Tank Balance

[Strident]

I know that I tend to write long posts, but please try to read the entire thing if you intend to directly reply to me.

You spent half of your post explaining how using Tempered Will to not get killed by Landslide(and other similar generic situations) is a bad way to use it... when I previously stated that:

1. Tempered Will is useful if you're caught in a situation where you cannot dodge the normally dodgeable knockback/draw-in attack. The specific Titan EX instance I mentioned referenced an undodgeable Landslide, which can happen from the MT's point of view.
2. Using Tempered Will solely to be lazy is a waste of the skill.

That being said, Safety Net does not mean "pop Tempered Will and then purposely get hit by the attack because I'm safe now". That's lazy, which... see above.

And this brings us to Cover now as well. Cover, along with Tempered Will, are probably most intended to be used as Safety Net skills. Safety Nets exist to catch us if we fall. Tempered Will is only effective if it is used proactively; ie. before the unwanted movement effect in question happens. Unless you have a specific niche plan(such as a maximize uptime on the boss strategy) then the ideal use for Tempered Will is to, if you ever feel like you're in danger of being moved around, pop it... and then continue attempting to avoid the effect. It isn't there to foster laziness; it's there to save your bacon is you make a mistake.

Cover, on the other hand, is a Safety Net skill that usually lends itself to reactive use. Enemies should typically be targeting Tanks with physical attacks, but if anyone makes a mistake that causes an unwanted target to start getting hit, Cover is a Safety Net that can catch them before they die. While Tempered Will has a good number of situations where it can be utilized in a useful manner outside of just being a Safety Net, Cover has fewer of these situations and will thsu most often be used to respond to an error.

If you think about things in terms of Safety, it can be seen that these two skills fit the aesthetic of the Paladin very well. After all, they're the "safe" Tank. Okay to Good Paladins may see these kinds of skills, think "when will I ever need this? Off the hotbar you go!", and go on their merry way. A Great Paladin will survey the battlefield, keep an eye out, and use them to help maximize the safety of the party should things go sour. Aside from fixing the "only one combo is boring!" situation, Paladin's new skills just make things even safer. Sheltron? A free block and a decent chunk of free MP to help power Clemency, a useful emergency heal. And Divine Veil? It does require a bit more work than what is perhaps strictly necessary to get its benefit, but some damage absorption is always okay in these endgame fights that oh so love to attack the party.

These abilities are all integral parts of what makes a Paladin a Paladin, and they don't need to go anywhere.

And Ercaporte? You're so eager to complain about Paladin that you are literally blind to what it does well and greatly exaggerating its weaknesses. Iagainsti is right. You should chill out a bit.

You misinterpret what I said. From the beginning, I stated that "I debate your contention that those described usages are of good design." This is not about good or bad ways to use a skill. This is about the poor design of Tempered Will.

I claimed that the usage of Tempered Will to potentially prevent being knocked back by a landslide is "absolutely not what a well designed skill should do." Using Tempered Will in this situation comes down to either successfully dodging the landslide, which is extremely easy as the MT (there are no undodgeable landslides unless you are tanking Titan wrong), or getting hit by it and not getting knocked back. In other words, either the skill is useless, or you messed up and just get a slap on the wrist. Unlike the case of using Tempered Will to enable the MT to inflict additional damage by not being displaced, in this case the landslide can and SHOULD be avoided, Tempered Will or no.

In contrast, what I claim is that the optimal usage, and more importantly a well designed usage for Tempered Will, is to prevent Upheaval and gain uptime on damaging Titan. In this scenario, the knock back is, in fact, undodgeable. The knockback produces the negative effective of "being outside of melee range". Using Tempered Will here to do damage to Titan is an interesting and empowering usage of this skill, as opposed to "meh, well maybe I'll mess up here so why not". However, this skill is on a 3 minute cooldown for such a weak usage, and PLD's lack of key debuffs they need to refresh and low damage do not make this a very compelling skill either. I understand what you mean by safety net, and I am arguing that safety net skills are NOT well designed skills if they cannot be employed in an empowering manner, especially if they are as limited and as gated as Tempered Will. If the cooldown was much shorter or the effect much stronger, then this skill could be good. However, I do not think it is worth the effort to keep it since all it promotes is basically laziness. Of all the skills in the Paladin skill set, I find this to be the most underwhelming, excluding Shield Swipe which is unfortunately still living in 2.X.

Cover, in contrast, has many usages even outside panic moments. A great use in a 8 man party situation is when both tanks are tanking different enemies. The PLD can cover the other tank and then use a defensive cooldown, such as Hallowed Ground, which essentially extends the effect of the cooldown to the other tank for physical damage without changing the overall enmity layout. Even in Titan, you can use it to absorb Mountain Buster for the other tank, allowing the other tank to use their offensive stance over the duration while you absorb weaker hits. Cover acting as an extension of your defense skills and its ability to work with the second tank make it a much more intriguing ability, with several situational but often occurring usages.

Finally, I am very confused by this "safe" Tank identity. In the context you are using it ("safety net"), you make it sound like you mean this as "Paladin is the safest Tank because they can make a lot of mistakes," which is design (keyword) that I absolutely cannot agree with. The identity, or "paradigm", of Paladin has been quote-unquote "more defensive". This is not analogous to being simple or allowed the make mistakes. Being a defensive Tank should mean are larger, more varied and powerful toolkit for damage mitigation and should also take more investment than "well, I popped this one thing." I don't think Paladin is in that state right now, and I don't think Tempered Will helps as I consider it not only a weak but a poorly designed cooldown, even compared to Cover which of course also has its own problems, though not particularly by design.

[carbonx]

I'm honestly surprised how people is obsessed with minmaxing in this game

When you're not overgearing the content, you need to min/max. Since we are early in the expansion and raid content, people want to min/max tank and healer DPS to meet content that is otherwise impossible in current gear.

And, yeah. The 4man you show is probably a group of people in BiS i130 gear, so it's hardly an example of what could be done when T9 was released. Even in lower gear, WAR could MT T9, but they were not the best tank for the job.

The easiest way to buff PLD enmity? Give them more DPS. More DPS = more enmity, which is why the other tanks have an easier time of it, as they both have ways to negate or lessen the DPS penalty in their respective tank stances, while Paladin does not.

[RapBreon]

Phoenicia's wall of proposed tank changes!

I was going to continue on in the other thread. But considered the direction the conversation took, it seems more relevant to add my 2cents here.

That's a well-thought set of amendments and my thoughts on the subject (with specific regards to tank balancing) is relatively...incomplete. But I owe you a reply non-the-less.

With respect to Paladins;

- I agree that they'd need an enmity buff irrespective of what happens to the other tanks, just so they can use their DPS combos more whilst tanking. 100% with you on this.

- Divine Veil wouldn't matter to me either way. It strikes me as a spell that's supposed to be kind of set-up and activated by your tag team healer buddy when the time is right (assuming OT, if MT well you can guarantee it instantly). The shield lasts and buff last 30 seconds (or did that get changed?), you have an eternity to make sure a heal lands. I don't see this as a huge deal, don't see it being a big deal in either direction.

- Do not agree with Clemency. An MT being allowed to throw out big heals without repercussions would be absurd, their self-sustain would be...godly, the second coming of Jesus H Paladin. You can still use it while tanking, if you're a god at timing, which I think is the intention? As an OT, it's still a bit overpowered, combo breaking means you're sacrificing a huge amount of DPS to ease up the pressure on your healers, you shouldn't really be using it unless they're struggling and it should come with a hefty cost as you're doing their job for them. Being said, PLDs aren't overly in demand so maybe removing this quirk may allow them to be a bit more in-demand. As for synergy problems, you're basically describing something healers have had to deal with since the beginning of time; a shorter cast means you'll just be shafting the healer instead. In super hard content where Clemency usage is at its most valuable; majority of people would be with their FCs and can coordinate as needed.

- Yeah TP problems are real.

With respect to Dark Knights;

- Yeah, they're weird. Especially the non-synergistic spells, and TP problems despite playing a MP mini-game most of the time...Just a bunch of ideas thrown into a class. Cool themes, but should've been a DPS like an FF DRK usually is (would be all over that). They look like an attempt to be the 'Death Knight' from WoW (the magic resistant tank).

My 2c. Bit rushed though sorry.

[Anyndel]

When you're not overgearing the content, you need to min/max. Since we are early in the expansion and raid content, people want to min/max tank and healer DPS to meet content that is otherwise impossible in current gear.

I believe with the release of the expansion SE is probably just still pinpointing boss damage and DPS checks with the new numbers, and if the DPS checks are too hard or even impossible without leaving aside one tank for another just because of the DPS output I think this is a bad way to look at it, more than saying "Please buff my tank class DPS so it's competitive" you should be saying "please adjust DPS checks".

The easiest way to buff PLD enmity? Give them more DPS. More DPS = more enmity, which is why the other tanks have an easier time of it, as they both have ways to negate or lessen the DPS penalty in their respective tank stances, while Paladin does not.

But then again that's the whole point of being a WAR or a DRK, take more damage, deal more damage. Put an extra strain on the healers and increase overall DPS. If something like that is given to the PLD we might as well just go with the WoW model where every tank has the same skills with minimal tweaks: just increase the enmity multiplier of shield oath or the enmity generation of RoH, no need to increase their DPS.

Having different tanks with different mechanics implies them having stronger or weaker points which implies them being picked one over another for specific stuff, but it also gives you the unique job you're playing. There's 3 tanks which means one WILL be left aside in a party and if the DPS is the deciding factor for that, well, as I've said, problem of SE encounter tweaking and not class balancing since DPSs should be able to clear it by themselves.

[Anyndel]

Yes, you go tell that to Living Liquid and his friend, Living Limb when they perform the Hand of Pain on you.
Although i must admit it was the case in the raids before the expansion.

And it should keep being the case! The problems there are with this expansion content is probably just SE still adjusting their numbers.

[Anyndel]

-snip-

True enough, tempered will is a weak cooldown compared to many others and in many cases lacks utility. But remember it also removes bind and heavy which is pretty common of an effect outside of the raiding area and can be seen from time to time in raids when you get hit (YES, get hit which as much as you wish you wouldn't HAPPENS from time to time) and potentially avoid a wipe because you're slowed and can't get out of AoE or do mechanics. It's also good for PvP as a small sidenote.

It's true it's a small silly cooldown with VERY specific usage but PLD have loads and loads of cooldowns and not all of them can be "reduce % damage" or "increase % blockrate", it would be pretty lame and boring so some of them oughta be... original?

[Reynhart]

True enough, tempered will is a weak cooldown compared to many others and in many cases lacks utility.

What if Tempered Will would make you impervious to status effects for 10s ? (And knockback considered a "status" effect)

If would be much more powerful, without being overpowered. 10s of "Ribbon" is rarely enough to save the day by itself.

[Anyndel]

What if Tempered Will would make you impervious to status effects for 10s ? (And knockback considered a "status" effect)

If would be much more powerful, without being overpowered. 10s of "Ribbon" is rarely enough to save the day by itself.

That is actually an interesting change and I think it's fitting the PLD job. Would have to get quite the list of exceptions for raid content though or it would be overpowered then, but other than that seems like a good change for an underused skill.

[Reynhart]

Would have to get quite the list of exceptions for raid content though or it would be overpowered then, but other than that seems like a good change for an underused skill.

Is there any status ailment (that you have to take) that important so Tempered Will should not be allowed to remove ?

The one that comes to my mind is Prey, which you're already supposed to negate with mitigation.

[Anyndel]

Is there any status ailment (that you have to take) that important so Tempered Will should not be allowed to remove ?

The one that comes to my mind is Prey, which you're already supposed to negate with mitigation.

Prey, the T6 honey debuff, T8 brainjack, T7 cursed voice/shriek and venomous tail, T9 Ravensbeak poison and fire/ice debuffs... probably more I forgot. So that change would be a big problem in raid content unless it's limited to removing DoTs and not all debuffs.