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.

[Aeron]

I like a lot of the suggestions that you have made. In my opinion the job points/gift system wasn't original intended to be super helpful or fix the broken parts of the jobs which I feel was a mistake. The fact that some jobs lucked out and got some really awesome job point cats./gifts were the ones that fell through the cracks. As much as I agree with your suggestions, they would be requirements by the player community and that is something that they wanted to avoid as much as possible. I came back to the game after playing 14 for about a year and focused solely on gearing rather then grind out job points because I understood that the power of pld comes from the gear you have. I mean lets be real you have ppl that don't want to make an REM do you think they would really want to grind out jps if they knew it was a requirement.

[dasva]

Wait plds get jps? They were so ridiculously lack luster I kind of forgot. Like seriously performance wise there is little difference to a 0 and a 2100 pld tank

[Kincard]

Sorry if this feels like I'm hijacking the thread, but I think it would be a better idea to just make a thread about JPs and Gifts of every job honestly, because that way if SE ever reads the thread they will have a better understanding of why certain things are over or underpowered when viewed in the game as whole, and that would give a better incentive to adjust them.

To put it more bluntly, how about we talk about the JPs and gifts of every job other than BLU. I love playing BLU and all, but I really would like to think even the most hardcore BLU around here can admit their JPs, but especially their gifts, are absurdly overpowered compared to what the other jobs get. That includes even SCH and BLM, which do have very good Gifts but still pale in comparison to the sheer brokenness of what BLU Gifts do.

I don't want to suggest a nerf... because I love the idea behind the BLU Gifts. It makes it a very flexible and powerful hybrid class and that's always what it should've been. But SE needs to understand that what BLU gained from those Gifts are not in balance with what other jobs get, at all.

I know most of you know this stuff, but I might as well post it so in the off chance this gets to SE they'll understand the point. Depending on their spellset, BLUs will get the following from their 100/1200 Gifts:
+~100 HP
+~35 MP
+~24 accuracy, attack, defense, evasion, magic accuracy or magic evasion
+8 magic attack bonus
+8 skillchain bonus
+4 magic defense bonus
+6% critical damage
+10 Store TP
+10% fast cast
+4% parry rate
+4% tenacity
+10-15% dual wield
Granted, you can only get maybe something like 5 to 6 of the above at a time, but the fact that its so flexible is in itself an advantage, and even ignoring that, the values they gain are completely out of whack. Given that they have all the extra flexibility you'd think they'd be getting values like 1/5 of what other jobs do, instead they're getting something lke half or more, and they can set about 5 of them at once.

Out of all the other Gifts in existence, the only other jobs I think that even come close to the level of usefulness of BLU's are BLM, RDM's 550 Gift (How about making Temper party-targetable), and NIN's 100 Gift (Not that NIN's 550/1200 aren't useful, but you'd think NIN would be one of the jobs it'd have been easy for them to think of new spells for. Yurin/Kakka: Ni/San probably would've had their uses and Migawari Ni would've been great).

SCH's 550 Gift is currently highly desirable only because of the magespam fad. If they ever nerfed Immanence or mage parties I believe it would go back to just being a good, but not broken, Gift.

The rest range from the decent but underwhelming (WAR, BST, BRD, RNG, SAM, COR, PUP, GEO), to the completely useless/laughable (MNK, WHM, TH(F), PLD, DRK, DRG, DNC, RUN). Seriously, why did you guys think something like Martial Arts +10 would be useful when everyone hits the delay cap without even trying now?

Admittedly, some of the existing Gifts could be saved via core adjustments- DRK's Drain III for instance, has the potential to beef up Souleater a ton, but they need to ungimp 2-handers and make it less of a hassle to use.

[Urthdigger]

I know I've complained about it enough this everywhere, but it bears repeating. MNK gifts also suck. Outside of -10 delay and the obligatory attack and accuracy bonuses, all of MNK's gifts are defensive, like bonuses to counter and guard. In an environment where even suggesting to tank on MNK is laughable, at best.

The JP categories aren't much better. Boosts accuracy while under hundred fists or focus? If I needed an extra 20 accuracy while those were up, you can bet I'll be positively useless when they're down, on any content that I have any right participating in those categories are worthless. Oh hey, I can get an extra 200 HP from chakra, that's neat I suppose. Dodge, Counterstance, Perfect Counter... those three categories will be so useful for all the not tanking I do. Speaking of those, counterstance's actual effect is kinda vague (it says it boosts power of counterattacks done with the stance up by boosting the dex bonus by 2 percent... So, counterattacks have WS mods now? Do I need to gear dex while tanking or just when I activated the ability?), and Perfect Counter's is just useless ("Increases the vitality bonus of Perfect Counter" And that bonus does what exactly?).

MNK only has 3 actually useful JP categories, Impetus (Up to +40 attack while it is up), kick attacks (+40 att/+20acc for free bonus attacks) and Footwork (+20 damage on kick attacks). Joy.

[OmnysValefor]

Sorry if this feels like I'm hijacking the thread, but I think it would be a better idea to just make a thread about JPs and Gifts of every job honestly, because that way if SE ever reads the thread they will have a better understanding of why certain things are over or underpowered when viewed in the game as whole, and that would give a better incentive to adjust them.

To put it more bluntly, how about we talk about the JPs and gifts of every job other than BLU. I love playing BLU and all, but I really would like to think even the most hardcore BLU around here can admit their JPs.

You are hijacking my thread, but for a good cause. I forgive you :).

It's the synergy, potency, and practicality of blu categories combined with their gifts that make it so amazing. Not to mention, the +blue points category is quite powerful in it's own right. That's 1/3 more points. That's huge.


+~100 HP
+~35 MP
+~24 accuracy, attack, defense, evasion, magic accuracy or magic evasion
+8 magic attack bonus
+8 skillchain bonus
+4 magic defense bonus
+6% critical damage
+10 Store TP
+10% fast cast
+4% parry rate
+4% tenacity
+10-15% dual wield

Granted, you can only get maybe something like 5 to 6 of the above at a time, but the fact that its so flexible is in itself an advantage, and even ignoring that, the values they gain are completely out of whack. Given that they have all the extra flexibility you'd think they'd be getting values like 1/5 of what other jobs do, instead they're getting something lke half or more, and they can set about 5 of them at once.

Let's stop right there and point out that blu can get--passively--a more potent, permanent accuracy trait than lolFocus gives. Often overlooked by any but the more knowledgeable players, Accuracy Bonus is an important trait when accuracy is still an issue after whatever buffs your group can provide.


Out of all the other Gifts in existence, the only other jobs I think that even come close to the level of usefulness of BLU's are BLM, RDM's 550 Gift (How about making Temper party-targetable), and NIN's 100 Gift (Not that NIN's 550/1200 aren't useful, but you'd think NIN would be one of the jobs it'd have been easy for them to think of new spells for. Yurin/Kakka: Ni/San probably would've had their uses and Migawari Ni would've been great).

SCH's 550 Gift is currently highly desirable only because of the magespam fad. If they ever nerfed Immanence or mage parties I believe it would go back to just being a good, but not broken, Gift.

The rest range from the decent but underwhelming (WAR, BST, BRD, RNG, SAM, COR, PUP, GEO), to the completely useless/laughable (MNK, WHM, TH(F), PLD, DRK, DRG, DNC, RUN). Seriously, why did you guys think something like Martial Arts +10 would be useful when everyone hits the delay cap without even trying now?

I rather like Geo's gifts. I liked that in the beginning, I had to scrape and scrounge through gear to get close to, and to, 900 skill, but now I can swap out to things like conserve mp and -dt while casting.

One problem they clearly have is that some jobs are OP. The most OP player I know mains a DNC, loves it, and has no complaints. For instance, when he builds an SR run (to help others, he doesn't need SR gear except he wants a better Sari), he builds a group that is basically an altar to his dnc--COR, BRD, WHM, GEO, Tank.

GEO is also broken-OP. In a lot of battles, a nicely geared GEO (but lacking Idris) is more desirable than an r/e bard because the game has changed, bard has not, and GEO provides better buffs than Bard.


PLD, WHM, BRD, COR, GEO, DNC.

Forget things like building flourish and climactic flourish, he tp's so fast he self-skillchains without trying.


Admittedly, some of the existing Gifts could be saved via core adjustments- DRK's Drain III for instance, has the potential to beef up Souleater a ton, but they need to ungimp 2-handers and make it less of a hassle to use.

They need to ungimp melee DD is what they need to do. Many groups, the most you'll see on the boss is one melee dd aside from the tank, and that is because the closer you are to the boss, the more likely you are to die, unless you're the tank.

[OmnysValefor]

Seperately, I want to say, that I was worried this post would come across as "ME ME ME", but I see people agreeing that PLD (and other jobs) got the short end of the stick.

[OmnysValefor]

I know I've complained about it enough this everywhere, but it bears repeating. MNK gifts also suck. Outside of -10 delay and the obligatory attack and accuracy bonuses, all of MNK's gifts are defensive, like bonuses to counter and guard. In an environment where even suggesting to tank on MNK is laughable, at best.

The JP categories aren't much better. Boosts accuracy while under hundred fists or focus?

It's actually +40 acc under the effects of hundred fists, but I definitely see your point. The problem probably is that every job gets a category devoted to each 1-hour, and there's not really a lot of ways to amplify Hundred Fists. However, I'm sure that an attack bonus, crit rate, store tp+, or something like that would have been good. Also, monks should take less damage from spikes while HF is up (I actually always thought that should be part of Subtle Blow).

I hadn't looked at monk yet. I used to play monk, but have no interest recently. That really does suck overall, as do the gifts. And I have to agree with Kincard that Martial Arts enhancement really isn't that impressive either.

[Alhanelem]

You should really post in the appropriate section even if you think it's "dead." To me, that's not an excuse to not keep things organized. You may also be more likely to get a response as well, as I've seen the community team respond to a number of job specific issues in the job forum sections.

That aside, your suggestions are all solid. I only take exception to the Circle changes, because it's supposed to be a situational ability. Rather than make it just help against everything, I'd rather see the effect massively enhanced, by both increasing the damage reduction vs undead and also adding a damage bonus against undead.

[Kincard]

You are hijacking my thread, but for a good cause. I forgive you :).

Thank ye. Again, sorry about that.


It's the synergy, potency, and practicality of blu categories combined with their gifts that make it so amazing.

Yeah, I think it's really hard to point to one specific thing and say that's what makes it all overpowered simply because of how much synergy there is in BLU's abilities. For example, the fact that the JT Bonus automatically upgrades BLU to Dual Wield III means they'll free up about 10 blue magic points just from that- with DW3 you only need a couple pieces of DW gear to cap delay after Erratic Flutter + Mighty Guard.

I'm having a hard time thinking of a way to "fix" it, because the same reason BLU is overpowered (the flexibility of its hybrid-ness) is the same reason its such a unique and fun job to play. Not to mention, even with all of BLU's fancy tools, they still run into all the same issues as every other melee right now anyway. If BLU needs to be adjusted, that should probably only be after they do an overall adjustment to melees.


One problem they clearly have is that some jobs are OP.

I think that's a really important distinction to make- whether the JP/Gifts themselves are broken, or if the job in isolation is broken to begin with, or they're simply useful/useless due to current trends (SCH for example). GEO is one of the most important jobs in the game right now, but I don't feel their JP/Gifts are really broken if you look at them in isolation (Their 100/550/1200 ones are kinda disappointing though IMO).

I guess I mostly focused on the 100/550/1200 ones, because those are the supposed to be the ones where they got creative. It's just kinda dumb to be seeing WAR getting a generic crit rate +10% while BLMs are getting completely new spells for those gifts (hell, tier VI didn't even have animations stored up and ready like Death/Utsusemi: San did). I really think they should take some time and consider going back and getting a bit more creative for the jobs that got gipped on 100/550/1200. Hell even some of the jobs that got something unique from those could probably use some retooling (Full Cure especially).

By the way, I guess it's important that the question of "do we really want JPs to be necessary" to be addressed- I would not mind if they decided to just go back and make JP back into a minor upgrade system, but that would require adjustment to not just the entire JP/Gift system but also much of the existing encounters and I'm guessing they're not going to be doing that. Even the ones past 1200, SE's supposed "effective end point" for Gifts, are important for almost every melee because most of them will get 13+ accuracy (amongst other bonuses) from one of the Gifts after that, which is definitely large enough to matter.

[Ulth]

One problem they clearly have is that some jobs are OP.

Another problem is some jobs got crap jp categories when they were OP, and then got nerfed and still have crap gifts. Like thfs first big gift was TH13 which is crap but nobody put up a fuss because rudra's was so pimp at the time. Now not only did rudra's get a nerf but they also nerfed mandalic stab, mercy stroke, and sharkbite, the latter 2 not even being any good before the nerf. After that their big gifts were 5 dw and TH14 also gifts that don't help any.

And while I don't think that all jobs need categories and gifts as game changing as BLU but they should at least be half as good for the jobs that got the short end.

Also want to point out that whm got the shaft from gifts, and full heal is a terrible spell.

[Stompa]

I agree with you about PLD, I'm still considering if I should make the effort to obtain a lot of jobpoints on PLD, or just pick up the occasional capacity points when I'm in events etc. The good thing about PLD gifts is that you get the same DEF+ gifts as the other jobs, but in the case of PLD it is much more important to have those extra DEF+.

I have 2600 jobpoints on WAR (lol) and this is my hijack of your PLD thread part two. WAR got a string of Fencer gifts as a primary bonus, this coupled with the brokenness of Savage Blade means that I now get told to leave my nice GreatAxes in storage, and bring one of my WAR LOLswords instead.

I really love GA on my War, and now I get told that I'm just being nostalgic & kooky, for using WAR's primary weapon, with the high skill rating and all the RME weapons frozen into that weapon class. Fencer used to be a fun side-salad kind of deal for WAR, not the main course.

Also, Fencer comes from "Fencing sword" and so even though it applies to SH axes etc. in FFXI, fencing is strictly speaking a sword type of situation in historical terms.

So my point is really, WAR gets Fencer bonuses as primary gifts, Fencer relates to sword fighting, WAR is encouraged to leave GreatAxe in storage and spam sword WS Savage Blade all day.......... and yet WAR can not equip RME legendary swords. All our RME are notably *not swords.* I'm using Usunmunku and various NM lol drop swords, which makes me feel like a second class citizen on my job!

I think Fencer is a fun and stylish thing, which originally should have gone to RDM or PLD, as they were classic sword jobs.

And WAR gifts should instead have focused on WAR's Great Axe, maybe the gifts like 2-handed weaponskill accuracy, 2-handed delay, some kind of special high-lvl gift teaching a 2-handed blocking Deflect-Damage ability (more potent than retaliation) only when using 2-handed, etc.

I love my WAR and I love my Great Axe but people look at me strangely when I equip GA on WAR these days!

[OmnysValefor]

You should really post in the appropriate section even if you think it's "dead." To me, that's not an excuse to not keep things organized. You may also be more likely to get a response as well, as I've seen the community team respond to a number of job specific issues in the job forum sections.

Aye, but attention from devs stars with attention from the community.

Plus, the thread is evolving to talk about a variety of jobs


That aside, your suggestions are all solid. I only take exception to the Circle changes, because it's supposed to be a situational ability. Rather than make it just help against everything, I'd rather see the effect massively enhanced, by both increasing the damage reduction vs undead and also adding a damage bonus against undead.

I can understand the PoV about Holy Circle (as well as all circle effects).


Thank ye. Again, sorry about that.

Yeah, I think it's really hard to point to one specific thing and say that's what makes it all overpowered simply because of how much synergy there is in BLU's abilities. For example, the fact that the JT Bonus automatically upgrades BLU to Dual Wield III means they'll free up about 10 blue magic points just from that- with DW3 you only need a couple pieces of DW gear to cap delay after Erratic Flutter + Mighty Guard.

I'm having a hard time thinking of a way to "fix" it, because the same reason BLU is overpowered (the flexibility of its hybrid-ness) is the same reason its such a unique and fun job to play. Not to mention, even with all of BLU's fancy tools, they still run into all the same issues as every other melee right now anyway. If BLU needs to be adjusted, that should probably only be after they do an overall adjustment to melees.

I used to put a lot of effort into blu, but I've been gone two years and hadn't touched it until the NNI campaign. Now granted, it benefits a lot from gear I already had for my ninja, paladin, geo, but it's hands down my fastest killer.

I look at BLU's grand-slam in CP (and again, I'm only 350~ points into blu) and think that's where all jobs should be. Either someone on the dev team really loves/understands blu or they didn't understand what 20 more BP and two free tiers would do for the job.

Now we can't all be that lucky. Plenty of jobs just aren't complex enough to get that creative with, like PLD for instance.


I think that's a really important distinction to make- whether the JP/Gifts themselves are broken, or if the job in isolation is broken to begin with, or they're simply useful/useless due to current trends (SCH for example). GEO is one of the most important jobs in the game right now, but I don't feel their JP/Gifts are really broken if you look at them in isolation (Their 100/550/1200 ones are kinda disappointing though IMO).

Oh for sure, the most spectacular thing coming out of GEO's gifts is probably +skill allowing, as I said, to swap to conserve mp/dt gear because of the 900 hardcap on potency. +Skill is not creative, but it makes me feel like my little geo is growing up. But it's a modern system applied to a modern job, of course it synergizes well.


[...]

By the way, I guess it's important that the question of "do we really want JPs to be necessary" to be addressed- I would not mind if they decided to just go back and make JP back into a minor upgrade system, but that would require adjustment to not just the entire JP/Gift system but also much of the existing encounters and I'm guessing they're not going to be doing that. Even the ones past 1200, SE's supposed "effective end point" for Gifts, are important for almost every melee because most of them will get 13+ accuracy (amongst other bonuses) from one of the Gifts after that, which is definitely large enough to matter.

Oh no, no no. I don't want to see them nerfing anyone to any great extent, or even at all.

The thing is that that people do want jobs to have certain JP levels. I've never had someone ask me if I can use Invincible every 45 minutes, but people do want death blms, Helix II, etc etc. Noone cares how many JP the PLD has because it doesn't actually help the PLD do his job any better.

Enlight/2 are just toys. Noone expects PLD ws to land anyway.

The whole purpose of job points is to separate the guy who cares about a job or two from the guy who built every relic and empyrean for FFXIAH rank points. I'm a Master Paladin, I should be noticeably more survivable than the guy who "happens to have decent pld gear".

Aside from 119 JSE, I could put together a great monk, and I never play the job anymore. With even pre-adoulin JSE (all on storage slips), I could probably out-perform most of the non R/M/E monks I see, and there is something incredibly wrong with that. I just happen to have a lot of gear.

I also feel like SE has weird feelings about PLD thanks to the great number of people that want to play PLD without putting in the effort. They're afraid of making Ochain as powerful as it should be (because all RME should be) because of the number of people get upset that they want to be the crux of the group's success without putting in the effort which is much much easier now.

When I first got back, PLD was far and away my best geared job so was the easiest for me to bring to things to catch back up on. No big deal, I'm an Aegis/Ochain with all kinds of -dt gear. Buuuuuut... my friend has a Burtgang (which I'm working towards) and I felt awful when he'd come BLM to things because I had nothing else of value for the content.

It was actually funny. First group I was in with him after I got back, he was on PLD and I glanced over "Oh, Joe's got an Ochain. Cute." and then I checked him.. Joe's got everything, and there I am in my Mekira Mekogai (I'd just gotten back ._.) feeling ashamed lol.


I agree with you about PLD, I'm still considering if I should make the effort to obtain a lot of jobpoints on PLD, or just pick up the occasional capacity points when I'm in events etc. The good thing about PLD gifts is that you get the same DEF+ gifts as the other jobs, but in the case of PLD it is much more important to have those extra DEF+.

Speaking as an Aegischain (as most are): Aside from gifts, the only categories worth capping on PLD for their own sake is Sentinel and Palisade, which puts you at 420. Put some into Enlight 2 or Palisade, get your 550 (Protect potency) and call it a day. I love the defense but having 2100, I'm not sure 2100 is anything spectacular for pld.

I only bring up Aegischain, because to the PLDs without Aegis, they might see use out of say Sepulcher, but when I'm taking magic damage, I'm taking less than 12.5% of it. It's funny when a tier 5 doesn't break stoneskin, or phalanx.


I'm using Usunmunku and various NM lol drop swords, which makes me feel like a second class citizen on my job!

I think Fencer is a fun and stylish thing, which originally should have gone to RDM or PLD, as they were classic sword jobs.

And WAR gifts should instead have focused on WAR's Great Axe, maybe the gifts like 2-handed weaponskill accuracy, 2-handed delay, some kind of special high-lvl gift teaching a 2-handed blocking Deflect-Damage ability (more potent than retaliation) only when using 2-handed, etc.

I love my WAR and I love my Great Axe but people look at me strangely when I equip GA on WAR these days!

Agree 100%. Fencer should have gone to the job with a sword glued to its hand. Savage blade is a nice utility for warrior but it should definitely be only that. You belong with a GA/GS in your hands.

Then again, you play the only job in the game with an ability it's not meant to use (Provoke), so I suppose it's fitting that you're a master of weapons you're not meant to use. =P

[Ketaru]

I have 2600 jobpoints on WAR (lol) and this is my hijack of your PLD thread part two. WAR got a string of Fencer gifts as a primary bonus, this coupled with the brokenness of Savage Blade means that I now get told to leave my nice GreatAxes in storage, and bring one of my WAR LOLswords instead.

I really love GA on my War, and now I get told that I'm just being nostalgic & kooky, for using WAR's primary weapon, with the high skill rating and all the RME weapons frozen into that weapon class. Fencer used to be a fun side-salad kind of deal for WAR, not the main course

Admittedly, the claims of nostalgia are rather weak when you consider that, before 2h were originally buffed, WAR's were mostly prized for DWing 1h Axes during Rampage's heyday.

[dasva]

Admittedly, the claims of nostalgia are rather weak when you consider that, before 2h were originally buffed, WAR's were mostly prized for DWing 1h Axes during Rampage's heyday.

Or sword chucking with ridill/joytoy. Really war being primarily 2hd is the new thing and using 1hd is going back to the old. The new part of that is adopting builds that actually lower your attack speeds compared to dual wielding or 2hd

[OmnysValefor]

On the other hand, Fencer doesn't serve Dual Wield any better than it does a 2h weapon.

[Stompa]

Admittedly, the claims of nostalgia are rather weak when you consider that, before 2h were originally buffed, WAR's were mostly prized for DWing 1h Axes during Rampage's heyday.

I did go WAR/NIN during TOAU, with Labrys/Maneater etc.

Again, I dual-wielded axes in TOAU because this was expected of me. Just as it is expected of me today to have my WAR use sword/shield, and fulltime Defending Ring and Vocane Ring and Twilight Torque etc. My WAR today looks the same as my PLD, built for -DT and sword/shield.

OmnysValefor already accurately pointed out that my post was relating to Fencer Gifts dominating the WAR Jobpoints, specifically how Fencer has nothing to do with dual-wielding axes in TOAU.

The "nostalgia" is relating to ; WAR's primary weapon class is Great Axe (highest skill rank), WAR has RME Great Axes in all groups. I have a finished Almace sword, but my WAR can not equip this sword, despite people telling me to use sword/shield in events today. And I'm discouraged from equipping my Great Axes even though they are very nice.

I used Great Axe on WAR in 2005, and nobody complained about my Raging Rushes either. The phrases I heard in /partychat were "woot!" and "omg nice!" etc. and not "could you please stop using Raging Rush and just use a sword/shield instead."

My point was just that, given Great Axe's prominent role in WAR, having 2100 jobpoints crammed with Fencer gifts, and no specific two-handed weapon related gifts at all, seemed a bit of a miss, to me. Its ok though because my Ukonvasara looks cute on my mannequin, and I have to go to most events on WHM anyway!
:)

[OmnysValefor]

WAR can't use Almace? Well then you should build an Exca... oh.

Categories and Gifts should serve a job full-time, or at least for it's primary role. It's like the monk complaints earlier in the thread and elsewhere on the forums. The categories/gifts are IDEAL for abyssea-era monk but are a lot of wasted resources for today's monk.

The only skill bonus PLD gets from gifts is Divine which helps negligibly* with Enlight. It helps the magic accuracy of Flash and Holy as well, but these are still impotent spells. It used to be that Flashing an enemy nearly guaranteed the next hit would miss. That's not the case anymore. Maybe flash hasn't scaled into ilvl-territory well. And since the m.acc is not enough to overcome most boss's evasion, the nuke is still going to be terrible, even with Divine Emblem. (Yes, you can get the occasional nice DE nuke in there).

As such, I no longer care if it lands and certainly am not swapping enmity gear for m.acc gear to make that happen.

* I say negligibly because of the decay. I'd care more about the accuracy it gave if it was reliable.

[dasva]

Savage blade? Psh Should just make a Farsha and cloudsplitter all the things.

[Stompa]

Savage blade? Psh Should just make a Farsha and cloudsplitter all the things.

I made a Sacripante back when it was a fun axe to play with in Aby, and later I made two Alluvion axes with almost capped DMG+ augs on them too. I did that because people often wanted me to use dual-wield axes, and Cloudsplitter. Again, I try to do what is expected of me.

My point in my original post, which has been spectacularly missed, was just that I agree with the OP that some Gifts do not really fit a given player's view of their main job, in the OP's case it was PLD gifts, in my case it is just that I wish WAR had some 2-handed-weapon related gifts instead of just a long string of Fencer gifts. It wasn't really about Cloudsplitter, or TOAU greater-colibri parties, it was just about that I do really love GreatAxes and feel they weren't catered for in the smorgasbord of WAR Gifts.

I built Bravura and Ukonvasara and poured 300m into a Svarga too, I did those things for a lot of good reasons, but none of those reasons were so that I could leave all my gaxes in storage and just go out with an axe/shield or sword/shield.

I had just intended to make my one original post agreeing about GIFTS, and not derail the thread completely, so I will leave now!

:)

[dasva]

Well in plds case it has less to do with views and more to do with them just being somewhere between lackluster and outright fail... which I think was more the OPs point.

If they were potentially good but were more a matter of play style that would be a different story entirely. Like shield mastery... it's decent doesn't really help pld that much the way it is normally played but it's decent. Like there are ways to make that noticeably useful. While some like DE or shield bash will make no noticeable difference and some like reprisal can actually actively harm you while providing next to no benefit.

Hell as the only job that before this regularly single wielded 1hd weapons I still don't understand why pld doesn't get fencer stuff. I mean sure they aren't DDs and so it's not like it's going to their strengths but it could still be made way more useful than most of the unique stuff pld gets

[Alhanelem]

I'm not a PLD, so enlighten me- how does reprisal "harm" you? I used to see it used all the time. Has something changed?

Reprisal (according to wikis) increases your block rate and causes Spikes damage to be dealt when you block. I don't understand how this is harmful? Except if an enemy is absorbing light damage.

[OmnysValefor]

I'm not a PLD, so enlighten me- how does reprisal "harm" you? I used to see it used all the time. Has something changed?

Nearly certain it's in regard to the gift dealing with Reprisal's damage potency potentially causing it to wear off faster, as I mentioned in my OP.

Even if it doesn't, it's still an awful lawlful gift.

[Martel]

I'm not a PLD, so enlighten me- how does reprisal "harm" you? I used to see it used all the time. Has something changed?

Reprisal (according to wikis) increases your block rate and causes Spikes damage to be dealt when you block. I don't understand how this is harmful? Except if an enemy is absorbing light damage.Reprisal has a very silly mechanic. It has a cumulative damage dealt cap for its spikes. If you exceed this cap your reprisal wears off early.

Which is a nice kick in the balls when you're tanking 20 mobs mobs and recast isn't up cause you Just bloody cast reprisal.

The issue isn't as bad as it used to be, since they changed the calculation that determines the cap. But I still don't care for any"Buffs" that make reprisal wear early. It's even worse for anyone using a Priwen. The shield sucks without reprisal, and already has a reprisal damage dealt enhancement. The thing just digs it's own grave.

So, that's why PLD wouldn't want Reprisal spikes damage buffs.

[Aeron]

You know what would help pld if resist gear actually was worth a shit. I have 80% resist charm from gear and traits with /run and im still getting charmed more if I use runes and pflug. Tanks shouldn't have to depend on geo to not get charmed it stupid. The whole game is designed around geo right now and it sucks.

[Alhanelem]

Reprisal has a very silly mechanic. It has a cumulative damage dealt cap for its spikes. If you exceed this cap your reprisal wears off early.

Which is a nice kick in the balls when you're tanking 20 mobs mobs and recast isn't up cause you Just bloody cast reprisal.

The issue isn't as bad as it used to be, since they changed the calculation that determines the cap. But I still don't care for any"Buffs" that make reprisal wear early. It's even worse for anyone using a Priwen. The shield sucks without reprisal, and already has a reprisal damage dealt enhancement. The thing just digs it's own grave.

So, that's why PLD wouldn't want Reprisal spikes damage buffs.So what you mean to say is the JP category that modifies it is harmful, not the spell itself then?

[OmnysValefor]

So what you mean to say is the JP category that modifies it is harmful, not the spell itself then?

I covered this in my OP:


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.

[Catmato]

So what you mean to say is the JP category that modifies it is harmful, not the spell itself then?

Well yes, the entire thread is about job points.

[OmnysValefor]

I take back the "no comment about Protect enhancement gift". 17 defense is a pretty miserable gift for that spot. Even if the source is merited and there's protect-enhancement gear involved, that's still pretty terrible.

Hate to be so negative.

[Dale]

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.


Agreed. I actually complained about this awhile ago myself.

The Paladin's job point options are lame. At least they added a buff to Enlight. Before that - Cover Duration (as unimpressive as that sounds) was probably our best thing.

[OmnysValefor]

I can't even fathom that. If Sentinel and Palisade were available at that point (I wasn't playing), they're still better. Like I said, if you try to cover someone, they usually run away.

Opening or recovering after a hate reset with sentinel is very nice.

And honestly, you know what PLD's 1200 should be? The ability to swap shields without losing TP. I'd give NIN the same trait for an offhand weapon, as the original master of Dual Wield.

Cover hasn't been very useful in eons, but a lot of jobs are that way. Abilities/traits practically from a different game.

[dasva]

Or the ability to dual wield shields! Now that is what I call shield mastery

[Ulth]

I can't even fathom that. If Sentinel and Palisade were available at that point (I wasn't playing), they're still better. Like I said, if you try to cover someone, they usually run away.

Opening or recovering after a hate reset with sentinel is very nice.

And honestly, you know what PLD's 1200 should be? The ability to swap shields without losing TP. I'd give NIN the same trait for an offhand weapon, as the original master of Dual Wield.

Cover hasn't been very useful in eons, but a lot of jobs are that way. Abilities/traits practically from a different game.

I could use that for thf, make it so aftermath can be started from offhand and stacks, oh that would be awesome use all 4 legendary daggers going Extenerator > Rudra's > Mandalic > Mercy Stroke > Rudra's for a five step Umbral that gives all 4 aftermaths. Lol dual wielding shields are more likely to happen though.

Wet dream aside cover could use some changing. I say make it something you can full time and also have it work for aoe.

[OmnysValefor]

I could use that for thf, make it so aftermath can be started from offhand and stacks, oh that would be awesome use all 4 legendary daggers going Extenerator > Rudra's > Mandalic > Mercy Stroke > Rudra's for a five step Umbral that gives all 4 aftermaths. Lol dual wielding shields are more likely to happen though.

Wet dream aside cover could use some changing. I say make it something you can full time and also have it work for aoe.

Ha ha ha. I just thought it would be a neat idea for a job that doesn't get a lot of love.

- - -

About PLD: The most effective way to play PLD is generally to shield swap but in a lot of cases, pld's would be doing it so much that there's never a chance to ws.

Maybe it is too much. Just a thought.

[Dale]

I can't even fathom that. If Sentinel and Palisade were available at that point (I wasn't playing), they're still better. Like I said, if you try to cover someone, they usually run away.

Opening or recovering after a hate reset with sentinel is very nice.

And honestly, you know what PLD's 1200 should be? The ability to swap shields without losing TP. I'd give NIN the same trait for an offhand weapon, as the original master of Dual Wield.

Cover hasn't been very useful in eons, but a lot of jobs are that way. Abilities/traits practically from a different game.

The enmity bonus to Sentinel was available at that point but not the increase to Palisade's block chance. That came later also I believe.

Cover has its uses. It's unwieldy to use but can be nice to shield someone after they unload a massive skill chain for example and the duration increases do make a noticeable difference.

In any case, the fact the enmity bonus to Sentinel is the only one out of the original categories you can compare with something as unimpressive as cover duration underscores just how awful our job point options are, especially out of the original bunch.

I find that the recast on sentinel is just too long to effectively deal with hate reset mechanics. It would be cool if we had new categories available to us that let us build a resistance against enmity wipes. Some additional knock back resistance would be welcomed as well.

The ability to swap shields without losing TP isn't a suggestion I can get behind though. I'm not a huge fan of the gear-swapping during battle on this game. The entire system seems glitchy and half-assed to me and I know several people who quit playing this game because of it. Hell, the game's own macro system can't even keep up if you rapidly change gear during battle and your gear swaps will misfire and not even register. So it forces you to play slower than you regularly would, which is just annoying. So I would oppose any changes that would further incline players to feel like they have to deal with this to be effective.

My suggestion for the PLD 1200 ability would be the spell Flashaga - which would basically be an AoE Flash. Some -MDT or -PDT II traits would be nice as well. I also wouldn't mind being able to pick up Temper like Rune Fencers can. Some duration bonuses for our enhancing magic is something I would also like to see.

[OmnysValefor]

The enmity bonus to Sentinel was available at that point but not the increase to Palisade's block chance. That came later also I believe.

Cover has its uses. It's unwieldy to use but can be nice to shield someone after they unload a massive skill chain for example and the duration increases do make a noticeable difference.

In any case, the fact the enmity bonus to Sentinel is the only one out of the original categories you can compare with something as unimpressive as cover duration underscores just how awful our job point options are, especially out of the original bunch.

Agreed, except that Sentinel is actually good. I'm not saying Sentinel is only slightly better than Cover, I'm saying Sentinel is much better than cover.


I find that the recast on sentinel is just too long to effectively deal with hate reset mechanics. It would be cool if we had new categories available to us that let us build a resistance against enmity wipes. Some additional knock back resistance would be welcomed as well.

If it's a fight that doesn't have hate resets or is not dangerous at low-hp and we're getting to low hp quickly, I'll pop sentinel off the bat. If it's a fight with a hate reset, I save sentinel for the first reset but yes it can be a struggle after that.

Regarding resisting hate resets: Then RUN (and lolNinja ; ;) need the same thing.


The ability to swap shields without losing TP isn't a suggestion I can get behind though. I'm not a huge fan of the gear-swapping during battle on this game. The entire system seems glitchy and half-assed to me and I know several people who quit playing this game because of it. Hell, the game's own macro system can't even keep up if you rapidly change gear during battle and your gear swaps will misfire and not even register. So it forces you to play slower than you regularly would, which is just annoying. So I would oppose any changes that would further incline players to feel like they have to deal with this to be effective.

Often times you can't swap fast enough for a mob's tp move, but as for casting faster, recast timers, etc: Gearswapping works just fine. I love this game for gearswapping. No other mmo I've played allows changing gear in combat so there's always a very rigid best-in-slot set. Subjobs, gearswapping, and skillchains are what set this game apart from the rest.


My suggestion for the PLD 1200 ability would be the spell Flashaga - which would basically be an AoE Flash. Some -MDT or -PDT II traits would be nice as well. I also wouldn't mind being able to pick up Temper like Rune Fencers can. Some duration bonuses for our enhancing magic is something I would also like to see.

To be honest I don't think PLD needs MDT or PDT II, but rather some -dt that goes towards the natural cap. Many times that a tank is killed, is while they're trying to cast, while they've swapped to enmity+ (for flash) or cure potency (for self curing), when their pdt takes a dive. PLD can already PDT and MDT cap easily full time and can BDT cap as well with better gear.

Here's a set that PDT/MDT caps you, it's nowhere near best-in-slot, and that's the point. It's so easy to -dt cap these days.

/equip legs "Chev. Cuisses +1"; -6% PDT
/equip feet "Cab. Leggings +1"; -5% MDT
/equip waist "Nierenschutz"; -3% DT
/equip back "Weard Mantle"; -3% DT
/equip ring1 "Vocane Ring"; -7% DT
/equip ring2 "Dark Ring"; -6% PDT, -6%MDT (takes effort to get one).
/equip hands "Souv. Handschuhs"; -4% MDT
/equip body "Rev. Surcoat +1"; -10% DT
/equip head "Loess Barbuta +1"; -10% DT
/equip neck "Twilight Torque"; -5% DT

12% -pdt + 38% -dt
20% -mdt + 38% -dt - so can swap cab leggings for something else, or find a 6% pdt dark ring (easier) and change the belt to a flume belt (because it converts damage to mp).

And that's not accounting for Aegis, Burtgang or Defending Ring (Took me 95 tries, I don't fault anyone still farming it). You can also get Nixxer for -6% PDT or Mafic Cudgel from Titan for -10% PDT to make capping even easier. With Burtgang and Aegis, PLD can be at -68% PDT and -87.5% MDT as well as -50% BDT.

[Dale]

Agreed, except that Sentinel is actually good. I'm not saying Sentinel is only slightly better than Cover, I'm saying Sentinel is much better than cover.



If it's a fight that doesn't have hate resets or is not dangerous at low-hp and we're getting to low hp quickly, I'll pop sentinel off the bat. If it's a fight with a hate reset, I save sentinel for the first reset but yes it can be a struggle after that.

Regarding resisting hate resets: Then RUN (and lolNinja ; ;) need the same thing.



Often times you can't swap fast enough for a mob's tp move, but as for casting faster, recast timers, etc: Gearswapping works just fine. I love this game for gearswapping. No other mmo I've played allows changing gear in combat so there's always a very rigid best-in-slot set. Subjobs, gearswapping, and skillchains are what set this game apart from the rest.



To be honest I don't think PLD needs MDT or PDT II, but rather some -dt that goes towards the natural cap. Many times that a tank is killed, is while they're trying to cast, while they've swapped to enmity+ (for flash) or cure potency (for self curing), when their pdt takes a dive. PLD can already PDT and MDT cap easily full time and can BDT cap as well with better gear.

Here's a set that PDT/MDT caps you, it's nowhere near best-in-slot, and that's the point. It's so easy to -dt cap these days.

/equip legs "Chev. Cuisses +1"; -6% PDT
/equip feet "Cab. Leggings +1"; -5% MDT
/equip waist "Nierenschutz"; -3% DT
/equip back "Weard Mantle"; -3% DT
/equip ring1 "Vocane Ring"; -7% DT
/equip ring2 "Dark Ring"; -6% PDT, -6%MDT (takes effort to get one).
/equip hands "Souv. Handschuhs"; -4% MDT
/equip body "Rev. Surcoat +1"; -10% DT
/equip head "Loess Barbuta +1"; -10% DT
/equip neck "Twilight Torque"; -5% DT

12% -pdt + 38% -dt
20% -mdt + 38% -dt - so can swap cab leggings for something else, or find a 6% pdt dark ring (easier) and change the belt to a flume belt (because it converts damage to mp).

And that's not accounting for Aegis, Burtgang or Defending Ring (Took me 95 tries, I don't fault anyone still farming it). You can also get Nixxer for -6% PDT or Mafic Cudgel from Titan for -10% PDT to make capping even easier. With Burtgang and Aegis, PLD can be at -68% PDT and -87.5% MDT as well as -50% BDT.

Yeah this is why I don't gear swap when I'm tanking difficult notorious monsters. Because if they catch you with your pants down you are toast. So I know what you are referring to there.

I understand you love the gear swap system but we just differ on that. I think it's horribly implemented and one of the worst qualities about this game. I do it and almost every one of my macros have a gear swap attached to it. But I would certainly prefer that I didn't and would support disabling gear swapping during combat and balancing the game around that instead.

The reason I'd like to see some -MDT II traits is quite a few NMs on this game are difficult to live against without an Aegis or a Geomancer. You're right when you say reaching the -50% normal cap isn't too difficult. But going beyond that requires some pretty hardcore items. So some traits to help make up the difference would be nice.

As far as sentinel vs cover, you're right. Sentinel is a lot better move than Cover - at least now after they buffed it (it used to suck). And if the job category added duration to Sentinel instead of enmity I would happily agree with you. It would be way better than cover duration. But an enmity increase during Sentinel just isn't all that great. At least not in my humble opinion. To me, I'd rather increase my cover duration than that.

[Alhanelem]

Dale, totally agree with you on gear swapping. Just sayin'. It doesn't have to mean the end of situational items, but rather, you choose the items on a per fight basis, not a per-macro or per enemy ability basis.

However, that would be a massive rework, since too many fights have since been balanced around the fact that people have 1000 different ability enhancing items in their inventory that they swap out for seconds at a time.

[OmnysValefor]

Trust me on this, when you take away combat gear swapping, you end up with very rigid best-in-slot sets that give the maximum amount of potential. That's why every warrior in WoW looks the same, or wants to look the same. It's why every Lancer in TERA looks the same, it's why every Paladin in FFXIV looks the same.

Has gearswapping gotten out of hand? Probably. I still love the basic premise of it.

[Alhanelem]

Trust me on this, when you take away combat gear swapping, you end up with very rigid best-in-slot sets that give the maximum amount of potential. That's why every warrior in WoW looks the same, or wants to look the same. It's why every Lancer in TERA looks the same, it's why every Paladin in FFXIV looks the same.

Has gearswapping gotten out of hand? Probably. I still love the basic premise of it.
There's too many options and special stats out there for that to be a real issue. Also, technically, there's still best gear sets, it just involves 2 inventories full of items per job. Also if you want to talk exclusively about looks, that's why FFXIV has glamours, it's why FFXI more recently had a gear/appearance mismatch thing put in, and other modern games have it as well. To be honest, I actually cared about my looks in FFXI enough that in some cases, I was willing to skip optimum items just because I hated the look. It may seem stupid to some but appearance customization is important to some people. (The basic premise is actually what bugs me the most. I know it's a fantasy game but changing clothes in the middle of a battle, without even slowing you down, just damages my suspension of disbelief.)

No gear swapping doesn't have to mean one set of gear for everything, either. You'd still need different gear for different fights, especially in FFXI vs other MMOs.

Well, I guess that was a bit of a digression. I apologize :x

Well, that was a bit off track. I apologize :L

[machini]

There's too many options and special stats out there for that to be a real issue. Also, technically, there's still best gear sets, it just involves 2 inventories full of items per job. Also if you want to talk exclusively about looks, that's why FFXIV has glamours, it's why FFXI more recently had a gear/appearance mismatch thing put in, and other modern games have it as well. To be honest, I actually cared about my looks in FFXI enough that in some cases, I was willing to skip optimum items just because I hated the look. It may seem stupid to some but appearance customization is important to some people. (The basic premise is actually what bugs me the most. I know it's a fantasy game but changing clothes in the middle of a battle, without even slowing you down, just damages my suspension of disbelief.)

No gear swapping doesn't have to mean one set of gear for everything, either. You'd still need different gear for different fights, especially in FFXI vs other MMOs.

Well, I guess that was a bit of a digression. I apologize :x

Well, that was a bit off track. I apologize :L

In modern MMOs, specifically 14 as an example, since I recently got to experience that, there are no "multiple sets". There's just "this is the new highest level/stat/quality piece. The mechanics of this game are so relatively simple and few that there is not significant room for any differentiation in gear, and also means that it is quite easy to see which pieces are the best overall, and we can back this up with proof of how relatively fast we can clear X content in different gear."

[Alhanelem]

In modern MMOs, specifically 14 as an example, since I recently got to experience that, there are no "multiple sets".In FFXIV it's because the stat system was designed such that there is rarely (not never) an advantage to doing such things. As a summoner main in 14 (suprised? lol) I actually have two sets- a VIT set for summoning Titan-egi and a regular caster set for everything else. I used the former to solo many dungeons, even before they provided an official means to do so. :p Doing that gives me a pet with more HP than real tanks in the game (though with less damage) and I can switch back to caster gear for myself after (it does carry an issue of the pet generating less enmity than usual though.)

But in FFXI, suddenly removing gear swapping without doing anything else would absolutely not have the same effect as FFXIV- there's so many more stats/modifiers and further more possibilites that there will always be different attribute needs for different fights. Mechanically, FFXI is simpler than FFXIV, it's the gear that brings the complexity. That complexity remains without swapping, it's just easier to manage, not needing 160 spaces of inventory for a single job and needing 15 mins just to change jobs because of the inventory management. That's the one thing I really don't like about the system. You can have everything, and you are thus EXPECTED to have everything.

Both FFXI's style of locking and auto attacking while picking stuff from a menu and FFXIV's combo and movement based style have their places. That's why I still play both. All depends on my mood (a discount or something would make it a lot easier though :p)

I didn't really mean to hijack this thread though. Perhaps if we want to discuss this kind of theory stuff, a new thread is best.

----------------

Relating to the discussion: I think part of the reason why PLD's JP categories are underwhelming is because it's already the defacto tank. Given that RUN doesn't get the playtime it should, it seems like to me that RUN needs more immediate love than PLD.