

That depends entirely on how much DPS requirement there is to down the encounters. The only reason DRK would be desperately after a buff is if if the physical tankbusters are -really hard- to mitigate with their kit.

Paladins don't really have a huge problem with the magical stuff in Alex right now, it's the combo of noticeably lower DPS than DRK/WAR along with no meaningful impact on the encounters from their benefits. If Alex part 2 was entirely physical you'd probably see an equal amount of WAR/DRK and WAR/PLD groups clearing it depending on dps requirement.

[ErzaScarlet77]

i thought paladin MT dps arent that far behind DRK MT?
i know OT DRK pull much more, but we have WAR for default OT anyway

[Habien]

I'm pretty sure PLD mt dps is pretty well below both DRK and WAR. The WAR as default ot and ensured a spot in every optimal raid is a pretty big balance concern on it's own however. Definitely one I'd like addressed since the preferred classes for my static tanks are PLD/DRK.

[Ashkendor]

I'm pretty sure PLD mt dps is pretty well below both DRK and WAR. The WAR as default ot and ensured a spot in every optimal raid is a pretty big balance concern on it's own however. Definitely one I'd like addressed since the preferred classes for my static tanks are PLD/DRK.

I agree. If the other two tanks could at least give slashing debuff (or some other damage debuff) it'd even things out a bit. I get that they want each class to be unique, but I don't think it should come at a cost of exclusion. It's really dumb that in the current meta Warrior is guaranteed a slot while PLD/DRK get to duke it out for the remaining one. Any combination should be viable.

[Sleigh]

i thought paladin MT dps arent that far behind DRK MT?
i know OT DRK pull much more, but we have WAR for default OT anyway

Flip that around. Shield Oath loses really bad to Grit/Defiance. It's somewhat close in Sword Oath to no Grit and Deliverance, at least with slashing debuff applied.

[ErzaScarlet77]

It's somewhat close in Sword Oath to no Grit and Deliverance, at least with slashing debuff applied.

doesnt all 3 dps stances benefit from slashing debuff? how did sword oath suddenly get close to no Grit and Deliverance when those would be boosted by slashign debuff too

[Brannigan]

1) Paladin's magic mitigation certainly doesn't help, but it's not the reason I don't use paladin in 3/4. Paladin's garbage utility doesn't make up for its downfalls.
2) Dark Knight probably needs a couple changes to help them match the frequency at which paladin and warrior can mitigate physical hits. Basically, I think if Reprisal was a guaranteed parry (like Sheltron) that counterattacked with the current Reprisal, they would be fine for any physical buster that might come in the future. Maybe throw in some extra parry power while using it.
3) Jobs being bad for 6 months at a time is stupid and so is niche tanking.

[stoxastic]

Let's say A2S and A4S switched spaces. A2S because A4S and thus the hardest fight, and vice versa.

A2S was tuned to the difficulty of A4S and vice versa, thus causing the superior physical requirement of PLD to be necessary to clear it. People would still probably be complaining about something.

Currently A4S is a very poor choice for PLD, and its causing a lot of tanks to have to switch to DRK. AST, despite the buffs, probably is still a poor choice for that fight as well, ESPECIALLY if you do he JP strat and let straf dolls explode.

With more tanks/healer jobs than available roles, it will be extremely difficult to balance encounters around each job. More then likely there will always be a suboptimal choice in the tank/healer roles. Dps is much easier to balance because that's just a numbers game.

The only thing serious progression tanks can prepare for is to have all tanks leveled and be able to play them at a high level. It's unfortunate that eso gear is job gated and that does suck, but hopefully later tomb gear will not have this issue. This is the reality of it and players should learn to use the armory system to deal with it instead of complaining on the forums.

[Sleigh]

Mainly comparing WAR as OT to PLD/DRK as OT. WAR wins as OT, but if you would compare PLD DRK and WAR numbers without giving them equal slashing debuff then it would look like WAR beats them so bad they're nonviable. You should always have slashing debuff in a raid scenario (and if you don't that means you're running DRK + PLD + no NIN, and heaven help you then) so it's actually best to compare any stance with slashing debuff IMO.