December incoming PLD changes are not useful

[Seish]

For conveneince sake, I will quote from page one SE's detailed reply from that Manifesto:

Howdy!

Sorry to make all of you paladins wait! While this might not cover every single question and request we have seen, the below is a hefty portion of responses toward your feedback.

We would like the enmity cap to be raised.

When considering the nature of the game, we would like to leave the enmity cap as it is currently and focus instead on specific adjustments for each job.

Add an ability that has a high amount of enmity like Provoke.

We are currently looking into adjustments that will make it possible for paladins to up the amount of enmity they gain in situations where party members’ enmity is steadily rising due to high damage output. However, as was shown in the concept, instead of an ability like Provoke that gives a spike in enmity, we are focusing more on the direction of adding elements that will allow of enmity gain as a part of defense and being able to maintain a high amount of enmity that has been accumulated.

Add an ability like in Ballista where you can constantly hold a target’s attention for a set period of time.

This seems like it would be a good stat to be granted during Invincible. We will look into it.

It’s really rough trying to maintain the focus of enemies that have enmity reset abilities. Do you have anything planned for this?

Though we haven’t decided on the specific effects and implementation method, we will be preparing some method to address this.

Add an ability that absorbs a party/alliance member’s enmity.

Though it doesn’t absorb enmity directly, Cover has an effect that is very close.

Reduce the recast timer on Shield Bash.

When we make adjustments to the merit point system we will look into making changes to the recast timer when applying merit points to Shield Bash.

Increase the activation rate of shield blocks.

In the next version update, we are planning to add an ability that will temporarily increase the activation of shield blocks as well as make is so no enmity is lost.

Are you planning any kind of specialized mode change for shield defense?

While it will require you to be under the effect of an ability, we are thinking of making a new ability similar to what you described that focuses on raising the defensive stats of your shield.

We would like an increase in enmity effect when our shields activate.

The concern here is that stats for shields with high block rates (like Ochain) would become too high. Since we would have to make balance adjustments such as raising the shield activation rate on other shields, we are currently not thinking about this.

Make it possible to use Cover on alliance members as well.

Since Cover was designed to only function with party members, it would be necessary to carefully look into the balance of battles if we expanded it to cover alliance members, so it is not something we can change without a lot of testing. This is same way we approach all abilities and spells for jobs.

When using Cover, we would like the offset enmity to be given to the paladin.

Thief’s Trick Attack ability already features a similar effect, so we’d rather they be used in this type of situation.

Add an ability that makes it so an enemy’s AoE attack does not affect other party members when the paladin is the main target.

While we will not be making it so AoE attacks are totally avoidable, we are looking into making it so that the effect of Sentinel can be spread to party members for a period of time to protect them.

Add an enmity bonus to Cure.

We’d like to look into if we could add something to merit points that would be like an enmity boosting version of Tranquil Heart.

I’m pretty sure that Fencer should be for paladin…

Paladin has a high amount of defense, so we are not thinking about adding a high amount of attack power on top of their defense currently.

Their plan for PLD is very clear when this was posted. And it seems they won't budge giving anything remote to what you all are asking for, regardless how many people beg for it because of possible balancing issues. I think it's reasonable too. And at least here, they give the community a detailed response why they wont. Whereas in BST adjustments, however, they are very quiet.