3.1 PLD Changes

[Ashkendor]

Gonna be honest, if your raid is hurting for DPS at this point in the game in A3S then it's not a job choice issue. If you switch to DRK/WAR now, that DPS issue will persist in A4S and there won't be any job changing work-arounds. It's better for your group to improve than try and squirt Elmer's glue all over the problem. DRK MT/PLD OT is the best choice for that composition, you'll get higher DPS and DRK won't have any trouble holding aggro. It'll also free up your CDs quite a bit for hand phase, add phase, and the final phase.

It is partly a job choice issue though. We have basically the worst possible raid composition for A3S right now - PLD/DRK, WHM/AST, and no NIN. We're completely missing out on the slashing debuff along with trying to figure out how to handle healer DPS. If the AST does it, the DPS seems negligible. If the WHM does it, the DPS is better but people die. Mind you, we've only been in there a week now (technically two but our scholar suddenly quit last week so we've been trying to replace) but we're running into the same wall over and over again. I know we'll get better at the fight as we practice the mechanics more, but right now I honestly just kind of feel like dead weight any time low DPS numbers are brought up and that's a terrible feeling to have.

Dunno, I'm going to level WAR either way, and we're going to try the DRK as MT this next week and see how things go.

[Syzygian]

snip'

Lol if you clear with that comp please plaster a recording of it everywhere on the internet cause that is just fuckin heroic bruh.

[Jpec07]

...and we're going to try the DRK as MT this next week and see how things go.

By my understanding, this should help quite a bit. PLD suffers more than any other tank from staying in their tank stance right now, and our DPS in Shield Oath is pitiful. However, when you compare parses of PLD and DRK in their DPS stances, they're very close to even.

The biggest problem is that A3S and A4S are such huge DPS checks that any time a PLD needs to stay in Shield Oath is going to be a detriment. But this isn't a problem with the job so much as it is a problem with the design of the encounters. Low tank damage + huge DPS race = hell for PLD - and SE is realizing this. We're a square peg trying to fit round hole. We're the tank that soaks damage like no other. But the fights right now don't need that--they need tanks that can give as good as they get.

I'm sure that if the discrepancy isn't solved in 3.1 and 3.2, they'll begin to rework our numbers to fix it, but for now, they're taking baby steps (and honestly? Coming from WoW where they overcompensated for just about everything? I far prefer this approach).