Originally Posted by
Martel
Well, unfortunately, about the only way to make PLD reasonably useful at the moment, is to make it "something it isn't". And SE doesn't seem to mind the idea either, considering the delightful amount of excellent DD stats on our AF3.
He didn't say that curing was a waste of mp. He said the curing for enmity was a waste of mp and time. And he's right. It is. The CE modifier for cure enmity has been declining since lvl one. And it hasn't stopped. Only slowed in its rate of decrease. The more levels we gain, the worse curing becomes as an enmity tool.
Lets say you do a cure 4 for 500 hp.
That comes out to 312 CE on a lvl 90 player.
500 points of melee dmg comes to 625 CE on a lvl 95 target.
Notice the difference?
Melee dmg is twice as effective in the first place, is gained just sitting there hitting the mob, and doesn't cost mp. But, of course, no PLD would cure in +0 enmity, so lets work with that.
500 cure with +50 enmity, 468 CE.
Now, my TP build has +20 enmity in it(just as a side effect of DD stats, I'm not stacking enmity for DD, lol), so lets factor that into the melee dmg.
500 dmg +20 enmity, 750 CE. 468 vs 750. And one of these makes the mob dead sooner. And you can easily do 500 dmg in a single attack round, with good DD atmas and gear.
Not to mention, as soon as I get 100% TP and throw out a nice 3k'ish chant, we're looking at a spike of 3750 CE, and instantly capped VE. And if we were near the start of that fight, I'd throw up sentinel before that chant, putting it at 7500 CE. Out of a 10k CE cap...
Curing has its place. As a survival tool. And cure kits have their place, as a situational tool(unmelee'able/flying mob, don't kill it yet!, etc.) But DMG as a hate tool is vastly superior.
Back in 2004, certainly. But the game has changed. Change with it, or be left behind. Unless SE makes drastic changes to PLD or the game itself, DD style, and often /nin, is the reality of the effective PLD. And if SE does make those changes, we will study them, and change with them. Will you?
I would say, based on his accurate understanding of the current PLD, that PLD certainly is the job for him.