What's the problem with Paladin?

[Brannigan]

Casual content is not difficult enough that any class will underperform to the point of being left out. Paladin's problems in Savage Alexander 3/4 have basically been in the making since 2.1ish, but for specifics:

-Weaker MT DPS than other tanks
-Their Utility/Support abilities being too weak in general (boss immunities, long cooldowns, Cover's general mediocrity, etc)
-Dark Knight's strengths being played to
-Paladin's strengths being largely negated
-Importance of INT debuff when it only comes from DRK and MNK
-DRK/PLD being an invalid tanking setup
-Other tanks have the same toughness

If Dark Knight's strengths weren't played to as much you'd probably just see a lot of warrior/warrior. Paladin's defensive advantage (as small as it actually is) doesn't mean diddly if other tanks can survive all the same stuff. Paladin's support/utility also is more plentiful but less useful than the other two tanks' (Slashing debuff/Damage debuff vs Reprisal/Int Debuff vs Cover/Veil/STR debuff/Heals).

Anyway, this stuff is pretty much why I switched at A3S. I really didn't want to. Paladin's skill set in general lacks synergy that WAR has (and to a lesser extent DRK). It didn't matter as much in 2.0, but it's starting to show a lot now.

[ArdorGrey]

I agree with most of what you said, with the exception of drk/pld being an invalid setup. It's just a setup that's heavily reliant on ninja prescence. This can be worked around and pld's cover also synergizes well with ninja buffing drk mt aggro and pld covering drk mt to push more raid dps. most people either don't think outside the box or dont want to bring a nin OR war to the raid and then complain their tanks can't push dps. That's like a bard or mch being expected to push top dps without a drg, it's silly and it does not mean that bard and mch need their own piercing debuffs.

I also don't agree that plds weaknesses have been showing since 2.1. PLD's could MT most fights including progression in swordoath after a warrior gave them a springboard opener(even without this, but it made way more sense for the WAR to open). Between being able to safely MT in dps stance full time, and doing more dps than war as long as a war or nin had eye up, AND having HG, pld was in a stupid op place for most of 2.1, and part of how grossly exaggerrated their current issues are is a backlash of this.

Other than that the lack of synergy is showing and the physical defense specialty is stupid when all of alex caters to magic defense, I totally agree the class is in an awkward place atm and needs some adjustments.