Taking a look at PLD and what could be a quick(er) fix.

[Kabooa]

Inb4 3.2 when the giant ass tankbuster is physical based, on a 30 second CD (to match shelltron), and reduces healing received from -outside sources- by 50%.

[SpookyGhost]

giant ass tankbuster

Weird fetish.

(SRS: If the tank buster were every 30s, WAR would also be able to IB + Equilibrium the first and IB + IB the second, having Vengeance/Thrill of Battle for every other buster and RI thrown in wherever it fits, while also doing higher MT DPS in tank stance. However, if only tank stance + 10% DR is required for each buster, then a PLD could theoretically tank the whole thing in SwO vs a WAR who would need to enter tank stance for IB. Also I'm pretty sure this might literally be Death Sentence slightly buffed? Can't remember if Infirmity is healing down or not)

(Also I'm fairly certain DRK literally could not tank this fight at all)

[Kabooa]

(Also I'm fairly certain DRK literally could not tank this fight at all)

(that's the joke. You ruined it. You monster.)

/GLADoS.mp3

Infirmity was all potency based healing (So I believe Lustrates would get through before the "buff". That's why outside healing is the key phrase; Self healing, the Dark Knight's got precious little of it compared to 2x clemency and Equilibrium.

[alimdia]

Don't forget that DRK can use their offensive and defensive "stance" at the same time as well, making that 20% decreased damage into 5% instead. Mp is really a non-issue since you both got a CD for that, and will be using your "get mana back" skill as part of selfhealing and -int combos.

Also, why is the PLD DoT skill the only one hidden behind a combo?

@alimdia: I think he ment the normal cross-class cure, not clemency. Clemency is so situational that it's pretty much useless, not to mention that it costs too much resources (time/mp) for what it does to really be worth it.

Drk also doesn't have the shield. The shield is only useless in A4S, which is encounter design problem, not class design issue.
Whats wrong with having a DoT behind a combo? It does more dmg than royal.
Clemency has 1s more cast time than cure... clemency is a lot more useless than cure

Even our stun is connected to our GCD. And slow is a nice added perk. I doubt you also think shield swipe sucks, especially after the patch.

And yes, I do say PLD aren't great at AoE and not every dungeon has 8 players. While DRK and WAR have no issues dishing out AoE for both dmg and enmity, PLD's are left with flashing and hoping the overgeared DRG in an lvl 30 dungeon doesn't pull the aggro too quickly. If I'm just fighting for enmity on a boss fight, I can very often beat out a WAR and even a DRK at times, but in a mob, there's a clear disadvantage. Especially if it's not level sync'd at lvl 50 (as we lose circle of scorn).

And for Sword Oath, yes the dmg increase is great for long boss fights. You can really see the difference when the fight drags on, but those attacks do NOT do high damage by any means. The attack stances for WAR and DRK are % on top of ALL their move sets. Allowing them to deal out a couple thousand of dmg in a single move, let alone multiple. But hey, I am putting in a steady stream of 150-250 auto attack hits. Fear me Odin. Fear me.

As an OT, yes, PLD can deal good DPS via auto attack boost. I've noticed the usefulness myself using it whenever I can. But even with that, most will pass on a PLD OT using sword oath. Why is that?

stun connected to GCD means you can stun 3 times, something no other class can. In A3S you can stun for 10.5 seconds, while any other combination will be less.

Not every tank is supposed to have AoE that does massive damage. Otherwise it becomes boring

Sword oath is not just 150-250 auto attacks.
Assuming you only spam Royal
over 27 seconds you have 2070 potency + 550 potency (from spirits and CoS)
in 27 seconds, you auto attack 13.5 - 10.8 times.
Thats 1080 to 1350 in auto atk potency.
Sword bonus is 540 to 675 potency.
Thats 14.5% increase in damage just with sword oath.
That is 'high damage'.

People don't take PLD cos they read what people say on reddit about PLDs being bad.

[Malicewolf]

I think thats part of the problem though...

It WAS a perfect situation for Clemency...but why is it we're the only tank class that has to wait on "perfect situations" for many of our abilities to be useful?

I mean, when is "dealing damage" situational? The only time I can think of is not pushing phases too quickly, but even that can be gotten used to....

Divine Veil, Clemency, Cover, Tempered will, they're all so situational...they're useful during perfect circumstances and the rest of the time its just kinda there, and maybe you use it, and maybe its useful, but most of the time its really purely for those "perfect situations" that they matter.

I can definitely agree with this statement. So many things about PLD is dependent on circumstances occurring to create a perfect situation for us to be at our utmost usefulness. I've been trying to use macro's lately to assist in making them easier to deal with. For cover, i've found a pretty good one for boss fights (since I usually just do provoke > shield lob for mob mistakes). Boss's often throw out AoE's without actually taking their aggro off of tanks. This makes <tt> useless for cover.
I play on ps4, so it's not quick for me to quickly mouse over a teammate or pick them via the party as it requires me to put my weapon away in order to cycle through teammates (and then it's exactly that, I still have to cycle). So I came up with a separate macro so I don't have to do anything but click a button. The /p is just for my own fun as a side note but those can easily be modified. Biggest point of them is to ensure the person you are covering knows and stays near you.

/target <triangle>
/p Covering <t>. Notice me senpai. Run to me!
/ac "Cover"
/wait 10
/p Cover is ending, flee for your life!

I use a premade icon instead of using the Cover icon, corresponding with whatever mark symbol I use.
The requirement for this is to mark the key player's you wish to cover BEFORE the boss fight (and tell them not to remove it as it's for your macro). This is mostly used by me with my FC mates and I connect to my healers, the other tank and usually leave the last undone. This particular macro cover's triangle, but I've made one for circle, triangle and cross as well. So it takes up 4 slots, yes, but now I can customize who I protect easily since <mo> is difficult on ps4, as is <t> (and <tt> is unreliable). I do also keep cover available as well incase of an odd scenario where I do need to cover someone outside of my usual situation.

But the nice thing about this is, you don't have to target anyone during a fight. You just need to know who it is you want to cover and either run to them, or make sure they know to run to you (once again, do this for my FC, so we're on a skype call and I just tell them to run to me). And yes, i know Cover is 12 seconds long. But usually, you don't need to cover someone for the full 12 seconds. I'd rather them not be on top of me when it runs out, so I tell them to leave 2 seconds early.

SNIP

Yes, it is true, we can dish out more stuns in a row than anyone else. But if you're throwing out 3 stuns in a row on an enemy, you effectively made it impossible to stun that enemy anymore as they can now resist it. If you are running around hitting all the enemies in your mobs with shield bash... i don't know what to say. It has no increased enmity effects, so anyone else hitting it will pull. And if you do 3... well, GCD is 2.5 seconds. So the 1st enemy is already well out of the stun and the 2nd is just about to be. I hardly find this argument a good one. In a boss fight, I hope i'm not the ONLY one stunning. More so, this is a case of, just because you can... doesn't mean it's good. Perhaps I just haven't run into a boss that spams unavoidable AoE's on such a constant basis yet as I haven't finished all content. But I usually save the stuns for such moments where they use unavoidable or huge AoE's that would be difficult for everyone to get out.

And I'm definitely not saying every tank should be able to dish out massive AoE. DRK does not do such by any means with unleash. 100 potency. But flash does no dmg and circle of scorn is a lvl 50 move. So any lower level dungeons means I can't use it. Basically, anything before castrum, I lose my AoE. So while DRK and WAR focus on damaging to get their AoE and enmity, I'm flashing away, effectively, not helping to reduce the mob's hp (meaning the mobs take longer to kill). Then, i'm cutting into my combos if a DPS is wailing away too much on a different enemy or the healer is spamming medica a bit too much (once again, cutting out my effectiveness on dmg as I don't produce any dmg with flash). It's not the most horrible situation. We take an extra min or two to kill off mobs. But it's something I noticed which puts us below the others. That's all. The 1st part of my original post was simply my observations. As you can see, my end statement actually doesn't really have to do with giving us AoE. It's instead, to allow PLD's to take a different avenue than the other tanks with what they've already given us. We just can't utilize what they gave us for cross skills very well.

And sword oath, ok. Thanks for the info! Sounds like I have indeed been underestimating sword oath. Guess it truly does add up quicker than it looks. And at least for me with my current gear, I'm only dishing out about 150-250 per auto attack hit on lvl sync'd dungeons of lvl 50. It's a steady stream of incoming dmg, but it just seems off when you see a WAR dish out huge 3000 damage hits and then you're sitting there saying, "don't worry guys, I have sword oath on!" and you see a little 150-200 pop up over the enemy. I've already had to explain to my FC that SO is better than it looks, but I still didn't think it would add up to the offensive tank stances of the other 2 in the long run.

[Callidus]

... But would you turn down a PLD who could raise for an extra 300 DPS? Personally, I would not (because we all know just how great duty finder can be).

PLD's problems aren't with Duty Finder though. Sure when a duty pops and they see a PLD they might wish they'd gotten a WAR or DRK to put out better numbers, but I've never had anyone ragequit a duty or boot me due to being a PLD. Most people doing DF content are just glad they have a tank at all so they can get on with doing their daily/weekly grind.

Savage groups and even some party finder groups are where the issue of PLD exclusion comes into play. Would these types of groups turn down a PLD that can raise for 300 more DPS? Many of them, especially progression raiders, would and I wouldn't blame them.

Any content designed to make PLD's physical damage mitigation and support abilities so attractive as to make PLD a preferred tank would just swing the pendulum the other direction and leave one of the other tanks (likely DRK) in the same situation PLD has been in since 3.0. Even most PLDs don't want this.

In any case, PLD is not anywhere near as relatively superior in it's greatest strengths of physical mitigation and "utility" as it is relatively inferior in its greatest weaknesses of MT DPS and AOE DPS.

EDIT: I'd like to clarify that my comments on PLDs being excluded was in response to a (probably) rhetorical question that I quoted. Even in those scenarios where PLDs are welcomed into content where DRK/WAR is preferred, it is still usually to the groups disadvantage even if people are too kind to say so, as has been my experience.

[Seku]

Snip

A. Tanks share gear and I'd rather not get sets for WAR/DRK and then just for my PLD. Or have SE put on more useless stats on our gear.
B. 1k-1.2k cures won't do anything. thats like what...? 1/17th up to about 1/20kish of your health and a waste of time casting while you eat 2k to the face.
C. In battle raise would be ok when you're OTing. But really is just a novelty, we have too much of that and it's why PLD is behind.
D. They should be looking at fixing PLD's Hate first and foremost before anything else. Then look at adding in some type of extra benefit to RA. Make clemency instant cast or lower it down to weapon skill speed at the very least. Remove DV's required heal. And put some type of damage onto flash, because there isn't a reason not to.

[alimdia]

Yes, it is true, we can dish out more stuns in a row than anyone else. But if you're throwing out 3 stuns in a row on an enemy, you effectively made it impossible to stun that enemy anymore as they can now resist it. If you are running around hitting all the enemies in your mobs with shield bash... i don't know what to say. It has no increased enmity effects, so anyone else hitting it will pull. And if you do 3... well, GCD is 2.5 seconds. So the 1st enemy is already well out of the stun and the 2nd is just about to be. I hardly find this argument a good one. In a boss fight, I hope i'm not the ONLY one stunning. More so, this is a case of, just because you can... doesn't mean it's good. Perhaps I just haven't run into a boss that spams unavoidable AoE's on such a constant basis yet as I haven't finished all content. But I usually save the stuns for such moments where they use unavoidable or huge AoE's that would be difficult for everyone to get out.

And I'm definitely not saying every tank should be able to dish out massive AoE. DRK does not do such by any means with unleash. 100 potency. But flash does no dmg and circle of scorn is a lvl 50 move. So any lower level dungeons means I can't use it. Basically, anything before castrum, I lose my AoE. So while DRK and WAR focus on damaging to get their AoE and enmity, I'm flashing away, effectively, not helping to reduce the mob's hp (meaning the mobs take longer to kill). Then, i'm cutting into my combos if a DPS is wailing away too much on a different enemy or the healer is spamming medica a bit too much (once again, cutting out my effectiveness on dmg as I don't produce any dmg with flash). It's not the most horrible situation. We take an extra min or two to kill off mobs. But it's something I noticed which puts us below the others. That's all. The 1st part of my original post was simply my observations. As you can see, my end statement actually doesn't really have to do with giving us AoE. It's instead, to allow PLD's to take a different avenue than the other tanks with what they've already given us. We just can't utilize what they gave us for cross skills very well.

And sword oath, ok. Thanks for the info! Sounds like I have indeed been underestimating sword oath. Guess it truly does add up quicker than it looks. And at least for me with my current gear, I'm only dishing out about 150-250 per auto attack hit on lvl sync'd dungeons of lvl 50. It's a steady stream of incoming dmg, but it just seems off when you see a WAR dish out huge 3000 damage hits and then you're sitting there saying, "don't worry guys, I have sword oath on!" and you see a little 150-200 pop up over the enemy. I've already had to explain to my FC that SO is better than it looks, but I still didn't think it would add up to the offensive tank stances of the other 2 in the long run.

There are some raids that pld throwing out 3 stuns in a row was good.
T5 dreadknaughts (ppl can't kill it inside 1 stun)
levi ex add (ppl can't kill it inside 1 stun)
A3S adds running to the edge. Everyone else's stuns have CDs, yours doesn't.
Can you iamgine how boring it is if every tank had the same stun mechanic (oGCD)

As for dungeons, I mean flash has a blind effect, which reduces incoming damage. AoE damage isn't really PLD's purpose, mitigating damage is. It just so happens that this game is all about DPS checks atm.

Show your fc the maths of sword oath. Lots of small numbers add up to a big number!
15% increased dmg is from NO OATH to Sword oath.

So shield oath -> sword damage increase is even more. (.8 -> 1.15 approx 43% dmg increase)
Defiance -> deliverance (.75->1.05 28.6% dmg increase, not including fell cleaves)
No grit -> grit (25% dmg increase)
Not including maim/darkside because those can also be up without tank stance.

Theres 2 ways to 'fix' PLD.
One is making it a carbon copy of the other tanks, the other is to fix the BS encounter design.
e.g. new thor ex is highly advantageous of PLDs, whilst alex savage was more advantageous for drks.

[Reynhart]

I play on ps4, so it's not quick for me to quickly mouse over a teammate or pick them via the party as it requires me to put my weapon away in order to cycle through teammates

What do you put your weapon away to target your teammates ?

[Malicewolf]

[QUOTE=Seku;3426230]A. Tan

A. Tanks share gear and I'd rather not get sets for WAR/DRK and then just for my PLD. Or have SE put on more useless stats on our gear.
B. 1k-1.2k cures won't do anything. thats like what...? 1/17th up to about 1/20kish of your health and a waste of time casting while you eat 2k to the face.
C. In battle raise would be ok when you're OTing. But really is just a novelty, we have too much of that and it's why PLD is behind.
D. They should be looking at fixing PLD's Hate first and foremost before anything else. Then look at adding in some type of extra benefit to RA. Make clemency instant cast or lower it down to weapon skill speed at the very least. Remove DV's required heal. And put some type of damage onto flash, because there isn't a reason not to.

We could easily alter numbers on the healing. I'm basing that healing number on lvl 50 sync'd. It's decent in comparison to our current 200-250 heals using cure and I'm not looking for a PLD to completely replace a healer. But be able to alleviate and help/be useful but not OP. If you don't wish to have different gear for a different class just because it's in the same category (tank) then that's fine. But doesn't mean the option can't be there. By no means am I looking for this to be the NEW tank style. It's simply a fix to our current set up with our crappy cross class skills. There's obviously a gap in the tanks. But instead of making 3 of the same thing, why not simply allow for them each to go a different route to some extent. In this case, simply allowing for PLD's to use their cross class skills from conjurer would help. But they'd have to have gear which allowed for a PLD to do such for it to work. Could simply be PLD specific gear as well. There are already plenty of gears out there specific to their class. Not saying PLD's don't need better hate/dps. Just saying, it'd be nice for us to not just be another WAR (which is basically what everyone is fighting for atm). Give us a different direction based on what we ALREADY have and can't use.

What do you put your weapon away to target your teammates ?

Uh, i'm not quite sure what you're asking? Are you asking how to, or why? Cause if it's why... you quoted my reasoning... Ps4 requires you use the Dpad to go through and essentially, do a tab through. Since we are NOT a healing class, we do not get access to tab through teammates when we're in a fighting stance (weapon out). Otherwise, the only way to do it is via mouseover... which on a ps4 means trying to use the middle button as a mouse pad and trying to click it just right so it click's on said teammate. The time it takes for me to do this however, is usually slower than me putting me weapon away and tabbing through teammates (both not preferential).

And thanks for the # stats alimdia. And yes, nearly every one of the dungeons/boss/trials are one's I have not entered yet xD