@Devs: PLD/GLD and poor AoE enmity management. Intentional design choice?

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Originally Posted by Duelle

I'm iffy on this, if only because Final Fantasy Paladins aren't really the type that can imbue their weapons and armor with holy energy. D&D and Warcraft paladins, sure. Blame it on Cecil for being a guy with a sword, Cover and some white magic. =P

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Well, just to shed some light here. The FFTA/TA2 Paladin is actually a holy striker build with Holy Cross (AoE, cross-shaped centered on self) and Holy Sword (very heavy ST).
Also taking into the game Agrias, who might not exactly be a Paladin, we add in a lot of elemental-based damaged with status tacked on it.

Otherwise staying out of this discussion, I do like the design decision of "PLD as ST tank, WAR as GT tank" but i'm not sure the game is even properly balanced for that and my experience as tank is just not negative because I tanked 3 times, so i'll let the grown-ups discuss here.

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Originally Posted by Skies

Well, just to shed some light here. The FFTA/TA2 Paladin is actually a holy striker build with Holy Cross (AoE, cross-shaped centered on self) and Holy Sword (very heavy ST).
Also taking into the game Agrias, who might not exactly be a Paladin, we add in a lot of elemental-based damaged with status tacked on it.

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I purposely neglected to mention those because then I get the itch to suggest a Holy Knight offspec for PLD. Believe me, if I could somehow have my PLD throw out holy sword skills like Agrias does in Tactics, I would have given up on the tanking debate long ago because I would be too busy melting faces with Divine Blade/Stasis Sword. >.>;;

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Originally Posted by Ronik

» Buff War Drum (Lower CD or increased Effect). As it stands, it simply offers too little enmity on too long of a CD. A single War Drum will almost never pull hate back off a WHM who was simply doing his job healing you, nevermind a DD who pressed an aoe button (or, god forbid, a BLM).

» Add a passive trait that has a chance to reduce the cooldown on [War Drum] or [Flash] whenever we successful block an attack. This would create some interesting options for the player: we could pop Divine Veil/Outmaneuver either for mitigation or to spam War Drums.

» Add a passive trait which reflects or inflicts some amount of holy damage whenever we block. This turns Divine Veil/Outmaneuver into potential AoE threat tools, and fits with the overall theme of Paladins.

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I like these ideas and fully agree that Wardrum as it is useless since leveling PLD and WAR i find tanking a bunch of mobs near enough impossible as PLD the cooldowns on wardrum and the enmity from AOE flash is just nothing that a WAR can dish out in pure DPS with steel cyclone combo overpower and path of the storm >> whirlwind combo.
Im all for having multiple tank choices but as it stands WAR can do near enough anything PLD can do in single target situations as well as pld can.
i really like PLD and hate being forced to go WAR to events because PLD has very little AOE tanking utility.

Some good ideas in here.

Making Phalanx aoe - I would disagree with this. the idea of needing to hit an aoe to proc spirits within just seems kinda bad. aoe phalanx at coincutter and hit all them damn slugs that could end up being fatal when all you want to do is get spirits within off.

War Drum - it is mostly useless and i can think of a few changes that would help it. could eliminate any damage it does all together reduce its cool down and give it a fairly helfy emnity generation boost. or increase its damage and give some form of aoe damage with it.

Refresh - mp is my biggest issue with paladin. divine veil is a 20 second duration and alot of times unlikly to get hit much when you pop it to get mp back with outmanouver. cover is much the same and useless without af body. and in any kind of aoe situation the mp return from both is almost non existant need to get hit hard to get any decent mp back so a bunch of trash mobs giving you 3 or 4 mp is useless. would like to see some mp auto-refresh trait / mp regen ability.

Outmanouver - I'd Like to see this become more of a stance like rampage / berserk than a simple 30 second ability. this would also help with mp above.

Shieldbash - making it tp free would certainly make it more usefull been a few times i've been caught short on tp to stun stuff so yeah it would help

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The issue here is that Warrior's are the strongest AoE damage dealers in the game, on top of having the highest AoE threat generation.

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This is a myth that really needs to be dispelled. Why do people think this? Because they see some War using aoe to burn down raptors, which are beneath their own level?

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Originally Posted by KumaAkuma

This is a myth that really needs to be dispelled. Why do people think this? Because they see some War using aoe to burn down raptors, which are beneath their own level?

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Aye I agree BLM's and WHM's (Yes WHM's) can easily dominate the AoE damage department, however WAR's have much higher hate potential from their AoE WS's and can use them as much/more often than PLD's can with Flash and Rampart (I don't count lol Wardrum because it's just that pathetic.)

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Originally Posted by Duelle

Which would then act against paladins if design decides to take tank DPS into account. Just trying to think of the future.

The whole "gives up offense for heals" is arbitrary and poor reasoning, because at the end of the day the tank roster has to be fairly equal if you want everyone to have a fair shot at their respective roles.

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If Holy Succor was instant cast with an increased threat modifier (make it a 1:2 or better) the skill would fit with the "healing tank".

I don't mind having less damage for increased healing capabilities. Barring all other things, enemity generation should be fairly equal even if the mechanics are not. Besides, as long as a PLD can compete damage wise on a single target vs a WAR does it really matter? :p

Edit: So long as PLDs get a MP regen/re-coup passive that isn't attached to a sub optimal peice of equipment...

Though, with speed runs and super efficiency being #1 priority for most groups in FF I get where you're coming from.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

I purposely neglected to mention those because then I get the itch to suggest a Holy Knight offspec for PLD. Believe me, if I could somehow have my PLD throw out holy sword skills like Agrias does in Tactics, I would have given up on the tanking debate long ago because I would be too busy melting faces with Divine Blade/Stasis Sword. >.>;;

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I hate to double post...

but I think you might be onto a brilliant option for designing the paladin class.

combo idea:
Fast blade, Flat blade, followed by an option A: Instant Cure or B: Stasis sword.

Balance PLD's MP generation around using abilities like this (Cure and SS having an MP cost) would make PLD probably the most entertaining class I could think of.

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Originally Posted by KumaAkuma

This is a myth that really needs to be dispelled. Why do people think this? Because they see some War using aoe to burn down raptors, which are beneath their own level?

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Steel Cyclone and Whirlwind together provide the highest reliable burst AoE damage of any class (aside from Black Mages, but their AoE potential is more situational & depends on mob elemental affinities). That isn't even factoring in Overpower spam in any situation where applicable.

WAR's are considered practically essential for their AoE DPS on Garuda and Ifrit Extreme (both of which have no overpower component), for example. This is due to a number of reasons (one of which is the fact that Steel Cyclone is simply a massively powerful T3 AoE weapon skill by itself, alongside its short, 30 second CD and excellent range). This is no myth, Warriors really do have the most practical and useful AoE skills.

oh in adition to my earlier post. regarding outmanouver.

I'd also change the mechanics so stoneskin doesnt stop the mp regen. take 0 damage due to stoneskin recover 0 mp. i think that itself is heavily flawed.