PLD/DRK Crossclasses

This is more a musing than anything, but felt it might add something to the large amount of tank vs tank class discussions happening on the forum right now.

Looking at the Paladin's Crossclass options, they strike me as the weakest and least essential of all three tanks. Obviously Gladiator itself has some strong skills that can be cross classed by the other tanks (Provoke is Mandatory, Convalescence is the strongest of the crossclass tank cooldowns, Awareness has situational use and Flash is pretty good for Warriors), but Paladins are stuck with Marauder and Conjuror.

Marauder crossclasses have always been fairly meh, a "well there's nothing better" option. Foresight is only about a 6% damage reduction from physical only, Bloodbath is okay but far weaker on paladin than warrior even ignoring the trait, Mercy Stroke is free damage. All three of those are okayish but you could easily tank without them and not notice any real efficiency loss. Fracture was okay in 2.0 but completely worthless in 3.0 due to the new dps skills and is now always a dps loss to use.

Which means on top of 3 average-to-meh level crossclasses, Paladins have two slots they can use for Conjuror skills. Stoneskin had awesome use in 2.0 but with the addition of Clemency now its use in combat has diminished slightly, and Cure/Raise/Protect are all pretty rubbish (I go with Protect to speed up prepull buffs and occasionally help out healer mana when someone is ressed).

Again, it feels like Paladin is the tank where the five crossclass slots matter the least compared to their kit at 60, and you'd struggle to tell the difference in practise between a Paladin with all 5 and with none slotted.

I understand Conjuror is a requirement for plot/lore reasons, but I wonder if most of a Paladin's current perceived ingame problems could be solved by swapping Conjuror for Lancer.

Paladins have TP issues at 60 currently - being able to Crossclass Invigorate would completely fix this. Keen Flurry is another "okayish" tanking cooldown like Foresight, and would help a little as it's minor free mitigation. Feint has incredibly limited use but very few classes have anything which can apply a slow so for the mobs it works on it might be decent. Blood For Blood also would give them a small DPS boost when offtanking (at a cost, as you wouldnt want to pop it with aggro on).

Perhaps DRKs could benefit in a similar way by having Lancer as their option instead of Marauder. I'm sure BFB, Invigorate and Keen Flurry would be more use on a DRK than Foresight, Bloodbath and Mercy Stroke, as bloodbath doesnt work on their magical damage, they have their own version of mercy stroke heals via Sole Survivor, and Keen Flurry wuold provide similar mitigation to Foresight whilst enabling more Reprisal procs. BFB feels like a DRK-themed skill, and Invigorate would solve their TP problems like Paladin.

I know this is just musing and will never happen, but part of me thinks that if Paladins/Dark Knights got Lancer as their cross class skills instead of Conjuror/Marauder respectively, it would pretty much solve the bulk of the issues that tanks are complaining about in comparison to Warriors without really needing any nerf/buff to their own kits.

TLDR: Let PLD and DRK have Lancer as one of their two crossclass options and it will solve most of their TP/DPS/Utility gripes compared to WAR.

As a Dark Knight OT, I would welcome Blood For Blood, Invigorate and Keen Flurry! I think it's a great idea!

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Originally Posted by Madepossible

As a Dark Knight OT, I would welcome Blood For Blood, Invigorate and Keen Flurry! I think it's a great idea!

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Seconded. I found it very... off-putting that Warrior essentially got Lancer as a sub-class in 3.0 by leveling from 52-60. Many of their new abilities are comparable to what a Lancer sub-class would have offered them.

Regarding Conjurer though, Conjurer being a sub-class of Paladin is strictly because of tradition. Paladins have, since the start of the series, combined the martial prowess of a soldier or fighter with the magical prowess of a White Mage. To be completely straight forward, Paladin's problem with Conjurer isn't the Conjurer class, but what is offered to Paladins. It strikes me as rather odd that Paladin doesn't have access to Aero, Repose, and maybe Esuna in place of Cure and Raise, since those spells would offer a Paladin a secondary DoT, crowd control, and a dispel option.

Regarding Marauder: The best fix right now for tanks in general is to buff the cross-classes. That's pretty much the sum of it. All of the tank cross-classes are garbage and all the cross-classes they take from other jobs are garbage. In general, I believe that cross-class abilities shouldn't have traits attached to them and instead just be powerful as-is. There are other places to make the Jobs powerful, having these abilities be worse than the class you're borrowing from them doesn't imply mastery, it implies "hand-me-downs." It seems rather archaic to make the Jobs as a whole suffer by not giving the players the power to make use of our entire kit, including all the cross-class options available to us.

Blood for Blood on tanks. Oh baby, I can't wait to see the outcome.

Seriously, for purely selfish reasons, I leveled my Conj to 34 for Stoneskin (something I loathed) back when ARR release FATE grinding was the worst thing ever designed by a human; just so my co-tank didn't get obliterated by Death Sentence. So screw you man, you can't take my Stoneskin away.

Alternatively, adjust their TP costs...seems 20x easier.

Well tbh I'm fine with them keeping Conjuror as crossclass so we can keep Stoneskin (I like using it occasionally for increasing EHP on tankbusters still), and replace Marauder with Lancer for Paladin.

We'd lose Bloodbath, Foresight and Mercy Stroke, and gain Invigorate, Keen Flurry, Feint and Blood for Blood. I'd definitely find these more impactful.

I dont think they can simply adjust our TP costs because there's a uniformity across all classes (openers cost 70, combos cost 60, thrown stuff and AOE tends to cost 120). Maybe Shield Swipe being lowered still and increased in potency/threat so it isnt a loss to use it is a good start, but just having Invigorate would solve them in one swoop.

A lot of people seem happy to see Mercy Stroke go. It's easily my favorite cross-class tank skill and I'm sad that only WAR can use it every 40 seconds.

Also, what's with the insistence on using B4B as a tank? +10% outgoing for +25% incoming is a wipe waiting to happen--especially since most people won't use it solely in the OT role.

I'm actually happy with the cross class skills I have as DRK. Bloodbath with dark arts soul eater is love and foresight makes a decent gap filler in a cool down rotation to ease up on damage from auto attacks. Keen flurry would seem kind of redundant with dark dance and honestly without dark dance the parry proc moves pretty much procs on cooldown most of the time if not before.

Well the OT role is entirely the reason you'd have BFB. It would give Paladins and Dark Knights a small boost in Burst DPS when they're able to DPS safely without being mauled, just to give them that small nudge towards Warriors who are currently the defacto OT of choice in pretty much every situation. It's only a wipe waiting to happen if the tank is bad and presses it at the wrong time, and I don't think you can restrict a skill from a class based on that.

I'd love me some invigorate and keen flurry for reprisal/low blow on my DRK.

It's bad enough that every melee dps needs lancer to 34... Tanks needing it too would just be suck.

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Originally Posted by Sapphidia

Well the OT role is entirely the reason you'd have BFB. It would give Paladins and Dark Knights a small boost in Burst DPS when they're able to DPS safely without being mauled, just to give them that small nudge towards Warriors who are currently the defacto OT of choice in pretty much every situation. It's only a wipe waiting to happen if the tank is bad and presses it at the wrong time, and I don't think you can restrict a skill from a class based on that.

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Unfortunately, you have to balance the game around bads when you consider the tank role, because a tank that decides he wants to burn B4B as MT is going to wreck a run by instantly disintegrating and taking the healers with him. Yes, good/smart tanks will use B4B appropriately, but think about how many awful DRKs there were, and now imagine they had B4B on top of that.

MORE DPS! WAIT WHY AM I DEAD? - every tank forum thread after making B4B available to DRK and PLD

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Originally Posted by fm_fenrir

Unfortunately, you have to balance the game around bads when you consider the tank role

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No you don't. Healers can screw up just as badly with bad Cleric Stance usage. Tanks who die instantly when they use Blood for Blood would eventually figure out how to read their tooltips or be told by someone who can. Not that it matters since they're really unlikely to change what classes paladin or dark knight draw from. The ultimate prize for cross class would really be rogue, though. Shade Shift, Goad, and (for paladin) Death Blossom would be ridiculous.

However, I think rather than changing the classes that are drawn from, I think either changing the offered skills or altering the skills that are offered is more likely. A 30 second Fracture would help both paladin and dark knight, and I could see them enabling Esuna for use by paladin as well. However, outside of Stoneskin, paladin's cross class has always been pretty garbage. I wouldn't get your hopes up.

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Originally Posted by Sapphidia

Well tbh I'm fine with them keeping Conjuror as crossclass so we can keep Stoneskin (I like using it occasionally for increasing EHP on tankbusters still), and replace Marauder with Lancer for Paladin.

We'd lose Bloodbath, Foresight and Mercy Stroke, and gain Invigorate, Keen Flurry, Feint and Blood for Blood. I'd definitely find these more impactful.

I dont think they can simply adjust our TP costs because there's a uniformity across all classes (openers cost 70, combos cost 60, thrown stuff and AOE tends to cost 120). Maybe Shield Swipe being lowered still and increased in potency/threat so it isnt a loss to use it is a good start, but just having Invigorate would solve them in one swoop.

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MNKs and NINs typically have 10 less TP tacked onto all (most?) of their skills to compensate for their deceased global. Additionally, some moves (usually ones that provide buffs/debuffs) cost 10 TP more despite being part of a combo. So the pattern is subject to its own exceptions anyway. It would be fairly simple for Square to adjust them this way. I imagine (I'm no programmer) it would be way less work than reassigning a different cross-class to two classes.

Not only does your solution make thematically no sense in the case of the PLD (which is important, at least to me), I can only imagine the uproar some tanks would make because they never bothered to level lancer (because there was no need). You may solve the TP issues in one fell swoop, but you'd create two more (that I can think of)...because you want to maintain some largely irrelevant pattern people barely notice (nor have any investment in - exceptions withstanding). Not feeling it. Don't get me wrong, I envy your creativity and thought put into the problem. But ultimately it's a simple problem with far easier ways to solve it.

Edit: Oh yeah, then WARs would cry about not being able to get BFB (or Invig cause overpower). Then they'll get it because we must acquiesce to our OCD patternlords. Then watch as WARs actually outdps BRDs and MCHs for realsies.

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Originally Posted by MiniPrinny

To be completely straight forward, Paladin's problem with Conjurer isn't the Conjurer class, but what is offered to Paladins. It strikes me as rather odd that Paladin doesn't have access to Aero, Repose, and maybe Esuna in place of Cure and Raise, since those spells would offer a Paladin a secondary DoT, crowd control, and a dispel option.

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Agree with Repose and Esuna, not so sure about Aero but it could be worth casting when you're running out of an AoE.

Does anyone know if Riot blade can be used as a cross ability and if so is it useful for DRK since can give MP?

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Originally Posted by Khalithar

Agree with Repose and Esuna, not so sure about Aero but it could be worth casting when you're running out of an AoE.

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It really was just a "well, it's better than what they have now" choice. Also, it has struck me as odd since 3.0 came out that Paladin has no magical damage in their kit, while it's not something the Job is known for, it is a powerful option for enemies who are immune (or greatly resistant) to physical damage.

I'm indifferent on the larger point, but bad players are no reason to restrict abilities. Warrior has Raw Intuition, which will kill you WAY faster than B4B if you're stupid, yet we get that. There's really no argument there.

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Originally Posted by Kumori_Kumo

I'm indifferent on the larger point, but bad players are no reason to restrict abilities. Warrior has Raw Intuition, which will kill you WAY faster than B4B if you're stupid, yet we get that. There's really no argument there.

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lol, I just imagined some bad WAR popping B4B and RI and getting rekt from 1 flank crit.

I'd rather cross thm on my pld for that swiftcast and surecast, though.

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Originally Posted by PogueX

Does anyone know if Riot blade can be used as a cross ability and if so is it useful for DRK since can give MP?

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It cannot; even if it could, you lack Fast Blade to trigger the combo, and so you end up in the same situation where Savage Blade is: "Why is this here again?"

Besides that, Dark Knights have two Syphon Strike combos and no real reason to use any non-Syphon combo after level 38. The only times a Dark Knight should be out of mana are when they do something wrong, when chain-stuns come out just as they activate Blood Price (such as White Mages against the last wave of enemies before Nidhogg), or when the raid forgets how to manage emnity and everyone rips for their efforts.

Adjust TP cost would be easier, but I think this idea more interesting.
If DRK keeps gladiator as a cross-class, and PLD keeps conjurer, it won't be any problem with those jobs' lore. PLD is a sword-fighter who uses white magic (so conjurer is necessary, but marauder is not really more pld related than lancer) and drk is a sword-fighter who uses dark magic (so gladiator is necessary, but marauder is not really more drk related than lancer).


No more TP problem, more OT dps, it solves many problems.
- Warriors are the default-OT in many players' opinion. As a warrior who prefer MT, I would be really happy if drk and pld OT effectiveness increase.
- Nore more TP problems, it will improve pld and drk dps for the long run. As a warrior, I don't have TP problem, I don't want to have Invig because I don't want spam overpower without compensation on trashs, it won't be fun at all. So why would I cry ?
- marauder's cross-skills are almost useless, so no reason to miss them.
- For the tanks who don't want to pex a lvl 34 lancer : so don't use B4B if you don't want to. Invigorate is a lvl 22 skill, and keen furry is a lvl 6 or 8 skill I guess. You can have them without too many efforts, and invigorate is still better than marauder's cross-skills.

And in my opinion, lancer's cross-skills would add fun to the gameplay, while adjust TP cost won't.

The only problem is the loss of mercy stroke... But as long as they don't let pld and drk use it every 40s, that's not a huge loss.

But, even I really like this idea, I don't think it will be possible, because of balance problems.

(and sorry for my english, I'm french)

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Originally Posted by MiniPrinny

It really was just a "well, it's better than what they have now" choice. Also, it has struck me as odd since 3.0 came out that Paladin has no magical damage in their kit, while it's not something the Job is known for, it is a powerful option for enemies who are immune (or greatly resistant) to physical damage.

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I can agree with that. Granted magic damage is mostly drk's thing, but I think paladin could use something along those lines. I dunno, something along the lines of smiting/punishing the wicked/etc.

omg no...Lancer is soooooooo boring....(imo). please don't force me to level it. one of my personal benefits of playing Tank Classes is that I don't have to level Lancer.

don't mind me, I'm just being selfish.

Throwing a curveball into the ring, what about allowing PLD to cross with THM? It would give access to swiftcast and surecast, thereby assisting with being able to use clemency and stoneskin whilst MT, and would give access to Blizzard II for AoE damage (might need to get that scaling from something other than int though).

Add in a tp restore ability (perhaps 100tp restored for using clemency) and tweak damage a bit and it would be fairly well balanced (in my opinion).

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Originally Posted by Kydi

Throwing a curveball into the ring, what about allowing PLD to cross with THM? It would give access to swiftcast and surecast, thereby assisting with being able to use clemency and stoneskin whilst MT, and would give access to Blizzard II for AoE damage (might need to get that scaling from something other than int though).

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Swiftcast and Surecast on PLD would be cool for Clemency and all, but having a PLD using black magic would completely go against the idea of a "Paladin". And sacrificing Bloodbath, Mercy Stroke and Foresight (this one is shite but it's still something that exists), just to ease the use of Clemency is a very bad idea. They should just make Clemency a 2 sec uninterruptable cast time instead of what it is now.

I'm not a fan of the idea of bringing lancer to PLD and DRK. There's already enough jobs in this game that need to level lancer for B4B and Invigorate, it starts to be really redundant. Just give DRK and PLD a way to regenerate TP by themselves like Warriors got in 3.0. And Keen Flurry is worse than Foresight. I also don't want to see some bad tanks out there popping B4B while tanking a boss or a big trash pull and popping no defensive CD to compensate.

I would like to see DRK having LNC instead of MRD.

In that way the settup will be BFB/Invigorate/Keen Flurry/Conva/Provoke

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Originally Posted by Nadirah

It's bad enough that every melee dps needs lancer to 34... Tanks needing it too would just be suck.

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I'd still take it. Unlimited TP? Sheeeeeeeyet bro, sign me the F*** up!

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Originally Posted by Dreamlil

I would like to see DRK having LNC instead of MRD.

In that way the settup will be BFB/Invigorate/Keen Flurry/Conva/Provoke

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So basically you want to trade both Foresight and Bloodbath for Keen Flurry. Foresight alone is better than Keen Flurry, and while Bloodbath may not be really noticeable (We tend to underestimate its effectiveness over time a lot tho) it still helps when tanking a single boss and is actually reliable while Keen Flurry is RNG and would just be a second Dark Dance with a longer CD (which is super crap).

Yeah you get B4B and Invigorate too. Seriously. Wanna see those crappy DRKs on DF who already don't know how to properly reduce damage, die even faster because they just popped B4B to do more damage ? I don't. And I don't think that we need B4B to have a good OT-DPS either, we're already pretty much on par with WAR with slashing debuff.

For Invigorate, I think that they should just give us a way to regain TP which is actually built on our job like it is on WAR instead of just giving us the possibility to cross-class lancer. Otherwise that would just be lazy from the developpers.