Please stop asking for paladin DPS buffs.

[Rustangel]

<snip>...I will happily agree that homogenization of gameplay is a bad thing, but homogenization of effective performance is a necessary evil.

Yeah, I guess I'm not asking people to stop contributing ideas altogether, I want people to stop asking specifically for PLD DPS buffs as though that is the only possible way to solve this problem. And yeah, totally agree - homogenization of performance is absolutely not what I am railing against, in fact that should be a constant goal. I'm fine with it not being 100% perfect as long as skill and dedication can make up most of the shortfall.

I was in a Neverreap the other day with a WHM who was absolutely wrecking the joint. It was amazing, and I was more than happy to sacrifice my own DPS so they could go bananas. So wouldn't it be cool, to have a static where they use a PLD tank and the healers spend most of their time blowing things up, and another static where the healers prefer to heal, so they use a WAR, who contributes the DPS instead...but both comps can down the boss?

Buff PLD's defensive abilities through the roof, I say. That's how to fix this - give us active defensive abilities we need to rotate through, and increase our ability to protect the raid from damage. Then players can react and play differently according to the raid comp, and there's your variety.

[Kiri_Tqnikaze]

"I'm just here to argue my point, which I stole from reddit threads. I'm not repeating anyone. You are wrong, stop talking."
-Ffxiv tank forums summary.

[TheLastRaven]

Diversity doesn't mean leave paladins with incredibly low aggro generation and dps you can balance dps and aggro without losing uniqueness. The values are just a bit too low and most others would agree. War is a more active fighter? Make paladin shine in its Support tank role while still giving it damage to not make it more viable in those terms. The dps gap between the class and the other tanks is big enough to cause people to apparently exclude the class from end game. I do not care if this has happened before to other classes that doesn't mean it should keep happening.

Everyone should be able to play their class at any point of the game and enjoy it.

[Nadirah]

You obviously don't understand a single point here and/or are a very narrow-sighted person.

Wanting less homogenisation doesn't mean reverting WAR to 2.0 at all, and doesn't mean keeping PLD as it is right now either. It means that yeah, we need job changes, we need balance, but we don't want the jobs to be the same, balance can be brought without making every job the same. Like for example, instead of increasing PLD's DPS, they could make them have a party-wide buff that increases damage by X%, which would match the difference in DPS between a PLD MT and a DRK MT. There is plenty of solutions to balance the jobs without making them all totally the same.

As long as there are things one class is good at and others are not, there will always be cases where one tank is better to take than the other.

Always. No exceptions.

And no tank should *have* to level and gear all three jobs just to keep a raid spot.

[AbandonedPaladin]

I think the OP has a good point about it. To sum it up for the OP and to show my opinion as well:

1. We don't like Class homogenisation, please don't head tanks to the same place healers currently are!

2. We DO think PLD is broken right now. Not in terms of DPS, but instead in terms of being "Unable to contribute to raid in a viable way that makes other people want you in their 8 slots for 12 jobs."

3. Yes we want the current state of PLD to be fixed but no we don't want higher numbers. How about fixing [Sheltron] to be able to block in 2-3 secs or block the next of the boss' special attack, BOTH magical and physical but increasing its cooldown? Or making Divine Veil a tank shield too when needed? Or Clemency with insta cast but cost whole MP bar? Or just fix other cooldowns like Sentinel Rampart etc. to be more in line of a "Defensive" tank.

4. Or, we can ask for encounters/bosses to be less of a DPS race and more of a coordination/mechanic test like back in Coil? Please?

[Kemas]

As long as there are things one class is good at and others are not, there will always be cases where one tank is better to take than the other.

Always. No exceptions.

And no tank should *have* to level and gear all three jobs just to keep a raid spot.

And here I am finishing drk, the last of my tanks for this very reason. "LF drk a4s progression static"

Apparently the other 2 jobs negate the i195 set I wasted my esoterics on whether it was SE's intention or not. Still peeved and convincing myself I love drk more as I cap it out after no response to this issue in the TSG live letter. Salt to the wound.

[Nadirah]

And here I am finishing drk, the last of my tanks for this very reason. "LF drk a4s progression static"

Apparently the other 2 jobs negate the i195 set I wasted my esoterics on whether it was SE's intention or not. Still peeved and convincing myself I love drk more as I cap it out after no response to this issue in the TSG live letter. Salt to the wound.

I refuse to level the other tanks at this point in time. I just don't like them. I *do* like paladin, and I've seen A1S enrage... but we never got the kill. Bleh. Would have been nice, but since I can't get a damn static to begin with...

First game I'm maining a tank in and I'm realizing why all my friends elsewhere said "no one wants tanks".

[Seku]

Sadly until SE takes Damage out of the equation for holding hate, PLD is going to need a boost to it, that or a Major boost to it's ability to generate hate through methods outside of damage.

I'd also like for PLD to have it's utility skills buffed and actually made viable along with a reworking of Shield swipe to make it a small DPS increase for MT damage.

Finally until WAR loses something in effectiveness, going forward all tanks are going to do things like WAR and if DRK is any indication, then we're going to be all the same. As WAR has debuffs that work as buffs, Debuffs that work as well....debuffs, damage reduction, High personal damage, and Self-healing on lock down, only missing skills to cure or shield other party members. PLD currently only excels at passive mitigation for physical damage which normally turns into king of taking less Auto attack damage. Sadly Auto Attacks currently doesn't really mean much and to base an entire class strength around it is pretty bad game design.

In short until WAR gets a nerf and literately loses a ability pushing any tank forward in any direction you're going to make them the same.

[ExiaQuanta]

I think someone has said on this forum before but, when it comes down to it, there is nothing "wrong" with PLD. It just that the current end-game content requires ALOT of DPS which is where PLD falls short. Back in the 3 Coils, DPS checks were tight but at the same time not tight enough for you to warrant a double warrior set up for dps, It was a lot more mitigation "heavy" for a tank, as surviving a tank buster was crucial. IMO thats where the WAR isolation first came in, pre-2.1, PLD was able to mitigate much more damage than WAR in First coil and therefore a lot of group had double PLD setup.

So could a PLD use a DPS buff? Yea but probably only enough to meet checks. However at the same time the current content it just so DPS heavy that a PLD's higher survival rate is being over looked. Gear can eventually "fix" this issue, but....you gotta clear the floors to get the current highest lvl gear before 3.1

[Synestra]

Due to there being an 8man comp for end game raiding and only being able to bring 2 tanks with 3 available, all tanks need to do the following the same:

1. Mitigate damage
2. Deal damage

Anything beyond that can be whatever you want it to be - that's where the lack of homogenzation comes in. Hell, you can even diversify HOW they mitigate/deal damage just as long as they still mitigate/deal the same amount. I really don't care if PLD or DRK are doing the same DPS as WAR, it literally doesn't matter. Unless one tank is lagging behind the others in those 2 categories, they are fine for any and all content - currently, PLD is lagging behind in the latter. WAR used to lag behind in the former before 2.1. These two things need to be homogenized and people would be a lot happier.

Pretty much this, basic stuff should be equal between all tanks but flavor should come from utility. This actually applies to healers and DD's aswell.