PLD dps needs to be buffed, current dps a joke

[Phoenicia]

Snip.

Yeah, regardless of what they said, calling someone "stupid" is out of place and is just not how a civil discussion should be. Just my opinion.

SE fixed classes that had an immediate hurt for things they need. AST was almost as bad as 2.0 WAR. MNK was getting excluded for the sake of NIN and DRG, both which offered raid utility AND higher ST DPS. DRK Got a TP fix since they floored in 2 minutes flat. PLD didn't get an immediate fix because it probably isn't as hurting.

Also for the numbers, I know it is people's submissions and not an actual track of everyone that ever cleared content. But if anything, it serves as an indicator. If at least one person posted a number that is equal to, or slightly lower/higher than, DRK's DPS, then PLD's DPS is simply not a joke.

My comment about PLDs being salty is coming from some of the posts here. A lot of those posts (if you go back to earlier pages) they will always come with "Elysium dropped PLD for DRK". But since we know Elysium also dropped MNK for NIN (and one can argue that DRK was the replacement for losing INT down), shouldn't the MNKs pop threads that they were excluded from a world first kill? Since that group had a BLM and not a SMN, shouldn't SMN also complain? Same with MCH since none of the savage clears has one. NIN wasn't in A1S and A2S either. And lolAST<- nuff said about AST. So no, it's not a knee jerk reaction. It is an observation I've made since I've been following this thread since it started.

If anything, this whole thread is a knee jerk reaction form a DRG main that wasn't impressed by his DPS as a SwO PLD.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying PLD doesn't need fixes. On the contrary, it does. But its fixes should be in line so it doesn't end up at the top and the cycle is repeated. As I said, DRK is only in a good place because content allowed it. Should content shift, not even by 180 degrees, you will see how DRK's mitigation hurts. As I said: Try tanking Twintania synced down to ilv90 or solo tanking T9 as a DRK synced and you'll understand what I mean by lacking physical mitigation. PLD was already considered a worse tank for T5 in comparison to WAR post 2.1.

About the thread pumping, I was mainly talking about 4 weeks back, not 4 years, lol. THM and GLA are of no relevance. If you go back a few pages you will suddenly see a huge group of threads about DRK being unviable. DRK being squishy. And people getting kicked out of Primal Ex groups for being DRK. And how it should never equip STR!

Anyways, if you haven't read my TL;DR in that post, read it please. lol.

Black Hanekawa be praised.

I personally like Senjougahara more as a character. But Black Hanekawa be praised!

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

I personally like Senjougahara more as a character. But Black Hanekawa be praised!

Senjougahara was pretty interesting, to be sure, but she felt slightly predictable to be since I've lived with someone like that.

Black Hanekawa is my favorite for a number of reasons, but I'll admit to being a bit nekomata centric.

PS: Thanks for indirectly introducing me to such an awesome anime!

[Phoenicia]

Senjougahara was pretty interesting, to be sure, but she felt slightly predictable to be since I've lived with someone like that.

Black Hanekawa is my favorite for a number of reasons, but I'll admit to being a bit nekomata centric.

PS: Thanks for indirectly introducing me to such an awesome anime!

Glad to see my signature serves one of its two purposes effectively! (the other purpose is just having a FRIGGIN' cute Nekomimi in my sig!)

Looks wise Black Hanekawa wins hands down! She's also funnier. But as a character, Senjougahara was more interesting.

Part of why I like Senjougahara was how predictable she could be at times. I also liked that she was smart... and kind of a bully! lol

[Praesul]

Please stop talking about off topic anime stuff in this thread. Not only does it interrupt the discussion, it makes it look like you're passive-aggressively ignoring people's discussion.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

Sorry, the discussion paused, so I got a little distracted. Back on topic, is there some hidden mechanic at level 60 I haven't ran into yet that causes PLD's DPS to have a decisive effect on their tanking? I've been reading this thread since it came out, and it basically boils down to, "PLD should have the same DPS as Warrior", then when asked why, the answer's basically, "So we can be a war with better mitigation!"

[NFaelivrin]

Sorry, the discussion paused, so I got a little distracted. Back on topic, is there some hidden mechanic at level 60 I haven't ran into yet that causes PLD's DPS to have a decisive effect on their tanking? I've been reading this thread since it came out, and it basically boils down to, "PLD should have the same DPS as Warrior", then when asked why, the answer's basically, "So we can be a war with better mitigation!"

The issues with PLD are multiple, DPS is only one facet of it. PLD's tanking ability is not necessarily damaged by its low DPS, the problem is that the way the tank meta works is that optimizing play as a tank is not becoming more survivable, its about being survivable enough to not die and then push everything else into DPS. PLD is the tank class that needs to use its lowest potency combo the most often because it both has poor threat generation and needs that combo to maintain threat, with the potency difference also being the highest among tanks, you lose 80 potency from doing Halone vs. Royal Authority, whereas DRK only loses 10 if using Power Slash instead of Delirium. PLD's oft-mentioned superior mitigation doesn't really come into play in Savage because two of its strongest mitigation cooldowns flat out don't work against magic tankbusters, and the way tanks work in this game is that its tankbusters that actually are a threat, with autoattacks being largely fluff damage. PLD's other mitigation options while good in a vacuum also have such long cooldowns that it results in Hallowed Ground, rather than being an emergency button (like say, Benediction is) it turns into something you simply use as yet another cooldown in your tankbuster mitigation rotation. For example in A1S Paladin -has- to use Hallowed Ground on one of the Hypercompressed Plasmas in order to survive it, as when it happens your other mitigation abilities will be on cooldown, a situation that neither DRK or WAR have to deal with, and thus this greatly reduces the usefulness of a skill that would otherwise be one of the best in the game. With this it means that in practice PLD is only slightly safer than its counterparts, which is reflected in the fact healers don't get a significant amount of extra Cleric Stance uptime by bringing a PLD instead of either of the other tanks, which would have been a way to justify PLD being by itself a raid DPS loss. There's also PLD's utility, which while often fun to use and interesting is not strong enough as to be invaluable: Divine Veil is not enough to replace int down, the Halone str debuff is largely mediocre if not outright terrible because, again, most tank killer damage in Savage is magic, Clemency is clunky, very slow to cast, has a very high MP cost, and will most of the time turn into an overheal, and Cover's situational usefulness (which was seen in FCOB) once again is nullified by the magic nature of relevant damage in Savage. This leaves PLD's most useful utility skill being Stoneskin, which does not compare to how good Storm's Path, Storm's Eye, and Int down are. This leaves us with a tank with the lowest DPS of all, lots of utility skills that together don't actually add up to very much in the current raid, and only a bit more defense to compensate for this. DRK also has utility issues, and mostly only works because the current raid caters to its strengths and Monk's odd place in balance before the current patch meant you were better off bringing a DRK for Int Down as it'd allow you to increase raid DPS by bringing DRG+NIN, that and being a higher DPS main tank than PLD. Frankly I believe both PLD and DRK require fixes, PLD is subpar and DRK will completely fall apart as a class if the next raid tier favors physical damage. The only tank in the game that actually seems to be properly designed right now is WAR.

[Sapphidia]

Sorry, the discussion paused, so I got a little distracted. Back on topic, is there some hidden mechanic at level 60 I haven't ran into yet that causes PLD's DPS to have a decisive effect on their tanking? I've been reading this thread since it came out, and it basically boils down to, "PLD should have the same DPS as Warrior", then when asked why, the answer's basically, "So we can be a war with better mitigation!"

I'll take this question then.


Right now, the tanking meta is such that there isnt actually that much requirement on Tanks to be.... well, tanky. Encounter damage on the bosses is generally rather low outside of some very predictable big tankbuster hits, like the Hyper-Compressed Plasma in Alex 1 Savage, a nice chunky 25,000 damage hit. The thing is that because these big predictable hits are the only thing that really tests a tank's survivability, most tanks are able to gear in high strength gear and spend large portions of the fights tanking in their DPS stances. All 3 tanks are equally good at taking these big tankbusters - it's a binary thing. Do you survive it or not? All 3 tank classes can say yes to this when played properly.

This on its own isnt a problem, but what HAS been a problem is that the stumbling block for most groups is DPS checks rather than tank checks. Everything from Faust savage to A3S hands have very strict hard DPS checks that's basically a guaranteed wipe if you miss them. Thus, raid DPS and therefore tank DPS is incredibly important.

The balance issue is simply that Warriors do vastly more damage than the other two tanks. That's okay, that's "their thing". They're the damage tank, and thus the perfect offtank. However, there's two problems. 1.) The actual difference in mitigation between a Paladin and a Warrior is negligible. It's basically NO difference when it comes to handling tank busters, it's just mildly less damage taken on big trash packs due to blocking comboed with 2.) there isnt actually any encounter yet that -needs- the tiny mitigation difference because all that matters right now is how much damage your tank can do.

Paladin should not have the same DPS as a warrior. It doesnt even really need any increased DPS in OT stance either. But right now on the current content, using a Paladin is hamstringing your raid when trying to reach difficult DPS checks. Once you overgear an encounter then sure, no biggie, but it isnt really relevant then. If Paladins were actually a lot better mitigation than a Warrior then there might be some merit in the current balance, but they really arent. You can run the maths and figures - there's no real practical difference outside of huge trash packs when comparing the two classes. But there's a BIG difference in their damage output.

One can say that the problem isnt really the class balance so much as the encounters favoring DPS above all. The next tier of content might have fights all much more like T13 or A2S where your tanks are getting consistantly smashed with huge amounts of damage and all that matters is how easily you can survive it. But currently, in Alex Savage, tank survivability is not remotely a concern.

The example I used: Warrior is a hammer. Paladin is a screwdriver. Dark Knight is a big heavy wrench. The problem in balance isnt that they arent all useful, it's that right now virtually every raid encounter is a Nail.

Paladins don't want to be as high damage as a warrior. They don't need more damage when offtanking. What they DO need is some way of doing more consistant damage when tanking as an MT, approaching a Warrior MT but not enough to impede on their damage king status. Just something to not feel like they're a massive detriment to success compared to the other tank option. As has been discussed, this change probably doesnt even need to be a damage/potency increase - a big THREAT increase when tanking would enable a paladin do more easily use their DPS moves to maintain higher DPS in an MT role.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

So, the only real crutch right now is that paladin's threat generation isn't actually high enough for them to cycle in their higher potency moves, which is definitely a real problem.

Out of curiosity, considering the fact that shield swipe also gens enmity, couldn't this problem most simply be fixed by increasing its damage dealt, removing the penalty, increasing the threat multiplier, or some combination of the above?

[NFaelivrin]

Frankly I'm more in favor of PLD buffs being both fixing their threat and actually making their utility useful. Kinda like Ninja, which despite having the currently lowest DPS of all three melee DPS's (or so I've been led to understand) remains viable and desired because its utility is very very good. That and hopefully the next raid tier won't be entirely about DPS checks, which frankly I feel happened in Gordias Savage solely because the devs didn't want the entire tier to be cleared in week 1 like Final Coil was.

[Sapphidia]

So, the only real crutch right now is that paladin's threat generation isn't actually high enough for them to cycle in their higher potency moves, which is definitely a real problem?

Yep. It's a -little- more complex than that, but that's major issue people are seeing in parses and such. A paladin in Sword Oath able to go all out with their Goring/Royal/Royal dps combo will actually do pretty damn respectable DPS. On par with Dark Knights for sure, and decent enough. There's probably still an issue with balance in terms of just HOW much the fights are swayed in terms of DPS output rather than general tankiness, but this could well be fixed with the next raid tier so any buffs to Paladins/DRKs would need to be cautious ones.

The main problem that Paladins are feeling is that a Paladin sitting in their tanking stance doing a kind of "balanced" rotation of some threat moves, some debuffs, some dps stuff... the typical Goring/Halone/Royal type thing... will do really quite pitiful damage compared to the other tanks. Whereas Warriors and Dark Knights will be much closer to their theoretical max DPS when doing a more threat-focused rotation. The difference in DPS between Sword Oath and Shield Oath is gigantic, whereas the difference between a DRK with Grit on and Grit off is pretty much just the flat 20% (plus blood weapon). A DRK who is struggling with threat might swap in a Power Slash instead of a Delerium combo... which is 10 less potency. A Paladin who is struggling with threat needs to do a Halone combo which is -80- less potency than their DPS equivalent, Royal Authority. Couple this with paladins having less threat on their threat combo anyway...

... then compare to Warriors who not only do more damage naturally anyway, but their optimal DPS rotation INCLUDES their highest threat combo (butchers block) - it's their highest potency combo! They can also swap between their Tanking and DPS stance much more easily as they're off the GCD and don't break combos.

End result is that the difference between the damage floor and damage ceiling of a Paladin main tank is absolutely gigantic. Yes, you see some amazing parses of paladins doing encounters where they're pretty much in Sword Oath the whole time, they have a Ninja spamming the threat transfer on them constantly, and the encounter doesnt do much damage outside of a few specific moments. That's fine. Problem is that when NOT in that situation and just having to sit there generating threat and not dying, a Paladin will be noticeably lower than the other two tanks because they just don't have as much liberty to go all out on Damage moves, and too much of their DPS is tied into Sword Oath compared to the other tanks.

Shield Swipe is definitely a skill that could be targeted. I personally felt that this would be the ideal place to buff paladins because it can't be used when offtanking so it wouldnt overpower their offtank DPS. Right now Shield Swipe is a DPS loss AND a Threat loss over doing either a Royal Authority or Rage of Halone combo. It's a teeeeeny dps increase at high skill speed values as it reduces the clipping of the last tick of Goring blade, but generally negligible. Its sole use right now is to alleviate TP starvation on long fights.

If they made Shield Swipe closer to Rage of Halone in its threat levels (currently it's about the same as Savage Blade), it would help some of the threat. You'd probably also want to buff its potency up to about 230 so it isnt a DPS loss to use over just continuing the Royal combos (Royal Authority combo of Fast/Savage/Royal does 690 potency over 3 GCDs, so 230 potency average). If you buff it too much you risk pushing paladins over the edge dps wise but you could probably have it up to about 260 potency without it feeling totally ridiculous. I don't feel it necessarily needs such a drastic buff but this would go a long way to helping their problems, especially as right now Shield Swipe isnt even a button you want to press if you can help it. Buffing its threat and damage further and making it a desirable skill to use would actually make the class feel a lot more well rounded. Right now it feels a bit clunky as none of its skillset really flows as well as a Warrior, though obviously this is a subjective view.

I agree with NFaelivrin though. I don't really feel Paladins necessarily need to feel like they do more damage - they just need to feel like the skillset they bring to a raid actually makes them worth the slot. They have good utility moves in principle (Cover, Clemency, Divine Seal etc) but in practise you can only use these at very specific encounter times and they're more random emergency buttons to make the healers' lives a little easier rather than anything you'd specifically bring one for. It's hard to ask for paladin buffs because the class has been top of the food chain of tanks for ages, but in the current meta and with the new skills, the class really does feel... clunky.