Tank nerf coming?

[Ashkendor]

Pld is the ultimate mitigator, thus its output is lower. Even yoshida stated this. However war and drk have decent dps for good off tank potential. When you take that away, you end up with the old 2.0 threads saying everyones just taking 2 paladins.

Except he's wrong about that, unless their mitigation skills have gotten some massive overhaul we aren't aware of yet. I will agree that Paladin has the easiest to use defensive kit, but the other tanks can mitigate just as much damage (more in certain situations). It just takes more planning. Hallowed Ground is only a thing for 10 seconds out of every 7 minutes, so we really can't use that as any kind of a metric to measure Paladins' defensive capabilities by. I really don't understand why are people so stuck on this "ultimate mitigation" thing being so great anyway. With the way our raids are built, as long as the tank can survive the hit nobody really cares if they survive with 50% HP or 5% HP. The point is that they survive and they can be topped off from there. It's kind of a no-brainer that people would generally rather take the tank that just barely survives but has double the damage output.

[Eidolon]

I really don't understand why are people so stuck on this "ultimate mitigation" thing being so great anyway

[...]

It's kind of a no-brainer that people would generally rather take the tank that just barely survives but has double the damage output.

A1S Top PLD: 1,260
A1S Top WAR: 1,429
A1S Top DRK: 1,378


A2S Top PLD: 1,447
A2S Top WAR: 1,910
A2S Top DRK: 1,719

A3S Top PLD: 1,086
A3S Top WAR: 1,219
A3S Top DRK: 1,202

A4S Top PLD: 1,075
A4S Top WAR: 1,216
A4S Top DRK: 1,247

Under no scenario does a the best WAR/DRK do "Twice the dps" of the best PLD. There is a gap there, yes, that is definitely noticable. The spread between Top DRK and top WAR is much closer than the difference between the best PLD and the best DRK/WAR. But "Twice"? Please. Stop relying on over-exaggeration for your arguement.

One of the biggest problems is, yes, Paladin is (Defensively) the best tank, and garnered the reputation of being the "Best Tank" from 2.0 because the damage in that content was all physical. Paladin does indeed remain one of the strongest physical tanks, with a free 20% mitigation chance on top of all attacks. But I'll take it one further:

Equivelents:
- Shield Oath = Defiance = Grit. These are pretty obvious.
- Rampart = Inner Beast = Shadowskin
- Sentinal = Vengence = Shadow Wall
- Bulwark = Raw Intuition = Dark Dance* Each one's pretty good, though one could argue Raw Intuition/Bulwark are better due to being garunteed.
- Bloodbath, Foresight, Convalescence and Awareness is on all three (Though DRK has to choose 2 between Awareness, Bloodbath and Foresight)

Warrior Benefits
- Storm's Path > Rage of Halone > Delerium (The two specialize in STR vs. INT, or Physical vs. Magical, but PLD's doesn't have a class that can replace it just like WAR's. Objectively, that makes paladins better due to scarcity.)
- Arguably the smoothest transition into DPS stance to all other tanks. STacks are maintained, it's a oGCD skill with a cooldown, and it's at no cost to the WAR - outside of being locked in it a la cleric's stance.
- 20% mitigation is arguably on demand, with inner beast, allowing them to handle Tank busters easily.

Paladin Benefits
- Stoneskin and Divine Veil is party mitigation exclusive to paladin.
- Sheltron's good for all of one hit. Not really worth mentioning, sadly. It's less mitigation and more about the fact it'll give ya MP back.
- Hallowed ground. CD being the only draw back, it's literally invincibility at no disadvantage - compared to DRK (Have to be healed to full to live through it AND have to effectively 'die' to trigger it.) and WAR (Holmgang - BINDS YOU IN PLACE, shortest duration, and leaves you at 1 HP with no benefit other than artificially extending your life if you would've died.)

Dark Knight Benefits
- Dark Mind, the strongest magic-defensive only in the game at 30% mitigation
- Reprisal, which is activated on proc for damage mitigation and has an equivelent effect ot Storm's Path. Sadly it has a CD, and is harder to control properly - especially in content with magic damage you can not parry.

Paladin is a defensive tank. But a lot of thier mitigation is lost because it's physically defensive. They lacked a little on magic, which is where Dark Knight pulled ahead.

[Reynhart]

- Hallowed ground. CD being the only draw back, it's literally invincibility at no disadvantage - compared to DRK (Have to be healed to full to live through it AND have to effectively 'die' to trigger it.) and WAR (Holmgang - BINDS YOU IN PLACE, shortest duration, and leaves you at 1 HP with no benefit other than artificially extending your life if you would've died.)

The problem is that PLD's CD are so long that you frequently have to put Hallowed Ground in your usual rotation, losing its "oh shit" component, while WAR and DRK can keep theirs ready.

[Eidolon]

The problem is that PLD's CD are so long that you frequently have to put Hallowed Ground in your usual rotation, losing its "oh shit" component, while WAR and DRK can keep theirs ready.

Vengence: 120s / Shadow Wall: 180s / Sentinal: 180s
Inner Beast: 60 seconds (using infuriate to reach 10s uptime) / Shadowskin: 90s / Rampart: 90s
Raw Intuition:90s / Dark Dance: 60s / Bulwark 180s

Their most common mitigation, and most likely the one to be most frequently in rotation, rampart, is on-par with Shadowskin, and a little less available than Inner Beast. However, Inner Beast is GREAT for on-demand mitigation for instants.

Let's take A1S as an example.
Warrior can do: Inner Beast #1 on missile cast, Inner Beast #2 before the Hypercompressed Plasma, and have Vengence running the entire time (30% uptime entire time, two spikes of 20% mitigation. Could argue that's nearly 50% for the duration, but requires tank stance to do it.)
Dark Knight: Dark Mind for tank buster, Shadowskin for the duration (Effectively the same as WAR.) Has Shadow Wall as well.
Paladin: Sentinel on the first/third, Rampart for the duration. Arguably the situation you mentioned - where they would hallow the second.


Looking it over, I get what you're saying - PLD wont' be garunteed the same level of mitigation consistently in the rotation for magic damage. As stated, however, that partially arises from the issue of Physical vs. Magical. Dark Knight would suffer the same issue on the inverse - if the tank buster wasn't Magic-Based, they'd consistently take more damage than Paladin to the same tank buster and the Paladin could just alternate in their Bulwark to cover the Hallowed.

Let's not neglect that, in physical encounters, Paladins have an additional level of mitigation on top of their already relatively equal mitigation. As stated, they also have Stoneskin, Clemency, and Divine Veil to help with keeping themselves alive (Can't actually recall if divine veil procs on themselves though.)

Tl;dr: Duration wise, they're pretty close and equivelent, with Paladin lagging just a little bit behind... for magical encounters.

Edit: And of course, ym original point...

Paladin is a defensive tank. But a lot of thier mitigation is lost because it's physically defensive. They lacked a little on magic, which is where Dark Knight pulled ahead.

[Reynhart]

Dark Knight would suffer the same issue on the inverse - if the tank buster wasn't Magic-Based, they'd consistently take more damage than Paladin to the same tank buster and the Paladin could just alternate in their Bulwark to cover the Hallowed.

Indeed, but DRK is not sold as the "Ultimate mitigation" tank. And he has the increased MT damage output to compensate for that.

Let's not neglect that, in physical encounters, Paladins have an additional level of mitigation on top of their already relatively equal mitigation. As stated, they also have Stoneskin, Clemency, and Divine Veil to help with keeping themselves alive (Can't actually recall if divine veil procs on themselves though.)

Divine Veil doesn't affect the PLD...saddly. And the issue, is that WAR already has anything you want for physical fights, while doing more damage.

BUT ! With the new patch and what we know of it already, I'm very hyped to see how PLD will fare now

[Ashkendor]

Under no scenario does a the best WAR/DRK do "Twice the dps" of the best PLD. There is a gap there, yes, that is definitely noticable. The spread between Top DRK and top WAR is much closer than the difference between the best PLD and the best DRK/WAR. But "Twice"? Please. Stop relying on over-exaggeration for your arguement.

If those numbers came from FFLogs, I find that a lot of their top parses unfortunately come from people loading up the party in ways that purposely boost a single person's damage so they can "top the charts," which can make them kind of an unreliable source. Not to mention, PLD and DRK dps are both affected by whether or not there's a WAR in the party. PLD/DRK compositions require you to have a NIN for optimal tank DPS, so I was including that in my late-night thoughts. Was I indulging in a bit of hyperbole? Yes, yes I was. That doesn't change the fact that the gap exists and it's still pretty wide, though.

Dunno. Comparing the top players also doesn't seem like a reasonable way to compare when most players are... well, average.

[Eidolon]

[...]I find that a lot of their top parses unfortunately come from people loading up the party in ways that purposely boost a single person's damage so they can "top the charts,"

[...]Was I indulging in a bit of hyperbole? Yes, yes I was. That doesn't change the fact that the gap exists and it's still pretty wide, though.

Here's the thing - the bias you mention (people getting spoiled to reach their maximum output) is applied to both classes. While I am against using the FFXIVlogs for the sake of the average player, I do think it's a good way to see the top of the top.

In those scenarios, they are likely allowed to be OT's attacking targets that are given Vulnerability up. It's the most even scenario - they are both likely fed in order to reach their highest potential, and thus, as you can see, they become extremely potent... but the gap doesn't widen between them.


That's the main take-home point from this : Even when they are both spoiled, there is not a difference of "Twice the damage." So, the scenario of "Twice the damage"... can only come about if you are doing something to enable that to happen, such as a tank in Shield Oath full VIT Vs. a full time Deliverance tank in full STR.

So which is a more fair comparison to you? Personally, I find it far more unbiased to look at the top of the top, because as you admitted - they're being spoiled, and enabled, to put out at their best. And the gap isn't as big, that's why from an objective view, it becomes the best way to look at their actual numbers.