PLD changes

well the notes are out https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...aa3c79b2e733d2

And there is a lot to take in.

Indeed, reading it right now.

...huh.

...wow...

EDIT: What I'm getting right now is PLD's sustain has been exchanged for bigger hit CDs (likely to put into the 2 min buff windows), and overall the Job's been simplified. e.g. Shelltron just reduces damage taken rather than block (there seems to be no block interaction at all), Veil now just casts a barrier like WAR does including on the PLD (no "on heal" business anymore), Goring Blade is now a single target weaker version of Double Down, Fight or Flight is now No Mercy...

Still reading, but...yeah, interesting...

FoF buffing ALL damage instead of physical is amazing.

Divine veil is shake it off 2.0

Still wish Cover didn't require oath gauge.

But this isn't the "full emergency rework" they made it out to be. Some potencies got adjusted, dots removed, and bulwark added back.

Maybe I'm not reading things right but all I'm seeing is "potency reduced" everywhere (and the Blade attacks now consume 1000 MP each?).

Urgh.... I don't know, I think they've messed too much with it without actually getting to the core of the problem (trying to make it stronger without overshadowing other Jobs.).

But then, that's been GLA/PLD's lot since late 1.0 I guess... *sighs sadly*

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Maybe I'm not reading things right but all I'm seeing is "potency reduced" everywhere (and the Blade attacks now consume 1000 MP each?).

Urgh.... I don't know, I think they've messed too much with it without actually getting to the core of the problem (trying to make it stronger without overshadowing other Jobs.).

But then, that's been GLA/PLD's lot since late 1.0 I guess... *sighs sadly*

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The Confiteor/Blade combo seems to be considerably stronger as a whole under Resquiecat.

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Originally Posted by Maltothoris

well the notes are out https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...aa3c79b2e733d2

And there is a lot to take in.

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What is amounts to is: Yoshida is full of shit.

Talking about an emergency rework, how PLD doesn't really fit into the current design of the game, doom and gloom. Being really shy with sharing notes or details on the changes. Now we know why - not because they were a big change, but because they *weren't* a big change. I'm glad the overall identity of the class and rotation will remain largely intact, but I don't like how they were portraying all these changes. Was it just a huge translation error that, for some inexplicable reason, never really went corrected?

Completely against expectations, it's actually the defensive toolkit - whose changes I thought were going to be pretty much a no-brainer! - that has me flummoxed. Clemency is still effectively unusable outside of early prog. Sheltron is still tied to oath gauge, and oath gauge is still tied to autoswings, so PLD remains the only tank to lose *mitigation* during downtime. Wings still... exists. Divine Veil finally finished being turned into Shake It Off, only a few patches later than it should have been! But then they added an additional regen effect to Shake It Off, so Divine Veil is just categorically worse than Shake It Off.

This is presumably because wings still exists... even though wings is almost never usable outside of what amount to cutscenes. They should have just removed wings and made Divine Veil better. Or changed wings to be an instant-effect circle instead of an awkward cone. Or *something.*

Like... this is supposed to have been an "emergency rework." It's not just making a few minor adjustments, it's supposed to be major changes to how the class operates. But I'm not seeing that here. They *should* have made major adjustments. Oath Gauge should have been turned into beast gauge or cartridge gauge and Sheltron/Intervention should have been divorced from gauge usage. Clemency should have been changed to become DPS neutral under certain circumstances, or just DPS neutral at all times but only usable with resource/cooldown.

Someone is fucking up over there, and they're fucking up pretty bad. This is pretty poor showing, especially juxtaposed to the rest of the patch's content being generally pretty good. Raid design is still decent, mechanic design is still good, but combat design has been getting worse and worse ever since Shadowbringers. Who keeps fucking up, and who keeps allowing them to remain on the "combat design team"? They need to be taken off that team before they cause even more damage to the gameplay systems.

I'm a bit confused...how these aren't major changes?

PLD's overall sustained damage has been reduced (all the potency reductions) with its burst being where the damage is, and fits in the 2 min burst window. That's exactly what they said they would do. Likewise, the DoTs have been removed and its various utility and defensive abilities have been changed to be simplified. The rotation has been completely changed as well.

Where before you did (once combat was going) Royal, 2x Atonement, FoF into Goring (DoT), Royal, 3x Atonement, Goring, Requiescat, caster phase, Swords, repeat...

...now your filler is entirely Royal/Atonement/Holy Spirit (once per Royal), you use FoF into Goring (no DoT, just a big hit ability) into Requiescat and the caster phase/swords. I'm also not CERTAIN, but it looks like your spells aren't instant cast in Requiescat anymore.

Divine Veil is changed, Shelltron doesn't use Block, Bulwark is added as another defensive.

I dunno, seems like some pretty major changes. Not sure if for the better or for the worse, though it seems made to shoehorn PLD into the 2 min window until at least 7.0 so it won't be as far behind anymore...

Jeez I was hoping it wouldn't be 'Req, 3 Holy Spirits and a not-Primal Rend' but there it is, Req, 4 HS and a Confiteor-rend (no longer tied to a Req stack, for the players who couldn't count to 4), Goring Blade becomes Sonic Break, wait am I reading this right, that Req windows will be just 1 HS, and the other 3 stacks are used on Blades? I'm too tired for this but my initial read is 'pretty much what I expected of SE at this point'

edit: and why the hell does Blade of T/F/V have a non-Req potency listed? We can use it outside of Req now? It's barely stronger than RA combo, but doesn't provide Divine Might and it costs MP. Could we use it for keeping uptime while away from the boss? Oh right, they made all the bosses 100% uptime, so why the heck is this change here? Is it a noob-trap? Be pretty funny if it was

Cover is getting the Undraw treatment.

Why is Atonement so weak? It's only 30 more potency than an unbuffed, no Divine Might Holy Spirit. It looks like it's going to even be barely a PPS gain to use it.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

Jeez I was hoping it wouldn't be 'Req, 3 Holy Spirits and a not-Primal Rend' but there it is, Req, 4 HS and a Confiteor-rend (no longer tied to a Req stack, for the players who couldn't count to 4), Goring Blade becomes Sonic Break, wait am I reading this right, that Req windows will be just 1 HS, and the other 3 stacks are used on Blades? I'm too tired for this but my initial read is 'pretty much what I expected of SE at this point'

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I'm not sure where blades figures into this, but you definitely need to use it during Req since their potency is garbage outside of it. Exclusivity of Divine Might and Req makes it clear that you will *not* be doing a filler combo until *after* you finish Req. So it will presumably be FoF and Req, while weaving Goring Blade, Spirits, and Circle.

Neither Req nor Confetti say that one or the other ends Req, so I'm assuming then that Confetti doesn't end Req, but only consumes a charge. Req specifies that Confetti "combo actions" will be boosted by the effect, so it's fair to assume the three Blades spells will each take a stack.

This means that Req will be used *exclusively* for Confetti combo at level 90, and the only reason snowflake and circle are mentioned is for not-90 content. It's literally just Inner Release with more oGCDs to weave. Pretty much what we expected.

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Originally Posted by VentVanitas

Why is Atonement so weak? It's only 30 more potency than an unbuffed, no Divine Might Holy Spirit. It looks like it's going to even be barely a PPS gain to use it.

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Atonement is now effectively a complete replacement for our old Goring combo. It's 380+380+380 (1140) instead of 200+280+380 (860). But the problem is that the combo gives you a Divine Might charge, which adds an extra 450 to the end at the cost of it being a 4th GCD...

I dunno. Atonement definitely feels like it needs a potency bump. Otherwise, any time you could fit four GCDs, you'd just do the Authority combo even if you have Sword Oath stacks on hand... Not to mention, Divine Might is also giving us the 400 potency cure every 4th GCD, which is presumably meant to finally give proper compensation to PLD for lacking a cure on their filler combo.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

Jeez I was hoping it wouldn't be 'Req, 3 Holy Spirits and a not-Primal Rend' but there it is, Req, 4 HS and a Confiteor-rend (no longer tied to a Req stack, for the players who couldn't count to 4), Goring Blade becomes Sonic Break, wait am I reading this right, that Req windows will be just 1 HS, and the other 3 stacks are used on Blades? I'm too tired for this but my initial read is 'pretty much what I expected of SE at this point'

edit: and why the hell does Blade of T/F/V have a non-Req potency listed? We can use it outside of Req now?

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Unless I'm reading it wrong, it seems more like the 4 stacks of Requiescat are intended to be used to buff the entire Confiteor > Blade combo. Your normal combo instead grants a buff to Holy Spirit.

If Divine Might was "Increase potency by 100% and no cast time" with the old rotation, Requiescat would have been a proper burst with little change. (Req) Holy Spirit = (FoF) 1.25 x Atonement, so Req Holy spirit and FoF Atonement power match. Divine Might = 2 x Holy Spirit (either Req or no Req) with multiple values. Since, Fight or Flight is 10 gcd, Requiescat is 5 gcd, so Requiescat should hit twice as hard as Fight or Flight. Build up Divine Might stacks, so you spend both Divine Might and Requiescat at the same time for big burst.

I understand the Confiteor/Req/Blades thing now I think, the non-Req potency for the Blades is for if you're mid combo and run out of Req stacks, cos you did HS-HS-Conf-Blade(run out here)-Blade-Blade. Which means I guess yes it's a potential noobtrap of sorts. Ridiculous. I cant even picture what the rotation's gonna feel like with Atonement still existing in the same form, Fast, Riot, RA, Atone, Atone, Atone, HS, repeat for 50s till next FOF is gonna be so weird. Being able to move the HS about in between the Atones is... nice I guess, but the question is if it/Atone still break the 123

And why do we STILL have bloody Shield Bash? PLD was already kinda suffering for hotbar space and with Bulwark being added back I'd assumed we'd be removing useless crap like Shield Bash. But no, still there. Weird priorities

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Originally Posted by Darkstride

Unless I'm reading it wrong, it seems more like the 4 stacks of Requiescat are intended to be used to buff the entire Confiteor > Blade combo. Your normal combo instead grants a buff to Holy Spirit.

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Yeh, we do 4 HS in Req. At 80 we swap one out for Confiteor, and at 90 we swap the other 3 out for the Blades. I think. Which is definitely different from pressing IR, then Primal Rend, then 3 Fell Cleaves

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Originally Posted by Gserpent

I dunno. Atonement definitely feels like it needs a potency bump. Otherwise, any time you could fit four GCDs, you'd just do the Authority combo even if you have Sword Oath stacks on hand... Not to mention, Divine Might is also giving us the 400 potency cure every 4th GCD, which is presumably meant to finally give proper compensation to PLD for lacking a cure on their filler combo.

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Holy Spirit costs MP right? I assume the limiter on us being able to just ignore Atonement like that is that we'd run dry on MP, Atonement is our main source of regenerating it

My main disappointment is how PLD's still gonna feel really bad until like Shadow bringers, the Job needs more of its abilities earlier, or weaker versions don't even get a gap closer mind you until 74? Its likely going to feel really bland in HW content (more then it was), you're just going to be pressing 1, 2, 3 until like stormblood where you get to press 1, 2, 3, 4 or pressing that 4 button a lot, Goring blade changes weren't great but make sense, POA still kinda annoying. Intervention Should be removed, it's pointless now just make it so the recast timer of holy shelltron is shorter so you can fit two into double tank busters, Shield bash and cover remain still here despite being useless, Also the job is going to be way too Crit depedent in it's burst it's giving out like a bunch of near 1000 potencies (with FOF effecting both), so I can imagine a lot of PLD's are going to depend on crit chance to do good damage.

I'm happy that holy spirit now can likely sustain you better outside burst windows, you should have more choice and timing for when you want that small healing effect unless you're in burst, Divine veil is amazing thank you, Bulwark is basically a rampart that's a bit weird with DOTS eitherway it's gonna be pretty good and make PLD pretty stronger defensively, I'm also happy that PLD is generally likely going to be a stronger/better class in general. They didn't remove Clemency either so all is good.

I guess I'm really neutral on the changes as a result, I feel like they're going to need to still change a few things about PLD, but this current structure works, I'm just not a fan of how it will feel really boring to play in early content, goring blade changes weren't good either imo (the ability doesn't even look strong or something with 700 potency...)

Trust me, I was that weird angry/depressed state when I saw that EW did fuck all about how bad most classes' down-sync experience is.

There is literally no justification for having ability progression laid out so poorly. At *bare minimum*, they need to revamp everything from 1-60 since that covers the free trial. Gap closers, AOE skills, etc. They need to create nerfed versions of spells and then add traits that improve them to current levels. Like give CNJ a 110 potency AOE water-themed spell at 15, and trait that to become Holy at 45. Stuff like that.

Are you some sorta special kind of dumb? Let's just go ahead and tear at this quote and why you have no idea how to use PLD defensively.

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Originally Posted by Gserpent

Completely against expectations, it's actually the defensive toolkit - whose changes I thought were going to be pretty much a no-brainer! - that has me flummoxed. Clemency is still effectively unusable outside of early prog. Sheltron is still tied to oath gauge, and oath gauge is still tied to autoswings, so PLD remains the only tank to lose *mitigation* during downtime. Wings still... exists. Divine Veil finally finished being turned into Shake It Off, only a few patches later than it should have been! But then they added an additional regen effect to Shake It Off, so Divine Veil is just categorically worse than Shake It Off.

This is presumably because wings still exists... even though wings is almost never usable outside of what amount to cutscenes. They should have just removed wings and made Divine Veil better. Or changed wings to be an instant-effect circle instead of an awkward cone. Or *something.*

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So, yes, Clem is not very useful outside of prog, though it is very nice to have a means to heal not only yourself but other party members when paired up with less then competent healers (Which seems to be a running theme with how much every class seems to be getting simplified down). Now, I want you to name me ANY instance where there is a tank buster, or tank specific damage happening that needs mitigation, that happens during downtime phases, phases in which you need heavy miti to survive. Do you not know about wings tech? You do know you can *Flash* your wings for a moment to apply the damage reduction to the party during, oh I dunno, all the spicy raid wides that we have in the current (Abyssos) raid tier? (The big exception being second phase of P8S since tanks need to stand away from the party for autos or risk murdering them) You can easily help your party out with not only veil, but also wings to greatly reduce damage taken, or even spread the mitigation out so you have veil for when you are up front tanking, and a quick wings flash for when you are OT. So in practice, PLD can help mitigate more damage then the one WAR exclusive party wide mit that it has, Speaking of which, you do know that both tanks have reprisal and can use them on different attacks correct? One can even use it for busters while the other tank can use theirs for raid wide damage. Crazy thought I know.

So in a nutshell, removing wings is a terrible idea and you should really learn how to use the tools given in a class kit, or just play WAR and not have to work more then that one braincell you seem to struggle using to comprehend PLDs tool set.

Wings are annoying to use Imo, I understand "just snap shot it" but it doesn't take away from it being a situational and clunky ability, I personally think that it will likely not be changed just because "pretty animation"

Its really not a matter of brain cells, I just don't think we should have to snap shot and cone position wings, it should have more general use, no other mitigation is like wings but that's not a good or unique thing it's just kinda a hassle more then anything.

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Originally Posted by Blitzgon

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People complaining about Passage of Arms always confuses me.

The community constantly rails against homogenization. When things happen like Overpower turning from a cone into a circle, people say the sky is falling and the era of samey homogenized boredom is here and all skill expression has been removed from the game.

...but then you have abilities that are different, that require things like positioning and understanding nuance and the underlying mechanics - like Wings having a cone, being based on your facing, and with a mechanic nuance in flashing it - and people complain about it and demand it be changed.

Then if it's ever changed, complain how it's "just like Job X" when it WAS different.

In this very thread, people are complaining about Veil being Shake It Off 2.0. But what were they expecting? People have been asking for it to become JUST THAT (affect the PLD, not require a heal to trigger, etc) until it became the very thing they demanded it become...just so they could complain about it now being just like another Job's ability and be upset about it.

I can't tell if it's just people like to complain or people don't realize they're arguing for homogenized boredom and lack the foresight to see that's what they're demanding, only able to see it for what it is once the change has been made and they ruined it for everyone else. Probably a bit of both...

The people against homogenization aren't always the same as those not wanting clunk or thinking.

Idk about you guys but it seems these won’t really help much. I’ll give it a try after work but not very confident in the changes. That 2 min meta really sucks.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

People complaining about Passage of Arms always confuses me.

The community constantly rails against homogenization. When things happen like Overpower turning from a cone into a circle, people say the sky is falling and the era of samey homogenized boredom is here and all skill expression has been removed from the game.

...but then you have abilities that are different, that require things like positioning and understanding nuance and the underlying mechanics - like Wings having a cone, being based on your facing, and with a mechanic nuance in flashing it - and people complain about it and demand it be changed.

Then if it's ever changed, complain how it's "just like Job X" when it WAS different.

In this very thread, people are complaining about Veil being Shake It Off 2.0. But what were they expecting? People have been asking for it to become JUST THAT (affect the PLD, not require a heal to trigger, etc) until it became the very thing they demanded it become...just so they could complain about it now being just like another Job's ability and be upset about it.

I can't tell if it's just people like to complain or people don't realize they're arguing for homogenized boredom and lack the foresight to see that's what they're demanding, only able to see it for what it is once the change has been made and they ruined it for everyone else. Probably a bit of both...

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It really doesn't require "thinking" to use passage of arms, it's a annoyance that's inconsistent depending on the fight that's the issue? I dislike "homogenization" but the Divine veil changes were perfect, I don't know who's complaining that it's now less annoying to use.

homogenization isn't always bad it isn't always good, for example I wouldn't find a DPS raid buff where you have to position it a "interesting" and unique mechanic, it would feel awful and clunky to use. Theirs good differences between classes and bad ones, being annoying to use for the sake of being "unique" isn't good design. we should strive for unique and fun ways of utility, rotation, buffs but we should want abilities that are "unique" but in a good way, not in a more punishing way, that feels underwhelming.

Here I was hoping at the very least for the gap closer to **not** be unlocked at level 74...
That "rework" is just a pair-numbered patch tweak to me.

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Originally Posted by Rithy255

It really doesn't require "thinking" to use passage of arms, it's a annoyance that's inconsistent depending on the fight that's the issue?

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This is literally the argument for every homogenization effort in MMO history.

It's always because something is "annoying" or "inconsistent" etc that causes homogenization to try to make them not that by making them all the same.

Everyone thinks the thing they are asking for isn't the dreaded homogenization. People asking for a Knockback immunity on non-PLDs (only PLDs had it in ARR) don't think they're asking for homogenization. People asking for more oGCD heals for their healer didn't think they were asking for homogenization. People asking for Feint and Addle to work on the other damage type didn't think they were asking for homogenization. No one asking for something to be changed thinks they're asking for homogenization.

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I dislike "homogenization" but the Divine veil changes were perfect, I don't know who's complaining that it's now less annoying to use.

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No one's complaining it's less annoying to use. People are complaining it's basically a reskinned Shake It Off - e.g. that homogenization has happened.

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homogenization isn't always bad

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Oh, this is completely true, I agree.

Yet people complain about homogenization. All I was doing was pointing out this is how we get it.

Passage isn't terribly annoying to use. It really isn't. It's one of the few things a tank has now that actually is based on things like positioning - something that use to be a staple of overall tanking. It's not hard or annoying or inconsistent. You simply face where your party is behind you in a stack mechanic. You tap it on. Then you move. There's nothing annoying or inconsistent about that. It consistently works the same way every time, and parties that communicate make use of it. And it's consistently easy to use since all you have to do is face a direction and push a button.

Annoying is a subjective term. Inconsistent is an objective term.

It's objectively consistent, thus it is not inconsistent.

And subjectively, many people find it to not be annoying and, in fact, to be a fun ability. Good design, in other words, that is unique and flavorful as well as being useful and functional.

This would be akin to arguing Sacred Soil needs to be turned into Kerachole because the positioning element makes it bad.

Sounds like things didn't change too much, but I'll reserve judgement after trying things out. I was expecting way worse.

Few things I noticed:

• Fight or Flight now affects all damage.
• Goring Blade is just a straight up heavy attack on a 1 min GD. Hope its animation has become more impressive.
• No more heal required for Divine Veil, yay! Sad that Passage of Arms did not change, though.
• Sheltron and Bulwark are exactly what I expected them to be.
• Looks like we now throw in a Holy Spirit after our single target combo, and Holy Spirit after our AoE combo.
• Magic phase is now always 4 hits. Confiteor and Blade skills are now used during Requiescat instead of after 4 Holy Spirits once learned.
• Clemency is still the same. I do not hate this and am glad it's still the same as it's one of the biggest draws to paladin for me. If you want a bit of extra healing during your rotation, you now have Holy Spirits you can use anytime after combos.

Might see some potency changes in 6.31. I'm not a theorycrafter so I don't know if this will result in more or less overall DPS.

Why did all the tanks get a reduced gcd for tank stance and a button to remove tank stance? Was that really necessary?

I don't like Divine Veil. Yet another bit of interplay between jobs gone.

Reply to Above: (to ren)
you listed a bunch of good changes, addle and faint changes Good, knockback immunity on Jobs Good, I'm asking for some homogenization because some is good to have. PLD's already pretty unique in the fact of having situationally good abilities like cover, clemency ect. having ranged attacks, I also like the idea of having more utility in raid wides then other tanks, making PAO easier to use would make the job more enjoyable for me despite being "ez". Divine veil was already Shake it off, but worse to use, Passage of arms basically functions as Heart of light or dark Missionary it's a damage reduction, the only benefit is a extra 5% for being on a longer cd and what i find annoying and situational to use, Also because I want *some* things to be more easier to use on PLD I also think we should be looking at the Job's gauge adding skill expression and reward to timing defensives well, theirs some aspects I'd personally want to make PLD differ from the other tanks, but also have some similarities in terms of defensive kits.

bad homogenization would be removing Utility for the sake of every job got to do the same damage, bad homogenization is making it so raid buffs always have to synch up into 120 windows, it's also bad to make the jobs play the same which again making a raid wide similar to others doens't really do lol.

I find PAO a pain to use, snap shot it for people behind you is inconsistent, even the duration is dependent on server ticks, a lot of mechs where using any other raid wide would be better because people don't or can't stack behind you, I really don't think boosting up it's consistency is a bad change, I felt like DV was way more annoying to use but I still just think POA is a pain for me to use, I'd like to use it more often if: "double raid wides" are the benefit of playing a PLD over any other tank.

Sacred soil change sounds fine with me not going to lie, I don't really wanna stand in a bubble. But in general healers need a overhaul and meaningful differences in how they do DPS and support.

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Originally Posted by Bsrking5

Why did all the tanks get a reduced gcd for tank stance and a button to remove tank stance? Was that really necessary?

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I'll have to test it, but I think it was for weaving purposes. There's a slight delay in deactivating buffs that causes them to not function quite like a true oGCD and 'stick' (think old school Cleric Stance). The ideal is when you have two oGCDs to toggle between two stance states, like the old Deliverance and Defiance system. I think the new actions are designed to resolve this, but I hope they share a button.

Edit: I can confirm that it 100% is an improvement over the previous setup. And they share a button.

What I like:
- Bulwark is a nice re-addition
- Sheltron change is solid
- Veil working without spell healing
- Veil applying to self
- actually using Holy Spirit outside of Requiescat or having to disengage
- Holy Circle integration to AOE combo

Mixed feelings:
- Fight or Flight just being No Mercy now - figured could've been at least creative enough to make it a charge CD with short duration (think Rough Divide from GNB PvP) rather than a generic 60s CD
- Confiteor and Blade combo being Req-HS replacements rather than additions. Preserves Divine Might HS to stay relevant enough, but bugger me is the potency loss steep when you mess it up
- Goring Blade just plain... existing in this state.
- Clemency being unchanged but I resigned myself to this fate by now so okay I guess
- Passage works, but I kinda expected it to be like a 10-15y radius version of Temperance (i.e. mitigation aura with visible wings) with less duration to make up for mobility. Och, well...

The disappointment:
- they missed the perfect opportunity to axe Shield Bash or integrate it into the rotation, it still exists only to serve as Endwalker Derplander Roleplaying trash.
- Cover still being in the ultra nerfed state since 5.0, like jesus at least remove the gauge cost
- speaking of gauge, missed opportunity to make gauge generation interesting and/or decoupling mitigation from it and instead it being used for... Spells maybe.
- despite the increased prominence of mixing spells and weaponskills, still no trait to grant PLD (DRK, RPR) spellspeed equivalent to skillspeed and vice versa for RDM. I am getting really tired of them keeping skillspeed gear pieces to a minimum just to play into this nuance rather than giving us options

I'm still gonna look forward playing it, but man the shadow of disappointing job design keeps creeping on us since 5.0. First Warrior and Dark Knight, now Paladin. I really don't like this design philosophy.

Why is it the worst parts of gunbreaker and warrior stapled together?

So, since the servers are up, a couple of things,

Requiescat is to buff the Confiteor combo.
If you were to do the full 3 Atonements and Holy Spirit off of Royal Authority, the filler combos will drift from where you started by 2 GCDs, which does matter since you will be using Holy Spirit/Atonement/Royal Authority in the buff phase. How this will affect things I do not know yet, but it is worth mentioning.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

...but then you have abilities that are different, that require things like positioning and understanding nuance and the underlying mechanics - like Wings having a cone, being based on your facing, and with a mechanic nuance in flashing it - and people complain about it and demand it be changed.

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There's a difference between being actually different and being clunky/annoying for the sake of being different. For example, if Overpower required you to hit enemies with the very tip of the cone in order to do any damage at all, it would surely be a unique skill, but a very vast majority would be celebrating from the rooftops when they nerfed it into a circle 'get hit anywhere inside of it to do damage' ability. it's why you saw so many angry at Overpower's circleification compared to Veil getting streamlined. Overpower was intuitive to use on its own and very not-jank, thus its change was uneeded. Veil & Passage both had/have jank to them, thus why you see plenty of attitudes towards Veil's change as positive comparatively to Overpower's change.

People enjoy difference, so long as said difference isn't rooted in the ability being clunky or jank. Passage is a prime example of this. It's different, but its difference is rooted in it being extremely annoying to use, thus plenty of people would rather see it homogenized to being temperance 2.0 than having it exist in its current form. Similarly with Divine Veil, if the ability could be manually procc'd by the PLD without saccing a GCD to clemency at maybe like half shield strength, or if it could be procced by OGCD heals instead of purely GCD ones from healers, I doubt there'd have been many arguments towards wanting it simplified.

Or even better example, Living Dead. The skill was absolutely unique, but its uniqueness was rooted in it being effective garbage to control & use compared to the other tank options without a white mage cheat button, and the infinitely vast majority would rather have seen it be turned into hallowed 2.0 than kept as it was. Luckily Square managed to make it infinitely more usable while keeping a flair of its uniqueness.

For example, if Passage didn't require a channel and was deployed on the ground like salted Earth, and also had the ability to warp it around by pressing the button again during its duration so it could be more useful on movement heavy damage like DSR gigaflare, Passage would be infinitely more usable, less clunky and still retain its uniqueness among the tank CDs due to it requiring actual thought than the traditional 'fire and forget' 90% of tank CDs are. When some people argue about these skill's jankiness, they're likely not hoping the skill just gets homogenized, they're likely hoping Square will do something to the skill to keep it unique while making it not ridiculously stupid to use compared to other abilities.

Also besides the point, the people arguing for simplification of skills and the people arguing about jobs being homogenized after the fact likely aren't the same people. People can have differing opinions and be after different things.

Rotation changes

• Bold of them to keep FOF as an activated action instead of a Trait.
• Goring Blade change is hilarious in a sad way. I think the SE office had a contest for "least creative possible way to modify Goring Blade", and this won. Literally just, "I give up"-tier design decision.
• Generic Tank combo system now. Royal Authority stands in for Storm's Path/Solid Barrel/Souleater; Atonement stands in for Storm's Eye/off-burst Gnashing Fang; Holy Spirit stands in for Fell Cleave/Burst Strike/Bloodspiller as the "sometimes I press something else" Gauge dump (but without a gauge, in an exciting twist).
• Generic burst system now. FOF stands in for No Mercy; Goring Blade stands in for Sonic Break; Req stands in for Inner Release/Delirium; Confiteor+Blades stands in for other "spamfests" like Inner Chaos+FC+Primal Rend/Bloodspillers/burst Gnashing Fang.

Nothing surprising, SE basically only knows how to rearrange the same basic puzzle pieces into slightly different shapes, at this point.

Will it play "bad"? Nah. People enjoy WAR in its current state, people will enjoy PLD. It'll be just another chill Job where you press things as they light up, and try not to do anything ridiculously-foolish with your keypresses.

If anything, it fits into the current game design better now. Any complaints should probably be directed at that overall design, rather than Paladin specifically just for trying to fit in. But also realistically, this design is widely-successful, so I don't expect it to change. Most players simply do not care.

Gap-closers dealing damage

This is still annoying as hell, and still looks ridiculous visually, as the player model keeps furiously head-butting itself into the opponent in the middle of a burst-cycle, and I still envy Monks for being freed from this tiresome and spammy ritual.

Circle of Scorn

Still incredibly basic and boring, but I guess SE needs to save something to sell us in 7.0 as our level 94 "upgrade".

Looking forward to Circle of Chastity in 2024.

Proc'ing Holy Circle during AOE

This is actually a good change that helps to break up the monotony of Paladin AOE. While minor overall, this is a good idea from a "playfeel" perspective.

Shield Bash

I think the hate on Shield Bash is excessive.

It does have niche uses in places like Eureka and Deep Dungeon as a last-ditch control tool.

On the other hand, if I follow my own argument of, "Buttons shouldn't exist if you barely ever press them"... then hm. I guess Shield Bash is pretty much antiquated in nearly all other content.

...I don't know. Because I personally get good use out of Shield Bash in certain content, I don't mind it. But I would also understand, and not really care, if Shield Bash got assassinated.

To be honest, I feel like Shield Swipe was the better "Did you know that I have a shield?!" action — having a reactive proc on Paladin was fun. The old Shield Swipe was a bit too RNG, but something similar — like a 40% proc when spending Atonement — would inject some flavor back into Paladin (and also actually do something with that increasingly-decorative Shield in the off-hand slot).

• Divine Veil
• Sheltron

Cool. Thank you, SE. These are sensible changes that improve Paladin's defensive functionality.

Bulwark

Nononono! You didn't understand, here...

Blocking is a problem, because Blocking is fussy and selective about when it works, and what types of attacks that it works to reduce.

Bulwark needs to have the Camouflage treatment of an additional flat, unconditional damage reduction. Otherwise, this is going to be a gimmick, rather than an actual reliable additional defensive tool.

Oath Gauge

Still a sloppy mess. Still makes defensive mitigation contingent on melee uptime, which is warped, and not an issue that other Tanks deal with. Still accomplishes nothing that simply putting Sheltron on 2 charges wouldn't also accomplish.

Oath Gauge remains a pointless tacked-on gimmick. I mean, yes, most Gauges are pointless tacked-on gimmicks, but Oath Gauge is especially-egregious.

Cover

Still a hollow shell of its former functionality. Still overpriced. Still excessive CD for the underwhelming and mediocre effect. Still doesn't need a Gauge cost.

Still yet another action that's bloating out the Paladin action-set not because it really serves any good purpose, but simply because SE feels like "Paladin has to have this!", and refuses to think of a way to make it actually belong in a regular, functional usage system.

In a game with limited action slots, each action should feel meaningful, and see regular and satisfying usage. There's no point giving Paladins Cover if it's a trap button outside of the most exotic niche gimmick situations; if it's something that's meant to be iconic, then its usage should be supported and encouraged. Give it whatever shape or form it needs to allow that, rather than letting it wallow off in a dusty corner of most hotbars.

Clemency

Still junk, especially with the excessive MP cost. But Clemency could be free and it would still be junk, because it eats a GCD to do something that no one needs a Tank to do, and no one expects a Tank to do.

Trading out damage for healing in XIV is barely ever an effective decision, and most cases argued in favor of Clemency are selective-memory bias from players that either don't understand the game fully, or want to believe that they made more of a difference than they actually did.

Clemency will continue to exist mostly as a trap for new players who need excessive comfort-zones when tanking trivial content, or who enjoy dragging/carrying underperforming and unprepared players through simple content where sandbagging your own damage output doesn't preclude clearing.

"But one time in prog with my static I saved a healer" is not justification for an action that's almost always a useless trap. You could have done that with Nascent Flash too, except it wouldn't have sandbagged your own output and derailed your rotation.

Clemency continues to be "flavor bloat" in an action set that's swollen with a lot of this kind of, "But ALL fantasy Paladins have to have this!" fluff junk.

Passage of Arms

I think that aggressively-defending the cone-channel function of Passage is a perplexing opinion, and a pointless hill to die on, as well.

The very fact that you have to put on thick black-rimmed hipster glasses and tip your chin upwards in order to brag about how clever you are for using Passage correctly, is exactly why Passage is poorly-fit to the current game. It does not belong in XIV in this state.

The fact that the biggest defense of Passage is "but you can just flash it really quick, so you never have to see it, nor actually use it as intended!" just underlines how poorly-designed the action actually is.

The fact that Passage is, by-and-large, only effective in situations where mechanics happen to work out in your favor such that you can actually rely on coordinated players to stand close enough together for the Paladin to be able to spin around and "flash" an ambiguous conal animation out their backside for 0.2 microseconds, and then rely on lingering snapshotting to hopefully mitigate something (maybe)... is not the endorsement that some players think it is.

Complaining that changing Passage would be "homogenisation" is like complaining that someone who has a leg amputated is "homogenising" themselves by being fitted for a functional prosthetic. Yeah maybe, but who cares? It's an obvious practical improvement. Sometimes, it's actually okay to want to be like everyone else.

"But I can keep hopping around on one leg because I practised!" That's cool? Impressive even? But it's not grounds to ban prosthetic fittings from everyone else that wants them and benefits from them.

Currently, for the vast majority of users, Passage serves only one practical purpose: putting up unnecessary additional "bloat mitigation" during 10-second-long untargetable boss-ult wind-ups, so that you can look cool, and pretend that you're actually accomplishing anything meaningful or noticeable.

And that's nice and everything, but I think that hotbars should be filled with actions that are more than just fancy real-time GPosing, and have an actual practical and functional purpose in most content.

Dark Missionary just works. Heart of Light just works. Passage of Arms should fit the same pattern, and just work.

If SE is going to such lengths to standardise problematic and niche outliers, they need to do it consistently, rather than this bizarre whack-a-mole approach.

Me and the dummy right now.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...6862/image.png

Re: Shield Bash - it's main benefit (perhaps it's only real purpose), is it serves as a second Stun for when Low Blow is still cooling down, but it's slower execution means Low Blow is still the prefered Stun for non-boss/high end content. It's just one of those niche abilities not really meant for end game content. Unfortunately, it's also long been rather underwhelming - back in the old days when TP was still a thing it consumed a huge amount of TP effectively mucking up any rotation, and even now is slow and rather clunky to execute.

But it's probably safe as far as any risk of being removed in the future is concerned, as it's now appeared in two seperate opening/promotional FMVs for the game (the roe PLD uses it against a Garlean soldier in the 1.0/ARR 'End of an Era/New Beginning' trailer, and the EW opening movie Derplander as PLD uses it against a FFXI-style 'Dark Dragon' Blasphemy, so it's position in GLA/PLD's toolkit is probably secure as SE probably consider it an 'iconic' PLD ability like Cover, despite being rather useless gameplay wise. I just wish they maybe buffed it up a bit (maybe redo it's animation so it didn't take quite so long to use).

Or have Shield Bash combo straight into Goring Blade/Royal Authority/Atonement as a (1-3) combo. It would fix the rotation stability and you could do something like Shield Bash->Royal Authority->Holy Spirit with the new buff making it more flexible with mobility.

You could always upgrade it to 'Shield Rush' and add a fixed-distance forward dash to it.

Here's an interesting thing, magic does not break your combos now, including Clemency. This means Holy Spirit after Royal Authority has some flexibility on when to use it, though the Divine Might buff does not stack. Atonement does still break your combos though, so no flexibility there.