Sentinel VS Last Resort

[Nebo]

I never see Thf's SATA plds in abyssea either.

Maybe if you guys would sit still or close enough to the mob that I'm not outside of melee range!!!

/sarcasm

In exp alliances, it is not very practical. Everything is moving around so much, I'm Trick AAttacking the nearest DD when my timer is up. Waiting to line up just to the PLD is going to be counterproductive. The rest of the time I'm going to be the one tanking most likely, so...come stand in front of me I guess?

For NM's, again if the THF isn't tanking it would be in everyone's best interest for him/her to Trick Attack the tank. TH procs and all.

[Zagen]

And that is the point in Abyssea WHM never does so it's irrelevant the DMG you take when they can heal you up, never take the hate or run out of MP.

But 99 is coming and Abyssea isn't being expanded on, so unless crazy ATMA comes outside or you have a RDM and BRD all the time the WHM WILL run out of MP. You wont have ridiculous HP, cruor buffs and so on so you can take the previously deadly moves like Spike Flail and laugh it off.

DD + WHM + BRD/RDM = Abyssea style WHM + DD combo all over again. BRD/RDM with +2 legs and that ballad harp from AVNM can do 9MP/tick with Ballad2/3 + Refresh for 12MP/tick, this doesn't count the Refresh gear a WHM can get (off the top of my head, head +1, body +2, quest legs +1, Hands/Feet +1 for another +5mp/tick)

Lower HP isn't a "huge" concern it hasn't been for a few DD jobs (MNK/THF/NIN/DNC come to mind) they have either Subtle Blow, High Evasion, or ways to reduce TP gain of the monster to a controllable rate while still dealing damage.

Not only that but adding BRD buffs on the DD tank = faster kill. BRD debuffs help make for an easier kill as well unless they full on get resisted.

Also FYI unless Sentinel is up Spike Flail rips through a PLD's HP too.

Unless SE does something either be it nerfing DD's damage output on monsters in the future or upping PLD's damage potential PLD will be an inferior job that is used by personal job preference not superior tanking ability.

[Himrik]

Looking at the enmity table, there's a simple way of "nerfing" enmity without nerfing damage output.
Enmity gain via damage should take Max HP in factor, as enmity loss via damage do.

Against HNM with thousands of HP, DD's will gain less enmity when compared to JA or Curing

[Zetonegi]

Looking at the enmity table, there's a simple way of "nerfing" enmity without nerfing damage output.
Enmity gain via damage should take Max HP in factor, as enmity loss via damage do.

Against HNM with thousands of HP, DD's will gain less enmity when compared to JA or Curing

No that wouldn't work. It would make any job that isn't trying to tank not tank, meaning the healers would be tanking. If you're dividing by a factor of a few thousand(how much HP NORMAL mobs in abyssea have) the WHM would end up tanking over every job that doesn't have access to some kind of provoke. You would have to make a fairly complex function that takes into account things like mob level, is it an NM, how strong of an NM is it, etc. so that DDs can outpace cures and sleeps BUT they can't outpace a dedicated tank. Additionally, why wouldn't you just use a NIN who does more damage and can hold hate fairly well thanks to /DRK or even /PLD? And if they change how damage gives hate, why WOULDN'T you just get the BLM army back together since there would no longer be a downside to spam nuking.

No, the problem with PLD isn't because hate is screwy, its because PLDs can't DD. That's been the problem with PLD ever since Monks discovered that if they punch skeletons hard enough they don't actually need someone to be a tank. It became much more pronounced in Aht Urhgan when SE gave us paper mache birds in the form of Colibri.

In the past SE got away with simply giving PLD an easier job keeping hate because the DD jobs still needed someone to be a dedicated tank but defensive abilities and ease of holding hate won't save PLD when the most of the jobs its trying to hold hate from are very much capable of tanking as well. There are 2 options SE can go with PLD, 1) They can do a series of buffs to PLD in addition to releasing new NMs such that PLD is the only job that can reliably tank them. Or 2) give PLD boosts to its offensive prowess, directly or indirectly, so that it can fill the roll of DD/Tank like most of the old pure DDs have. I don't know about you but I'd prefer a buff to PLDs DD potential over crazy NMs that require a PLD.

[Laciante]

While items like the Iron Ram lance do help WAR and DRG hit the 50% cap, I left it out because it's impractical. Sacrificing TP to go defensive every time the mob gets ready to do something nasty...

While swapping spears when you start taking lethal dmg isn't practical; using the IR Lance, or the Earth Magian spear later on, as your weapon when you expect to take damage is fully possible, as they have comparable dmg to other commonly used weapons of their level, so you won't be losing much DPS.

And my note about losing Provoke, in an earlier post was a joke, I know full well Provoke is not a necessity ;P

[Zagen]

In the past SE got away with simply giving PLD an easier job keeping hate because the DD jobs still needed someone to be a dedicated tank but defensive abilities and ease of holding hate won't save PLD when the most of the jobs its trying to hold hate from are very much capable of tanking as well. There are 2 options SE can go with PLD, 1) They can do a series of buffs to PLD in addition to releasing new NMs such that PLD is the only job that can reliably tank them. Or 2) give PLD boosts to its offensive prowess, directly or indirectly, so that it can fill the roll of DD/Tank like most of the old pure DDs have. I don't know about you but I'd prefer a buff to PLDs DD potential over crazy NMs that require a PLD.

Is this back in the day when people thought IT++ EXP was the way to go and turtle PLDs ran rampant even though back then T-VT chains were better back then?

PLD wasn't "better" back then either it was just what people assumed needed to be used and were close minded to other concepts.

I agree with the boost to DD option over beefy NMs because honestly outside of Relic/Mythic/Empyrean items PLD isn't better than most DD jobs at tanking even if you nerf their damage potential.

[Zetonegi]

Is this back in the day when people thought IT++ EXP was the way to go and turtle PLDs ran rampant even though back then T-VT chains were better back then?

No, most of the PLD buffs came out around the time Aht Urhgan came out, Shield Mastery and Auto Refresh came out a bit before it while several buffs, such as the Sentinel and Rampart change as well as the Shield Mastery preventing spell interruption, came after the release.

[Himrik]

Even if SE boost the offensive part, it doesn't seem logical that PLD deal greater damage than other DD.
And if we don't, we'll still be useless.

Turtle build is for mitigate damage, not really to keep hate.
It doesn't seem weird to me that you need JA to build hate when you're a tank.
Provoke is only used to claim these days, strange, for a JA that was designed to give a lot of hate.

If DD gain less enmity by damage alone, they indeed will rely again on JA that gives fixed amount of enmity.

[Malacite]

I agree that a 3-minute Sentinel would be a great fix, but it would need some tweaking.

The damage down would start at 90% and decay to 75~ by the 1st minute, 40~50% by the 2nd minute and then reduce at a rapid rate during the final minute. The entire time however, enmity of other players should be suppressed in addition to the reduced enmity decay for PLD.

The whole point of having a PLD around is to take the hits and keep the mob out other people's faces, and if SE is unwilling to raise the enmity cap then I feel this is the next best thing that wouldn't be horrendously broken. In addition, I'd like to quote a post by Obsidian over at BG, as he brought up a great suggestion.

http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/105...une-2011/page4

If they're determined to keep PLD as the only purely defensive job in the game, making Cover a job trait instead of an ability would go a long way. The gear enhancing Cover would actually be worth carrying around, and then it wouldn't matter if PLD could hold hate or not. Stack everyone behind him and you're golden. Change the G1 Cover merit to -6% damage taken while covering someone, and rise by 1%/merit to a cap of -10% damage taken while covering someone.

This would pretty much solidify PLD's role and stop all the crying once and for all, and I really don't think it's unreasonable in the least. PLD should not require Almace or Ochain just to be even remotely effective compared to WAR MNK or NIN.

[Himrik]

Changing cover can be a good idea, but the problem is always the same, as long as all DD can keep hate off mages, and can survive long fights with a WHM cure bombing, parties don't need a PLD.
DD shouldn't be able to tank so easily, so their enmity gain should be lowered in some way. Even if the hate cap is increased, they would still reach the cap faster than PLD.