PLD slight "rework" (yet another)

A few months ago, I did an exercise for fun and tried to propose a rework of DRK which was pretty well received ( https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-(yet-another) ). So, I wanted to try to do it for other jobs I do play, even so it will probably be far worse given that I’m far less aware of what people like and want for jobs other than DRK.
So, here is an attempt to do a slight rework of PLD, for fun. I’m not doing it with hope of any of this to be implemented in the game. I do think that PLD is already in a far better place gameplay wise than DRK, so do not expect many changes. Also, it’s made with current job design in mind, so I have to cater to the 2mn meta.

To explain my aim, here were my guidelines while working on it:
1 – Trying to take inspiration to some removed points of PLD toolkit.
2 – Keeping PLD identity as being the most selfless tank.
3 – Make us have to think a bit more of the rotation.
4 – Adress button bloat a tiny bit.

So, here we go.

Skill merge and removal:

Removal:

Shield Bash
=> It’s a relic of a time far far gone. While it can be useful marginally (in theory at least), there is not enough of them to justify wasting a skill slot on this skill. Also, no content will ever require having a spamable interrupt unless they give the same tool to other tanks. Given low blow exists and have a quite low cooldown, and with Shield Bash being a GCD with a really low potency, it’s basically a dead skill.

Merge:
Holy Spirit/Holy Circle merged, with Holy Spirit upgrading into Holy Circle. Make Holy Circle targeted.

Holy Circle:
Deals unaspected damage to target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 400 for the first enemy, and 75% less for all remaining enemies.
Divine Might Potency: 500 and 50% less for all remaining enemies.
Requiescat Potency: 700 and 50% less for all remaining enemies.
The effect of Divine Might will be prioritized over Requiescat when under the effect of both.
Additional Effect: Restores own HP
Cure Potency: 400

=> Since we’re in need of remove a bit of bloat, I don’t think we need to have two skills with the exact same usage, with one single target and the other AOE. So, I merged them. It would be targeted, which is a change for the AOE version. It’s mostly a QoL here to try and gain button space, I, myself, would not be opposed to keep both skills separated.

Changes to the rotation:

Goring Blade:
Deliver an attack with a potency of 250.
Fight or Flight Potency: 400
Additional Effect: Damage over time.
Potency: 30
Duration: 30s

=> Quite simple, Goring Blade is back being a DoT, just not linked to a recast timer nor a combo. It’s quite strong if you manage it well to have its full duration. Just a little thing more to manage. I still made it have a potency increase under Fight or Flight to keep a good burst in the 2mn window.

Intervene:
Rushes target and delivers an attack with a potency of 100.
Maximum Charges: 2
Cannot be executed while bound.
Recast Timer: 20s

=> Here is a tiny bit of change, reducing the cooldown to 20s to make it both more available and also have a non-standard recast timer. It “forces” a usage outside of FoF, which also helps for its usage as a mobility tool. I also lowered the potency, both because of the new cooldown and the new goring blade.

Defensive changes:

Cover:
Take all damage intended for another party member as long as said member remains within 20 yalms.
Additional Effect: Reduces damage taken by 10%.
Does not activate with certain attacks.
MP is depleted by 500 periodically. Effect ends upon reuse or when MP reaches 0.
Recast timer: 120s
MP Cost: 2000

=> I took a bit of inspiration from a bunch of things. First, from Stormblood’s version of Cover, I put back some mitigation on it to make it a bit stronger, but only 10% to not make it as strong as back then. Then, from Scholar Fey Union, I took the idea of the skill lasting until canceled or the resource needed for it depleted. Finally, from old DRK Heavensward Darkside, I took the idea of draining MP. The MP drain would be every server tick (about 3s).
I chose to remove cover from the Shield gauge to make it not compete with intervention, which is the clearly superior skill. I still wanted it to not be totally free, and Cover draining MP is not a big cost given how much PLD can generate and how relatively little it uses it but can still be problematic if not used well. The recast timer is finally to not make it abusable.

Divine Veil:
Creates a barrier around self and all party members near you that absorbs damage equivalent to 10% of your maximum HP.
Duration: 30s
Additional Effect: Gradually Restores HP.
Cure Potency: 100
Duration: 15s
Additional Effect: Restores target's HP
Cure Potency: 400

=> Just to make Divine Veil a bit more equal to Shake It Off (like Heart of Light and Dark Missionary are equal), I added the regen effect, but you don’t have the ability to boost the shield further – even if it’s on basis stronger for the party, given it’s based on the PLD max HP and not each party member max HP.
Edit : NOTE after the first few replies: This change is made specifically with how SE likes to buff tanks defensives and healing habilites, in an attempt to try keeping things mostly realistic. In my perfect fantasy version of the game, I would not touch it, or even nerf itactually nerf the skill by removing the healing part altogether. Feel free to ignore this if you don't like this change. =B

Finishing words and last explanations:[/B]

PLD is in a good place, so I did not change too much of the job. It flows well and my only real gripe gameplay wise is Goring Blade being a really boring button to press and forget every minute. I do think that PLD was quite good and unique gameplay wise before its 6.3 rework, but it would not work with the 2mn meta as we know, which is why I didn’t revert the changes made. And of course, potencies are something you would adjust to balance the job, as usual.

It's not a total rework, as I said I do like current PLD playstyle, but I tried to make it a bit more in depth for its rotation and tried to make cover no as niche as it is now.

Remember that this is a rework for the current expansion, Dawntrail. I can’t know which direction SE will take the job design philosophy for 8.0 and I mostly did this for fun.

That’s all. Thank you for taking time reading this. Don’t hesitate to share your thoughts.

I don't understand the obsession with making goring blade a DoT. That just makes it less useful. Now you can use it as a big spike damage, that is useful against any target. As a DoT you would only ever use it against high health targets. So disagreed, I am perfectly happy with Goring Blade as it is.

Divine Veil is already overly strong. It does not need any buff. A tank should not have a strong oGCD AoE heal in the first place.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by aiqa

I don't understand the obsession with making goring blade a DoT. That just makes it less useful. Now you can use it as a big spike damage, that is useful against any target. As a DoT you would only ever use it against high health targets. So disagreed, I am perfectly happy with Goring Blade as it is.

---

First reason, as I said, Goring Blade being a simple button you press and forget evey 60s is boring, uninteresting. The point you raise about not using it against low health target is actually, in my book, a pro. It means you have to THINK about its usage to optimise it, which makes for a more intersting gameplay with a bit of decision making. And if you're thinking about AOE situation, I mean... come on, it would be a "problem" (not really) only in dungeons where you don't really need to optimize your damage as much as in HL situations.
Even if you put forth M6S with its add phase as an exemple, which is one of the rare optimisation where you would have to think about it, I do think it would be a good problem to solve for raiders. I know, I played PLD for this tier and optimizing the add phase was fun, having a dot to manage thrown into the mix would make it more fun to optimize for me and most High end raiders, which is where job balance is the most important as long as low end content is not hindered, which is not the case here.

Second reason, I wanted to take inspiration from the history of the job, and Goring Blade WAS a DoT. I removed the requirement of it being a combo finisher to simplify the skill, but wanted to put it back being a DoT.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by aiqa

Divine Veil is already overly strong. It does not need any buff. A tank should not have a strong oGCD AoE heal in the first place.

---

The plot twist is that I DO agree. But as I said, I took Dawntrail job design into acount and one of the thing DT made is make all tanks even stronger defensively, with HP regen everywhere. Also, like I said, I only made it roughly equal to Shake it Off, so...
It's actually not something I care much, but I decided to throw it in because it would line up with SE modus operandi on DT job design philosophy.

I really don’t think “we made SIO to ridiculously overpowered because Xeno screams anytime WAR isn’t the best at everything” should be a design paradigm going forward

The shield healers would kill for an oGCD as powerful as shake, why is it on a tank

But your logic that square seems to endlessly buff the tanks equalising them isn’t offensive makes perfect sense

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Supersnow845

I really don’t think “we made SIO to ridiculously overpowered because Xeno screams anytime WAR isn’t the best at everything” should be a design paradigm going forward

The shield healers would kill for an oGCD as powerful as shake, why is it on a tank

But your logic that square seems to endlessly buff the tanks equalising them isn’t offensive makes perfect sense

---

I added the reasoning on the post itself. Might have been a mistake to try to imagine "how SE would reason" tbh.

nahh paladin is fine at is, everytime i see a thread like t h is pop up i question if you guys really know what ur doing as a tank

Neither of you make a good point about Goring Blade as a DoT.

There would be no thought if it's a 30s DoT, either. Now you use it every 60s. Then you'd use it every 30s. Wow. Many thought. Such deep. So complexity. Wow.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Carighan

Neither of you make a good point about Goring Blade as a DoT.

There would be no thought if it's a 30s DoT, either. Now you use it every 60s. Then you'd use it every 30s. Wow. Many thought. Such deep. So complexity. Wow.

---

I mean is it so wrong to see it as a flavour thing. To gore something means to pierce or wound something inducing it to bleed. That feels way more like a DOT than just a flat 700 potency damage.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Carighan

There would be no thought if it's a 30s DoT, either. Now you use it every 60s. Then you'd use it every 30s. Wow. Many thought. Such deep. So complexity. Wow.

---

While yes, it would not be much, it's still something to pay a bit of attention. It's not a lot, but it's still better than just pushing the glowy button every 60s.
Note that I didn't put a recast timer on Goring Blade, meaning you would have to check the dot duration and not wait for the button to lit up like a christmas tree.

Also, with this kind of reasoning, you end up going all the way to simplify everything.
In a vacum, almost any button is not complicated to push and no mecanics is complex, at all. It's the fact that you add them together that create an harmony, a rotation and, in the end, the complexity you mentionned.
My idea is not to make PLD complex, this would require a total rework and a change in the job design philosophy of SE. Still I still try to make it a bit more involved, and yes, having a DoT to manage on top of the rest of the rotation is still a tiny bit of complexity back. Not much, I agree. But still something more to care and something you can optimize with phases change and multiple targets.

I would love to see job design changes. I've played since Heavensward, and I do think that overall Stormblood had the best balancing of involving rotations without too much punishment. HW was too punishing, even if it made the job design really varied and in depht, and since ShB, job design has become less and less punishing over time to the point that you don't really have friction points anymore nowadays (and those that remains are usually ironed out), which are necessary to create a fulfilling sentiment when you push the skill ceiling - which is too low as of now imo.
I'm not holding too much breath for that, and while I have some hopes for 8.0 to at least make jobs more unique, I do not think they will make them much more complex, if at all.

That last bit was a bit of a rant on a tengent topic, sorry for that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nivarea

Removal:

Shield Bash

---

How to say "dont even look at the deep dungeon's direction" without saying it.

Anyway, I just want action change expanded. I'm old already, neuropathy all over my left hand. Buttons turning into other buttons would be super helpfun, even if it was just one change.
But that isn't even just PLD problem. PLD is just, well, my job of choice.

suggested holy circle/spirit change seems alright
goring being dot again would be alright
just take damage away from gap-closer
i want stormblood cover back, too
dunno how effective regen of divine veil would be but i guess more is more

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nivarea

Also, with this kind of reasoning, you end up going all the way to simplify everything.
In a vacum, almost any button is not complicated to push and no mecanics is complex, at all.

---

Of course, but if your only reason for having "complexity" is the 100% depth-less complexity that needs 24 hotbar buttons to achieve what other games manage with just, say, their dodge alone (even MMORPGs, look at GW2), then I would say your concept is so flawed you might as well remove it all.

That's not a sensible type of complexity. Because it adds no depth. You're still pushing a 100% static rotation, but you're doing it with 24 buttons in arcane combinations of order, but you could still write that entire order down from combat start to combat finish, knowing a particular fight. It can be fun to do individual elements of this in individual situations, of course. But that's mostly for supportive jobs, like Astros timing their Horoscope, Earthly Star or Macrocosmos so the healing goes off on its own at just the right moment. It can work for damage, but it's tricky there because you want to optimize your damage output, and hence whenever possible, make it as boring, flat and static as can be, as that ensures optimal output. It's why procs, random gains or losses of resources, or conflicting pseudo-random-chaos is so important in ~all games for damage dealing situations.

Really not a fan of such design. It's a trap many RPGs fall into, and it always makes all of its class- and RPG-mechanics so pointless. And it's not like plenty evidence from long-running MMOs don't exist about what does or does not work. And even quite diverse ones, after all WoW, FFXIV and GW2 for three simple examples don't at all share their underlying design paradigms. But in particular WoW explores so many intricacies of procs and randomness, it's easy to take input from it. While GW2 shows why unification of buffs and debuffs is cool, but very difficult to pull off right, despite how good an idea it is. Or why, more pertinent to this discussion, removing the tanking and healing aspects of MMORPG design is such an issue, although we can see that from FFXIV here too, of course.

I dunno, the point about making it a DoT for flavor reasons for example is sensible. "Goring" blade. Doesn't sound like a single hit. But trying to add gameplay complexity via having to manually track and reapply a DoT is only sensible if it replaces some other pointless complexity with this pointless complexity.

It's also why I'm fully with you on aggressively removing abilities and/or merging them. The fact we got so many buttons that add very little complexity and 0 depth is just pointless, when so many wouldn't need to exist.

Although, while I'm all for merging Holy, I'd keep Shield Bash insofar that Paladin would have a trait that "upgrades" interject to it (so it's also an interrupt against enemy that cannot be stunned), mostly for flavor reasons as like you say, it does ~nothing right now.

They're not going to give back damage over time abilities unless they raise the buff and debuff cap. One of the biggest issues right now is buffs and debuffs getting knocked off, especially in 24-man and field operation content, hence why so many jobs have had them removed.

I really like a lot of the changes personally, I'd want Shield bash to become a useful OGCD skill personally as paladin should use their shield more.

Divine veil changes I think I like the regen but would move away from the burst heal (same goes for shake, they don't really need the burst heal), Cover might also mess up your magic attacks and I feel like if anything you've nerfed it 10% mitigation isn't really a lot to justify the massive mp cost to it. Going blade becoming less boring is always nice, I'd much prefer it become something you manage as a separate combo action like warrior does but anything better then current going blade is a plus, Intervene having more uptime is fun.

Overall good changes just iffy on Cover, I think both veil and shake could have the regen but remove the burst heal.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by aiqa

I don't understand the obsession with making goring blade a DoT. That just makes it less useful. Now you can use it as a big spike damage, that is useful against any target. As a DoT you would only ever use it against high health targets. So disagreed, I am perfectly happy with Goring Blade as it is.

Divine Veil is already overly strong. It does not need any buff. A tank should not have a strong oGCD AoE heal in the first place.

---

1. Paladin already has 4 burst buttons that deal more damage, goring blade in its current form is Not Useful or unique.
2. Rotational skills don't need to be outright "useful" they just need to be fun, if we only had "useful" skills we'd only be bursting.

Plus on DV AOE heals on tanks is somewhat fine if limited, the reason why you don't like it is because this game doesn't have high healing output so you feel as if a tank is taking away your job if they have some protective skills, when in reality tanks should have strong utility and even ways to provide sustain to a team, but it should also strongly be the healers job.

Though I guess if i bring up the fact we can have balanced tanks that provide great support and balanced healers we'd still find reasons to complain as healers want to feel exclusive.

Though OP had good ideas, unfortunately I don't think it works in FFXIV for a couple of reasons:

- Game's system hates new debuffs.
- Since they decided to change Goring Blade into a power attack, they won't go back every into being a DoT. Sorry, just forget it. I have never seen an instance where a dev, any dev, went back on their decision.
- The job is already more complex than it ever was. Adding more complexity to a popular starter job is a no-go, specially a job which is the staple of all other jobs, the famous " Human Fighter" trope.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rithy255

1. Paladin already has 4 burst buttons that deal more damage, goring blade in its current form is Not Useful or unique.
2. Rotational skills don't need to be outright "useful" they just need to be fun, if we only had "useful" skills we'd only be bursting.

---

A "press once every 30 seconds against bosses" button, is no more fun for me than a "press every 60 seconds when <4 targets" button.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rithy255

Plus on DV AOE heals on tanks is somewhat fine if limited, the reason why you don't like it is because this game doesn't have high healing output so you feel as if a tank is taking away your job if they have some protective skills, when in reality tanks should have strong utility and even ways to provide sustain to a team, but it should also strongly be the healers job.

Though I guess if i bring up the fact we can have balanced tanks that provide great support and balanced healers we'd still find reasons to complain as healers want to feel exclusive.

---

It's not just content. Shake it off is also just a stronger heal than any single support ability from healers. Having some support for tanks is fine. But not strong oGCD, and not by making individual tank support abilities stronger than individual healer abilities.

Limited, but still strong, GCD support is completely fine. Clemency is a great model for support abilities on tanks.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by aiqa

A "press once every 30 seconds against bosses" button, is no more fun for me than a "press every 60 seconds when <4 targets" button.



It's not just content. Shake it off is also just a stronger heal than any single support ability from healers. Having some support for tanks is fine. But not strong oGCD, and not by making individual tank support abilities stronger than individual healer abilities.

Limited, but still strong, GCD support is completely fine. Clemency is a great model for support abilities on tanks.

---

Pressing it every 30s is better then every 60s, personally I want it back on the combo action, even if it's less strict them it was before.

I also disagree that shake it off is the strongest heal then any type of support ability, Kerachole is a good example of this as it's a 10% mitigation + 100 potency regen for all allies plus the fact that healer potency is outright stronger then tank potency due to healers having a boost in their passive heal and damage potencies, all it lacks is the 300 potency burst heal but is made up by its on a 30s timer, not to mention the sheer amount of other healing AOE's sage gets, other healers have their counterparts.

Tanks Utility should be less Selfish more then anything, tanks do not need like 6 billion ways to raise their defence and have passive mitigation, of course they need to be sturdy to a degree but if healers want to heal tanks, they should actually have less mitigation and take actual damage from big pulls and bosses, Healers should actively feel a difference when putting defensive skills on tanks.

Now in Current final fantasy 14 are tanks healing/defensive kits overtuned? 100% but also healer kits are massively overtuned to the point of parody, both in fact have so many tools that it becomes over excessive especially in normal or even ext content.

OGCD support skills should exist, Using your OGCDs should reward you in the fact it should save some healer gcds, I dont think we need a bunch of tank supportive gcds (though i dont mind skills like clemency for emergencies). But I don't think tanks having access to some ogcds should replace the healers job entirely.

I think my point is that both tanks and healers are massively overtuned in a very undertuned low healing output game, the way to better that is not to remove tanks tools (though im in favour of toning down skills like i mentioned shake shouldn't have burst heal) but we should actually want a game that gets us to use our tools as tanks and healers and think about them, instead of having free value with low output.

I get healers might be upset that their healing identity is took from tanks but it's also my idenitity as a "paladin" to have healing and protection skills I rather we not default to oh you can only support in a rare emergency, go play slow dps 99% of the time, I want healers and tanks to frankly feel better rather then arguing who gets the shiny cool skills.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rithy255

Pressing it every 30s is better then every 60s, personally I want it back on the combo action, even if it's less strict them it was before.

---

We already have 7 skills in our main combo, and technically current Goring Blade is a combo action. As in, it combos off of something else. What more could you possible want then?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Carighan

We already have 7 skills in our main combo, and technically current Goring Blade is a combo action. As in, it combos off of something else. What more could you possible want then?

---

"7 combo skills" No theirs not 7 skills in our main combo, you get 5 skills one that you spam three times with unique visual effects, it's the same as atonement spam 6.3+ the only difference is it looks visually different so people will point and go "wow paladin got a lot this expansion!!"

What I'm talking about is a alternative combo pathway goring blade made it so you weren't just repeating 1, 2, 3 atonementx3 over and over as filler it meant you were alternating between 1, 2, 3 atonementx3 and 1, 2, 3 goring blade. While having two seperate bursts instead of just one massive boring one.

Nor do I care if goring blade is "technically" a combo skill, it serves no actual purpose other then to add one extra skill to your burst (which could frankly be done by letting u use one empowered holy spirit still) nor does fight or flight serve a actual purpose because req is your burst skill.

What more can I want then? them to make tank rotations engaging, add more combo paths and finishers, add proc attacks to them, make tanks engaging to play instead of boring filler and boring burst.

I mean if I press Goring Blade every second combo, that's no more brain engaging than what we have right now, sorry. That's not an alternative combo pathway, that's just a longer just as static combo (1-2-3 -> Atonement x3 -> Holy -> 1-2-3 -> Goring, static, repeat ad absurdum).

That's kinda my point with many of these ideas. They don't change the actual problem, they just paint a new color over the symptoms. If you want to fix this, you need to introduce procs and randomization, at least given the current framework. In theory there are alternatives, but that'd require extremely extensive reworks.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Carighan

I mean if I press Goring Blade every second combo, that's no more brain engaging than what we have right now, sorry. That's not an alternative combo pathway, that's just a longer just as static combo (1-2-3 -> Atonement x3 -> Holy -> 1-2-3 -> Goring, static, repeat ad absurdum).

That's kinda my point with many of these ideas. They don't change the actual problem, they just paint a new color over the symptoms. If you want to fix this, you need to introduce procs and randomization, at least given the current framework. In theory there are alternatives, but that'd require extremely extensive reworks.

---

Why i mentioned procs, but having a core fundamental fun rotation that isn't just 1, 2, 3 spam ontop of that would be the best solution.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Carighan

That's kinda my point with many of these ideas. They don't change the actual problem, they just paint a new color over the symptoms. If you want to fix this, you need to introduce procs and randomization, at least given the current framework. In theory there are alternatives, but that'd require extremely extensive reworks.

---

Static rotations are ultimately a consequence of static encounter timelines. Adding procs and randomness to a job/class merely papers over that fact, and it wouldn't make any sort of aesthetic or thematic sense in many cases.

I'd rather encounters be more random and dynamic.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

I'd rather encounters be more random and dynamic.

---

This does not provide that fix, and we can look at other MMOs to draw this conclusion, plenty of which have plenty encounters that do not have fixed timelines. Players would still fall into statically aligned buff-alignment windows for burst phases whenever possible.

You can overdo it, and make fights so random that you cannot possibly use even the most static character design kit in a static manner. But in FFXIV, not even that would work. For one, our player kits have no options for this. Everything is on (comparatively) lengthy CDs. We have but one way of playing, basically. And second, to do this stuff would need to be so random, there is no reliable difficulty any more. You could just pull a few times on a savage boss until you get an easy run where they never use ability XYZ at all, bam, easy peasy clear.

And again, other MMOs did stuff like this already. GW2 in particular has highly randomized encounters in its early world bosses, and see how well that went down with players...
WoW also had bosses without fixed timelines that'd just ... "do stuff" between a few hard-coded moments. And it went away from that design, and for good reason, it was too restrictive for character design in fact.