PLD is just boring

I agree the job is a total mess. It's got that aesthetic though.

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Originally Posted by Hayward

To be perfectly honest, if you're looking for an adrenaline rush you're playing the wrong role. Tanking is not about thrillseeking. It's about keeping 3 or 7 others from being slaughtered.

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I dissagree, tanking is completely about the rush. It's the unpredicatability of the role that draws many to it. Thats also a big problem with tanking in this game. Barely surviving a big hit is absolutely about the rush...

Getting high numbers on a hit isnt unpredictable. It's cool... but not a "rush" in any way since it's expected. There's two major camps to tanking, those that see themselves as protectors and those who see themselves as optimizers ( I identify with the latter ), and dependent on which one you are it can alter how you look at tank rather profoundly.

Both, however, are very valid viewpoints and really shouldn't be looked down upon.

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Originally Posted by karateorangutang

I dissagree, tanking is completely about the rush. It's the unpredicatability of the role that draws many to it. Thats also a big problem with tanking in this game.

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Or... you know, for different people it's different things. It's great that there are tank jobs that do appeal to the crowd looking for a rush. That doesn't mean they all need to have that, however.

Bit of a stretch to call tanking unpredictable, though.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

Or... you know, for different people it's different things. It's great that there are tank jobs that do appeal to the crowd looking for a rush. That doesn't mean they all need to have that, however.

Bit of a stretch to call tanking unpredictable, though.

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Yeah thats what I was trying to say, shoulda put the old "editing" thing in my post til i was done. Also thats my complaint... tanking is predictable... which is the problem here.

In alot of games you can get critted or something can do a move 2x in a row and that is missing in FFXIV. I love tank in most games because the thinking on your feet mentality that goes with tanking. Here it is entirely predictable though. It doesn't bother me because if I get bored then I go lvl something else for awhile, but it is dissapointing.

One of the easiest ways to make PLD compelling (while preserving the approachability of it) would be to make Sword Oath and Shield Oath more functional. For both DRK and WAR, the job feels very different in your DPS "stance" than your tank "stance," be it for buttons being more satisfying to push, a shorter GCD, or any combination of other things. It would not be out of the question to suggest that certain abilities behave a little differently between stances, and it would probably solve a lot of the "boringness" complaints out there.

Most jobs play differently in the open versus in group content, and tanks are no stranger. Except PLD. It's literally the exact same job no matter where you are. You just hit a little bit harder in Sword Oath, but not really enough to make it feel different.

PLD doesn't need boatloads of complexity to make it more compelling. It is very possible to make a simple job that is also fun to play - PLD is simple, but I feel like there's more at play here than just job mechanics.

I have to agree that the job is pretty boring vs the other 2 tanks. I started out as PLD because I started this game on PS3 and was afraid to play a complex job on a dated system (this was after trying all of the jobs during 2.0 beta), but it is kind of funny that once I got RoH I thought it was the flashiest thing I had ever seen haha! I mean for a tank to have a 5 hit attack was a wild notion to me at the time (also coming from XI I don't think PLD had anything more than a 2 hit animation iirc). And despite from switching to PS4, I stayed faithful to PLD as my main up until HW (although I did do NIN to 50 and quite enjoyed it).

Obviously I got drawn to DRK like a lot of people when HW hit and enjoyed it far much more than PLD and then finally leveled WAR after getting those 2 to 60 just to see what the fuss was about. And I must say...as soon as I had it leveled I figured it out. There is a complete rush about tanking on WAR that I haven't felt since tanking and soloing random things in XI on nin, thf, and dnc (although to this day...WAR comes close to the fun I had on DNC but still not quite there) That feeling is something I never felt from PLD, so for me that says something. Yes I know some people who don't want the same rush and enjoy PLD for what it is will disagree and that's perfectly fine. But that pacing isn't for everyone...nor is the other side of all the WARs and DRKs out there is for everyone.

I honestly think they should just make sword and shield oath OGCD. considering it costs about 1/6th of your MP to swap between it would take good resource management to use efficiently in the long run. I think being able to dance without suffering such a big penalty would add a little bit more complexity and just a tad bit more damage while MT'ing to the class. As it is right now shield oath-MT, sword oath-OT. It would be nice to be able to swap to sword oath instantly and use RA while FoF is up and swap back without worrying about too much of a loss of enmity. Dark knight already can use darkside while in grit, so why can't we have some rapid switching at the expense of MP?

I think only applying the oaths costs and interrupts, you can drop shield oath for free if you want a cheap and nasty damage boost.

Edit: I liked that idea about abilities having different additional effects under the oaths. Shield Swipe could get a small AoE cone effect, Tempered Will grants surecast, successfully blocking while under Bulwark does a 100 potency auto-attack, other ideas shamelessly stolen from around the tank sub-forum.
Sword oath is a bit tougher, maybe make Spirits Within do more damage the less health you have by default and Sword oath reverses it back to how it is now. The extra auto-attack damage is deceptively strong and PLD OT DPS isn't that bad really, I don't think suggestions that would encourage Sword being used while MTing are really going to gain much traction with SE.

Edit 2: I also don't see how the job is a mess or terrible, simple sure, boring maybe. But those are like the opposite of mess & terrible.

The problem with this is, yes you can drop the oath to to hit them, but the gained damage is only worth it if you stay dropped for a period of time since re-enabling shield oath is going to cost you a DPS drop from the GCD. this means a bigger enmity loss as well the longer you stay dropped.

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Originally Posted by Bravely_Default

The problem with this is, yes you can drop the oath to to hit them, but the gained damage is only worth it if you stay dropped for a period of time since re-enabling shield oath is going to cost you a DPS drop from the GCD. this means a bigger enmity loss as well the longer you stay dropped.

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Eh, I'm just not keen on being able to stance dance as freely as DRK and WAR. I like that the tanks stances are different, I think PLD just needs a little extra adjustment around our stances to differentiate them a bit in a way that you can feel rather than math (and also a bit of damage boost in Shield wouldn't go amiss ;).)

It would be a different mechanic as Dark knight can turn on Darkside while in grit and the warrior has a 10s cooldown in his switches. The paladin is supposed to be the sword AND shield of the people not the sword or shield. if we could swap stances on the fly it would give us more resource management options instead of just being a complete TP drainer and it would make fights much more then just FB->SB->RA spamming in between damage mitigation and the other OGCD skills. it would also be much easier to implement instead of having to tweak the whole tool kit and watch for what would need to be balanced afterwards in every skill.

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Originally Posted by Jandor

Eh, I'm just not keen on being able to stance dance as freely as DRK and WAR. I like that the tanks stances are different, I think PLD just needs a little extra adjustment around our stances to differentiate them a bit in a way that you can feel rather than math (and also a bit of damage boost in Shield wouldn't go amiss ;).)

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DRK incurs just as much of a penalty when trying to stance dance. Applying Grit takes one GCD & enough MP for one Dark Arts use. You run an extremely high risk of losing DPS on DRK if you pull Grit back within 30 seconds, and that's before considering potential healer DPS lost. I'd be willing to bet 99% of DRK have no idea how many of which attacks need to get through to make up for it, most still think Blood Weapon grants an extra attack.

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Originally Posted by Jandor

, maybe make Spirits Within do more damage the less health you have by default and Sword oath reverses it back to how it is now.

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This wouldn't solve the current Spirits Within issue. It would even make it worse because while tanking you pretty much have to be topped off by healers most of the time, so waiting for you to be at a very dangerous health state just to use SW at max potency would be very reckless and a DPS loss anyway since you're delaying the CD, hoping that your healers will not top you off too fast. They should honestly just get rid of this weird shit. SW should do 300 potency everytime.

What do you mean defense? Currently any attack in this game can be survived by all 3 tanks, making this supposed 'defensive' capability PLD has moot. What they should of done was just focus on making a sword and shield tank fun, focus on the fun first than balance difficulty but they were so adamant about making an easier tank that it definitely shows.

Even worse is that PLD is supposed to have higher support capabilities yet all this support i can see will only be used on 1 or 2 fights that literally need to consider PLDs specific abilities to be useful prime example was how specific attacks on shiva had a high crit chance just to make awareness relevant and that wasn't even a PLD exclusive ability.

Divine veil and clemency sound awesome on paper but one is too situational again and the other would only be used if your healers are making mistakes which shouldn't happen in the first place or solo content. PLD is the worst designed class in the game imo.

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Originally Posted by Jandor

I [...] don't see how the job is a mess or terrible, simple sure, boring maybe. But those are like the opposite of mess & terrible.

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It's functional right now, barely, but I feel like its toolkit problems are a result of a lack of identity and vision on the part of the developers. They don't know what they want Paladins to be, and so as a result, we wind up with an excessively generic tank (I've been cooking an essay on this for two months now--I'll get around to posting it sometime before Christmas). The job itself isn't awful--again, it functions--but I think SE needs to figure out what a Paladin/Knight is supposed to be sooner than later, or else anyone who's chosen that as their job will suffer.

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Originally Posted by Jpec07

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They have a very obvious vision for what PLD is meant to be, Yoshi-P has even stated it's meant to be the defensive tank. The problem is that current raids have no use for a tank without an offensive focus to pass some of the checks put into place to slow the world firsts. SE shot themselves in the foot with Alexander.

The problem with this is that the paladin is as good as a PHYSICAL defence tank as the dark knight is a MAGIC defense tank. the dark knight has greater DPS options while MT to boot.

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Originally Posted by Disc

They have a very obvious vision for what PLD is meant to be, Yoshi-P has even stated it's meant to be the defensive tank. The problem is that current raids have no use for a tank without an offensive focus to pass some of the checks put into place to slow the world firsts. SE shot themselves in the foot with Alexander.

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You also can't have a tank that can survive more things than the other tanks or it would cause unbalance yet again. You can have one that does more damage but not defense as that is the most important part of a tank is weather or not they'll survive the next hit, putting more support bonuses on PLD would help but the best ones are already given to other classes except for hallowed ground.

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Originally Posted by Disc

Yoshi-P has even stated it's meant to be the defensive tank.

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That's like saying water is supposed to be the wet drink. Sure, water may be the wettest drink, but you're going to want something more when you're dining. There are flavors to consider, textures, and other factors that make other beverages appealing. This doesn't make water any less desirable, but when paired with pasta primavera, you're likely going to want some white wine instead (especially when wine is also a drink that has water in it, and so therefore also wet by its definition).

Tanks are defensive by their very nature, so saying Paladins are supposed to be "the defensive tank" doesn't really stand to scrutiny. It's redundant, and not really distinct at all. There are things about Paladins that can be made appealing, but right now it doesn't really pair well with anything.

And I think a lot of people have a problem here: we want the job to be interesting and unique, and we come in with a love for the idea of a tank with a shield, but then we find out that SE slapped that shield onto the most generic job in the game, and we are disappointed.

Mayhaps PLD should stay as it is, and SE should develop a Javelinier/Spartan job (as just one possible idea) as a more involved "tank with a shield."

Maybe we could use the overpowered warrior offtanks to fix our dps/enmity problems.

Change cover to: Take 50% physical + 50% magical damage intended for other party member, take 50% of their enmity and increase their damage by 50%.

When you cover somebody - damage type should not matter, they should have more room to attack and the monster should get pissed. ^^

tl;dr I know it is overpowered. Just a thought tho. :)

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Originally Posted by Bravely_Default

It would be a different mechanic as Dark knight can turn on Darkside while in grit and the warrior has a 10s cooldown in his switches. The paladin is supposed to be the sword AND shield of the people not the sword or shield. if we could swap stances on the fly it would give us more resource management options instead of just being a complete TP drainer and it would make fights much more then just FB->SB->RA spamming in between damage mitigation and the other OGCD skills. it would also be much easier to implement instead of having to tweak the whole tool kit and watch for what would need to be balanced afterwards in every skill.

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I'm opposed to oath swaps not interrupting combos. Like Fast - Savage - Shield - Rage - Sword - Fast - Savage - Royal etc.
or with some of the edit changes proposed in my last post, something like Sword - Fast - Savage - (ooh swipe proc) - Shield - Shield swipe - Spirits - Sword - Royal - Fast - Riot - etc.

Honestly though, that might be a terrible idea when all mathed out. I don't know. I guess I'm just pretty cautious about major PLD changes :).

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Originally Posted by Disc

DRK incurs just as much of a penalty when trying to stance dance. Applying Grit takes one GCD & enough MP for one Dark Arts use. You run an extremely high risk of losing DPS on DRK if you pull Grit back within 30 seconds, and that's before considering potential healer DPS lost. I'd be willing to bet 99% of DRK have no idea how many of which attacks need to get through to make up for it, most still think Blood Weapon grants an extra attack.

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I admit, DRK knowledge isn't my strong suit. I'm still leveling it, fun so far though.

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Originally Posted by Freyyy

This wouldn't solve the current Spirits Within issue. It would even make it worse because while tanking you pretty much have to be topped off by healers most of the time, so waiting for you to be at a very dangerous health state just to use SW at max potency would be very reckless and a DPS loss anyway since you're delaying the CD, hoping that your healers will not top you off too fast. They should honestly just get rid of this weird shit. SW should do 300 potency everytime.

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Depends where max potency kicks in. I don't know exactly where the damage differences kick in as it is, I tend to just use it when I can unless I'm really low on health.

mathed out it is really not worth even dropping shield oath for damage and you will never want to use sword oath as well, you are basically losing 2 weapon skills to switch to sword and back which adds up fast if you want to even think about doing it multiple times. in addition to this you would still have the MP cost on top of the lost damage as well.

Dont get me wrong sword oath is much stronger then people think and paladin is not bad at DPS as an OT

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Originally Posted by Bravely_Default

The problem with this is that the paladin is as good as a PHYSICAL defence tank as the dark knight is a MAGIC defense tank. the dark knight has greater DPS options while MT to boot.

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This still needs to be tested. The changes to Shield Swipe should offer an average of around 700+ potency per minute or more depending on breaks in the fight. This is before accounting for less reliance on Halone & Bulwark itself being useful as an extra 600ish potency burst in 15 seconds.

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Originally Posted by VargasVermillion

You also can't have a tank that can survive more things than the other tanks or it would cause unbalance yet again. You can have one that does more damage but not defense as that is the most important part of a tank is weather or not they'll survive the next hit, putting more support bonuses on PLD would help but the best ones are already given to other classes except for hallowed ground.

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PLD support abilities have potential to convert to DPS gain, SE has just been too cautious to allow it. Removing the cast time on Clemency for instance to function as reliably as Equillibrium would allow PLD to cover healing for a period, drastically boosting healer DPS. But that would be a lot harder to balance than just giving them more potency through Shield Swipes.

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Originally Posted by Jpec07

That's like saying water is supposed to be the wet drink. Sure, water may be the wettest drink, but you're going to want something more when you're dining. There are flavors to consider, textures, and other factors that make other beverages appealing. This doesn't make water any less desirable, but when paired with pasta primavera, you're likely going to want some white wine instead (especially when wine is also a drink that has water in it, and so therefore also wet by its definition).

Tanks are defensive by their very nature, so saying Paladins are supposed to be "the defensive tank" doesn't really stand to scrutiny. It's redundant, and not really distinct at all. There are things about Paladins that can be made appealing, but right now it doesn't really pair well with anything.

And I think a lot of people have a problem here: we want the job to be interesting and unique, and we come in with a love for the idea of a tank with a shield, but then we find out that SE slapped that shield onto the most generic job in the game, and we are disappointed.

Mayhaps PLD should stay as it is, and SE should develop a Javelinier/Spartan job (as just one possible idea) as a more involved "tank with a shield."

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I'm sorry, but that initial paragraph was painful to read. Please refrain from using anymore analogies.

PLD is the OG. PLD seems generic because the other tanks have been built to mimic the job, nothing else can compete with a mitigation tank in a raid scenario. The only reason WAR & DRK can compete with it at all in raid mitigation is because the incoming damage itself has been nerfed(PLD/DRK mitigation scales with higher damage, War with lower) or adjusted to favor DRK. As for what you want out of the job, that's your own personal problem. I like the way it has developed with the exception of Clemency's cast time. The only reason I don't play it this raid cycle is because Alexander was designed for offense.

I do believe Sword Oath should have more benefits when using that Stance, having only a very small bonus to auto-attack does feel very lackluster.

It could use something like +5% Acc, +7.5% Skill speed and perhaps boosting the potency of all offensive abilities by +20.

sword oath does not need a boost as paladin already does have enough damage while off tanking, boosting it even as much as you said would make off tanking as a paladin blatantly overpowered which is something it does not need. also shield swipe has 150 potency now and a 15s cool down which comes out to 600 potency if you use it every time it is off CD in the course of 1 minute.

I did not account for the CD, my bad.

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Originally Posted by Disc

I'm sorry, but that initial paragraph was painful to read. Please refrain from using anymore analogies.

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Was there a point to your invective? Because if so, I don't see it. Invective like this is just rude and contributes nothing to the conversation (which is why it's generally frowned upon in formal debate settings and in general polite discussion).

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Originally Posted by Disc

PLD is the OG. PLD seems generic because the other tanks have been built to mimic the job, nothing else can compete with a mitigation tank in a raid scenario. The only reason WAR & DRK can compete with it at all in raid mitigation is because the incoming damage itself has been nerfed(PLD/DRK mitigation scales with higher damage, War with lower) or adjusted to favor DRK. As for what you want out of the job, that's your own personal problem. I like the way it has developed with the exception of Clemency's cast time. The only reason I don't play it this raid cycle is because Alexander was designed for offense.

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And that's well and good, but that doesn't change the fact that having an identity as "the defensive defender" is shallow, redundant, and pointless (WAR is "The damaging defender" and DRK is "The magic defender", if I had to use *gasp* another analogy). Passively taking less damage is well and good, but would more interesting gameplay be a bad thing? We can passively mitigate more damage than the rest, but the job itself is otherwise flavorless. There is absolutely nothing unique about PLD right now outside of their external healing ability (which is clumsy and easily interrupted), and their slightly enhanced physical mitigation (thank you shields). And I think that's why a lot of people, myself included, wish that they'd do something to change it.

thinking about it even if sword and shield oath were not OGCD, making it so they had like a .5 second cooldown or something that would bring a slight benefit to dancing may be what the paladin would need for main tanking and would also bring a little flavor.

If ShO/SwO are made off the GCD then WAR switching from Deliverance to Defiance has to instantly heal the health gained and the CD for ShO/SwO has to match Defiance/Deliverance's. Otherwise it's not a problem.

Should not have a cooldown due to the vast (1/6th MP) cost associated with it already, in addition to this the largest part of the damage of sword oath is just the auto attacks and with what I am suggesting the main tank would only use sword oath very briefly (1 or 2 auto attacks and a royal authority) before "weaving" out of it. If it was found to be too strong if anything it should just have a 1 or 2 second cd and be increased if it is found to be too strong from there, but I think leaving it as having no cooldown would make careless paladins prone to run out of MP anyway.

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Originally Posted by Jpec07

There is absolutely nothing unique about PLD right now outside of their external healing ability (which is clumsy and easily interrupted), and their slightly enhanced physical mitigation (thank you shields). And I think that's why a lot of people, myself included, wish that they'd do something to change it.

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What, you mean like adding a 30 second oGCD block ability, two new combo closers, and turning Shield Swipe into an oGCD ability? You're just suffering from a case of the grass being greener.

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Originally Posted by Bravely_Default

Should not have a cooldown due to the vast (1/6th MP) cost associated with it already

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Riot Blade exists and you'll be using it often enough to easily replenish the cost of ShO/SwO swapping.

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in addition to this the largest part of the damage of sword oath is just the auto attacks and with what I am suggesting the main tank would only use sword oath very briefly (1 or 2 auto attacks and a royal authority) before "weaving" out of it.

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You're also under the impression that you'd be in ShO most of the time, when in reality you'd use ShO as a toggled Rampart and stick to SwO 99% of the time, utilizing Sheltron/Bulwark/etc to make damage on you trivial. Unless damage on the tank receives a massive boost, there will still be no reason to stay in ShO and only swap to SwO for a RA + some autos.

If I am main tanking why would I not use shield oath for the majority of the time? additional damage from the enemy would add up and cause additional strain on the healer which would lead to more aggro being drawn due to the part of less enmity gain. royal authority still has less enmity generation then rage of halone so staying in sword oath a majority of the time would not work out.

in addition to this yes you can get MP back from riot blade but that would be the purpose of having no CD on shield and sword oath, the control to its use would be the MP so there would not be a purpose to attaching a large cooldown on it as a main tank would not stay in it for a long period of time. yes riot blade restores MP and that would fit into the resource management when you are trying to "dance", a paladin can only spam fast blade->riot blade/->Goring blade so much before it becomes a loss of damage and enmity as well so natural MP regen would come into play here. Obviously all of this is just wishful thinking on my part so we will have to see what direction SE decides to take things.

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Originally Posted by Bravely_Default

If I am main tanking why would I not use shield oath for the majority of the time? additional damage from the enemy would add up and cause additional strain on the healer which would lead to more aggro being drawn due to the part of less enmity gain. royal authority still has less enmity generation then rage of halone so staying in sword oath a majority of the time would not work out.

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I haven't been able to test yet since my PLD is not properly equipped to compete in raids, but Shield Swipe as an oGCD worth roughly 34% of Halone may be enough to change the enmity issues. Especially if your first lands during the initial combo with ShO & FoF up for a total 1170 potency worth of enmity.(150Base*1.3FoF*2ShO*3Mod) And forgot- PLD as is in SwO with both passive/active defense & Halone's debuff on will take about as much damage as a DRK in Grit, so not a very big deal.

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yes riot blade restores MP and that would fit into the resource management when you are trying to "dance", a paladin can only spam fast blade->riot blade/->Goring blade so much before it becomes a loss of damage and enmity as well so natural MP regen would come into play here. Obviously all of this is just wishful thinking on my part so we will have to see what direction SE decides to take things.

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Sheltron also restores a significant amount of MP.

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Originally Posted by Disc

What, you mean like adding a 30 second oGCD block ability, two new combo closers, and turning Shield Swipe into an oGCD ability? You're just suffering from a case of the grass being greener.

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Oh I see, you seem to think I've been playing since 2.x, when PLD only had one combo finisher.

I was actually born and bred in 3.0. I've done my share of reading, and while the new abilities in 3.0 helped, they didn't follow through to give Paladins anything to make them unique. DoT maintenance is something shared by every other job in the game (and less restrictively), and while Royal Authority is nice, it doesn't really help Paladins in what they're struggling with at the moment (AoE enmity and MT DPS--every other tank has a 450-potency attack in tank stance, while RA is stuck at 340). Couple that with the fact that these attacks are in no way unique to PLD, and they don't really do much to help the job feel less boring.

Sheltron is a guaranteed block, but blocking in itself is relatively lackluster, and not really all that exciting.

Clemency takes too long to cast, and only has very limited usefulness that make it worth two GCDs to use, and Divine Veil relies on the healers for usefulness, so is inherently awkward.

Any of our 2.0 utility abilities are also lackluster, if only for how long it takes them to be useful again.

So really, yes, Paladins are objectively boring. Part of it is how clunky and hard to use our new abilities are, and part of it is how generic everything else is.

riot blade gives around 442 MP and sheltron gives back about 702 MP at level 60. the cost of sword and shield oaths are 884 so there may have to be a little bit of balancing around it, but even with those numbers you wouldn't be able to be spammy if the oaths were OGCD.

If you consider playing a paladin boring because they cant dps like others can or they can't heal effectively, then go play another job. There's plenty of dps classes where you can dps. Go play whm so you can learn about enmity and what happens when you abuse it. Complaining because a tank job doesn't do enough dps is just you complaining because you want to do more than you signed up for. You chose paladin because they're tanks. They take damage from the enemy so everyone else can dps or heal. They're damage mitigators. They reduce incoming damage with their skills because that's what tanks do. you people will never be happy with the job because deep down, you just don't like the job. Go play a different class.

I play all three tanks about equally, though lately I've been sticking to PLD when farming Alexander floors 1, 3, and especially 4, partly because I like the aesthetic of the sword-and-shield job, partly because I love its animations, and most often lately, because my healers have a habit of not healing Perpetual Ray's TB spam on the MT. Clemency, luckily, has a habit of critting when I need it to, which has made that sudden lack of heals at crucial moments inconsequential as long as I'm OTing and have more than two Clemency casts' worth of mana. That, and when I don't have to be saving the MT or taking bombs for healers who stand in all three without healing themselves between, its OT Sword Oath dps is pretty damn on par for someone who can save (idiots' or those at the mercy thereof) lives on the side.

The situation was similar with WAR and PLD back in, say... Levi Ex as well. I loved knowing exactly when my stacks would be up to Inner Beast each wave blast from the head, Steel Cyclone for adds, or when I needed to Unchained vs. drop Defiance outright for damage on the spumes. And just as much I loved knowing when to Oath-dance, stoneskinning people who tended to be slow to dodge, leaving them with 8% health where they otherwise would have died, and covering low-health dps who didn't know when to move out for tail. In A2 now, DRK MT and WAR OT does together like great bread and a really awesome butter. There's plenty to love in every job... they just need situations that make use of their tools. Though, sadly, PLD offers less broadly usable tools than the other two at current, I can't honestly say it's any more rotationally dull, nor does it require any less foresight than the other two. That said, it would be the job easiest to make more fun, with a few changes... Much like Bard in a group with neither a caster nor healer mana needs, its tools are too easily wasted--great fun when used effectively, but its horrible that their effective use usually means someone else is failing (unless the encounter provides specific ways to make use of them, like Covering AAs through/after Ahk Morn).

Edit: I personally found the Shield Swipe change made it less active, but that may just be me. At a 2.4 GCD, it was useful for perfecting my Goring Blade window. I sorely miss its on-block refresh during dungeon runs as well. Like any other good oGCD, it's great for filling enmity gaps, especially on the pull itself, but is at least as lackluster in the long term as before the change. Making it work like Low Blow would have been a godsend on physical-damage content as MT, but I'd just as happily taken it without the block requirement, a faint potency increase, and still on GCD, especially if we could just get more .75x more enmity from SB and 10-20 more potency from RoH. Still need to deal with the complete lack of any real AoE damage, though, and make Clemency more broadly relevant.