All this talk about Paladin needing buffs. Let's Royal Authority Brainstorm.

[Phoenicia]

Snip.

Sorry to break it to you mate, but PLD is not "meant to be main tank" any more than the other two. In ANY encounter that a PLD can MT, a WAR can do just as good a job, while dishing out more DPS. And in any encounter with heavy magic damage, a DRK will do a better job than PLD while still dishing out more damage.

PLD superiority isn't its mitigation, it's its safety net.

Now that is cleared, let's move on to gearing choice:

Tanking in this game is about having enough survivability to survive the biggest hit long enough to receive the next heal, anything more is "wasted". From there, you should invest in DPS/aggro.

You shouldn't underestimate PLD DPS, even if it is lower than the other tanks.

Tanks using slaying accessories is not "using gear they're not supposed to use". It's not like tanks are deliberately wearing lower item levels or, God forbid, Disciple of War (leather) gear for added DPS stats, now THAT would hurt.

I do not understand the logic behind this one: you say it irks you when PLD uses STR gear then you say something like "The other things I would like to see for PLD is bringing back the block mechanic based on strength for damage reduction." Where is the logic in this one?

Parry AND block are random, it's not just parry. And to fix it, SE gave you Sheltron and you already had Bulwark.

I do not care what they do with Shield Swipe, it is floating in a very iffy spot atm.

Royal Authority is already a very high potency combo finisher. It is so high up there actually. It doesn't need any buffs or debuffs added.

Only change PLD really needs is the enmity multipliers on its main combo. Yes they do not have Maim/Darkside, but PLD is the only class that has enmity generators in 2 of its 3 combos. It is also the only class that has a reactive ability with an enmity multiplier (Shield Swipe). And they are the only class that includes an AoE attack that has a triple enmity multiplier (CoS) in their single target rotation.

[ZDamned]

Fight or Flight is also one of the strongest Damage increasing cooldowns in the game, so you can add 30% more enmity to the first 3 Rage of Halone combos you do. Shield Oath already doubles your enmity, and if you use a full suite of Slaying accessories, You in 1 single rage of Halone combo will hold more enmity on a single enemy than it would take for another DPS to kill it by itself. There is nothing wrong with Paladin, people are just not tab targeting.

If we keep begging SE to balance the game on the worst players, then the best players will get way too bored with it. I don't want another repeat of when I could flash 3 times, and go AFK....

[blackhawk]

well I can see why you wouldn't understand the logic behind the block mechanic. Two things in regards to that. We have a skill that guarantees a block which then reduces damage by the % and we have a skill that increases block rate by 60% so it's not as unpredictable and random as parry. You don't need extra strength to boost that % by stacking str acc. the main body pieces and weapons are enough and the amount of strength originally needed for each extra 1% reduction was too high. They adjusted it for 3.0 to do nothing. As for the safety net that is from the from the skills given to pld as opposed to the other 2 tanks which comes down to mitigating more damage. As for the pld dps it was clearly designed to be less than the other tanks war was giving built in additional crit which is for pure extra damage. while drk magic reduction is nice there are few groups that run MT as war and the majority still run pld so yeah even if you think it isn't meant to be mt the player base says otherwise

[Draciella]

im shocked people still can't play such a simple class. Incase its been missed, all the new tank busters far exceed even a WAR's max hp atm, in my opinion making VIT redundant to an extent. You get so much more ehp while using cd's its naive to assume vit is the only stat us tanks need. You can go on youtube and watch hundreds (already) of Alex savage videoes and i don't see any of those PLD's having any issues holding threat, and they seem to be quite happy in their groups. if you want to do more dps, switch class. If you want to be "old reliable" stay pld. Really don't wana hear Yoshida tell all PLD players to "get good".... get good at 1-2-3... my days

[Faeon]

@ blackhawk

I think the playerbase run with what they know, and from what they deem as the safest tank to take with. And that is usually a PLD, this also comes from people who run DF mostly. They prefer from my experience healing PLD in DF more than a WAR or DRK, since they feel the other two take way more DMG than a PLD. When I run with my FC they don't care either way tbh! But back on topic.

I think SE will probably buff the enmity modifier for RoH, after they have sorted the data from AlexSav, shield swipe I am not sure what they are going to-do about that since its like well ya "Phoenicia" said it best. I think using slaying and fending is a personal preference per say. I have both and swap between the two, though on DF I do find; lets say doing A4N, fending wins on the tank busters, I have noticed.

I think could be mistaken too, but the question is the DPS drop off going from Sword to Shield Oath and vice versa, that could be improved slightly better, what you think? or RA ignores the shield oath penalty when used with FoF maybe just throwing it out there. But I do think that all tanks have a place, I just see that everyone wants to just follow how the big FC's done it. which is sad really.

[Seku]

Actually i'm pretty sure that SE is working on the enmity of PLD. Found some reddit page last night saying their looking into increased enmity on tanks from gamescon.

edit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/3gmu49/full_translation_of_naoki_yoshidas_interview_with/

What about the other jobs?
Y: There are suspicions that tanks may be having a harder time holding threat than before, and we are looking into that. Level 60 DPS have largely increased attack power and we're worried that this might impose a heavier burden on tanks. In addition to that, other jobs may be adjusted as well. We are currently reviewing them based on what we see in Alexander (savage).

[blackhawk]

@Faeon
I agree that all tanks have a place. I think your best bet might be seeing the RoH combo enmity increased like earlier posts have stated. Something that would be nice to see is the strength debuff from RoH combo get refreshed by RA. This would allow for the RA combo to keep being used without having to swap back now and again to refresh that debuff. The enmity should never be an issue. opening with FoF and doing a few RoH combos before starting the dps centered rotation with RA should be more than enough to hold aggro until the next FoF. I have not had an aggro issue in 3.0 as pld yet. It really comes down to how pld is managing their rotation of RoH and RA+GB.

[Seku]

@Faeon
I agree that all tanks have a place. I think your best bet might be seeing the RoH combo enmity increased like earlier posts have stated. Something that would be nice to see is the strength debuff from RoH combo get refreshed by RA. This would allow for the RA combo to keep being used without having to swap back now and again to refresh that debuff. The enmity should never be an issue. opening with FoF and doing a few RoH combos before starting the dps centered rotation with RA should be more than enough to hold aggro until the next FoF. I have not had an aggro issue in 3.0 as pld yet. It really comes down to how pld is managing their rotation of RoH and RA+GB.

Maintaining enmity while pure DPSing(not using RoH all that much after establishing hate) is a issue for PLD in long fights with good DPS. The hate fix, depending on how well it's put in should allow PLD to spam RA for a good deal more if damage isn't a problem to warrant the STR debuff from RoH.

The refreshing of RoH's debuff through RA would also be nice though...

Now they just need to make it so where PLD can block while casting.

[Phoebus]

A few simple things would go a long way.

-Shield Swipe needs to be off gcd and given a cd.

This simple move would increase mt pld dps regardless of oath and devs adjust cd to adjust dps.

-Clemency needs shorter cast time.

Clemency shouldn't be instant as that feels too much like warrior already has. It is already gated by the large mp cost, but a smart pld should have the option to assist in between AA with a quick heal ot two.

[Dhex]

I don't know I use Fast->Savage->Authority without ever touching Rage of Halone and still have a safe enmity margin over a 6.5k-7.3k Raid DPS. That said - flat out in Shield Oath I can only run at 600-620DPS - 700 on Faust - but I'm running a few melded accessories that bump me up above 16k HP while only sacrificing 8~10STR from a full i190 Slaying setup.

Honestly the bigger issues for Paladin are; base damage in Shield Oath is penalized too heavily, TP consumption - and Clemency needs a shorter cast time.