PLD dps needs to be buffed, current dps a joke

[Sapphidia]

I don't think anyone can argue that the "order" of DPS/mitigation is incorrect. Warriors should do the most damage in dps and tank stances, but mitigate a tiny bit less. Dark Knights should be "mid tier", and stronger on magical damage. Paladins should be lowest dps, highest physical, slightly behind DRK on magical, with the DPS made up for via slightly more utility. That's how it is, that's how the classes have been sold to us, and that's how it should be.

Making comparisons that because, say, Sentinel is 10% better than Shadow Wall during its 10 second uptime means that Dark Knights need 5% more damage in x situation is kind of spurious and highly subjective. Overall balance matters and it's due to the complete package of how much weight a raid group places on the various strengths and weaknesses.

I think most peoples' issue with the current balance is:

1 - right now DPS is exponentially more important than overall tank mitigation for successful encounters
2 - the difference in DPS levels in "average" practical raid situations is really rather big
3 - the actual difference in mitigation levels is comparatively minor compared to the DPS differences.

This creates a situation where all 3 tanks are in the right place in terms of the order of their power levels, but the balance is swayed heavily in favor of Warrior. Noone wants paladins doing more or even equal dps to a Warrior. Everyone would be happy with paladin being behind dark knight too.

The class just desperately needs some quality of life buffs (read : basically threat, some "clunk" removed) that lets it push out its optimal DPS levels much more frequently and thus close the huge gap between itself and the other tanks in practical (not dummy/pure OT) situations.

[Nadirah]

Threat, clunk removal and something done about magic defense if they insist on magic damage for tank busters.

I'm of the mindset that no tank buster should require an external cooldown.

[Sapphidia]

I'm of the mindset that no tank buster should require an external cooldown.

I think this mindset only really works for WoW-style tanking where mitigation was a bit more constantly active but tanks only had 1-2 actual big Oh Shit cooldowns.

I like the cooldown management aspect of FF, it's the only part that makes the damage-taking part of tanking actually somewhat skillful, but if they negate the need for cooldowns outside of moments when things are messing up they need to remove a lot of cooldowns and turn them into more active/interesting tanking skills. Or just make them passive.

[Brian_]

It's not that hard to understand. If you want to make mitigation matter and tank CDs matter, you mix both. You have high sustained and consistent raid damage AND must mitigate tank busters. And, the damage needs to be high enough that healers will run oom well before any breaks from heal spam. The type of environment where swapping to a DPS stance as a tank is auto death and inefficiency with your cool downs leads to certain death. That's the only situation where any difference in mitigation matters. So, by no coincidence, you take the current state of DPS checks and you apply the same extremity to mitigation. Tanks are getting dropped from raid content because of a 10~15% difference in DPS. If you want to make mitigation matter, then tanks should be getting dropped from raid content because of a 10~15% difference in mitigation.

Until you do that, any talk about PLD mitigation mattering is just talk.

[SpookyGhost]

If you want to make mitigation matter, then tanks should be getting dropped from raid content because of a 10~15% difference in mitigation.

Tanks shouldn't be getting dropped from raid content to begin with. :V

[Brian_]

It's more a response to the morons that think it's actually an equivalent trade off.

[Brannigan]

I only skimmed the last page's shitshow, but shields are kinda overrated as far as passive mitigation goes. Hive is a bit under 5% when averaged and can either be pretty good or pretty bad depending on what it decides to block. Halone is what really gives paladin an edge over DRK for physical damage and you should really be arguing that if you're looking for a reason to keep paladin in its crappy place.

Though I don't really think paladin necessarily needs (or would be "fixed" by) more DPS, I would like for a lot of its crap to be cleaned up. Shield Swipe could be such a cool ability but ends up being so anemic, our unique utility ends up being unique to the point where it doesn't do anything most of the time, and our stances don't do anything to our abilities. Fixing that stuff up (and traits that aren't just "makes this ability do what it should do by default") would incidentally probably bump up DPS a little bit.

Even if paladin matched DRK DPS 100% and had infinite threat, it would still be a gimp compared to Dark Knight in a fight like A4S. A lot of it has to do with fight design but some of it comes down to the magic-only tools being way better than the physical-only tools. I don't think the advantages should be that heavy in either direction.

[MeeYow]

A list of simple changes I think would help PLD in its lack of magic mitigation, utility & dps (in MT/AoE scenarios, where there is absolutely no argument against it being sorely lacking), note that not all would necessarily be applied at the same time (although I think if all were, PLD still wouldn't be a threat to WAR, but in a good enough place where SE can move on to DRK):

Shield Swipe oGCD, 0tp, 10s recast - Mildly more active class

RoH either 6x hate mod or 280 pot and 5.5x hate mod - Ease the hate requirements on sword oath tanking almost closing the gap to deliverance or no grit tanking

Divine Veil either 1 (2?) min CD or double shield potency - This ability is currently just underwhelming

Clemency sub 2s cast, maybe instant, oGCD with 5s recast. still MP gated, no longer too clunky to use

Clemency and Divine viel strengths based off of weapon damage alone - stops STR/VIT builds making the abilities weak whilst preventing pentas being even more OP if based on both.

Royal Authority costs 50tp - blood weapon buff has left PLD behind (2:30 to run dry vs 3:15 for DRK or never for WAR)


Sword Oath:
Increase SW potency to 500 - better reward for good stance dancing, small boost to bring PLD in line with DRK
Shelltron retaliates with a 100 pot attack on a 10x hate mod - more interesting than a hate buff to the old 1 2 3
CoS Pot and DoT doubled - PLD needs at least a small AoE boost bad.


Shield Oath:
Shelltron blocks magic attacks, gain 50tp if physical - Only magical boost, not trying to kill DRK, tp boost makes up for reduced RA use, trade off on magic foes!
Shield swipe is now conal - Again, PLD needs AoE help bad, this route is nice and active but not always up hence sword oath boost.

PLD currently has underwhelming rewards for good stance dancing and a large swap cost, half of the stuff above is to address that by making a lot of the boosts (rather than the flat out 'SE you screwed up' fixes closer to the top) stance dependant. The extra 200 SW pot helps offset the GCD cost for swapping to sword oath.

On a side note, I still think WAR has far too easy of a time stance dancing, they used to at least lose stacks and not get 0 TP using GCDs while DPSing in 2.0, but now stance dancing and TP management come far too easy to the class, for this purpose I think a 100tp cost should be added to both Defiance and Deliverance, tuneable but simply there to make WAR stance swapping require some level of decision making like the other two classes.

[Sairen_Gazz]

the way i see is this
PLD = good for Physical type enemies
War = good damage good defence but mostly to self sustain (my opinion is warrior is the middle ground)
DRK = good for magic type enemies.

any sort of correction would be nice to better my understanding

[Iagainsti]

Die thread Die!!!


#DarkWarriordin