3.1 PLD Changes

[Brian_]

They can balance anything to be like anything. No one is assuming they "can't". But that's not the way they've been designing content, nor does it seem to be the way they want to design the content.

Q: A lot of those voices are probably from players in savage Alexander where there is a high reliance on tank DPS.

Yoshida: We'll be making effort to eliminate that as much as possible. Within the content, there are strong and weak points to each job. For example, in the second area of savage, a paladin main tank should have higher stability than a dark knight. Depending on the player and their skill level, each party will see different results, but we'd like to reduce the difference. We can't just make adjustments to jobs based on whether they are strong or weak in particular content as that would break the jobs, so we'll work to eliminate disadvantages to certain jobs as much as possible in the content. That doesn't mean we won't be making any adjustments to jobs in the future, but we'd like to also hear feedback after playing through the different content in patch 3.1.

http://www.famitsu.com/news/201511/05092257.html
http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/126...3.1-and-Beyond

His words, not mine.

What is "optimal" is not only dependent on the content, it is also dependent on the players. To this day, I still play PLD in A2S. The other tank is a DRK (and doesn't play multiple tanks like I do). That's not an "optimal" comp. Why doesn't it matter? We have more than enough raid DPS to clear the DPS benchmarks and having 2 immunities eliminates any chance that we will mess up the later waves. We trade the unneeded DPS for significantly better stability just like Yoshi-P detailed.

Another example is A3S where the positioning and strategies for a lot of groups have slight variations because you can handle mechanics in different ways. Again, variance in optimization caused by group individuality and raid tuning.

Another example is A4S. Elysium's world first cleared by carrying Nisi. A lot of the groups that cleared after cheesed it with the more "optimal" strat. Apparently the harder method still worked well enough for that group of players to world first A4S.

What becomes optimal is based on content. And, as Yoshida said, adjusting content only impacts said content. Adjusting classes impacts everything. As such, class balance in relation to raid optimization is better solved through raid design. SMNs are overpowered as hell in PvP. Do you nerf SMNs into the ground to fix this issue? No, because you would also screw over SMNs in PvE. The better solution would be to balance SMN's PvP performance through PvP systems like PvP specific skills and PvP objectives. If there is an overall issue, then maybe you look at tweaking the class.

What strategy people pick is dependent on their available options as well as individual comfort-zones. You just need to tune content well enough that the gap in viability between the different options is close enough that player skill and comfort are enough to swing a decision. So, going back to your question about HG, what option would groups go with? As long as you tuned the DPS gain of LB3 + no weakness to be equal to the loss in raid DPS that PLD also causes, then the choice would come down to preference between balanced pros and cons. That's what it means to properly tune an encounter.