Tank Balance

[karateorangutang]

snip

I think his frustration is getting in the way of his argument. Some of these abilities would not suffer from some tweaking to make them more useful in more situations. Flash and the pacification effect would be fine.

Tempered Will and cover are both extremely situational and not useful in some later content. Half the time tempered will is used so you can be lazy... not because its needed. If it gave a regain effect then there would be a choice in the process of using it. Shield Oath would give it the original effect and Sword Oath would give it a regain effect like goad. Do i blow it and chance getting pushed or do I wait and guarantee my survival of a mechanic.

All I want for cover is to be able to block a magic attack for somebody. That would make it way more useful as an OT ability.

Lastly, and I may get strung up for this, I'd like to see Sword Oath go away entirely. There is literally no reason for it to be an activate ability, it should be passively on. Do you ever not use a stance?
Shield Oath overrides it, keep it on the GCD. In return PLD gets a smoother stance dance and make the job even more accessible for new players without sacrificing effectiveness.

[Eye_Gore]

all of those situation, if you play like should made no a single difference if you use it or not. like I said only serve to be lazy not real usefulness to the class or the party just....prevent for giving a few steps back IF YOU PLAY CORRECTLY if it saves your life or your life depens on this ability then "git gud"

Because everyone is perfect, right? Even you? News flash, no one is. If I mess up and I'm in the wrong spot at the wrong time to avoid a possible wipe, I am going to use an ability that they put in the game for me to use. Call me lazy or what have you, if means I won't die, then I guess I'm lazy, and I'll keep on being lazy.

[Tadus]

Sword oath removed?? No thank you, there are many times a PLD can easily switch to and be on sword oath. I used sword oath in my dungeon the whole time, sometimes i don't even have to put shield oath. Helps clear the dungeon faster. While it may be true that it is hard to change to sword oath in savage and bosses, during MT, in no way should sword oath be removed.

[karateorangutang]

Sword oath removed?? No thank you, there are many times a PLD can easily switch to and be on sword oath. I used sword oath in my dungeon the whole time, sometimes i don't even have to put shield oath. Helps clear the dungeon faster. While it may be true that it is hard to change to sword oath in savage and bosses, during MT, in no way should sword oath be removed.

You took it the wrong way,

Sword oath is a passive and always on, it is deactivated upon the activation of shield oath.

I'm well aware of its use, I've tanked many dungeons with SwO on, but as there is absolutely no point in not having one or other on then I feel that on of them should be passive. SwO would be the better contender I feel as its the level 30 ability and more useful in solo play. WAR circumvents this by having it's stances oGCD. DRK uses its stances in a more independent fashion. PLD could have only one stance and stay just as effective.

[Ercapote]

Because...

let's be honest, if you are on the wrong moment at the wrong time + the latency of Tempered will, you will die, that ability wont save your ass, you will use that ability TIMED on a hit you know will push you back to avoid doing the process of positioning or moving, if it was that big of a deal, everyone will have an anti knockback ability, but they don't because you don't really need it, you are suppose to dodge and know how to do so, it's not a matter of being perfect. and no, I'm not. I did not tried to be insulting if anyone though that or that I'm raging, I wasn't referring to anyone in specific and if you did got offended then sorry before hand. but again that ability is irrelevant and anyone can live without it.

[Eye_Gore]

but again that ability is irrelevant and anyone can live without it.

Maybe for some, but if its there why not use it? I know when a knock back is coming, so why not use it, doesn't do any harm. Also it removes heavy, while not a huge deal in a dungeon, (except Wanderers Palace,trying to get that done solo and that King with his heavy if I move an inch). Anyways it has proved very useful in the over land world trying to get somewhere quick, where it be a FATE or hunt or just general annoyance of heavy. But whatever, it may be a boring class I still have roughly 22 abilities ( give or take a few) that I can and do use, gets too complicated for this old timer if its more. I have fun with it. Probably why I haven't really leveled anything else.

[Whiston]

Okay, the tempered will argument is pretty damned weak.
It's not laziness, it's a useful skill to improve your positioning strategy.

Might as well say sukuchi, spine shatter dive, aetherial manipulation, etc are all just for lazy people.
The truth of the matter is, the players who use these skills have found a legitimate reason to use these skills.
Just because you don't see the value in it, doesn't mean it has no value.

[Heavensword]

Hey guys, although I only started playing on HW launch day, I have played MMOs for over a decade and witnessed various types of mechanics and trinity balance. I also have extensive experience on all 3 roles of the Trinity and this is what I feel about PLD in this game. From my research and perspective, I feel PLD is designed to shut down physical damage, thus establish itself as the mitigation tank. Well, agreeing with other posters above, I too feel PLD is not "unique" in its own way. However, rather than looking at ways to tweak, active skills, I thought maybe we can take a look at "Traits", ie. PASSIVE skills. My ideas are as follows:

Enhanced Flash: This trait is unique to GLA/PLD and I feel it is not unique enough. Instead of just giving them somewhat lackluster Blind, Enhanced Flash allows Blind to be applied on ANY targets, including bosses, and let it not have diminishing return. Yes, this does mean you can permanently Blind a boss, which gives PLD more reason to use their mana bar and allow them to choose between dealing damage or mitigate damage. In order for this to be not abused to be I-WIN button for aggro generation, make it so that only when Blind was applied by PLD for the first time it generates aggro.

Changes to Shield Swipe and it's synergy : Remove the enmity part of Shield Swipe, make it 45 sec CD and oGCD. Create a new Trait, something like Enhanced Shield Swipe. This new traits will have 15% chance of reseting Shield Swipe CD upon a BLOCK and does double the potency. This will give PLD a chance to use Bulwark and Sheldtron(sp?) offensively. Also gives leveling PLD a chances to solo kill mobs faster.

Clemency: Change it to 10min CD, oGCD and cost no mana to use. It's effect would be healing the target for maximum of the PLD's hp, but puts a debuff on the target that last 3min, preventing Clemency to be used on the same target again for the duration. That way 2 PLDs cannot immortalize a target by stacking their Clemencies.

With these proposal, I hope to make PLD make some tanking choices. They can keep using RoH to generate aggro, or spend Flash to mitigate damage, choose to use Bulwark/Sheldtron for dps gain, while Clemency will be the panic button in case of emergencies. Please, evaluate on my ideas, will these work in FF14?

[Eye_Gore]

Clemency: Change it to 10min CD

Thats a bit much HG doesn't even take that long. Besides I rely on this heavily for boss fights running solo dungeons.

[HoodRat]

all of those situation, if you play like should made no a single difference if you use it or not. like I said only serve to be lazy not real usefulness to the class or the party just....prevent for giving a few steps back IF YOU PLAY CORRECTLY if it saves your life or your life depens on this ability then "git gud"

You strike me as a person who would rather stab himself in the eye if it meant you didn't have to dps as a tank. All this "I'm a tank I can't do damage it's against the law" nonsense is really getting annoying.