Can we talk about PLD's JP Options and Gifts?

[OmnysValefor]

I'm posting this here because the job forums, at least PLD's, are pretty dead.

A lot of jobs have a few categories that are pretty lackluster, and a few gifts too. I've read that you've said you didn't want categories/gifts to be too potent, but some are very potent. SCH's Helix II, BLM's Death, BLU's 100/1200, as well 20 more blue magic points as a jp category.

To begin with, PLD's JP categories are lackluster or awful.

Invincible Effect - Increases enmity during invincible.
* This isn't great, but this is alright.

Intervene Effect - Increases damage of Intervene.
* This usually does less/much-less than a nuke or weapon skill.
* I'd rather see this increase intervene's duration, or increase the potency of the effect (decreases acc/defense/m.acc/m.defense).

Holy Circle Effect - Reduces damage from undead for those affected by Holy Circle.
* This is neat, but there aren't a lot of undead mobs. I'd rather see this reduce damage from any source while under the affects of Holy Circle.

Sentinel Effect - Increases Enmity
* This one is fine.

Shield Bash Effect - Increases damage of shield bash.

Cover Duration
* On most bosses the only one behind a pld ever is the thief. It's way too dangerous to be behind a pld. If someone gets hate after a hate reset and I try to Cover them, they usually run away.

Divine Emblem Effect - Increases divine magic damage while under the effect of Divine Emblem

Sepulcher Duration
* This one isn't bad. Again, not many undead bosses, but this one isn't bad. They can't all be home runs.

Palisade Effect - Increases blockrate while under the effects of Palisade.
* I'd change this to be full time blockrate increase.

Enlight effect - Increases damage/accuracy of Enlight by 1.
* This could be good.

Here's what I'd do for PLD gifts instead. These are just ideas.

Invincible Effect - Same.
Intervene Effect - Duration increased by 20/20 seconds.
Holy Circle Effect - Decreases Damage from all sources for those affected by Holy Circle.
Sentinel Effect - Same.
Shield Bash Effect - Grants 25 TP per level for a total of 500 TP at 20/20.
Cover Duration becomes Rampart Effect - Increases potency of Rampart by 10 per level.
Divine Emblem Effect - Increases magic accuracy of next divine spell.
Sepulcher Duration - Same.
Palisade Effect becomes Block Rate - This would alleviate some of the problem with the fact that Aegis blocks like an offhand dagger.
Enlight Effect - Same.

On to JP Gifts.

Nowhere in any of PLDs gifts are there a single thing to do with Block Rate, Shield Skill, Enmity Gain, or Enmity Loss. The closest to any of this is Shield Mastery Effect which increases the TP gained from a successful block.

Enlight II (100 JP) is presently exactly the same as Enlight 1 but more potent. I would change it so that, unlike Enlight 1, it did not decay and always lasted the full 3 minutes unless dispelled. The decay is pretty annoying. Nerf the Accuracy Bonus if you like to Enlight 1 levels, just so long as it no longer degrades with each hit.

A 2100 JP PLD gets 87 accuracy from Enlight 1, and 122 from Enlight II, not accounting for divine magic skill+ gear.

Protect Effect (550 JP) - Increases potency of protect effect by 10%. No comment about this, just listing it here. Actually, yes comment. 17-18 defense as a 550 is pretty awful.

Reprisal Effect (1200 JP) - Increases damage of Reprisal Spikes by 20%. Not only is this lackluster. It might actually be bad for the job. Boss/boss content will resist the damage anyway. Reprisal has never ever been a meaningful contribution to damage. So while never being a benefit, in cases where you have enough stuff on you that the reflected damage surpasses reprisal's damage cap, it wears off. This may well cause it to wear off earlier. I am not certain. Effectively, all this means to PLDs is "Reprisal might not last as long". Anything high enough level to hit you has enough HP that the damage Reprisal reflects means nothing.

Somewhere in PLD's gifts, I would add something that made Cover no longer positional (reverse of trick attack), or I would make Cover behave like Accomplice and steal a portion of the target's enmity. This could be implemented via a category or gifts.

- - -

I love PLD for what it is, but there's no flavor to a lot of the JP categories/gifts. They don't really address the strengths or weaknesses of the job, other than bland bonuses to defense (I love defense) and -damage from critical attacks.

Sorry, I get on my growing Geomancer and my baby blue mage (blu especially) and there's flavor, style, and sense to the jp categories and jp gifts.