There are already two dps-tank jobs, please don't make Paladin the third.

I'm hoping the stronger changes is a nerf to tank dps. Warriors should not put out the same damage as bards.

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Originally Posted by Vlady

I'm hoping the stronger changes is a nerf to tank dps. Warriors should not put out the same damage as bards.

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You flatter WARs too much with this. No DPS that is playing their job optimally should be out-DPSed by a WAR of the same gear level. Even MCHs and BRDs should be about 200 DPS ahead of a balls-to-the-walls WAR even w/o the piercing debuff.

It is definately less then 200 dps of a difference. More like 100 at most and that is still pretty darn close for a tank to be encroaching on the pure dps territory. Bards are about as much utility as other pure dps when mana/tp song is not even used in raids. Boggle at why tanks are given utility and dps on par with bards/machinist. Warrior brings a melee reduction, damage debuff along with strong off tank dps skills.

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Originally Posted by Galgarion

That was only for early clears. Once Paladins had ground out a 200 item level set, they were fine and it became more common to clear A-S with them. If Savage demonstrated anything, it's that Paladins are extremely gear dependent for their success, which is a definite weakness that should be ironed out.

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Isn't that with any job? Some will argue skill > gear, but I know of a skilled BRD that went from zero to hero once he hit iLv200+

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Originally Posted by VargasVermillion

"dps-tank jobs" Look a tank is a tank, PLD WAR and DRK can all tank well enough to beat content PLD just has lower damage on average because "higher defense" except that higher defense means nothing because a WAR or DRK can take any damage a PLD can otherwise PLD would be OP and support doesn't work with how this games designed. Sure you could give PLD healing abilities or buffs but it'll likely just add less for the PLD to do because if a PLD needs to heal someone then the healers aren't doing their job, if SE designed the content with a healer PLD in mind then PLD would become 100% necessary for raids causing balance to shift in the opposite direction of what it currently is regarding tank spots in raid statics.

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While I like this comment, will it break balance? I mean, people will go PLD, other tank, DPS x5, Healer x1. Tension would spark if the healer dies and the PLD is busy healing folks. I'm just running my mouth at the moment.

Anywho, in FFXI, PLD had four Tiers of Cure as well other "healer" stuff: http://ffxiclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Paladin (scroll down to the "Spell List").

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Originally Posted by Vlady

It is definately less then 200 dps of a difference. More like 100 at most and that is still pretty darn close for a tank to be encroaching on the pure dps territory. Bards are about as much utility as other pure dps when mana/tp song is not even used in raids. Boggle at why tanks are given utility and dps on par with bards/machinist. Warrior brings a melee reduction, damage debuff along with strong off tank dps skills.

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No, its definitely a good 200 DPS give or take at current gear levels, assuming equal skill and gear. If its any less than that, you have a very talented WAR and a very poor BRD/MCH.

You might see different numbers if the WAR is given 100% uptime and is literally sitting there spanking the boss like a striking dummy and the BRD/MCH gets ALL THE MECHANICS... otherwise no, WAR definitely is not outDPSing ANY actual DPS job that is being played optimally.

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Originally Posted by Jim_Berry

While I like this comment, will it break balance? I mean, people will go PLD, other tank, DPS x5, Healer x1. Tension would spark if the healer dies and the PLD is busy healing folks. I'm just running my mouth at the moment.

Anywho, in FFXI, PLD had four Tiers of Cure as well other "healer" stuff: http://ffxiclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Paladin (scroll down to the "Spell List").

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XIV is designed in a very linear fashion compared to XI, XIV tries to make all the classes equally good in every fight whereas in XI you'd have some jobs that can't do as much as others. With SE current design philosophy giving PLD a healing focus would either be unnecessary (healers can take all healing responsibilities in fights if they are playing optimally) or OP (PLD can essentially be another healer making it better than the other tanks in essence because you get both a tank and a healer.) SE wants tanks to be good at tanking and healers to be good at healing, making both of them needed and equally useful to their respective roles.

Anyway if PLD was given healing abilities it would be pointless because unless the healer isn't playing properly you would never need and shouldn't need to heal, to make this function actually viable then you'd need to take away the effectiveness of healers which would be dumb. It would just be situational skills all over again which PLD has too much of already.

I am all for the PLD to get some changes - Their AoE pickup is weak due to the lack of damage coming from it, mana comes also hard to come by even with Riot Blade and Sheltron (the ability itself being a joke, compared of what they did used it for originally in their HW trailers).

In addition to TP issues, several PLD skills need to be buffed to be more useful in more cases.
1. Tempered Will - Severely limited use cases in a few boss fights. Not sure what buff would be appropriate for it.
2. Divine Veil - Relatively useless outside of raids since it doesn't give you the buff along with the rest of your party. Recommended changes: include self as target for buff, remove outside healing requirement, extend range to 20 y radius, increases enmity, reduce recast time, possibly add another party buff.
3. Cover - Increase the range to 20 y and add another beneficial effect.
4. Shelltron - Add blocking magic damage effect for ~15s; damage blocked is added to enmity.
5. Shield bash - remove combo interruption
6. Shield/sword oaths -> Off global cooldown
7. Clemency - remove combo interruption, uses less mp, and reduce cast time to 1.5-2s.

This would help raise those skills to be used as frequently as WAR uses their relatively well-designed skills.

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Originally Posted by Februs

It's really weird, honestly. It's almost as if SE started with a completely different concept for Gld and switched gears when they started designing Pld.

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Things the 1.0 glad(1.23 pld) could do;

* An action similar to Bulwark that regenerated TP (and mp via trait) every time the paladin blocked. 30s duration, 90s recast.
* An action that worked similar to Shelltron but instead of blocking, it actually absorbed the damage as health.
* The ability to AoE combat Stoneskin
* The ability to AoE Cure (which wasn't as terrible as it is now, it restored maybe 30% of the paladins HP)
* Divine Veil triggered a HoT when the paladin was cured (AoE, effected paladin also)
* An AoE damage dealing attack that dealt massive enmity, block proc.
* Clemency had a different name but was there. Think it was instant use but 10s cd.
* Same attacks more or less, no RA and GB was a bleed from behind.

The older version was extremely high in utility and had good resource management.

PLD needs to catch up on offensive utility and that by no means makes PLD a dps tank.

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Originally Posted by Syzygian

You flatter WARs too much with this. No DPS that is playing their job optimally should be out-DPSed by a WAR of the same gear level. Even MCHs and BRDs should be about 200 DPS ahead of a balls-to-the-walls WAR even w/o the piercing debuff.

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Originally Posted by Vlady

It is definately less then 200 dps of a difference. More like 100 at most and that is still pretty darn close for a tank to be encroaching on the pure dps territory. Bards are about as much utility as other pure dps when mana/tp song is not even used in raids. Boggle at why tanks are given utility and dps on par with bards/machinist. Warrior brings a melee reduction, damage debuff along with strong off tank dps skills.

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@both of you: More like 200 at best, 100 at worst. Ninja has shit AoE while WAR has amazing AoE, hence A2S. But regardless, the drop off between BRD/MCH to WAR/DRK is the same as the one from WAR/DRK down to PLD.

A1S - http://www.fflogs.com/statistics/7/#...set=90&boss=18
A2S - http://www.fflogs.com/statistics/7/#...set=90&boss=19
A3S - http://www.fflogs.com/statistics/7/#...set=90&boss=20
A4S - http://www.fflogs.com/statistics/7/#...set=90&boss=21
Overall - http://www.fflogs.com/statistics/7/#...Any&dataset=90

And before we make unfounded comments on the A4S rankings, keep in mind that the optimal strategy in that fight is to sacrifice 6 (often 9) players in two groups of 3 which always include the BRD/MCH and the WAR, while the DRK gets to stay alive the whole fight. It's usually [BLM|SMN] / [BRD|MCH] / [WAR] for 1 and [WHM] / [BRD|MCH] / [WAR] for 2. 3 is just whoever wants to throw themselves on a grenade since enrage is close.


Tank DPS is fine.

PLD DPS is not.

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Originally Posted by Brianmj

Or, why are the so many WARs and DRKs now, and so few PLDs? You run through the same Ildyshire as I do, you have to have seen this phenomena.

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It's because PLDs suck in Savage and all the old PLD players switched to DRK and WAR because of that. A lot of statics refused to recruit PLDs or asked PLDs to switch to a different tank job. If Savage was designed a lot more like Thordan EX, then you would see a very different split in the tanking population. People play the jobs that are effective in content.

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Originally Posted by Galgarion

That was only for early clears. Once Paladins had ground out a 200 item level set, they were fine and it became more common to clear A-S with them. If Savage demonstrated anything, it's that Paladins are extremely gear dependent for their success, which is a definite weakness that should be ironed out.

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Paladins weren't dependent on their own gear. They were waiting (for 4 weeks to be specific) for their DPS to be geared enough to make up for their lack of DPS.

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Originally Posted by JackFross

@both of you: More like 200 at best, 100 at worst.

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This still ignores how much added DPS BRD brings through battle-voice foes and paeon. WARs might bring storm's eye but that only impacts the other tank's DPS and NIN's aeolian edge usage. BRD has much higher overall raid DPS contribution than their raw DPS output.

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Originally Posted by BIinfinity

1. Tempered Will - ... Not sure what buff would be appropriate for it.

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It can be reworked and used as TP/MP balancing tool. Transfer 25% of TP into MP and visa versa depending of which is higher. If %TP > %MP then 25% of TP transfers into MP. If %MP > %TP then 25% of MP transfers into TP.

For example PLD have 1000 MP max and 100 TP max.
If during the fight PLD have 750 MP (75%) and 10 TP (10%) then after using [TW] he will have 500MP(50%) and 35 TP (35%). Same for MP=>TP transfer. 200 MP (20%) and 55 TP (55%) after [TW] will became 450 MP (45%) and 30 TP (30%).
Transfer rate may be different.

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Originally Posted by BIinfinity

7. Clemency - ...

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IMO, any cast time abilities for tank is silly. Clemency should be instant (or even oGCD instant), but have high potency only if applied to PLD himself. If applied to any other party member potency should be reduced for, let's say, 80%.

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It's because PLDs suck in Savage and all the old PLD players switched to DRK and WAR because of that. A lot of statics refused to recruit PLDs or asked PLDs to switch to a different tank job. If Savage was designed a lot more like Thordan EX, then you would see a very different split in the tanking population. People play the jobs that are effective in content.

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Actually, Paladins are very useful in A2S/A3S, more so than Dark Knights, if we assess them based on their skillsets. Paladins are much better at tanking multiple mobs (due to shield), as well as the physical based damage of A3S (minus splash).

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Paladins weren't dependent on their own gear. They were waiting (for 4 weeks to be specific) for their DPS to be geared enough to make up for their lack of DPS.

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They were dependent on their gear because they couldn't put out enough damage/enmity. Given the amount of damage other classes could put out, without a ninja for enmity control they would be an incredible dps loss. So then you gotta take a war because ninja demands war, then you gotta take a monk for A1S/A4S Dragon Kick + highest sustained dps.

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This still ignores how much added DPS BRD brings through battle-voice foes and paeon. WARs might bring storm's eye but that only impacts the other tank's DPS and NIN's aeolian edge usage. BRD has much higher overall raid DPS contribution than their raw DPS output.

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War's bringing storm's eye as part of their dps combo actually contributes a lot of dps, especially if the MT is a dark knight. Ninja's get a more beneficial (see higher dps) opener and Dark Knight's get a lot of their dots/boosted SE's.

Paladins are no doubt an OK class (lol ast/mch/smn), but they are lacking in a few key areas which made them A) Highly gear dependent/composition dependent, B) Lacking defensively in key ways and C) not a stand out in their given roles, I.E. Physical tank (largely negated by Inner Beast for Wars and having a war as a drk), healing off tank (lol 2 healers already) and capable debuffer (enemies resist most status effects(fu blind)). In the end, the reason they're still not recruited, is that they are lacking in damage, which means they lack in enmity (especially due to ShO modifier). Because of that, you gotta shoe horn your static around them to make up for what is lost.
Gotta have a war, gotta have a ninja, probably gonna need a blm or a monk as well.

Unless PLD's mitigation means that the fight is unkillable without it or you end up at a group DPS loss without it (which has yet to be the case), then no, PLD isn't more useful than DRK in A2S/A3S. PLD is only currently good as a safety net and honestly you'd be better off just bringing 2x WAR if you really needed all that excess mitigation.

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

Unless PLD's mitigation means that the fight is unkillable without it or you end up at a group DPS loss without it (which has yet to be the case), then no, PLD isn't more useful than DRK in A2S/A3S. PLD is only currently good as a safety net and honestly you'd be better off just bringing 2x WAR if you really needed all that excess mitigation.

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Given that Paladins have bulwark/shelltron/passive shield/cover/hallowed ground over the dark knights higher damage/dark dance/living dead, for progression (where it was indeed a safety net), it is more useful. It provided more defensive utility and due to it's passive tankiness with the shield vs all the physical damage it was the preferred choice. It was not until A3S with it's massive cliff to climb that all safety was thrown out in favor of maximum possible damage.

Of course now, given we know the fights inside out and can crush it with ilvl, why wouldn't you take war/war/smn/smn/whm/sch/driver/w/e.

I personally doubt they'd make Paladins suddenly potent damage dealers - that does nothing to contribute to the identity that SE has been trying to puns of Paladins as the most defense-oriented tank out there. My guess is that we'll see a minor overhaul to the class, similar to what Warriors got in ARR to make them more viable as main tanks. What exactly they'll do is really anybody's best guess at this point, but we've got just over a week before we find out (and even less than that before we see the preliminary patch notes so we can get an idea).

At this point, I'm just glad they're listening.

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Originally Posted by Violette

Given that Paladins have bulwark/shelltron/passive shield/cover/hallowed ground over the dark knights higher damage/dark dance/living dead, for progression (where it was indeed a safety net), it is more useful. It provided more defensive utility and due to it's passive tankiness with the shield vs all the physical damage it was the preferred choice. It was not until A3S with it's massive cliff to climb that all safety was thrown out in favor of maximum possible damage.

Of course now, given we know the fights inside out and can crush it with ilvl, why wouldn't you take war/war/smn/smn/whm/sch/driver/w/e.

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I don't mean to sound... well... how this is going to sound no matter how I word it, but PLD needs all that extra mitigation (which is not as much as people make it out to be given how retardedly long its recast times are (short recast-high uptime CDs are ideal in A2S, imo) and the fact that there is no true TB in A2S for Sheltron to be anything other than a guaranteed stray block from an AA) due to how slow everything dies with its lack of AoE. You could argue even that DRK is better due to the fact that the more targets there are, the more powerful its sustain is (MP and self-healing).

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Originally Posted by Jpec07

At this point, I'm just glad they're listening.

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Don't get your hopes up too high. So far, SE has been tight lipped about the whole thing, and they really did not say anything to inspire much confidence. They only said that there will be adjustments to all the tanks, and they singled out Pld in particular. Given that SE has been rather ... reluctant, to even admit that there is a problem, I'm not overly convinced that they are actually listening to even half of the general complaints surrounding Pld.

Like you, my biggest hope would that Pld sees a massive overhaul similar to what War's got back in 2.1, but my biggest fear is that SE is going to slap yet another band-aid (on top of a band-aid, which is on top of another band-aid) and say that it's "fixed." It wouldn't be the first time. You might recall their minor enmity adjustments to Flash that didn't really fix anything, or perhaps their small adjustments to Cos ... which also barely did anything. They've been singing the same tune about Pld's "working as intended" for so long that I don't even want to speculate on what they might be changing now, because I'm liable to get disappointed.

Still ... I really can't help but hope that they'll get it right. I've been wanting them to fix it for so long that it's hard not to hold my breath over this.

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Originally Posted by BIinfinity

3. Cover - Increase the range to 20 y and add another beneficial effect.

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I think it was in Ragnarok Online that the "take damage for your ally" skill also transferred the buffs you had to your ally, so in our case Covering for OT or MT could also give them Sentinel, Rampart, Regen or wtv. It would be kinda useless considering you're taking damage for them, but if the effect passed on by Cover had its duration reset it could be...at least more useful than it is now. Just a random thought, though.

All the things 1.0 PLD could do sound so nice, though :(, why can't the same people re-design the class?

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

Doing so however opens another whole can of worms wherein PLD would find great difficulty in soloing any content, and his contribution be completely reliant on whether or not his/her party members choose to even utilize it. If for example the PLD is stuck in a dungeon run wherein his DPS have died on their keyboards and the healer desires only to heal, then it is simply impossible to even clear said dungeon whereas if a WAR/DRK whom are able to directly utilize their own contribution have a better chance to clear the dungeon with said DPS and healer.

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Not necessarily.
PLD could have one skill that stacks damage mitigation, DPS reduction, and enmity gain. When you don't need that much mitigation, you'd play PLD pretty much as it is now, and it wouldn't matter on most content.
But when doing really high content, it would be time to take off the kids gloves and go full turtle power !
For me PLD's mitigation could be so high that it would allow it to solo tank almost everything. Something that could allow it to take 2 Hypercompressed Plasma right in the face even with the damage buff.
(I've posted an idea for such a skill elsewhere, I can link it if you're curious)

Would it be better a better setup than using other tanks ? Not automatically since it's DPS ouput would be really really low in "turtle mode". And we all know that efficiency is measured by raidwide DPS. After all, who cares if PLD can survive 1 hour with proper healing if the party automatically wipes after 15 min ?
It would just be another strat

It is everyone's job to dps as much as possible. EVERYONE. As long as the raid does less dps with a paladin, paladin will be undesirable.

That said, paladin itself doesn't need to do the dps, it could contribute in other ways. like giving circle of scorn a 10% magic vuln up debuff. Something like that to close the gap even if it isn't coming from their own personal dps. I like the idea of pld being the unselfish tank that helps the whole raid, including and especially other tanks, with a variety of utilities. I feel like that's what pld's original design intention was, they simply failed to give it something to support dps.

I'm relatively new to FFXIV, and I couldn't help but wonder why there is so much cross-over between roles? With the mmo holy trinity, (Tanks, Healers, DPS,) the differences between the three should be magnified as much as possible!

If any tank is putting out enough DPS that is comparable to DPS classes, then obviously DPS classes need buffing, or that tank class needs nerfing. It seems that there is a fundamental game design flaw that needs to be addressed more so, and that flaw is the DPS overlap.

To fix it, tanks need to mitigate more damage, deal less damage, dungeon mobs need to deal more AA damage, damage should be normalized so there isn't a magic vs physical tank, then poof you have a stronger tanking role. If healers have time to be DPSing, then there isn't enough raid-wide damage to keep them busy. DPS are like the only role in this game that have a good role!!!

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Originally Posted by Desthro

To fix it, tanks need to mitigate more damage, deal less damage, dungeon mobs need to deal more AA damage, damage should be normalized so there isn't a magic vs physical tank, then poof you have a stronger tanking role.

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That's well and all to say, but how do you make that fun and engaging within the confines of the current battle system?

This is the thing. It's not enough to simply say that the roles in a game, in any game, must be a certain way because of whatever arbitrary reasoning or tradition. If it's not interesting from a mechanical standpoint as well as a flavor/lore/role perspective, you're not going to find many players to populate that role; and at endgame, for pug content, tanks are rare enough as it is.

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Originally Posted by AI_wass

-how do you make that fun and engaging within the confines of the current battle system?

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The current battle system allows for tankier tanks and beefier, harder-hitting dungeon mobs. Heals don't have to increase because EHP makes the healing naturally more effective on them.

As far as making tanking entertaining, I can tell you that Tanking blows because you AREN'T really that much tankier than your everyday melee dps. You aren't special when that dragoon or monk can face tank a pull without you. End game might be different, but I don't FEEL like a tank, I feel like a crappy melee DPS that has high hate mechanics.

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Originally Posted by Desthro

As far as making tanking entertaining, I can tell you that Tanking blows because you AREN'T really that much tankier than your everyday melee dps. You aren't special when that dragoon or monk can face tank a pull without you. End game might be different, but I don't FEEL like a tank, I feel like a crappy melee DPS that has high hate mechanics.

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I'm enjoying tanking as Warrior and even as Dark Knight as they fit my taste more than Paladins. I definitely feel like a warrior tank where if enemies want to wipe out my party members, I'm gonna make that difficult to do so but I'm also gonna wreck your face with my giant 2-handed axe. The skills of warriors in this game fits that very well for me. Paladins should be much more defensive than the other 2 tanks though and help provide more mitigation for the party.

Game's not balanced around casual play, so yeah given that we're 35 ilvls above the requirement for most non-alex instances, it's not unexpected. But there is no way any dps could tank in a1s. Utterly obliterated maybe.

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Originally Posted by DGladius

I'm enjoying tanking as Warrior and even as Dark Knight as they fit my taste more than Paladins. I definitely feel like a warrior tank where if enemies want to wipe out my party members, I'm gonna make that difficult to do so but I'm also gonna wreck your face with my giant 2-handed axe. The skills of warriors in this game fits that very well for me. Paladins should be much more defensive than the other 2 tanks though and help provide more mitigation for the party.

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The thing is, the tanks should all be equally viable, and just have different mechanics to get there. Otherwise you end up with with a tank market where one or more tank classes are undesirable. A little bit of a thread derail though ;) LOL

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Originally Posted by Violette

Game's not balanced around casual play, so yeah given that we're 35 ilvls above the requirement for most non-alex instances, it's not unexpected. But there is no way any dps could tank in a1s. Utterly obliterated maybe.

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The main point was addressing the lack of tanks... if it's not fun to level a tank, because you feel unimportant, then there will be less tanks to play. It's just one more thing that needs to be addressed and addressed appropriately.

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Originally Posted by Desthro

As far as making tanking entertaining, I can tell you that Tanking blows because you AREN'T really that much tankier than your everyday melee dps. You aren't special when that dragoon or monk can face tank a pull without you. End game might be different, but I don't FEEL like a tank, I feel like a crappy melee DPS that has high hate mechanics.

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A DRG/MNK might be able to survive a pull without a tank, but that doesn't mean they feel like they could be a tank. They don't generate extra enmity so they can only hold 1 mob at a time. They miss out on almost every single positional and end up doing less DPS, while all 3 tanks gain damage from being targeted. They have way less defence, no strong defensive cooldowns, and bad self healing which means you can't do big pulls and a healer would have to spend more time healing when they could be DPSing. Pull any group of 3 mobs solo and see how long you last on tank vs melee: the tanks will be alive way longer. You don't need to have 10k HP more than a DPS to feel much more tankier, it's all about the right skills.

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Originally Posted by Phoenicia

Hallowed Ground may have the strongest "effect" from a defensive CD, but due to its obscene CD, it is probably one of the least effective in a fight. It will never reduce as much damage as Rampart, Sentinel or IB over the course of 7 minutes.

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That's not exactly a good metric to use. I'll admit that part of the issue with Hallowed Ground is that it's one of those "identity" things that got a pass when they implemented PLD (hence why in the JP version the ability is called Invincible after its FFXI counterpart). Expecting it to be used frequently as is would be beyond unreasonable since it negates all incoming damage with no attached downside (no damage penalty while active, no loss of all aggro upon use).

Now whether people would be willing to lose Hallowed Ground in place of something that can be used more regularly remains to be seen. I spoke out against HG back in 1.23 because I've seen invincibilities get out of hand before, so I'd shed no tears if HG were to leave us.

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Frequency of availability makes CDs "better". There is a reason Vengeance and Inner Beast are the "best" defensive tools.

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You're ignoring differences in gameplay. PLD is designed as a traditional tank with cooldowns that are supposed to be used during oh shit moments. WAR is designed partly around active mitigation, which is why Inner Beast works the way it does. PLD defensive cooldowns and what WAR has in their place serve very different purposes. Or at least, they're supposed to serve different purposes.

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Cover is there for thematic purposes and is almost useless.

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Oh if only someone were to come up with a better version of Cover.

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Awareness is difficult to calculate in terms of eHP and you can never predict what damage it prevented. Unless it's used in a scenario where crits are 100% guaranted.

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Agreed. This was a bad idea from the start and IMO has always been a waste of a slot. The only fight that justified its existence was Shiva EX when in bow mode. Then with 3.0 WAR gets more mileage out of it because of how it negates the downside of Raw Intuition.

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Sheltron shoots itself in the foot with its timing and bosses not stopping auto-attacks while casting potentially popping the block with an auto only so you eat that 23k buster and blocks never precede crits. Again, damage type limited CD.

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I think part of the problem here is that doing anything else with Sheltron invalidates Bulwark on some level.

It could have easily been a "block every attack for the next 10 seconds" type of ability, but at that point they might as well just redesign Bulwark to work like this and replace Sheltron with something else. That might not be a bad idea, actually...

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Doesn't matter if you can pretend to be able to heal yourself for 1200 potency and or pad your HP by 10% if the reaction time for those is retardedly long. Paladin doing anything trying to cast those will first have to wait 2.5 seconds GCD, then cast for 3 seconds.

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This is an obvious knock on Clemency, so I'll present to you the choice. You either get hybrid utility with its inherent downsides/opportunity cost (and Clemency to be anywhere near balanced absolutely needs to have an opportunity cost if it can be used on party members), or you get an instant self heal on a 20-25s cooldown.

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The reason there is a blatant problem with PLD: PLD is taxed by lower DPS and 0 raid DPS contribution for an imaginary defensive advantage that does not exist, nor is needed in the current meta.

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This doesn't paint the whole picture. The truth of the matter is that PLD was designed around a certain paradigm and playstyle, but the game has made that paradigm ineffective partly through developer decisions (DPS race-focused encounters) and partly through the player-created metagame (circumventing tank staples by being able to pump out more damage than intended for a tank via WAR triple Fel Cleaves et al).

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The issue was so deep that SE had to change the tank's main damage stat, re-evaluating and looking at tank traits, AND shifting from sever DPS checks to mechanic checks in the upcoming savage instead of just simply buffing PLD and/or nerfing the other tanks.

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Depending on how far they went with the changes (really wish they would talk about this in detail instead of making us wait for patch notes), this is either a step in the right direction or a band-aid on a bullet wound.

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Originally Posted by Desthro

The main point was addressing the lack of tanks... if it's not fun to level a tank, because you feel unimportant, then there will be less tanks to play. It's just one more thing that needs to be addressed and addressed appropriately.

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......Maybe you don't find it fun, but as a warrior and a dark knight, from level 30 I felt extremely important and powerful.
Paladin just gets the shit end of the stick because Flash doesn't do damage and Paladin's damage all round is kinda meh.
Even when I leveled paladin back in 2.0 I found myself feeling important once I got shield oath.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

You're ignoring differences in gameplay. PLD is designed as a traditional tank with cooldowns that are supposed to be used during oh shit moments. WAR is designed partly around active mitigation, which is why Inner Beast works the way it does. PLD defensive cooldowns and what WAR has in their place serve very different purposes. Or at least, they're supposed to serve different purposes.

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Building on this, we see a vast issue in the fact that there is only 2 instances in end game raiding where continuous mitigation is required, that being A2S jagds and A2S final wave. All other damage instances are generally <6 seconds, meaning warrior's can IB everything, making it a better Shadowskin/Rampart due to healing+way smaller cooldown. Can double IB and it still has a shorter cooldown than either (rampart 90 vs Infuriate 60).

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Originally Posted by Duelle

Oh if only someone were to come up with a better version of Cover.

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Cover has it's uses in fight where mitigation and utility are more than damage increase/decrease, i.e. A2S or even T13 where it was vitality important to clearing strategies. If we saw Cover absorbing magic damage as well, it would be a lot more useful. And if Cover damage didn't go through HG, it'd be A LOT MORE USEFUL WHY SE WHY DOES IT IGNORE HG

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Originally Posted by Duelle

Agreed. This was a bad idea from the start and IMO has always been a waste of a slot. The only fight that justified its existence was Shiva EX when in bow mode. Then with 3.0 WAR gets more mileage out of it because of how it negates the downside of Raw Intuition.

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Oppressor's also have a higher than average crit rating, and every little bit counts. If it also gave back say, TP/crit negated.....that'd be cool.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

I think part of the problem here is that doing anything else with Sheltron invalidates Bulwark on some level.

It could have easily been a "block every attack for the next 10 seconds" type of ability, but at that point they might as well just redesign Bulwark to work like this and replace Sheltron with something else. That might not be a bad idea, actually...

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Block next magic damage anyone?

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The reason there is a blatant problem with PLD: PLD is taxed by lower DPS and 0 raid DPS contribution for an imaginary defensive advantage that does not exist, nor is needed in the current meta.

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I couldn't be bother going to get your name sorry, so you'll have to forgive me.
Paladin's do have a defensive advantage in their shield, plain and simple. Given it only works on physical damage, that's the problem. People need to stop perpetuating the whole "Paladin isn't tankier". Yes it is, against physical damage. Out classes Dark Knight and Warrior, because of the shield reduction + Shelltron + Bulwark + STR down. It's the same reason Dark Knight's have an advantage on Magic Damage, int down + Dark Mind. The only reason these don't matter is because A2S is somewhat face-rolly and as mentioned above, high damage instances being <6 seconds means Warrior's IB usage trumps all.

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Originally Posted by Launched

A DRG/MNK might be able to survive a pull without a tank ... They have way less defence, no strong defensive cooldowns, and bad self healing ... a healer would have to spend more time healing when they could be DPSing.

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Generally I agree with you. The thing is, there's very little incentive to be a tank when basic party mechanics go out the window, and GOOD tanks are hard to come by because you don't have to be a good tank anymore because the "casual" content is extremely forgiving. Too forgiving.

Also, healers should be healing primarily and DPSing rarely, if they have time to truly DPS, then the content is too soft on the tanks and/or party.

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Originally Posted by Syzygian

I don't mean to sound... well... how this is going to sound no matter how I word it, but PLD needs all that extra mitigation (which is not as much as people make it out to be given how retardedly long its recast times are (short recast-high uptime CDs are ideal in A2S, imo) and the fact that there is no true TB in A2S for Sheltron to be anything other than a guaranteed stray block from an AA) due to how slow everything dies with its lack of AoE. You could argue even that DRK is better due to the fact that the more targets there are, the more powerful its sustain is (MP and self-healing).

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Wrong is the word you're looking for.

Most groups cleared A2S that first week using a paladin (and continued to do so for a while), because Paladin gave the mitigation Dark Knight did not have. Shelltron can block the spider boom boom in a pinch (hey man take what you can get), but even mitigating the Jagd's AA can be important in progression.

Which is once again, where I'm coming from. From a progression stand point, in ilvl180 gear with a few 190 pieces, paladins have the shield+bulwark+cover+HG made all the difference. Nowadays we can cheese it with dark dance + sustain + living dead, because we've the ilvl to cruise past real damage via sustain. But before then, Paladins were MUCH stronger than Dark Knights.
And the DRK aoe compared to Paladin AoE was not as much as you make it out to be, where in the end clever cover usage (on the warrior during gobwidow phases), HG>LD meaning Bene didn't need to be saved past a certain point, str down affecting everything and having a summoner (the key part of A2S progression) would basically equal it out.

Just remember, one of (if not THE first) the first A2S clear was done with a SCHOLAR driving, because the paladin provided so much mitigation the whm could solo heal.

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Originally Posted by Desthro

Generally I agree with you. The thing is, there's very little incentive to be a tank when basic party mechanics go out the window, and GOOD tanks are hard to come by because you don't have to be a good tank anymore because the "casual" content is extremely forgiving. Too forgiving.

Also, healers should be healing primarily and DPSing rarely, if they have time to truly DPS, then the content is too soft on the tanks and/or party.

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Mate if you want to complain about this, wrong thread. If you don't like playing a tank in FFXIV, don't play a tank (or play a war). There is plenty of incentive to be a tank (controlling the flow of the dungeon, able to prioritize the targets, doing mad deeps). If those incentives are not for you, I suggest trying something else out.

As for healers, once again you're playing too casual here. Healers maximize dps, like how tanks maximize dps. Because this is not wow. You're not just one dimensional, a meat shield or a cure bot. You want to clear, you gotta pull your weight and do your best in all things.
If healers have time to truly dps, it's because we've learnt the fight inside out and know when it's safe to do so. Because for 15 seconds, that regen+ fairy + my defensive cooldowns will be enough for us the squeeze out another 20-30 dps, which could make all the difference.

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Originally Posted by Violette

Paladin's do have a defensive advantage in their shield, plain and simple. Given it only works on physical damage, that's the problem. People need to stop perpetuating the whole "Paladin isn't tankier". Yes it is, against physical damage. Out classes Dark Knight and Warrior, because of the shield reduction + Shelltron + Bulwark + STR down. It's the same reason Dark Knight's have an advantage on Magic Damage, int down + Dark Mind. The only reason these don't matter is because A2S is somewhat face-rolly and as mentioned above, high damage instances being <6 seconds means Warrior's IB usage trumps all.

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All the more reason to normalize magical and physical damage so tank defenses protect against it all. That way each tank is always relevant.

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Originally Posted by DGladius

Paladins should be much more defensive than the other 2 tanks though and help provide more mitigation for the party.

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Paladins already do this. They have Divine Veil, Stoneskin and a STR down debuff to put on the enemy.
Try to support you healer using Clemency or stoneskin for as long as you can and see how solo healing for the healer goes.
Sheltron and riot blade to restore your mana. PLD has always been built around being the best defensive tank. To be creative with it adds more fun to tanking.

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Originally Posted by Desthro

All the more reason to normalize magical and physical damage so tank defenses protect against it all. That way each tank is always relevant.

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Sounds like a boring ass idea that doesn't deal with any problems and only makes the game less interesting.

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Originally Posted by Aaliyahrose

Paladins already do this. They have Divine Veil, Stoneskin and a STR down debuff to put on the enemy.
Try to support you healer using Clemency or stoneskin for as long as you can and see how solo healing for the healer goes.
Sheltron and riot blade to restore your mana. PLD has always been built around being the best defensive tank. To be creative with it adds more fun to tanking.

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Not mentioned: SHIELD, Cover.

Though as should be mentioned, pld do have the most defensive utility, except Clemency/SS get interrupted by bosses and cannot be used as OT because lolpld no damage ywudut@k it as opposed to war/drk. If there was less dps, more mitigation/mechanic/healing checks, paladins would be better in end game. Paladins have all the defensive utility you could dream of, just no damage so loltr@sh

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Originally Posted by Desthro

All the more reason to normalize magical and physical damage so tank defenses protect against it all. That way each tank is always relevant.

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"DRK is only gud against magic lol"

"WAH, let Sheltron block magic!"

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Originally Posted by Duelle

I think part of the problem here is that doing anything else with Sheltron invalidates Bulwark on some level.

It could have easily been a "block every attack for the next 10 seconds" type of ability, but at that point they might as well just redesign Bulwark to work like this and replace Sheltron with something else. That might not be a bad idea, actually...

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The Sheltron ability was designed block attacks that require timing i.e. Thordan's cleve attack or A3S hand swipe. These of which do enough damage that cause healers to throw out a Cure 2 or Lustrate. It also restores mana, so you can continue to Stoneskin/Clemency you or a party member.