What happens when.....

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Originally Posted by Syzygian

CoC, and Spirits within

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Circle of Corn ?

http://us.123rf.com/450wm/homy_desig...background.jpg

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Originally Posted by Freyyy

Circle of Corn ?

http://us.123rf.com/450wm/homy_desig...background.jpg

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http://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/43334150.jpg

Thank you guys for handling that like it should have been with recognizing the comedic intention behind the posts.

Has anyone though about making Clemency a togglable self-only HoT? Think about it as sort of defensive Darkside. This would go a long way in alleviating PLDs aggro problems, would improve their DPS by requiring fewer flashes in AoE emnity situations, and would fit the theme of "Paladin" as well as a defensive tank.

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Originally Posted by Exodus_Kenpachi

Has anyone though about making Clemency a togglable self-only HoT? Think about it as sort of defensive Darkside. This would go a long way in alleviating PLDs aggro problems, would improve their DPS by requiring fewer flashes in AoE emnity situations, and would fit the theme of "Paladin" as well as a defensive tank.

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First I'd like to thank you for participating in the discussion within this thread, it warms my heart to know that you and those around you are giving perceivable issues the attention they deserve while maintaining respect and humility on the matter.

In regards to your suggestion, I'd imagine that in order for it to make a noticeable difference the Heal Ticks would have to be around 1500 HP or greater every second in regards to Savage Alexander content. Oppressor himself, currently with my equipment, hits me for in the ballpark of 2900 to 4000 (critical hit) with just an auto attack. When paired with Bloodbath it could make a difference in assisting healers in MP conservation leading from one jump phase into another. I could actually see this being a possibility in alleviating healer strain in a "I'll help you guys by helping myself" kind of way. It's a good idea for them to consider.


EDIT: If that is seriously considered by the developers, they're gonna' have to increase the amount of MP regenerated from Riot Blade to balance out issues in that concerning Flash and our Tank Stances, they require MP as well.

@Donjo - If you are referring to the lack of passives that increase the effectiveness of a cross class skill, then sure they could be considered inferior. But lets not be completely ignorant, flash as a cross class skill can work better on warrior than pld as a cross class skill. Not to say you'd be better off using it vs overpower, but then it doesn't use your tp resources.

Besides the -acc you get from the actual trait of flash, the main point of using it is aoe threat. Yet magically you can pop berserk on warrior, and now your flash is superior to pld. I realize nobody in their right mind as a warrior would waste berserk just to spam flash, but the point is it still gens more threat than a plds flash (with the same ilvl).

This is why I've argued that flash should have never been able to be cross classed to begin with; a remanent of 1.0. Originally I think the passive trait to it was turning it from single target to an AOE.

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Originally Posted by Xyphon

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It does? Flash as I understand it is 600 potency of hate flat, and is unaffected by any sort of buffs you have.

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Originally Posted by Syzygian

It does? Flash as I understand it is 600 potency of hate flat, and is unaffected by any sort of buffs you have.

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Unless it changed recently, as far as I know it scaled with attack power and other things. That's why Xyphon brought up the Berserk thing when using it, since it practically doubles enmity generation.

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Originally Posted by Shining_Tiger_Excalibur

Unless it changed recently, as far as I know it scaled with attack power and other things. That's why Xyphon brought up the Berserk thing when using it, since it practically doubles enmity generation.

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I know it used to scale off an equation that I can't find and determination was a large factor in determining the threat it produced. It's theorized that stances also affect it as it would count as an attack. So, if flash generated 1000 threat shield oath would drop it by 20% to 800 then double it to 1600. This is all conjecture from me though.

I'm sure someone here knows better.

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Originally Posted by karateorangutang

I know it used to scale off an equation that I can't find and determination was a large factor in determining the threat it produced. It's theorized that stances also affect it as it would count as an attack. So, if flash generated 1000 threat shield oath would drop it by 20% to 800 then double it to 1600. This is all conjecture from me though.

I'm sure someone here knows better.

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That is indeed the case. Weapon Damage, Determination, and Strength all affected it and any form of outgoing damage increase ability (like Fight or Flight) had no effect on it (and still don't.)


EDIT: Much like you, I am uncertain how the Tank Stance would directly modify it but they without a doubt do affect it.
EDIT II: I forgot to thank you for participating in the discussion thread so I'll add it here. Much like my other comments directed toward other users, I appreciate you for taking the time to comment on certain topics of discussion within this thread. It means a lot to me.

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Originally Posted by karateorangutang

I know it used to scale off an equation that I can't find and determination was a large factor in determining the threat it produced. It's theorized that stances also affect it as it would count as an attack. So, if flash generated 1000 threat shield oath would drop it by 20% to 800 then double it to 1600. This is all conjecture from me though.

I'm sure someone here knows better.

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My understanding is that flash scales on str from the testing I've done. Shield Oath also increases enmity at a higher rate than the damage loss from the stance and I don't think the stance directly lowers str but you can check in your character stats by turning it on and off. Regardless since flash does no damage it shouldn't be affected by the stance regardless aside from an enmity increase.

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Originally Posted by Dante_V

My understanding is that flash scales on str from the testing I've done. Shield Oath also increases enmity at a higher rate than the damage loss from the stance and I don't think the stance directly lowers str but you can check in your character stats by turning it on and off. Regardless since flash does no damage it shouldn't be affected by the stance regardless aside from an enmity increase.

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no it doesnt lower your str, but it does lower you attack. I was under the impression flash scaled off of attack and not str. Again I digress that I could indeed be wrong. I'd have to do some testing.

By laying things out like I did in my earlier post, its clear PLD has gaping holes in its DPS toolkit where DRK and WAR have everything they need (and probably more).

So as I see it, there are two solutions to this problem, and both of them have some pretty big stipulations as well (or would have).

Simply give them more DPS, or boost their defensive utility.

The fact is though, that you would have to give them some pretty hefty boosts to do the former, and having DRK or WAR deal less or equal damage than PLD when they wield gigantic two-handed weapons feels weird. I know people are quick to dismiss design-based reasons for not doing this/that/the other to a job, but you have to factor these in because the devs are definitely going to. As designers they have a vested interest in changes to the game that they make "making sense". Then there is DPS homogenization, which I don’t think is going to happen since they already have a pretty delicate balance with DRK and WAR, similar to the way PLD and WAR were in 2.x. WAR currently outdamages DRK as an OT, and the reverse is true in the MT slot. PLD comes close to neither of them in either stance. I think that they could make small adjustments, like a healthy boost to Circle of Scorn’s potency (their AoE needs some serious help) or reducing Fight or Flight’s cooldown to make it a more bonafide mitigation to their tank stance penalty.

I do not think they need some sort of resource management mechanic (stacks, MP-based DPS) as WAR and DRK have because this is such a blatant homogenization to a point beyond anything that people complain of now (and I'm usually the last to complain about it as it is). If you boost PLD DPS to a level that competes with WAR or even DRK, you further marginalize their defensive abilities. If they are going to have all these defensive/support abilities, they need to be powerful enough to facilitate increased raid-wide DPS to make up for the lack of personal DPS that they are saddled with. I do believe that the enmity modifiers on their abilities should be increased, and perhaps the recast time of FoF or potency of CoS could use some love, but certainly nothing game changing.

Their defensive utility, is in a weird spot though.
Imagine Cover’s range was 20y instead of 10, lasted 24s instead of 12, and covered physical and magical. Imagine Clemency had its cast time removed but still kept its MP cost, or vice versa. Imagine Divine Veil was an 80s CD instead of 150.
Do they feel like game changers now?

Didn’t think so.

That’s because so much of PLD’s toolkit is so situational.

So many of the interesting aspects of the job see use once per raid tier for like, one mechanic, if that. Even their cross-class abilities from WHM, like Stoneskin, are interesting on paper, but rarely see use, at least not for party support.

For all the criticism the other tanks, especially DRK, have gotten for having disjointed toolkits or mechanics, PLD’s seems the worst by far when you actually take the time to examine it. Its a bland set of combos with not a whole lot of exciting damage boosting tools, and a hodgepodge of defensive utilities that don’t go together or interact, and now in 3.0, an emphasis on MP that is a trainwreck in its design, as your MP returns/expenditures are so sporadic and situational that keeping track of it/maintenancing it does not graduate to being an actual mechanic of the job.

Its corresponding combos and DPS-related abilities have huge gaps in them that the other tanks just don’t have, and those gaps are filled with defensive/support abilities no one is finding a use for. RoH is its weakest combo and also the weakest enmity combo out of all the tanks and yet this is what it depends on for hate, whilst its other combos have no debuff or self-heal and are just pure damage. And unlike, for instance, a healer, who actually shifts gears between healing and DPSing, a tank is (or should be) always DPSing, to one extent or another, so for PLD to have to stop and cast abilities that aren’t doing damage and more importantly, not generating meaningful enmity, is silly. PLD loses so much more for casting abilities that, even if they were present on a job for whom they made sense, like WHM or AST, would be cumbersome and difficult to make use of (no healer would cast a heal with such a proportionately high MP cost as Clemency, for example).

Things like Divine Veil, Clemency, and Cover are designed to be PLD’s defensive raid utilities.
For example, WAR has Storm’s Path. Great all round, -10% damage on both sides of the spectrum.
DRK has Delirium, and while it only covers magic, they have an extra -10% on both sides in Reprisal, balanced with less uptime.
PLD has only Rage of Halone, which covers physical, which is arguably even less useful than Delirium as most raid-wide damage is NOT physical. So PLD has a bunch of miscellaneous utilities like Cover, Divine Veil, etc.

In order to make these things actually useful in the sense of PLD being more of a defensive support tank rather than an all-out offense tank like WAR, or an offensive tank with increased mobility, AoE, and resource management mechanics like DRK, they need to be buffed SUBSTANTIALLY.

Here are some ideas. Just spitballing. By no means do I think all of these are necessary and they are meant to be taken as just that - ideas - and not necessarily things that they "need".

While I don't specifically mention Stoneskin here, the ability to SS yourself or party members is a cool thing to have on PLD as healers generally do not cast SS much once a fight has started, except maybe before a tank buster, so having an extra party member that can do it that is not responsible for healing is definitely a utility, and some of these boosts keep that in mind and benefit this cross-class skill as well.

Flash- Now off-GCD but with a 5s recast. Same MP cost.

Cover- Duration increased to 20s, recast reduced to 90s, range increased to 20y. Covers physical and magical, and reduces damage transferred to the PLD by 50%. This would make the ability actually useful and available when it will be relevant, such as when another party member is having to tank an add or will be taking unavoidable damage.

Divine Veil- The initial buff is applied in an AoE so the heal will generate a shield on heal to any party member in range. Radius of initial buff and the shield increased to 20y. Recast reduced to 120s, and a shield is applied to the PLD as well, of double potency, making this an actual defensive CD. Until the buff is triggered, the initial Divine Veil status also acts as an MP refresh of similar potency to Shroud of Saints.
-Additionally, if used in Sword Oath, this will not shield the PLD, but will apply a regen in addition to a shield to party members in range. Both regen and shield stack with all healer equivalents.

Clemency- MP cost cut to 1768 from 2121 at lvl60. If used in Shield Oath, applies a proportionate shield as well as a heal to the PLD, and to the party member if they are the target. If used in Sword Oath, increases the duration of the PLD’s buffs by 10s, and to the party member if they are the target, with the PLD being granted a 5s increase in the latter scenario.

Sword Oath- Any spell cast under the effect of Sword Oath has its cast time halved.

Tempered Will- Duration increased to 20s. Surecast effect added.
Bulwark and Sheltron- Surecast effect added.

If these buffs sound overpowered, realize that outside of them, PLD offers no DPS utility and no defensive raid utility outside of Rage of Halone which is barely useful for anyone but the PLD themselves, and even then only on mostly physical fights, and the PLD has to STOP DPSING to use many of these. If the PLD is to be a defensive/support tank, its utilities that fulfill this role actually have to be powerful enough to afford healers/support classes free GCDs with which to DPS or focus on other mechanics to a meaningful extent (enough to make up for the shortage of DPS).

An additional, minor DPS increase that I feel needs to happen one way or another:

Shield Swipe - now costs 20 TP, potency buffed to 310 and restores MP.

The lowered MP costs and more numerous forms of MP management encourage PLD to make more liberal use of these abilities; as it stands now, not only is it difficult to find worthwhile opportunities to use them wherein they would actually be helpful or contribute anything of note, but the steep MP costs make it punishing as well (i.e. if you cast Clemency and the healer heals you/the target at the same time, you just wasted that Clemency and likely do not have the MP to cast it again). Riot Blade is currently pathetic for MP management, as it is a huge DPS loss to use the combo several times in a row, unlike DRK, for whom using Syphon Strike is almost constant in a DPS-efficient rotation.

I feel like a flat DPS increase is not necessarily the answer, since PLD still has no DPS-relevant mechanic to manage (MP, stacks, etc.) or meaningful DPS buffs/cooldowns that would not require a disproportionately large buff. WAR and DRK need to, to one extent or another, earn their personal DPS. If PLD is the defensive tank and WAR is the offensive one, with DRK somewhere in between, PLD's defensive utilities need a very very large boost to make them actually grant your party increased mileage in a raid scenario, especially with how DPSed focused the current meta is.

Also in regards to DPS, the FFLogs are based on performance in content and not necessarily dummy parses, the latter of which give a much better picture of the jobs' potential as the numbers are easily muddled by the current content and roles into which a given job is forced in said content. I.E the fact that DRK and PLD are most often in the MT slot often influences the overall damage output average.

I wish you the best of luck in this thread. It is very constructive and exhaustive, similar to this thread, which I leave here for reference because many of the ideas suggested and problems observed are similar:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...aladins-Thread

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Originally Posted by Syzygian

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Keep these kinds of arguments and rationalizations going guys, Square-Enix will need multiple viewpoints and reasoning behind proposed suggestion in order to form a middle ground from all the data they're getting. I ask only of you to keep in mind these are concepts with general numbers being said as to illustrate feasibility. I urge users to stay away from making personal attacks or making claims that a user is a failure for just talking to others.

As I said in my original post silence is the only great destroyer, so please don't force it onto people. Nurture suggestions for what they are.....just thoughts with good intentions in the users' hearts.

Just to touch on the STR and attack power scaling, your total STR = your attack power. So if you increase str, you're obviously also increasing your attack power.

@karateorangutang - I know the old formula you are referring to, and I think its really outdated. Most of it was done during phase 3 of beta testing for ARR lol. If you want the source I can link it.

From my own testing, I found that somehow weapon damage also effects flashes threat generation. Which is why its much harder to hold threat as pld spamming flash with a lower ilvl weapon vs dps with higher ilvl. The old formula used to have x 0.8 damage penalty from ShO, which also was found to be the same as using overpower with defiance.

There was some testing done a while back that showed even though flash doesn't actually deal damage, there's still factors of damage involved in how the threat is calculated.

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Originally Posted by Xyphon

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Yeah I assumed the formula no longer works, but I'm assuming the remnant base approach is the same. Seems like it would scale off of attack and not STR. I honestly have never checked, but does equipping a weapon with higher attack affect the attack stat directly? If it does that would makes sense as to why weapon damage is factored heavily into the formula.

@Karateorangutang - Unless the character screen is hiding information, your str is always identical to your attack power (which is why str is so important for tanks). Weapon damage doesn't even show up in the character screen, outside of looking at your gear.

Attack power says - Affects the amount of damage dealt by physical attacks. What's really odd is determination says the exact same thing except its both physical and magical + the amount of hp restored by healing. (I find it odd because for physical damage, det was only supposed to be physical auto attack damage). Tool tips ftw.

So what I'm saying is if there is some kind of effect, it does not show up in the character menu. I believe the only way people were able to confirm what effects flash was by the battle log aka parsing.

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Originally Posted by Xyphon

@Donjo - If you are referring to the lack of passives that increase the effectiveness of a cross class skill, then sure they could be considered inferior. But lets not be completely ignorant, flash as a cross class skill can work better on warrior than pld as a cross class skill. Not to say you'd be better off using it vs overpower, but then it doesn't use your tp resources.

Besides the -acc you get from the actual trait of flash, the main point of using it is aoe threat. Yet magically you can pop berserk on warrior, and now your flash is superior to pld. I realize nobody in their right mind as a warrior would waste berserk just to spam flash, but the point is it still gens more threat than a plds flash (with the same ilvl).

This is why I've argued that flash should have never been able to be cross classed to begin with; a remanent of 1.0. Originally I think the passive trait to it was turning it from single target to an AOE.

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Well, Berserk is rather unique in the world of Damage Increasing cooldowns in that it physically increases a stat(Attack Power) instead of just increasing your damage dealt by a multiplier. It would also make Clemency stronger, as silly as that is! Anyways, the reason Warrior can get more enmity out of Flash at times is that they can just get their stats higher. It's still a 600 potency spell no matter what your Attack Power stat is. Besides, I know this is subjective but I find it fun to blind things that can be blinded. I personally enjoy dealing with trash by trying to use Flash exactly three times in a pull, staggered such that the blind is extended as much as possible on all enemies. But that's just me.

As for the single target -> traited AOE thing, I do think that would be very interesting. A Flash that always blinds while producing enmity but this way Paladin would get a very clearly superior in all cases version of it.

Since a further discussion on Flash occurred while I was drafting this, I might as well input. Flash has been shown to generate 600 potency worth of enmity, with the total enmity generated scaling off of a combination of Weapon Damage, Attack Power, and Determination. Last time I saw someone math it out, it was observed that being in a Tank Stance does reduce the invisible damage it deals by its corresponding amount despite the opposite(the like of FoF enhancing it) not being true. A cruel double standard indeed.

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Originally Posted by Xyphon

@Karateorangutang - Unless the character screen is hiding information, your str is always identical to your attack power (which is why str is so important for tanks). Weapon damage doesn't even show up in the character screen, outside of looking at your gear.

Attack power says - Affects the amount of damage dealt by physical attacks. What's really odd is determination says the exact same thing except its both physical and magical + the amount of hp restored by healing. (I find it odd because for physical damage, det was only supposed to be physical auto attack damage). Tool tips ftw.

So what I'm saying is if there is some kind of effect, it does not show up in the character menu. I believe the only way people were able to confirm what effects flash was by the battle log aka parsing.

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They could probably verify it from having a Warrior and Paladin in a party only using Flash on a training dummy. It doesn't provide numbers explicitly but they could extract raw data from just how much enmity the training dummy takes from both of them side by side.

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Originally Posted by Xyphon

So what I'm saying is if there is some kind of effect, it does not show up in the character menu. I believe the only way people were able to confirm what effects flash was by the battle log aka parsing.

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Well that makes that stat rather extraneous....

Well seeing as I play on PS4 there would be no way for me to test this outside of generalizations. It's interesting nonetheless.

As far as I can tell, Flash is essentially treated as a 600 potency attack that cannot crit, scales in the same way all of your other attacks do, is unaffected by FoF because its magical, and has a special secondary effect of doing no damage. This means that under Shield Oath flash first has its power reduced to 80% but its enmity generation doubled. Since Flash does no damage anyway this essentially means it does 60% more enmity under Shield Oath, just like all of your other attacks.

As I and many other people have stated the core of PLD needs to drastically change. Personal mitigation is a moot point in a game where the developers are obviously biased against healer DPS, where fights have scripted burst damage that are planned for, and where all tanks have the ability to survive every encounter.

This leaves the tank with utility. DPS in FF (and all MMOs) is a MAJOR utility. PLD needs to be brought up to speed in this category and this category only, the question is in which way it needs to be done. Whether it be increased DPS through raid buffs (i.e Battle Litany-esque move), major debuffs placed on the boss to significantly decrease raidwide damage (Storms Path), or massive personal self heals (if Clemecy was a HoT) the core of PLD's "I can mitigate slightly better and easier than the other tanks" design is what needs to change.

At the end of the day nobody give a shit how much less damage was taken by one tank to the next as long as they both survived.

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Originally Posted by NFaelivrin

As far as I can tell, Flash is essentially treated as a 600 potency attack that cannot crit, scales in the same way all of your other attacks do, is unaffected by FoF because its magical, and has a special secondary effect of doing no damage. This means that under Shield Oath flash first has its power reduced to 80% but its enmity generation doubled. Since Flash does no damage anyway this essentially means it does 60% more enmity under Shield Oath, just like all of your other attacks.

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Shuffles over to FoF tooltip... It says physical. Mother...!

@Connor: One day I'll catch you on the linkshell and we're going to talk about Tanks and it'll be a hell of a time. Please look forward to it :P

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Originally Posted by Exodus_Kenpachi

As I and many other people have stated the core of PLD needs to drastically change. Personal mitigation is a moot point in a game where the developers are obviously biased against healer DPS, where fights have scripted burst damage that are planned for, and where all tanks have the ability to survive every encounter.

This leaves the tank with utility. DPS in FF (and all MMOs) is a MAJOR utility. PLD needs to be brought up to speed in this category and this category only, the question is in which way it needs to be done. Whether it be increased DPS through raid buffs (i.e Battle Litany-esque move), major debuffs placed on the boss to significantly decrease raidwide damage (Storms Path), or massive personal self heals (if Clemecy was a HoT) the core of PLD's "I can mitigate slightly better and easier than the other tanks" design is what needs to change.

At the end of the day nobody give a shit how much less damage was taken by one tank to the next as long as they both survived.

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Maybe I have too much faith in the devs (and I don't think its wholly misplaced, as tanks balanced or not, FFXIV is a hell of a game), but I don't think its outside the realm of possibility for them to make PLD's defensive/support utilities enough to outweigh their lack of DPS. Looking at DRK and WAR, both of whom wield big motherclucking two handed weapons, it makes no sense from a design standpoint for PLD to be "brought up to speed" with them in DPS. Now look at BRD and MCH. In the hands of equally skilled players neither of these will outdps, say, a DRG or MNK. But their utilities still make them valuable and even mandatory. I think they could do the same with PLD (a bit less than mandatory for balance purposes, but still extremely useful). They would need to completely unravel PLD's entire toolkit to turn them into what you're suggesting, as they already have an excess of abilities designed for defense or support that are just too situational but also too integral to the job's design. Since they've already dug this hole they need to try and make these things useful before they just throw the design out with the bathwater and turn PLD into a DRK clone or a WAR clone. Now raid DPS as opposed to personal DPS I could potentially get behind, but even then you're left with a sizable chunk of their toolkit just unused because nobody cares, as you said, whether you survive with 100 HP or 10000, 10 TP or 1000, as long as you survived and cleared the fight (a problem in design in and of itself but I'm in the minority in thinking that so I won't open that can of worms).

And for the record, since I have not been above advocating some minor DPS increases for PLD, I don't necessarily support PLD being "homogenized" or whatever with DRK and WAR (assuming those two are homogenized but even that I don't really buy, since their DPS comes from very different sources and the managing of MP on DRK and stacks on WAR just doesn't feel the same. Its like comparing classical to techno), and the reason for that is easily apparent in the changes that already came to PLD from 50 to 60. They tried to expand upon its defensive/support abilities in very half-hearted ways, and then, 180 degrees in the other direction, gave them a DPS focused combo tree that draws direct parallels to 2.x WAR and now DRK as well, but is wholly inefficient in the context of a rotation, since the most potent one is a DoT (not spammable as a reward for proper play, like DA Souleater) and the next most potent one is pure damage (no assistance in utility or enmity like Storm's Eye or Butcher's Block). So essentially, they tried to homogenize a bit in one area, which has backfired completely, and then differentiate it in another, existing area, which has proven next-to-useless. They need to pick one or the other and run with it or the job is going to continue to feel watered down and "boring".

As it stands now, I am actually enjoying lvl 60 PLD less than lvl 50 PLD. The simplicity of the whole 1-2-3 1-2-3 Halone combo that people QQed about so much in 2.x freed you up to make efficient and regular use of PLD's other utilities without letting DoTs or debuffs fall off or losing enmity or any other such nonsense that you have to put up with now. It felt totally comfortable and even second nature, while playing lvl 50 PLD, to look after my party and throw a SS here and there or Cover somebody that was taking a beating. Now its simply cumbersome, counterintuitive, and conflicting. There are reasons that abilities like that weren't given to WAR in those days, and one of them is because the job had a (relatively) complex rotation and actual mechanics to manage.

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Originally Posted by Donjo

Shuffles over to FoF tooltip... It says physical. Mother...!

@Connor: One day I'll catch you on the linkshell and we're going to talk about Tanks and it'll be a hell of a time. Please look forward to it :P

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Bwahaha, yes indeed!

Eh, I don't really think the usefulness of paladin's utility has much to do with its new combos. Cover has always been a stupid gimmick. There's like five fights (I can think of two off the top of my head, but I'm being generous) in ARR where it's useful and mayyyybe one or two now. Stoneskin still has its uses, but Clemency covers some of its old territory. The big thing always has been that paladin gets a lot of unique crap (sup bind/heavy removal) but warrior (and now drk) has to be able to do anything paladin can, so all that unique stuff ends up being a minor convenience (not getting knocked around while clearing land mines in Avatar) or useless (can't remove raid heavy, can't pacify anything, can't blind anything, stun mechanics are always timed so warrior can do them). Paladin got a couple new problems in 3.0 and had some old ones fixed, but I think the state of its utility skills is pretty much the same.

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Originally Posted by Syzygian

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I think you are missing my point. What I am trying to say is that PLD utility needs to be changed/increased. Right now the only tank utility in the game falls into 3 categories that matter: Personal DPS, Raid DPS buffs, and Raid Mitigation. Nothing outside of those three things matters at all on a raid level. Designing a fight that better suits PLDs "tools" basically means making the fight have physical busters, physical raidwide damage, and trash mobs that make the shield useful. The problem with that is that IT WON'T MATTER. People will still bring WAR for the increased DPS, Path, and the fact that they mitigate physical moves just as well as magical moves. People will still bring a DrK because guess what, it does more DPS, can survive everything in an encounter, and has utility with Reprisal and Delirium Blade.

The core problem with PLD is that nobody gives a shit about how much a tank can mitigate. It is literally a non-issue. This is due to the tank meta revolving around scripted burst damage, weak AAs, defensive stats being alonst worthless, and what utility a tank brings to the table.

So once again we need look at the three things that MATTER: Personal DPS, Raid DPS increases, and Raid Mitigation.

The only area that makes sense for PLD to be buffed is in Raid DPS incease (Think Ninja). This would go a long way in alleviating the tanking problems. Particularly the PLD+Drk party composition problems.

If you make PLD the Raid Wide DPS buff + High personal mitigation + Low Personal DPS tank and DrK the Raid Wide Damage Taken Debuff tank with moderate personal DPS then there would be some incentive to run DrK+PLD.

The problem that we will continue to see with the 3 tank system is that parties will generally be taking whichever composition allows for the most DPS.

So until we see the day when WAR+PLD, WAR+DRK, and PLD+DRK all equal comparable raid DPS; one tank will continue to be left out.

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Originally Posted by Exodus_Kenpachi

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I'm overjoyed at how you guys are handling the situation right now and from what I'm seeing the majority of us are in agreement on the overall issue that Paladin faces; that issue is it needs SOMETHING other than the "I survive hits better" philosophy that the developers have forced onto the job. Paladins have an excessive amount of defensive cooldowns yet it doesn't possess the ability to overcome its weaknesses by using them. I can relate this to Psychology in such a way of "Classical Conditioning."


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_conditioning

'Classical conditioning occurs when a conditioned stimulus is paired with an unconditioned stimulus. Usually, the conditioned stimulus (CS) is a neutral stimulus (e.g., the sound of a tuning fork), the unconditioned stimulus (US) is biologically potent (e.g., the taste of food) and the unconditioned response (UR) to the unconditioned stimulus is an unlearned reflex response (e.g., salivation). After pairing is repeated (some learning may occur already after only one pairing), the organism exhibits a conditioned response (CR) to the conditioned stimulus when the conditioned stimulus is presented alone. The conditioned response is usually similar to the unconditioned response (see below), but unlike the unconditioned response, it must be acquired through experience and is relatively impermanent.'

If you apply that quote in such a way that it relates to Paladin, you'll realize that we're not rewarded with anything for doing our job other than survival. The more I think about it, THAT'S the reason so many are feeling empty when playing Paladin. We just survive and that's it. There's no intangible emotion like Joy or Pride involved after taking a huge hit because we know we're still doing peanuts for damage and surviving only the same as the other two tanks.

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Originally Posted by Exodus_Kenpachi

If you make PLD the Raid Wide DPS buff + High personal mitigation + Low Personal DPS tank and DrK the Raid Wide Damage Taken Debuff tank with moderate personal DPS then there would be some incentive to run DrK+PLD.

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This sounds good but it would almost make DRK the de-facto MT across any content unless the raid dps buff PLD gets is specifically gated behind them tanking something. If PLD got a buff like that that was usable regardless of stance you would assuredly get the most bang for your buck putting the DRK in the MT slot every time since they top the DPS charts in that role if they are allowed to stance-dance liberally.

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Originally Posted by Exodus_Kenpachi

weak AAs

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Living Liquid called saying something about his 11K AA crits, I think its for you.

From the time I've recently spent on the Official Forums and on some popular streamers' twitch channels, more and more people are waking up to the fact that band-aid applications don't fix a job suffering from a sucking chest wound (by the way, unless you have a strong stomach, don't look this up on an image or video search.) We as users need to keep hammering this point in each and every thread to get the point across. Increases in enmity and potency, unless astronomical, will not fix the lack of synergy a job has, not only with itself, but other jobs as well. A huge amount of people only focus on what's happening now when instead they should be thinking of the next 8 months to 1 year.

Case in point: I was actually farming Blood Dragons today and thinking of how my suggestions would come into play damage dealt wise. I figured the hardest I'll be able to hit for (all strength accessories) would be around 3200 on a critical hit with my combo finisher Royal Authority AND with Fight or Flight active at the time. I can't even hit for HALF the damage of other tank jobs when I'm trying, even with adding my suggested damage increase. It's no wonder Paladins are literally performing at half the potential...I remember a time in 2.x when Paladin and Warrior did competitive damage as off tanks and somewhat competitive damage as main tanks. This clearly isn't the case anymore.....

I'd also like to, again, thank you guys for keeping this thread relatively clean and respectful.

EDIT: Obviously with better equipment will come higher numbers, however, that scales with other tanks as well.

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Originally Posted by Shining_Tiger_Excalibur

Case in point: I was actually farming Blood Dragons today and thinking of how my suggestions would come into play damage dealt wise. I figured the hardest I'll be able to hit for (all strength accessories) would be around 3200 on a critical hit with my combo finisher Royal Authority AND with Fight or Flight active at the time. I can't even hit for HALF the damage of other tank jobs when I'm trying, even with adding my suggested damage increase. It's no wonder Paladins are literally performing at half the potential...I remember a time in 2.x when Paladin and Warrior did competitive damage as off tanks and somewhat competitive damage as main tanks. This clearly isn't the case anymore.....

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What? Are you seriously comparing a single Royal Authority hit to a single Fell Cleave hit? You have to be joking. PLD doesn't have the burst WAR has, and it never had it. PLD's damage is far more sustained: FoF is slightly weaker but lasts 50% longer and has no drawback. Your autoattacks are fast and Sword Oath adds a lot of unnoticeable damage to them. You have 2 DoTs: one that's very strong and another that's off GCD. The only "burst" PLD has is Spirits Within. Their sustained damage in Sword Oath with Storm's Eye/Dancing Edge is competitive with WAR, and their Shield Oath damage was NEVER competitive.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shining_Tiger_Excalibur

Case in point: I was actually farming Blood Dragons today and thinking of how my suggestions would come into play damage dealt wise. I figured the hardest I'll be able to hit for (all strength accessories) would be around 3200 on a critical hit with my combo finisher Royal Authority AND with Fight or Flight active at the time. I can't even hit for HALF the damage of other tank jobs when I'm trying, even with adding my suggested damage increase. It's no wonder Paladins are literally performing at half the potential...I remember a time in 2.x when Paladin and Warrior did competitive damage as off tanks and somewhat competitive damage as main tanks. This clearly isn't the case anymore.....

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MNKs rarely crit above 4k; DRGs can crit for above 6k more frequently. I guarantee you DRGS don't do 50% more damage.

I think people who are looking at major changes to PLD are taking the imbalances too far. PLD doesn't need any huge design changes in my opinion.

You start by looking at the primary reasons why DRKs and WARs are desired in progression content. It's really an issue with raid DPS, raid mitigation, and comp synergy.

So, raid DPS. You need to increase PLD's contributed raid DPS. Pretty straight forward. If you don't want to increase their individual DPS because of design flavor, then you need to increase their indirect contributions through raid support. I don't think it's effective or easily quantifiable to base this around the idea of PLD survivability increasing healer DPS. Also, whatever change you make has to have a larger impact on PLD MT DPS than their OT DPS because PLD OT DPS is not that far behind WAR and DRK.

Personally, I think shield swipe is an easy target for killing five birds with one stone and way too good of a candidate-for-change to ignore. First off, they need to readjust the skill anyways because it wasn't properly adjusted for HW. Secondly, any change you make to it will be inherently skewed towards MT DPS since you need to block an attack to trigger it. Third, it reinforces PLD's unique characteristic of having a shield. As is, you block an attack and don't really care. PLD's shield should mean something. Imagine getting excited about blocking an attack because you look forward to shield swiping. It also makes tanking more interactive with more reactionary skills. While pacification is a unique debuff it's clunky in application because of how selective its effect is and is largely a useless effect especially in raiding content where PLD is struggling. So, it's an easy debuff to change. Lastly, using Swipe more helps PLD's TP issues. It's the final skill you get from the gladiator quest line. It should feel like more.

As for PLD's raid DPS contribution in AoE heavy fights, if you don't want PLDs dealing actual damage because of design flavor reasons, then just change the debuff for Flash's trait to something more meaningful than blind.

Next, raid mitigation. This is another easy issue to address because there is one skill that is obviously under performing for this function -- Divine Veil. WARs have Storm's Path. If you look at the debuff from a different perspective, it's essentially a persistent damage shield equal to 10% of the incoming damage with really high up-time. DRKs have Reprisal and Delirium which are both similar to Path. Divine Veil is a stronger shield but with a tiny fraction of the up-time that Path, Reprisal, and Delirium have. The biggest advantage DV has is that it doesn't require a full combo or parry to apply but even that is complicated by requiring a heal to trigger.

In the end, you have the sworn protector of the people lagging behind DRK and WAR in their ability to protect their allies. If you want PLDs to be the defensive tank, then make them the defensive tank. Give them raid mitigation that is actually better than WAR and DRK. Give them raid mitigation strong enough to cover for WARs full DPSing instead of applying Path at a DPS loss, DRKs full DPSing with no need to upkeep Delirium, raid groups bringing NIN / DRG, etc.

They need to equalize the raid wide utility of Paladin & Dark Knight to bring them in-line compared to Warrior in the OT slot.

Personally i195 PLD flat out in A1S P1 and A3S P1 I am just pushing 815-850dps MT in Sword Oath keeping hate requires I have a Ninja and be very confident in my healers - which I am but it certainly doesn't feel right and the increased damage I get from running like this is hardly worth being a hairbreadth away from losing enmity; having to be sure time & rotate my abilities exactly, to cycle through the appropriate combos in a precise order to even manage it. With all that - I personally can't maintain those numbers for an entire encounter either, I eventually have to swap into Shield Oath, it's practically unavoidable.

I have watched Warrior, and even played my own Warrior - we pull significantly more damage, have better tools, and we aren't laboring under any obvious deficiencies. On Warrior (which I have by no means mastered) I easily can push higher numbers than my absolute best as Paladin (which I have played primarily in raids since Twintania) with less gear. My Paladin damage is just insignificant while my Warrior sustains a higher output for the entire encounter without the accompanying risk or effort.

Personally I feel at loss when I read these forums - the imbalance seems pretty clear to me but maybe on a spreadsheet or in theory it balances out; but in practice it doesn't seem to work that way - at least not from my experience. The addition of a third tank and a raid with tight damage checks has really thrown the tank meta into a spotlight. There are huge flaws of concept with their Job design and encounter construction when you specifically need to avoid certain group combinations because they're impractical at best; See Dark Knight Paladin compositions. It makes little sense to have one Job with easy access to raid wide mitigation, slashing debuffs, and the highest potential damage because it is guaranteed to be included even required; Warrior shines because it has the most utility and fits the meta perfectly.

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Originally Posted by Launched

What? Are you seriously comparing a single Royal Authority hit to a single Fell Cleave hit? You have to be joking. PLD doesn't have the burst WAR has, and it never had it. PLD's damage is far more sustained: FoF is slightly weaker but lasts 50% longer and has no drawback. Your autoattacks are fast and Sword Oath adds a lot of unnoticeable damage to them. You have 2 DoTs: one that's very strong and another that's off GCD. The only "burst" PLD has is Spirits Within. Their sustained damage in Sword Oath with Storm's Eye/Dancing Edge is competitive with WAR, and their Shield Oath damage was NEVER competitive.

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I will politely offer my opinion that you are wrong. I've watched countless videos from reliable sources that prove your statements wrong when concerning competitive damage when performing raid mechanics and on paper.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTsVLBMAgsE
http://imgur.com/cEIx1I4
http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/120318-Paladin-VS-Warrior-Battle-of-the-Off-Tank-DPS

I also used to be in a raid group where the leader would embarrass and belittle me if I didn't even get in the ballpark of his numbers since he had ACT up constantly (keep in mind I, and others, left him in the dust because of that attitude and made our own FC.) I very intimately knew then and know now what Paladins face in the matter of where the job lacks what it needs. We do peanuts for damage, have an ability kit that does not have synergy concerning the direction we're forced, we can't make up for our own weaknesses, and furthermore we can't even help others make up for what we lack.

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Originally Posted by RapBreon

MNKs rarely crit above 4k; DRGs can crit for above 6k more frequently. I guarantee you DRGS don't do 50% more damage.

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I couldn't agree more, the numbers have been fudged at some point. When you take into account all the data logging services showing that Paladins aren't even close to doing competitive damage in Sword Oath/Shield Oath while having a Ninja or Warrior assist them in DPS/Aggro management, in addition to the issues with Paladin kit, the only thing you can do is shake your head in wonder.

In addition to my posts thus far concerning today, I'd like to thank you all for participating and sharing your opinions on the matter at hand. I am happy with the discourse and maturity.


EDIT: I am of the firm opinion that even with slight modifications, the next raid tier will again, show Paladins falling on their faces trying to do the content. I am convinced the job needs more than just a little more in some places. I just have a feeling, and feelings like that are seldom wrong.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shining_Tiger_Excalibur

I will politely offer my opinion that you are wrong. I've watched countless videos from reliable sources that prove your statements wrong when concerning competitive damage when performing raid mechanics and on paper.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTsVLBMAgsE
http://imgur.com/cEIx1I4
http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/120...e-Off-Tank-DPS

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What are these links meant to show? All I'm seeing is that OT parses were similar between PLD and WAR in 2.x, and that was the case when I compared my DPS to a PLD in my FC back around i180. The video also shows that a PLD in Shield Oath most of the time gets heavily outDPSed by WAR in Defiance most of the time. They just support what I said: competitive OT DPS, PLD gets destroyed in MT DPS.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Launched

What are these links meant to show? All I'm seeing is that OT parses were similar between PLD and WAR in 2.x, and that was the case when I compared my DPS to a PLD in my FC back around i180. The video also shows that a PLD in Shield Oath most of the time gets heavily outDPSed by WAR in Defiance most of the time. They just support what I said: competitive OT DPS, PLD gets destroyed in MT DPS.

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Funnily enough from the recent parsing I just did, this isn't the case anymore. I'm actually flabbergasted by how similar Warrior and Paladin DPS is in tank stance (I can attribute it to the second DoT and Royal Authority combo.) We were both in similar equipment down to the same slaying accessories and we were both at similar DPS (we only used our dps abilities.) The script has actually been flipped....he crushed me in DPS by more than 300 in our respective DPS stances instead. What this shows is that you aren't right when you say it's the same now. We just offhandedly had a level 54 warrior do a random fell cleave that hit for 2k with no slashing debuff....you're wrong on both accounts now and your DPS must have been while you were still learning. There's no possible way off tank DPS is comparable unless that Paladin greatly outgeared you.

EDIT: If you'd like to question the ability of that Warrior I had parsing with me, he's in Dancing Mad with Hadley Brightfoot if that means anything. The guy obviously knows what he's doing and even he admits that in order for a Paladin to now match a Warriors off tank DPS something wrong has to happen in the form of stats, equipment or ability.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dhex

They need to equalize the raid wide utility of Paladin & Dark Knight to bring them in-line compared to Warrior in the OT slot.

Personally i195 PLD flat out in A1S P1 and A3S P1 I am just pushing 815-850dps MT in Sword Oath keeping hate requires I have a Ninja and be very confident in my healers - which I am but it certainly doesn't feel right and the increased damage I get from running like this is hardly worth being a hairbreadth away from losing enmity; having to be sure time & rotate my abilities exactly, to cycle through the appropriate combos in a precise order to even manage it. With all that - I personally can't maintain those numbers for an entire encounter either, I eventually have to swap into Shield Oath, it's practically unavoidable.

I have watched Warrior, and even played my own Warrior - we pull significantly more damage, have better tools, and we aren't laboring under any obvious deficiencies. On Warrior (which I have by no means mastered) I easily can push higher numbers than my absolute best as Paladin (which I have played primarily in raids since Twintania) with less gear. My Paladin damage is just insignificant while my Warrior sustains a higher output for the entire encounter without the accompanying risk or effort.

Personally I feel at loss when I read these forums - the imbalance seems pretty clear to me but maybe on a spreadsheet or in theory it balances out; but in practice it doesn't seem to work that way - at least not from my experience. The addition of a third tank and a raid with tight damage checks has really thrown the tank meta into a spotlight. There are huge flaws of concept with their Job design and encounter construction when you specifically need to avoid certain group combinations because they're impractical at best; See Dark Knight Paladin compositions. It makes little sense to have one Job with easy access to raid wide mitigation, slashing debuffs, and the highest potential damage because it is guaranteed to be included even required; Warrior shines because it has the most utility and fits the meta perfectly.

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I agree with everything you've said. Are my proposed suggestions the solution? Most likely not, even I know this. Do Dark Knight and Paladin need more than just a little more? Absolutely yes, we need a toolkit that works with itself and other jobs similar to Warrior but in different ways. People lose track of the matters at hand and ruthlessly defend either in favor of or against certain things. Square-Enix will be able to make decisions on what to do with the feedback they're getting. What we're doing is offering ideas that can be molded, altered, and re-purposed to do what the community wants. For those reading this, I understand that my thread isn't THE solution. What my thread does is make the frame for the picture they see, it's a piece of the puzzle, one of the cogs in a timepiece if you will. Please don't take what I say personally, Square-Enix won't.