Paladin adjustments = PALLY BUFFS!

WAR:

The typical raid WAR (especially in Alexander Savage) would usually be the OT to dish out dps almost equivilant to a DRG or MNK with they slaying gear they love so much. With the new changes in VIT, this could not only balance WAR strength, but also encourage our OT heros to switch to a main tank perspective.

DRK:

DRKs in my opinion excel more as a MT than OT in my opinion due to their mana management. However, they can still do amazing dps with full slaying gear. This change in VIT coming to DRKs may neither be too overpowered nor too gimped, as DRK was first meant to be the go-between of the 3 tank classes. Speculation for me is unknown.

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Originally Posted by Dhex

Being 60 PLD/DRK/WAR;

Seeing that they specifically mentioned Paladin's Oath - I hope this means they finally recognize that the loss of GCD & combo interruption was significantly detrimental to overall damage capabilities.

Additionally; Paladin has a single offensive cooldown & it is fairly powerful but the long cooldown has always made the job about limiting your losses over time - hopefully changes to Sword Oath will help address this.

Hopefully they fix or at least somewhat address the deficiencies with those skills.

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Agreed! Our Ability Fight or Flight is called Fight or Flight for a reason. I think of it as would you rather stay in Flight mode in Shield Oath to keep up your enmity? Or would you rather switch to Sword Oath to Fight mode to dish out as much dps as possible to meet that dps check...the Paladin Oaths could have a shorter GCD in my opinion.

It will be interesting to see what changes are being made to the paladin.

I do wonder what made Yoshi-P changed his mind considering some of the other stuff that was said about the pld like this statement from months ago from an old topic

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Apparently Yoshi P finally commented on his stance on plds:

Source is here (mind you its japanese):

http://ff14net.2chblog.jp/archives/46326984.html

Translation by courtesy of Octopus over at BG:

YoshiP: "I don't think PLD is weak"
- PLD will continue to be the best defensive tank.
- There will be adjustments to its skills in 3.1
- Magic will never be able to be blocked
- There will be more physical attacks in raids

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and another from here

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...y_released_jp/

It is interesting to think about.

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Originally Posted by Maltothoris

I do wonder what made Yoshi-P changed his mind considering some of the other stuff that was said about the pld like this statement from months ago from an old topic

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It is very easy for them to miss how a job actually performs in the hands of players when they "know" how a job should perform. Developer Blindness common infliction in a large number of MMOs. The FFXIV team is actually fairly quick to fix things once they learn what is actually going on.

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

It is very easy for them to miss how a job actually performs in the hands of players when they "know" how a job should perform. Developer Blindness common infliction in a large number of MMOs. The FFXIV team is actually fairly quick to fix things once they learn what is actually going on.

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Honestly, I feel that we shouldn't be seeing a repeat of this "there is no problem" stuff again. This is the exact same situation with WAR back at 2.0 launch, just it's PLD now. We're basically seeing YoshiP go through the stages of grief again, moving from denial where we always start at to the current point of acceptance.

I'm also surprised it's taken this long to change astral fire / umbral ice on black mages to change status on end of cast instead of when the animation hit (because having to wait after your cast is complete with your thumbs twiddling for Blizzard 4 to be enabled to be cast is junk). I just wouldn't expect things like the black mage situation to make it out of testing, and I'd expect them to move faster on the repeat scenario of messing up tank balance.

Don't forget that it took the community itself a few months to formulate the present views on PLD post-HW. If you look back to the first couple of months of posts, PLD was clearly meant to be the best MT, Sheltron was supposedly the second-coming of Inner Beast, and there was a 30+ page thread on how DRK obviously wasn't good enough to bring into Ex Primals. It took two world-first clears on something other than a PLD MT to turn that all on its head. That's also when we suddenly decided that the existing two-year-old tank 'meta' was actually an issue.

You can design and balance classes on paper all you want, but you can't design for how people will come to play or perceive them.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Don't forget that it took the community itself a few months to formulate the present views on PLD post-HW. If you look back to the first couple of months of posts, PLD was clearly meant to be the best MT, Sheltron was supposedly the second-coming of Inner Beast, and there was a 30+ page thread on how DRK obviously wasn't good enough to bring into Ex Primals.

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What it took is just simple new designs :
"You know all these all powerful physical attacks ? Well, they're dead. Now, it's magic time ! And hard DPS checks"

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Originally Posted by Aaliyahrose

Also a quote from the Community Rep:


HAHAHA I've had many raid groups laugh at me for using all fending accessories on PLD. Everyone will finally leave me alone and finally see how I've always been a better PLD with high HP ^.^
This makes me ecstatic.

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Thats not true you weren't always the better PLD, the extra hp wasn't needed the damage was for the dps checks. In 3.2 however you will be good to go but up till now you have been a burden dps wise in raid.

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Originally Posted by Riki_Namu

In 3.2 however you will be good to go but up till now you have been a burden dps wise in raid.

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Because of the aforementioned intended design. It's not like players who signed up to be Paladins thought they'd be doing any less damage than their tank cousins Drk and War, but because of the heavy emphasis on high dps-checks it turned out that way. I think after the 3.2 patch a lot of Paladin players will let out a sigh of relief, because they've been pulling the tougher weights throughout the "era of strength tanks" that we're now putting behind us.

Raise your chins and puff out your chests fellow Paladins, because brighter times lie ahead!

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Originally Posted by Torunya

Because of the aforementioned intended design. It's not like players who signed up to be Paladins thought they'd be doing any less damage than their tank cousins Drk and War, but because of the heavy emphasis on high dps-checks it turned out that way. I think after the 3.2 patch a lot of Paladin players will let out a sigh of relief, because they've been pulling the tougher weights throughout the "era of strength tanks" that we're now putting behind us.

Raise your chins and puff out your chests fellow Paladins, because brighter times lie ahead!

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"Paladins are now a healing class."
-Totes Real Quote.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

"Paladins are now a healing class."
-Totes Real Quote.

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So, Pld would go from the least used/useful Tank int he game to the least used/useful Healer in the game? Or would Pld bump off one of the current healers and take their place ... Hmm ...

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Originally Posted by Maltothoris

It will be interesting to see what changes are being made to the paladin.

I do wonder what made Yoshi-P changed his mind considering some of the other stuff that was said about the pld like this statement from months ago from an old topic

Quote:

---

Apparently Yoshi P finally commented on his stance on plds:

Source is here (mind you its japanese):

http://ff14net.2chblog.jp/archives/46326984.html

Translation by courtesy of Octopus over at BG:

YoshiP: "I don't think PLD is weak"
- PLD will continue to be the best defensive tank.
- There will be adjustments to its skills in 3.1
- Magic will never be able to be blocked
- There will be more physical attacks in raids

---

and another from here

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...y_released_jp/

It is interesting to think about.

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I think the biggest problem with it being a defensive tank is that almost no content requires defensive gameplay. everything in game revolves around offence and dps checks. a defensive tank doesn't fit that content design.

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Originally Posted by Jpec07

I'd guess DRK may see a change to Living Dead to give it greater synergy with the increased HP pools the Vit-Str conversion is going to give them. Might also see a buff to non-DA C&S, or some way to manage MP while stuck in those phases of combat where you can't attack anything (without dropping Darkside).

Fell Cleave -> Fell Cuddle...

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Would be nice to not have to pay a now-4k higher amount of healing to take Doom off for what may about to preventing only 2k overkill. Personally, I'd rather they're just allowed to have negative HP, and need only be healed back to a positive value, but if they were to take more than max health damage during that time that would be a mitigation loss, and coding problems would probably prevent that anyways... Never fun having the debuff component of something increased just because your stats improved.

Honestly hope WAR's aren't nerfed much, if at all. I'd be cool with seeing Fell Cleave drop from 500 to 440-460 and Decimate from 280 to 250-260, but only if Defiance (and Convalesce and Mantra) is going to be allowed to affect healing abilities (WAR-specific self-heals scaled to have similar values), etc. Generally, I'd just like to see the other tanks moved closer to WAR in terms of synergy and usability improvements, rather than WAR being nerfed.

PLD for live :D and guess who gonna reset his PLD stats for more VIT since I messed up 8 points into DEX during my time playing PLD >.>

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Originally Posted by Maltothoris

It will be interesting to see what changes are being made to the paladin.

I do wonder what made Yoshi-P changed his mind considering some of the other stuff that was said about the pld like this statement from months ago from an old topic


and another from here

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...y_released_jp/

It is interesting to think about.

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2.0 WAR Yoshi "I think warriors are strong."

Wow. Pld is going to be a beast. More tp, more eminity, better DV and clemency, oaths not interupting ur rotation, k9re dps in shield, 10 extra potency to RA, and GB adding 20 potency to its initial hit and a whopping 10 to every tick. Using the same rotation and strats ull be producing alot higher numbers. Hopefully it doesnt make us to strong. I dont like being the broken class hahahaha

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Originally Posted by LadyCeles

Hopefully it doesnt make us to strong. I dont like being the broken class hahahaha

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It won't make us too strong. The damage output will definitely be bigger, though (comparatively). I think people are underestimating how much a 100 potency increase (130 in FoF) can boost damage, specially when said increase will be active 100% of the time and the risk-reward relation of Goring Blade is so low. The enmity buff to Savage Blade is just icing on the cake, and all this together will actually make PLD's MT DPS go a lot higher now without the need to sacrifice HP for attack, which was one of the main problems PLD had in Gordias Savage progression. I'm pretty happy with the changes!

Class/Job Action/Status Adjustment
All Classes | Sprint | TP cost has been removed in PvP areas. Duration has been set to 10 seconds in PvP areas. Use will no longer interrupt weaponskill combos.

Gladiator/Paladin | Fast Blade|TP cost has been reduced from 70 to 60.
Savage Blade |The amount of enmity generated has been increased.
Goring Blade |Potency when used as a combo action has been increased from 220 to 240. Damage over time potency has been increased from 40 to 50.
Royal Authority |Potency when used as a combo action has been increased from 340 to 350.
Clemency |Casting time reduced from 3 to 2 seconds.
Divine Veil |The protective barrier that is cast on all party members within range when you receive a healing spell now activates even when healing yourself. Recast time reduced from 150 seconds to 120 seconds.
Sword Oath |Use will no longer interrupt weaponskill combos.
Shield Oath |Use will no longer interrupt weaponskill combos. Damage penalty has been reduced from 20% to 15%. The amount of enmity generated has been increased.

Warrior |Defiance |The amount of enmity generated has been increased.

Dark Knight |Hard Slash |TP cost has been reduced from 70 to 60.
Souleater |TP cost has been reduced from 60 to 50.
Delirium |TP cost has been reduced from 60 to 50.
Grit |Use will no longer interrupt weaponskill combos. The amount of enmity generated has been increased.
Darkside |MP cost has been reduced by 1/3 in PvP areas.


NO NERF TO WARRIOR! and those pally buffs. oooo weeeeeeeeeeeee

Emintiy has never been a problem i can switch to sword oath rather fast and ieep hate with the best dps on our server (of course switching back to shield for tank busters). Making clemency and devine viel faster and easier to use is our bonus IMO. I like what u say and ur right the extra potency is a ton, even for the average pld who stays in shield. The ones that already produce solid dps just became beasts. But just like the other classes "beasts" its probably going t9 be comparable. I cant wait, watch out eorzia lets have some fun

Cheese on Rice. Hey guess what guys? Dark Knights are now useless! Anyone with a Dark Knight main is now a fool who's living in the past. Delete all that chaos gear, and melt your Deathbringers down so that you can use the metal to make spoons for all the ice cream you're going to eat yourselves sick with since no one will EVER speak to you again! You're now the ugly girls at the prom! Waaaah! Waaah!

Wait, none of that's true? At all? Dark Knights will still be good? B-b-but PALADIN BUFFS!

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Originally Posted by LadyCeles

Emintiy has never been a problem i can switch to sword oath rather fast and ieep hate with the best dps on our server (of course switching back to shield for tank busters). Making clemency and devine viel faster and easier to use is our bonus IMO. I like what u say and ur right the extra potency is a ton, even for the average pld who stays in shield. The ones that already produce solid dps just became beasts. But just like the other classes "beasts" its probably going t9 be comparable. I cant wait, watch out eorzia lets have some fun

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There never has been a case of enmity problem at all BTW (top Paladins have been pulling in Sword Oath, just a matter of how many Halones you want to cycle to get some lead on aggro) and tank busters are actually quite a joke in Gordias Savage, yes, all of them can be tanked in DPS stance no problem.

Actually im pretty disappointed about the pld changes, because the complexibility and gameplay is the same, dull. Drk has mp managrment, war stack management and pld... has shelltron? Im missing that extra layer of complex that other tanks have, maybe im just too biased. My only issue with pala is flash(aoe pulls) and sitting on max mana forever. I was expecting a manadump(like darkarts) or some kind of management, but guess ill stay war, because thats simply too dull for me, i dont care about tp/dmg at all...

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Originally Posted by MariaNyan

Actually im pretty disappointed about the pld changes, because the complexibility and gameplay is the same, dull. Drk has mp managrment, war stack management and pld... has shelltron? Im missing that extra layer of complex that other tanks have, maybe im just too biased. My only issue with pala is flash(aoe pulls) and sitting on max mana forever. I was expecting a manadump(like darkarts) or some kind of management, but guess ill stay war, because thats simply too dull for me, i dont care about tp/dmg at all...

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Paladin, like white mage and to an lancer, have always been very no-nonsense straight up classes.

Except for DRG getting the BotD.

Paladin has always been fairly simply (like whm), so the chances of much complexity coming are nil.

Not amazingly happy about the 5% damage reduction loss (okay, speaking frankly I absolutely hate it since high defense is the one thing we have going for us), and I'm not sure what they want to achieve with the enmity boost since that was never Paladin's issue. The slight damage buffs are kind of nice though, so I guess it's not a total loss. Also that clemency buff means it might even be useful!

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Originally Posted by Lemuria

Not amazingly happy about the 5% damage reduction loss (okay, speaking frankly I absolutely hate it since high defense is the one thing we have going for us), and I'm not sure what they want to achieve with the enmity boost since that was never Paladin's issue. The slight damage buffs are kind of nice though, so I guess it's not a total loss. Also that clemency buff means it might even be useful!

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Damage penalty has been reduced from 20% to 15%

It is the -20% modifier on Shield Oath that reduces your damage that is being reduced to -15%.
So Shield Oath will now read as:
Reduces damage received by 20% and increases enmity, while lowering damage dealt by 15%. Increases accuracy by 5%.
Cannot be used with Sword Oath.
Effect ends upon reuse.

Damage Penalty =/= Damage Reduction

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

Damage penalty has been reduced from 20% to 15%

It is the -20% modifier on Shield Oath that reduces your damage that is being reduced to -15%.
So Shield Oath will now read as:
Reduces damage received by 20% and increases enmity, while lowering damage dealt by 15%. Increases accuracy by 5%.
Cannot be used with Sword Oath.
Effect ends upon reuse.

Damage Penalty =/= Damage Reduction

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Exactly this. It's actually a flat 6.25% DPS buff for PLD in ShO.

Oh, I retract my statement then. So, basically it's all sunshine and rainbows for Paladin. Thanks for pointing out my error. I guess part of my brain assumed they wouldn't give us all of these buffs without taking away at least something in return. Makes a pleasant change.

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Originally Posted by Lemuria

So, basically it's all sunshine and rainbows for Paladin.

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Not quite. They still have two totally useless moves that were completely ignored by SE (Cover and Tempered Will ... again), their Dps is still lowest out of the three tanks, and their TP draw will still be higher than the other two tanks. SE has done TP cost adjustments before. They'll help a little, but it's unlikely that they will actually fix the problem.

Most of the existing problems with Tank balance have not been addressed either. Drk's have zero OT utility, but are still the best MT. War's are still hands down the best OT. Pld's are just there. Technically, they bring raid support in the form of Divine Veil ... but lets face it, that really did not change. They haven't brought anything new to the table that makes sacrificing Drk Dps worth it. Having one is not as horrifically bad as it was before, but it's still not preferable to the Drk's/War combo.

It's probably best to wait and see how things play out from here, but, honestly, it doesn't look like SE really "fixed" anything with this patch. They just threw yet another band aid on the problem. Given that we've seen similar adjustments like this to Pld in the past, I'm not expecting much out of these ones.

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Originally Posted by Februs

snip

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TW and Cover are working as intended though.

TW is essentially knockback protection. The difference is unlike WAR/DRK it does not have to expend its oh-shit-button/withhold oGCD DPS to achieve the same end. There's different ways to look at that of course, but the ability works as intended.

Cover is still fantastic utility as MT or OT, the main difference being that this raid tier didn't have many mechanics to take advantage of it. Stop me if I'm wrong, but in A3S for example, a PLD OT could have easily lightened the blunt-resistance stack load on their MT by using Cover. Its an ability that again, works as intended, but just didn't see many opportunities for use due to raid design.

The same couldn't be said for Clemency/DV which are now "fixed".

Either way, a PLD brings arguably equal utility as an MT and better utility as an OT now compared to DRK. So now what DRK brings is higher MT DPS, and that gap just got noticeably smaller with the changes to ShO and potency buffs.

DRK really really really needed something to make it a competitive choice as an OT and now it continues to have only one raid slot (MT) for which any serious raid group will consider it. SE completely missed the mark there. The only thing that DRK truly has going for it is that it is still the highest potential raid DPS contribution for the MT slot, which is likely to be less valued according to the fact that DPS checks are not going to be the primary challenge during this prog cycle.

On the other hand, depending on raid design (as always) PLD could turn out to be VERY good in this coming tier, and poof, SE just fucked up tank balance again, putting DRK where PLD was last tier, which several people pointed out as a possibility and warned us against. GG.

Obviously there will still be groups sticking to the DRK/WAR combo, but it can easily be argued that the DPS gains of that combo just became much less substantial for a much greater loss of potential raid mitigation and utility.

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Originally Posted by MariaNyan

Actually im pretty disappointed about the pld changes, because the complexibility and gameplay is the same, dull. Drk has mp managrment, war stack management and pld... has shelltron? Im missing that extra layer of complex that other tanks have, maybe im just too biased. My only issue with pala is flash(aoe pulls) and sitting on max mana forever. I was expecting a manadump(like darkarts) or some kind of management, but guess ill stay war, because thats simply too dull for me, i dont care about tp/dmg at all...

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Since 2.0, PLD never was to be an MP-dump job. It's physical defense. As a person who likes my PLDs, I like when players treat all three tanks equals for what they are setup to do (PLD - physical, WAR - offensive, DRK - magical).

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Originally Posted by Jim_Berry

Since 2.0, PLD never was to be an MP-dump job. It's physical defense. As a person who likes my PLDs, I like when players treat all three tanks equals for what they are setup to do (PLD - physical, WAR - offensive, DRK - magical).

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WAR can take anything PLD can on physical and anything DRK can on magical and do equal or more DPS while doing so, so the vast majority of players are not going to treat them as equals in that regard.

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Originally Posted by Syzygian

WAR can take anything PLD can on physical and anything DRK can on magical and do equal or more DPS while doing so, so the vast majority of players are not going to treat them as equals in that regard.

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My point exactly (although I didn't actually state it). It's dps, dps, dps, so I always understood why WAR was chosen. I guess my peeve comes from groups having a lack of diversity. The group would have NIN, DRG, MNK, SMN, WHM, AST, WAR, and WAR because they don't want a PLD.

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Originally Posted by Syzygian

TW and Cover are working as intended though. TW is essentially knockback protection. The difference is unlike WAR/DRK it does not have to expend its oh-shit-button/withhold oGCD DPS to achieve the same end. There's different ways to look at that of course, but the ability works as intended.

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You have no idea how much I hate the words "working as intended." It has been SE's number one excuse for not fixing real problems with certain jobs in this game (Pld, being the longest running).

Tempered Will might as well not even be in the game. Yes, it "works as intended," which is to say that it does what it says it does. However, that does not mean that you actually have any use for that effect whatsoever. You can probably count on one hand the number of fights in the entire game in which TW is even remotely close to being useful (and that's using the term "useful" very liberally). Further, the CD timer on it is so damn long that it cannot be used consistently to maintain that usefulness. Ideally, TW's primary use is in maintaining position (not Dps, because Pld's TP issues actually make increased up-time worse for Pld's in the long run), but Pld's can not consistently maintain position using TW because the CD is too long to be useful. Compare that to Drk's, who can essentially use Plunge as a positional maintain every 30 seconds (on top of a dmg increase). There's no competition. TW is pathetic by comparison. The utility of removing heavies is nice, but that's not an issue either, because the healer will remove the status regardless of what tank they're healing.

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Originally Posted by Syzygian

Cover is still fantastic utility as MT or OT, the main difference being that this raid tier didn't have many mechanics to take advantage of it. Stop me if I'm wrong, but in A3S for example, a PLD OT could have easily lightened the blunt-resistance stack load on their MT by using Cover. Its an ability that again, works as intended, but just didn't see many opportunities for use due to raid design.

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Cover has no utility in when in the MT position. Additional dmg is neither wanted, nor even necessary when MT'ing since you already have aggro in that position. I'm not saying that cover doesn't have good utility. It does. When it works, it works well. However, that utility is so incredibly niche that you hardly ever get to use it, especially considering it's ridiculous CD timer and restriction on dmg type. You cannot cover magic dmg, so most AoE's and any magic TB's are out of the question, limiting it's use even further. Inventive Pld's can, and do, find uses for Cover (I, myself, often use it for proxy aggro on healers), but those uses are limited at best and do not include Main Tanking, which is pretty much the only role Pld's get pigeon holed into.

In the end, both Cover and TW are so niche that they are almost never used, with TW scraping the absolute bottom of the barrel. How many Drk CD's can say the same? None. Every move is useful and can be used in ever fight. TW and Cover might "work as intended," but that doesn't mean anything when their intended use is never actually useful.

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Originally Posted by Syzygian

The same couldn't be said for Clemency/DV which are now "fixed".

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Not exactly. They did "fix" a problem with DV in that Pld's should have always, from day one, been able self-activate it. That was a blatant oversight on SE's part (especially considering Clem is a cast-ed heal), but really, what does this actually change. Both DV and Clem are still used in the exact same way as before the change. The utility is identical. The only difference is that Pld's can self activate the barrier with a cast of clemency ... that they can't actually use freely, because it will get interrupted if you don't time it right. The uses of Clem are limited to very specific times in scripted fights. Granted, Clem can be used a lot more frequently than most Pld's realize, but the fact that they do have to be careful when and where they use it means that it is still ideal for the healer to activate DV. Nine times out of ten, DV will not be activated by the Pld.

Now, technically, this change works really well for OT Pld's. So, in any combo of Drk MT/Pld OT, Pld's will be able to manage their Veils a lot better, but Pld's are still far from the preferred option for OT. It's still FAR more preferable to bring a War as OT, so Pld (if there even is a Pld) gets shafted to the MT position every. single. time. In the MT position, half of Pld's raid support is restricted. On paper, their raid utility is good. In practice, though, it has been proven to be anything but good. On the flip side, if they are placed with Drk's then the Drk is shafted to the MT position ever. single. time. because they have increased dps and absolutely no raid utility in the OT spot. In that regard, I totally agree with you that Drk's really, desperately, needed something to make them a viable OT option, but they didn't get that. Like I said, SE missed the mark with these "fixes" in that they did not fix anything.

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Originally Posted by Februs

snip

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Fair enough.

But, the only thing I really consider DRK competitive over PLD for is personal DPS, at this point. RoH, DV, Clem, TW, and Cover combined, along with the fact that you can at least use them to varying degrees of effectiveness regardless of being OT or MT, outshines or is at least competitive with DE+Reprisal and absolutely outshines DE by itself when a DRK is OTing. PLD got DPS buffs as well, and those combined with its existing utilities means PLD is going to give DRK a run for its money as I see it.

The DPS checks aren't going to be as heavy nor is the incoming damage going to be as magic centric. PLD is pretty well poised right now if you ask me.

DRK on the other hand.... le sigh.

PLD is now a considerably smaller DPS loss to bring, with WAY better utility. So DRKs are gonna be like "uhh... I do more DPS? and uhh... ummm..."

If I mained PLD, I'd be happy with these changes. Are they the best? No. Are they particularly creative? Definitely not. Do they change the balance and make PLD a more viable option in either tank slot? Abso-fucking-lutely.

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Originally Posted by Syzygian

Fair enough.

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On that, we can agree. The Pld buffs are definitely a good thing and go a long way for bringing Pld's back from the fringe in end game tanking. I just really wish they had made a real and meaningful adjustment to their TP management instead of another patch job. If skill speeds continue to increase over the course of 3.x, they'll start falling behind very quickly. That, more than any single action adjustment, was the most pressing issue for the job.

Drk's, as well, could have definitely used a meaningful addition to their OT viability. As it is now, they really don't have any other option other than MT when paired with either Pld or War. They do offer pretty good Dps support, but it's definitely not balanced when only one Tank is consistently slated for the same position regardless of the other tank or the nature of the fight.

I'd like to point out that PLD is not so strictly shafted into the MT position because a WAR does not have to be an OT. It plays pretty much exactly the same in the MT position and thus its arguably a raid increase to have WAR MT, PLD OT. Just like to put that out there. This nonsense that WAR can only be OT needs to burn.

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Originally Posted by FallenWings

I'd like to point out that PLD is not so strictly shafted into the MT position because a WAR does not have to be an OT. It plays pretty much exactly the same in the MT position and thus its arguably a raid increase to have WAR MT, PLD OT. Just like to put that out there. This nonsense that WAR can only be OT needs to burn.

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WAR has a roughly 20% mitigation-equivalent, 25% eHP tank stance (though uniquely unable to take any effect from ability heals) that costs 25% damage (90% of norm damage per potency w/ Maim), and an average of 7-8% dps (considerably more when factoring in Fell Cleaves) increase dps-stance (close to 130% with Maim).

PLD's tank stance mitigates and extends eHP by the same amount, but for only a 15% cost to DPS. Tts dps stance increases only single target damage, although by ~13%.

Both lose a fair bit of potency (48 WAR, 90 PLD) for using their mitigation weaponskills (which PLD will have to use more frequently, for enmity, in MT). However, WAR also requires some loss of dps opportunities for its mitigation tools, whereas the two are in no way exclusive (besides the aforementioned weaponskills) for PLD.

Yeah, looks like it can go either way, especially if tanks are at all struggling for threat. Probably gradually switching from WAR MT preference w/o NIN (or WAR opening before PLD voke) to PLD MT preference.

I find it more disturbing that people say WAR is so good blablabla and PLD/DRK suck ass, when the people themselves are incapable of min/maxing the skills they are given.

In the end, the balance issue impacts progression to teams that aim for Worlds 1st or the likes. It really blows out of proportion when people keep on trying to address balance issues when they themselves can't even do A3S++ (Yeah, please elaborate how good war/drk are in this patch and you suck at it). Just saying, because at this point, it's quite a shame when you are full ilvl but still meet enrage in A3S. The DPS checks aren't even tough to meet anymore in the case of all the available gear.

Oh, and don't pretend that PLD is so underwhelming in Gordias Savage. And also, don't pretend as if PLD needs a lot more gear vs DRK to clear A4S, when you compare that most raiding teams should have close to full ilvl to realistically clear it. The gap isn't that big between PLD/DRK to make PLD completely "useless" as what people are saying.

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Originally Posted by Sarcatica

Oh, and don't pretend that PLD is so underwhelming in Gordias Savage. And also, don't pretend as if PLD needs a lot more gear vs DRK to clear A4S, when you compare that most raiding teams should have close to full ilvl to realistically clear it. The gap isn't that big between PLD/DRK to make PLD completely "useless" as what people are saying.

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Why are you using current ilvl vs. content comparisons, 4 days before their obsoletion, as an implication of whether something new will be easily clearable with a/regardless of given tank choice? We'll all be effectively i180 again on Tuesday in regards to "content".

The "you're all poor players" excuse for differences in class only goes so far when mathematical optimization and world firsts through fifths tend to back up the statements you're denying. PLD, due to its toolkit, most certainly did need more gear to perform as well as a DRK in A4S. Not a "lot", necessarily, but a noticeable amount. Yes, a lot of people latch on to the "Warriors are too strong" idea blindly, but if look, point for point, at a Warrior's toolkit in comparison to the other two, it's certainly hard to say they're not in a better place.

I too wish that more people would first optomize what they're given, but let's take two examples, each easily fixed, in a sense. One, DRKs, with a Monk in party, provide zero raid utility as OT. Two, PLD effectively loses a CD and its only sustained mitigation advantage when facing all magic damage. The first can be fixed by making the DRK MT until he can parry and Reprisal. (With Low Blow and Blood Price also being tanking-dependent, and the OT role providing too little unique benefit to compensate, the DRK is almost certain to spend the majority of a fight in that role anyways.) The second can be fixed by never allowing the PLD to MT against casters. (Until now, given the large difference between MT and OT dps, that would again be the case anyways. And yet its OT dps cannot compete with a competent Warrior's so long as dps checks are tight.) But should they be MT/OT locked by design in the first place? Especially when the third in their trio loses nothing (apart from Vengeances' on-hit damage) when no longer tanking and can provide, stackingly, their combined weaponskill mitigation?

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Why are you using current ilvl vs. content comparisons, 4 days before their obsoletion, as an implication of whether something new will be easily clearable with a/regardless of given tank choice? We'll all be effectively i180 again on Tuesday in regards to "content".

The "you're all poor players" excuse for differences in class only goes so far when mathematical optimization and world firsts through fifths tend to back up the statements you're denying. PLD, due to its toolkit, most certainly did need more gear to perform as well as a DRK in A4S.

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Except that Elysium and Lucrezia didn't clear A4S in i180s and i190s, 5 weeks into it. Like I mentioned, it matters mostly to the world firsts. The way people have insinuated, PLD was useless/broken, way harder to clear A4S, EVEN after sitting mostly at i210s. It won't matter THAT much if you aren't pushing for world firsts as you aren't hindered by ilvls. Period.