The Definitive State of Paladins Thread

[Astral145]

I just think SE needs to make up there minds. Is tank suppose to tank or dps? This whole stance dancing is problematic especially in PUG groups. Seriously I don't know how many times I've seen a healer struggle healing a tank that refuses to pop into tank stance while holding 2 to 3 pulls of mobs then complain about dieing because the healer either ran out of mp or just couldn't keep the poor bastard alive.

SE either needs to either get rid of dps stance and just add that dmg to tank stance... or simple get rid of the dps stance and give no dmg buff to tank stance.... one or the other... this whole thing about stance dancing is ridiculous and causes way to many problems during runs ...

[DGladius]

Seriously I don't know how many times I've seen a healer struggle healing a tank that refuses to pop into tank stance while holding 2 to 3 pulls of mobs then complain about dieing because the healer either ran out of mp or just couldn't keep the poor bastard alive.

I don't think I've ever seen that happen in pugs. Mostly I see in pugs is dps not being able to do more than half of what their dps should actually be around, making enemies stay alive longer causing more healing. There's nothing wrong with tank stance dancing. The ones that are good will find ways to deal as much dmg as they can effectively while tanking.

I'm sure there will be tweaks made to paladins for next set of raid. Maybe something like improving their aggro, self mitigation and for the party so less healing is needed and more time for healer dps.

[Astral145]

DGladius

Its been quite the opposite for me. The majority of the runs I have had after leveling 7 battle jobs to 60 with mnk being a close 8 (level 58) I have seen more than enough to know how people are viewing tanks. I mostly get tanks that pull everything in dps stance then hope that the healer can keep up. The whole run ends up being a tug of war between the tank and healer.

It's ridiculous.... and at best makes the runs last longer bc of the wipes.... Just yesterday I had a run in the Aery (lvl 55) dungeon that lasted 50 mins bc of this tug of war between tank and healers and it wasn't bc of the bosses... this was all bc the tank wanted to keep pulling 2 pulls of mobs while in dps mode... the healer just couldn't keep the poor bastard alive.

[Sapphidia]

Kind of have to agree with Astral145 here. Whilst DGladius is 100% right that there's nothing wrong with stance dancing to boost dps, the way the current tank meta is filtering down through the playerbase is making it misrepresented. Tanks are hearing that they should spend as much time as humanly possible in their dps stance or the world ends.

For a Warrior? Sure. Deliverance with Fell Cleaves all over the place makes a huge difference. Dark Knight? They need solid cooldown management but their AOE dps is fantastic, especially dropping Grit (though really solid with Grit up). Paladins? Well... on bosses sure, on Trash? You'll see virtually no difference Sword Oathing trash packs due to how reliant Paladins can be on Flash for AOE threat - sure the Paladin themselves will parse notably higher, but this should be a drop in the ocean compared to the AOE dps that good DPS classes and a competant healer can put out.

Fact is, for most runs (especially PUG runs with average players who maybe don't exactly do alex savage levels of DPS) the run will be more successful if a Paladin stays in Shield Oath for the vast majority and only swaps to Sword Oath on bosses they're comfy on. Yes, good paladins will easily be able to spend huge amounts of time in Sword Oath on 4mans.

But I'm not really talking about the really -good- players. I'm talking about the more casual ones who are perhaps a little undergeared, lack confidance, the ones who were probably toting a full set of VIT accs around until they heard from an overbearing guildie that they were a n00b for doing that and should run full Slaying. The community has taken the combination of a Savage Raids tank meta where tanks are expected to minmax DPS, coupled it with the changes to Warriors who have an entire kit -designed- around constantly stance dancing even in 4mans, and somehow applied that as a one-size-fits-all mentality that includes Paladins for 4man content.

That's what's harmful. Paladins as a class were designed to be a pretty simple low-aoe-damage tank that held huge amounts of AOE threat via low/no damage abilities but had a kit involving blocking and physical cooldowns that meant they could take large packs of adds with no issue and require less healing than the other tanks. They have a DPS stance that puts out decent damage but it's all aimed at single target stuff. In situations where you don't have DPS checks threatening to wipe your raid, a Paladin CAN take advantage of their strong mitigation kit to make a run smooth and easy. The problem we have now is a large amount of players who don't truly understand the differences in the class thinking they have to somehow play like a Warrior all the time.

[Syzygian]

When it comes to pug content, and to a lesser extent raids depending on your relationship with your healers, its your respnsibility as a tank to adapt to your group, not the other way around. Everything you do either boosts or gimps your teammates' ability to maximize their performance, regardless of inidividual player skill ceilings. If you queue into a dungeon and see your healers and/or dps are undergeared it is 100% YOUR responsibility as the tank to set an appropriate pace for the run. If a tank overestimates pugs and dies they've got no one to blame but themselves.

[Synestra]

I mostly get tanks that pull everything in dps stance then hope that the healer can keep up.

Tbh theres really no point to use OT stance in dungeons when pulling big packs, WAR can propably pop in and out of defiance to get few decimates to speed things up but thats it. I guess majority thinks now that you need to be in OT stance 24/7 no matter what content you do...

Now if you do dungeons with pre-made then you can do whatever you want, but in DF its better to play safe as you dont know what kind of team-members you get in there.

[technole]

SE either needs to either get rid of dps stance and just add that dmg to tank stance... or simple get rid of the dps stance and give no dmg buff to tank stance.... one or the other... this whole thing about stance dancing is ridiculous and causes way to many problems during runs ...

But Warrior has always had skills like IB that ignore the Defiance penalty for damage/self-heal, and Unchained for ignoring Defiance altogether for full-ham DPS while in tank stance. Now Defiance-Unchained can be used as a defensive cooldown stance dance in Deliverance but used in an offensive way. Deliverance was easily a natural progression for the job instead of having no stance which means no stack generation, and that was rather clunky. Stance dancing also enables the ability to easily mitigate and/or get a cooldown up or do DPS depending on the situation.

Overall, stance dancing has raised the skill ceiling for the job, and some people in DF land do not play it very well or realize they have an arsenal of cooldowns they could use while in Deliverance to still get "Defiance-like" mitigation, do a lot of damage, and still tanky.

[Freyyy]

a defensive cooldown stance dance in Deliverance but used in an offensive way

a stance dance defensive deliverance berserk defiance offensive dancing stance aeolian edge ?