Paladin vs Fighter: Who is the better Defender?

[Destil]

The fighter sides the monster away from the squishy, while the paladin just steps in and takes the blow for her. Paladins have lots of nice powers to take hits for people their defending...

 

[Gort]

I've found the fighter in my party to be very good at cornering foes that don't want to be in combat with him, like kobold wyrmpriests and the like.

 

[Sitara]

Which of the two deals the most damage overall to solo baddies? FIghter or Paladin? That is, who has the most damaging dailies and encounters?

 

[Lurker37]

What does damage have to do with Defending, which is all about making sure enemies hit you, not your allies?

 

[Sitara]

Well because I would like to know who is better at slaying the BBEG. Or who would win if a pally and fighter duked it out.

 

[neoweasel]

Well because I would like to know who is better at slaying the BBEG.

The warlock.

Or who would win if a pally and fighter duked it out.

Hard to tell. Fighters seem to get slightly better damage output, but Paladins have a lot of other abilities that might make up for it (improved healing interesting and useful status effects).

 

[Destil]

What does damage have to do with Defending, which is all about making sure enemies hit you, not your allies?

Dead mean hit no allies.

 

[Kichwas]

My first thought in looking at DnD was to make a paladin - they're the best tanks in WoW, where I play a prot paladin, and 4E seems to have decided they're one of the main tank options now for DnD, in addition to introducing 'tanking' to table top play with the aggro powers...

But, if I were purely looking at it from the PoV of min/maxing it, which one would perform best over time, through the levels, at being able to force threat their way and 'defend' better.

Versus single target mobs?

Versus multi target mobs?

On the one hand the fighter's core aggro ability, Combat Challenge, effects every target hit in a round - that means that if the fighter does something like a cleave or a Sweeping Blow they 'gain threat' on a lot of mobs at once.

On the other hand the paladins does damage to anyone who resists it, making it very costly to not 'aggro' a paladin that has marked you with divine challenge. However Divine challenge(*) can only mark one mob at a time. The paladin does have abilities that can multi mark, like piercing smite, but those only trigger the usual marking perk of to-hit penalties.

(*) Divine Challenge reads very strange. It says I mark the target, but it also says "Close burst 5". And then it says "one creature in the burst."

Why exactly is it a burst if it only effects one creature?

 

[Kichwas]

Well because I would like to know who is better at slaying the BBEG. Or who would win if a pally and fighter duked it out.

Tank != DPS.

That's the first thing that divides ok from horrible players of warriors and paladins in MMOs, and now that DnD has made these classes defenders, it applies here as well.

If you're trying to figure out which has maximized DPS, you've picked the wrong class. Switch to a Warlock or a Rogue or something.

The concerns now for Fighters and Paladins are:
1: Who can generate the most threat? (who is more costly to no attack)
1a: vs single target?
1b: vs multi target?
2: Who has the best mitigation of group harm? (ie, which one will result in the group as a whole being able to survive the most incoming attempts at harm)

 

[Minigiant]

I thing it's more based of the enemy type.
More guys than your party (minions and standards) Fighter
Less the the party (elites and solos) Paladin

Heavily on soft damagers (artillery, lurkers, skirmisher)- Fighter
Heavily on big guys (brute, soilders)- Paladin
Heavy on minions- Fighter
Heavy on controller and leader- Paladin

Fighters are better when he has to be surrounded by dudes to mutil hit and kill all at once.

Paladins are the toe to toe with the enemy and heal up those who flank with him.