Simple Fix to PLD

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Originally Posted by Aceofspades

mog is correct. PLD is not broken, the dungeons and boss fights offer little challange to the tank as far as taking damage thus allowing tanks with weaker defenses to successfully tank, and in turn allowing a high dps tank speed up the time it takes to win the fights. this , and this alone is the only reason WAR is suggested over PLD, hate controll is not an issue with either tank and survivabilty is much higher with PLD. one tank is offensive the other is deffensive. that simple. Claiming WAR is superior in every aspect of tanking is just simply incorrect. to state that def dose nothing for damage deflection is also incorrect. as far as magic damage gose, PLD is still the best equiped tank to avoid magic damage. these , my friend , are all facts.

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LOL

Thanks for the comic relief.

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Originally Posted by Arcell

Well first off, Parry is actually superior to Block in a few ways. A full parry (foresight) reduces a physical attack to 0 damage. 0. Warrior has greater potential damage mitigation than Paladin, especially since blocks aren't very effective.

Second, DDs are NOT supposed to pull hate. If you're a DD and you're pulling hate, you're doing something wrong. You should try to maximize your damage and ride into the red sure but you should never pull hate. Pulling hate can cause some very unfortunate issues for the party, such as getting everyone killed. If you're dealing with anything with a conal AoE attack, if someone pulls hate and that enemy is now facing the mages and archers for instance, now they are going to get hit with it. With Uraeus and Dodore it's petrify, with Coincounter it's 100 tonze, with Buffalo it's Onrush. A lot of bad situations. Enmity management is a group effort.

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First part, that's what I said the problem is, it's broken, the traditional Uber tank is like you just said, not as good as the next choice. Perhaps I didn't say it very clearly, rereading my own post I can see where it sounded like I was actually saying that PLD has better mitigation than WAR as is, what I meant was those things would be what make PLD Uber tank again.

Second, sorry I may have phrased that poorly, when I say pull hate, I mean into the red, not have it chasing me about, I use hate shedding abilities too, I'm not a moron lol. I thought that I said that, but when I posted that I think I was working on ~2hrs sleep in 48 hrs due to some truly off the wall insomnia.

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Originally Posted by Klive

One of the issues with paladins is just too many buttons to push to play well, hence the all lodestone sigs on people mashing buttons. I had an idea to fix this, that isn't a flat damage reduction.

Make outmaneuver and divine veil buff more like rampage. Only one can be one at a time and make them have different uses. My idea is make outmaneuver increase block rate keep doing what its does, but the buff doesn't have a duration; possibly increase the block rate more than it is now. Make divine veil decrease damage taken by a %, amount the DEVs should decide, and still have the AoE regen effect.

This way, you have two tanking toggle buffs that are totally different and can't on at the same time. Also, makes playing the paladin feel less frantic.

Now you would...

When you need TP/MP and blocking, toggle outmaneuver up.

When you need flat damage reduction and party healing, toggle divine veil up.

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That actually sounds good. I think that can make all the difference needed to cement PLD as the defensive tank without having to mess around with traits and stats and all that jazz that may take more work and resources.

+1

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Originally Posted by Klive

One of the issues with paladins is just too many buttons to push to play well, hence the all lodestone sigs on people mashing buttons. I had an idea to fix this, that isn't a flat damage reduction.

Make outmaneuver and divine veil buff more like rampage. Only one can be one at a time and make them have different uses. My idea is make outmaneuver increase block rate keep doing what its does, but the buff doesn't have a duration; possibly increase the block rate more than it is now. Make divine veil decrease damage taken by a %, amount the DEVs should decide, and still have the AoE regen effect.

This way, you have two tanking toggle buffs that are totally different and can't on at the same time. Also, makes playing the paladin feel less frantic.

Now you would...

When you need TP/MP and blocking, toggle outmaneuver up.

When you need flat damage reduction and party healing, toggle divine veil up.

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Probably one of the better suggestions I've seen for Paladin, and would help a bit with some of the MP issues that will inevitable pop back up once the cap is raised and it's not feasible to wear the AF armor anymore to boot.

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Originally Posted by Aceofspades

one tank is offensive the other is deffensive. that simple. Claiming WAR is superior in every aspect of tanking is just simply incorrect.

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Umm just HOW drastically different are these two jobs defensively, I'd really love to know. I mean my WAR can wear the exact same gear as my PLD and only have a small difference of about 25 defense just because of a shield and an extra defensive trait, definitely NOT a groundbreaking difference between the two without going all out double/triple melding a shield like you did.

PLD: WAR can use sentinel, sure its only 30% which pales in comparison to PLD's 50%.
WAR: Yeah WAR's Sentinel isn't quite up to stuff. Oh wait! Vengeance also gives WAR a 50% reduction so that's two damage mitigation abilities to cycle through!

PLD: Well, PLD can block 100% with divine Veil and on for 20 seconds, plus random blocks that negate.
WAR: Cool!
PLD: I still take roughly 50%~ of the full damage though.
WAR: Wait a minute! My WAR parries all the time too and I take maybe 0~20% of the damage.

PLD: Well PLD has Aegis Boon which totally negates magic and physical damage for one attack and heals me.
WAR: That's nice, WAR gets an ability called Foresight that Blocks any magical / physical attack.

PLD: I can heal myself too with Cure and Holy Succor.
WAR: Sweet! I have Bloodbath, Rampage, and Second Wind to heal myself.

I could go on, but I think my point stands there isn't any real game-breaking difference between the two jobs in the tank category.

And before you bring this point up again.

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"If a WAR is being a defensive tank, they're hurting their DPS considerably."

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I refute that with

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"The base damage of the weapon is the primary factor in damage and has the biggest influence in every DoWs overall capacity to deal damage. The attack that may be lost from stacking defense does not drastically effect WAR's DPS due to the limited conflicts between defensive and offensive stats in gear and materia. The fact WAR can stack it's VIT up to help both it's defense and physical damage only continues to give WAR an upper hand in this dilemma to make it both highly offensive and defensive."

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Originally Posted by Klive

One of the issues with paladins is just too many buttons to push to play well, hence the all lodestone sigs on people mashing buttons. I had an idea to fix this, that isn't a flat damage reduction.

Make outmaneuver and divine veil buff more like rampage. Only one can be one at a time and make them have different uses. My idea is make outmaneuver increase block rate keep doing what its does, but the buff doesn't have a duration; possibly increase the block rate more than it is now. Make divine veil decrease damage taken by a %, amount the DEVs should decide, and still have the AoE regen effect.

This way, you have two tanking toggle buffs that are totally different and can't on at the same time. Also, makes playing the paladin feel less frantic.

Now you would...

When you need TP/MP and blocking, toggle outmaneuver up.

When you need flat damage reduction and party healing, toggle divine veil up.

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Can not say I agree with this, even tho I do agree that there are ALOT of actions to keep up with on PLD, comboing Devine veil and outmaneuver and timing this well, a PLD can very quickly refill his TP and MP bar. If SE ever wanted to reduce the number of actions a PLD has they can simply combine the hate generated by voke, wardrum, and flash, into one action. only down side to this is voke is great for when a single mob pull is needed where the others are AOE vokes. having more buttons to keep track of dose make the job harder, but mastering the job as it is makes one that much better of a player. My question is, why should SE make anyjob easier simply for players who are apearntly not that good? I am not an "elitest" but making somthing easier shouldnt be the fix all to any problem. If PLD is too complicated for anyone, go tank on WAR, no one is saying you cant or shouldnt. But simply because YOU can not do well on PLD dose not mean the job is broken , especially when , although few, others do considerably well with the job , even compared to a good WAR. MP consumption is the only real issue I have with PLD at the moment, that and I would love to see magic defense make a comeback. Simply by making holy succor an instant cast compairable to mnk's second wind, you add to pld's ability to self heal and at the same time reduce mp consumption alot. As far as magic defense gose, reason I would like to see that come back, even without buffs your tank , weither war or pld, should never take same damage as your dps jobs like mnk, brd, or drg. simply adding magic defense in the same way they add normal defense to gear should solve this problem. Or add a generic "all elemental resistance" , only down side to this is not all magic damage can be defended with elemental resistance.

If it would make a differance I would repost the screen shots of my war and pld in same gear, excluding weapons. and the differances are more then minor. as far as damage deflection, the shield dose alot more then given credit , Realy pointless in argueing these facts simply because the only response I get back is from WAR fan boys who are pissed they simply can not tank on PLD, I guess the job was awsome when Skill wasnt involved...

btw, if you want your shield to block more damage simply get a shield with more "block" on it... I know, rocket science right?

Ace, it's hard for me, or anyone else for that matter to take your opinion on hate management and survivability seriously when you have yet to clear any of the current content let alone done speedruns. I think you have a couple of valid points, but trying to tell all the people who have finished all the content in the game that they need to learn to play probably isn't going to get you anywhere. Come back with some fraps and parses once you've finished everything and it might be easier to state your case.

Uhm. Stop triple posting. If you're gonna post, at least make it easy to read. I can't even humor your silly assertions when they're walls of text with naught in the way of formatting.

You're credibility already went down the drain with your first post a couple of days ago. You're kidding yourself if you think you're being taken seriously lol.

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Originally Posted by Aceofspades

btw, if you want your shield to block more damage simply get a shield with more "block" on it... I know, rocket science right?

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Ummm you do know, the highest block shields reduction don't come close to even a partial parry on anything significant. It's sad I can block 100 Tonze Swing with a Vintage Kite Shield on PLD and always take over 1k+ damage, but I can parry almost as often on WAR for often under 200 damage. Where exactly does the superior mitigation come in when the difference negated from their primary blocking abilities are so drastic?

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Originally Posted by Enfarious

First part, that's what I said the problem is, it's broken, the traditional Uber tank is like you just said, not as good as the next choice. Perhaps I didn't say it very clearly, rereading my own post I can see where it sounded like I was actually saying that PLD has better mitigation than WAR as is, what I meant was those things would be what make PLD Uber tank again.

Second, sorry I may have phrased that poorly, when I say pull hate, I mean into the red, not have it chasing me about, I use hate shedding abilities too, I'm not a moron lol. I thought that I said that, but when I posted that I think I was working on ~2hrs sleep in 48 hrs due to some truly off the wall insomnia.

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Ah no worries then, sorry for the miscommunication. I thought that might have been what you meant about hate but I wasn't sure. I'll agree then, DDs should be doing as much as they can and by extension generating hate which drives them into the red. They should, however, keep themselves out of the blinking red at all costs.

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Originally Posted by SwordCoheir

Ummm you do know, the highest block shields reduction don't come close to even a partial parry on anything significant. It's sad I can block 100 Tonze Swing with a Vintage Kite Shield on PLD and always take over 1k+ damage, but I can parry almost as often on WAR for often under 200 damage. Where exactly does the superior mitigation come in when the difference negated from their primary blocking abilities are so drastic?

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This man speaks the truth. Block is, in absolutely NO way, comparable to even a partial parry. That is an issue that needs to be fixed. If they were at least comparable or close to comparable I'd be happy. I don't need block to be better, I just want it to be useful.

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Originally Posted by Arcell

This man speaks the truth. Block is, in absolutely NO way, comparable to even a partial parry. That is an issue that needs to be fixed. If they were at least comparable or close to comparable I'd be happy. I don't need block to be better, I just want it to be useful.

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I'd have much rather have SE make the reductions from blocking exactly like parry's formula and just give shields a base defense boost instead, like any other piece of armor. At least that way there would be a comparable difference between damage taken while blocking and parrying, and some actual difference in defense between the two jobs. I hate having a shield as just a novelty item that's tied into half our abilites forcing us to use one.

SE making shields actually give defense boost would increase dmg mitigation a bit and also would be good, rather it being a paperweight it is now. since they may or may not fix block rate at least we can settle for the defense boost, the less dmg we take the better. thats how i see it.

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Originally Posted by SwordCoheir

Ummm you do know, the highest block shields reduction don't come close to even a partial parry on anything significant. It's sad I can block 100 Tonze Swing with a Vintage Kite Shield on PLD and always take over 1k+ damage, but I can parry almost as often on WAR for often under 200 damage. Where exactly does the superior mitigation come in when the difference negated from their primary blocking abilities are so drastic?

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This ^ x100 and why does pld shield have no DEF on it... I was also thinking they could make gla/pld only shield have a dmg reduction trait on them like kite shield would have a -20% dmg take instead of adding a trait, Or they could change the pld trait that enhancing sent so that it stay on till the pld toggles it off but they could make you suffer something else for using it.

Firon not a bad idea, the dmg reduction in shields, not unlike Aegis and O-Chain, I like it, simple, clean, and effective.

Edit: wow I forgot something.
In line with what people have been saying about a change to an ability/trait, nearly every class has some form of "stance" that modifies their dmg/def why not have one on every job, for gla/pld:

Shield Stance: nothing more than a persistent outmanuever effect, increased block rate, but reduces acc/attk, your focus shifts to keeping your shield up so your attacks are coming from a less weapon friendly place.

M.Def Stance: Reduces block rate significantly to increase m.def/m.eva, essentially you'll take more physically dmg but much less magic.

Yeah I don't name things well lol

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Shield Stance: nothing more than a persistent outmanuever effect, increased block rate, but reduces acc/attk, your focus shifts to keeping your shield up so your attacks are coming from a less weapon friendly place.

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We had this in original release.

Shield would go up and glad would stop attacking for a little while and simply absorb damage. was a good trait and I enjoyed it but people complained about not having auto block so it was removed.

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Originally Posted by Sasagawa

We had this in original release.

Shield would go up and glad would stop attacking for a little while and simply absorb damage. was a good trait and I enjoyed it but people complained about not having auto block so it was removed.

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Yeah I remember that, I did NOT like that implementation, having to mash block over and over was annoying, almost as annoying as the pre AA 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 4 1 1 1 1 1 fight process.
I mean they should be stances not unlike Cleric Stance or a MNKs fists stances.

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Originally Posted by Sasagawa

We had this in original release.

Shield would go up and glad would stop attacking for a little while and simply absorb damage. was a good trait and I enjoyed it but people complained about not having auto block so it was removed.

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Well, it only lasted for a short time but yeah you had control over when you could block, a big part of the problem was input lag and server lag. I personally would have preferred a toggle (hit once to put shield up, again to put shield down, no time limits but less DPS)

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Originally Posted by Aceofspades View Post
btw, if you want your shield to block more damage simply get a shield with more "block" on it... I know, rocket science right?

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It is snide "o ye simpleton" comments like this that prove that you are simply incapable of analyzing the problem with something you like.

That seems to be a pretty common problem these days. Critical thinking must no longer be taught in school. (>.> ) And if you are indeed such a glorious Paladin, you should realize that the damage reduced by a partial block is but a fraction of that off of a partial parry.

So not only does Warrior do better damage, have a couple of options for restoring its own HP, have an additional enmity bonus action that Paladin does not, have an additional ability that reflects 50% of a physical blow back at the target, have a stance to increase Haste, Defense, and restore HP with each critical landed, have an ability which, while not a guaranteed dodge, is pretty darn close (Featherfoot), and have an ability to steal enmity off of an ally's attack, but it also mitigates damage better when abilities are down.

A single partial parry on a big attack is roughly analogous to two or three partial blocks. With that in mind, there is nothing that Paladin does that Warrior does not do better.

Cover is pointless if you're not losing hate. (>_> )

Aye like I said I'd rather SE did away with the Block stat, rework the damage negated to that like Parry, then just add an inherent defense boost to the shield like any old piece of armor. Actually Nix that I got a slightly better idea!

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Needed Change: Rework Damage mitigated formula by Blocks similar to Parry.

Reason: There is no reason parries negate NEARLY ALL damage but a block barely reduces anything. If PLD isn't going to get the benefit of parrying with a shield equipped they should at least have the ability compete in damage negation in this area.

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Needed Change: Give Shields an inherent natural defensive stat.

Reason: There is almost NO DIFFERENCE between a PLD and WAR defensively. When PLD's focus is supposed to keep hate and reduce his overall ability to take damage, you'd naturally expect them to have much better defense.

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Needed Change: Introduce Magic Block to shields, and make it where it will ALWAYS reduce the damage received by that amount (without blocking just to be clear). Another alternative instead of magic damage taken would be to reduce the monsters magic attack potency by said amount in the damage calculation formula.

Reason: Even with the Block adjustment, it only allows PLD to compete with WAR's parry. Even with the defense boost, it's still not separating the jobs defensively enough to make PLD shine against WAR's hefty DPS. With this adjustment there would be a shining difference between the two jobs core capabilities and give PLD at least some competitive edge over the two.

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Hopefully we'll see something with with 1.22. I'm sure the reps noticed the number of topics on this issue and reported it.

I'm sure they will, Yoshi and his team are alot more responsive than Tanaka's team ever were. I'm just sad he's gotta fix the mess that was given to him.

you're right about yoshi he atleast listens to us, we give feedback on changes,patchs etc. and he makes adjustmetns/improvements etc. but on the other hand Tanaka's had is head buried in the sand and never listened to the players and ignored everyones advice that would beneift the game. he wanted to design the game his way and that was it. like it or leave it. just think how could he release a game(MMO especially) with no choco's and airships!

I quite agree with that. with the traits as it is gla/pld get straight def. would be better like you say to switch the def bonus to % dmg reduction. holy succor would be better too with a shorter cool down time as well as a bigger mp return from using outmanouver or a general mp regen so that pld can continue to cure party members regularilly to ease the burden on the whm and keep close close combat membera in the fray rather then running for the hills. hopefullu SE picks up on your idea!

Did some quick math and 20% really isn't that outragous, if for example Ifrit does 800 dmg Pld would only take 640 Damage - the occasional shield block..and i mean occasional block as it doesn't happen very often would give Pld the much needed boost it deserves and would open up a spot by having 1 whm be a DD of some sort whether it be another Brd for another song which you all know would be nice besides just having mp only for a song. Also at least 4000hp(roughly) so that it has the hp pool to stay sustainable for those big hits.

For what it's worth, in the Garuda video the PLD has 3600+ HP if I'm not mistaken (though I could be) in full AF. That would certainly help things lol, it's what I've been suggesting for a while.

Edit: There's something fishy going on with these HP numbers. At one point the PLD has 3600ish and the WAR has 4200. Then after the cutscene mid-way the PLD has 4300ish and the WAR has 4600ish.

Edit(2): Someone brought to my attention that this discrepancy could most likely be attributed to Battle Voice.

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Originally Posted by Arcell

For what it's worth, in the Garuda video the PLD has 3600+ HP if I'm not mistaken (though I could be) in full AF. That would certainly help things lol, it's what I've been suggesting for a while.

Edit: There's something fishy going on with these HP numbers. At one point the PLD has 3600ish and the WAR has 4200. Then after the cutscene mid-way the PLD has 4300ish and the WAR has 4600ish.

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While I don't think I see it on the status effects bar, doesn't BRD have an ability that increases your MAX HP for a duration? This would explain such a large HP jump for both jobs.

That being said, PLD having that much in AF is very interesting, and I'm hoping for some good adjustments come update time.

EDIT: Correction, it IS on his status bar. I mistook it for Regen at first. So that explains the HP inconsistencies.

[dev1369] Adjustments have been made to the manner in which damage reduction from shields is calculated.
With this, it is now easier for blocks to take effect when fighting enemies of a level higher than your own.

WIN? or still need a lot to go? cant wait to see

Yeah I just saw that this morning. Still need to see exactly what % reduction is on block from higher level mobs but its definitely something. Also can't wait to test it out!

Hopefully this means that Outmaneuver will become worthwhile. On the GLA side of things, it doesn't matter as much since you get Featherfoot and Sanguine Rites to recover MP, on the PLD side though it will be much more of a boon since it allows you to use something other than AF for the body piece.

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Originally Posted by Eagleheart

It is snide "o ye simpleton" comments like this that prove that you are simply incapable of analyzing the problem with something you like.

That seems to be a pretty common problem these days. Critical thinking must no longer be taught in school. (>.> ) And if you are indeed such a glorious Paladin, you should realize that the damage reduced by a partial block is but a fraction of that off of a partial parry.

So not only does Warrior do better damage, have a couple of options for restoring its own HP, have an additional enmity bonus action that Paladin does not, have an additional ability that reflects 50% of a physical blow back at the target, have a stance to increase Haste, Defense, and restore HP with each critical landed, have an ability which, while not a guaranteed dodge, is pretty darn close (Featherfoot), and have an ability to steal enmity off of an ally's attack, but it also mitigates damage better when abilities are down.

A single partial parry on a big attack is roughly analogous to two or three partial blocks. With that in mind, there is nothing that Paladin does that Warrior does not do better.

Cover is pointless if you're not losing hate. (>_> )

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aye, never said blocking was perfect but to say its worthless is just wrong, coupling devine veil with stone skin (wich you can rely on, can not be said for parry) can deflect a ton of damage. That being said, sure I would love to see more damage get deflected per block, but, extra slot for added def, + even small damage deflection on blocks on an already hard tank is ample. I know the block stat is limited on shields but it dose make a hell of a differance if you can increase it considerably. I go with vintage for the def materia boosts , but thats just me. as far as "critical thinking gose" who cares how much parry can deflect, if you can not count on it to be there or at least be able to time the parry when you need it the essentually its point less, kinda like blowing all your money after buying a lottery ticket. sure you have a chance to win, but the risk is what makes it stupid to begin with. soo in that aspect of thing a garentee > chance reguardless of how gimped your block is. Yall talk like parry happens all the time, even with stats to buff this, its dosent happen often at all on bosses. sure you have a buff that helps this but soo do we, and pld has ageious boon that as a 90 second cool down (blocks 100% of a physcial attack) and devine veil, 60 cool down wich is 100% block rate for 20 seconds. even if you could get your war to partial parry every 90 second (wich i seriously doubt) pld still blocks more damage with shield. again everything you posted screams " I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT TANKING ON PLD!"

Umm, you seem to go to great lengths to disregard what people write. Prior to this update (and 1.21a for that matter) the damage negated by a shield was almost negligible to the amount of damage that could be taken. As I pointed out, I could partial parry something like Coincounters 100 Tonze Swing which would normally be devastating for either job to under 600, if I blocked the same move with my shield w/o Aegis Boon chances are I would be lucky to see 100-200 damage taken off the top of the 3k+ move.

Even with Divine Viel addition you would have had to block at least 15 times to make up for that one random partial parry, and pre-1.21a there was little difference in the proc rate between parry and shield so you'd take forever just to make up for that single random parry in mitigation. So I don't see how your argument's are any more valid than his.

However this recent shield update looks promising. I've thus far been negating 50% of the damage taken whenever I block with my Vintage Kite Shield regardless of how much or little damage I take. The block rate increase is noticeable, but frankly still feels a little lacking.

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Originally Posted by SwordCoheir

Umm, you seem to go to great lengths to disregard what people write. Prior to this update (and 1.21a for that matter) the damage negated by a shield was almost negligible to the amount of damage that could be taken. As I pointed out, I could partial parry something like Coincounters 100 Tonze Swing which would normally be devastating for either job to under 600, if I blocked the same move with my shield w/o Aegis Boon chances are I would be lucky to see 100-200 damage taken off the top of the 3k+ move.

Even with Divine Viel addition you would have had to block at least 15 times to make up for that one random partial parry, and pre-1.21a there was little difference in the proc rate between parry and shield so you'd take forever just to make up for that single random parry in mitigation. So I don't see how your argument's are any more valid than his.

However this recent shield update looks promising. I've thus far been negating 50% of the damage taken whenever I block with my Vintage Kite Shield regardless of how much or little damage I take. The block rate increase is noticeable, but frankly still feels a little lacking.

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realy? no I said counting on a parry to land when its needed is folly, and is folly to compare parry to block considering all the abilities PLD has to insure a block happens. you said it your self "w/o aegis boon" fact is , you can save aegis boon for that move if you soo wish, personally , I would perfer just to dodge the damn thing, not like he dosent give you 12 seconds to run away from it first and then another 15 to get back to your spot while he sits on his ass. again a garentee > a chance any day.

Yes, yes you do, or the main points posters make just fly over your head.

I was using 100 Tonze Swing as an example because it's one of the more devastating attacks out there and provides good solid contrast between the damage reduced by Parry AND Block. PLD probably had a significant advantage with a shield on weak mobs pre-1.22 because the block mechanics allowed them to take off 100-200 damage off the top, but falls very significantly short the more damaging moves tend to be, which is anything in this game that's worth half a salt. Basically put the weaker the mob the stronger shields mitigation is, the stronger the mob the stronger parry's mitigation stands out.

I try to avoid Aegis Boon as a solid argument between the two jobs because WAR gets Foresight which is a comparable ability and in both cases they do the same thing which is negate an attack. Pre-1.21a we only had outmaneuver which the block rate increase is laughable at best, providing little to no advantage over parry rates in combat.

Considering Divine Veils adjustment just happened using it as a crutch to help justify shields are fine in your previous post actually proved the opposite, if shields were "just fine" they wouldn't have made the adjustment to Divine Veil to begin with. If PLD's defense, damage mitigation, and enmity generation was so monumental over WAR no adjustments would be happening.

I admit I am like you in the sense that I have had little to no problems tanking on PLD with DD's/Mages going all out, but I've spent alot of time on both WAR and PLD testing gear, abilities, and game mechanics and comparing results to documented information to see thing's have really been in WAR's favor since job implementation.

But seriously man, you sound like the most anti-job buff person I've ever met.

I just can't wait til 1.22b to see if maybe this last "buff" would really help, maybe I'm missing something but my block rate isn't that much better, and the dmg reduction at this point seems like maybe 1% more than it was, I still eat 80% on blocked hits.
War also still out tanks pld. and after spending some time in a pt w/ ppl other than me on drg mnk and war the wars dmg output was higher than theirs and it's survivability far outshone all of ours. Maybe it's just me but every time I read something about WAR isn't overpower I start to turn rabid. That people try to defend WAR as being no better than every other class/job is like people defending hitler as not evil.

Not super on topic but not off either:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...l=1#post668926

Just out of curiosity what shield are you using Enfarious? I've been blocking 50% damage across the board with a Vintage Kite Shield (I haven't tested on anything big yet like Ifrit mind you), but I'm just wondering how drastic the damage differences are with different shields.

Um it's not a kite, it's little I don't member the name, just a buckler. I'd think my rate would be higher with a smaller shield w/ less dmg reduction, but I'm talking me as a 50 and a 52 hittin me and there's ~20% reduction w/ 30% block rate, I gotta get another shield or 6 to see what it's really like w/ other larger shields.

Aright cool, I haven't messed with smaller shield sizes yet so I'm just trying to add some info since they changed shields around this last update.

Shit I just did CC and forgot to look at the diff after I got a diff shield lol

Drifting: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...l=1#post659711

A cursory look at WAR and PLD lead me to conclude they were designed within the idea of "main tank" and "off tank." The idea was that you bring a PLD as the person doing the bulk of the tanking, and the the WAR is there to tank when an additional tank is needed, but is primarily a DD.

The idea isn't that you CAN'T use a WAR as a MT, but that PLD, being wholly specialized in a tank role, should be the superior choice. My argument is rooted in Hybrid vs Specialized, because that is what each classes' design seems to point at: The hybrid WAR, the specialized PLD.

1) Reduce WAR damage:
Insofar as making a balanced class, this is the obvious route. Make them deal less damage to offset their ability to take hits. This allows them to still retain their versatility without outshining PLD in tanking.

2) Increase PLD enmity output/decrease WAR enmity output:
This requires prefacing: I believe that enmity control should be something a DD has to worry about. If going balls to the walls, willy nilly of enmity is required to clear content for a properly geared and competent party, that is poor design foremost.

If it remains that DD need to be capable of all cylinders firing DPS, then PLD needs to facilitate that completely by having more Enmity output, whereas a WAR tank should require more thought towards enmity control on behalf of the rest of the party.


3) Increase PLD survivability: This is actually pretty concurrent with the OP's suggestion. If a PLD took less damage or was able to mitigate that damage better(for example, say better self healing). Then this creates a situation where WAR, 5DD, 2WHM is mostly parallel to PLD 6DD WHM. Will WAR 5DD 2WHM get the job done? Certainly, but PLD 6DD WHM will have an easier time.

4) Increase PLD survivability and minor increase in enmity, decrease WAR enmity output:
This is my preferred answer, mostly because it brings the two classes down onto the same level. This also facilitates WAR 5DD 2WHM being roughly equal to PLD 6DD WHM.

How to achieve this balance has been brought up by many people, so I won't bother repeating it. However, I agree with several points brought up.

MP gaining ability, auto-refresh, or passive MP cost reduction.:
While I love the concept of resource management, it seems to me that MP is drained far too quickly. The MP pool tends to bottom out very quickly and cannot be regained nearly as quick or in amounts significant to do anything with.

Ideas:
Give Spirits Within a MP restore component(say 1/4th to 1/2 the damage dealt.)
Give Outmaneuver increased MP gain on block(I think any pld in their right mind would agree the current amount restored per block is laughable at best and useless at worst.)
(Stolen from WoW) Allow heals on the PLD to return a % of MP, either static or based on the amount healed. (Say, 2% of MAX mp every time the pld is healed, or 25% of the amount healed also restores MP)


Give Parry back to shield users, or vastly increase the mitigation provided by block.
Lets say parry completely negates damage. If something attacks 10 times for 10k total damage, and you parry twice, that means you've taken 2k less damage. Lets take the same numbers, except you shield block 4 attacks for 500 damage per blocked attack, you still take 2k less damage. Complete negation LOOKS better on paper, but so long as the end result is the effectively the same, it doesn't matter.
Likewise if you give parry back to PLD, you increase their survivability by increasing their means of mitigating damage.


Or just nerf WAR into the ground, then there's no choice BUT to pick a PLD.
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