PLD 4.0

[fm_fenrir]

- Reduce Bulwark's Cd timer to match Awareness, so that they can actually have synergy instead of being mismatched.

I don't think shortening Bulwark's CD would be a good idea. Block strength is going to continue to scale up as they add more item levels, and if I recall a 130 shield in 2.55 was good for -30% physical damage. If they scale it higher than that before 4.0, then PLD will have two Sentinel choices in physical heavy fights, which is a pretty substantial advantage.
That also doesn't consider the secondary effects if you also buffed Shield Bash to cost 0 TP after a block--chain stuns every two minutes, with no TP cost?

Also, what does RA need, really? As it is, it's just 20 potency short of a DRG's Full Thrust combo, and I don't see many people complaining about FT needing any buffs.

[Brian_]

Only because current boss fight design is based around single hit spike damage every X seconds/minutes rather than constant, growing or even rhythmic damage patterns.

Taking 20% less damage from 1 in every 4 attacks is meaningless when only one attack is important. Parry and Block would be closer to fine if fights were not so reliant on Tank Busters in order to threaten tanks.

So you're suggesting that if we switched to a meta where general tank damage was much higher that people would suddenly prefer inconsistent and spike prone damage intake?

You're wrong and ignorant. We've seen that meta in other MMOs and the test of science and basic reason and logic has resulted in what I said.

Spike damage = bad.
Inconsistent damage intake = bad.

So RNG "blesses" you and you get a string of blocks and parries. Your healers adjust to that degree of damage intake. Then RNG flips on you and you get a string of hits with a couple crits mixed in. Your healers fail to account for the sudden spike in your damage intake and you die. When healing, you cannot adjust your GCD usage based on your tank MAYBE blocking or parrying.

As block and parry currently exist, they're useful in a very specific situation. When tanks are taking a lot of quick and small hits, parry and block are really good. But, that comes back to the idea of consistency. When you take a lot of quick and small hits, parry and block provide a much more consistent decrease in damage intake.

[Ultimatecalibur]

So you're suggesting that if we switched to a meta where general tank damage was much higher that people would suddenly prefer inconsistent and spike prone damage intake?

No, that was not what I was suggesting. I was suggesting that getting away from single hit Spike + mostly ignorable regular damage pattern would make non-spike RNG based proc defenses (i.e. parry/block and not Dodge/Perfect Resist) more viable. If you can't rely on RNG defensive procs to reliably decrease average damage intake they are worth less than effects that do reliably decrease average damage intake.

You're wrong and ignorant. We've seen that meta in other MMOs and the test of science and basic reason and logic has resulted in what I said.

And you are one of the thousands who hear and repeat things without actually understanding what is actually going on.

Spike damage = bad.
Inconsistent damage intake = bad.

Yes, random unpredictable Spikes in damage are bad (which is what makes Evasion tanking non-viable), but "inconsistent damage intake" is not a bad thing. Problems occur because far to often inconsistent damage intake is too varied to be effectively reacted to.

If damage is too consistent it becomes boring to deal with.
If damage is too inconsistent then it either ends up being impossible to deal with or forces players to focus on the worst case scenario which ends up making it boring also.

So RNG "blesses" you and you get a string of blocks and parries. Your healers adjust to that degree of damage intake. Then RNG flips on you and you get a string of hits with a couple crits mixed in. Your healers fail to account for the sudden spike in your damage intake and you die. When healing, you cannot adjust your GCD usage based on your tank MAYBE blocking or parrying.

Depends on how big the damage variance is. Having to react to 150% more damage than expected (getting a x2 damage crit when you were expecting a 80% damage parry/block) is a different monster than reacting to 87.5% more damage than expected (getting a x1.5 crit when expecting an 80% parry/block).

As long as the variance is large enough that it needs to be paid attention to, but still small enough that it can be reacted to Inconsistent Damage is fine and a good thing to have as it keeps Healers focused and interested in the fight.

As block and parry currently exist, they're useful in a very specific situation. When tanks are taking a lot of quick and small hits, parry and block are really good. But, that comes back to the idea of consistency. When you take a lot of quick and small hits, parry and block provide a much more consistent decrease in damage intake.

It is not just quick small hits. The hits can be slower or harder as long as there are enough hits for there to be enough procs to influence the average amount of damage taken a significant amount.

More hits = more chances to proc = closer damage taken is to the average. This is the Law of Large Numbers.

[Shurrikhan]

4.0 in general:

• Vitality made a bit more tanky, rather than just an eHP (vs. tankbuster) capper, but in a different way than Strength, such as by increasing healing taken over time (allowing for larger windows between heals, as is generally the only other benefit of Vitality currently). Attack Power (AP) again benefits blocks, and parries.
• (Abilities that grant additional enmity or are modified by enmity modifiers (including by stance) now give additional slight enmity across all engaged enemies, similar to the use of any action.)
• Vitality <> Strength gap reduced a bit. Tanks now take 67% Attack Power from Strength, 33% from Vitality.
• Vitality further grants bonus enmity to make up the difference in Attack Power, and therefore enmity. Fun fact: this also applies to per-action enmity, whereas Strength does not.

• Anything that looks like a cleave, is. Just not necessarily a huge one.
• Pure "AoEs" are less niched; more situational usability. TP costs often reduced.
• Skill and Spell Speed merged; each now slightly increases oGCD dmg.
• TP refresh now occurs at the player's GCD rate, but ticks for only 50. Bonus TP effects (Paean, Spire, ProRook, Goad) reduced by 20%, now tick at receiving player's GCD rate.
  
  
• Accuracy and evasion/parry/block revised. Percentile hits/misses now possible. So called "soft cap" on accuracy significantly reduced. Parry and block now reduce both flat damage and reduce enemy accuracy to further reduce damage by percentile. Dodge reduces only accuracy. Excess accuracy now contributes to critical strike chance, albeit at a lesser rate than pure Crit stat.
• Parry stat removed, replaced by Guard, Deflection, and Evasion. Guard increases base/flat mitigation from blocks and parries, decreases knockback, and increases the damage necessary to interrupt your casts, while Deflection improves the efficiency of accuracy reduction by block and parries on enemy attacks and improves the accuracy of your counter-attacks (if any). Evasion increases the accuracy necessary to be hit. Guard is generally the best trash-tanking or utility stat, while Deflection is the favored stat against accurate, hard-hitting bosses and for MT dps. Evasion is usually balanced against these two, but because it also affects magic to some extent, may be favored in anti-mage combat.
• Blocks and parries have increased chance based on accuracy, deal increased flat mitigation based on attack power, and increased deflection (reduction of enemy accuracy) based on attack power and accuracy relative to the enemy blow and attacker respectively.
  
  
• General rates of blocks, dodges, and parries have been increased across the board and feel much less RNG-dependant, but they are now limited by Staggered and Winded effects. Dynamics reduced.
• Blocks and parries strength are gradually reduced by usage. Recovers quickly. Bar can be customized; by default it shows up once effects are reduced below 80%, and shows both the extent, and the recovery time. Costs reduced by Determination, chance cost reduction by Crit, recovery time increased by Speed.
• All chance mitigation has a heightened chance of use when it would prevent death or critical health (<20%), but in turn chances are gradually reduced based on the chance that was increased. Recovers more slowly. Costs reduced by Determination, chance cost reduction by Crit, recovery time increased by Speed.

::Overall point of these last two sections: to make Evasion tanking a resource management game, or at the very least like counting cards or knowing the ball-and-cups host's tricks, rather than just yanking on slot machines. Ultimately, to make evasion tanking more viable, so that a tank class can eventually be made around it, and the other tanks made more interesting for it.

GLD:

• Unique means of dealing AoEs, especially while tanking. Even if triggered by a weaponskill, it shouldn't be a spam attack like the others. Likely using enemy attacks against themselves (offensive evasion).
• More Sword-and-Board synergy.
• More evasion usage.
• Access to Goring Blade
• Some potency increases, directly, or through core trait effects trigger-able in combat.
• Possibly some active blocking skill that lets them mess with their block chance/use/rating consumption.
• (Would ultimately like classes to be viable for roughly a third of all significant content, and about half of 'fun' content. Should be more slippery and personally tactical than the full PLD, with possibly better opportunistic/burst damage.)

PLD:

• Sword Oath tanking improved somewhat, likely by swapping out increased AA damage for increased potency on all attacks, thereby improving burst, enmity, and AoE.
• Further AoE improvements - likely improved cleave in Sword Oath and applying or improving a cleave component to/in Shield Oath.
• Improved utility (Improved Cover, Clemency, Divine Veil)
• True Shield-style ownage in Shield Oath
• Reasons to use Shield Oath as OT, if only situationally.

Extra:

• Would honestly like to see Crit Strikes not share a category with hit/block/parry/dodge, such that forced crits cannot be blocked or parried. However, that does mean RIP Awareness. I have no regrets about trading this for something not shit, though, or increasing mob critical strike chance in general to see it actually have some significant use outside of DD/Bulwark/RI synergy.
• Would like to see Bulwark CD decreased to 2 minutes, not so much for Awareness synergy as just because that should be the most outright iconic ability in a Sword-and-Shield tank's skillset, and instead its' felt basic/lackluster since early ARR Swipe spam. I'd like to see it more frequently, paired with the above Sword-and-Board ness.

[Reynhart]

The main problem with how parry and block work is that they are independent rolls.

Except they're not. For PLD Parry roll is only triggered by a failed Block roll.
If they really were, you could have a succesful Block and a succesful Parry at the same time, for an additionnal mitigation.

As for RNG mitigation, yes, you're right. That's why I think it could be interesting to make Sheltron a GCD (With a lower MP return, of course). Reliable Block, at the cost of some damage and enmity.

And give back Shield Swipe on GCD, but as a conal AoE.

[Shurrikhan]

Except they're not. For PLD Parry roll is only triggered by a failed Block roll.

I think she meant independent as in exclusive? You can get one, not the other. But neither would one be gated behind the other?

That said, and I'd have to go link-diving to check, but I was pretty sure all mitigation types shared the same table, along with crit, which is why removing crit taken chance rescaled not only hit chance but also block, dodge, and parry, to enlarged sizes?

With a buckler at the end of ARR in i125 I was getting close to a one-third block chance. My parry chance, however, was barely affected when swapping to a tower shield (several merged dungeons with each set). I don't see how this could be the case if my parries were gated behind block.

I'm still not entirely sure, coding-wise, why an auto-crit prevents auto-parry, though.

[Februs]

I don't think shortening Bulwark's CD would be a good idea. Block strength is going to continue to scale up as they add more item levels.

Hmm... I did not think of that. It's hard to say for sure, given that we don't know where the next shield cut off will be, but it would definitely pose a problem if shield strength goes too high.

Personally, I don't think 30% is too much to ask for, given that Pld is in the current weakest state of all 3 tanks. After all, Pld's are supposed to excel at physical mitigation, but they really aren't all that far ahead of the curve (if at all) over War's and Drk's. They're behind in dmg and roughly equal in mitigation. They lack an edge, so to speak. Something like this might allow them to noticeably excel at physical mitigation over the other two tank, providing a bit of a utility boost ... however, I agree that 40% is definitely pushing it. So, reducing Bulwark's CD might not be the best way to go about it if the shields end up getting stronger.

The alternative would be to adjust Awareness's CD time so that it is precisely half that of Bulwark, making it 90 seconds. It wouldn't make Awareness too over powered, given that Crit dmg is not really a concern in most cases and Awareness is already considered the absolute weakest Def CD in the game. What this would do is allow Pld's to reliably couple Awareness with Bulwark on every second cast of Bulwark. This might be a better fit, especially because it doesn't mess with the other two tanks.

War's would actually get better synergy, because the recast timer would be precisely in-tune with Raw Intuition. Drk's don't have it quite so neat and tidy, but it would still work. Right now they can couple Awareness with every second use of Dark Dance and time it to the second. Shortening Awareness's CD puts them off by 30's, but it shouldn't mess with it's actual usage. Drk's would still use it every second Dark Dance so long as they don't pop it on CD. They'd just have to exercise a bit of restraint.

[Brian_]

snip.

The average amount of damage taken is something someone mentions when they don't understand what's going on.

In relation to tank damage intake, the only thing that matters is the interaction it has with healers.

Making yourself harder to heal in order to keep your healers focused and interested in the fight is not what you should be doing as a tank and it certainly doesn't work in this game. Boring is good. You want to make their job boring. Healers in this game always have something to do with their free GCDs.

Healers will plan how to use their GCDs. Like I already said, they cannot plan their GCDs around something that might happen. They plan for the worst of what can happen. Having higher or lower average damage taken does not matter if it doesn't change how a healer heals you. Occasionally mitigating 20-30% of a physical attack's damage does not change how a healer heals you.

You know what no healer has ever said in FFXIV? "Wow, he clearly just blocked that. Now I can just cancel this heal and go back to cleric stance."

[Reynhart]

I don't see how this could be the case if my parries were gated behind block.

There is a sure way to see if parry is really gated behind block.
Test wether or not you can parry with Sheltron up.

We already know that Hit and Crit takes priority, since you can be missed or take a critical hit above Sheltron.

[Shurrikhan]

There is a sure way to see if parry is really gated behind block.
Test whether or not you can parry with Sheltron up.

We already know that Hit and Crit takes priority, since you can be missed or take a critical hit above Sheltron.

Given that it guarantees the block though, I don't see how this would be a fair test. For a parry to occur during a guaranteed block, they couldn't even be of the same table, because the block would subsume all parry chance (along with potentially hit, crit, and dodge); block would have to be gated by parry.

I'd imagine that if there's any sequencing of the defensive CDs, it would basically be to make sure a lesser mitigation tool isn't used over a greater one, right? Wouldn't the assumed order then be dodge > block (assuming kite/tower shield, or buckler after a tier or two, given parry's fixed state) > parry? The test then would be whether you can dodge during Shelltron. I've personally tried to test it, but I can't be sure whether Shelltron was actually yet armed/activated when the dodge occurs with the buff visible.

That said, I've forgotten if miss/dodge chance are one and the same, even with Featherfoot up. Do enemies have a intrinsic miss chance / accuracy rating? Or is all that simply your dodge chance? All I can be sure of is its level dependency.

Edit: to be clear, by the last sentence do you mean that as in atop Shelltron (blocking a crit), or not allowing Shelltron?