Pal is not a DPS tank

[Ultimatecalibur]

covering the healer in A9S while they kite mobs is kinda good, and I'm going to argue that Divine Veil would negate about 2,5k damage from an aoe blast these days, and those are most often around 12k at most (so Divine Veil does twice what Path or Reprisal does... but only once every two minutes.)

Divine Veil is a 3k+ shield on a 90 sec timer at i260.

[Sarcatica]

It is already agreed upon that DRK is just way better to bring instead of PLD, this game just doesn't need a 'tanky' tank and PLD isn't even any tankier than their counterparts. Every damage on tank is on a timer and let's say PLD is way tankier, SE still can't balance contents that you require PLD to survive. A good amount of raiders didn't even think of bringing PLD/MNK on world progression which is mostly because DRK being the better version of PLD, should they require a PLD they can do it as well.

The only way I can see happening is either PLD being adjusted to match at least the DRK's level or the job remains to be a lesser version of DRK or worse, the least desired tank by far and it's already happening with more DRK and WAR count from the recent census.

[Awful]

Drk and War combo is just too strong you have Reprisal/Storms Path/Storms Eye, Drk is the best main tank and brings the most damage in it's main tank position because of Blood Price and Reprisal. Paladin has Shield Swipe which isn't very good in Savage, less potency too, Divine Veil while nice is nothing compared to other healers tools. Not to mention (while it's still small) Paladin has less attack power then both Drk and War which I hope SE addresses as it is another thing that holds back Paladins potential, as well as the TP issues Paladin suffers from compared to Drk and War who have 0.

All in all Paladin is just undesired and lacks what the other 2 tanks have which is synergy with each other as you can't pass up Drks MT damage, Reprisal, Delirium and Wars strong offensive abilities, strong defensive CDs, infinite TP, Path/Eye. 4.0 needs some tank balance as Paladin is the least played tank class in this xpac and it plummeted at the start of Gordias and hasn't recovered as the other 2 tanks are just way too strong.

With all this being said you can clear Paladin in any of the current raid content it's just not as optimal as bringing Drk/War and that's why Paladin is left in the dust it's honestly sad to see how much people disregard Paladin, I myself used to be a Paladin main till 3.0 and rerolled Drk

[Jukebox12]

If your a Tank who just spams emnity combos over and over you are a bad tank. Tanking is Dishing out Damage and Taking Damage while covering your Healers and Your Damage dealers (not saying Dps cuz healers can Damage). Use what is in your toolkit then experiment on your own path if you think your not doing correctly took for outside help. It improve yourself and your allies. Also a really good pld can wipe the floor with War and drk if there not doing what they should be doing. Always take a step above.

[aleph_null]

Dps will always be a criterion to judge a job, be it a tank or healer or an actual dps job. Once you have enough dps/mitigation/healing output to clear a fight, the most natural thing to optimize is raid dps, since that's the thing that makes your runs faster. You can be a hipster and optimize around other things, like maximizing mitigation and minimizing dmg taken, but let's be honest, most people care more about clearing faster. So in the end after you optimize your group to have the maximum dps output while still satisfying the mitigation/healing requirements of the fight. In this case all defensive utilities (DV, cover, halone str down, passive mitigation from shield, HG etc) are judged by how much more dps you or your healers can output if you used those utilities.

[hakurou46]

Also a really good pld can wipe the floor with War and drk if there not doing what they should be doing. Always take a step above.

Of course they can. A really good PLD can out-dps a bad DPS player. But that's saying nothing.
Looking at some actual numbers, let's take the ten best clears of A11S. DRK damage is around 6% higher than PLD average. WAR is around 9%. And if you expand it, look at the top 20 even, the gap widens even more.

[Sarcatica]

Of course they can. A really good PLD can out-dps a bad DPS player. But that's saying nothing.
Looking at some actual numbers, let's take the ten best clears of A11S. DRK damage is around 6% higher than PLD average. WAR is around 9%. And if you expand it, look at the top 20 even, the gap widens even more.

It's a bad metric to look at, you are seeing the padded runs with RNGs going on. Most of those runs don't have the exact same Balance cards (some are even deliberately on enhanced for padding runs to validate precise comparison, how the hell can you get DRK doing 2.1k++ damage in A10S? It's just full of bullshit runs like this). If you want to see the exact comparison at the same level, you should try all tanks with Storm's Eye applied on dummy to actually see the real difference, at least it has more credibility than comparing "top" parses because they actually aren't that fair to compare.

[hakurou46]

It's a bad metric to look at, you are seeing the padded runs with RNGs going on. Most of those runs don't have the exact same Balance cards (some are even deliberately on enhanced for padding runs to validate precise comparison, how the hell can you get DRK doing 2.1k++ damage in A10S? It's just full of bullshit runs like this). If you want to see the exact comparison at the same level, you should try all tanks with Storm's Eye applied on dummy to actually see the real difference, at least it has more credibility than comparing "top" parses because they actually aren't that fair to compare.

It's still real numbers compared to "hey PLD doesnt have problems because good PLD are better than bad WAR", which was what i was contesting. Of course some of the runs are padded, or with better RNG.

[Mirateski]

As someone who mains paladin...

Until there's some high-end content that requires bringing a paladin to survive, which there will never be because they have to balance fights around groups of every reasonable composition, there is currently no reason to bring a similarly competent pld over a drk. Because, at an equal skill level, drk does more damage, which lets you clear content faster, which therefore amounts to more mitigation.

And to be clear, I love paladin. I find it very useful for doing prog because I have like five millionty defensives which will keep me alive through a new mechanic while the healers learn what's coming. But I'm like, midcore at best if you're being really, really nice.

And I'm fairly certain in a12s having a paladin would just be a handicap. You can sheltron, what, the boss's autos? What I find most frustrating is that paladin has this great potential kit, then it's all nerfed and/or made useless by current content in the name of balance. Cover used to be better, so I've heard. You can't block magic damage so that's two cooldowns just trashed in magic-heavy fights (aka 90% of savage and like, everything in sophex except the tankbuster). Hallowed is amazing but there's no situation outside of learning a fight where it's any more useful than holmgang or LD. Which leaves us with two cooldowns that drk has the equivalent of, no ability to put damage down on anything outside of str-based mobs (and at the cost of dps, unlike for drk where reprisal is basically free and delirium is better than a non-DA PS), dps that makes WARs laugh and is almost certainly gonna be worse than a drk who knows what they're doing (especially if the drk is mt), and... divine veil. And when a fairy can solo heal a9s what use is that really?

Oh, and I think cover only works on physical damage, so gl with that.

[hakurou46]

As someone who mains paladin...

EXCUSE me , but it clearly states you main FISHER in your profile. Liar.