Quote Originally Posted by Luin View Post
clemency isnt a tax because paladins almost never use clemency. It's just a flavor ability that happens to be useful in prog and casual content.
Not until endwalker could anyone even consider this true.
The damage has been in the back for the longest time, no self-healing until endwalker.
Even when I say no self-healing til EW you get half the plds saying “you joking right?”
It’s not hard to see the theory behind the job.
No self heal combo, no self-healing whatsoever for ARR HS SB ShB, unless you look at clemency as part of its mit toolkit.

Only in EW could you possibly consider it “flavor”. It’s an artifact of and old deprecated idea like Shield Bash/cover/poa.
Not only that but the damage is behind on purpose. Pld and war aren’t 4-5 points behind gnb and blk on accident. Pld didn’t become as tanky as gnb until EW.

So this whole time pld has been kept at the back not on accident, with no self-healing, but because on the support tank theory.
The job is absolutely taxed for clemency and they don’t treat it as flavor.
It’s been painfully obvious before EW, but even now still is.
As tanky as a gnb, with the dps of a war, for an ability that you ideally never use.