Thoughts on PLD healing

I know there's been very little discussion of PLD because it and GNB seem to be in a pretty good place (as far as we can tell right now). These are just my musings on things that feel awkward right now and could perhaps use adjustment, but I thought maybe some people had similar thoughts.

• The buff to healing magic only for Requiescat should probably be reduced, maybe all the way down to 20% again. PLD's maximum healing output on other party members is a little too high right now, you can basically be the only healer in dungeons. (Changing the MP cost or potency would mess up other things is why I think Requiescat.)
• Divine Veil should work on self. It's the only tank skill like this that doesn't and is already awkward because most single-target healing won't trigger it. It would compensate for lost self-healing if Requiescat was nerfed. Alternatively, the requirement for a heal should just be removed because of the 5.0 changes to healers.

Basically: currently PLD can throw out 5x 2700 potency instant heals during Requiescat if the cast is on somebody other than yourself. Since Convalescence was removed the buff to Requiescat makes sense, but when it's used on other party members it's excessive.

Currently, a good WHM or AST is likely to not trigger Divine Veil because they heal so much with abilities instead of spells. Granting the shield to yourself would make Divine Veil useful in more content even if you have to cast Clemency on yourself to trigger it. The only issue here is SCH are more likely to trigger it than the other healers due to the fairy.

No.

PLD already got its fair share of nerfs. Cover was hit hard, our main source of mitigation (block) was hit hard, and we lost Flash which essentially was a defensive CD. Leave PLD alone. This nerf that you're proposing is so unnecessary.

While true that you can effectively be a healer for 5 GCD's every minute, dungeons are not really valid content to be making balance decisions on. In content where it matters (aka savage or even ultimate) it matters very little, you might be able to salvage things going south for a little while but its not gonna change a whole lot in the grand scheme of things for the outcome most of the time.

That being said, personally i don't really care either way if they nerf it or not. I hardly ever use it except as emergency.

As for Divine Veil, i still have no idea why they didn't fix it this expansion, seeing it expire all the time just feels terrible.

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Originally Posted by Thela

While true that you can effectively be a healer for 5 GCD's every minute, dungeons are not really valid content to be making balance decisions on. In content where it matters (aka savage or even ultimate) it matters very little, you might be able to salvage things going south for a little while but its not gonna change a whole lot in the grand scheme of things for the outcome most of the time.

That being said, personally i don't really care either way if they nerf it or not. I hardly ever use it except as emergency.

As for Divine Veil, i still have no idea why they didn't fix it this expansion, seeing it expire all the time just feels terrible.

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As you point out, it's not something you want to do in progression content, but I've replaced the healer several times now in dungeons and I think that probably shouldn't be possible to completely usurp their role. In savage content, I figure Clemency wasting a GCD is balanced by the shield.

Regarding Divine Veil, I think it's worse now. AST gets 2x Essential Dignity and SCH lost Energy Drain and Bane so they basically are trying to burn their Aetherflow on Lustrate.

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Originally Posted by eagledorf

Basically: currently PLD can throw out 5x 2700 potency instant heals during Requiescat if the cast is on somebody other than yourself. Since Convalescence was removed the buff to Requiescat makes sense, but when it's used on other party members it's excessive.

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I thought only the first 2 heals under the effect of Req gave an increase in potency by 50% because the 3rd heal would mean your MP would be under 80%, also if the normal potency of Clemency is 1200 then only first 2 heals will be 1800 and the last 3 would be the normal 1200 so not sure how you came to x5 2700 potency heal instant casts.

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Originally Posted by eagledorf

Currently, a good WHM or AST is likely to not trigger Divine Veil because they heal so much with abilities instead of spells. Granting the shield to yourself would make Divine Veil useful in more content even if you have to cast Clemency on yourself to trigger it. The only issue here is SCH are more likely to trigger it than the other healers due to the fairy.

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Just create a macro with an alert telling your party chat that you have used divine veil and need a cure for protection barrier.

I use Divine Veil all the time in extreme and eden and it always triggers you don't even need the healer to know you have used it as you can time it in between the bosses AoE where the healer then uses AoE heals which always trigger it.

Although I do agree that Divine Veil should also give yourself the buff.

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Originally Posted by ZellosWilder

I thought only the first 2 heals under the effect of Req gave an increase in potency by 50% because the 3rd heal would mean your MP would be under 80%, also if the normal potency of Clemency is 1200 then only first 2 heals will be 1800 and the last 3 would be the normal 1200 so not sure how you came to x5 2700 potency heal instant casts.



Just create a macro with an alert telling your party chat that you have used divine veil and need a cure for protection barrier.

I use Divine Veil all the time in extreme and eden and it always triggers you don't even need the healer to know you have used it as you can time it in between the bosses AoE where the healer then uses AoE heals which always trigger it.

Although I do agree that Divine Veil should also give yourself the buff.

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Requiescat grants 50% buff on all 5 casts as long as you have 80% MP when you use the Requiescat skill. If it didn't work this way, you would just end it on your third cast. If you cast Clemency on a party member under Requiescat, you get 1800 potency on the target you heal and another 900 potency on yourself because of the drain effect.

Macro spamming like that is obnoxious. If you're raiding, you use voice chat to communicate and in DF a 10% shield doesn't matter enough to beg for a healer to waste a GCD they had other plans for. Maybe I'm just traumatized from silence macros.

If you're casting Clemency you're not dps:ing.
If you have to cast Clemency your healer is asleep, I honestly don't see the problem.

Yeah, it kinda sucks a bit that other tanks ain't as self-sufficient but oh well.
The way that you're phrasing it tho makes it sound as if it's just free heals and as if the PLD isn't sacrificing anything for it.

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Originally Posted by eagledorf

Requiescat grants 50% buff on all 5 casts as long as you have 80% MP when you use the Requiescat skill. If it didn't work this way, you would just end it on your third cast. If you cast Clemency on a party member under Requiescat, you get 1800 potency on the target you heal and another 900 potency on yourself because of the drain effect.

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I just tested it and you are correct I thought it was 50% only for the first 2 casts as your MP goes below 80%, always thought the 1st 2 did more kinda strange... I guess I misunderstood how it works.

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Originally Posted by eagledorf

Macro spamming like that is obnoxious. If you're raiding, you use voice chat to communicate and in DF a 10% shield doesn't matter enough to beg for a healer to waste a GCD they had other plans for. Maybe I'm just traumatized from silence macros.

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I disagree with this though when doing extreme or raids you ain't always in a static and on voice chat and because you are doing stuff with randomers with different skill levels you don't expect them to know how other job actions work. Same goes for when using a macro for Hallowed Ground it helps a tonne when the healer knows you are invul and don't need healing for the next 10secs.

The macro also helps when there is another PLD in a group that also uses divine veil no point in both using it at the same time.

Using a macro isn't obnoxious, never had anyone complain about it once since HW when PLD first got Divine Veil so I don't get that. As for the 10% shield it saves players in a DF group as it has done before, healers heal less then as well if you have a skill that you can use and it be useful during AoE attacks why would you not use it?

Divine veil needs tweaked in some capacity, clemency is fine. Being able to heal the two dps when the healer bricks a mechanic was more a thing in stormblood than it is now. PLD lacks a lot of the defensives it used to have that made 3manning final bosses in dungeons a breeze. It can still be done if the boss is at a decent percentage but bosses with too much aoe (Quetzalcotl) will still burn through the PLDs mp and eventually there's no way to recover.

I feel like Clemency balances itself out as a healing skill because of its nature as a spell. If it didn’t cost a GCD and/or was resourceless, it could understand it potentially breaking. In my experience as a healer anyway, I haven’t felt like Clemency was too powerful compared to what other tools tanks have.

Also as an aside, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Paladin use Clemency during Requiescat window, though maybe I’m just not paying enough attention (hard to see what people are doing when your screen is clogged with Art of War lol)

I've used it in the requiescat window and gotten crits upwards of 52k. Its a great instant burst heal inside the window, but if the tank needs to do that, things are going awry elsewhere.

being able to save a dungeon boss or pull with clemency is fine thats the point of the skill... if it was weak like what cure was then we may as well not have it.

its meant as a backup tool for just incase scenarios, not to say you cant preemptively use it to counter a mechanic but in general that wouldnt be needed as a healer probs has a ogcd to cover it and if they dont its because its not important enough damage to warrant one and they know they can wait til they need to either spend a gcd or aoe heal whole group.

clemency has a very high cost on pld as it throws your whole rotation out of wak if you arent using it during requiscat window but at that point who would sacrifice all that damage and use x5 clemencies unless things had gone drastically wrong.!?

If your a raid tank end game and you have to touch clemency you just lost DPS ...

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Originally Posted by TheForce

No.

PLD already got its fair share of nerfs. Cover was hit hard, our main source of mitigation (block) was hit hard, and we lost Flash which essentially was a defensive CD. Leave PLD alone. This nerf that you're proposing is so unnecessary.

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I don't see it as a nerf. It would actually increase PLD self-healing during normal play because you'd get a 10% shield every 2 minutes and PLD is the only tank that does zero self-healing in the ideal rotation right now.

It's more of a horizontal adjustment: my proposed changes give PLD some nonzero self-healing when things are going well, would make no change in short-term emergencies like a healer being raised (when you cast Clemency regardless of if you have 80% MP and Requiescat off CD), and would only be a nerf if you're healing easy content long-term and are dropping heals on DPS during the Requiescat phase or if you cast Clemency regularly in Requiescat (which you shouldn't, if you really need to cast it it's best to fit it in the phase without any buffs up). Slightly improved tankyness, slightly reduced healing utility.

And warrior could heal himself almost to full three times in a row without sacrifing absolutely any dps.
And he do it every 25 seconds, and doesnt need to generate full mp bar...
Of course i am talking about dungeons here.

I’m a main PLD and I love clemency, but I do agree it’s crazy broken.

I’ve soloed/duoed unsynced Ex content that it would be impossible to do with any other tanks just because PLD brings so much healing. But the thing to remember is, it’s GCD healing, it comes at the cost of DPS and it’s significant amounts of dps now that we have Holy Spirit and confiteor. All the other tanks have their self-healing built into their dps combos and oGCD heals. PLDs healing may be stronger but it’s got a much higher cost to it than just the mp, which fits with PLDs identity.

Clemency is great on those massive dungeon pulls (70+) where the healer struggles to keep up. It can mean the difference between a dead tank and an alive one.

Believe it or not, it happens.

Clemency may be a dps loss no matter what, but when the healer dies and there's only 5-10% left on the boss, you can be sure it feels good to to be able to survive and win with it.

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Originally Posted by IntrovertAnt

Clemency may be a dps loss no matter what, but when the healer dies and there's only 5-10% left on the boss, you can be sure it feels good to to be able to survive and win with it.

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This and - it is better to do survive while dealing less DPS than die and do no DPS.