Yoshi P's Stance on Pld

[Hioki]

They're not weak, they're just poorly designed and implemented. I mean if they were weak we would need to make adjustments to bring them in line... oh wait.

I'm more surprised that they're going to make us wait out to 3.1. You've been bad for 4 months continue to pay us for another 2 months so you can keep playing an imbalanced job. By then, everyone would have made the jump to WAR and DRK or simply quit that we won't even need the changes because all the complaints stopped. *Class balance*

Do we even have job/role leads? If not, This is the reason we need someone dedicated to provide reasonable feedback to.

[Tadus]

Thank you for the translation. I am a happy PLD now that i know that there will be changes

[SwordCoheir]

They're not weak

I kinda agree, the power is there, but it lacks a few things that give PLD's competitors an edge. Like even though Flash scales with attack power, it doesn't scale with DPS abilities like with DRK/WAR's AoE's meaning hate generation will be static and has no room for growth during battle, which would be great if there were any mobs that had super high damage reduction (like old school Irion Giants) to make the static enmity generation useful. Second, PLD doesn't really bring anything to the table that benefits the party, the few abilities they do have (Cover, Divine Veil, STR down) are quirky and situational. Don't get me wrong they're good, but nothing is consistent, not all mobs use Physical AoE's/attacks religiously and many favor magical abilities end-game, but damage down is consistent across the board.

I could probably go on but you get the idea.

[Syzygian]

They're not weak, they're just poorly designed and implemented.

No, raids are poorly designed and implemented. This entire tier has made one tank OP in the truest sense of the term, another tank viable because of the power of a single cooldown and marginally better DPS, and the third tank almost completely ignored.

If they are going to fix their raid design to make DPS, healing, and tanking checks equally important, great. If not, they don't need to buff PLD or DRK (if they buff DRK, PLDs will cry louder, if they buff PLD, it'll overtake DRK), they need to nerf WAR.

[Duelle]

No, raids are poorly designed and implemented. This entire tier has made one tank OP in the truest sense of the term, another tank viable because of the power of a single cooldown and marginally better DPS, and the third tank almost completely ignored.

If they are going to fix their raid design to make DPS, healing, and tanking checks equally important, great. If not, they don't need to buff PLD or DRK (if they buff DRK, PLDs will cry louder, if they buff PLD, it'll overtake DRK), they need to nerf WAR.

It's a little of both.

Raid-wise, it's the magic damage and the DPS requirements without a proper raid structure (read: multiple bosses instead of just 4 per tier) and poor raid pacing (which contributes to burn out much more than nonsense like how "boring" gear is).

Class design-wise, it's the fact the three tanks are trying to edge toward mitigation niches and that emphasis has been placed on their varied utility and DPS. Claiming one tank's utility is higher DPS is already asking for trouble. Making a second tank designed to work within the current raid tier is also asking for trouble. And trying to make the third tank have the "best mitigation" is also asking for trouble.

The three tanks should offer comparable mitigation, comparable DPS and comparable utility, with the difference being gameplay and how abilities interact with one another. If this means nerfing WAR DPS down to PLD level, that's fine. If it means getting rid of Storm's Path or changing it so the damage reduction only affects the WAR, that is also fine. If it means getting rid of the INT Debuff on Delirium and the STR debuff on Halone and replacing them with their version of Storm's Path, that's fine too. In the long term, something needs to change because otherwise we're going to run into these problems every time they introduce a new job.

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I'll always point back to my time spent tanking in WoW for a reference to decent tank parity and design. Prot paladins and Death Knights were stronger in certain respects (mostly better AoE DPS but that only mattered when clearing trash packs), but no sane raid would turn away a prot warrior or bear druid the way some raids here brush off PLDs. DKs were the new kid on the block and prot paladins were the easiest of the four tanks to play (prot pally 969 spec), but bears and prot warriors could still tank content; you just saw less of them because...DKs were the new kid and prot pallys were easier to play.

This is the sort of parity and tank balance we need. One where you can grab any tank and clear content.