3.1 PLD Changes

[Yonanja]

@Brian_: What you don't seem to have the intellect to be able to see, is how players work in an MMO. The first question that comes up when considering an encounter (from the players point of view) is, "which classes can survive this fight without having large issues with it that would slow us down? All of them? OK... which class would make the fight the shortest?" This is how the playerbase of an MMO works. Having classes that perform so differently during different situations only leads to "Flavor of the month" classes and compositions... this is NOT having balanced classes. Balanced classes would be pointing at any given encounter or dungeon and being able to say "It doesn't matter which of the 3 classes we bring, since they perform the same". Having encounters "cater" to specific classes is just plain dumb... unless the devs plan is having the players spend time lvling and gearing classes they might not enjoy playing, in which case, by all means continue... since it's working perfectly.

[Shining_Tiger_Excalibur]

'If all you are focusing on is survivability, PLD does give you better stability in A2S. Their physical mitigation is better and a lot of the damage is physical. HG is really good in A2S. How was Yoshida wrong?'
Hallowed Ground is literally the only note worthy thing for even considering bringing a Paladin into A2s. In every single instance where waves of enemies are present you take jobs that have access to more AoE ability, for example----'If the next end-game raid tier has a lot of AoE heavy fights, SMN, BLM, and MNK would reign supreme.'----oh, nevermind, you did that for me. The reason why you're group is using a DRK/PLD setup and not worried about meeting checks is because you're more appropriately/over geared for it now on each and every single role whether it be tank, healer or dps. If you were in a low item level progression group, they'd flat out tell you to drop one of those jobs for a Warrior to meet checks and damned near tell you to bring Dark Knight because of better AoE potential. Let's also not forget to mention that A1s and A2s are only comparable to Final Coil of Bahamut difficulty and the real "Savage" content starts at A3s. Why do you think my group does that too? Gear fixes everything, right? No need to to notice performance deficiency and fix it for later content.

'I also don't know why you are referencing T9 and T13 when, even synced, people over-gear the content. Also, unless he recently made and leveled a character on NA, Arthars is a JP player. JP DF players are significantly better than even NA PF in terms of their skill, knowledge, and experience. Of course his groups were better than the garbage DF and PF NA players have.'
He has made an NA character but that doesn't really matter in the discussion here. I'm doing this to further emphasize the ridiculousness of saying that nothing needs to change when everything is "at a more appropriate item level." I'm also pointing out that for one tank to have gone through every single one of their cooldowns in any given encounter means that there's going to be a tank swap mechanic, so this "X job does X thing better" design philosophy is utter bullshit. Excessive mitigation of any sort does not justify a lack of damage potential, when to even begin to destroy a tank, there also has to be a tank swap mechanic included as well just to push them over the edge and DEMAND that they swap or die. It's also amazing that in the hands of skilled individuals a job that is "totally terrible without a shield for physical fights" does more than okay when level synced even if overgeared. By apparent design a Paladin is supposed to attain superiority in physical fights, but DRK does just as good.

'And Yoshida's point about balancing content wasn't wrong either. I'll go back to a previous example. If one of the next encounters in the next end-game raid tier was greatly simplified by having 2 non-targeted tank immunities, WAR would suddenly be the odd tank out. Do you then buff Holmgang to be on par with HG and LD because WAR is weak in that specific scenario? Of course not. You admit you messed up your raid design and tune future content differently.'
That's actually a really good point. Holmgang is totally the worst one because it leaves them at 1 HP, man we need to give them something where they can heal for half their life at worst to help heale...rs....oh, that's already in the game. Equilibrium. Warrior has no weaknesses unless they're hit so hard that even DRK/PLD would shudder from pain and be near death. Hallowed Ground, my shield, and Living Dead don't mean shit in the hands of a capable player and group.

'If the next end-game raid tier has a lot of AoE heavy fights, SMN, BLM, and MNK would reign supreme. Do you just nerf their AoE damage into the ground to balance DPS classes because of one set of raids? That's incredibly stupid.'
No, what a smart person would fucking do is design a job that doesn't have this kind of potential in such a way that they overcome their own weaknesses over time for future content. Paladin can't do this, and never has been able to....it only survives and demands that a healer shoves a medical spray down his throat while at the same time holds the Ninja's family hostage demanding that he takes the longsword to the whetstone because it doesn't cut good enough. Like I said, most selfish job in the game right now despite the player base begging it not to be.

'And, like I said earlier, PvP still exists in this game. SMN is super overpowered in PvP. Do you nerf SMN into the ground because they're really good in PvP? Of course not. You adjust the PvP only systems like PvP skills to better balance SMN. Healing is way too strong in PvP. Do you nerf healing potencies and efficiency across the board? Hell no.'
It's a good thing the developers aren't----oh wait, they are changing the systems in place, potency, duration (Six second stun PVE.....Three second stun PVP for Paladin,) abilities, etc. to better facilitate players and not changing the content to specifically cater to those that don't have some of the things others have......So tell me again how changing damage values, timers, abilities, and other JOB SPECIFIC things is fine in PVP but it's not in PVE? Because that's what they're doing in PVP and you're calling it balancing.....just because you're fighting monsters and not players doesn't change the similarity.

'In fact, we have a few recent examples of SE nerfing things based on specific content. They neutered Holy and Flare because they were too strong on the mass pulls in speed runs. Thankfully, because the nerf had no real impact on anything but speed-runs and FATEs, it wasn't too big a deal. If the nerf had an impact on relevant progression, you can be sure the outrage would be real.'
No, Square got tired of people getting what they need too fast and then logging off the game for spans of sometimes months so they started gimping speed runs like they're about to gimp materia melding, raid equipment, crafted accessories and many more things. I have a smile on my face right now regarding the irony of your argument, because they changed job abilities in preparation for future content instead of designing encounters around the unchanged ability. Dungeons now are no different than they were before. Fractal Continuum's locked doors are just like Keeper of the Lake's scrap heap obstruction leading up to the final boss. They're still like Hullbreaker Isle requiring you to kill all monkeys to activate the giant Gorilla boss. They, rightly so, want more money. But that does not in any way support your argument right now about "nerfs" because in Savage healers don't have the time to cast AoE damaging spells for prolonged amounts of time unless the job has been designed to both heal and DPS (Hello Scholar,) or there are moments where BY DESIGN the encounter allows you to do so (stunning all goblins in A2s.) Your point is moot.

[Rosiel]

The 3.1 PLD changes don't seem to fix the current PLD issues. I only have experience up to A3S but TP shortage only occur in A2S, 10 TP every 3 combo rotations don't seem much.

I have been main GLA / PLD since 1.0 and it is sad to see PLD being so helpless in 3.0 - 3.1. I'm from Gungnir and I could not get in a single party for Alexander Savage until approximately a month ago, every party was looking for either DRK or WAR. When everyone is pushing for progression with average party IL 185 to 195, I have to wait until average party IL 195+ in order to even get an invite. It is so frustrating.

After 4.5 months of game play and collecting data, SE still don't want to change the bad position that PLD is currently in. When even healers are expecting to dps instead of full time healing, why on earth would you think survivability of tanks is a problem? When survivability is not a problem, then why bring a tank with lesser dps? I'm not going to say all players, but quite alot of players do enjoy racing each other for progression and my PLD was not involved in this race.

So, I went to this forum to see is it just Gungnir or other server are having similar situation. There were some posts asking for PLD buff / balancing and the common replies were:

PLD Main: Support
WAR Main: NO
WAR Main: You don't deserve it
WAR Main: You get survivability, stop crying
WAR Main: Suck it
DRK Main: (similar as WAR while asking their own buffs)

All you WAR Main need to stop referring to 2.0. Yes, you suffered in 2.0 but it only lasted 4 months and then got buffed to hell in 2.1. If you claimed that you cannot MT since 2.1, it was not the job, it was you needed to learn to play your job. Not to mention when WAR asked for buff / balance back in 2.0, I did not see PLD had the above rude comments. FFXIV is a heavy PVE game, players suppose to work with each other; however, tanks have been turning against each other since 3.0.

Who knows when will 3.2, maybe another 3 to 4 months? Throwing a little bone like this and expecting to get pay for another 3 to 4 months is not acceptable from customer point of view. I'm not asking for god mode like Hallowed Ground which last for a minute, I'm only asking for a fair play and SE failed to deliver.

[Brian_]

@Brian_: What you don't seem to have the intellect to be able to see, is how players work in an MMO. The first question that comes up when considering an encounter (from the players point of view) is, "which classes can survive this fight without having large issues with it that would slow us down? All of them? OK... which class would make the fight the shortest?" This is how the playerbase of an MMO works. Having classes that perform so differently during different situations only leads to "Flavor of the month" classes and compositions... this is NOT having balanced classes. Balanced classes would be pointing at any given encounter or dungeon and being able to say "It doesn't matter which of the 3 classes we bring, since they perform the same". Having encounters "cater" to specific classes is just plain dumb... unless the devs plan is having the players spend time lvling and gearing classes they might not enjoy playing, in which case, by all means continue... since it's working perfectly.

How many times do I have to repeat the point?

All of what you said is only relevant to the current content and will only stay relevant if raid design does not change. The questions you have posed are only questions because raid design makes them the priority. They have said they are looking to change that. I'll be extreme in this example and hopefully you will finally get the point --

What if SE designed an encounter that was not dependent on DPS and was based solely on surviving until enrage?

The best classes and the best raid comp would be totally different from what we see now. The questions you ask when considering an encounter would also change.

It doesn't matter what type of raid you are designing, you will always be catering to specific classes. Even if classes have the same eHP, the same raid DPS contribution, and the same utility, you will still have to cater to specific classes because of the differences in how they reach those ends. Unless you are suggesting homogenization to the point that all DPS classes deal identical damage in identical ways, you will need to cater to a certain class. Again, I'll be extreme in this example --

What if SE designed an encounter that had an incredibly tight DPS check within a 2-3 GCD window?

While your tanks, healers, and DPS might contribute the same overall raid DPS, certain classes will have higher burst because that is their flavor. Unless you completely homogenize the classes, certain classes will be left out even if they are "balanced." Again, balance is relative to the content.

The point is raid design is always tuned to soften the differences between classes. It is about achieving class balance through raid tuning so that every class has their place within the content. That's not happening now because the tuning is off by SE's own admission.

[Brian_]

snip

A2S --

A2S's world second clear with a PLD was virtually at the same time as the world first clear with a DRK. If people were clearing DPS margins on the first day of Savage release with PLD, you have no argument for why enrage is still an issue now. But this is irrelevant because both my point and Yoshida's still stand. Does PLD actually give your raid better stability? Yes. Are you going to disprove that? So again, PLD has a strength and weakness in relation to A2S. Objectively better survivability vs. Objectively worse DPS. If you don't need the DPS to meet enrage, then PLD is just better than DRK.

T9 and T13 --

No, your point is irrelevant because having highly skilled players with over-gearing says nothing about the strength or balance of a class in progression content. And, objectively, DRK does not do just as good as PLD in physical fights. You cannot argue with facts and math. PLD has better physical mitigation. Disprove that and then you can talk.

Holmgang vs. Living Dead vs. HG --

I said non-targeted immunity. How do you use Holmgang without a target? You can't. So WAR would be left without a usable immunity, would die everytime to the tank buster, and would cease to exist in the raid meta. My point was you don't buff Holmgang -- Holmgang is perfectly fine. You change the design of the raid.

AoE damage balance --

No idea what any of that has to do with the blatant imbalances in how much AoE damage DPS classes do, but okay. I guess you're suggesting that classes be given stuff to deal with their own weaknesses? So instead of nerfing the better AoE DPS classes, according to your example, the weaker ones should be buffed? So, how do you adjust FATEs, dungeons, raids and trials to account for the massive increase in AoE DPS? They already nerfed Holy and Flare. Or, you could just design content like A2S where the weak AoE DPS classes still have a very important role. One solution seems quite a bit better to me.

PvP --

What they've done is they've given PvP its own unique "raid design" with independent balancing in order to separate it from overall class balance in PvE content. You're only proving my point. They didn't make PLD's stun only 3 seconds in PvE content because it was too strong in PvP. You zone into a PvP instance and you are playing a different game which caters to a different rule-set. If you're suggesting that PLDs be made stronger only in Savage, then that is no different from adjusting raid design and tuning to cater to PLD. If you're suggesting that they just buff PLDs regardless of the content, then that is not what is happening when they make contextual adjustments restricted to PvP.

Holy and Flare --

I don't know why you're smiling because they've also been changing dungeon design to counter AoE. Ever wonder why old dungeons had massive pulls (Brayflox HM is over in 3~4 pulls, Haukke HM is similar, etc.) when new ones have gates between zones? So no, Dungeons are different than they were before. They just went the extra mile and nerfed Holy and Flare on top of that. In hindsight, did the nerfs to AoE actually stop people from speed-running? Obviously not. Dungeon design has done much more to slow down groups than the Holy and Flare nerfs. That is the point. Could they still buff PLD? They haven't ruled it out. They've just said that they'll adjust raid content as a priority to deal with imbalance, just like what they did to counter speed-runs.

[Yonanja]

I'm going to stop argueing with you after this post, since you're obviously in favor of class inbalance and "flavor of the month", for some strange reason. It's made obvious by your examples, since nothing you've put forward would make the inbalance less, just shift it around.

Also, I don't think that I've ever once mentioned any particular raid and/or dungeon as far as I know. You're the one who's hung up on alex savage. I've been considering class balance (for the tankingclasses) as a whole, no matter what encounter in the game.

Fact remains that there can't be any balance among the three classes as long as their performance differ as much as the devs want them to. It'll only lead to certain classes being better for certain things, and as I've pointed out several times, damage output is what the vast majority of players care about the most, as long as the specific class can still survive the encounter and not cause severe issues for the rest of the group.

And even if for example PLD would turn out to be superior for some future content, it's still just as inbalanced as it is now.

But as you seem to only listen to the voice of YoshiP, who've said ALOT of things that turned out not to be even close to the real result, I don't think that there is any point in continuing to argue with you. Let's just agree to disagree, and you can keep enjoying your inbalanced classes and FotM, and I can keep on hating it.

[Cynric]

@Brian: You don't understand PvP balance. PvP is the same game , same world, same rules. We just kill players. Most games do sweeping balances across PvE and PvP, Square just didn't want to see anyone get upset over them balancing PvP so they balanced a few things separately. However, Miasma was nerfed in both areas, Raiton was nerfed due to it's extremely high burst in PvP as well as to bring Ninja dps down.
They haven't changed the PvP systems themselves due to class imbalance very often at all. They changed the class imbalance inside PvP. They've nerfed things in both pve and pvp before just for pvp sake.

As for PvE, "a tank buster where you need a non targeted immunity" is it physical? Then Cover > Hallowed Ground. Is it not? Provoke > Living Dead /Hallowed Ground.

We have two tank slots , wouldn't matter if War couldn't use an immunity, we'd bring DRK/PLD literally just to cover the one thing they can't do. But due to the utility War brings otherwise, as well as the insane tank damage, they'd be useful outside of that one small easy to get around gimmick. Guess which second tank we'll use for the immunity? The one who brings more DPS.

Even in the situation you presented Warrior is guaranteed a spot. Pld and Drk are just to make sure War survives . This is the issue, Warrior isn't fighting anyone for a spot, Drk/Pld fight each other. We'll always take the better one. This is called imbalance. You can change the content as much as you want and throw all these simple gimmicks in you want, it doesn't change the situation with tank balance.

[Brian_]

@Brian: You don't understand PvP balance. PvP is the same game , same world, same rules. We just kill players. Most games do sweeping balances across PvE and PvP, Square just didn't want to see anyone get upset over them balancing PvP so they balanced a few things separately. However, Miasma was nerfed in both areas, Raiton was nerfed due to it's extremely high burst in PvP as well as to bring Ninja dps down.
They haven't changed the PvP systems themselves due to class imbalance very often at all. They changed the class imbalance inside PvP. They've nerfed things in both pve and pvp before just for pvp sake.

As for PvE, "a tank buster where you need a non targeted immunity" is it physical? Then Cover > Hallowed Ground. Is it not? Provoke > Living Dead /Hallowed Ground.

We have two tank slots , wouldn't matter if War couldn't use an immunity, we'd bring DRK/PLD literally just to cover the one thing they can't do. But due to the utility War brings otherwise, as well as the insane tank damage, they'd be useful outside of that one small easy to get around gimmick. Guess which second tank we'll use for the immunity? The one who brings more DPS.

Even in the situation you presented Warrior is guaranteed a spot. Pld and Drk are just to make sure War survives . This is the issue, Warrior isn't fighting anyone for a spot, Drk/Pld fight each other. We'll always take the better one. This is called imbalance. You can change the content as much as you want and throw all these simple gimmicks in you want, it doesn't change the situation with tank balance.

I've never read in any live letter that they've changed overall class balance in any significant way solely because of PvP imbalances. It was either a situation where the change in PvP had little to no influence on other aspects of the game, or they restricted the change to PvP.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...22#post2622222

This is Yoshida's original post on why Ninja was getting nerfed. No mention of PvP. He mentions how they originally tuned Mudras and Ninjutsus under the assumption that rotations would be different from what they ended up being. They didn't think people would cram Mudras and Ninjutsus into such tight timings. So, the resulting DPS was higher than they intended. So, they nerfed abilities as not to mess with rotations but still lower general DPS output. The overall design concern was that they wanted the 3 melee DPS to be balanced. Seems pretty obvious PvP was an afterthought.

So, where exactly is your evidence that they balanced classes overall based solely on PvP? In your words, they changed class balance within PvP. Like I said, that's no different from changing class balance within Savage. How do you change class balance within something specific? You make changes exclusive to that content. If you adjust PLD skills overall then that bleeds over into all content. If you just adjust savage raid design and tuning, then PLD is made stronger for Savage only.

Yea, in my example, you need 2 non-targeted immunities. You can cover/provoke and HG/LD one. Then, what about the other? The tank just dies.

I don't get why people are even nit-picking (and incorrectly nit-picking) the example. The intent is clear. There can be content designed to gate a class out of relevancy entirely. You could have fights with constant prolonged-downtime to force MNKs to drop greased lightning constantly and suddenly MNK DPS would be horrible. You could have a fight that constantly forces you to 0 TP and any TP-based class would suffer immensely. How is it that people have such a hard time understanding that content is the context that dictates class balance? If the next time you woke up reality changed so that everything is underwater, you would drown to death and fish would be OP. If you wanted to, you could definitely remove a tank from a raid tier through raid design. If a tank is not viable in the content, that changes the situation with tank balance.

[Dhex]

If a tank is not viable in the content, that changes the situation with tank balance.

Forcing more imbalance between tanks is bad; idiotic even.

[Brian_]

snip

When I played WoW from Vanilla through BC, they constantly adjusted classes to try and reach a point of balance. The result? FotM. The classes just played musical chairs every patch -- when the music stopped and the patch hit, there would be winners and losers. Why would it be any different in FFXIV? Just because they adjust classes instead of content doesn't mean it won't be FotM.

On paper, WAR does more DPS than DRK. According to you, that's imbalance. So, they should buff DRK DPS to be on par with WAR or nerf WAR DPS down to DRK levels.

In practice, you have two scenarios. The first, which is basically Savage right now, has the DRK capable of tanking without Grit so that they get the DPS increase of Blood Weapon while also getting the procs for Reprisal and Low Blow. Their DPS ends up being higher than WAR.

The second has the DRK incapable of tanking without Grit and absolutely nothing to parry. Their DPS ends up being lower than WAR because they can't Blood Weapon and cannot get Reprisal / Low Blow procs.

Because of different content, you have different balance. Is this so hard to understand? While they might be balanced in theory, classes will always react differently to content because balance exists relative to content. Unless all the content in the game is identical until the end of time (which nobody wants), you will have variance. At which point you will have FotM again unless your classes are literally identical (which again, nobody wants). Like I said earlier, balance is always the result of some ratio of raid design and class design. It's not your black and white world where the two are separate entities. That they are prioritizing raid design over class design (but still adjusting classes) is perfectly fine.

Forcing more imbalance between tanks is bad; idiotic even.

Except they are not trying to force more imbalance, they are trying to force balance.