More Paladin-centered shields needed to close the gap with Aegis & Ochain

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Originally Posted by Duelle

All that does is scream volumes about Enmity design. >.>

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FTFY

It's not the job. It's the game. It's a case of trying to fit the round peg (PLD) into the square hole (Game Design). You can't just discard the peg because...well...I cannot fathom the rage that would come from simply deleting a job.

Concerning PLD, perhaps the mistake was the plethora of -DT gear available to most every job now.

On one hand, you gotta love it because it puts some of the responsibility for the player's life in their own hands, and brings more considerations to what gear you'll carry. On the other hand, you're left with what a few of the last several posts have pointed out. Either a PLD has to tank it, or anyone can.

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Originally Posted by OmnysValefor

Either a PLD has to tank it, or anyone can.

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To further complicate matters, making something hard enough that it requires a Paladin to tank it probably means that it requires one of the aforementioned shields. Meaning that if it requires a Paladin but requires an Aegis or Ochain, then that means PLDs without them hardly benefit at all. Inversely, if it's tankable by a PLD without either shield...you probably don't need a PLD to tank it.

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Originally Posted by OmnysValefor

Concerning PLD, perhaps the mistake was the plethora of -DT gear available to most every job now.

On one hand, you gotta love it because it puts some of the responsibility for the player's life in their own hands, and brings more considerations to what gear you'll carry. On the other hand, you're left with what a few of the last several posts have pointed out. Either a PLD has to tank it, or anyone can.

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-DT is not really the problem. It's more the fact that it was used as a solution to the bigger problem that is damage mitigation.

Looking at FFXI's Paladin, I can tell you it has almost none of the staples of tank design, either on purpose or due to developer shortsightedness. By staples I mean:

* Inherent improved enmity generation: At the baseline, a naked PLD should be able to generate more enmity than a naked <insert any other job>, be it through enmity bonuses to all actions, more JAs and spells that can be spammed to make up for the enmity generated by the DPS, and/or slower enmity decay compared to other jobs
* Inherent greater survivability: Baseline, a PLD should have better survivability than other jobs through greater damage mitigation or damage avoidance; this ties into
* Better results/scaling with armor values and defensive stats compared to other jobs: A PLD should be seeing greater benefits from stuff like armor values and shields as a whole compared to other jobs. Bringing in the tower shields example from last page, a PLD should see notably superior benefits from equipping a tower shield than a DRK.

As of right now, PLD is basically designed within the mold of a DPS job but with lesser damage potential and some non-damage abilities to try to push it into the tank role. Maybe the job was intended to occasionally take hate to give the healers a breather rather than full-time like we'd expect from a tank. I also keep in mind Tanaka aimed for this game to emulate designs from the console FF games, where there was never a need for a tank job.

Yeah I've played other MMOs, and though their entire design is different I understand what you're talking about. WoW's Paladin has "Righteous Fury" - All divine magic generates double~ (they change it sometimes) enmity. It's like Yonin on steroids.

I can agree that other jobs have better defensive tools. Fan Dance, Seigan, Utsusemi. Shield is a helluva tool in the right scenario and shield was, of course, a boon to PLD/NIN.

Back then, due to less available and less...attractive -DT gear, tanks were the only thing that could tank, but the monsters hit hard enough in the gear players would wear that blocking or blinking was your only hope.

Buffing PLD in the damage department (something they've said in the past they won't do) would also do well to keep PLDs coming. I would enjoy such a buff, but they've painted themself into a corner. If PLD did more damage, then it has the chance to be Invincible *and* a good DD.

That's the problem really is that they're all over the map and make a mess for the next team. You can't really nerf Aegis or Ochain. Re-calibrating blocking would be unfair to those who've built Ochain (yeah, like me) but PLDs need both shields to be most effective. At the moment, there's nothing unfair about Ochain. It's there, it's free, it just takes time, or less time and gil.

Remember the original FFXI job system was based on early EQ and without many of the established roles and methods present in the modern MMO world. SE never designed any job as "tank" because EQ and previous games didn't have dedicated tanks. They had defense melee jobs that could take more hits then others but at the sacrifice of damage output. Enmity generation was a function of the monsters AI and typically greatly favored the nearest thing to the job and taunt mechanics (forced hate).

So when SE build the FFXI job system they build the six basic jobs and just went from there. Warrior was the original job designed to hold the monsters attention and was given a balanced mixed of offensive and defensive abilities, it was adequately balanced back in 2002 / 2003. Paladin was just an upgraded Warrior that sacrificed the offensive abilities to gain some defensive ones and access to low level white magic. It wasn't until years later that SE got around to "fixing" PLD's defensive system and making shields actually work, before they were just like guard / parry. They never looked at the enmity system and how it applies to the role of "tank" and the result is what we have today. Taunt mechanics are pretty much the only way your gonna get a job with such weak damage output to hold a monsters attention and not die. Defense scaling, enmity scaling, and ability access are all screwed up in FFXI.

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Originally Posted by OmnysValefor

Yeah I've played other MMOs, and though their entire design is different I understand what you're talking about. WoW's Paladin has "Righteous Fury" - All divine magic generates double~ (they change it sometimes) enmity. It's like Yonin on steroids.

I can agree that other jobs have better defensive tools. Fan Dance, Seigan, Utsusemi. Shield is a helluva tool in the right scenario and shield was, of course, a boon to PLD/NIN.

Back then, due to less available and less...attractive -DT gear, tanks were the only thing that could tank, but the monsters hit hard enough in the gear players would wear that blocking or blinking was your only hope.

Buffing PLD in the damage department (something they've said in the past they won't do) would also do well to keep PLDs coming. I would enjoy such a buff, but they've painted themself into a corner. If PLD did more damage, then it has the chance to be Invincible *and* a good DD.

That's the problem really is that they're all over the map and make a mess for the next team. You can't really nerf Aegis or Ochain. Re-calibrating blocking would be unfair to those who've built Ochain (yeah, like me) but PLDs need both shields to be most effective. At the moment, there's nothing unfair about Ochain. It's there, it's free, it just takes time, or less time and gil.

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I agree with this.

What it comes down to is the fact that SE has backed themselves against a wall in regards to Paladin, and they are too scared of its remaining potential in the one area they refuse to touch: Damage.

Give a PLD proper damage output with it's current level of survivability and you have just broken the game. (Not that they aren't already starting down that path with Delve.)

If a PLD can do proper damage and shrug off Firaga IV or Death Scissors, why bring anything else? It would completely invert the current dynamic. Instead of PLDs being few against the many DD, you would have PLDs everywhere and every other job would be excluded.

You can see an very simplified version of this in FFXIV 1.0. where if you wanted to fight Ifrit, you had to have the Sentinel job ability or you were barred from joining some parties.

They could control having too many PLDs by things like shield mastery where a significant portion/majority of a paladin's TP comes from being hit.

They could make our attack based of the damage we take, or the damage we mitigate. Creed +2 proves that the server is keeping track of both how much damage could have been done and how much damage was taken.

Doing these things makes it so that more than two paladins, really more than one, hinders the group.

I'm not saying PLD needs a damage buff, but... PLD needs a damage buff if SE expects us to keep a position in the group.

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Originally Posted by OmnysValefor

They could control having too many PLDs by things like shield mastery where a significant portion/majority of a paladin's TP comes from being hit.

They could make our attack based of the damage we take, or the damage we mitigate. Creed +2 proves that the server is keeping track of both how much damage could have been done and how much damage was taken.

Doing these things makes it so that more than two paladins, really more than one, hinders the group.

I'm not saying PLD needs a damage buff, but... PLD needs a damage buff if SE expects us to keep a position in the group.

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A stacking buff that increases your attack as you receive/mitigate damage would be something really nice to have, but I don't think it changes how PLD would be used in either case. If you do that as things are now, DD will have to intentionally hold back so the PLD can build and maintain its attack stacks, just to be more useful in...dealing damage. So you have to withhold damage so a PLD can build up and deal more damage. It's counter-productive.

Yes, it would prevent PLD stacking, but it also doesn't help them in the long run either.

On shield mastery, I would like to see TP gained proportionate to damage blocked. Similar to how Ochain converts damage to MP as a percentage, I'd like to see something similar with shield master.

However, even that is limited by the issues I just brought up. PLD is a very stick job to mess with.

There are ways around that though too. Giving paladin a massive enmity ability to open a fight with (and Ninja and Runefencer as well) is just common sense. PLD isn't present in zerges for the obvious reason. Voke, flash, and a mediocre ws might keep hate off the first round of ws's (it might, but probably won't) and by the second round, someone else is tanking.

It's all downhill at that point, if you're landing every hit, you're ws'ing at 1/5 (that's probably generous) the rate of the SAMs in your group. In many groups, it's made worse that the DDs are getting bards and the paladin isn't. (Unless each party is getting songs).

I miss the minds that created Spirits Within and Atonement. Especially atonement. They saw a glimmer of the problem, but only for a moment.

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Originally Posted by OmnysValefor

I miss the minds that created Spirits Within and Atonement. Especially atonement. They saw a glimmer of the problem, but only for a moment.

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Aye, excellent concept, a damn fine execution then...nothing. Like...really, what happened to that stroke of intelligence after Atonement was implemented? The entire concept just fell off the face of the planet.

A WS that has damage varying with Enmity. Brilliant! Caps at ~750? Ok, cool. That isn't bad damage for its time, especially by PLD standards. New add on expansions! I wonder what enmity goodies come of this!

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Not a damn thing. Atonement and its concept were never improved or expanded upon and immediately fell behind Chant Du Cygne AND Vorpal Blade because of crit properties. They haven't recovered since.

Yeah, Atonement was our <every samurai ws>. It took the stat we loved, we stacked, we did the best we could with, and that was the modifier. Spirits Within was a good concept too. It also took a stat we loved, we stack, and made a modifier out of it.

In todays time, we should be able to see 2k Atonements, at least. Our tp gain is so unreliable, and slow--if we're not being hit and blocking that with ochain, that we should be cranking out a strong ws when we have the tp.

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Originally Posted by OmnysValefor

Yeah, Atonement was our <every samurai ws>. It took the stat we loved, we stacked, we did the best we could with, and that was the modifier. Spirits Within was a good concept too. It also took a stat we loved, we stack, and made a modifier out of it.

In todays time, we should be able to see 2k Atonements, at least. Our tp gain is so unreliable, and slow--if we're not being hit and blocking that with ochain, that we should be cranking out a strong ws when we have the tp.

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Alas, Atonement is ultimately limited by the crappy enmity cap that has existed since the dawn of Vana'Diel's creation. I'm not saying Atonement should have infinite potential as if there was an infinite enmity cap, but it's currently weighed down in such a way that it CAN'T be useful compared to everything else available.

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Alas, Atonement is ultimately limited by the crappy enmity cap that has existed since the dawn of Vana'Diel's creation.

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If we want to get really technical though, it isn't. 750 is a hardcoded limitation into the WS; it actually doesn't have anything to do with the value that enmity caps at.

When enmity for the WS is capped, it should be doing 720 damage at 100 TP. It could technically be capable of way more than this with higher TP, but no matter how much TP you have, it stops at 750. (If you have 300 TP, you can actually be somewhere quite south of capped enmity and still hit 750 damage.)

In other words, even if they "adjusted" the enmity system, Atonement still wouldn't be capable of hitting more than 750s (unless certain factors are at play, like increased damage taken or whatnot) unless the WS itself also got specifically adjusted.

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Originally Posted by Alerith

You can see an very simplified version of this in FFXIV 1.0. where if you wanted to fight Ifrit, you had to have the Sentinel job ability or you were barred from joining some parties.

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Admitedly, this was because classes and jobs lacked damage mitigation cooldowns, whereas in other games each class has their own damage mitigation cooldown already built-in.

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Originally Posted by OmnysValefor

There are ways around that though too. Giving paladin a massive enmity ability to open a fight with (and Ninja and Runefencer as well) is just common sense. PLD isn't present in zerges for the obvious reason. Voke, flash, and a mediocre ws might keep hate off the first round of ws's (it might, but probably won't) and by the second round, someone else is tanking.

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Provided SE is willing to mess with databases, you have a good opportunity for this with Holy if they split it to Holy (WHM) and Holy (PLD). PLD version being paltry damage but having massive enmity modifiers. PLD's MP pool is small enough that it discourages spamming it (not to mention it has a lengthy recast timer as is), so it might work out.

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Originally Posted by OmnysValefor

I miss the minds that created Spirits Within and Atonement. Especially atonement. They saw a glimmer of the problem, but only for a moment.

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I was never crazy for either because they scale off factors that fluctuate during combat, thus making them unreliable. Tanking, like healing, is dependent on reliability (though RNG can be used to spice things up if within the right context).

As a concept they're interesting, but that's as far as it got with me.

As an Ochain owner, I can think back to the days before I had the shield (or even knew it existed) and how frustrating it was to be a paladin trying to mitigate damage. I basically always /nin if I was doing any serious tanking because relying on shield just wouldn't cut it. When reprisal was later introduced it helped ease the pressure between shadow casts, but the lack of reliable blocking still made tanking on pld very difficult against high level mobs.

After spending a lot of time and hard work on obtaining Ochain, I'm a bit sensitive to having a shield of equivalent power released that can be obtained more easily (such as on the AH, or by fighting a single NM like in Delve). Even with my Ochain only being the level 90 version, the work I spent at the time took months in abyssea and I feel it should represent it's value still.

However, like I mentioned above, I know what it's like trying to play paladin and being required to have Ochain or Aegis to participate in events - it's frustrating and should be improved. That's why I agree with the OP that the window needs to be narrowed (new shields made available) but caution it should be done with balance. The R/M/E v.s. Delve weapons is a great example of how not to do this. I spent months farming Dynamis leading up to SoA: acquired Ragnarok, leveled it to 95, and then found out you can obtain Bereaver by fighting a single NM (a much better Greatsword, even without augments) soon after SoA's release. A very big disappointment.

Fixing atonement won't do a damn thing for PLD. In turtle mode with Sword and Board their already an order of magnitude behind the DD's in damage, their not going to hold any semblance of hate even if the DD's throttle down.

We're really down to the fact that PLD simply doesn't have any real hate tools. It's got "nifty abilities" but none of those modify or otherwise change the base enmity mechanics of the monster. PLD's DPS output is so laughable that it can't reliably use the existing enmity system. Adjusting the current enmity system in any meaningful way isn't going to help PLD much at all, their simply too far behind. We're at the point where PLD (and potentially others) need their abilities severely redefinition (not just adjusted).

Personally my vote is for a modification to Cover. If the target is a PC then it functions like it does now, if the target is a monster then it forces the monster to target only the user for it's duration. Extend it's duration and lower it's recast to such that a PLD can keep it up ~75% of the time with non-PLD's having ~50% of the time.

That's pretty much the only way your going to have a real "tank" in FFXI right now.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

PLD isn't really useful for fighting Delve NMs, for the same reasons we didn't really use them for fighting anything else (like in Voidwatch; if you wanted someone to have Shield Bash you just made a BRD sub /PLD). The hate system just doesn't allow for PLD to keep hate, and even if it could, most of the toughest mobs will just AoE your frontline to death anyway, making having a tank pointless.

PLD is currently used for *holding* NMs in fracture, not fighting them. So yeah, the fact that they aren't being used for boss runs (where the goal is to kill all of the NMs, not hold them) should come as a surprise to nobody. I've honestly never been sure why people bother bringing PLDs for things like field NMs; they just seem like wastes of an alliance slot tbh.

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Simply because PLD use since the last year or two of 75 cap was to be the safety net.

New content comes out > PLDs are used
New content is figure out > PLDs are useless

The cycle has been going on since sometime in '06-07 when people started using RDM and DRK tanks over PLD.

When Adoulin first came out I was pumped to use my Excal/Almace/Ochain/Aegis, now PLD is back in storage.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

@Omnys

Provided SE is willing to mess with databases, you have a good opportunity for this with Holy if they split it to Holy (WHM) and Holy (PLD). PLD version being paltry damage but having massive enmity modifiers. PLD's MP pool is small enough that it discourages spamming it (not to mention it has a lengthy recast timer as is), so it might work out.

I was never crazy for either because they scale off factors that fluctuate during combat, thus making them unreliable. Tanking, like healing, is dependent on reliability (though RNG can be used to spice things up if within the right context).

As a concept they're interesting, but that's as far as it got with me.

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Eh, i'm with ya on Spirits Within. Finding the opportunity to ws @ 100% hp wasn't always easy. Enmity was controllable, save for hate resets... I'll get back to hate resets in a minute.

There's no need to mess with the database. Give PLD a trait that causes our divine and healing spells to cause more enmity. Kind of the opposite of Tranquil Heart.

Still PLD's damage would have to be looked at if they want us to keep a position in zergs, and in this day and age, everything becomes a zerg sooner or later. I'm happy with my paladin, I really am, but we all know we've no position in zergs. It's ridiculous for an Aegischain to ask for "moar", because the job is quite powerful, but it is so severely lacking offensively.

About hate resets...

I don't even know what to say. They'd make for an interesting concept if tanks had some kind of answer to them. Group hate resets aren't so bad, but when you're DD are @9k enmity and you're suddenly at 0 and you're left with only voke, flash, your ja's, and how fast you cans wing your sword to catch up, it's a long road.

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Originally Posted by Taint2

When Adoulin first came out I was pumped to use my Excal/Almace/Ochain/Aegis, now PLD is back in storage.

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Too true. A lot of other LS's and pugs are a good bit behind your progress, but as with voidwatch, everyone will get there, and people won't stay in the groups that can't.

By the time SE does something about shields, paladin will be a solo tool again. When new NMs come out, players will want Aegischains again anyway.

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Originally Posted by Alerith

Meaning that if it requires a Paladin but requires an Aegis or Ochain, then that means PLDs without them hardly benefit at all. Inversely, if it's tankable by a PLD without either shield...you probably don't need a PLD to tank it.

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Sorry if it's already been said, but I doubt it can be said often enough:

I don't want content to require Paladin. If nothing else, that's not fair to the other 21 jobs. What I'd really like is content that allows or permits Paladin. Right now it's a binary switch, a quantum leap between "needs PLD" and "no PLD allowed," much like the gap between relic/empyrean shields and other shields.

We can drop this whole shield drama entirely if PLD had viable contributions to a party in other ways, say with a Great Sword or a Staff. Excenmille has been rockin' a two-hander for over twenty years, but we players sure as hell can't.

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Originally Posted by OmnysValefor

There's no need to mess with the database. Give PLD a trait that causes our divine and healing spells to cause more enmity. Kind of the opposite of Tranquil Heart.

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I don't think this is the sort of thing you'd apply a blanket rule to. My aim was creating something that generates high enmity without the damage attached to it.

For argument's sake, imagine PLD's version of Holy was scaled to do the same enmity as Flare, but capable of doing only a fraction of the damage.

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Still PLD's damage would have to be looked at if they want us to keep a position in zergs, and in this day and age, everything becomes a zerg sooner or later.

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I don't think this is possible without some drastic change to encounter design and/or party dynamics.

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Originally Posted by Ziyyigo-Tipyigo

I don't want content to require Paladin. If nothing else, that's not fair to the other 21 jobs.

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Less about PLD-onry and more about content that requires a tank.

PLD happens to attempt to lean in the direction of "tank", and is one of the few jobs that does. SE gave up on WAR, they never even got started with SAM, and then spread stuff out on jobs like DNC for some reason. The flaw is that you have no jobs heavily leaning (or purely designed to) in the direction of tanking. What's worse is that most of those other jobs have some sort of secondary use, while PLD does not. This is all exacerbated by the existence of mitigation via Aegis/Ochain.

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Originally Posted by Ziyyigo-Tipyigo

I don't want content to require Paladin.

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If it does not require a PLD, PLD is not worth bringing.

No content in the game will you ever see people truly wanting a PLD if its not required, why? Because, PLD does shit for damage, has no other utility besides tanking that can not easily be done better by another job, holding mobs, Twilight gear, cures, WHM SCH or RDM, DDing, every DD in the game basically. So why bring a PLD if its not required? Simple, don't, and that's the problem, no content truly requires a PLD.

You said its not fair to the other jobs, well really, may I ask how fair it is to PLD that its only use is when content is new and not yet understood? Since no content requires a PLD as soon as we understand how to win we no longer use one, why would we? We can tank with DDs, people putting out more damage and that are overall more useful to the party than the PLD would be because we can survive doing it, because PLD is not required. If it were required, we would have to bring it, but its not, so why do it? Can you give me a reason to bring PLD when its not required? Because outside of saying the same thing Matsui said with taking newer players to Delve, just be nice and take them with you cause they need it too, I can not think of any reason to take a PLD when its not truly needed.

I wonder, would you give up the Legendary shields (a nerf) if it meant they strengthened PLD as a DD or otherwise brought it up to par such that it can get away from such a binary function of usefulness?

Edit: I ask this because if SE were serious about changing PLD to have a wider degree of usefulness I see them pointing to those two shields (and to a lesser extent Burtgang) as reasons why PLD cant have (more) nice things. I also ask because its a good point (the whole binary usefulness of PLD) and I am simply curious what other good points can be brought up if it was discussed further.

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Originally Posted by Demon6324236

If it does not require a PLD, PLD is not worth bringing.

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Which is exactly the problem I want to see fixed. Was that particular paragraph too long?

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Originally Posted by Alpheus

I wonder, would you give up the Legendary shields (a nerf) if it meant they strengthened PLD as a DD or otherwise brought it up to par such that it can get away from such a binary function of usefulness?

Edit: I ask this because if SE were serious about changing PLD to have a wider degree of usefulness I see them pointing to those two shields (and to a lesser extent Burtgang) as reasons why PLD cant have (more) nice things. I also ask because its a good point (the whole binary usefulness of PLD) and I am simply curious what other good points can be brought up if it was discussed further.

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I recognize that it would be easier to nerf PLD survivability over fixing the battle system, shield design, defensive mechanics, party dynamics and mob design.

At the same time, I'd only accept it if PLD were to be redesigned around Holy Sword skills (one of the more memorable concepts from FFTactics), and even then I wouldn't think it was a surefire way to change things. Seems too much like taking a shortcut in an attempt to avoid the real problem.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

I don't think this is the sort of thing you'd apply a blanket rule to. My aim was creating something that generates high enmity without the damage attached to it.

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On anything that matters, pld is lucky to clear 100 damage Holy II, without divine emblem. Of course DE is sitting there, but DE isn't enough and the cooldown sucks.

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For argument's sake, imagine PLD's version of Holy was scaled to do the same enmity as Flare, but capable of doing only a fraction of the damage.

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Right, a trait to increase Holy or Holy 2's damage does this, yeah?

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I don't think this is possible without some drastic change to encounter design and/or party dynamics.

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I agree. While a warrior can tank a zerg, it still can't tank like a pld. Asking for pld, in its current state, to be given more damage potential is like asking for warrior to gain some more tankiness.

I'd say that PLD is purely a tank. Tanks in all games do some damage and that's all that PLD does. It's enmity, and the love of designing zergs, that's broken, and not so much PLD. XI creates this atmosphere of the boss needing to die, and needing to die now. WAR, SAM, DRK tanks can contribute more damage in their -DT sets than a PLD can in his DD set, even if he were using a GS most likely, especially since the war can, and will, swap to a ws set for ws.

That's what it boils down to really.

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Originally Posted by Ziyyigo-Tipyigo

Which is exactly the problem I want to see fixed. Was that particular paragraph too long?

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No, but no matter what you do to PLD, unless it can do something else besides tank so well that it can do it just as well as another job, and its a viable use, then it will never fix that PLD is only useful when absolutely required. If a PLD could DD for instance, would I bring a PLD to tank and DD, or bring a WAR which can tank all the same, take more damage, but deal more damage as well? Chances are, I will take the WAR, or a DRK, or a SAM. What if it healed as well as RDM or SCH? Nope, I have dedicated support for that, same as buffing. Like I said before, can you give me a reason to bring PLD when its not required? If not, can you give me a real idea, not a vague idea, a real, solid idea, that would fix it?

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Originally Posted by OmnysValefor

On anything that matters, pld is lucky to clear 100 damage Holy II, without divine emblem. Of course DE is sitting there, but DE isn't enough and the cooldown sucks.



Right, a trait to increase Holy or Holy 2's damage does this, yeah?

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He is talking about giving you the enmity as though there were damage, without the actual damage, so that you can spike enmity with them, but not deal extra damage.

Oh I know, like he said. Flare's enmity, without flare's damage. A passive trait to pld increasing divine enmity would do just that. My point was that Holy / Holy 2 are already pretty awful. They've already got the low-damage aspect down, all they need is more enmity.

Ah, well in that case I most definitely agree, no matter how you try PLD will never do any kind of respectable damage with Divine magic, nerfing it further... that's like if they took SMN right now and nerfed its avatars, its just kickin ya while your already to weak to do anything in the first place.

Damage, be it with the sword or divine magic, is the only area left where PLD's potential hasn't been fully explored. Chant Du Cygne is great and all, but it doesn't make you a viable source of damage. Atonement and Spirit's Within had the right idea, but that concept fell off the face of the earth. A direct damage boost to either sword or divine magic is no good either, because then you've broken the game due to PLD's current ability to mitigate damage.

Maybe a single target weaponskill that acts like Atonement but also collects a percentage of enmity from your party and applies it to damage?

Or maybe they could find ways to encourage jobs to use weapons other than their single A+++ choice. But then we'd end up with some sort of crazy, mixed-up world of SAMs using bows, MNKs using staves, and WARs using any of the 183 weapon choices they have that aren't a Great Axe.

Your snark is obvious, of course those jobs used to use those weapons, but always because they were an A+ choice for the task. Not once has anything subpar become a trend in this game, not that I can think of. SAM/RNG's didn't just SAM/RNG and go, they built entire gearsets, ate different food. The first person to do it might have had a special-snowflake+min/maxing mentality, but others followed because it was a very strong source of dmg.

I seriously think more weapons should be more viable for more jobs. What's wrong with making more variety in the game? What's wrong with having poles and clubs be viable weapons for monks? What's wrong with having bows and polearms be viable weapons for sam?

Except that it might be harder to actually balance for SE, that is. But that's SE's problem, not ours!

I wouldn't mind using club on PLD if there were good options, but there aren't, besides the delve reward, but I don't want to give up WS points for Realmrazer.

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Originally Posted by Mirage

I seriously think more weapons should be more viable for more jobs. What's wrong with making more variety in the game? What's wrong with having poles and clubs be viable weapons for monks? What's wrong with having bows and polearms be viable weapons for sam?

Except that it might be harder to actually balance for SE, that is. But that's SE's problem, not ours!

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You'd have to either adjust weapon skills so that they are job-inherent instead of weapon-inherent, or simply make all weapon skills the same and raise/abolish proficiencies across the board.

I don't see either happening.

As far as hate control goes, I recall this one MMORPG I had played for a few years. About 5 years into the game's existence the warrior tank class got a pretty big boost to holding hate. Just by engaging the warrior would essentially get a dev created "cheat" where by the only way to drag hate off of the warrior you would need to not be using your abilities to lose hate(like what BLM gets for example)

I can provide more examples but what it boils down to is this: SE can make it so that a PLD holds hate forever. They just don't want to do it. They can't really do it. Not yet anyway until they are well into their new plans for EQ/WoW end game.


Beyond that I just don't have an answer for making PLD useful beyond the ochain/aegis. The only way to do it is to use cheats. Whether it's the above or have NMs detect jobs and if any job other than PLD is tanking it gets utterly raped(for example a war tanks it gets hit for 2k damage, PLD tanks they get hit for 300 dmg) or both or whatever. Cheats are cheats. A lot of MMORPGs have to resort to them for tank classes because the last thing you ever want to do is create a tank that's as powerful as DD and tanks. It just goes against the laws of... something.


I have an ochain and aegis and I'm totally for more options for lesser tiered shields. But make no mistake, no one who does their shout groups will care about anything less than ochain unless it is practically ochain. After going through my 75 colorless soul farming I'm not sure how I feel about such a shield. But I'm already used to the treatment with delve weapons so whatevs man. Whatevs.

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Originally Posted by Vold

As far as hate control goes, I recall this one MMORPG I had played for a few years. About 5 years into the game's existence the warrior tank class got a pretty big boost to holding hate. Just by engaging the warrior would essentially get a dev created "cheat" where by the only way to drag hate off of the warrior you would need to not be using your abilities to lose hate(like what BLM gets for example)

I can provide more examples but what it boils down to is this: SE can make it so that a PLD holds hate forever. They just don't want to do it. They can't really do it. Not yet anyway until they are well into their new plans for EQ/WoW end game.


Beyond that I just don't have an answer for making PLD useful beyond the ochain/aegis. The only way to do it is to use cheats. Whether it's the above or have NMs detect jobs and if any job other than PLD is tanking it gets utterly raped(for example a war tanks it gets hit for 2k damage, PLD tanks they get hit for 300 dmg) or both or whatever. Cheats are cheats. A lot of MMORPGs have to resort to them for tank classes because the last thing you ever want to do is create a tank that's as powerful as DD and tanks. It just goes against the laws of... something.


I have an ochain and aegis and I'm totally for more options for lesser tiered shields. But make no mistake, no one who does their shout groups will care about anything less than ochain unless it is practically ochain. After going through my 75 colorless soul farming I'm not sure how I feel about such a shield. But I'm already used to the treatment with delve weapons so whatevs man. Whatevs.

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Even if PLD was able to hold hate 100% of the time that wouldn't matter for anything outside of the "PLD holds a monster" situations. Currently that's Plasm farming (which is super tanked so hate isn't the issue) or groups who're diving into content without feeling confidant in using a more aggressive strategy yet.

As someone else had mentioned even if it's a monster that rips through DD's HP meaning they can't fill/share the tanking role then the monster just gets stun locked or PD/Embrava cycle zerged.

The whole combat system would need to be reworked in order for PLD with or without Aegis/Ochain to remain a relevant role in combat dynamics.