Quote Originally Posted by Alerith View Post
While that would be nice, it just isn't feasible with the way abilities are currently setup. Sure, Flash and War Drum are AoE, but they don't deal damage. WAR is ideal for the multi-tank situation because as long as the enemies don't hit like a truck, WAR can eventually AoE the whole group down, whereas a PLD in the same situation has extremely limited damage options, damage options that are geared towards keeping the attention of a single target.

I liken it to this example:

A Paladin and a Warrior are in the same party against as Wyrm NM. The Wyrm is extremely hard hitting, and the Paladin takes the tanking lead.

Shortly after the battle begins, the Wyrm spawns five skeletons to assist it in battle. These don't hit nearly as hard as the NM. The Warrior breaks off from the Wyrm and gathers all the skeletons on himself.

The Paladin, being as self-sufficient as we would like it to be, manages his HP and MP with the assistance of a BRD while the White Mage supports the Warrior.

The Warrior does a consistent 900 damage to each skeleton upon each AoE WS.
The Paladin does a consistent 1300 damage to the Wyrm upon each WS.

The skeletons all die at the same time and the WAR and WHM can rejoin the PLD in fighting the Wyrm.

End Example.

In the perfect system, this is how it would work. If you switched the PLD's and the WAR's roles in that fight, you would lose ground because a PLD isn't as good as dealing with crowds and a WAR's power is lost on a single target.

Could the PLD hold all the skeletons? Sure.
Could the WAR still tank the Wyrm? Absolutely.

But if they were balanced properly, they would BOTH have that specific role to fill when it comes to tanking and contributing damage.
This is what I was talking about with the whole, you use WAR on trash mobs thing. I'm just saying, it should work so that if the PLD wanted to hold hate on all the skeletons over the WAR, it should be capable of doing so (or at least being close to holding the same hate).

I think you hit the nail on the head, though. I'm just saying it should be more that PLD has given that role to WAR because it's AOE DPS is better, not because it's hate control/damage mitigation is better. Currently, the reasoning for WAR is both that it does better AOE DPS and has comparable hate control/damage mitigation.