Clive's Paladin Compiilation

[Brian_]

It's not a reputation. It's a fact. PLD utility is just worse than DRK and WAR.

[Sarcatica]

The game itself is based quite heavily on DPS checks, unlike a lot of other MMOs where tanks are just meatshields and they often don't deal enough damage to bring more than 1.

And even then if game is more focused on the roles strictly, PLD hailed as the best defensive tank is quite the joke. Every single tank take about the same damage and definitely needs heals. In this case, PLD is then highlighted as the tank that doesn't bring as much to the table, exception being RoH and Divine Veil and arguably HG (still about the same as DRK for the most part).

[Kitfox]

It's not a reputation. It's a fact. PLD utility is just worse than DRK and WAR.

DRK has utility? They have a lot of ways for dealing damage and do it well but you can't really argue they have better utility by any measure.

[Donjo]

It's not a reputation. It's a fact. PLD utility is just worse than DRK and WAR.

Oh boy. Guess we need to take a deeper look. Utility!

Reducing Outgoing Damage
DRK: Delirium(-10% INT) and Reprisal(-10% ALL, no 100% uptime)
WAR: Storm's Path(-10% ALL, 100% uptime)
PLD: Halone(-10% STR) and Divine Veil(Absorb 10% of PLD's Max HP)

Winner: Unless -10% damage needs to be on the boss 100% of the time, DRK generally wins at reducing outgoing damage. Divine Veil might be the best skill among the Tanks for defending against an individual hit, but it can't be up often enough to beat Delirium since most hits that target the entire party are magical and less than 120 seconds apart. PLD's ability to reduce physical damage is better at protecting Tanks themselves, but damage directly to the Tank usually isn't the biggest concern for healers...

Bonus Dungeon Trash Round!
PLD: Flash(Blind)
DRK: DA+DD(Evade) and DA+DP(Blind)

Winner: DRK can become the god of dodging in trash packs. Whee!

Increasing Incoming Damage
WAR: Storm's Eye(-10% Slashing Resist)

Winner: Well, there's only one option here. I feel like maybe one of the others should get a Slashing Resist debuff too so that a PLD/DRK party isn't so much of a laughing stock, but that's neither here nor there.

Interrupts
DRK: Low Blow(Stun)
WAR: Brutal Swing(Stun)
PLD: Shield Bash(Stun), Shield Swipe(Pacify), Spirit's Within(Silence)

Winner: PLD is the only job in the game who possesses all three interrupts. Even though pacify isn't useful in raid content and PLDs are the last people you want on silence duty, they're still there and can save lives when they're necessary. Why can't DRK silence again?

At this point, we've exhausted WAR and DRK utility. Their few tools in comparison to PLD are undeniably powerful and desired, but PLD still does have the likes of Protect, Stoneskin, Clemency, Cover, and Tempered Will sitting around. I feel comfortable dropping Protect though because I'm in agreement with the notion that if things are far enough gone to require that the PLD cast Protect then the fight's probably a lost cause anyway.

Sometimes a kid wins the talent show not by having the singular best talent, but by having the most kind of cool talents :P

Any perceived overall ranking aside, Tank utility shines best when two Tanks combine and we're currently in a situation where any combo can combine well. Kudos to SE for making sure that none of the Tanks step on each other in this regard. Of course, the DPS meta forces WAR into most parties but sometimes PLD gets to play with DRK. Believing that any Tank is the one who "doesn't bring much to the table" is just an exercise in ignorance. They all bring enough to the table.

[Brian_]

...

The statement wasn't who brings enough to the table. It was who brings more or less. So, congrats on the TLDR. It really didn't say anything anyone hasn't already said here numerous times and didn't really prove anything despite the "deeper" look.

DRK has utility? They have a lot of ways for dealing damage and do it well but you can't really argue they have better utility by any measure.

Seriously? Delirium and Reprisal matter more than anything PLD has other than DV. At this point, I am still surprised that people do not understand the full scope of raid comps. Having your INT debuff covered by your DRK allows you to bring DRG/NIN if you don't need traited Mantra. As jobs, DRG/NIN have way more impactful utility than the alternative you would be forced to bring to cover the INT debuff, MNK.

As Sarcatica has already detailed, while the initial write up was nice, the reality is a bit different and almost all of the PLD utility is fluff in Midas Savage. In terms of meaningful and consistently impactful utility, WAR and DRK are generally better.

[Fernosaur]

You people are ignoring the part of the post that talks about casual content, and forgetting that up-to-date raid scenarios are like 5% of the game. Paladin might have less DPS and raidwide mitigation utility, but for most of the content all the utility and cross class skills Paladin has are really, really good. You might argue that top end content is the only one that "matters," but in the end all of us have to do Weeping City weekly, have to do roulettes for tomes, etc. Some of us also like doing Mentor roulette, et. al, where you can't know the quality of your party and your healers. You might argue that these are niche or unimportant scenarios, but in the end they share similar amounts of time you spend in the game, so it's really no different than hardcore raid times in terms of gaming experience.

[Sarcatica]

You people are ignoring the part of the post that talks about casual content, and forgetting that up-to-date raid scenarios are like 5% of the game. Paladin might have less DPS and raidwide mitigation utility, but for most of the content all the utility and cross class skills Paladin has are really, really good. You might argue that top end content is the only one that "matters," but in the end all of us have to do Weeping City weekly, have to do roulettes for tomes, etc. Some of us also like doing Mentor roulette, et. al, where you can't know the quality of your party and your healers. You might argue that these are niche or unimportant scenarios, but in the end they share similar amounts of time you spend in the game, so it's really no different than hardcore raid times in terms of gaming experience.

including their uses in our various raiding environments.

It's appropriate since the OP discussed about mostly raid contents as examples for the skills. PLD has always been said as the 'best' tank. Admittedly PLD is the feel-good tank due to how simple it is to play since forever. BUT that still doesn't discount how badly people (usually casuals and baddies) use PLD (even with the simplest aggro/DPS kit) to do anything. I joined a practice party for A6S before and this PLD was doing 400dps going into the 2nd boss (Brawler). Now, let's reflect how bad that dps is, even if you are the 'traditional' tank. Some people claim they are raiders but have no idea how to push DPS as damage dealers, also the same thing.

People stay casual for their reasons, be it they don't like going into challenges or the whole attitude of having to keep improving or idk. One thing that is 100% clear is this: The game will never see contents improvement time to time is mostly because of the casuals. Is Sohr Khai really that tough? Weeping City too tough? Guides are all over the place, even mouth to mouth is good enough to warn people and yet they still wipe a whole lot. How hard can the developer push the normal contents harder? How unique are the mechanics? How engaging are the mechanics? So far, it's on the borderline bad. Every single patch introduces different content with the same level of skills. This is where the skill gap is from. Relatively new players 100% will not have a chance to get better since they are not challenged enough. People get so easily offended. Once in SephEx farm party, DPS were so slow I saw so many more mechanics. I just mentioned DPS was low and I got kicked because they deemed it was toxic (???) for me to bring the DPS topic up. Like what? So you are farming yet seemingly won't be able to clear with those low DPS? Logic?

If you see how many contents have been nerfed to oblivion (not entirely but comparison remains), it speaks volume to how much SE has been catering to the casuals just because it's harder than they thought and actively sought for nerfs and of course SE will have to since the casuals make up for the huge majority of the subs. Then comes this: How do the players improve then? Chocobo PUGs speaks otherwise.

The game is already boring as it is for most veteran players. What we do daily? Raid log, try to top DPS, craft the same thing over and over, AFK in game, chatting, not running contents because mostly they are boring, trying to help people clear normally ends up pretty badly since they wipe you and can't take criticism.

If you are just posting for the sake of telling us "we are bad and that's okay", we have seen and heard them millions of times. Don't need to repeat it again.

[Kitfox]

Seriously? Delirium and Reprisal matter more than anything PLD has other than DV. At this point, I am still surprised that people do not understand the full scope of raid comps. Having your INT debuff covered by your DRK allows you to bring DRG/NIN if you don't need traited Mantra. As jobs, DRG/NIN have way more impactful utility than the alternative you would be forced to bring to cover the INT debuff, MNK.

Well, if you want to compare compositions, DRK/NIN/DRG against PLD/MNK/DRG, you're basically trading Reprisal/Trick Attack for RoH/Mantra. The PLD setup is also more friendly to AST instead of a WHM so there's the cards too. At that point, in my humble opinion, the differences are more of wash than "way more impactful."

[Fernosaur]

Blah blah

You are confusing my post and putting words in my mouth. I didn't say PLD is best played by "casuals." I said that Paladin's toolkit helps a lot in casual content like the daily dungeons and etc, and then said that implying PLD is useless because the toolkit the job has isn't ideal for endgame raiding is basically ignoring the other 90% of the content of the game. The GAME. Not the players. You know, the game that you pay monthly to not play, apparently, because the stick goes up too deep for you to even consider helping other people get clears for content.

Never did I mention quality of players at any point, and the fact that you apparently assumed I'm "bad" or casual just because I talked about the casual content everyone has to do at some point is just plain silly. What I'm telling you is that you're judging the class only from one perspective, and basically reducing it to it's viability in top end raiding exclusively, a perspective that also pretty much assumes people in progression are never gonna fuck up, which is just silly and unrealistic.

The amount of tunnel vision in your posts is astounding, but I guess it's another example of the awful parts of the game's community. Don't even bother answering (though I know you will), cause I won't bother reading. All your previous posts are more than enough to know it's pointless to debate anything with you.

[Sarcatica]

Paladin's toolkit helps a lot in casual content like the daily dungeons and etc

Which part of the 90% of the game are you saying that PLD toolkit helps a lot? Healers too bad to press a few buttons to cure hence you have to help them clear? Healers spamming aoe heals till you have to Cover them? DPS too hard they tunnel vision till you need to shield them? There is no basis to what you are saying. The basic knowledge of the game is rather simple, no reason to cater to bad players because they don't want to improve. In the first place you as a tank aren' t supposed to take off burdens that are so rudimentary.

I still occasionally help people practice and clear. It's just getting to me that the general concensus is that people either aren't competent enough to pull their own weight, don't want to improve and worse, don't want to admit they are bad and then say you are toxic. To get good is to admit you are bad first before you improve.