Clemency is Good (for something)!

So this is purely anecdotal, but I had an experience last night that showed to me just how useful a PLD can be in group content. We were on second boss of Fractal Continuum, and the healer spaced out at the worst two seconds possible, and wound up a smear on the floor (for which they apologized profusely). I'm still carrying her head around, and am planning to visit the Deepcroft later to...why are you looking at me like that?

The boss was at ~65%, and the three of us left alive knew we had to start playing a bit more carefully, or give in and wipe.

Enter Clemency.

It's a spell I usually hold in reserve for when the healers need a hand, in preparation for big incoming damage. If I see another party member at <30% HP, and I can predict that I won't be interrupted, I'll stop to cast it (because it heals for so much, using it anywhere above 30% is a bit of a waste in mana).

And in this run, it saved us from a wipe.

I don't think I could have gone on indefinitely, and could not have healed the entire fight. I was having to be extremely careful with my mana (thank you DRK for teaching me how to do that), and I was running on fumes at the end, with the party's health dwindling. But with that spell-like-ability, we were able to outlast the boss just in time for our healer to rejoin us.

That death would have been a wipe without Clemency. So while Clemency may feel awkward or clunky (especially as a tank who's constantly getting hit and prone to interruption), if used well, it can make up for a healer's fatal brain fart. And if this is the direction they're taking Paladins in this game, I may actually look forward to what's in store.

And yes, I know this boss is mostly mechanics and generally has low enough incoming damage in general to where this might not have worked anywhere else. Or maybe it would have, because there's a lot of fights like that, now that I think about it. So maybe it's not so bad as all that.

Funny thing is, if the Healer had died and you were a Warrior, and the DPS were not getting hit, you could of cleared the fight while just using your rotation and self healing naturally.

Though congrats on finding a use for it enough to save the fight without wiping. It does have small uses here and there, but skills shouldn't have so few uses in my opinion.

Already did something similar to this as both DRK and WAR, the difference is that with these 2 you can do it while dealing damage, so Clemency is still the same shite.

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Originally Posted by Freyyy

Already did something similar to this as both DRK and WAR, the difference is that with these 2 you can do it while dealing damage, so Clemency is still the same shite.

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You yourself might have survived on those jobs, but you couldn't have healed the other party members. That's the point of this post I would assume. Yeah we can survive fine by ourselves but we can't help the group survive in the same way a Paladin can. I mean realistically that might not matter, but utility is still utility.

Eh. I've used it in Savage a couple of times to top off myself or a DPS when the healers are already dealing with shit that's going wrong. I've also used it in dungeons, in EX primals, in Alex Normal, etc. I really like the idea of the skill in that it lets you support the party; it's got very specific situations when it's actually useful though, many of which entail a dead healer. Overall it's very clunky to actually use, mostly because it's a 3 second cast on a class that's basically built to stand in front of the boss and let it punch them in the face.

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Originally Posted by Cynric

You yourself might have survived on those jobs, but you couldn't have healed the other party members. That's the point of this post I would assume. Yeah we can survive fine by ourselves but we can't help the group survive in the same way a Paladin can. I mean realistically that might not matter, but utility is still utility.

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This exactly. PLD is unique in that we can directly support and heal the party. It's admittedly sad how little impact this has on the current meta, because I feel like a PLD should be able to enable the group to do more DPS than they'd gain from bringing DRK or WAR (assuming good coordination with the healers). The utility gameplay is awesome, and I would be extremely pleased if SE and Yoshi P directed us that way - it's just not quite good enough to be competitive, at the moment. This anecdote is basically a good glimpse into what could be, and made me appreciate the skill a great deal more than I had before. Between Clemency, Stoneskin, and Cure (lol), a Paladin can output a very substantial amount of healing on the party, and I'd love to see that utilized more.

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Originally Posted by Ashkendor

Eh. I've used it in Savage a couple of times to top off myself or a DPS when the healers are already dealing with shit that's going wrong. I've also used it in dungeons, in EX primals, in Alex Normal, etc. I really like the idea of the skill in that it lets you support the party; it's got very specific situations when it's actually useful though, many of which entail a dead healer. Overall it's very clunky to actually use, mostly because it's a 3 second cast on a class that's basically built to stand in front of the boss and let it punch them in the face.

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I've actually encountered surprisingly few instances where attacks actually interrupt the cast. Knockbacks, stuns, silences, and staggers will do it, but most attacks I've found let you keep going through it. And I almost feel like the 3s cast is justifiable because (1) you can use it on other people and (2) it is an extremely potent heal.

Another useful spot occurs during the cast time of HCP in A1S. The timing must be impeccable. I have managed to begin the cast of Clemency while the cast for HCP is running, and if timed right, you do not get interrupted, HCP hits and your Clemency immediately pops after the hit.

IIRC Royal Fount and the ground AoE from A1S also interrupt the cast.

Of course, people with one-dimensional mindsets will always fail to see the uses of abilities that aren't about DPS, DPS, DPS.

I won't be sorry to see this mentality go the way of the dinosaur.

If DPS doesn't matter (or you have no way of hitting anything), then Clemency is insane. The problem tends to be that DPS does matter and Clemency can go to waste either through overhealing or costing your group DPS. Obviously there are situations where it's useful, but those tend to be ones where the healer literally doesn't exist (WAR + PLD duo content is a lot of fun, and harder stuff is manageable through WAR's self heals and PLD's Clemency). It's certainly not a completely worthless skill in PvE like One Ilm Punch, but it's just very... limited.

Clemency is godlike in dungeons and you can pretty much keep yourself up through AOE pulls with very little support from the healer. Dungeon trash packs/bosses don't interrupt you pretty much ever, and your AOE DPS is shitty anyway. On dungeon bosses you can often just let the healer sit in Cleric Stance for another 20 seconds by giving up one GCD, so the DPS trade off isn't that bad.

It just sucks in raids, which is where balance matters. It's too slow usually and the heal gets sniped or interrupted. Really fun to use when it works though. Hopefully they make it faster.

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between Clemency, Stoneskin, and Cure (lol)

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Speaking of cure, in 1.0 you could sub sacred prism and cure to get some okay AOE healing (about half the value of Holy Succor/Clemency). It'd be neat if we had something like Medica or Esuna as a sub option, but unfortunately our low magic damage on weapon really kinda kills our conjurer sub heals. The other thing was that Holy Succor didn't interrupt combos, only cross-class spells did. That's another thing they should really do that would buff Clemency a decent amount.

Clemency is actually quite powerful. For example, during the 4x Jagd Doll phase of A2S you can pretty much replace your healers for a good 15-20S with Clemency by casting it on your OT in between cleaves if you have good timing.

It's just easily interrupted (especially by magic it seems) so you really can't count on it and it ends up being mostly unused (cancelled casts interrupting combos makes it especially hard to justify risking the cast). If it were reliable it's a fantastic skill. I believe the most I've ever healed for with a single cast was 14k on the target and 7k on myself for a total of 21k heals. It's especially nice that you get to double-dip on Convalescence/Defiance/Mantra so that each of those becomes a 30% buff to Clemency's potency.