Quote Originally Posted by Jonnycbad View Post
Tempered Will is extremely powerful and it's the only job that can negate a knockback for the most part. This allows the PLD to circumvent an otherwise lethal mechanic (Landslide comes to mind). If this could be used more frequently, it would allow more dodging of lethal mechanics. We don't want PLD to be immune to knockbacks.
This if flat out not true.

Firstly, If a move has an AoE cone, you should be dodging it, not negating it via a gimmick move. TW does not mitigate dmg, so eating a hit in the face that you could have dodged is plain silly (and will make your healers hate you for a long time). It can also screw with your party, because your Off Tank might not know that you activated it. If the OT sees you standing in a AoE cone, they could voke the boss from you because they think you're about to take a header off of a cliff. Any tank knows that unplanned vokes tend to cause more trouble then they avoid (in Titan Ex, for example, a voke like this could feed a Mountain Buster to your entire party), so this is not good.

Now, you might think that TW is a good "oh shit" move in case you were too sluggish to dodge, but that's not true either. Like Hallowed Ground, Tempered Will has a delayed effect. The status does not take effect until after the animation is done, so there's about a 1.5 second delay, meaning that you cannot use it as a last ditch effort to avoid getting punted. It has to be used in advance, in anticipation of the knock back, to guarantee success. If you do not have TW up by approximately 75% (depending on personal latency) of the boss's cast bar, or if TW is not up before the AoE indicators disappear, you will still get punted, regardless of what your status bar says.

Secondly (and this is the important bit), TW is not used to intentionally eat knock back mechanics. TW is used to maintain position. Any tank can tell you the importance of keeping a fixed point and not having to move. TW excels at this, that's true, but Pld's are not the only job who can do this.

Warriors can Holmgang a target for the same effect. It's on the same CD as TW (180 seconds) and it has the additional utility of making the War immune to death during it's duration. Drk's can execute a Plunge to re-position themselves instantly after a knock back and maintain optimal positioning. They don't get any additional effects from it (like removal of Heavy, or death immunity), but they do additional dmg and can use Plunge every 30 seconds. Meaning that a Drk can negate ever single knock back in a boss fight to maintain optimal positioning. Further, TW is exclusively used in knock back situations, whereas War's and Drk's can use Holmgang and Plunge in any fight they want and still gain utility out of them. By comparison, TW is WAY behind the curve.