Remove/adjust Goring Blade.

[Fast Blade][Riot Blade][Royal Authority][Atonement][Atonement][Atonement][Holy Spirit]

Royal Authority hasn't been changed, it's 3 Sword Oath and 1 Divine Might, because level 76 is the first time Sword Oath was added to Royal Authority and includes Atonement which uses it.

[Fast Blade][Riot Blade][Atonement][Atonement][Atonement][Holy Spirit][Holy Spirit]

It was Atonement that needed to change, because by adding it unchanged, it removes some of the Divine Might you had at level 70, causing a shortage of buffs. Also, just because Atonement was given new functions doesn't necessarily mean the old functions had to go away, which is why I included multiple new blocks reflecting the functions.

We end up with +1 Divine Might at 80 because Confiteor was added, and +4 Divine Might at level 90 because Confiteor combo was added as well. They're extending the rotation, rather than enhancing it. Hmm, having Confiteor combo have some form of interaction with Divine Might is something I haven't tested yet, not so much for potencies but for effects. At level 90, you can simply use 2 Shield Bash blocks with Atonement as filler only and the rotation naturally lines up without overcapping on buffs, because Confiteor combo extends the rotation that much. This couldn't be done at level 80 because Confiteor was by itself. However, there would be a potency loss because of the new effects of Sword Oath, so you'd be inclined to use Atonement as a combo or do Royal Authority twice in a row which would leave Atonement with little use unless you're recovering or prepping for disengagements.

That hasn't answered my question of what the 60 second rotation is and has told me nothing new. I was expecting the full 60 second loop to be laid out so that I can properly analyse it as, as I mentioned, I struggled to come up with something coherent and, in my eyes, if a simple rotation cannot be outlined, then it is too complex. Look at any other jobs, none of them have a complex baseline rotation, it should be easy to see how it all lines up.

Multiple possible rotations have been added to the earlier post to keep it consolidated, since there isn't an agreed upon effect for Goring Blade. It's shown with [Shield Bash][Goring Blade] to maximize Sword Oath usage if Goring Blade is given such an effect. At least, the rotation can now have some semblance of a clean loop compared to before where it was too rigid regardless of what effect Goring Blade was given. Bear in mind, this doesn't go into how Fight or Flight and Requiescat will interact with each other because those will also have an impact on how a rotation is created, although it's already leaning towards having them separate in order to have a clean loop at earlier levels with how Divine Might and Requiescat now combine in this scenario.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kemeko

At least, the rotation can now have some semblance of a clean loop compared to before where it was too rigid regardless of what effect Goring Blade was given.

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But you still haven't shown me the clean loop you intend with your changes.

For me, it'd go along these lines with the changes for Goring Blade in full effect:

[Fast Blade][Riot Blade][Royal Authority][Fast Blade][Riot Blade][Atonement][Shield Bash][Goring Blade]
[Holy Spirit][Holy Spirit][Holy Spirit][Holy Spirit][Confiteor][Blade of Faith][Blade of Truth][Blade of Valor]
[Fast Blade][Riot Blade][Royal Authority][Fast Blade][Riot Blade][Atonement][Shield Bash][Goring Blade]

With Requiescat and Divine Might stacking, using Holy Spirit or Confiteor combo first under Requiescat should be the same potencies ideally. Requiescat is treated as a burst itself, not the Confiteor combo specifically. Confiteor combo would be an aoe burst if used within Requiescat.

Example of Goring Blade:
(Potencies have been adjusted to keep ppm in check)
(Line for Oath Gauge increase is part of the defensive toolkit enhancements which can be ignored for now)

[Action][Weaponskill] Goring Blade (Lv. 54)
Delivers an attack with a potency of 100.
Combo Action: Riot Blade or Shield Bash
Combo Potency: 300
Combo Sword Oath Potency: 450
Combo Bonus: Increases Oath Gauge by 10
Combo Bonus: Grants Royal Blessing
Royal Blessing Effect: Increases damage dealt by 15%
Duration: 30s
Extends Royal Blessing duration by 30s to a maximum of 60s.
Combo Bonus: Grants 1 stack of Divine Might (Up to 5)
Duration: 30s

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Curisu

Beside that the new PLD is not as bad as expected, just this awkward Goring Blade is annoying to me.

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Agreed. And I honestly like the idea of Shield Bash doing boosted damage under Requiescat. Since they've introduced this "does X normally, does Y >> X when Requiescat/FoF in effect", I think they could really flex that here.

Another thing they could do is have Shield Bash not break Passage of Arms and do 350 potency (equal to HS) so that you would have something to do in those cases where you might want to hold Passage for more than a GCD and it wouldn't be a terrible loss (using HS outside of Divine might is an ~10 potency loss per use, which isn't terrible, so allowing it to work under Passage would be thematically cool and make it MOSTLY but NOT QUITE damage neutral, which would be nice.)

Agree 100% that Goring is completely pointless now, so there's no reason to keep it. Just have Royal upgrade to Goring for the animation (or Riot Blade or Fast Blade, I don't care) if they really want to keep the animation, but don't have it as a separate button. Just fold the potency, 200, 200, 300 into the Swords combo. Doing that also makes it less susceptible to "darn, it didn't crit!" since missing one crit out of 4 is less DPS loss than missing one crit out of 1.

Likewise, have FoF upgrade into Requiescat. Remove the damage component (and thus range requirement) so it's a straight upgrade from FoF, and instead, throw that 300 damage onto Confetior.

.

Changes:

Fight or Flight: Trait at level 68 upgrades FoF into Requiescat
Requiescat: Has no damage, has no range, additional effect: Increases damage dealt by 25% for 20 seconds.
Confiteor: Requiescat potency 1200 (this is a slight buff in AOE...but who cares? Modern encounters rarely allow for AOE cleaving anyway.)
Blade of Faith: 900
Blade of Truth: 1000
Blade of Valor: 1200
Goring Blade: Removed (if keeping the animation is so important, can repurpose it as an upgrade to Fast Blade, Riot Blade, Royal Authority [like how it is an upgrade of Rage of Halone], or Atonement)

[Optional]
Spirits Within: Trait at level 50 upgrades Spirits Within to Circle of Scorn
Circle of Scorn: Deals 530 damage to target and 50% less to all surrounding enemies (range 5y); Additional Effect: Restores MP; Trait at level 86 upgrades to Expiacion.
[NOTE: This makes Circle do approximately the damage of using Circle (100 AOE) + its DoT (150 AOE) + Spirits Within (270 single target); in this case, that is 270 + 100 + 150 single target (530) and 265 to additional targets (vs 250 in current Circle); again, a slight AOE buff, but that's not really super relevant. NOTE: To do "60% less damage" and still do 250 AOE would require 625 base potency. Granted, this is only a leveling skill, so...... why does this matter? Because current Expaciation does 60% less.]
Expiacion: Deals 710 damage to target and 60% less to all surrounding enemies (range 5y); Additional Effect: Restores MP
[NOTE: This makes Expaciation do the total damage of Expacion + Circle right now, with 284 damage to AOE targets, which is a 34 potency AOE buff over the current combination of the two. But, again...AOE...isn't relevant in essentially any end-game content where balance matters...and PLD isn't exactly topping the damage charts anyway.]

[Optional Bonus]
Shield Bash: During Passage of Arms, deals 350 potency of damage, does not break Passage of Arms.
Passage of Arms: Effect ends upon using another action or moving (including facing a different direction) other than Shield Bash.

[Optional Bonus 2]
Cover: Remove the Shield Oath gauge cost. The CD already prevents overuse.

[Alternative Option if the Devs want to keep a button LIKE Goring Blade]
Shield Bash has the additional text: Requiescat Potency: 700;

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Not saying any of this HAS to be, but these would all result in the same single target damage (and close enough AOE damage, not that that matters), remove an unnecessary DoT debuff on the boss counting against the limit, and would reduce 3 hotbar slot requirements (Circle of Scorn, FoF, and Goring Blade). Even just the Alternative Option Shield Bash would reduce one hotbar, making New PLD (with Bulwark) equal to Old PLD (without Bulwark)

.

But yeah, agree that awkward Goring Blade is just...annoying. It's not fun and just feels...annoying.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kemeko

For me, it'd go along these lines with the changes for Goring Blade in full effect:

[Fast Blade][Riot Blade][Royal Authority][Fast Blade][Riot Blade][Atonement][Shield Bash][Goring Blade]
[Holy Spirit][Holy Spirit][Holy Spirit][Holy Spirit][Confiteor][Blade of Faith][Blade of Truth][Blade of Valor]
[Fast Blade][Riot Blade][Royal Authority][Fast Blade][Riot Blade][Atonement][Shield Bash][Goring Blade]

With Requiescat and Divine Might stacking, using Holy Spirit or Confiteor combo first under Requiescat should be the same potencies ideally. Requiescat is treated as a burst itself, not the Confiteor combo specifically. Confiteor combo would be an aoe burst if used within Requiescat.

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So, you want to, again, split the FoF window and Requiescat window? And, by so doing, bring PLD back to what it was before the rework. Genius /s.

Your whole burst phase (which I will assume the magic phase is still the higher damage part) is now out of the raid buffs, which was an issue before, you have delayed Goring Blade, a damage buff, until 8 GCDs in, or 20 seconds into the fight, losing 15% damage for those 20 seconds, because, no reason? You also gave Goring Blade the ability to get more damage off of Sword Oath stacks, however, you would never get that chance in the rotation as they would always be used up before then, not that it would matter as boosting the weaker Fast/Riot/Shield Bash (I am assuming it will be stronger for the combo) would be a bigger gain than using it on Goring Blade anyway.

A common complaint about current PLD is the filler, however, your filler is not exactly exciting either. Most of it is the same combo, Fast > Riot > Royal but the second time, you change Royal with Atonement for some arbitrary reason, I don't know, just to 'change it up'? It just seems weird and out of place, obviously, people might disagree there.

I can tell no real thought has been put into this in regards to fitting it into the current game paradigm and the only thought is in regards to making a clean 24 GCD rotation.

If you really wanted old PLD back, the easiest thing to do would be to design PLD around the 2.5 second GCD, Royal only gives 2 Sword Oaths. That would make a total of 24 GCDs nd you wouldn't have to deal with all these weird interactions that you propose for no reason/just to make something fit. However, we know the old PLD just doesn't fit, so there is no reason to try and continue to shoehorn it back in.

There is a difference between a loop and an opener.

Opener examples:

[Holy Spirit][Shield Bash][Goring Blade]

or

[Holy Spirit][Fast Blade][Riot Blade][Goring Blade]

If you're going to argue about raid buff timing, when we still had two burst windows we could use Fight or Flight and Requiescat in any order, at least until they added that magical dot which didn't interact well with Fight or Flight.

Requiescat first rotation example:

[Shield Bash][Goring Blade][Holy Spirit][Holy Spirit][Confiteor][Blade of Faith][Blade of Truth][Blade of Valor]
[Shield Bash][Goring Blade][Fast Blade][Riot Blade][Royal Authority][Fast Blade][Riot Blade][Atonement]
[Fast Blade][Riot Blade][Royal Authority][Fast Blade][Riot Blade][Atonement][Holy Spirit][Holy Spirit]

You can alternate the Goring Blade on the second line to the end, if Blade of Valor was given the same effects as Goring Blade. Also, if Blade of Valor gave 3 Sword Oath, that could also open up options of what you do next.

Royal Authority has a natural cap of 3 Sword Oath, which could be written in the traits. With 3 Sword Oath, 2 being used by [Fast Blade][Riot Blade], you have 1 Sword Oath left, but Atonement does not use Sword Oath in a combo putting you back at 3 Sword Oath again because Atonement combo would give you 2 more Sword Oath. That's where Goring Blade would come in by using Sword Oath in a combo. You can also have Circle of Scorn use a Sword Oath stack for extra aoe damage as a bonus, if you do Royal Authority twice, as an idea.

Atonement changes are not arbitrary, they are necessary. It has been stated earlier in this thread. The same goes for trying to change Sword Oath from 3 to 2 stack, which would minimally lower ppm, and just leave you with less options to recover. I believe the changes I suggested would be labeled as an overhaul and not a revert us back to 6.2 PLD. Just because they look similar doesn't mean they function the exact same, when you look beyond just tell me a rotation so I don't have to think.

Can you write down a PLD rotation with your own changes that works at level 60/70/80/90, that you believe would be exciting? Always looking for more ideas.

How do you differentiate between Atonement in a combo and not in a combo? You could make it so that Atonement gives a sword oath stack if it comes after an Atonement, but that then leaves you at the point where you can spam Atonement. If you don't want that, you would need another buff to track it. Obviously, you do not get Divine Might stacks doing this, so Royal Authority is going to be needed at some point. This then creates a conflict as to what to use. Is it more potency to use the full Atonement combo or to keep Royal Authority and get the extra Holy Spirit casts. It should be a given that getting the Holy Spirits for the burst is a must, it is the rest that is the issue.

Even with that altered rotation, you are now clipping your buffed Goring Blade (assuming the second one is the one getting the fight or flight buff). I have already detailed why this system doesn't work, which I have detailed here: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6185834 when someone else made a similar point. I also compared it to Black Mage and Bard who also have similar mechanics.

I asked for a rotation because I couldn't find a clean loop, which implies that you do not over cap buffs over the rotation length. The fact you have given 2 completely different rotations just goes to prove that the system you are trying to implement is not intuitive. Ignoring any issues with buff timings, or convoluted mechanics, this opens up the potential for different rotations for different fights and lets be honest, no sane person will want that.

For me, current PLD is a step in the right direction, where the only major change would be to Goring Blade, the main changes being make it 30 seconds and AoE (details here: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6184061).

The main issue with your ideas is that you are trying to add more and more complexity where none is needed. If something doesn't work, rather than going back to the source and fixing that, you add more ontop. You also forgo any thought as to how this would impact the PLD rotation in regards to raid buffs, how could it actually be implemented, do you have combos that are fighting for the same spot in a rotation etc. You will notice alot of my posts are done in criticising ideas or thoughts. I do this to bring another viewpoint into the discussion, poke holes in places where I think it misses the mark, where I think it isn't going to work etc. This is all done in an effort to make you think, 'is this really working as I intended?', 'Was there something I missed?' etc. which then leads to you potentially changing and hopefully, improving your idea.

With the 5.0 Pld iteration, there was Fight or Flight, Requiescat, and then a short filler. Was that version not intuitive? Confiteor was your hardest hitting skill, but the rotations usually had Fight or Flight first when starting encounters. Unless you are suggesting people are incapable of handling more than one burst in their rotation. The reason the two rotations are different is specifically tied to Divine Might stacks. Regardless if you choose Fight or Flight or Requiescat first in your rotation, you start with 0 Divine Might, so you can't spam Holy Spirit as much, but damage wise will remain the same because of how the Confiteor combo actions and Requiescat work. If you try to make a rotation where in the end, you also have 0 Divine Might, you are restricting yourself too much. Other jobs also have overcap of resources built in to their rotations, not because they don't want a clean loop, but because of recovery and down time. Using your extra resouces is part of optimization to squeeze out extra damage or mitigation, it's not necessary but it is there to ease gameplay. A job that requires perfect play is a bad job design.

None of the combos are fighting each other for spots, which is why I had Goring Blade, Royal Authority, and Atonement written in such a way. I also had to look at what happens if you alternate them in various orders, outside of someone just spamming Goring Blade continuous for the sake of it. With this version of Goring Blade, you can use it 2 or 3 times depending on your combo sequences with no potency loss, which means it will adapt to later levels when new actions are added.

For Goring Blade, by clipping, do you mean the Royal Blessing buff? It has it written that the timers get added, so even if you have them closer than 30s, it will buff back to 60. If there would be an issue of Royal Blessing falling off before a third Goring Blade, this same buff can be added to Blade of Valor further extending the buff with no loss. Ah, it wasn't expressly written here, but Fight or Flight was back to 25s, to match Requiescat at 5 stacks. Obviously, if we stay with the 20s Fight or Flight, you clip stuff really badly, with my suggestions. Fight or Flight duration has always been 5 x Requiescat stacks, (4 stack of Requiescat x 5 = 20s Fight or Flight)(5 stack of Requiescat x 5 = 25s Fight or Flight). You'd need 25s Fight or Flight to ensure 2 Goring Blade under buffs.

Regarding Atonements and differentiating where you are, there's a convenient flashing of buttons. How do you know you used Fast Blade or Atonement? Because Riot Blade is flashing. Atonement, Holy Spirit, and Holy Circle are always flashing because of current buffs so that's nothing new. They wouldn't flash at all if you have no buffs. If Goring Blade, Royal Authority, and Atonement are flashing, then that means you either used Shield Bash or Riot Blade. If the idea of wanting to spam Atonement when you get Sword Oath stacks is a concern, you'd have to go back to level 60. If you introduce Sword Oath there, you have no Atonement to spam for 16 levels, letting a newer player to easily learn to use Sword Oath for Fast Blade, Shield Bash, and Goring Blade respectively, with Shield Lob and Circle of Scorn as well due to having extra Sword Oath stacks. Players will optimize anything, regardless if the job is simple or complex, it comes down to if you can read tooltips. On that note, I more often than not, see sprout Gladiators use Shield Bash. From the very beginning, you try to use everything you can because you have very little options. At level 26 you get [Shield Bash][Rage of Halone], and the Gladiator level 30 Job quest cutscene shows exactly that. That makes it very intuitive in it's own right.

When I take your idea into account and implement with 6.3 Pld, if you change Goring Blade from 60s to a 20/30s skill, you are effectively taking damage away from burst and putting it in filler. They will not do the same damage, it will be balanced to do much less, or risk taking potencies away from other places, while still not accounting for a clean loop. Potency wise, it would be on par with Divine Might Holy Spirit, at which point it could just be deleted, though that would leave a void in skill gain for [50-60], or turned into an ogcd further alienating it. Also, if you make it 20/30s, the moment you delay it even once, you delay them all, causing them to be out of sync even more with a potential of drifting the rotation. We have enough of that with Circle of Scorn and Expiacion. For example:

Filler Average Potency = Holy Spirit Potency = 350 Potency
Goring Blade (60s) Potency = 700
Goring Blade (60s) Potency (700) - Filler Average Potency (350) = 350 Bonus Potency
Goring Blade (30s) Potency = Bonus Potency (350) / 2 + Filler Average Potency (350) = 525 Potency (175 Potency removed from Burst)
Goring Blade (20s) Potency = Bonus Potency (350) / 3 + Filler Average Potency (350) = 470 Potency (240 Potency removed from Burst)
Divine Might Holy Spirit = 450 Potency

If Goring Blade Bonus Potency is added to Requiescat = Goring Blade (Any second duration) Potency (350)
You go from a button that is at least doing something during burst to relegating it to a filler button, and can be ignored entirely, if it only does damage. You cannot add extra potency without breaking the balance with the other tanks, so the potency has to be spread out or put somewhere else.

I will agree some parts of 6.3 are a step in the right direction. The adding of Divine Might in general, and Requiescat burst doing the damage it was supposed to all this time. However, they should not be combined. For example:

Fight or Flight 25s (Physical) = 10 gcd = 6000 Potency
Requiescat 5 stack (Magical) = 5 gcd = 6000 Potency

Two bursts that do the same damage, but one is more condensed to balance. The moment the two bursts were combined, potency for filler and burst becomes harder to balance whereas before there was a clear distinction, Physical vs Magical.

I always keep in mind raid buffs, raid settings, casual settings, the timing of when skills are learned, old traits, new traits, the direction Devs want to go, any minute meta, potency balance, recovery, synergy with actions and tookit, button bloat which is very much on edge, mp balance, balance in regards to other tanks in both mitigation and damage, and how tooltips are written. If something doesn't work, I always look at the beginning and why it does or doesn't, what needs to changed, added, or removed. This wasn't thought of overnight, it takes months of checking and double checking, as well as keeping an eye out for new ideas to think outside the box. Designing a rotation for a child is vastly different from designing a rotation for an adult, you have to eventually grow up. I do enjoy this discussion though, helps test the design even if nothing new was added. No holes have been poked, it's more along the lines of miscommunication.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rithy255

PLD already had a separate combo in 6.2, having "storms eye" is way more interesting then having current goring blade, Pld's general filler rotation needs something and clearly a strict 21 DOT isn't going to work with the new design, but current goring blade doesn't either.

Edit: Could even be a 30second DOT that stacks up to 60 maybe then it wouldn't be "storms eye clone" even though you'd use it the same way as the other suggestion.

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GNB/DRK only have a 1-2-3 just like PLD. Similar to those jobs, the 1-2-3 turns into other GCD and oGCD to play with.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kemeko

With the 5.0 Pld iteration, there was Fight or Flight, Requiescat, and then a short filler. Was that version not intuitive?

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I've seen people not realise the Blade combo replaced a Goring Blade combo in your rotation and so, overwrite the BoV DoT with GB, or complain the job doesn't flow properly because you need to use Goring Blade after BoV. Also, dropping an Atonement for the optimal rotation is also not intuitive, that is just bad design.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kemeko

None of the combos are fighting each other for spots, which is why I had Goring Blade, Royal Authority, and Atonement written in such a way. I also had to look at what happens if you alternate them in various orders, outside of someone just spamming Goring Blade continuous for the sake of it. With this version of Goring Blade, you can use it 2 or 3 times depending on your combo sequences with no potency loss, which means it will adapt to later levels when new actions are added.

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You have 2 combos fighting:

Fast > Riot > Royal (+3 SO and DM)
Fast > Riot > Atonement (+2 SO)

One of those is going to give a higher average potency over the fight. Since you also added CoS to the list of buffed actions under Sword Oath, you also have to take that into account as well. This wouldn't lead to a clean rotational loop every minute, which, as a reminder, is what you were aiming for, however, it would be closer to current PLD, where, it doesn't matter what GCD you enter the burst in, you just burst.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kemeko

For Goring Blade, by clipping, do you mean the Royal Blessing buff?

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I forgot Goring Blade was changed to Storm's Eye, that is my fault.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kemeko

Regarding Atonements and differentiating where you are, there's a convenient flashing of buttons. How do you know you used Fast Blade or Atonement? Because Riot Blade is flashing.

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This was going back to the original post where you had combos with Atonement at the start, ie. Atonement > Riot Blade > Royal as an example. You then say Atonement doesn't use up Sword oath when in a combo, however, how does the game know if you plan to use Sword Oath not in a combo or in a combo? It cannot be on the same GCD you use Atonement...unless you also want to get rid of naked Atonements and have them all be part of a combo. The point was, how does the game know.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kemeko

When I take your idea into account and implement with 6.3 Pld, if you change Goring Blade from 60s to a 20/30s skill, you are effectively taking damage away from burst and putting it in filler.

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We already know PLD needs a damage bump, this is an easy way to do it. If potency has to be moved around in order to fit it in, so be it. The goal was to achieve both making Goring Blade more exciting by adding the DoT back, having it break the monotony of the filler rotation by giving you something to track in it, increase the damage of PLD, as it is lacking and give it a use in AoE situations, which I feel I have achieved all of those goals.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kemeko

I will agree some parts of 6.3 are a step in the right direction. The adding of Divine Might in general, and Requiescat burst doing the damage it was supposed to all this time. However, they should not be combined. For example:

Fight or Flight 25s (Physical) = 10 gcd = 6000 Potency
Requiescat 5 stack (Magical) = 5 gcd = 6000 Potency

Two bursts that do the same damage, but one is more condensed to balance. The moment the two bursts were combined, potency for filler and burst becomes harder to balance whereas before there was a clear distinction, Physical vs Magical.

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Except, the FoF isn't really a burst, it is just a period of higher damage. This causes PLD's damage to spike for 5 GCDs, half for the next 10 GCDs and then be even lower for the last 9 GCDs before spiking up again, contrary to all the other tanks who burst, then fall to a consistent lower average potency. I would argue that having 2 burst phases would be harder to balance than just having the 1 burst and and average potency between. I'm a fan of the idea of combining FoF into Requiescat for example. I was also starting to have the thought with the old PLD about the double burst. You had 6 GCDs of unbuffed damage, compared to the rest of the rotation, what was the point? Might as well just remove FoF and bake it into the potencies natively, which would have given PLD a small boost.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kemeko

If something doesn't work, I always look at the beginning and why it does or doesn't, what needs to changed, added, or removed.

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I think my main issue is this point here. If things have changed from your initial post, in regards to how things interact, it hasn't been made clear. If there are ideas you might have later removed, but not stated that that is the case, it can be hard to follow. An example is the interaction with Sword Oath. I get that it buffs other GCDs, however, the confusion potentially comes when, in your initial post, you say Atonement can combo into Riot Blade and then later you say Atonement doesn't use a stack in a combo. Which lead to my question of, how does the game know if you are using Atonement in a combo or not?

I don't put full/completed concepts upfront on purpose, so that others can give opinions and ideas in relation to it. Whether there is another solution or not is why discussions and forums are helpful.

5.0 Pld was enjoyable because you could do optimization like 4 Atonement Fight or Flight for a potency gain. This was possible because of the balance between Atonement and Holy Spirit, letting you choose to drop one or the other. In 6.0, once they started adding potencies only to Holy Spirit, that balance was broken leading to only dropping Atonements instead. Ignoring Atonement and Holy Spirit potency balance leads to having to create new rotations with skewed optimizations.

There is a difference between combos fighting for a spot and the option to choose what you need. Do you need more Sword Oath or do you need more Divine Might. This choice allows for player expression. If the game only gives you one choice, then you just have the illusion of choice. You are still focusing too much on wanting 0 end buffs in a loop, which would force you to require perfect play. Your point is also focusing more on optimization rather than the baseline core. If a design has optimization required to use all your extra resources, you end up with a strict rotation that also requires perfect play. This is part of why I don't really say, clean loop much, because I'm attempting to use your definition to get a point across. Clean loop requires perfect play, 0 buffs left and perfect alignment with minimal to no optimization room for mistakes. I say a semblance of a clean loop, because when aligning the baseline rotation, I account for extra resources and whether or not it will impact the baseline potency. I understand your view point of 30s Goring Blade and 2 stack Sword Oath for a clean loop. However, it is what I would refer to as a dead end design. You cannot add anything beyond more ogcd or just new actions to replace old ones without going back to misalignment again, which it still doesn't align at level 60. There's no room for growth so it does not flourish, like a branch on a tree with no leaves.

Tooltips show a simplification of how a skill works. It does not show the Developer Game coding of how it is written in the game engine. But, back to the point, there are keywords on how a Tooltip is written. Example:

[Action][Weaponskill] Atonement (Lv. 76)
Delivers an attack with a potency of 100.<--------------This is your baseline unbuffed damage outside of combos
Sword Oath Potency: 300<-----------------------------This checks if you have a stack of Sword Oath, if you do, it swaps the potency of the baseline
Sword Oath is not consumed with Combo Action.<----------Checks Combo Action if there is a successful combo, to determine Sword Oath usage
Additional Effect: Restores MP (1000 MP)<---------------This happens if Atonement is executed regardless of placement. Additional Effect is different from Combo Bonus, which requires a successful combo to take effect.
Combo Action: Riot Blade or Shield Bash<----------------This checks if you have used Riot Blade or Shield Bash properly in combos
Combo Potency: 300<----------------------------------This again, swaps potency with baseline if a proper combo has been executed
Combo Bonus: Grants 2 stacks of Sword Oath<--------Putting (Up to 3) here would depend on if it's not in Sword Oath Trait description instead, that's up to the discretion of Developers. With 3 stacks of Sword Oath already from Royal Authority, it would lean towards being put into Sword Oath Trait (max. 3)
Duration: 30s
Combo Bonus: Grants 2 stacks of Divine Might (Up to 5)
Duration: 30s
<------------------------------------------------------The "Can only be executed while under the effect of Sword Oath" has been removed, otherwise you are restricted on when you can use it

[Action][Weaponskill] Goring Blade (Lv. 54)
Delivers an attack with a potency of 100.
Combo Action: Riot Blade or Shield Bash
Combo Potency: 300
Combo Sword Oath Potency: 450<---------------This checks if you have a stack of Sword Oath and swaps the Combo Potency
Combo Bonus: Increases Oath Gauge by 10
Combo Bonus: Grants Royal Blessing
Royal Blessing Effect: Increases damage dealt by 15%
Duration: 30s
Extends Royal Blessing duration by 30s to a maximum of 60s.
Combo Bonus: Grants 1 stack of Divine Might (Up to 5)
Duration: 30s

[Action][Spell] Confiteor (Lv. 80) [MP cost: 1000] (6.3 version as an example)
Deals unaspected damage to target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 300 for the first enemy, and 50% less for all remaining enemies.
Requiescat Potency: 800<------------------------------This checks for a Requiescat stack and swaps your baseline potency. There may be people who read this and assume Confiteor does 300 + 800 = 1100 potency under Requiescat. Not really much I can do about that. I'm just following the guidelines of all available tooltips with the in-game jobs.
Can only be executed while under the effect of Confiteor Ready. Effect fades upon execution

The reason there is unbuffed filler in any job, is to highlight the difference in plateaus of damage. With a single burst, you only have 1 very high plateau. With dual burst, you have a medium and a high plateau. Current game design is leaning towards have 1 very high plateau, and very low filler. Imagine if Fight or Flight was 60s, you are pretty much having no filler which would be the same as deleting Fight or Flight and increasing your filler potency because Fight or Flight would be redundant then. So, when you do delete Fight or Flight in any capacity, you are diluting potencies away from raid buff windows. You can also think of unbuffed filler as outside of raid buff windows, so when you buff that because it gets averaged, potencies are taken away from raid buff windows. A period of higher damage is the definition of a burst. Arguing a burst is not a burst because I have a burstier burst is needless semantics.

In regards to a potency bump with 6.3, where would you put it? Would you put it in burst or filler? Where it is needed depends on encounter design. With more downtime, burst is prioritized. I cannot comment on where it would go on 6.3 design, because I am focusing on the baseline potency we currently have and maximizing efficiency of actions. Potency wise, I have enough to work with. When you try to compare if a job needs a potency bump or not, you are not comparing baseline potencies of jobs, you are comparing perfect play rotations that have maximized optimization. Some jobs have better optimization than others leading to discrepancies, it's not an issue with baseline potencies, but rather job designs. 30s Goring Blade just lines up with Circle of Scorn and Expiacion, so you'd just do those three actions in a row, regardless of where you are in a combo. No extra thought is needed on when you use it. It gives the illusion of choice, because it's set at a specific interval that results in a potency loss if there is any delineation, which again leans towards perfect play. If you like having Goring Blade in random places in your Royal Authority combo, that's your discretion.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kemeko

I don't put full/completed concepts upfront on purpose, so that others can give opinions and ideas in relation to it. Whether there is another solution or not is why discussions and forums are helpful.

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However, if you do not put the relevant changes in, then people will assume they are unchanged. You mention/imply Atonement can be used out of combo without penalty, you also say it can be used in a combo as Atonement > Riot Blade. If this sis no longer the case, this needs to be mentioned, as there is nothing that implies it isn't.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kemeko

There is a difference between combos fighting for a spot and the option to choose what you need. Do you need more Sword Oath or do you need more Divine Might. This choice allows for player expression. If the game only gives you one choice, then you just have the illusion of choice.

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If you have 1 choice you have the illusion of choice? I think you have that wrong. If the games gives you a choice, but only 1 option is correct (given the scenario), then that is the illusion of choice. You have 2 combos, the one ending Royal Authority and the one ending Atonement that are both fighting for the same thing, damage. This is why no jobs have 2 pure damage combos, because one will be favoured over the other. You can say you want it to work out a certain way, however, if you do not put some incentive to use a combo over the pure damage one, it will lose.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kemeko

Tooltips show a simplification of how a skill works. It does not show the Developer Game coding of how it is written in the game engine. But, back to the point, there are keywords on how a Tooltip is written.

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No, however, how feasible your idea is to code is. Going off the idea that you can use Atonement without Sword Oath and that it can combo into Riot Blade, with the stipulation that Atonement in a combo doesn't use up Sword Oath, how do you determine that the Atonement you used was used as a filler one, and so uses up Sword Oath or was comboed with Riot Blade and so it doesn't. It seems however, that you don't want that interactivity anymore, making this a moot point.

[QUOTE=Kemeko;6190977]The reason there is unbuffed filler in any job, is to highlight the difference in plateaus of damage. With a single burst, you only have 1 very high plateau. With dual burst, you have a medium and a high plateau. Current game design is leaning towards have 1 very high plateau, and very low filler. Imagine if Fight or Flight was 60s, you are pretty much having no filler which would be the same as deleting Fight or Flight and increasing your filler potency because Fight or Flight would be redundant then. So, when you do delete Fight or Flight in any capacity, you are diluting potencies away from raid buff windows. You can also think of unbuffed filler as outside of raid buff windows, so when you buff that because it gets averaged, potencies are taken away from raid buff windows. A period of higher damage is the definition of a burst. Arguing a burst is not a burst because I have a burstier burst is needless semantics.

Lets put this a different way. Old PLD burst, as a %, looked like this:
-Requiescat 8/25 GCDs 32%
-FoF 11/25 GCDs 44%
-Unbuffed 6/25 GCDs 24%

This means, PLD spent 76% if its time buffed. At what point should you not just say, it's basically always buffed, why not just give it a buff to maintain and take away this second 'burst' phase. It wasn't rewarding to pull this off, it was just annoying that you had to constantly lose buff uptime to downtime. You cannot really plan around this either as, as I mentioned, PLD is buffed 76% of the time, so cases where downtime happened in the unbuffed phase were few in number. This also leads to PLD being much more harshly punished for downtime than other jobs are.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kemeko

In regards to a potency bump with 6.3, where would you put it? Would you put it in burst or filler?

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I haven't looked too much into where it needs it, however, how much you want to buff a job is dependant on whether the burst is the part causing issues or the filler. This is something that requires more intimate knowledge on how the DPS curve of the PLD plays out and how small changes here and there can affect that. It is a complicated thing to get right with a variety of factors.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kemeko

30s Goring Blade just lines up with Circle of Scorn and Expiacion, so you'd just do those three actions in a row, regardless of where you are in a combo. No extra thought is needed on when you use it. It gives the illusion of choice, because it's set at a specific interval that results in a potency loss if there is any delineation, which again leans towards perfect play. If you like having Goring Blade in random places in your Royal Authority combo, that's your discretion.

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I wasn't intending to give a choice, it was a, you use it at 30 seconds intervals. Since there is no choice, there is no illusion of choice. I will grant that my idea is not for everyone, and that is fine, however, stop using terms in places where they do not fit. That is twice in this one post you have claimed illusion of choice where no choice was initially given.

You missed the mark entirely comparing Royal Authority and Atonement by only looking at damage potency and not effects. You know what you can do with the new Sword Oath, spam Fast Blade. You get nothing out of it besides just damage. Should you do it? Not really. Arguing maximized optimization so you are only allowed one choice is again more semantics.

When you compared those old burst numbers, there is a clear design of poor balance. Like I said, Requiescat was not doing the damage it was supposed to. This is what I am aiming for so you can see it easier. Ignoring optimization of 11 gcd Fight or Flight example:

-Requiescat 5/24 GCDs 40%
-FoF 10/24 GCDs 40%
-Unbuffed 9/24 GCDs 20%

All I can say is reread that previous post, it's clearly outlined for you with the Atonement tooltip explanations. Goring Blade tooltip has the description of an example of Sword Oath used in a combo.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kemeko

You missed the mark entirely comparing Royal Authority and Atonement by only looking at damage potency and not effects. You know what you can do with the new Sword Oath, spam Fast Blade. You get nothing out of it besides just damage. Should you do it? Not really. Arguing maximized optimization so you are only allowed one choice is again more semantics.

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No, I mentioned the effects and made a comment that, since you have 2 rotations that purely do damage and whose sole design is to do damage, one will bat the other in doing said damage. Other combos from other jobs can get awya with different effects by being a DoT (meaning you don't want to use the same combo too quickly), add a damage buff (which tend to be weaker than your damage combo to prevent you from just using that).


All that differentiates your combos are the amount of buffs each one gives, with Royal Authority giving the better deal, mainly because of the 2 DM stacks you gave it. This makes the combo of, Fast > Riot > Atonement useless as it is just a damage nerf compared to what you could be doing. Easily shown by the fact that Fast > Riot > Royal is the same potency, but it has more available potency in stacks. This means you have no reason to use the Atonement combo. Even just looking at your potencies, you are better off using Atonement out of combo rather than in because you will get more damage that way. Putting it in a different way, Goring > Royal, using all stacks without SO buffing any combo actions, you hit a 27 second (11 GCD) string. You could use just these 2 combos and make a functional Paladin.

So again, what is the point of Atonement comboing off of Riot Blade (or even Shield Bash) if it serves no purpose except making you think you have a choice, when in fact you do not.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kemeko

When you compared those old burst numbers, there is a clear design of poor balance. Like I said, Requiescat was not doing the damage it was supposed to. This is what I am aiming for so you can see it easier. Ignoring optimization of 11 gcd Fight or Flight example:

-Requiescat 5/24 GCDs 40%
-FoF 10/24 GCDs 40%
-Unbuffed 9/24 GCDs 20%

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Same point I said before. Why chose to have 20% of the rotation unbuffed. It doesn't make the rest special, you don't feel rewarded for using FoF, there is nothing special about it. Comparing it to Gunbreaker's No Mercy, you know when you are using it, you are unloading damage because you use your stronger actions, Gnashing Fang Combo, Sonic Break, Double Down etc. It feels rewarding. Even Requiescat does this by giving you access to the blade combo. FoF does none of this. It is just the same as the unbuffed part, just a bit stronger, so again, what is the point of FoF if it doesn't change anything.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kemeko

All I can say is reread that previous post, it's clearly outlined for you with the Atonement tooltip explanations. Goring Blade tooltip has the description of an example of Sword Oath used in a combo.

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The problem is you changed how things worked between posts without saying what you changed. To highlight this, I can quote this

Quote:

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[Atonement][Riot Blade][Atonement][Atonement][Atonement][Atonement][Holy Spirit]

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Which implied Atonement combos into Riot Blade, which combos into Atonement, which gives 3 SO stacks and a DM stack. However, you changed this to only comboing off of Riot Blade and only giving 2 SO stacks. I had been working off of old info, you had your new info you had not divulged until after the fact, creating a conflict between the ideas. This is why it is important to highlight any changes during the discussion to avoid confusion for both parties involved.

Hmm, that's just...hmm...that left me speechless for a bit. I couldn't take what you said seriously.

The meme of the child wanting Gnb, when the mom says we have Gnb at home came to mind.

Back to the discussion. Oh, that Atonement first block was a typo on the 90 box, I'll fix that right now. It was a valid block though, if you had 3 Sword Oath beforehand. That was just me quickly copy and pasting things. Surprised it was just that. Asking how the game knows how Atonement interacts with Sword Oath is like asking how the game knows how Fast Blade interacts with Sword Oath, or just Fast Blade in general into Riot Blade. Sword Oath and Combo Sword Oath are two different keywords and are purposely not included within the same tooltip, because it would be redundant. A simpler example would be, Fast Blade, which if used by itself is not a combo, nor does it have Combo Action in it's tooltip. Or are you asking for a special tagline "Sword Oath is not consumed with Combo Action.", applying to the Atonement tooltip, which I don't mind putting it in. Definitely the next step when adding new keywords, so I'll update them now. You made no mention of Atonement giving 3 Sword Oath til now. You were focusing mostly on trying to find a clean loop that you would never get in this design ever, because it's purposely designed that way, which you never liked. Look at Warrior Storm's Path and Storm's Eye for example, they do the same damage so you do them for effects.

I don't know how you ever arrived at:
Fast > Riot > Royal (+3 SO and DM)
Fast > Riot > Atonement (+2 SO)

You are not running on old information, it has never changed since the beginning when you were comparing [Fast Blade][Riot Blade][Royal Authority] vs [Fast Blade][Riot Blade][Atonement] block examples.
Fast > Riot > Royal (+3 SO and + 1 DM)
Fast > Riot > Atonement (+2 SO and +2 DM)

6.3 PLD damage as a %:
-FoF/Requiescat 8/25 GCDs 54%
-Unbuffed 17/25 GCDs 46%

Looks to me like Pld is doing too much in a single burst. It's not balanced. There was a post somewhere how a healthy burst should be no more than 40%. If that is taken into consideration, (54% - 40% = 14% ~ 1700 Excess Potency in Burst), which would require removing both Goring Blade and Fight or Flight away from Requiescat burst. Nothing much I can really say about your position on buffs and filler in general beyond what was posted. Pld is a 1 min job, not a 2 min job. If you like Gnb, go play Gnb. Each job design should have it's own signature, and people pick what they like.

You have still completely missed/ignored my main point, so I will ignore everything else and focus on this.

You have 2 combos, the job of both is to do damage. This creates a conflict of interest where the 2 combos fight for the same spot. These combos are as follows:

Fast Blade > Riot Blade > Royal Authority which gives 3 Sword Oath and 1 Divine Might

Fast Blade > Riot Blade > Atonement which gives 2 Sword Oath stacks and 2 Divine Might

The potencies are as follows as pulled from your posts:
Fast Blade 200 potency (300 under Sword Oath)*
Riot Blade 250 potency (300 under Sword Oath)*
Royal Authority 300 Potency, no buff under Sword Oath
Atonement 300 potency under Sword Oath
Holy Spirit 380**

*You never provided a potency for Fast Blade, so I will use the current potency and the potency you used for Riot Blade doesn't match current potency, however neither of these change the outcome.
**You listed a potency for Holy Spirit, however, as far as I can tell, this was not specified whether it was the base potency or the one under Divine Might. Either way, the outcome does not change. You also listed listed it as 390 potency and stated that it could be either or based on balance.

To measure the effectiveness of each combo, we will look at the average potency of each combo per GCD under different scenarios and see which one is best:

Case 1: Only Royal Authority combo, no Sword Oath buffs to combo. This will look at the combo potency for using the Royal Authority combo over and over whilst using Sword Oath stacks to use Atonement out of combo.

Fast Blade > Riot Blade > Royal Authority > Atonement Atonement > Atonement > Holy Spirit

200 + 250 + 300 + 300 + 300 + 300 + 380 = 2030 potency over 7 GCDs which gives an average of 290 potency per GCD.

Case 2: Only the Atonement Combo, no Sword Oath buffs to combo. Same as above, just with the other combo.

Fast Blade > Riot Blade > Atonement > Atonement > Atonement > Holy Spirit > Holy Spirit

200 + 250 + 300 + 300 + 300 + 380 + 380 = 2110 potency over 7 GCDs which gives an average of 301.4 potency per GCD.

Case 3: Same as case 1, however, using the Sword Oath stacks to buff the next combo. I will take the 2 Sword Oath stacks from Royal so that only 1 Atonement is used out of combo.

SO Fast Blade > SO Riot Blade > Royal Authority > Atonement > Holy Spirit

300 + 300 + 300 + 300 + 380 = 1580 potency over 5 GCDs which gives an average of 316 potency per GCD.

Case 4: Same as above, just with the Atonement combo. I have made the assumption here that, if comboed off of Riot Blade, Sword Oath is not required at all and still retain full potency.

SO Fast Blade > SO Riot Blade > Atonement > Holy Spirit > Holy Spirit

300 + 300 + 300 + 380 + 380 = 1660 potency over 5 GCDs which gives an average of 332 potency per GCD.

Case 5: Alternating, Royal > Atonement. In total you gain 5 Sword Oath stacks, 4 of which are used to buff combo actions which leaves 1 to use on its own. You also gain 3 Divine Might Stacks.

SO Fast Blade > SO Riot Blade > Royal Authority > Atonement > SO Fast Blade > SO Riot Blade > Atonement > Holy Spirit > Holy Spirit > Holy Spirit

300 + 300 + 300 + 300 + 300+ 300 + 300 + 380 + 380 + 380 = 3240 potency over 10 GCDs which gives an average of 324 potency per GCD

As we can see, the strongest combo to do is spamming the Atonement combo using Sword Oath to buff the combo starter. The reason is because of the increased Holy Spirits you have. Now, whilst I have labelled these as using the Holy Spirits right after, you can move these around however you want in the combos, or delay their use to use whenever you want, as long as you do not overcap the 5 stack limit IIRC you mentioned.



Next comes how it will play out. You will notice in the above calculations I omitted the fact that you potentially needed a Sword Oath stack in order for the comboed Atonement to give you 2 Sword Oath stacks, which would leave you at 3 stacks after, which leaves room for another naked Atonement, this just brings up the potency to 326.7 potency per GCD over 6 GCDs. With this in mind, I want to compare 2 rotations, one with that constraint in mind and one where it doesn't. They will both come from an opener as follows:

Shield Bash > Goring Blade > Holy Spirit > Confiteor > BoF > BoT > BoV ... After this, assuming both Goring Blade and BoV give the same effects in regards to Royal Blessing (+30 seconds to a max of 60s), this leaves a time remaining of 47.5 seconds, which means the next Goring Blade has to come in the next 7-19 GCDs for no loss, then, as long as BoV comes at the same time, there will be no worry of loss.

So, with the constraint that you need a SO buff to get the extra ones from a comboed Atonement, we can construct the following (from now on, all SO buffed GCDs will be underlined, buffs will be tracked as follows [SO|DM])

Fast Blade > Riot Blade > Royal Authority [3|1] > Fast Blade [2|1] > Riot Blade [1|1] > Atonement [3|3] > Holy Spirit [3|2] > Shield Bash [2|2] > Goring Blade [1|3] > Fast Blade [0|3] > Riot Blade [0|3] > Royal Authority [3|3] > Fast Blade [2|3] > Riot Blade [1|3] > Atonement [3|3] > Fast Blade [2|3] > Riot Blade [1|3] > Atonement [3|5] > Holy Spirit [3|4] > Burst etc.

Some observations. Using the Atonement combo means you can use the Atonement combo again without worry, unless you need to refresh Royal Blessing, in which case your next combo has to be the Royal Authority one in order to get the necessary stacks. This means, past the opener, you will only use the Royal Authority combo once per minute and only after Goring Blade, I'm sure this was not your intent, however, that is how it is playing out. If you change it so that BoV does not give you Royal Blessing, then Goring Blade has to be applied at the latest at the first Holy Spirit in the above, which means, after the burst, it will look something like Royal Authority > Goring Blade > Royal Authority. It should be the same resources at the end going into burst (not actually checked), however the next section of rotation will be all Atonement combos.

The next thing to comment on is coming up to the burst. knowing what to do with the last few GCDs, Do I have enough time to get another Atonement combo in, will this cause me to overcap on Divine Might, if I cannot afford that, do I have the resources to delay the rotation with Holy Spirit or, Atonement? Or do I not and so risk losing a Holy Spirit in burst because of it. I haven't worked past the first minute, however, these are potential problems that could arise.

If we do the same except allow the case where SO is not needed to get the 2 stacks,

Fast Blade > Riot Blade > Atonement [2|2] > Holy Spirit [2|1] > Fast Blade [1|1] > Riot Blade [0|1] > Atonement [2|3] > Holy Spirit [2|2] > Shield Bash [1|2] > Goring Blade [0|3] > Holy Spirit [0|2] > Fast Blade [0|2] > Riot Blade [0|2] > Atonement[2|4] > Holy Spirit [2|3] > Fast Blade [1|3] > Riot Blade [0|3] > Atonement [2|3] > Holy Spirit [2|2] > Burst

Now, I don't know if you were playing along, however, it was much easier to determine how to effectively enter the burst phase as there is less to track. There is of course the same issues here as there was before, however, I would say it is much better managed here as resources are more consistent.

However, lets talk about the idea as whole. The first thing I can tell you, without even doing any calculations is that the second rotation will do more potency than the first and I can say that for one simple reason, it has more Holy Spirit casts. The reason I can say that for certain is down to, what I perceive anyway, a fundamental flaw in the Sword Oath idea as a whole. With the exception of Goring Blade, everything becomes Atonement/Royal Authority potency, with the odd one here and there being less. Which brings us back to Royal Authority. With it basically being a gateway into the higher damage Sword Oath combo, I don't think it would feel rewarding to use, it acts more as a hurdle to your damage than something that rewards you with damage. I couldn't find the words to properly express the feeling, however I hope that gives an idea. Goring Blade is already a hurdle you need to get past to do your damage, so why add another one. Then, with 2 combos being virtually identical, people will ask, what is the point? Might as well just combine them, of which the next question would be, what is the point of all this Sword Oath nonsense. Pretty much everything is buffed with it anyway, so why bother? Both of these are points of frustration and could be perceived as clunk, which is never a good thing. I am also aware you have mentioned Circle of Scorn using Sword Oath to buff itself, which is just a bad idea and adds unnecessary restrictions to the usage.

With everything said and done however, you essentially have 2 rotations to choose from, one is the one you proposed and how I see it playing out and the other is basically what we have now admittedly. Both of them however add in that short combo to make PLD just that much closer to Warrior, it is just that one of them (in my opinion) has much more clunk and is far more restrictive/less intuitive than the other one and I could see PLD losing even more players from it.

Also, to counter your burst damage, I have no idea where you suddenly pulled a potency number from, however, here are the facts:

Highest Burst (2 Divine Might Holy Spirit), 6600 potency after FoF, 8 GCDs, you can get 2 full combos in, for 2130 total potency each, over 7 GCDs, that leaves 2 slots, so add Fast Blade and Riot Blade to give the burst as much power over the total potency as possible.

Add it all up (6600 + 2130 + 2130 + 200 + 280) = 11340 potency over a minute, 6600 of that is burst potency, 4740 is filler potency. If you calculate how much higher the burst is (6600 / 4740) you get 1.3924....... or, in other words, the Burst potency is just less than 40% higher than the filler potency and this is trying to give the burst as much as possible. This lines up with what you read that the burst should be no more than 40% of the jobs damage.

Goring Blade feels clunky and out of place. Potencies and grand ideas aside, it's just a weird thing to have to use. It doesn't even upset me to have another damage button for the sake of damage. I think what bothers me most is that it's a GCD, and I prefer my melee GCDs to have some sort of place in a combo. Goring doesn't have that place, at least in my opinion. Personal preference and all.

I agree with most of your assessment, indeed, why bother with most things, it's just fluff. People like some things, others like something else. Not everyone can be pleased with a single answer. Which brings us back to the original point, Goring Blade. How it interacts and impacts the structure of a rotation. Goring Blade as a gcd/ogcd/combo variants all determine what structure will be formed or worked around to fit it in. 6.3 Pld is a text book abstract concept that does the minimal needed to achieve it's goals. It has a 1 60s burst, 1 60s gcd, 2 30s ogcds, 1 ogcd that stockpiles, 1 basic combo that gives buffs, multiple single use skills that use each buff. Individual concepts that do not clash because each is designed for only one purpose. If you were only presented with 6.3 Pld without ever knowing what 6.2 Pld and earlier iterations were like, new ideas presented would be very limited resulting in ideas that go along with what you have posted. From that standpoint, Goring Blade as a combo would be a new idea. However, simply introducing Goring Blade with a combo concept requires imagination into how it would create such a structure. You have to create a mess to bake a cake. Just because an idea didn't work, doesn't mean it couldn't work. Taking one step with an idea, testing, going back one step, and taking another step in a different direction is essentially like driving a boat with an anchor deployed. The solutions may be beyond the horizon, which would require taking a step, testing, taking another step forward, with more testing and steps, til you reach a point where you can no longer take a step, at which point you can look at what you have and see where it can be simplified or consolidated and compare to the original.

Take Shield Bash for example, it breaks combos, does little damage, drifts your rotation if used, and serves little to no use in a raid setting. A basic solution is heavy damage gcd, moving it to ogcd, or adding "This weaponskill does not share a recast timer with any other actions.". Going beyond 1 step, you go into combo variations, which the next step is make it combo into everything, and I mean everything, that includes Riot Blade, Prominence, the Confiteor Combo Actions, and all ogcds. You have a mess, too much complexity if you will, with not much more you can do aside from adding buff interactions with an even bigger mess at this current step. You compare to the original and see how things interact.

From the moment this concept is introduced, you see issues.
[Fast Blade][Riot Blade][Royal Authority]
[Shield Bash][Riot Blade][Royal Authority]

This goes back to your earlier point using a new example. Fast Blade and Shield Bash are fighting for a spot. Why do Shield Bash at all if Fast Blade does more damage, it's just a potency loss. An argument is made, you don't do it for damage, however, in a raid setting, all this would serve is a niche, because people prioritize damage above all else. This specific instance is needless complexity for the sake of complexity, which serves no purpose than to shoehorn it in. If you try to make Shield Bash do the same damage, then you create a new conflict which invalidates the purpose of Fast Blade because it has no stun. Just because Shield Bash as a combo concept didn't work, doesn't mean it couldn't work. Conceptually, if two actions do the same damage, they each need to have their own effects or interactions. This is why I'm okay with having Royal Authority giving 3 Sword Oath and 1 Divine Might and with Atonement giving 2 Sword Oath and 2 Divine Might, because concept wise they are not the same.

Back to Goring Blade, making a mess lets you see things like [Shield Bash][Goring Blade], or wild notions like Goring Blade consuming Sword Oath 1/2/3, Divine Might, even Requiescat. Whether any of these ideas will work or not, means you have to consider the old and new structures that would utilize it. Like Divine Might from Royal Authority, how you arrive to Divine Might changes on where you took your first step. For me, this concept was designed from a Clemency and Divine Veil standpoint to make it dps neutral. I just called it Divine Oath cause Shield Oath and Sword Oath while taking Divine from Divine Veil and it could easily have been called Holy Oath because of Holy Spirit and Holy Circle although it would look weird putting Holy Oath inside of Divine Veil from a name perspective as part of interactions. It would be combined with Requiescat to make Clemency dps neutral if you use a Requiescat stack for instant cast, and with extra Divine Might, it allows to make a bigger burst because Requiescat was not doing enough damage, when looking at burst ratios, Atonement and Holy Spirit balance, and taking downtime into consideration. It had me look at Atonement in general to try to generate more Divine Might from the rotation, because I was associating Atonement and Divine Oath by name meanings, and attempting to give 1/2/3 Divine Might in various forms, because 3 Divine Might was not enough for a full Requiescat burst, which led to making an Atonement combo to compensate before leading to 2 Sword Oath and 2 Divine Might once new ideas about Royal Authority and Goring Blade giving Divine Might came to mind. At the time, Confiteor Blade Combo couldn't be put in Requiescat without ending Requiescat early, which also made me look at how Requiescat works in general. And by messing with Atonement as a combo, it led to me looking at what the purpose of Sword Oath was to begin with, thinking if it's just to make your next three physical gcd do same damage, why not other skills and enhancing other concepts in the works. Look at Pld 6.3 filler average potency, you would not arrive to this concept without having Divine Might in the first place, and requires the concept of Sword Oath making your physical basic combos do the same damage per gcd. Divine Might is essentially playing the role of Sword Oath buffing Fast Blade and Riot Blade to 350 potency, which means concept wise, if they add any potency to filler, it will have to be added to Fast Blade, Riot Blade, Royal Authority, Atonement, Holy Spirit, and Divine Might Holy Spirit to keep balance. And by that same concept, if you lower the amount of Atonement stacks given, you have to reduce Divine Might Holy Spirit potency to average 350 again. This goes beyond just seeing a flashy animation or high apm to feel like you are doing something.

Using the numbers you mentioned:
Total = (6600 + 2130 + 2130 + 200 + 280) = 11340
Burst = 6600
Filler = 4740
(6600 / 4740) = 1.3924....... or, in other words, the Burst potency is just less than 40% higher than the filler potency.

Up to here is correct, however, it is a miscalculation in not comparing Burst and Filler as a whole.

Burst as a % of Total: (6600/11340) = 0.582 = 58.2%
Filler as a % of Total: (4740/11340) = 0.418 = 41.8%

Which shows the burst is even higher than my rough estimate. Let's try another comparison with simple numbers.

Total = (5000+5000) = 10000
Burst = 5000
Filler = 5000
Burst as a % of Total: (5000/10000) = 0.5 = 50.0%
Filler as a % of Total: (5000/10000) = 0.5 = 50.0%

If burst and filler do the same damage, this leads to notions of what was the point, looks boring to me, why have buffs at all, etc. Determining what is a burst and what is a filler comes back to the definition of a burst, a period of higher damage. But if burst and filler do equal damage, how do you know what is or isn't a burst. This would have to bring up damage to gcd ratios from a rotation as a whole.

Comparisons with 24 gcd:
Burst of 50% of Total damage using 1 gcd = 1 / 24 = 0.042 = 4.2% of rotation (50% / 1 gcd = 50% per gcd)
Filler of 50% of Total damage using 23 gcd = 23 / 24 = 0.968 = 96.8% of rotation (50% / 23 gcd = 2.17% per gcd)

When you see you do 50% of you entire damage with a smaller number of gcds, that means you have a higher period of damage. And by that same definition, doing 50% of your entire damage using a larger number of gcds, means you have a period of lower damage. Both, the amount of damage and the gcds to create it, are required when determining where potencies need to be adjusted for balance purposes as a whole with job and encounter design.

New comparisons with 6.3 Pld:
Burst of 58.2% of Total damage using 8 gcd = 8 / 24 = 0.333 = 33.3% of rotation (58.2% / 8 gcd = 7.28% per gcd)
Filler of 41.8% of Total damage using 16 gcd = 16 / 24 = 0.667 = 66.7% of rotation (41.8% / 16 gcd = 2.61% per gcd)

Ideal comparison of a text book Pld:
Burst of 40.0% of Total damage using 5 gcd = 5 / 24 = 0.208 = 20.8% of rotation (40.0% / 5 gcd = 8.00% per gcd)
Burst of 40.0% of Total damage using 10 gcd = 10 / 24 = 0.417 = 41.7% of rotation (40.0% / 10 gcd = 4.00% per gcd)
Filler of 20.0% of Total damage using 9 gcd = 9 / 24 = 0.375 = 37.5% of rotation (20.0% / 9 gcd = 2.22% per gcd)

If you do another comparison between the two:
Ideal using only 8 gcd = 8.0% x 5 + 4.0% x 3 = 52.0% vs 58.2% of 6.3 Pld

With 8 gcds, the ideal at 52% is very close to 50% parity with damage, so lets compare with that. Which, you can say, is mimicing a raid setting.
50.0% of Total damage using 8 gcd = 8 / 24 = 0.333 = 33.3% of rotation (50.0% / 8 gcd = 6.250% per gcd)
50.0% of Total damage using 16 gcd = 16 / 24 = 0.667 = 66.7% of rotation (50.0% / 16 gcd = 3.125% per gcd)

From here, you can already see a pattern with % as a per gcd. Each higher plateau is almost if not double the lower one. This is a reflection of an ideal balance. So once you start going past 40% with a limit of a single burst, you end up with 4 paradigms.

Paladin: Heavy reliance on high potency gcd causing massive crit variance.
Warrior: Medium gcds with auto crit.
Gunbreaker: Lots and lots of medium and low gcd and ogcd resulting in high apm.
Dark Knight: Heavy reliance on ogcd.

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Originally Posted by LevKresnik

Goring Blade feels clunky and out of place. Potencies and grand ideas aside, it's just a weird thing to have to use. It doesn't even upset me to have another damage button for the sake of damage. I think what bothers me most is that it's a GCD, and I prefer my melee GCDs to have some sort of place in a combo. Goring doesn't have that place, at least in my opinion. Personal preference and all.

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This.

I think that's the main problem with Goring now. It doesn't have a point. It's just kind of tacked on so someone, somewhere, can insist PLD didn't have any buttons removed. It's like AF on SMN, despite it having no real place or identity with the rest of the kit. Except at least that has some actual interaction as oGCD filler to increase the Job's APM and add in Ruin 4 management, small though that is. Goring is just "the button you press after FoF/Requi. It's not "exciting" like Double Down is since neither the animation nor the damage pop like that, and since PLD has Swords anyway, which is much more thematically over the top in terms of "omph". Double Down also has resource management connected to it, making it at least something to track. For PLD, Goring is just up every FoF/Requi window and you hit it on CD.

It doesn't seem to have a place or a purpose, and if the damage was baked into Swords combo or something, it wouldn't change PLD's balance at all. If anything, it'd make it SLIGHTLY shielded from bad crit RNG, since missing a crit wouldn't mean you are out all the lost damage as you have 3 other abilities that could get crits to reclaim some of it.

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Originally Posted by Kemeko

...
Back to Goring Blade, making a mess lets you see things like [Shield Bash][Goring Blade], or wild notions like Goring Blade consuming Sword Oath 1/2/3, Divine Might, ...

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You seem to be good at saying things but avoiding the questions/concerns I bring up. The main one being, Why do you have 2 combos that just focus one damage. I even mentioned it AGAIN in my previous post and mentioned how limiting/restrictive it was being in the flow of the rotation using the GCDs that you had laid out. So, simple question, why?

Also, there is no reason you have to buff Fast Blade or Riot Blade to keep a 350 average if you want to reduce Sword Oath stacks. Going down to 1 stack, you can increase Atonement to 440 potency and it will still average out to 350 potency. In fact, in this instance, since increasing Atonement by 60 potency keeps the average potency per GCD the same, you can distribute the potency however you want. Don't like Royal Authority and Atonement having different potencies? Increase both by 30 potency each and have them be 410 potency. Or, increase Fast/Riot by 10 potency and increase RA and Atonement by 20, still 350 potency on average. For completion, doing the same game with 2 SO stacks gives you 30 potency to play with, though it is a bit more restrictive.

Personally, increasing Atonement to 440 potency, with Royal Authority giving 1 SO stack (still stacking to 3), means for the burst, you are looking to compliment PLD's 3 GCDs with 3 out of the 4 potential buffs (1 DM and 3 SO), which you build up over the rotation. (Here, DM 2 SO would be 1330 compared to our current highest of 2 DM and RA, which is 1280, a 50 potency gain, for reference, the current lowest is DM, FB, RB at 930, a loss of 330 potency over double DM, even working on the average of the 2, [930 and 1280 average is 1105] which is 225 below the change, so less than the variance in the current burst and more consistent. Might break the whole just stick the burst in wherever you like though).

So again, why have a system in place that unnecessarily buffs GCDs to be just like another.

As for the maths, yes, I got the initial bit wrong, in my defence, it was 4am and noone should be doing maths at that time. However, I just want to point something out:

Ideal comparison of a text book Pld:

Quote:

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Burst of 40.0% of Total damage using 5 gcd = 5 / 24 = 0.208 = 20.8% of rotation (40.0% / 5 gcd = 8.00% per gcd)
Burst of 40.0% of Total damage using 10 gcd = 10 / 24 = 0.417 = 41.7% of rotation (40.0% / 10 gcd = 4.00% per gcd)
Filler of 20.0% of Total damage using 9 gcd = 9 / 24 = 0.375 = 37.5% of rotation (20.0% / 9 gcd = 2.22% per gcd)

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If this is meant to represent old PLD's GCD breakdown, it doesn't, however, this again, highlights what I have been trying to say about Old PLD. Is it really a burst is (using the numbers above) 80% of your GCD is 'burst'? Burst implies high damage in a short time. If 80% of your rotation can be considered 'burst', then it isn't burst.