In Light of the WAR 2.1 Adjustments, Can We Expect Tweaks to PLD as Well? My Thoughts

[AppleGrocer]

Okay first of all, if all the War changes go through and turn out to be just as/or stronger than people expect them to be it's not like Paladins will suddenly become unplayable or gimp or destroyed. I think we all know that.

You aren't complaining about issues with balance in regards to mechanics or numbers or gameplay. It seems like you're complaining about not being FotM anymore... to this all I can say is wait it out man. FotM always changes, some classes are hot and some are not and then they switch places every patch or two. Just roll what you want to play, a group will take you, I promise. I can get into Coil groups with my War just the way it is. Am I sub-optimal, sure. Do I make my healers work harder than they need to compared to a pally, of course. But I still get groups and I still clear content. I'm 100% sure Pally won't be any worse off.

[Mitski]

*SNIP*

As long as there is more than one tanking job, there will always be a "best". Perfect balance for all content is impossible, but any differences should be acceptable as long as similarly skilled/geared players of each class are able to achieve similar results. The 2.1 changes should accomplish that.

Also, the mitigation/cooldown ratio is an interesting concept for discussion, but it's a poor basis for comparing effectiveness in a real encounter. Normalizing all mitigation abilities around that ratio would be a huge mistake.

The impact of static abilities on effective HP (defiance vs shield oath) is where your logic is most applicable, and SE has done a splendid job of balancing those abilities.

[Mitski]

It seems like you're complaining about not being FotM anymore...

Funny how that works isn't it? PLD were more or less content until WAR buffs were announced, and now the whole forum is flooded with PLD tears.

[Obsidian]

The game must have changed a lot after I left midway through the WotG expansion, because I don't really remember all these choices you're talking about.



I seriously doubt that SE announced these changes because they wanted our feedback. They announced them so we know they care.

The reason why "wait until it's all implemented" is a good approach is because its very possible that even with these changes Warrior will still be a subpar tank. Remember, not only are these changes not final, but they also haven't given us exact details on how these changes will be implemented.It also doesn't help that your initial post makes some pretty questionable assumptions that I can only imagine were made to put Warrior's on a pedestal to justify why Paladin's need a buff. You have no reason to believe the Storm's Path debuff will be more potent than the Rage of Halone debuff. You call the changes to Holmgang balanced when compared to Hallowed Ground, which is beyond ridiculous. And you completely ignore that Paladins will still have better mitigation than a Warrior after patch 2.1.

I'm not sure why these assumptions are "questionable," so if you could enlighten me it would be appreciated.

As far as I'm aware the impact enemy STR has on damage dealt is unknown at this point, and would only effect physical damage anyway. The buff to Storm's Path will affect all outgoing damage, so even if they end up being roughly the same potency, WAR will be decreasing damage overall more effectively than PLD by virtue of also inhibiting magic damage.

Care to explain why you think Holmgang isn't balanced against Hallowed Ground? They're both "don't kill me" abilities. One is gained at 42 (and isn't even exclusive to WAR), the other at 50. One grants immunity to death for six seconds, the other for 10. You can use Holmgang 2.3 times per Hallowed Ground. Which of these screams unbalanced to you?

I didn't completely ignore that. In fact, the entire first half of the post discusses mitigation between the two. Defiance now effectively neutralizes Shield Oath. Inner Beast now completely neutralizes Rampart in terms of effective mitigation (IB is 6%, Rampart is 4.4%). Vengeance is ~1.53% more than Sentinel is, and if you add Bulwark on to that, the net difference is .55% in PLD's favor, until you remember that shield blocks don't process on magic so it still works out in WAR's favor.

Also consider that shield blocks artificially reduce Paladin's Parry rate (not particularly important), and shield blocks are ~4% more potent than a parry would be (28% to 24%), so assuming a block rate of 28% and a parry rate of 13% (I don't know the actual rate but DEX is non-existent on tank gear so it's probably almost floored), and that blocks process before parries:

1000 hits for 100 damage each

Shield: 7840 damage blocked
Parry (13% of the remaining 720 hits): 2246 damage parried
Combined: 10086 mitigated
Total damage done before mitigation: 100,000

Opposed to just parrying: 3120 damage parried

So there's a ~5% advantage in PLD's favour against physical damage (Shield + Parry vs just Parry is ~7%, minus the difference between Rampart and Inner Beast Buff), and puts WAR's effective mitigation ahead by over 3% on enemies that exclusively use magic. The net difference here being ~2% in PLD's favor before considering WAR's self-heals.

"So what? They're about equal like they should be." Not quite. None of the above considers offensive potential, where WAR now clearly has the advantage. They're able to bypass the damage penalty on Defiance ~17% of the time, whereas PLD cannot. Maim is an effective 20% damage increase because it can be kept up at all times, compared to an average increase in damage of 10% from Fight or Flight. The debuff from Storm's Eye reduces slashing resistance by 15% which PLD does not have access to on its own. It also does significantly more AoE damage than PLD is capable of, and has the added bonus of generating substantially more enmity while doing so. This is why I would like to see Shield Swipe turned into a normal ability with the Combo effect of being conal with increased enmity generation (at the cost of much more TP), or have increased enmity added to Circle of Scorn.

Most of my suggestions also revolve around the disturbing number of PLD abilities that are currently useless or effectively useless, or completely unbalanced when compared to other tools in Paladin's arsenal (lookin' at you, Bulwark and Awareness). I don't see it's unreasonable or "whiny" to be asking for those things to be made serviceable.

Please don't tell me my assumptions (which are indeed simply educated guesses) are unreasonable without supplying your own logic for examination.

Edit:

Okay first of all, if all the War changes go through and turn out to be just as/or stronger than people expect them to be it's not like Paladins will suddenly become unplayable or gimp or destroyed. I think we all know that.

People without relics are still certainly capable of dealing damage, yet there are many, many shouts that mandate you have one to be able to join (even for the trivial content like Amdapor Keep and Castrum Meridianum). There are also many, many shouts that specifically ask for PLDs (which is unreasonable), and should these buffs be as potent as some expect them to be, the situation will just flip to shouts exclusively looking for WARs (also unreasonable). How is this any better than what we have now?

[Mitski]

*SNIP*

You are clearly over reacting to the WAR changes.

[Leiron]

Actually, a reduction of 25% towards your damag is equivalent to losing 33% of your damage.
Maim + Storm's Eye does not over come this debuff.

PLD loses only 25%, and the STORM's eye debuff enable it to do overall, greater damage thana Warrior when they are both in tank stance.

[Marleytiva]

I would also request that potential contributors to this specific conversation actually read more than the title of the thread before chiming in with comments like "WAR needed the buff" or "PLD is fine lolol." At the end of the post I stated explicitly that no one job should preclude the use of another, regardless of which jobs are being framed in the discussion. The idea that PLD deserves to sit out for a couple months while WAR has its time in the sun is one that I find particularly offensive and ignorant, and interestingly enough, an argument that seems to be made predominantly by accounts that were created in August or later. Not only is it offensive insofar as people are wishing for the the exclusion of others out of spite, but it is incredibly ignorant of the state of job balance in FFXIV 1.0.

The date that someone registered their forum account has no bearing on this discussion. It's similar to me saying that you actually need to level Warrior and play it in endgame before your opinion matters on job balance between the two.

I honestly don't see many of the Warriors wanting Paladins out of endgame content (there's surely a few, but douche bags will be douche bags). I actually look forward to the default endgame parties having both. Everything that I've read about the upcoming Warrior changes suggests that Paladin and Warriors will , at worst, be almost equal instead of the massive discrepancy we have currently. Paladin could use a few QoL changes too, but they don't need any buffs. Their usefulness and utility in endgame was never in question before the announcement of these Warrior buffs and nothing suggests that this will change at all. It honestly sounds more like many of you are scared of sharing the spotlight instead of always being the default tank.

It implies that they have no experience from 1.0 and are therefore unaware of the irony of the argument they are making. Obviously this will not apply to everyone (some people just never felt the need to register before), but it certainly applies to some.

It's still 100% irrelevant. 1.0 is dead and gone. You playing 1.0 matters about as much as me playing XI.

The us vs them mentality being thrown around here is counterproductive in my opinion. Everyone should be hoping that everyone receives changes that will improve their effectiveness, because improving one of us behoves us all.

You're absolutely right that it's counterproductive to have that mindset. There are some though that are rightfully annoyed that people that are playing the already strong job are asking for buffs when the Warrior changes aren't even in the game yet. There was never a question of Paladins being viable before these changes and nothing has changed since then for them. It honestly sounds like you're scared that Warriors might be your equivalent now.

[Obsidian]

You are clearly over reacting to the WAR changes.

Strange. I thought I was attempting to devise ways to increase (or in several cases, actually create) utility for many of PLD's underwhelming skills while simultaneously trying to balance them against the (for now, at least) undeniably potent WAR changes forthcoming. If you could perhaps elaborate on your position, I would appreciate it. Evaluating the three or four substantial posts I've made thus far with as many words as I have total posts on these forums is slightly insulting to the lengths I've gone to articulate myself, and certainly not an effective means of swaying my opinion.

Now if Holmgang was something like "HP cannot drop below 20%" (or whatever number needed to not get instantly gipped after Holmgang ends) then we could start talking about how the ability is comparable to Hallowed Ground. The way the ability is currently described, more often than not, the "invincibility" effect will either never kick in or be completely worthless.

I will argue that they are, in most situations, comparable because they will (or are already in Hallowed Ground's case) be used when HP is already low and death is imminent. In these circumstances (5+ stacked Grudge from Tonberry King, 3+ Vulnerability Chain Lightning + double attack from ADS, unexpectedly strong Whip Lash thing from Caduceus, preoccupied healer, etcetera): keeping you alive long enough to be healed. I submit that more often than not, both are/will be use in a reactive fashion, and not a preventative one.

The date that someone registered their forum account has no bearing on this discussion.

It implies that they have no experience from 1.0 and are therefore unaware of the irony of the argument they are making. Obviously this will not apply to everyone (some people just never felt the need to register before), but it certainly applies to some.

I would like to quote the final paragraph of my original post, because it seems many people aren't getting that far:

Everyone wants WAR to be able to participate in all content, but WAR's (or any other class/job's) participation should not come at the cost of PLD's exclusion (or any other class/job). We should not be striving to return to the Sixth Umbral Era of Warrior supremacy, just as PLD's iron grip on the Seventh Umbral Era should come to an end.

The us vs them mentality being thrown around here is counterproductive in my opinion. Everyone should be hoping that everyone receives changes that will improve their effectiveness, because improving one of us behoves us all.

Edit:

Because healer really needs to be on the ball to heal Warriors after Holmgang while they don't have to for Paladin?

How many mobs only use magic exclusively???

Storm's Eyes decreases slashing resistance by 10% and only up 66% of the time currently (1 SE, 2 BB is the combo, noone ever does 1 SE, 1 BB as that renders Maim's trait useless and not as much enmity). I'm confused by what you meant when you say it also does significantly more aoe damage, Storm's Eye is single target and you need the combo bonus for the slashing resistance so it's not like you can just tab and use Storm's Eye on multiple target.
Tell me more about how much a lv14 marauder knows about a warrior's problem.

"It" as in, the job, not Storm's Eye. Also, woops. I was thinking about the 50% healing debuff while writing the 10% slashing debuff and they got combined. Many mobs use a combination of magic and physical damage which will result in equal mitigation by both jobs (Tumult is magic, Fireballs from Twintania are magic, all the Node enemies are exclusively magic, just off the top of my head). When damage taken is approximately equal, the conversation turns to damage done, where WAR has the clear advantage.

By your own logic you're equally unqualified to comment on most of this thread as it (was meant to) pertains to potential PLD adjustments. Please tell me more about how my eyes and brain are rendered irrelevant in the face of my MRD's level.

[Lemon8or]

Care to explain why you think Holmgang isn't balanced against Hallowed Ground? They're both "don't kill me" abilities. One is gained at 42 (and isn't even exclusive to WAR), the other at 50. One grants immunity to death for six seconds, the other for 10. You can use Holmgang 2.3 times per Hallowed Ground. Which of these screams unbalanced to you?

Because healer really needs to be on the ball to heal Warriors after Holmgang while they don't have to for Paladin?

So there's a ~5% advantage in PLD's favour against physical damage (Shield + Parry vs just Parry is ~7%, minus the difference between Rampart and Inner Beast Buff), and puts WAR's effective mitigation ahead by over 3% on enemies that exclusively use magic. The net difference here being ~2% in PLD's favor before considering WAR's self-heals.

How many mobs only use magic exclusively???

"So what? They're about equal like they should be." Not quite. None of the above considers offensive potential, where WAR now clearly has the advantage. They're able to bypass the damage penalty on Defiance ~17% of the time, whereas PLD cannot. Maim is an effective 20% damage increase because it can be kept up at all times, compared to an average increase in damage of 10% from Fight or Flight. The debuff from Storm's Eye reduces slashing resistance by 15% which PLD does not have access to on its own. It also does significantly more AoE damage than PLD is capable of, and has the added bonus of generating substantially more enmity while doing so. This is why I would like to see Shield Swipe turned into a normal ability with the Combo effect of being conal with increased enmity generation (at the cost of much more TP), or have increased enmity added to Circle of Scorn.

Storm's Eyes decreases slashing resistance by 10% and only up 66% of the time currently (1 SE, 2 BB is the combo, noone ever does 1 SE, 1 BB as that renders Maim's trait useless and not as much enmity). I'm confused by what you meant when you say it also does significantly more aoe damage, Storm's Eye is single target and you need the combo bonus for the slashing resistance so it's not like you can just tab and use Storm's Eye on multiple target.
Tell me more about how much a lv14 marauder knows about a warrior's problem.

[Mitski]

*SNIP*

Elaboration on why I think you're over reacting...

1. Most of your comparisons are inaccurate or incomplete to make PLD seem more inferior.
2. You exaggerate both the magnitude of the disparity between WAR and PLD and the impact any disparity will have on PLD quality of life.
3. You type way too much!