'If all you are focusing on is survivability, PLD does give you better stability in A2S. Their physical mitigation is better and a lot of the damage is physical. HG is really good in A2S. How was Yoshida wrong?'
Hallowed Ground is literally the only note worthy thing for even considering bringing a Paladin into A2s. In every single instance where waves of enemies are present you take jobs that have access to more AoE ability, for example----'If the next end-game raid tier has a lot of AoE heavy fights, SMN, BLM, and MNK would reign supreme.'----oh, nevermind, you did that for me. The reason why you're group is using a DRK/PLD setup and not worried about meeting checks is because you're more appropriately/over geared for it now on each and every single role whether it be tank, healer or dps. If you were in a low item level progression group, they'd flat out tell you to drop one of those jobs for a Warrior to meet checks and damned near tell you to bring Dark Knight because of better AoE potential. Let's also not forget to mention that A1s and A2s are only comparable to Final Coil of Bahamut difficulty and the real "Savage" content starts at A3s. Why do you think my group does that too? Gear fixes everything, right? No need to to notice performance deficiency and fix it for later content.
'I also don't know why you are referencing T9 and T13 when, even synced, people over-gear the content. Also, unless he recently made and leveled a character on NA, Arthars is a JP player. JP DF players are significantly better than even NA PF in terms of their skill, knowledge, and experience. Of course his groups were better than the garbage DF and PF NA players have.'
He has made an NA character but that doesn't really matter in the discussion here. I'm doing this to further emphasize the ridiculousness of saying that nothing needs to change when everything is "at a more appropriate item level." I'm also pointing out that for one tank to have gone through every single one of their cooldowns in any given encounter means that there's going to be a tank swap mechanic, so this "X job does X thing better" design philosophy is utter bullshit. Excessive mitigation of any sort does not justify a lack of damage potential, when to even begin to destroy a tank, there also has to be a tank swap mechanic included as well just to push them over the edge and DEMAND that they swap or die. It's also amazing that in the hands of skilled individuals a job that is "totally terrible without a shield for physical fights" does more than okay when level synced even if overgeared. By apparent design a Paladin is supposed to attain superiority in physical fights, but DRK does just as good.
'And Yoshida's point about balancing content wasn't wrong either. I'll go back to a previous example. If one of the next encounters in the next end-game raid tier was greatly simplified by having 2 non-targeted tank immunities, WAR would suddenly be the odd tank out. Do you then buff Holmgang to be on par with HG and LD because WAR is weak in that specific scenario? Of course not. You admit you messed up your raid design and tune future content differently.'
That's actually a really good point. Holmgang is totally the worst one because it leaves them at 1 HP, man we need to give them something where they can heal for half their life at worst to help heale...rs....oh, that's already in the game. Equilibrium. Warrior has no weaknesses unless they're hit so hard that even DRK/PLD would shudder from pain and be near death. Hallowed Ground, my shield, and Living Dead don't mean shit in the hands of a capable player and group.
'If the next end-game raid tier has a lot of AoE heavy fights, SMN, BLM, and MNK would reign supreme. Do you just nerf their AoE damage into the ground to balance DPS classes because of one set of raids? That's incredibly stupid.'
No, what a smart person would fucking do is design a job that doesn't have this kind of potential in such a way that they overcome their own weaknesses over time for future content. Paladin can't do this, and never has been able to....it only survives and demands that a healer shoves a medical spray down his throat while at the same time holds the Ninja's family hostage demanding that he takes the longsword to the whetstone because it doesn't cut good enough. Like I said, most selfish job in the game right now despite the player base begging it not to be.
'And, like I said earlier, PvP still exists in this game. SMN is super overpowered in PvP. Do you nerf SMN into the ground because they're really good in PvP? Of course not. You adjust the PvP only systems like PvP skills to better balance SMN. Healing is way too strong in PvP. Do you nerf healing potencies and efficiency across the board? Hell no.'
It's a good thing the developers aren't----oh wait, they are changing the systems in place, potency, duration (Six second stun PVE.....Three second stun PVP for Paladin,) abilities, etc. to better facilitate players and not changing the content to specifically cater to those that don't have some of the things others have......So tell me again how changing damage values, timers, abilities, and other JOB SPECIFIC things is fine in PVP but it's not in PVE? Because that's what they're doing in PVP and you're calling it balancing.....just because you're fighting monsters and not players doesn't change the similarity.
'In fact, we have a few recent examples of SE nerfing things based on specific content. They neutered Holy and Flare because they were too strong on the mass pulls in speed runs. Thankfully, because the nerf had no real impact on anything but speed-runs and FATEs, it wasn't too big a deal. If the nerf had an impact on relevant progression, you can be sure the outrage would be real.'
No, Square got tired of people getting what they need too fast and then logging off the game for spans of sometimes months so they started gimping speed runs like they're about to gimp materia melding, raid equipment, crafted accessories and many more things. I have a smile on my face right now regarding the irony of your argument, because they changed job abilities in preparation for future content instead of designing encounters around the unchanged ability. Dungeons now are no different than they were before. Fractal Continuum's locked doors are just like Keeper of the Lake's scrap heap obstruction leading up to the final boss. They're still like Hullbreaker Isle requiring you to kill all monkeys to activate the giant Gorilla boss. They, rightly so, want more money. But that does not in any way support your argument right now about "nerfs" because in Savage healers don't have the time to cast AoE damaging spells for prolonged amounts of time unless the job has been designed to both heal and DPS (Hello Scholar,) or there are moments where BY DESIGN the encounter allows you to do so (stunning all goblins in A2s.) Your point is moot.