PLD 4.0

What would u like to see for Pld in 4.0

AOE

AOE

AOE

Skills
Clemency affected by skill speed, not spell speed. Clemency's additional effect restores 100TP in Sword Oath, maintains 50% leech-heal in Shield Oath.

Divine Veil CD reduced to 80 seconds from 150. Clemency can trigger Divine Veil's effect.

Shield Bash costs 0TP if it follows a block.

Sheltron blocks magic damage as well as physical damage. CD increased to 45 seconds.

Tempered Will unlocks Raise while in combat in addition to its current effects, and restores 100TP over its duration. CD remains 180 seconds.

Itemization
Never put parry on a PLD item again, especially PLD JSE/relic. Parry and block roll against each other, and PLD already has a built in 20+% "random" mitigation tool in its shield.

i want a aoe XD too
because spellspeed is an issue, change it for skill speed, make a skill to instant cast, so we can use this instant cast skill to stoneskin or clemency instant when me realy need it for the migitation.

Would like to see more focus on the healer side of Old what if we get a stance that increase aggro when healing to keep mobs on us.

AoE would be very nice. Honestly, in gameplay, it's the one glaring weak point that I can really feel in PLD versus other tanks. Just about every other job out there (with the exception of maybe MNK?) has at least the ability to do some pretty solid burst AoE damage, while sustainable AoE is a of a niche. PLD's block mechanic is built for situations where they'd be taking a lot of hits - it's where their mitigation model really shines. And yet, the PLD enmity mechanics and gameplay mechanics give PLD the weakest AoE in the game, with its only damaging move being locked to a lengthy cooldown. Paladin is built for AoE tanking mitigation, but single target enmity generation. It's kind of backwards.

I'd like to see some way for PLD to do more AoE damage. We have a couple of DoTs (CoS and GB); why not make it so Flash spreads and/or extends/refreshes them? Have Flash pass around the Goring Blade DoT to up to two additional enemies, and have it extend the duration of the CoS DoT on all affected targets by 2GCD/6 seconds.

I also hope that they aren't adding more skills/abilities in 4.0, and instead take the traits route to alter how various abilities behave and interact.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by fm_fenrir

Itemization
Never put parry on a PLD item again, especially PLD JSE/relic. Parry and block roll against each other, and PLD already has a built in 20+% "random" mitigation tool in its shield.

---

I'd rather they adjust the combat table to make the two rolls independent, so that it is possible to both block and parry an incoming hit (call it a critical block or something). That, and parry needs to be made more useful anyway. Even if they just moved the parry roll ahead of the Crit roll, it would suddenly become desirable for PLD again.

Well, first off, a lot of people don't want new skills because there is already enough skill bloat.

The other thing -- PLD already has everything. They've always been the most complete tank. The problem isn't that they don't have something, it's that what they have doesn't do enough for various reasons.

PLDs have AoE. It's just that Circle of Scorn has a long CD and doesn't do enough damage. Flash generates AoE enmity but doesn't deal any damage.

The biggest thing they have to look at with PLD is internal synergy and how it can be used to make their overall skill-set less situational and more fluid. For example, in magic damage heavy fights, they need to figure out a way to keep Bulwark and Sheltron relevant. In fights where there is no knock-back mechanic, they need to keep Tempered Will relevant. When PLDs don't need enmity, Rage of Halone still needs to be relevant. When PLDs aren't taking damage, Rampart, Sentinel, and all their other dCDs still need to have some use.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jpec07

I'd rather they adjust the combat table to make the two rolls independent, so that it is possible to both block and parry an incoming hit (call it a critical block or something).

---

This is completely wrong.

The main problem with how parry and block work is that they are independent rolls.

And, allowing parry and block to occur on the same hit completely misses the point. Damage reduction amount does not matter that much. Damage reduction consistency is what matters.

The point is people DO NOT WANT RNG MITIGATION. People want to know how much damage they're going to take and when they are going to take it.

The least they could do to improve parry for PLDs is to combine the hit tables for parry and block. That way, you will have a much higher chance of reducing incoming damage. Rather than have an independent 25% chance to block roll followed by a 20% chance to parry roll, you would have a flat 45% chance to mitigation an incoming hit. With Bulwark and Awareness active, you would have a 100% chance to mitigate an incoming hit. That's what people want. Consistent mitigation.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by fm_fenrir

Snip.

---

Pretty much all of this. I could not agree more.

The only things I'd add would be:

- Reduce Bulwark's Cd timer to match Awareness, so that they can actually have synergy instead of being mismatched.

- Reduce oGCD of CoS or buff it's dmg and/or enmity gen by a little (even if just the DoT or enmity gen is buffed I'd be fine with that).

- Add an effect of some kind to RA, since it's absent of anything. It's not at all necessary, but it feels weird that it doesn't do anything.

Honestly, though, I'd still be happy if they changed absolutely nothing other than giving Pld's a way to manage their TP in both MT and OT positions. The main issue with Pld is that it seems to be kitted for high skill speed, but has absolutely no means of maintaining its TP bar. High skill speed is fine. I would even be okay if we got more speed to help compensate for our low enmity gen and Dps output, but it's useless if our Tp bars are constantly running empty because we have no way to make up our expenditure. SE should address this.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Brian_

The point is people DO NOT WANT RNG MITIGATION. People want to know how much damage they're going to take and when they are going to take it.

---

Only because current boss fight design is based around single hit spike damage every X seconds/minutes rather than constant, growing or even rhythmic damage patterns.

Taking 20% less damage from 1 in every 4 attacks is meaningless when only one attack is important. Parry and Block would be closer to fine if fights were not so reliant on Tank Busters in order to threaten tanks.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Februs

- Reduce Bulwark's Cd timer to match Awareness, so that they can actually have synergy instead of being mismatched.

---

I don't think shortening Bulwark's CD would be a good idea. Block strength is going to continue to scale up as they add more item levels, and if I recall a 130 shield in 2.55 was good for -30% physical damage. If they scale it higher than that before 4.0, then PLD will have two Sentinel choices in physical heavy fights, which is a pretty substantial advantage.
That also doesn't consider the secondary effects if you also buffed Shield Bash to cost 0 TP after a block--chain stuns every two minutes, with no TP cost?

Also, what does RA need, really? As it is, it's just 20 potency short of a DRG's Full Thrust combo, and I don't see many people complaining about FT needing any buffs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

Only because current boss fight design is based around single hit spike damage every X seconds/minutes rather than constant, growing or even rhythmic damage patterns.

Taking 20% less damage from 1 in every 4 attacks is meaningless when only one attack is important. Parry and Block would be closer to fine if fights were not so reliant on Tank Busters in order to threaten tanks.

---

So you're suggesting that if we switched to a meta where general tank damage was much higher that people would suddenly prefer inconsistent and spike prone damage intake?

You're wrong and ignorant. We've seen that meta in other MMOs and the test of science and basic reason and logic has resulted in what I said.

Spike damage = bad.
Inconsistent damage intake = bad.

So RNG "blesses" you and you get a string of blocks and parries. Your healers adjust to that degree of damage intake. Then RNG flips on you and you get a string of hits with a couple crits mixed in. Your healers fail to account for the sudden spike in your damage intake and you die. When healing, you cannot adjust your GCD usage based on your tank MAYBE blocking or parrying.

As block and parry currently exist, they're useful in a very specific situation. When tanks are taking a lot of quick and small hits, parry and block are really good. But, that comes back to the idea of consistency. When you take a lot of quick and small hits, parry and block provide a much more consistent decrease in damage intake.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Brian_

So you're suggesting that if we switched to a meta where general tank damage was much higher that people would suddenly prefer inconsistent and spike prone damage intake?

---

No, that was not what I was suggesting. I was suggesting that getting away from single hit Spike + mostly ignorable regular damage pattern would make non-spike RNG based proc defenses (i.e. parry/block and not Dodge/Perfect Resist) more viable. If you can't rely on RNG defensive procs to reliably decrease average damage intake they are worth less than effects that do reliably decrease average damage intake.

Quote:

---

You're wrong and ignorant. We've seen that meta in other MMOs and the test of science and basic reason and logic has resulted in what I said.

---

And you are one of the thousands who hear and repeat things without actually understanding what is actually going on.

Quote:

---

Spike damage = bad.
Inconsistent damage intake = bad.

---

Yes, random unpredictable Spikes in damage are bad (which is what makes Evasion tanking non-viable), but "inconsistent damage intake" is not a bad thing. Problems occur because far to often inconsistent damage intake is too varied to be effectively reacted to.

If damage is too consistent it becomes boring to deal with.
If damage is too inconsistent then it either ends up being impossible to deal with or forces players to focus on the worst case scenario which ends up making it boring also.

Quote:

---

So RNG "blesses" you and you get a string of blocks and parries. Your healers adjust to that degree of damage intake. Then RNG flips on you and you get a string of hits with a couple crits mixed in. Your healers fail to account for the sudden spike in your damage intake and you die. When healing, you cannot adjust your GCD usage based on your tank MAYBE blocking or parrying.

---

Depends on how big the damage variance is. Having to react to 150% more damage than expected (getting a x2 damage crit when you were expecting a 80% damage parry/block) is a different monster than reacting to 87.5% more damage than expected (getting a x1.5 crit when expecting an 80% parry/block).

As long as the variance is large enough that it needs to be paid attention to, but still small enough that it can be reacted to Inconsistent Damage is fine and a good thing to have as it keeps Healers focused and interested in the fight.

Quote:

---

As block and parry currently exist, they're useful in a very specific situation. When tanks are taking a lot of quick and small hits, parry and block are really good. But, that comes back to the idea of consistency. When you take a lot of quick and small hits, parry and block provide a much more consistent decrease in damage intake.

---

It is not just quick small hits. The hits can be slower or harder as long as there are enough hits for there to be enough procs to influence the average amount of damage taken a significant amount.

More hits = more chances to proc = closer damage taken is to the average. This is the Law of Large Numbers.

4.0 in general:

• Vitality made a bit more tanky, rather than just an eHP (vs. tankbuster) capper, but in a different way than Strength, such as by increasing healing taken over time (allowing for larger windows between heals, as is generally the only other benefit of Vitality currently). Attack Power (AP) again benefits blocks, and parries.
• (Abilities that grant additional enmity or are modified by enmity modifiers (including by stance) now give additional slight enmity across all engaged enemies, similar to the use of any action.)
• Vitality <> Strength gap reduced a bit. Tanks now take 67% Attack Power from Strength, 33% from Vitality.
• Vitality further grants bonus enmity to make up the difference in Attack Power, and therefore enmity. Fun fact: this also applies to per-action enmity, whereas Strength does not.

• Anything that looks like a cleave, is. Just not necessarily a huge one.
• Pure "AoEs" are less niched; more situational usability. TP costs often reduced.
• Skill and Spell Speed merged; each now slightly increases oGCD dmg.
• TP refresh now occurs at the player's GCD rate, but ticks for only 50. Bonus TP effects (Paean, Spire, ProRook, Goad) reduced by 20%, now tick at receiving player's GCD rate.
  
  
• Accuracy and evasion/parry/block revised. Percentile hits/misses now possible. So called "soft cap" on accuracy significantly reduced. Parry and block now reduce both flat damage and reduce enemy accuracy to further reduce damage by percentile. Dodge reduces only accuracy. Excess accuracy now contributes to critical strike chance, albeit at a lesser rate than pure Crit stat.
• Parry stat removed, replaced by Guard, Deflection, and Evasion. Guard increases base/flat mitigation from blocks and parries, decreases knockback, and increases the damage necessary to interrupt your casts, while Deflection improves the efficiency of accuracy reduction by block and parries on enemy attacks and improves the accuracy of your counter-attacks (if any). Evasion increases the accuracy necessary to be hit. Guard is generally the best trash-tanking or utility stat, while Deflection is the favored stat against accurate, hard-hitting bosses and for MT dps. Evasion is usually balanced against these two, but because it also affects magic to some extent, may be favored in anti-mage combat.
• Blocks and parries have increased chance based on accuracy, deal increased flat mitigation based on attack power, and increased deflection (reduction of enemy accuracy) based on attack power and accuracy relative to the enemy blow and attacker respectively.
  
  
• General rates of blocks, dodges, and parries have been increased across the board and feel much less RNG-dependant, but they are now limited by Staggered and Winded effects. Dynamics reduced.
• Blocks and parries strength are gradually reduced by usage. Recovers quickly. Bar can be customized; by default it shows up once effects are reduced below 80%, and shows both the extent, and the recovery time. Costs reduced by Determination, chance cost reduction by Crit, recovery time increased by Speed.
• All chance mitigation has a heightened chance of use when it would prevent death or critical health (<20%), but in turn chances are gradually reduced based on the chance that was increased. Recovers more slowly. Costs reduced by Determination, chance cost reduction by Crit, recovery time increased by Speed.

::Overall point of these last two sections: to make Evasion tanking a resource management game, or at the very least like counting cards or knowing the ball-and-cups host's tricks, rather than just yanking on slot machines. Ultimately, to make evasion tanking more viable, so that a tank class can eventually be made around it, and the other tanks made more interesting for it.

GLD:

• Unique means of dealing AoEs, especially while tanking. Even if triggered by a weaponskill, it shouldn't be a spam attack like the others. Likely using enemy attacks against themselves (offensive evasion).
• More Sword-and-Board synergy.
• More evasion usage.
• Access to Goring Blade
• Some potency increases, directly, or through core trait effects trigger-able in combat.
• Possibly some active blocking skill that lets them mess with their block chance/use/rating consumption.
• (Would ultimately like classes to be viable for roughly a third of all significant content, and about half of 'fun' content. Should be more slippery and personally tactical than the full PLD, with possibly better opportunistic/burst damage.)

PLD:

• Sword Oath tanking improved somewhat, likely by swapping out increased AA damage for increased potency on all attacks, thereby improving burst, enmity, and AoE.
• Further AoE improvements - likely improved cleave in Sword Oath and applying or improving a cleave component to/in Shield Oath.
• Improved utility (Improved Cover, Clemency, Divine Veil)
• True Shield-style ownage in Shield Oath
• Reasons to use Shield Oath as OT, if only situationally.

Extra:

• Would honestly like to see Crit Strikes not share a category with hit/block/parry/dodge, such that forced crits cannot be blocked or parried. However, that does mean RIP Awareness. I have no regrets about trading this for something not shit, though, or increasing mob critical strike chance in general to see it actually have some significant use outside of DD/Bulwark/RI synergy.
• Would like to see Bulwark CD decreased to 2 minutes, not so much for Awareness synergy as just because that should be the most outright iconic ability in a Sword-and-Shield tank's skillset, and instead its' felt basic/lackluster since early ARR Swipe spam. I'd like to see it more frequently, paired with the above Sword-and-Board ness.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Brian_

The main problem with how parry and block work is that they are independent rolls.

---

Except they're not. For PLD Parry roll is only triggered by a failed Block roll.
If they really were, you could have a succesful Block and a succesful Parry at the same time, for an additionnal mitigation.

As for RNG mitigation, yes, you're right. That's why I think it could be interesting to make Sheltron a GCD (With a lower MP return, of course). Reliable Block, at the cost of some damage and enmity.

And give back Shield Swipe on GCD, but as a conal AoE.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Reynhart

Except they're not. For PLD Parry roll is only triggered by a failed Block roll.

---

I think she meant independent as in exclusive? You can get one, not the other. But neither would one be gated behind the other?

That said, and I'd have to go link-diving to check, but I was pretty sure all mitigation types shared the same table, along with crit, which is why removing crit taken chance rescaled not only hit chance but also block, dodge, and parry, to enlarged sizes?

With a buckler at the end of ARR in i125 I was getting close to a one-third block chance. My parry chance, however, was barely affected when swapping to a tower shield (several merged dungeons with each set). I don't see how this could be the case if my parries were gated behind block.

I'm still not entirely sure, coding-wise, why an auto-crit prevents auto-parry, though.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by fm_fenrir

I don't think shortening Bulwark's CD would be a good idea. Block strength is going to continue to scale up as they add more item levels.

---

Hmm... I did not think of that. It's hard to say for sure, given that we don't know where the next shield cut off will be, but it would definitely pose a problem if shield strength goes too high.

Personally, I don't think 30% is too much to ask for, given that Pld is in the current weakest state of all 3 tanks. After all, Pld's are supposed to excel at physical mitigation, but they really aren't all that far ahead of the curve (if at all) over War's and Drk's. They're behind in dmg and roughly equal in mitigation. They lack an edge, so to speak. Something like this might allow them to noticeably excel at physical mitigation over the other two tank, providing a bit of a utility boost ... however, I agree that 40% is definitely pushing it. So, reducing Bulwark's CD might not be the best way to go about it if the shields end up getting stronger.

The alternative would be to adjust Awareness's CD time so that it is precisely half that of Bulwark, making it 90 seconds. It wouldn't make Awareness too over powered, given that Crit dmg is not really a concern in most cases and Awareness is already considered the absolute weakest Def CD in the game. What this would do is allow Pld's to reliably couple Awareness with Bulwark on every second cast of Bulwark. This might be a better fit, especially because it doesn't mess with the other two tanks.

War's would actually get better synergy, because the recast timer would be precisely in-tune with Raw Intuition. Drk's don't have it quite so neat and tidy, but it would still work. Right now they can couple Awareness with every second use of Dark Dance and time it to the second. Shortening Awareness's CD puts them off by 30's, but it shouldn't mess with it's actual usage. Drk's would still use it every second Dark Dance so long as they don't pop it on CD. They'd just have to exercise a bit of restraint.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

snip.

---

The average amount of damage taken is something someone mentions when they don't understand what's going on.

In relation to tank damage intake, the only thing that matters is the interaction it has with healers.

Making yourself harder to heal in order to keep your healers focused and interested in the fight is not what you should be doing as a tank and it certainly doesn't work in this game. Boring is good. You want to make their job boring. Healers in this game always have something to do with their free GCDs.

Healers will plan how to use their GCDs. Like I already said, they cannot plan their GCDs around something that might happen. They plan for the worst of what can happen. Having higher or lower average damage taken does not matter if it doesn't change how a healer heals you. Occasionally mitigating 20-30% of a physical attack's damage does not change how a healer heals you.

You know what no healer has ever said in FFXIV? "Wow, he clearly just blocked that. Now I can just cancel this heal and go back to cleric stance."

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I don't see how this could be the case if my parries were gated behind block.

---

There is a sure way to see if parry is really gated behind block.
Test wether or not you can parry with Sheltron up.

We already know that Hit and Crit takes priority, since you can be missed or take a critical hit above Sheltron.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Reynhart

There is a sure way to see if parry is really gated behind block.
Test whether or not you can parry with Sheltron up.

We already know that Hit and Crit takes priority, since you can be missed or take a critical hit above Sheltron.

---

Given that it guarantees the block though, I don't see how this would be a fair test. For a parry to occur during a guaranteed block, they couldn't even be of the same table, because the block would subsume all parry chance (along with potentially hit, crit, and dodge); block would have to be gated by parry.

I'd imagine that if there's any sequencing of the defensive CDs, it would basically be to make sure a lesser mitigation tool isn't used over a greater one, right? Wouldn't the assumed order then be dodge > block (assuming kite/tower shield, or buckler after a tier or two, given parry's fixed state) > parry? The test then would be whether you can dodge during Shelltron. I've personally tried to test it, but I can't be sure whether Shelltron was actually yet armed/activated when the dodge occurs with the buff visible.

That said, I've forgotten if miss/dodge chance are one and the same, even with Featherfoot up. Do enemies have a intrinsic miss chance / accuracy rating? Or is all that simply your dodge chance? All I can be sure of is its level dependency.

Edit: to be clear, by the last sentence do you mean that as in atop Shelltron (blocking a crit), or not allowing Shelltron?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by fm_fenrir

what does RA need, really? As it is, it's just 20 potency short of a DRG's Full Thrust combo, and I don't see many people complaining about FT needing any buffs.

---

Need? Nothing, really. Like I said, no changes are actually necessary for RA. It's just that it seems rather odd that it is literally the only Tank combo in the game that had no additional effects whatsoever.

A few people have mentioned in the past that they'd like to see it provide raid utility of some kind, like a dmg buff. Personally, I'm not too fond of this idea, because I think that it would make Pld's too similar to War's. If i had to come up with something for it, I'd rather see it have a personal effect. Off the top of my head, one option would be to have RA work in a similar fashion to Soul Eater, only instead of providing Hp, it would provide TP. As things are right now, this would be a welcomed effect since Pld's are constantly starved for Tp ... however, if Pld's got any other means of making up Tp (like your Tempered Will idea) this would probably be too over powered, as Pld's would literally never run out of Tp. Though, that's kind of the way War works right now, and no one seems to mind; so, maybe this would be fine.

Another option would be for RA to simply ignore the dmg penalty of Shield Oath. Comparing RA's potency to Full Thrust is fine, and RA admittedly does have a pretty hefty potency; however, that potency is consistently nerfed by Shield Oath's dmg penalty, which ultimately makes FT and RA incomparable. Pld's OT dps is actually not bad, but their MT dps is garbage. Allowing RA to ignore the penalty of the Tank stance would at least bring Pld's up a little. They would still be miles behind Drk's and War's in the MT position, but it would help. If it really bugged Pld's too much to do it, they could always nerf RA's potency a little to compensate, but I don't think it would be necessary.

In any case, these are just two ideas off the top of my head. Neither of them are required. Nor do I expect RA to go through any changes, because honestly it's fine the way it is. I only mentioned it because it's been brought up on the forums before, and when you look at all the Tank combo's side by side it's pretty easy to see that "one of these things is not like the others."

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Given that it guarantees the block though, I don't see how this would be a fair test.

---

Sheltron doesn't really guarantees a block. It only makes you Block roll 100% succesful.
If a parry roll can go unrestricted by block, it means that, sometimes, you would do a successful parry roll even with Sheltron up.
If you never parry, then the parry roll is restricted by a failed block check, making them dependent...and making your parry rate unaffected by the size of your shield a bit strange.

For my last sentence, it means that a critical hit will bypass Sheltron, not activating it.

As for miss...Actually I don't recall ever seeing an incoming "Miss" instead of a "Dodge", so I'd say that's a single accuracy/evasion check. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Februs

Another option would be for RA to simply ignore the dmg penalty of Shield Oath.

---

Simple, subtle, elegant.
Thumbs up ! :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Februs

Snip

---

Simply responding to the suggestions you've mentioned (RA giving a dmg bonus of some sort/ignoring ShO dmg reduction, or giving TP):

My issue with these is that there are far simpler means to fix both TP issues and Shield Oath dps. Moreover, I'm not certain TP fixes truly necessary, especially without similar changes to pure-Grit DRK. Ever since the Goring Blade change to 50 TP, though less efficient than using Swipe once per GB on a 2.4s GCD before, we've been even with MT DRKs (whose only lead prior to that was Scourge). The rest is dependent on their Blood Weapon and spending a GCD returning to Grit. If PLD were to trim their TP consumption to DRK's stance-dancing level, then DRK's would be penalized in intensive tanking situations equally to PLDs now. Of course, I'm not saying that's reason enough not to give PLD something, but forcing them to use their no-enmity combo (RA) just to hold TP, when they're already the lowest-enmity-output Tank does not seem like a good solution.

I'd much rather just see them be the only job with a 60-TP opener by changing Fast Blade to 60 TP, perhaps with Goring Blade returned to 60 TP, causing the PLD to consume 20 to 30 less TP per 9 GCDs:
560->540 per GB duration | 9 GCDs = 3.6% reduction to TP costs

Or take both:
560->530 per GB duration | 9 GCDs = 5.4% reduction to TP costs

As for MT dps, that too seems like it has a simple fix. Changing Shield Oath from "reducing damage dealt" to "reducing weaponskill damage dealt" would increase MT dps by ~9.6%. Further making a Rage of Halone a non-option by increasing its relative potency gap with Royal Authority seems a bafflingly bad fix by comparison.

There are also more PLD-ish ways to improve PLD MT dps, such as by reducing the cooldown on Shield Swipe based on potency blocked (1 second per 150 potency, for instance, if 500 were the maximum assigned to any mob in an instance, and all mobs given the same base attack power), or giving it a chance to refresh CD on block. The only issue with all this would be that these bonuses would be niched out of (pure) magical fights, since Yoshi has apparently stated that PLDs will never block magic (even when it takes the form of flung rocks).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Reynhart

As for miss...Actually I don't recall ever seeing an incoming "Miss" instead of a "Dodge", so I'd say that's a single accuracy/evasion check. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on that.
)

---

There definitely hasn't been a distinction in display since 1.x, where you originally could tell when an enemy dodged vs. you missed, and vice versa, but I haven't been able to find any definitive evidence yet as to whether this was a change to display or coding when everything turned into just "dodge". It certainly favors Haymaker, now, at any rate.

Edit: actually, I think you can Haymaker after "dodging" magic attacks, and since magic does not trigger dodge rolls, as far as I'm aware, then it must be combined with miss chance. Sorry for my memory loss there.

I would imagine then that it goes Crit y/n </> Hit y/n > Block y/n > Parry y/n, if they do use sequentials, given that, as you said. But I could have sworn one of the benefits of bucklers originally was to make critical strikes against you less frequent, because they blocks and crits taken shared a table, like an extended Awareness, back when Twintania crits were killing tanks. I don't see they would choose to make Crits would be exempt from blocks and parries... It works, sure, but just seems a really odd choice not to have that side continue down the remaining checks. Even in this system, taking out crit chance via Awareness would make it less likely (well, impossible) for the incoming attacks to skip your dodges, blocks, and parries, essentially increasing their chance, but it just seems really weird that they'd do that... Oh well, that among many things.

Edit: Should be Hit > Crit > Block > Parry, as Reynhart said.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I would imagine then that it goes Crit y/n > Hit y/n > Block y/n > Parry y/n, if they do use sequentials, given that, as you said.

---

Wouldn't it make sense to check hit before crit ?
Were Ninjas able to take critical hits with Perfect Dodge up before it was changed ?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Reynhart

Wouldn't it make sense to check hit before crit ?
Were Ninjas able to take critical hits with Perfect Dodge up before it was changed ?

---

I was supposing that it checks whether the ability, when it hits, will be a crit or not, but may still miss, much like how Life Surge can still miss? ....Nevermind, that too could go either way. Hit checks no, doesn't check for crit. Wastes LS. Yep, as you said.

As for the Perfect Dodge question, if we had physical attacks that could auto-crit back when Perfect Dodge was around, I could test this, but as PD is gone now and the only auto-crit I know of from ARR was T11, magical, I have no way of checking vs. auto-crits. As for regular crits, I don't remember ever seeing a critical hit go off when tanking / PvPing as a Ninja while my Perfect Dodge was up, but I did that relatively little, and may have forgotten. Never had a Life Surge used against me, though I would assume it would be auto-dodged and wasted?

Yeah, hit check > crit check. My bad there.

A separate limit break that prevents all damage to members of your party for 15 seconds, but 5-10% of that damage is dealt to you. Hopefully, one that costs just one bar and a huge cool down, and tied to the MSQ.

Making parry useful again.

Bonus point caps.

Doing something so that when you switch to PLD/MRD/DRK that your tank stance is automatically activated, and if not: the DPS stance if it's available.

Mapping the stance switches to one button.

Making the ShO and SwO icon more distinctive.

A damage bonus for party members who are not between eleven and one o'clock of any enemy (with 12 being its front) that the PLD is holding aggro of and PLD.

Making it so that flash works off either VIT or STR.
Or both!

All jobs/classes will have 1 Bonus point added to every stat, and doesn't effect our previously allocated points. This may be tied to Job crystals to place more pressure on players to unlock jobs and make losing some majorly missed cross class skills as less of a perceived negative by players who have just unlocked the class.

Not being able to be crit would be cool and awesome.


(For all tanks, not just PLD.)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Should be Hit > Crit > Block > Parry, as Reynhart said.

---

I'm quietly hoping they change it to something like Hit > Crit = Block = Parry. It would cut down on the effective mitigation brought by Awareness from making all physical attacks parryable (instead of just non-Crits), but the skill is extremely powerful on its own without that component (more than most would probably guess - still working on that spreadsheet I kept mentioning).

And I will rebut the comments made on the first page here: RNG is not the problem with parry. Parry's problem, as others have said, is that there simply aren't enough physical attacks being made on tanks for it to make a difference. Bosses in this game have an extremely slow white damage tick; and at least in 3.0, that tick also hits about as hard as a wet noodle. If encounters are designed to trigger at least more frequent physical damage (say 2-3x as many hits in a fight as there are now), Parry would suddenly become more useful again. We'd also need encounters that don't rely on DPS checks so heavily, but that's a different can of worms I'd rather not open.

Saying that it's not useful because it's RNG is inane. It is damage mitigation, plain and simple. Sure, Parry won't save you from a tankbuster, but it will smooth out incoming white damage ticks a little bit, and make it so you can soak more damage and require less healing. And frankly, anything that can be done to make yourself easier to heal, even if only a little, is very worth doing (and no, "killing it faster" doesn't make you easier to heal, it just means the healer will be healing you for a shorter amount of time while cursing you for making their jobs that much harder - especially if you're paired with a low-throughput healer like SCH).

1. AOE
2. Tempered Will additional effect - equivalent to Surecast
3. Shield Swipe cost 0 TP on proc – I love this FM-Fenrir!!!
4. Shield Oath additional effect – reflect x% of damage mitigated from a blocked attack (this could be broken as all get out, but would make sitting in ShO not be as terrible as it is now)
5. *New Skill* - when in shield oath increases party (healing/defense/something better than I have listed here) – when in sword oath increases party (damage, skill/spell speed/or ???) really just looking for a skill that does something different, depending on oath - with personal leanings to more utility tank.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by fm_fenrir

SkillsClemency affected by skill speed, not spell speed. Clemency's additional effect restores 100TP in Sword Oath, maintains 50% leech-heal in Shield Oath.

---

I have no idea why skill speed and spell speed are separate stats. Only DRK and PLD can use both at the same time, and skill speed is weak for both classes.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by fm_fenrir

Itemization
Never put parry on a PLD item again, especially PLD JSE/relic. Parry and block roll against each other, and PLD already has a built in 20+% "random" mitigation tool in its shield.

---

They should make parry boost block slightly, simply to make up for the fact that they roll against each other. But they'd also need to make parry a more universally desirable stat.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MPNZ

A separate limit break that prevents all damage to members of your party for 15 seconds, but 5-10% of that damage is dealt to you. Hopefully, one that costs just one bar and a huge cool down, and tied to the MSQ.

Making parry useful again.

Bonus point caps.

Doing something so that when you switch to PLD/MRD/DRK that your tank stance is automatically activated, and if not: the DPS stance if it's available.

Mapping the stance switches to one button.

Making the ShO and SwO icon more distinctive.

A damage bonus for party members who are not between eleven and one o'clock of any enemy (with 12 being its front) that the PLD is holding aggro of and PLD.

Making it so that flash works off either VIT or STR.
Or both!

All jobs/classes will have 1 Bonus point added to every stat, and doesn't effect our previously allocated points. This may be tied to Job crystals to place more pressure on players to unlock jobs and make losing some majorly missed cross class skills as less of a perceived negative by players who have just unlocked the class.

---

Mapping PLD stances to one button would prevent you from dropping ShO (and getting 25% more dps) without dropping your combo--a flexibility loss, and may in turn cost dps.

Flash already scales off Strength. After the tank revisions, if Vitality contributes Attack Power, it will also work off Vitality. At the moment, because it scales with Attack Power, but not with damage, Berserk will improve Flash while Fight or Flight will not, iirc. That may be what you really want to fix.

I don't see how an extra stat point is going to make much difference. Classes are already hugely inferior by level 40, and most people scorned if they haven't unlocked them by 35.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Giantbane

They should make parry boost block slightly, simply to make up for the fact that they roll against each other. But they'd also need to make parry a more universally desirable stat.

---

Skill Speed and Spell Speed exist because they wanted an identical stat for mages and melee (while punishing cross-classed stuff as the "wrong" domain). Unfortunately, the two hybrid classes that use both got shafted as a result.

Anyway, parry is pretty much universally garbage because it can't be relied on to actually mitigate anything unless you burn Keen Flurry or Raw Intuition (converting parry into a weaker version of block strength with Bulwark). The only way they could make parry more desirable to stack as a tank is to eat into the value of certain CDs like Awareness or Foresight, by directly altering how incoming damage is handled based on how much parry you have (lowering crit rate per +X000 parry or reducing physical damage per +X000 parry, for example).

Other things: I'm not going to front here, I haven't been able to reproduce the DPS disparity people see with DRK/PLD in MT slot, so I can't really say with certainty DRK is way better, or PLD is way worse; I get about the same results with both, with a slight favoring on DRK on trash pulls from DA-AD/Unleash. The reason I bring this up is because somebody mentioned that RA needs a buff in ShO because DRK's Grit DPS is slightly higher, but RA really, really doesn't need any buffs.
Its closest competitor is DASE, which generates no additional enmity and requires an augmenting skill to reach full potential; RA is a consistent 690 potency combo and has a hidden +100 potency because of Savage Blade (+400 with ShO). It's the most consistent tank DPS rotation, and generates bonus enmity to boot, so giving RA any sort of added effect would be stupidly strong in favor of PLD. If you're losing threat faster than 1% per second to your DPS with RA combo in SwO, your DPS are doing way more than you are and you should cushion yourself with ShO instead. They don't need the help anyway, apparently.

edit: Fixed some numbers I should have gotten right in the first place, and changed some wording to make my post clearer.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by fm_fenrir

[RA's] closest competitor is DA-SE, which generates no additional enmity and requires an augmenting skill to reach full potential; RA is a consistent [340] potency and has a hidden +100 potency without ShO (it's +400 with ShO) because of Savage Blade. It's the most consistent tank DPS rotation, and generates bonus enmity to boot, so giving RA any sort of added effect would be stupidly strong in favor of PLD. If you're losing threat faster than 1% per second to your DPS with RA combo in SwO, your DPS are doing way more than you are and you should cushion yourself with ShO instead. They don't need the help anyway, apparently.

---

Wait, what? It doesn't have any hidden potency bonus. It's simply doing 20% less damage in ShO, same as the Savage Blade before it, the Fast Blade before that, your oGCDs, and you AAs. The only "hidden potency" within a given combo is if you don't know, with a 1.8-2.6s blade, exactly how many times in 3 GCDs your AAs will strike, contributing anywhere from 100 to 200 bonus potency via Sword Oath (since we use mostly 2.1-2.2s blades, generally 150).

The only bonus enmity a Royal Authority combo produces is the 400 from Savage Blade. Compare that with the 1900 bonus enmity from Power Slash combo. You could spam it infinitely, and a DRK using PS combo every 4th combo would overtake you. (Note also, self-healing produces enmity, just like any other heal. Yay SE.) And since you're technically going to be spending every third combo on GB anyways, they could overtake you with a PS every sixth.



As for the DPS difference: Put on Grit / Shield Oath and go dps a dummy. You will most likely find the DRK doing a bit more. This gap increases once Blood Price is mixed in, especially if the DRK is free to use it on DA-SE (AoE and DA-DD are unnecessary) and stance-dancing becomes possible. PLDs gain 10 potency per second if Shield Swipe is ready every time its CD refreshes. DRKs can refresh their ability, striking for the same damage, albeit with a lower proc chance, and have an additional 200-potency counter per 45s. These two abilities alone, Low Blow and Reprisal, more than make up for Shield Swipe typically, and the added DA-SEs just make it better.

Also, isn't it usually a bad sign when a class is basically limited to the options of (1) using its non-enmity finisher in dps stance or using its (2) using its non-enmity finisher in tank stance? What ever happened to the viability of using the enmity combo, in either stance?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jpec07

And I will rebut the comments made on the first page here: RNG is not the problem with parry. Parry's problem, as others have said, is that there simply aren't enough physical attacks being made on tanks for it to make a difference. Bosses in this game have an extremely slow white damage tick; and at least in 3.0, that tick also hits about as hard as a wet noodle. If encounters are designed to trigger at least more frequent physical damage (say 2-3x as many hits in a fight as there are now), Parry would suddenly become more useful again. We'd also need encounters that don't rely on DPS checks so heavily, but that's a different can of worms I'd rather not open.

Saying that it's not useful because it's RNG is inane. It is damage mitigation, plain and simple. Sure, Parry won't save you from a tankbuster, but it will smooth out incoming white damage ticks a little bit, and make it so you can soak more damage and require less healing. And frankly, anything that can be done to make yourself easier to heal, even if only a little, is very worth doing (and no, "killing it faster" doesn't make you easier to heal, it just means the healer will be healing you for a shorter amount of time while cursing you for making their jobs that much harder - especially if you're paired with a low-throughput healer like SCH).

---

You realize that if you increase the number of physical hits in a fight, you are effectively negating the RNG aspect of parry, right? If you have 3 times as many hits per fight, it's 3 times as likely you will parry something so your returns on parry will be much more consistent.

And, the point about white damage not being significant is not only false but also ignores all the non-auto-attacks that can be parried and deal significant damage. Auto attacks in A3S hit for ~2.5k, crit for ~3.5k and are mixed with cleaves that hit for 8k+. All of that can be parried. But, despite that, you have people avoiding parry like the plague.

Why? Because it is RNG. Outside of certain CDs, there is no way to guarantee you will parry or block something when you need to. There is no way for a healer to react to a parried hit because they are not healing in a reactionary way. You are not easier to heal with more parry and in most cases are not soaking more damage because you require the same GCD commitment to heal. When you repeat the same exact sequence of events hundreds of times in progression, you develop a set GCD usage that does not change just because your tank parried something during 1 attempt.

If you converted block and parry into actual mitigation rather than evasion based mitigation, then you would start to see an actual debate about it rather than the small minority of clueless people who support parry currently. If block and parry just straight up reduced all physical damage by a flat % (probably around 10~12% based on the current average) people would prefer that much, much more.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Wait, what? It doesn't have any hidden potency bonus. It's simply doing 20% less damage in ShO, same as the Savage Blade before it

---

I was only talking about Savage's enmity bonus, which I specifically mentioned in my post. Comparing DASE raw (for convenience, mostly), it's 800 (150+250+400) potency to RA's 690 (150+200+340) (+100 for Savage bonus, effectively "790" potency). RA doesn't require any resource management (other than TP), so it, naturally, doesn't come with any other neat effects. Also, I am not really sure what planet I wrote that original potency number on, because I've made this argument before and used the right numbers, so... orz
Anyway, the added potency from Savage's enmity bonus is enough to keep your threat lead alive against DPS, but not necessarily other tanks; I don't think it's fair to compare DRK/PLD on a threat basis because PLD's MT threat is sufficient for handling DPS, but it's easily the weakest at keeping the other two tanks at bay in direct tank stance on tank stance pissing matches. I guess that's an indication that PLD's threat needs some attention, but I'm not sure what you'd do other than bumping the ShO multiplier to compensate.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Put on Grit / Shield Oath and go dps a dummy. You will most likely find the DRK doing a bit more. This only becomes more the case when Blood Price is mixed in, AoE is unnecessary, DA-DD is unnecessary, and stance-dancing becomes possible, whereas stance-dancing is much more dps-costly for PLDs. PLDs gain 10 potency per second if Shield Swipe is ready every time its CD refreshes. The DRK typically gains quite a bit more in the long run, covering the Shield Swipe difference off Low Blow and Reprisal alone.

---

I haven't really taken stance dropping into account, because I don't run content with competent enough healers to drop tank stance outside boss pulls. I'd feel very, very sorry for the healer who had to try to heal me through a big trash pull because I wanted to squeeze out another 50 dps from dropping Grit.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Also, isn't it usually a bad sign when a class is basically limited to the options of (1) using its non-enmity finisher in dps stance or using its (2) using its non-enmity finisher in tank stance. What ever happened to the viability of using the enmity combo, in either stance?

---

PLD only had that option for 2.55, and it was rough for WARs who wanted to MT. OT slot needs a high potency non enmity rotation to avoid the old "FOF ROH ROH ROH ROH we;lp RIP real MT, I'm the tank now" situation.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by fm_fenrir

I was only talking about Savage's enmity bonus, which I specifically mentioned in my post.

---

Sorry, I got confused given that it's a 400-potency bonus (due to adding 2x enmity, or applying a 3x multiplier, to a 200-potency attack). I had no idea where you were getting +100 potency from.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by fm_fenrir

Anyway, the added potency from Savage's enmity bonus is enough to keep your threat lead alive against DPS, but not necessarily other tanks; I don't think it's fair to compare DRK/PLD on a threat basis because PLD's MT threat is sufficient for handling DPS, but it's easily the weakest at keeping the other two tanks at bay in direct tank stance on tank stance pissing matches. I guess that's an indication that PLD's threat needs some attention, but I'm not sure what you'd do other than bumping the ShO multiplier to compensate.

---

It is entirely fair, and the comparison should have been made more closely. A PLD will be doing 1090 potency + ~150 SwO + ~250 AA potency per RA, or about 1490 total. A Warrior in Defiance using no enmity-modified abilities would still be averaging 1760 enmity per combo. With Fight or Flight, we'd be doing 1937, but with Unchained they'd be doing 2350. With Berserk also: 3520. We're not about to overtake anyone. And even if we were, that might be a reason to reduce Savage Blade's enmity mod, sure, but not PLD's average or burst enmity output.

Increasing ShO's enmity modifier would be a good start, at least. Defiance and Grit have a 2.3x enmity bonus. Shield Oath remains at 2.0. Power Slash/Butchers Block and Spinning Slash/Skull Sunder have 5.5x and 3.5x enmity modifiers respectively. Rage of Halone and Savage Blade are only 5.0x and 3.0x.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by fm_fenrir

PLD only had that option for 2.55, and it was rough for WARs who wanted to MT. OT slot needs a high potency non enmity rotation to avoid the old "FOF ROH ROH ROH ROH we;lp RIP real MT, I'm the tank now" situation.

---

That doesn't mean PLDs enmity combos should just stop being viable now. I'm not asking to spam it. I'm asking for RoH in Sword Oath to do at least do enough to be worth doing, rather than my only other ideal option being to switch to Shield Oath and just keep RAing (now for 272 ePotency, still stronger than SwO RoH). The 11-14% extra dps from SwO AAs can't even seem to make up for that as a longterm option, at least in the eyes of most PLDs I play with. At current, there are few moves anyone would so hate to use. DRK's enmity combo provides no mana, but is within 10 potency of their highest regular combo. It IS WAR's highest potency combo. Why then does it need to be 80 potency off for PLD, let alone have a lesser enmity modifier? That's all I meant by this.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

DRK's enmity combo provides no mana, but is within 10 potency of their highest regular combo. It IS WAR's highest potency combo. Why then does it need to be 80 potency off for PLD, let alone have a lesser enmity modifier? That's all I meant by this.

---

But my original statement was that RA is not only the least involved DPS combo (since it doesn't require any special actions to do), but it also has enmity built in via Savage Blade. That makes it difficult to add anything to without grossly favoring PLD, because they'd have Halone and the Buff RA variant to draw from.

What do you give RA that isn't absurdly strong, considering you can do it every three GCDs with no penalty? As PLD's highest potency combo, it will always be the go-to combo unless you direly need threat generation from ROH, so whatever added effect RA got would always be in play.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by fm_fenrir

But my original statement was that RA is not only the least involved DPS combo (since it doesn't require any special actions to do), but it also has enmity built in via Savage Blade. That makes it difficult to add anything to without grossly favoring PLD, because they'd have Halone and the Buff RA variant to draw from.

What do you give RA that isn't absurdly strong, considering you can do it every three GCDs with no penalty? As PLD's highest potency combo, it will always be the go-to combo unless you direly need threat generation from ROH, so whatever added effect RA got would always be in play.

---

I never said RA needed buffs. I'm sorry if I lead you to think that; I responded out of confusion in regards to the parts you worded ambiguously, not to defend the idea of RA buffs. I feel that RoH could use a buff (say, to 280 potency), Sword Oath tanking in general could use a slight buff (for instance, by changing the 50 AA bonus potency to 30 bonus potency on weaponskills and abilities would increase dps by only 1% while contributing far more to enmity and burst), MT dps could use a small buff (such as by reducing damage only to weaponskills, giving about a 9% dps bonus), and that PLD needs AoE (be it in the form of CoS-Flash synergy, shield cleaves, reflect damage pairable with Cover, or whatever else).

RA is just fine to me as is. If I were to modify it, it would only be by detracting potency and adding a significant attack speed bonus it its place, as to further benefit DoT spreading via GB, make RoH more frequently usable, and generally reduce the value gap between finishers.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

RA is just fine to me as is.

---

Yes, on its own, RA is fine. It's the whole "PLD in ShO" that falls a little short compard to other two.
That's why I think that allowing RA to bypass the damage penalty could be an interesting idea. Because even if is, on paper, the highest, one time potency finisher, WAR and DRK both have something to compensate.
With Maim, Butcher's Block stands now at 336 potency and you use it every two combos. With the slashing debuff, it would even go as high as 369, but a PLD could also benefit from an OT WAR, so it's not as important. With Darkside, Power Slash is above 340, and the Power Slash combo is the weakest.

And both tanks can use a 500+ potency move akin to Goring Blade, but with less downside. Scourge doesn't need a combo to take full effect, and Fell Cleave is a one time potency, boosted by Storm's Path (And Deliverance), and with no TP cost.

And this effect on RA wouldn't change anything in SwO where PLD is much closer DPS wise.