Rune Fencer vs. Aegis PaladinFollow

Its possible, my thing at the moment is that paladin has way more flexibility as a tank. Ochain is very useful for virtually guaranteeing you can't be interrupted during casting cures, phalanx, utsusemi, or whatever combined with shield mastery. For magic Aegis is still capable of surpassing the MDT limit, also with reprisal and pallisade the shield block rate should be very high even on higher end content.

I guess as far as a comparison while we know some about rune fencer, we don't know what level of equipment they'll have. If they have the magic equivalent of sentinel as far as damage absorbtion that'd be cool. Also maybe A evasion/parrying.. but I still just don't see how they can be all around tank. Atm, paladin has very little to worry about magic wise with Aegis and the tremendous cure potency sets available, fealty doesn't last long but the resistance against status effects is ridiculous and virtually guaranteed. Charm, break, stun, paralyze, slow, poison, etc are all blocked by it and there's gear upgrades to enhance it, along with it being merited to extend time.

Paladin does have to worry about death, charm, songs, ninjutsu or encumber/equipment removal (charm only if it hits with out fealty up or somehow gets past its resistance) status effects that prevent being cured etc.. but is rune fencer going to be able to handle that either? Also paladin has the unique ability to block status effects done through physical tp moves i.e. iron giants swings will virtually never stun a paladin with ochain.

Now in the future merits, gear improvements (depending on what it can use based upon release), among other things there's no doubt that rune fencer won't be the better tank for handling magic and depending on how effect it guards the party, may even at release be more useful then paladin on certain mobs. I always equivocated even before they told us what rune fencer would be like, for it to be somewhat like Celes from final fantasy and absorb magic into mp. But obviously that'd be overpowered.

Also, it'll depend on the increase in monsters strength as well.. particularly since square enix knows that nowadays even the most (casual) players have relic level gear. If monster aoe magic spells can 1 shot party members and not just severely weaken so the whm can't later throw out a cure or two, paladin might be in for it.

while you can, but I doubt the people around you cant. when i see a big spell is incoming i try to run the hell away. now with rune fencer, probably wont have to.

I think it's still a bit too early to tell, since Rune Fencer is still an incomplete job. It doesn't have its AF, Relic, or Empyrean armor pieces, no "Mythic" weapon, no merits, and who knows what changes they'll implement to tweak its capabilities. Right now, I'll admit that Rune Fencer is not the better tank by any means, but I think they'll adjust it between now and then to improve its capabilities.

It's not so much that. Magic is kinda irrelevant. With the recast times between the spells of most monsters, you can easily take whatever spells they dish out on Rune Fencer.

I'm just saying that a Paladin with an Aegis can do that too, he simply brushes off most magical attacks like they're not even there. The thing is more that a Paladin with an Aegis can do all that while also blocking most physical damage. Where as RUN parries one or two attacks, then takes 250+ from all the others with no real way to self-cure outside of going /DNC. There's just no contest.

Not that i'm complaining. Not at all. I like Paladin. But there's simply no "A versus B".