Tank Balance

[Sigmakan]

Seriously, what's with all the Tempered Will hate? I already explained how it's the most useful of Paladin's situational skills. Why aren't people attacking Shield Bash instead or something?

I don't get it either. Its up there with people saying DRK's Plunge is worthless. Movement abilities are very useful

[karateorangutang]

I don't get it either. Its up there with people saying DRK's Plunge is worthless. Movement abilities are very useful

Plunge has a 30 second cooldown, tempered will has a 3 minute cooldown. That separates these abilities in usefulness quite a bit.

Plunge gets bonus points for being a oGCD attack as well.

[Kali-ka]

I've been trying very hard to prevent myself from jumping into these discussions lol...but couldn't stay out of this one.

So as far as balancing goes, I really can't speak on everything. Although I have PLD and DRK at 60, and currently leveling WAR (@40) I can only speak on my experiences with the jobs as well as what I have read thus far. The TLDR of WAR and PLD: WAR seems perfectly fine to me (and a very fun job so far), and PLD could use some tweaks here and there, but I haven't had many problems with the job in my experiences (have done most content up to A1S on PLD).

And then there's DRK...I really pictured this job to be much different before it came out but was "mostly" pleasantly surprised by some of the things it could do. I'm a bit divided like most of the people who post on these forums about what I WANT from it and the changes I could realistically EXPECT them to make from the job.

Unrealistically: If I could redesign the job, I would completely get rid of Dark Arts first and foremost and somewhat bring back the absorb system. For a comparable MP cost (read lower) than DA, have Absorb Offense which would not only debuff the targets damage done for a fixed amount of time (just throwing it out there: 3-5% for 10 secs maybe?) and give the DRK the option to use a one time charge on any WS to boost it (much like DA works now) and still have the same affects on other WS such as HP absorb from SE, more enmity from PS and such, but would probably add a modifier to siphon to absorb more MP. Then have Absorb Defense (or call it whatever) would lower target's defense an amount (again thinking 3-5% for 10 secs)and would be able to enhance any of the DRK's defensive cooldowns (more mitigation on shadow skin/wall, more parry on dance, etc). So basically with this system DRK would be able to switch and choose which debuffs it could have on a mob while being able to enhance its own abilities. As far as everything else, it would be pretty much kept the same and just maybe add some way of getting back TP (absorb offense + delirium maybe).

Realistically what I would hope to expect with the job:
1) Make reprisal something we could trigger without parry. Just make it an oGCD ability that we could keep up at least 90% of the time.
2) Give the job SOMETHING that helps with TP drain
3) Completely fix living dead. This is the one thing that I can't forgive about the job. I haven't had to worry about it much before, but I just joined a new group for Alex savage and I had to spend a significant amount of time trying to explain to my healers about how to cure me when I pop LD. This should NOT be an issue. No one should have to worry about popping an ability and dying because they got cured too much and it didn't trigger, or being not cured enough and just dropping to the ground without something actually hitting you for that 1 HP. This was SE trying to be too unique compared to the other 2 tanks and it is just not practical. Honestly if it worked similar to Holmgang (just cant go below 1HP) but with a recast inbetween it and Hallowed, that would be perfectly fine with me and I'm sure everyone else.

Now there's one more thing that I have to address and it is what people say about the job's defensive abilities not being synergized (mainly the whole blind/dodge of DA+DD and DA+DP not synergizing with Dark price) and this doesn't bother me since I see it as something you should be using when your other defensive CDs are down (at least on trash) but it shouldn't cost a crap ton of MP to do both of those things. Now I do wholeheartedly agree with what Phoenicia said earlier that it is dumb to have parry and evasion on the same damn skill though...

[F_Maximillian]

Disclaimer: I'm still yet new to the game. This is all from what I've read and theorized based on game systems.

It seems a lot of the problem lies with the initial plan for party design not being followed through on. I believe there's two tank slots in an 8 person party for a reason and why one tank was the defense oriented with less damage tank and one was the offense oriented squishier tank. Tank swapping was intended to be a key mechanic, the high defense oriented tank would handle phases of fights where heavy damage that the more offensively oriented tank couldn't handle effectively. It was probably designed for something like start phase (mild to moderate damage tanked by offense oriented tank) high damage phase (switch to the highly defensive tank) and so forth until the end of the fight. However, that presents the issue of not having that offensively oriented tank be able to perform evenly so they equalized defensive abilities.

In trying to equalize defense capability they essentially took from the defense specialized tank the one thing that made them better in those situations. I think the best way to fix paladin would be to match current aggro output to the other tanks but also to boost their defense notably and return to that time where that high defense was good to have. I believe DRK was also designed in mind only instead of offensively and defensively it was split between physical and magical damage, where the DRK would handle magical damage and the PLD would handle physical. However, because of how well warriors preform and how paladins lack damage output in this DPS race metagame that niche was closed off as well.

I believe Alexander Savage is really just a data collection point for rebalancing classes and regaining that synergy and as we learn more about patch 3.1 that will become clearer.

[Ercapote]

tempered will, tempered will, tem.....

I see people here still talking about JUST tempered will if half of you read what we where initially talking you will understand how we aren't talking about 1 specific ability but an entire pack of situational abilities that rarely have use.

so I'm just going to copy and paste a post of mine explaining all again hoping people will understand my point of view and MY OPINION

What the majority of this threat is missing is the FACT that PLD right now is just bad designed, yes 3 new combos and you can make use of it and make it interesting for YOURSELF but that doesn't mean the class isn't plain simple and uninteresting at best. lets recap...

Cover - ability only needed at t13 that one time on that one fight. personally been sitting 4 month in my hotbar with no use. you will only truly need it if you suck at keeping agro and even if you do better by just provoking that mob back, only protect against physical hits mostly useless
Tempered will - makes no different if you use or not, almost all knockbacks are non-lethal and let's be honest, if you play like you are supposed to you really, reeeally don't need it for anything. only useful on pvp and you even have a pvp ability that does exactly the same people can put 300 difference situations of that 1 time the use it but still taking out is mostly useless. personally I rarely use it since you only need to stick the fight mechanics and you can use only 1 time at most per fight.
shield swipe/pasification - DPS lost useless debuff only applicable to trash mobs super easy aoe they end up doing 2 seconds after you cancel that 1 mob with that 1 debuff - this is ability is just utter trash.
flash/blind - not a bad ability but compare to DRK aoe galore and War is just poopo. give the change to make the move miss the target, if I say I notice a difference I'll be lying, rarely noticeable utility and doesn't hurt anyone they miss maybe 1 o 2 hit per mob and on the healing aspect doesn't help at all, nothing compare to damage dealt by other tanks aoe that can help speed up those dungeon grind quite a bit.
shield bash A.K.A the longest Stun - lest get real aside from t5 and leviathan and pvp, when have we ever use this longest stun varely does any damage and most of the time just sits there on raid content. is not a bad ability and I personally have no problem with in fact I like it, but it doesn't get use so often.
Clemency - heal is decently low on pt member, cast time is too long, cost more than half of your mp and it result on a huge dps lost. and with that recast time helaers outcast you and recover the mp by the time you let it out making you waste your ability and mp

and this is just some of the abilities now lets go to the CD

SHELTRON - guaranteed block "1" PHYSICAL attack if it's magical this ability is useless - looking at you alex.
BULKWARD - Increase Block ( block only work with physical attacks) so on a magical fight, useless - looking at you alex
SHIELD - automatic block ( physical block) tanks magic tankbusters - F U ALEX!

only useful CD
RAMPART
SENTINEL

fun fact both tanks have the same relative CD

DRK
SHADOW WALL
SHADOW SKIN

are exactly the same

WAR
INNER BEAST
VENGEANCE
almost the same and even better.

and both tanks can cross class
CONVALENCES
AWEARENESS
gg

now on top of all this let's add the fact that PLD is the weakest of all tank because is supposed to be a DEFENSIVE tank ( dark knight does the same and better since it mitigate magical attacks) + stronger DPS (war are beast on self sustain and have just as much defense as PLD ) + mother of mother@#$$ tank DPS.

so can someone please tell me a reasonable explanation to this? everything about PLD compared to other options on the game is just bad by far the only class with so many situational abilities that only work "on that dungeon that one time when the planets align" sure you can tell me about how you save the group that 1 time or you prevent a wipe on that raid.

I've done that too we all probably have that 1 use that 1 time, but doesn't take out the fact that are abilities we don't touch and it's not about 1 is about a pack of abilities concentrated in 1 class that on top of that is the least enjoyable of the 3 or even of all the classes of the game and it's been even punished on performance compared to the other 2 tanks since they are just better on everything about PLD so yeah the class need a fix and big one because right now is just a mix of a disaster.

again personal opinion and experience.

[Iagainsti]

@ercapote tldr #nochill

[Ercapote]

@ercapote tldr #nochill

I'm chill brah in fact I tried to not post much here, want some pizza?

[Reynhart]

Clemency - heal is decently low on pt member, cast time is too long, cost more than half of your mp and it result on a huge dps lost.

Again, the dreaded DPS loss.
I swear, if the dev team decided to put Hallowed Ground on GCD people would still bitch about it because it'd be a DPS loss...

[Ercapote]

Seriously, again, the dreaded DPS loss.
I swear, if the dev team decided to put Hallowed Ground on GCD people would still bitch about it because it'd be a DPS loss...

I will say you where right, but I wasn't talking about the dps, in fact I don't give a turd about dps I just want my tank main balance.

but read again dps is just 1 side effect, the biggest one is mp and how situational and not helpful at all it is.

[Iagainsti]

I'm chill brah in fact I tried to not post much here, want some pizza?

I don't appreciate your ruse, sir.
To offer me pizza with no actual way of giving said pizza in a consumable form is facetious in nature.

You still have #nochill