Unpopular opinion

Ah yeah makes sense.

The hate on pali is real in this thread

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Originally Posted by bswpayton

The hate on pali is real in this thread

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Where? What hate? If by "hate" you mean a bunch of people saying "hey PLD is really good, WAR/DRK not so much, they probably need some buffs" then yeah I guess this is PLD hate for days up in here.

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

Where? What hate? If by "hate" you mean a bunch of people saying "hey PLD is really good, WAR/DRK not so much, they probably need some buffs" then yeah I guess this is PLD hate for days up in here.

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damage is balanced, among the tanks, pali just has divine veil, intervention , and passage and people act like its just the most amazing utility kit of all time. Im personally just sick of jobs gettin nerfed and changed and threads like this with negative feedback will just get jobs people like nerfed.
Hence the first thing in last live letter was pretty much pali is to strong, what happen HS gets cut down 30 potency , its more so an issue with the playerbase than the game stop following trends and meta and play what you like stop worrying about fflogs and worry bout yourself. Thats the real problem more so than jobs not being balanced.

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Originally Posted by bswpayton

damage is balanced, among the tanks, pali just has divine veil, intervention , and passage and people act like its just the most amazing utility kit of all time. Im personally just sick of jobs gettin nerfed and changed and threads like this with negative feedback will just get jobs people like nerfed.

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Square isn't known to do huge nerfs all the time like Blizzard does, likewise, people asking for balance is not wrong. How is going to affect Paladins if:

1) Dark Passenger is made not-useless, it's literally not worth using.
2) Shadow Wall is matched with sentinel or the CD is reduced as it currently makes little sense.
3) The Blackest Night at a minimum is boosted a second or two due to server ticks.
4) The Living Dead is made to be less janky as unlike Holmgang and Hallowed Ground we pretty much need a pocket White Mage for it. It's not very noticeable and you also have to die for it to even have an effect.
5) Any form of extra mitigation since the focus on TBN makes it harder to soak damage outside of tank busters.
6) If none of the above, can we not be the lowest dps? As we kind of feel squishy for how much Paladins have. That's not hating em, it's just pointing out the obvious.

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Originally Posted by Kalocin

Square isn't known to do huge nerfs all the time like Blizzard does, likewise, people asking for balance is not wrong. How is going to affect Paladins if:

1) Dark Passenger is made not-useless, it's literally not worth using.
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I actually agree with you on everything you said , drk relies the most on the role system of the three tanks their defensive tool kit is def lacking and I know when I was leveling I wish I had TBN below level 70. Im more so against the argument that because pali has so much utility that it shouldnt deal decent damage, because at the end of the day thats what matters the most. They changed alot on warrior in 4.05 heard the feedback and I was hoping all this pali is to strong would stop but I guess not heres to wishful thinking.

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Originally Posted by Kalocin

Square isn't known to do huge nerfs all the time like Blizzard does, likewise, people asking for balance is not wrong. How is going to affect Paladins if:

1) Dark Passenger is made not-useless, it's literally not worth using.
2) Shadow Wall is matched with sentinel or the CD is reduced as it currently makes little sense.
3) The Blackest Night at a minimum is boosted a second or two due to server ticks.
4) The Living Dead is made to be less janky as unlike Holmgang and Hallowed Ground we pretty much need a pocket White Mage for it. It's not very noticeable and you also have to die for it to even have an effect.
5) Any form of extra mitigation since the focus on TBN makes it harder to soak damage outside of tank busters.
6) If none of the above, can we not be the lowest dps?

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Which I am thankful for, because that is one of the reasons (also them trying WoWify all their other games) I am done with that developer, having been playing their games since the mid 90s.

Paladin was my first L50 class (and only in ARR) and though I switched to Dark Knight upon reaching Ishgard in HW it was the very next class I got to 60. After being used to ARR Paladin, Dark Knight felt amazing. However, as I would come to find out HW gave Paladin some sorely needed things to make it much better than 2.xx. After getting used to having Goring Blade and Royal Authority L50 sync content drove me nuts to the point of wondering how I ever suffered though it. I did find dungeons as PLD lacking as they had no spammable AoE skill, a distinct disadvantage compared to the other two tanks.

After they did the Shield Oath to 15% change I honestly didn't do much different damage in the fights as Paladin vs Dark Knight. I continued to Main Dark Knight as it had by far the best story (man, the Paladin stories were generic and boring IMO) and was still more fun for me to play but was excited to see the announcement that it was getting some very positive changes in SB. I assumed first and foremost a skill like Total Eclipse was coming as it was much needed but they really did another great job adding to Paladin overall just like HW did.

However, I don't understand why they couldn't just improve WAR and DRK as well. Sure, they needed less overall "new and shiny" things but it seems to me like they purposely set out to make both of those classes WORSE (WAR is just hearsay to me, I only have Marauder at 26) and I just don't understand that.

With Dark Knight they removed nearly all of our oGCDs via the role skills, nerfs, or outright removal. Gone is a signature move, Dark Dance, and the two skills that fed off parries. On the defensive side they took Shadowskin, Foresight, and Dark Dance. Sure, you can take Rampart and Anticipation, but Anticipation is not nearly as good as Dark Dance was and there is no foresight replacement, which would have been better than before with our higher defense values. In return we got a stoneskin that costs the same MP as Dark Arts.

When playing 4.0 PLD, I feel that I gave up almost nothing (I never used Awareness, how useful was protect/raise/stoneskin?) outside a better Convalescence. In return I got better potencies on everything, some new strong magic attacks, improved healing and even more party saving defensive moves.

When I play 4.0 DRK I feel I lost 1/2 my moves while 2 that are still left are a pale imitation of their former selves in exchange for a shield, ST attack (that is not as strong as its potency implies), and AoE attack.

I never thought PLD needed any nerfs, I was glad for the changes for 4.0 but now just want them to make Dark Knight great again.

No. Changes helped Warrior quite a bit, but drk is still in a really bad spot. Worst dps, worst mitigation, and only one utility move is bad. On the WAR side, no real utility sucks but the other changes at least made it easier to actually deal damage regardless of role. We'll have to see what the Shake It Off changes are.

DRK damage was fixed but it's mitigation was not and dark passenger is a useless skill atm that should be looked at for 4.1

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Originally Posted by Conando

No. Changes helped Warrior quite a bit, but drk is still in a really bad spot. Worst dps, worst mitigation, and only one utility move is bad. On the WAR side, no real utility sucks but the other changes at least made it easier to actually deal damage regardless of role. We'll have to see what the Shake It Off changes are.

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No. Savage has a lot of movement and phase changes that hurts war dps the most due to lower potency combos and big reliance on berserk/ir windows. Drk can MT all 4 bosses no problem due to dark mind, and have an easier time dpsing.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

I guess s/he meant Thrill of Battle

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Yeah, the one that heals based on %. Sorry, I got them mixed up. Good call.

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Originally Posted by Tankstuff

No. Savage has a lot of movement and phase changes that hurts war dps the most due to lower potency combos and big reliance on berserk/ir windows. Drk can MT all 4 bosses no problem due to dark mind, and have an easier time dpsing.

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I'm not so sure about this. Most of the clear PoVs i've seen have shown WARs still outparsing the other tanks even while dealing with mechanics, usually hovering around 2.9K where the other two are at 2.5-2.6K

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Originally Posted by SyzzleSpark

I'm not so sure about this. Most of the clear PoVs i've seen have shown WARs still outparsing the other tanks even while dealing with mechanics, usually hovering around 2.9K where the other two are at 2.5-2.6K

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maybe, idk I was just talking from personal experience, but im just a pub life pleb whose just starting 4 this week. Maybe when you have the entire fight down and planned out perfectly id take war but going in for prog I am def running dark, where I can slam my donger on the kb and still do optimal dps while doing mechanics and just dark mind everything

It's certainly more complex to optimize war during prog, but it's definitely not as terrible as people seem to think. At least after the stance switch penalty change it's a lot more forgiving.

yea so i stand corrected, on 1 and 2 i tried war today and pulled 300 higher than I did on dark last week, although I got a few upgrades since then. Its not bad when you know exactly how to plan out your berserk and ir windows, but I still feel safer on dark going into prog and I disagree about their mitigation issues because once again were in a raid tier with very predictable damage with lots of magical busters right now. Not saying dark is fine though and doesnt need anymore buffs, they still need tweaks if we are using paladin as the standard. The stance swap change was negligible to me in a raid setting honestly because with shirk and pld/drk shields I feel comfortable never leaving deliverance, it is nice if we are pulling though which I think we should be if we have a pld with us

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Originally Posted by bweisnicht

You're effectively saying balance is impossible, then.

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It kind of is. This game will never have perfect balance (no pun intended). Every job will have it's highs and lows. I think people just forget that at times. It's why you hear so much of "just play what you like". Eventually the job you play will be in a good place. You just have to accept at some points it won't be.

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Originally Posted by RaizeGraymalkin

It kind of is. This game will never have perfect balance (no pun intended).

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Frankly, I don't think it's impossible. The problem is that they want to balance them "in the void" (no pun either).

Like I said earlier in that thread, what they should balance is different party composition, and for that you create synergies. If no DPS has a slashing debuff, then WAR is better if your party has a NIN or a SAM. If PLD is changed to do piercing damage, and is given a piercing debuff (That would be removed from DRG), then a PLD is better if you have a DRG, a MCH or a BRD. And a DRK could be given a magic vulnerability, to better synergize with BLM, SMN and RDM.

As for healers, they could also create synergies. A healer that mainly uses abilities to heal is better paired with PLD or DRK than WAR. A healer that would spread an AoE based on the amount healed on your initial target would spread higher numbers by targeting a WAR than a PLD or a DRK, etc...

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Frankly, I don't think it's impossible. The problem is that they want to balance them "in the void" (no pun either).

Like I said earlier in that thread, what they should balance is different party composition, and for that you create synergies. If no DPS has a slashing debuff, then WAR is better if your party has a NIN or a SAM. If PLD is changed to do piercing damage, and is given a piercing debuff (That would be removed from DRG), then a PLD is better if you have a DRG, a MCH or a BRD. And a DRK could be given a magic vulnerability, to better synergize with BLM, SMN and RDM.

As for healers, they could also create synergies. A healer that mainly uses abilities to heal is better paired with PLD or DRK than WAR. A healer that would spread an AoE based on the amount healed on your initial target would spread higher numbers by targeting a WAR than a PLD or a DRK, etc...

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The whole synergy aspect is a great idea, if we were playing FFXI again. FFXIV is based around duty finder pugs. The only thing SE cares about is if all jobs can preform closeish to the same level in puggy dungeons. Raid content isn't even done by a large population of players. Since raids, especially prog are set up prior to entry and thus can be selective what does it matter if certain job out perform others? You have the time to select out the best jobs before hand but duty pugs do not.

If they created the synergy you are talking about then the DPS would have to perfectly balanced as well since you would be selecting a tank based on which DPS you had and there are clear winners and losers in the DPS world right now.

True balance will only ever be achieved when personal preference of aesthetics is the only deciding factor. Even a 100 dps difference will make the Prog Raiders select that DPS over others because Min/Max is a thing for a lot of people, even though they plan content to not need to min/max for the most part.

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Originally Posted by RaizeGraymalkin

It kind of is. This game will never have perfect balance (no pun intended). Every job will have it's highs and lows. I think people just forget that at times. It's why you hear so much of "just play what you like". Eventually the job you play will be in a good place. You just have to accept at some points it won't be.

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Agreed, but it is going to be a looong 4.xx for DRK then.

I think all the tanks end off pretty equal though lacking some utility. I don't see this as a problem however. Each tank has its own pros/cons, and its how you use it that will decide how good it is.

So I don't think its that people don't know what they're talking about, I think everyone just plays classes differently and has different inputs.

No they are not. One tank is extreme easy to play, has all the utility and does crazy damage. The other tank is very difficult to play, has almost no utility and when it does play optimally isn't rewarded for all it's hard work with crazy damage. The last tank is much easier to play now but has almost no utility or does not do crazy damage.

When I say crazy damage I'm talking relative to tanks so please miss me with the play a dps class comments.

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Originally Posted by Maku

The whole synergy aspect is a great idea, if we were playing FFXI again. FFXIV is based around duty finder pugs.

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The meta is not. Unless people start to withdraw from the Raid Finder right away if they end with a less desirable tank, the balance between them is only important for Party Finder or static, where you can chose the jobs you want.

I think Dark Knight remains a dead-simple class to play even at 70 and has been made boring, and that the fact that it receives its big ability that rather massively affects how it plays is only gotten at 70 now makes it even worse.

I think the developers should stick to their own words when they say certain classes are made more damaging or less damaging depending how much utility they have, and apply that logic to tanks because clearly they aren't doing that with the most utility heavy tank being also the most damaging one and the least utility one being down in the gutter because achieving its optimal dps is more difficult compared to the other two tanks.

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Originally Posted by silverlunarfox

I think all the tanks end off pretty equal though lacking some utility. I don't see this as a problem however. Each tank has its own pros/cons, and its how you use it that will decide how good it is.

So I don't think its that people don't know what they're talking about, I think everyone just plays classes differently and has different inputs.

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In what world do all tanks end off equal? First of all, DRK has the worst overall mitigation of the three tanks and the only utility it brings to the table is TBN, which is very unimpressive. WAR comes in with zero utility and a rotation that requires the stars to align in order to out-DPS PLD. Then we have PLD, who has a million different forms of personal and ally mitigation, tons of defensive utility, self-healing, the simplest rotation while having similar DPS, and has the ability to become invincible for 10 seconds at the press of a button with zero opportunity cost.

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Originally Posted by Capn_Goggles

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It's as close as we're going to get to balance. People are holding PLD utility as a holy grail as if healers aren't well equipped enough to do everything it does but better. ...and there's 2.

You nerf PLDs damage it's cemented to MT.

You buff DRKs dps and mitigation and it's dedicated MT.

Buff WAR dps and we're back to 3.x

This game is all about DPS. No way around it. PLD was picked because it's DPS was very high in the beginning and its utility was icing on the cake.

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Originally Posted by Jhett_Magnum

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You can't have a tank that's great at everything and then have the other tanks not be great at everything as well. You're also underplaying the value of Paladin utility, it'll make your entire group more easily survive extremes and savage by using passage of arms at key points, it even has strong emergency heals that far outclass anything the other tanks can put on themselves and can save other people with it in a pinch with ease, not to mention cover and interject. As a Paladin there have been a good number of times where I saved a group by using clemency on a healer at a critical point or on myself so that I didn't die or they didn't die when things were looking rough.

At this point it really won't hurt if they buff the Warrior DPS as long as they keep Paladin where it is at. It does need something to compare to all that amazingness the Paladin is throwing out currently and currently it does not.

With the massive amount of hyperbole on this forum it's really difficult to determine where actual issues lie and to what extent. The main problem I see for SE is that WAR was the go to tank for all of 3.0 because of their high damage, and next was DRK and then PLD (They lacked the ability the block magical tank busters and their dps was a joke). If they do as many want on this forum and buff War DPS we will end up with a similar situation as 3.0 for the majority of raids, PLD utility did not earn them any places in 3.0. It will be interesting to see how SE continues to attempt to balance tanks their has already been one PLD DPS nerf so it seems they are aware of the balance issues.

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Originally Posted by TheCount

I think the developers should stick to their own words when they say certain classes are made more damaging or less damaging depending how much utility they have,

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Utility VS DPS was only interview BS YoshiP pulled out of his ass to justify the design concept of SAM. It's not just PLD that is an exception to that flawed concept/metric anyway,

The issues with DRK/WAR are conflicts and design pitfalls in their own kits, not an apathetic comparison test to PLD.

Always hear it said, "PLD has utility, so they shouldn't have easiest & consistently high DPS."

Actually it's because of their utility that their DPS is where it's at.

They don't want PLDs feeling like they're compromising raid DPS if they stop their rotation to force trigger Divine Veil > Clemency, or just throw out a Clemency to a player in need. They don't want PLDs to feel apprehensive about going into Passage of Arms during active combat phases of encounters. Their high/forgiving DPS makes more incentive to use them.

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Originally Posted by Dortharl

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That's a wrong assumption. In Stormblood the Paladin for example now has much more to make it a really good tank choice even if Warrior DPS were better. It has better utility by a large margin, and its damage would still be good just not AS good as the warrior whom brings no utility at all. It would be a good balance

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Originally Posted by TheCount

That's a wrong assumption. In Stormblood the Paladin for example now has much more to make it a really good tank choice even if Warrior DPS were better. It has better utility by a large margin, and its damage would still be good just not AS good as the warrior whom brings no utility at all. It would be a good balance

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I agree that WAR should have higher dmg than PLD and it currently does have higher DPS than PLD. The threads I've seen which show parses and actual data all show that WAR has 100-200 higher DPS than PLD and DRK. I don't anyone has argued that they should be the same.

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Originally Posted by Dortharl

I agree that WAR should have higher dmg than PLD and it currently does have higher DPS than PLD. The threads I've seen which show parses and actual data all show that WAR has 100-200 higher DPS than PLD and DRK. I don't anyone has argued that they should be the same.

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Oh come now. I don't think you actually believe that's enough. Not only does WAR have a much harder time achieving optimal DPS that difference is still pathetic when it does.

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Originally Posted by TheCount

Oh come now. I don't think you actually believe that's enough. Not only does WAR have a much harder time achieving optimal DPS that difference is still pathetic when it does.

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How much do you think would be reasonable, keep in mind that the utility which your balancing this against becomes less useful the more parties learn mechanics and gear up, while DPS becomes more useful.

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Originally Posted by Dortharl

I agree that WAR should have higher dmg than PLD and it currently does have higher DPS than PLD. The threads I've seen which show parses and actual data all show that WAR has 100-200 higher DPS than PLD and DRK. I don't anyone has argued that they should be the same.

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Oh come on. Once you throw a slashing, nin or Sam, it evens out. So no there is no real divergence in DPS.

In V1S, Warriors have a decent chance at keeping up with Paladins in damage. In V2S it becomes a bit trickier. In V3S though it's impossible to match Paladins or Dark Knights, unless they are extremely bad. You're forced to save your Inner Release combo until after Spellblade Holy, because if you happen to get marked, it's over.

And then regardless of whether you decide to hold your Inner Release or not, it'll either be up right before Mindjack, or just before the giant dragon spawns. Neither of these two situations allows the execution of the mess that is the Warrior's optimal damage rotation.

So you're forced to hold onto your combo until after you've picked up the dragon, or the dragon is dead, leading to a massive DPS loss.

And then throughout several parts of the fight, you rarely get 20 seconds where you're able to do your full combo. And when you do, chances are it's probably still on cooldown.

So yeah, take that into account next time you say Warriors do more damage than the other tanks.

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Originally Posted by BluexBird

In V1S, Warriors have a decent chance at keeping up with Paladins in damage. In V2S it becomes a bit trickier. In V3S though it's impossible to match Paladins or Dark Knights, unless they are extremely bad.

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So yeah, take that into account next time you say Warriors do more damage than the other tanks.

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http://i.imgur.com/U7kOUZYl.png

If you're having difficulty keeping up, the PLD or DRK in question is probably an entire quartile range higher in performance, either through gear and/or skill.

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Originally Posted by Dortharl

I agree that WAR should have higher dmg than PLD and it currently does have higher DPS than PLD. The threads I've seen which show parses and actual data all show that WAR has 100-200 higher DPS than PLD and DRK. I don't anyone has argued that they should be the same.

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If you've played a warrior at 70, you know where most of their DPS is coming from, and should also know that their parses are largely based on dummies. Warrior has higher DPS in a vacuum under ideal conditions, a large part of this is his built-in slashing debuff, which both DRK and PLD can take full advantage of because there's usually either a SAM or a NIN in the party if not both. Improving WAR DPS isn't just a matter of buffing potencies, it requires a whole rework of inner release; which in my opinion is a very poorly designed ability after the initial hype the prospect of six fell cleaves brings.

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Originally Posted by Dortharl

How much do you think would be reasonable, keep in mind that the utility which your balancing this against becomes less useful the more parties learn mechanics and gear up, while DPS becomes more useful.

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That's the million dollar question. I hear buff this and buff that, but by how much really?

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Originally Posted by Capn_Goggles

it requires a whole rework of inner release; which in my opinion is a very poorly designed ability after the initial hype the prospect of six fell cleaves brings.

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Instead of halving the cost of all beast skill, it could drastically increase their potency...or make them all criticals.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Instead of halving the cost of all beast skill, it could drastically increase their potency...or make them all criticals.

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That's more of a band-aid solution to a tourniquet problem. WAR is defined by his IR burst rotation, and is put in a bizarre situation where he doesn't want to use his abilities as often as he'd want because it's mandatory that they line up with his burst rotation in order to actually out-DPS other tanks. It's a poorly designed ability in my opinion because it centers the entire job around one ability on a 2 minute cooldown timer. Coincidentally, DRK is also defined by his capstone ability, and I think suffers greatly for it because of the way it is designed.

Paladin wins out again in this regard because his 70 ability is really awesome and flavorful, but it doesn't completely flip the job on it's butt and change the way it plays completely.

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Originally Posted by Capn_Goggles

WAR is defined by his IR burst rotation, and is put in a bizarre situation where he doesn't want to use his abilities as often as he'd want because it's mandatory that they line up with his burst rotation in order to actually out-DPS other tanks.

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But I feel like it was the same during HW, only with a Berzerk window. To the point when, unless it's an absolute necessity, you'd also save some of your defensive CD to line up to berzerk and allow a triple Fell Cleave. And I'm not sure that without the triple Fell Cleave, WAR was able to do much more than DRK or even PLD. The problem of the actual window it's that it's so long that you'll have a hard time pulling it completely, because you might need to move out of an AoE, or the boss will become untargetable for a little time, etc...