Suggestion - Increase PLD Healing Support, not Dps

[winsock]

snip

Lol no.
Tank dps doesn't take away from a dps role. DPS should be focusing on pushing the highest dps possible, regardless of the party comp. WAR would only step on the dps role if say, he could give a monk chakra, or a BLM astral fire.

If healing was only about pushing as much HPS as possible, clemency wouldn't matter. But healing is not about pushing as much HPS as you possibly can. It's about timing, efficiency, prioritizing, and managing scarce resources like insta heals. An insta heal clemency steps too far into the healing role.
This would be similar to allowing healers to push enmity to the tank or allowing healers to provoke for the tank.

Hint: also... Why do you think healers need to trigger divine veil? SE was smart to do it this way.

[Reynhart]

Thus why the only way for this to work would be to make PLD an actual healer.

Not necessary an "actual" healer. For example, if you can only heal a single target, that doesn't make you a real healer.
Or you could adjust PLD healing capacity to be specifically designed to heal the main tank. Like varying potency based on the target's enmity.

PLD could also help others, not by healing but by offering more mitigation. We could have cover on a shorter cooldown, or Sheltron that could block the next hit as long as the target is in range (The range of the animation).
Which would help you replenish some MP to keep healing.

With that, a PLD OT could delay the HP loss of the main tank, allowing the real main healer to focus the whole party when needed.

Give Sword Oath a raw DPS boost even 5% would be something

Sword Oath should increase potency of all actions by 20%. With our auto-attack speed, the effect would be slightly less than what it is now, BUT, it would benefit the enmity gain of weapon skills, for those would like to tank in Sword Oath once in a while, AND, would also boost the potencies of oGCD skill, like Circle Of Scorn and Spirits Within, AND, more importantly for this topic, would also boost the potency of Clemency, thus making it more viable to keep the main tank alive.

[pandabearcat]

Unless PLD healing support is high enough that you can solo heal progression (w/ PLD support), NOONE will ever use a pld for that purpose.

[Reynhart]

Unless PLD healing support is high enough that you can solo heal progression (w/ PLD support), NO ONE will ever use a pld for that purpose.

That's exactly what a PLD OT should provide.

Of course, if you need two "main tank", like A1, this setup would probably be flawed, but it would work realy well when you have only one big target, like A4.

A different optimal party setup for each content will help all jobs to shine in some way.

[pandabearcat]

However there isn't any fight that a pld can solo tank that another class cannot solo tank.

Furthermore, most fights have mechanics that necessitate another tank.

Therefore this line of thinking doesn't really mesh with how MMOs work.

Literally the only thing that kills a boss is dps - hence everything is done to maximize dps. (we will avoid discussion of "healing bosses" like valithria dreamwalker for now...)

The only reason healing is needed is so that dps don't die, as that is a dps loss. For example if there is ever a mechanic where it is better for someone to simply eat it and die, rather than the rest of the group do the mechanic, than that is what the optimal strategy will do.

For this reason, unless PLD's "healing support" is enough to either replace a healer with dps or make it so that a healer can output more than the dps loss of the raid, because he doesn't need to heal as much, there is no reason for it.

We are also constrained by the fact that being a "safe" tank doesn't mean anything in progression and high skill play, which is the only time you will actually need to worry about your team comp - this is why you will bench a PLD when its marginal survivability (if that) will not contribute to your group's dps, and therefore is suboptimal.

Noone really cares if you run PLD in your static, and indeed many PLD have beaten savage turns. It is only if you are trying desperately for that last ounce of dps that you will bench a PLD in favor of something else - and this is what I assume people are trying to avoid.

[winsock]

... Snip

It's tricky though, and to be fair, there is also no content that *requires* a WAR.

Making PLD take a healer spot isn't fair to healers. Most of us would rather heal than dps, we just end up dpsing because there isn't usually enough to heal.

So what can you do?:
If you buff PLD dmg to be on par with WAR, PLD becomes the superior tank because its safer.
If you buff HPS you to the point where PLD is a viable healer, it steps on healer's toes.
If you create content that requires a PLD, it isn't fair to the other tanks.

PLD still brings a unique and beneficial kit to the table, even if it isn't the kit that the min-maxers crave. It also does this without overstepping. I'd hesitate to call anything perfectly balanced, but would consider PLD balance to be reasonable.

[pandabearcat]

What I'm saying is all tanks dps should be equal, because all content is about dps.

Similarly, a "hard" class should do as much dps as an "easy" class (see arcane mages, hunters, etc, vs everyone else). It is not about risk vs reward. It is about playing what you wish to play - and you should not handicap another class because you feel they have it "too easy" - rather you should push for interesting and unique rotations for everyone, instead of such a ridiculously set in stone rotation you can literally sim the game with a spreadsheet - that is so sad...add that to the fact every class has the same resource, and you have a very bland game combatwise.

I would also push for bard/mch to retain their dps AND get their mobility back, but...balance their dps around average numbers across fights.

WoW does a much better job of class balance than here, and there are like 15-20 different classes, all with incredibly varied rotations, as opposed to here, where there is pretty much one "rotation" archetype with some oGCDs and 2 classes have an actual proc.

Anyway that aside, most tanks are very similar to each other in terms of damage. Sure you can say one tank has more cds, etc, but tanks aren't balanced around their cd's in wow, they're balanced around the actual fact that they are actively tanking.

So what seems to be am impossible problem may really only be the setting in which the tanks are placed in - a setting where there is no real tank input into their survivability, where dps checks are pretty much the only difficult part of the game.

It is in this setting where the tanks seem to have an "unfair" advantage over the other. I'm telling you dps is not the way to balance it - all tanks should have an active and unique way to handle their survivability, instead of brief moments of active tanking and long, long periods of simply leaving it entirely up to the healer...these are the moments that make tanks simply glorified dps.

EDIT: Also wanted to clarify I am not saying specifically that WAR is needed. What I am saying is that nothing a PLD brings is needed, therefore by default I will pick the class with the highest dps, and that is WAR atm.

[Brightsayge]

WoW does a much better job of class balance than here, and there are like 15-20 different classes, all with incredibly varied rotations, as opposed to here, where there is pretty much one "rotation" archetype with some oGCDs and 2 classes have an actual proc.

ehh took wow like 7 years to figure out class balance.

[pandabearcat]

ehh took wow like 7 years to figure out class balance.

Yes I know. It is not easy, and I am patient with this game.

But what is concerning to me is why FF14 which came out 7 years after wow, didn't start at that point, instead started where Vanilla WoW started...

[Faytte]

WoW is hardly balanced, if you follow it patch to patch, one class is dumpster, another is great.

The issue is that Paladins dont fit a niche in this content. If you ignroe hallowed ground, then they do the least damage an in turn they have
1) better mitigation vs auto attacks
2) divine veil every 3 minutes
3) a heal they cant use effectively
4) sheltron every 30 seconds which gets used on...auto attacks
5) terrible enmity generation