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

[Duelle]

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.

Sadly, I reach this conclusion as well. You have to set a strict guideline for tank and non-tank survivability with neither interlapping. Then establish your tank classes, give them the needed tools to hold hate and generate enmity at the same capacity the DPS can. Then design the boss mobs around that. It is admitedly a ton of work, but the devs have been sitting on their hands when it came to this since pre-CoP.

[Zhronne]

I disagree.
I concur that it would require a lot of changes, but it wouldn't be as massive as you make it be.

A small nerf to Aegis/Ochain, better normal shield, and better job traits to PLD main job would be all that's needed.
That means shifting some of the power that currently lies into Aegis/Ochain, into the job itself.
The overall result of PLD + Aegis/Ochain would remain the same as it is today, but the distribution of power would be more even instead of the current one which is shifted towards the shields instead than the job itself.

It would also make PLD + another shield a more viable option, while still not as good as Ochain/Aegis.
Min/Maxers of HNMLS would still be aiming for Aegis/Ochain of course, but for other content (PUGs, etc) or for when all your Ochain/Aegis PLDs are offline, other options would be more viable than they are as of now.

[Mirage]

I can agree with that.

[Zagen]

I disagree.
I concur that it would require a lot of changes, but it wouldn't be as massive as you make it be.

A small nerf to Aegis/Ochain, better normal shield, and better job traits to PLD main job would be all that's needed.
That means shifting some of the power that currently lies into Aegis/Ochain, into the job itself.
The overall result of PLD + Aegis/Ochain would remain the same as it is today, but the distribution of power would be more even instead of the current one which is shifted towards the shields instead than the job itself.

It would also make PLD + another shield a more viable option, while still not as good as Ochain/Aegis.
Min/Maxers of HNMLS would still be aiming for Aegis/Ochain of course, but for other content (PUGs, etc) or for when all your Ochain/Aegis PLDs are offline, other options would be more viable than they are as of now.

How does that addresses this question: What's the point of bringing a PLD to an event where a DD would overall be a better choice?

Aegis and Ochain aren't the problem with the concept of a "tank" in FFXI.

[FrankReynolds]

Some things I think might help the situation:
* Increase Paladin's survive-ability in general (not through extremely difficult to obtain gear).
* Give NMs (only NMS not nq mobs) incredibly powerful single target / conal attacks
* Remove AOE deathga type attacks and replace them with strong AOE debuffs etc.
* Don't make NMs that can (and usually have to) be killed in less than 5 minutes
* Increase the emnity cap for tank jobs
* Stop making time limited content that forces people to zerg
* Stop making single spawn points that force people to wait for other people to take their sweet ass time


Most of those things are really easy to implement.

[Zhronne]

How does that addresses this question: What's the point of bringing a PLD to an event where a DD would overall be a better choice?

Not sure I get your question, I might have missed something along the way.
Allow me to recap from the beginning.

• PLD was useless.
• To make it more useful SE introduced a lot of changes, among which NMs that do so much damage that DDs can't possibly tank them.
• PLD is now useful but those NMs are so strong that Aegis/Ochain are required for that PLD to be even considered for the role.

So, correct me if I'm wrong, the problem of the op is not just that PLD is still useless, but rather that to be useful it has to rely on two items.
This is a strange situation because tipically a job has all the tools he needs to do his job from his job abilities/traits/supportjob and Equip just helps him do his job better.
Here we're talking about mandatory gear.
Which is not that far from the "R/E/M required" situation that we saw before SoA for DDs
Yet that situation has been partially solved (or, let's say, mitigated) by the introduction of Delve weapons and how easy they are to obtain.
PLD didn't receive such a (compromisory) treatment, and hence this thread.

My point is that atm PLD's usefulness is too much shifted towards the shields.
Allow me to make a numeric example (don't take it too seriously, it's just an example)
Total PLD power ==> 100
PLD job power => 20
Aegis/Ochain power ==> 80

What I suggested is to keep the same total number (100) so that the situation doesn't really change compared to now, but to "shift" the balance and make it something like 40/60? 50/50? Whatever, anything better than the current one.
This change in addition with more decent shields would create a scenario where Aegis/Ochain are still the best and min-maxer would still aim for those, but everybody else would still be able to provide a much higher level of usefulness making PLD viable even without Ochain/Aegis.


This was my point.
Now please explain again your question to me because I still don't get what you meant.

[Zagen]

Not sure I get your question, I might have missed something along the way.
Allow me to recap from the beginning.

• PLD was useless.
• To make it more useful SE introduced a lot of changes, among which NMs that do so much damage that DDs can't possibly tank them.
• PLD is now useful but those NMs are so strong that Aegis/Ochain are required for that PLD to be even considered for the role.

So, correct me if I'm wrong, the problem of the op is not just that PLD is still useless, but rather that to be useful it has to rely on two items.

Actually the issue is most PLD suck, Ochain and Aegis go a very long way to hide this fact. Combine that with the fact most PLD who are actually good have those 2 shields because they not only take them from good to great but good to awesome in the 3 things a PLD is good at doing in this game:
1) Super tanking.
2) Against new content that hasn't been figured out.
3) Against old content that has been figured out but the group is scared of using a more effective strategy that is more aggressive either because they lack the jobs or player skill.

1 is replaceable by a sac or Twilight Zombie. 2 and 3 don't require Ochain or Aegis they just make it much much easier especially if the PLD in question isn't living, eating, and dreaming tanking.

My point is that atm PLD's usefulness is too much shifted towards the shields.
Allow me to make a numeric example (don't take it too seriously, it's just an example)
Total PLD power ==> 100
PLD job power => 20
Aegis/Ochain power ==> 80

I agree with these numbers but not because of PLD as a job or the gear it has available but because of the players behind most PLDs. I've seen Adamas/Delve Shield PLDs do the same thing Aegis/Ochain PLDs are wanted to do in Delve NM clears and fracture farming. The difference is doing it with those shields requires more skill.

This was my point.
Now please explain again your question to me because I still don't get what you meant.

In a world (FFXI) where the safest way to kill a monster is as fast as possible. When there are options such as Stun, Terror, Embrava, Perfect Defense, MNK's HP, easy to cap DT sets for nearly all DDs. How does PLD which doesn't help speed up a fight fit?

As I said PLD's problem goes far beyond Ochain and Aegis.

[Duelle]

I disagree.
I concur that it would require a lot of changes, but it wouldn't be as massive as you make it be.

All you're doing with this is fixing the discrepancy between non-Aegis PLDs and Aegis PLDs while entirely ignoring the underlying problem of tank design and tanks relative to the other jobs in the game.

The reason I'd call for bigger changes is simply due to combat being (IMO) utterly borked, with class dynamics suffering most from this lack of action/attention. I am aware that the jobs were most likely imitating guidelines from prior FF games where tank classes don't really exist. Likewise, I also think you need clearly-defined tanks (and healers and DPS) to get working group dynamics without the problem we are currently facing, where the "tank" job is getting ignored because DPS jobs can gear up to mitigate damage, and while still less effective at mitigating damage are still preferred due to a net gain in kill speed over "wasting" that slot with a PLD.

[OmnysValefor]

The problem is, like I said before:

There's too much dt gear. Se has blurred the line so far. Yes high defense and low defense matter more now than they probably ever have, but not to an extent that dt gear doesn't make up for the low end. DPS can, will, and should (in this dynamic) still tank many things. SE tried turning things on high with some of the numbers and all it did was make groups demand more out of their mages.

The game has gotten to the point that NMs could hit a player for 75% of his total health, ever hit (so two hits with no heals would kill) and players would dt up and still try to zerg it.

The high baseline requirement for paladin isn't caused by paladin, or even paladin's gear. It's that paladin has two purposes. A safety net that the mob will swing at sometimes and keep the mages safe if fecal hits fan, and an add-jockey.

I guess that's the key really. A pld/war without aegis or ochain isn't that much better of a tank than a war/pld in the exact same gear. The warrior will likely hold hate better. (War/pld merely for comparison's sake, for both having access to defender and sentinel). Yeah the pld will block more. A sam/war might hold his own as well for having defender and full-timing Seigan (merely argument's sake).

Still, it's not the shields that are broken but simply that it takes the shields to have an edge over a properly geared dps.

[Duelle]

There's too much dt gear. Se has blurred the line so far. Yes high defense and low defense matter more now than they probably ever have, but not to an extent that dt gear doesn't make up for the low end. DPS can, will, and should (in this dynamic) still tank many things. SE tried turning things on high with some of the numbers and all it did was make groups demand more out of their mages.

The only answer I have to this is, regardless of how you feel about -DT, to remove it from the game and give PLD/tanks traits that allow it/them to get more defense (thus mitigation) from armor than non-tank jobs.

Ideally I'd add any -DT on gear to that piece's specific armor value, then change Defense Bonus to act as a multiplier for Defense Rating gained from equipment rather than increasing defense by a flat amount. The multiplier would be small pre-50, and then you really start seeing the benefits once you get Defense Bonus III. Then I'd balance everything with the idea that the tank has the edge on mitigation over everyone else, as players wouldn't be able to bypass having a tank by just swapping in -DT gear.

-DT was a shortcut to dealing with mitigation without putting the actual work needed to fix defense. Even what they've recently done is a far cry from what I would think needs to be done to address this problem.

Still, it's not the shields that are broken but simply that it takes the shields to have an edge over a properly geared dps.

The shields are accessory to a bigger problem. Excluding them from the equation is foolhardy, IMO.