PLD dps needs to be buffed, current dps a joke

[Reynhart]

If all Tanks are designed to survive all Tank Busters w/ Cooldowns, then what is left? It's all about how much Damage they do.

That's exactly where the whole tank design is flawed.
Sure, when you can survive a fight, the most important thing is to win it, and you win it by killing the boss.

But, in my opinion, it's wrong to focus on what personal DPS tank do instead of how they can contribute to the overall DPS.
If all tanks do exactly the same damage, what's the point of having multiple tanks ?

[SpookyGhost]

But, in my opinion, it's wrong to focus on what personal DPS tank do instead of how they can contribute to the overall DPS.
If all tanks do exactly the same damage, what's the point of having multiple tanks ?

This raises a good point - how important is it that a job is unique in how it contributes to the group? I feel like SE had the right idea with AST, but not with DRK and MCH.

AST does something unique for a healer job, which is buff other party members to do more DPS (among other things). As an AST, depending on what card you draw, you have to decide what to do with it and how it will best benefit your group's DPS or survivability as a whole. A SCH is more focused on their personal DPS, whereas an AST is focused on the DPS contribution of others through their cards. This is important, as neither WHM nor SCH function in this way and having an AST in your group is different from having a WHM or a SCH (but not a detriment).

DRK is... a tank. It doesn't bring anything special. It mitigates damage, it deals damage, that's about it. It's "specialty" is mitigating magic damage, which it does fantastically, but this isn't something unique to the job. A WAR can mitigate magic damage, a PLD can mitigate magic damage. It mitigates magic damage frequently, but so does WAR (just to a lesser extent and even trumps DRK if the magic damage is frequent enough). The only thing unique (at least for the tanks) it brings is it's INT down debuff, which is a massive stretch in terms of individualizing jobs.

MCH is a BRD with a floating turret. It offers nothing unique, it has random CC strapped onto it that is irrelevant in any content that matters. It is essentially useless. If MCH were gone, nothing would change at all.

What we need, more than anything, is individuality and balance. The biggest problems with PLD specifically at the moment are that:

1. It deals less damage than DRK/WAR.
2. Alexander Savage is mostly magical damage and while PLD's toolkit is fine for it, DRK's toolkit is better.
3. It's utility is lackluster at best and doesn't make up for it's damage loss.

PLD isn't actually in as bad of a spot as people make it out to be - denying a PLD a position in your raid group just because they deal less DPS than an optimal DRK is just stupid. If you're currently pushing A4S, by all means do as much min/maxing as you'd like, but if you're not in that tiny little sailboat then don't think that you can fit into it while still in A1S/A2S/A3S progression. Yes, DPS is a massively important thing in every floor of Alex at the moment, but with current gear it genuinely isn't your composition that's the problem - it's your players and their skill level.

That said, PLD is still flawed, and it being okay now does not mean it doesn't need to be fixed. This applies to DRK too, which is doing fantastically, but obviously suffers from fundamental flaws in it's cooldown suite. Currently everything is fine and, much like when people thought DRK shouldn't be allowed in Ravana parties, everyone's just basing their views on what world first groups are running. Things need to be changed, but it's nothing you should concern yourself over right now. Enjoy PLD, enjoy DRK, enjoy WAR, and hope that SE is wise enough to realize the problems that these jobs will face in the future (except WAR, which is perfect) and fix them.

[Ultimatecalibur]

(except WAR, which is perfect)

Have you ever considered that it may not be the Paladin and Dark Knight where the problem lies and it is actually in the Warrior's "Perfection"?

• The Warrior does the most DpS as both the OT and MT (beyond the ~11% damage boost it gets from its slashing debuff).
• The Warrior has the best continuous debuff (-10% damage vs -10% str and -10% int)
• The Warrior has no TP issues through a combination of "free" on GcD actions and a TP restorer.
• The Warrior has the best fast anti-tankbuster as long as they come only once every 9 or more gcds.

[Phoenicia]

Have you ever considered that it may not be the Paladin and Dark Knight where the problem lies and it is actually in the Warrior's "Perfection"?

• The Warrior does the most DpS as both the OT and MT (beyond the ~11% damage boost it gets from its slashing debuff).
• The Warrior has the best continuous debuff (-10% damage vs -10% str and -10% int)
• The Warrior has no TP issues through a combination of "free" on GcD actions and a TP restorer.
• The Warrior has the best fast anti-tankbuster as long as they come only once every 9 or more gcds.

PLD and the old WAR were designed with tank swapping in mind. When WAR got fixed in 2.1, it suit just became... magnificent. WAR's toolkit is great, there is no denying it. Is it over-done? Maybe. But not badly that it needs a nerf. It's the tank that requires the most micromanagement.

• WAR doing most DPS is an intentional design to be their "thing" at the cost of being the riskiest tank to play. WAR CANNOT deal that "amazing" DPS if it wants to mitigate as well as PLD/DRK. More on to "why" in the following points.
  
• The "continuous" debuff is not continuous because you cannot maintain both Storm Eye and Path while keeping aggro or dishing out maximum DPS. A WAR MT will not have Path up continuously, but would rather only apply it before busters/major AoE damage. Storm path is simply a trade off the WAR has to make between either the slashing debuff or optimal DPS/aggro via Butcher's. WAR doing Storm Path "continuously" is either 1) not holding aggro or 2) not doing good DPS or 3) both.
  
• WAR having no TP issues is as how it was since 2.0. The TP restorer was an overkill. When tanking in defiance, the TP restorer is gone.
  
• Inner Beast is amazing, it's the best anti-burst skill in the game. It only needs 5~9 GCDs (12.5 to 17.5 seconds) to be ready, heals you for a good chunk and reduces damage for ~3 GCDs. All that AND it can be refreshed with Infuriate. But it's a trade off from Unchained (huge DPS loss), Steel Cyclone (Massive aggro/DPS loss in AoE), Fell Cleave (Again, DPS loss) or Decimate (Even more massive loss in AoE). A WAR mitigating Twintania's death sentences will not do double the DPS of PLD.

Please, I implore you, let's stop pretending that WAR, in its "perfection", deals the DPS of a DRG while mitigating like a PLD. WAR's MAXIMUM DPS is higher than PLD, but if it wants to mitigate like a PLD, it will not reach those levels of DPS.

EDIT: A PLD dishing out its maximum DPS will still mitigates more than WAR simply because it does not lose a single tool of mitigation aside from Shield Oath. As none of its mitigation tools par Shield Oath "interrupts" the PLD's DPS flow. WAR loses IB and in a magical environment they go down to having only Vengeance as a "good CD" and ToB+Convalescence which is far worse than Rampart in both effectiveness and CD/uptime.

Now on topic, ACTUAL data collected shows PLD can deal the DPS levels of DRK, with A2S being the exception since PLD can't AoE for jack.

I stand at where I have been standing from the beginning of this ridiculously asinine thread, as long as PLD has its defensive superiority and ease of play, it doesn't deserve a single potency increase on any of their abilities (Shield Swipe might be an exception). However, it DOES have issues, DPS is definitely not one of them.

What PLD needs:

• Enmity multipliers fix to be in line with the other classes. This WILL allow PLDs to deal more DPS as main tanks.
  
• Some form of TP management. It doesn't have to be a TP restore. Anything is fine as long as it is not a DPS loss that involves standing there and watching boss.
  
• Removed clunk from their utility abilities. Such as follows:
  1- Clemency cast time reduction and/or cast interruption prevention (block during casts?).
  2- Divine Veil on a shorter CD and/or not require a heal trigger.
  3- Cover to also "cover" magical damage. There is no reason it doesn't other than that it didn't in previous FF games, but this is not the previous FF games.
  4- At the very least, stance swaps shouldn't break combos. You can keep them on GCD if you must.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Please, I implore you, let's stop pretending that WAR, in its "perfection", deals the DPS of a DRG while mitigating like a PLD. WAR's MAXIMUM DPS is higher than PLD, but if it wants to mitigate like a PLD, it will not reach those levels of DPS.

I'm not pretending that Warrior DpS competes with actual DpS. I just see a problem when a Warrior is dealing ~115% to ~120% of the damage the other two tanks are without assistance and still keeps a ~5% to ~10% advantage when they do have it and at the same time can reach a similar levels of survivability in current content. The ability to mitigate as much as a PLD is not an advantage when you only need what the Warrior provides.

Now on topic, ACTUAL data collected shows PLD can deal the DPS levels of DRK, with A2S being the exception since PLD can't AoE for jack.

Which probes and suggests the actual problem: The Paladin's single target damage output is only a "joke" when compared to a Warriors and its AoE damage is a "joke" when compared to both of the other tanks.

[Donjo]

... 2. Alexander Savage is mostly magical damage and while PLD's toolkit is fine for it, DRK's toolkit is better. ...

No, it really isn't. Granted, it does have instances of magical tank busters(Akh Morn being the only one that previously existed), but almost everything aside from those that directly target the Tanks(or is intended to be redirected toward Tanks somehow) is physical... Except for A4, but even A4 has physical attacks hitting a Tank in quarantine so it still isn't as egregious as Ultima HM or Ramuh.

EDIT: WAR loses IB and in a magical environment they go down to having only Vengeance as a "good CD" and ToB+Convalescence which is far worse than Rampart in both effectiveness and CD/uptime.

Thril + Conva is fine if they're both combined and is not far worse than Rampart in either count. Regarding Duration, as long as the meta discourages the use of defensive cooldowns outside of specific burst damage scenarios, then the total uptime of a specific buff if it is kept perpetually on cooldown will be largely irrelevant. As long as both are around when they're needed(and they certainly are), they're fine. Besides, we're comparing 22.22% uptime to 16.67% uptime if we do want to consider the perpetually on cooldown angle. Worse, to be sure, but not by a crippling amount by any means. Regarding effectiveness, it is definitely a detriment that both of them must be up at the same time to give a similar effect to what pressing a single button can do in most other cases. However, that combination is equivalent to reducing incoming damage by 16.67% which is a more favorable comparison than uptime.

TL;DR: Ya'll are exaggerating too much.

[RapBreon]

No, it really isn't. Granted, it does have instances of magical tank busters(Akh Morn being the only one that previously existed), but almost everything aside from those that directly target the Tanks(or is intended to be redirected toward Tanks somehow) is physical... Except for A4, but even A4 has physical attacks hitting a Tank in quarantine so it still isn't as egregious as Ultima HM or Ramuh.

But tank busters are really the only thing a tank does, that's part of tanking. Everything is kind of the healers problem!

Which I suppose is a problem with the notion of tanking and healing to begin with.

[RapBreon]

Edit: Double post soz.

[Phoenicia]

I'm not pretending that Warrior DpS competes with actual DpS. I just see a problem when a Warrior is dealing ~115% to ~120% of the damage the other two tanks are without assistance and still keeps a ~5% to ~10% advantage when they do have it and at the same time can reach a similar levels of survivability in current content. The ability to mitigate as much as a PLD is not an advantage when you only need what the Warrior provides.

There is no problem that a class deals so much more damage than another when it is declared their "thing". As I said in my post, that "so much more damage" is only achievable at the cost of being not so tanky. You say WAR has Storm Path? Well, if WAR wants to reach that 15~20% more DPS than DRK/PLD, he HAS to never touch Storm Path or Inner Beast.

Also DPS disparity is not a problem when DRG was the top ST DPS and 300 DPS ahead of BRD/MCH which are also deemed "DPS". Now one will argue that BRD/MCH are support, but they aren't, SMN provides E4E, Virus, Battle Rez, tank pet and all those "supporty things" yet it is ~200ish DPS ahead of BRD/MCH. Yet, that is not considered a problem. Why should WAR doing 5% to 10% higher than its counterparts at the cost of being a riskier option be a problem?

No one is saying SMN shouldn't do that AoE DPS because NIN sucks at it either. No one is asking for NIN AoE buffs either.

Thril + Conva is fine if they're both combined and is not far worse than Rampart in either count.

By "uptime" I meant 20s up and 100s down for Thril+Conv compared to 20s up 70s down in Ramps. Ramps also is 25% effective HP and healing increase while Thrill is 20% (equivalent to 16.67% damage reduction) and requires Conv. to be combined for the 20% effective healing increase (to give the actual 16.67% mitigation). So in "both regards" Thril+Conv. is "worse" than Ramps. Being worse in BOTH regards, makes the combo "far worse". Specially that Ramps doesn't need Conv. which keeps it free for other uses. I only brought it up as a comparison of what options the WAR has while "locked" out of Defiance to achieve the maximum coveted DPS that everyone is so jealous of.

Either way, I wasn't trying to "exaggerate" any more than what this whole thread is about. The tanks have problems, but PLD's DPS is not one of them.

[Ultimatecalibur]

There is no problem that a class deals so much more damage than another when it is declared their "thing". As I said in my post, that "so much more damage" is only achievable at the cost of being not so tanky. You say WAR has Storm Path? Well, if WAR wants to reach that 15~20% more DPS than DRK/PLD, he HAS to never touch Storm Path or Inner Beast.

Wrong. Using Storms Path is only a 40 potency loss compared to BB. SP -> SE -> BB is only 1.7% less DpS than SP -> BB -> BB. Avoiding Storm's Path is not the incredible DpS gain you think it is.

Also DPS disparity is not a problem when DRG was the top ST DPS and 300 DPS ahead of BRD/MCH which are also deemed "DPS". Now one will argue that BRD/MCH are support, but they aren't, SMN provides E4E, Virus, Battle Rez, tank pet and all those "supporty things" yet it is ~200ish DPS ahead of BRD/MCH. Yet, that is not considered a problem. Why should WAR doing 5% to 10% higher than its counterparts at the cost of being a riskier option be a problem?

Because it is not "riskier" (despite what you believe) and grants greater benefits.

Also, the single target melee DpS (DRG, MNK and NIN) are balanced against each other, not against the ranged caster DpS (BLM/SMN) or ranged support DpS (BRD/MCH) (which are balanced against the others in their subroles). When DRG was provably the underperformer and NIN was overperforming during 2.4, NIN received a nerf and DRG received a serious boost in survivablity and DpS in 2.45. We just saw MNK receive some buffs in 3.07.