PLD 4.0

[fm_fenrir]

What in the world are Paladins doing to run out of TP in less than 2 minutes??? It makes absolutely no sense as to how players play that job and focus on being overly offensive, to the point they neglect using stoneskin and clemency.

Use MP to let your TP regenerate or play another class actually GEARED for DAMAGE!!!

I run out of TP in about 2:15, thanks to my 2.4s GCD. Unlike DRK, if I go dry I don't have the luxury of wasting some GCDs spamming Unmend at stuff to keep threat up, because PLD has only has COS and Shield Swipe as "free" skills. I also can't drop Grit and use Blood Weapon to buy back some TP.

PLD's TP consumption is on target with WAR and DRK, but has no way to recover it under sustained load.

[Launched]

I run out of TP in about 2:15, thanks to my 2.4s GCD.

How do you manage that? I got to around 2:55 with a 2.46gcd, and from what I remember I got to around 2:35 with a 2.38gcd.

[AlexiIvaniskavich]

Why would you have WAR/DRK MT Faust and the adds when you want only Faust dead? You should be having Paladin MT them all or just the adds, so you can maximize WAR/DRK damage to Faust. On top of that, timing your clemency to heal immediately after the buster hits is naturally a very bad idea. You're better off using stoneskin, assuming you didn't completely shortchange yourself by going pure str, which I'm sure you or whomever you're PLDs are likely have. You want to mitigate the damage not risk getting shut down to fix the damage......

If PLD tanks just the adds, you do no damage on Faust and your MT will likely need to sit at least some portion of time in tank stance (unless your group kills it in that minute and a half range). Your combined tank DPS is smallest under this method. (and your healers get to split their concentration)

If PLD MT all - Well PLD does the least amount of damage as MT of any tank class. Combine this with the fact that you will need to use flash more liberally and hold your Circle of Scorn to lock in the newest add, and you are burning at least 2 GCD (flash, flash) on non damage agro generating moves.
A WAR can double overpower (still hitting faust) and continue on hitting. A DRK can abyssal drain (and restore mana like crazy because you are getting constantly pummeled here) and still do damage on Faust. *Bonus* it is crazy easy to pick up the adds with these two classes, AoE agro generating machines they are.
A skilled PLD will pull mid to high 1100’s today as OT on Faust. A skilled DRK/PLD will pull 800+ as MT (if not much more in some cases) . MT PLD just falls too far behind on damage. (500’s range). They have the least enmity generation, and need to sit in shield oath for longer to help maintain enmity on the mob – further gimping their damage output.

As far as the use of Clemency, timing Clemency (so the heal goes off after you get hit) nets you standing with more total HP immediately after the tank buster than a 1500 – 2000 stoneskin will give you. Clemency heals for 3500+ and can be upwards of 7k with Convalesence. They take the same time to cast (roughly), and I wish to only use 1 GCD for this active mitigation style.

Mind you, you still need to utilize other defensive cool downs, and you should be at or near full health immediately prior to the TB. The question becomes, do you wish to use a GCD to mitigate damage up front but or immediately after the TB finishes. I can assure you that at 1600 health (full str build) I can Rampart+Sentinel+Conv HCP and drop to 7-8k health. Adding Stoneskin would give me + 1600 health, using Clemency gives me + 4000 health, if not more.

....
Also, I doubt removing the limitations on skills will fix anything. Paladin is 1-2-3, get more power to threat, use flash for AoE tanking, and pop defenses often, and yet we got so many PLDs with silly ideas as not using flash at all to tank 3+ enemies, riot blade with 85%MP without flashing ever again BEFORE getting gore blade, or never use CDs at all. That's among other things bad players do with this simple.

Admittedly this isn’t much of a fix. Tanks would get use of their tank stance assuming they are at the appropriate level outside of that particular levelling roulette dungeon, leading to opportunities to stance dance under less pressure. Paladins would get to do more than just 1-2-3 (plus circle of scorn). In short you would have the opportunity to practice your full rotation on content you likely mastered long ago.
*** But if each expansion brings new skills we are going to end up with some serious Cross Bar issues. It is possible that some new skills simply replace old skills. If level 62 PLD brings “new AOE” that is on GCD and gains enmity, I don’t really want to keep flash around as it is now outdated. My options are either, move my skills around my bars just because I am running old content, or more simply don’t run old content or use that particular skill.

[Kosmos992k]

PLD 4.0 changes? Interesting.
here is my 2cents...

No new attack or support skills
New trait for Sword oath (acquired through job quest), trait reduces defense by 5%, but increases Auto attack potency by 60.
Reduce recast timer on Shield Oath and Sword Oath to 1s
Sheltron ignores auto-attacks
Shield Swipe becomes available with a successful block has a 2.5s timer, has a potency of 210, and does not interrupt a combo.
When in Shield Oath, Shield Swipe becomes a short rage, frontal cone AoE, with a 90 degree arc. In Sword Oath it remains the normal Shield Swipe.
Slight enhancement to the strength of PLD cures so that they can at least heal marginally more than the auto-attacks we receive...
Battle Raise with an 8s cast time and 600s recast timer
Alter tank damage formula for damage dealt, reduce the impact of STR, increase the impact of Vitality *and* determination (affects all tanks).
Strengthen the impact of Parry, make the strength of a parry depend on both STR and DEX (affects all tanks)
Include blocking as a secondary stat on PLD gear so we can build to increase it
Change block strength calculation in line with the tank damage calculation changes.
Add a trait to Tempered will that reduces the chances of being interrupted while casting, and increase the re-use timer by 10s.
Very mild buff to CoS aggro, and the aggro multipliers on RoH and SS.
Allow Clemency to trigger Devine veil (there should be no skills on any job that require another player to activate them)
When PLD reachs the 4.0 level cap, they gain an additional Cross Class skill slot(*), and the ability to use cross class skills from DRK.
Status effects from our attacks become worth a damn again (same for all jobs/classes).
Last but not least add a trait (acquires through job quest) to Bulwark that restores 5% of our Max TP for every block while Bulwark is active.

* - I would do the same thing for all jobs. When they hit the level cap, each gets one more cross class skill slot and one more class opens up that they can borrow from.

[Shurrikhan]

PLD 4.0 changes? Interesting.
here is my 2cents...

Meant only as useful feedback. Sorry for any nitpicking.

]No new attack or support skills

Nice; no extra ability bloat. Though also no consolidation of old abilities...

New trait for Sword oath (acquired through job quest), trait reduces defense by 5%, but increases Auto attack potency by 60.

From 50 to 60, not for a total of 110 bonus potency per AA, yes?

Reduce recast timer on Shield Oath and Sword Oath to 1s

Fair enough, though it would probably have to be turned into an Ability, much like a combination of Meditation (GCD-shared short recast) and Dark Passenger (MP cost)

Sheltron ignores auto-attacks

No complaints here.

Shield Swipe becomes available with a successful block has a 2.5s timer, has a potency of 210, and does not interrupt a combo.

2.5s timer = GCD? ...So, back to exactly how it was?

When in Shield Oath, Shield Swipe becomes a short rage, frontal cone AoE, with a 90 degree arc. In Sword Oath it remains the normal Shield Swipe.

Can definitely be a bit overpowered during trash. No other job can spam a 210 potency cleave. Perhaps cleave for 50%-60% of the damage?

Slight enhancement to the strength of PLD cures so that they can at least heal marginally more than the auto-attacks we receive...

I like.

Battle Raise with an 8s cast time and 600s recast timer

Recast timer not supported except by a new ability, which you said you wouldn't give. Why it should be necessary, even, honestly, if you're already going out of your way to give PLD battle raise at all.

Alter tank damage formula for damage dealt, reduce the impact of STR, increase the impact of Vitality *and* determination (affects all tanks).

Wouldn't this just force tanks to stack Determination over Crit as their secondary stat of choice now?

Strengthen the impact of Parry, make the strength of a parry depend on both STR and DEX (affects all tanks)

DEX as strength? Not as parry rate, as before? I doubt we'll be seeing a return of this if only because SE seems to want to avoid additional mitigation scaling, but I'd certainly like to see it back, sure.

Include blocking as a secondary stat on PLD gear so we can build to increase it

There's very little "PLD" gear, though. And if the added block chance/strength were significant, it would just destroy your horizontal gear choice between raid and AF/job-specific currency gear.

Change block strength calculation in line with the tank damage calculation changes.

Sounds good.

Add a trait to Tempered will that reduces the chances of being interrupted while casting, and increase the re-use timer by 10s.

The cooldown is plenty long as is even to support complete interruption immunity. Holmgang similarly provides immunity to knockbacks, and to DEATH, all for the same cooldown - albeit at shorter duration and with a chance of locking you into AoEs.

Very mild buff to CoS aggro, and the aggro multipliers on RoH and SB.

Definitely this.

Allow Clemency to trigger Devine veil (there should be no skills on any job that require another player to activate them)

May as well just remove the "by a party member" component of the description, allowing any (spell-based) healing you do to proc it.

When PLD reachs the 4.0 level cap, they gain an additional Cross Class skill slot(*), and the ability to use cross class skills from DRK.

There'd be a lot of near-redundancy here. Not necessarily a bad thing, but there's a reason Shadowskin and Shadow Wall get called DarkRampart and DarkSentinel, and Dark Dance sometimes DarkBulwark

Status effects from our attacks become worth a damn again (same for all jobs/classes).

Great.

Last but not least add a trait (acquires through job quest) to Bulwark that restores 5% of our Max TP for every block while Bulwark is active.

This would be incredibly OP, and yet the funny thing is, it would proc most where we hardly use any TP whatsoever: AoEing. Where we actually need it (single-target), it might not return anything. I guess we'd be the sprinting speedrun kings again though?

[RiisWolf]

I run out of TP in about 2:15, thanks to my 2.4s GCD. Unlike DRK, if I go dry I don't have the luxury of wasting some GCDs spamming Unmend at stuff to keep threat up, because PLD has only has COS and Shield Swipe as "free" skills. I also can't drop Grit and use Blood Weapon to buy back some TP.

PLD's TP consumption is on target with WAR and DRK, but has no way to recover it under sustained load.

Takes me 3 minutes to run completely dry at 2.4, having use Lob only once and applying gore blade just before it falls off. Indefinitely if I start popping stoneskin for defense or clemency if someone is hurt bad. Hell I have more time when bosses become untouchable. The problem here is that people don't realize it is not week 1 of Savage anymore. Back when it as released it wasn't even 6 weeks and 200/210s came out that same week, it was impossible for anyone to be decked out in full 190s at the time, which naturally means since savage drops 210s, you were a too weak to do things normally. So you had to make up for it by putting up a healer to DPS full time, usually a whm , maximize power for tanks and/or cut PLD from the equation and neglect anything and everything that got between you and your numbers, even when there is a clear danger those numbers dropping anyway. PLDs run out of TP just sit, like they never learned clemency or better yet stoneskin. Even DRKs just sit there out of TP never ever using unmend. Screw defense , DPS was entirely the issue. And look at what happened. Months later everyone can be decked out in 200s and 210s and they still love to pretend its week 1: where everyone is so weak they must rely on healers to fight and tanks to forsake defense for the sake of pushing numbers, when you don't have to anymore. Heck SE gave the people who want Shield Swipe to be an OGCD just like Reposte, and look at whats happening. And we have the same people wanting the oaths to be oGCD, when we all know SE will put a long recast on them, and the best part is these probably the same players who always spout everything is fine with timing. But again, lets ignore that for the parses.

I have one person here who will risk the likely of being interrupted for healing for mitigation, you do not try to mitigate damage by doing it AFTER its been done, not to mention that's the healers job to mitigate after damage is dealt. The tank is should mitigate damage before the hit so that its less work for healers making it easier to do their job and/or DPS.

If you run out of TP then just use stoneskin, or anything! Just be doing something, instead of waiting for a NIN/BRD/MCH/AST to do it for you.

Also, to be on topic:
Would be rad for PLD to have their TP costs and set up like the Speedy archetypes(MNK/NIN) and make them fast strikers their GLD story makes them out to be. They even have the fastest auto attack already.
And please don't change the oaths to oGCD, I'd very like to switch freely instead of being stuck in one for 15 seconds or a possibly worse penalty than already is for them.

[Shurrikhan]

snip

Using Clemency as a TP-measure only provides you with 1.8 GCDs per minute. Interruption also keeps this from being useful as just a 'tossing-one-out-there' measure if MTing.

That said, no spell can be interrupted in the time when movement would not have done the same. For me, that's nearly a second. For a skilled PLD, that's a fairly large window by which to recover health via Clemency from a tank-buster without Clemency being interrupted. The problem, in my opinion, is the MT limitations aside from just the interruption, namely that you cannot block, parry, or AA while casting. This leaves a pairing with Shelltron impossible, and Stoneskin on a STR tank more likely to cost health on self-cast than to save any.

I have yet to see a DRK who sits at 0 TP without casting Unmend. Most I see, if stance-dancing, will start using it early (around 120) so that there's no chance of bottoming out during Blood Weapon.

Completely agreed in terms of Oaths and the limitations that would almost certainly be worse for PLD than WAR due to Shield Oath's more immediate benefits if the Oaths were made oGCD. Copying WAR there would likely cause more harm than good, and definitely wouldn't feel very PLD-like, either. (Not an intrinsic matter, due to taking from Warrior or anything like that, but simply incidental to the mechanics Warrior is currently using if taken basically as is, though likely with added penalties due to Oath's superiority (functioning as if at 5 stacks at all times, instantly granting eHP, etc.); being locked out of a defensive stance for 12 to 15 seconds just does not feel like a Knight to me.)

[To be on topic:]
This. It's kind of sad, but Speed is really the only noticeable gameplay-changing stat we have outside of Crit-procs on Bard, Arcanist, and Scholar's Adlo. We aren't encouraged to double-weave nearly as much as DRK, but we also have some of the shortest animations, leaving us feeling like we're just sitting there after our non-finisher animations, Fast Blade and Savage Blade especially. More importantly, PLD is the one tank that feels, at least to me, like it shouldn't have to cater towards the highest potency attack at all times. Whereas pure Damage or Critical Strike would favor Goring Blade and Royal Authority in that descending order, Speed does nothing for single-target Goring Blade and effectively reduces the gap between Royal Authority and Rage of Halone, slightly, adding more control and opportunities. For instance, a 2.5 GCD PLD can replace GB every 3rd combo, clipping 1.5 seconds. A 2.4 GCD used to have the option for a perfect reapplication by using one Swipe per GB, but now simply reapplies every 3rd combo without any breaks, clipping 3 seconds, a guaranteed tick loss. If we were to drop to a 2.25 to 2.10 GCD, it could be every fourth combo, losing only 3 seconds or less, possibly not even a tick. One more RA or Rage of Halone, and able to maintain 4 DoTs on trash. Not as strong, potentially, as a pure damage buff, but if TP costs were adjusted it would certainly be more interesting.



_______________________________________________

That said, it'd be red if Paladin got a circle slash (or a simple cleave). I miss that attack from 1.0.

So many 1.0 GLD skills worth missing... Not many that fit, of course, but a lot of strong stuff there, especially if adapted for the current game. Heck, the new Goring Blade kind of looks like the perfect animation for the cast-speed slowing Howling Blade.

What in the world are Paladins doing to run out of TP in less than 2 minutes??? It makes absolutely no sense as to how players play that job and focus on being overly offensive, to the point they neglect using stoneskin and clemency. Not to mention there are tons of bosses that make themselves untouchable, or the walk between mobs.

Use MP to let your TP regenerate or play another class actually GEARED for DAMAGE!!!

If those classes that are "geared for damage" include DRK and WAR by comparison to PLD then something's a bit wrong here. PLD's utility simply isn't strong enough to make up for the imbalance in other tank capacities (AoE damage, AoE threat, TP sustain, and especially MT ST dps). Opportunities to use its utility, in general, are similarly underwhelming in the current state of game. We could buff either that utility or that damage, or maybe even adjust the state of game (?), but for a job to be purposely not 'geared for damage' while being generally balanced would require that they are still contributing similar raid damage through some other means, and/or some really strong safety net. Personally, I'd personally like PLD to stay (or rather, become more) unique, but that doesn't mean I don't want to see near-parity in most tank capacities.

[AlexiIvaniskavich]

Takes me 3 minutes to run completely dry at 2.4, having use Lob only once and applying gore blade just before it falls off. Indefinitely if I start popping stoneskin for defense or clemency if someone is hurt bad. Hell I have more time when bosses become untouchable. …...

My OT full combo set on Faust as pld ran as Goring>RA>RA>Goring (mixing in every other offensive cooldown as soon as they become available) and I would frequently get close to flooring by the time Faust was almost dead. If my Astrologian spread an arrow or two it got dicey real fast.

WAR’s have an infinite TP floor, and DRK’s have the opportunity to cast damage magic attacks to help ease their TP strain. PLD has neither of these. The only option to do is start casting WHM spells or clemency. On a class that is already at the bottom of damage output, having the quickest TP floor is poor design. Of course, if and when you floor you should start popping something else to help you rather than standing there sitting on your shield. I would love to see either an adjustment to TP consumption for 4.0 or an extremely useful skill that is on GCD that doesn’t kill a combo and you can use as filler for TP relief.

Also, to be on topic:
Would be rad for PLD to have their TP costs and set up like the Speedy archetypes(MNK/NIN) and make them fast strikers their GLD story makes them out to be. They even have the fastest auto attack already.
And please don't change the oaths to oGCD, I'd very like to switch freely instead of being stuck in one for 15 seconds or a possibly worse penalty than already is for them.

EWW. A 15 second cool down would be gross. If anything like this were to come about, I would anticipate that it would be closer to Warriors defiance cool down of 10 seconds <insert tank homogenization argument here>. As PLD is the weakest in dealing out the pain, I don’t think that an instant and free oath switch (ala cleric stance) would be too OP.

I have one person here who will risk the likely of being interrupted for healing for mitigation, you do not try to mitigate damage by doing it AFTER its been done, not to mention that's the healers job to mitigate after damage is dealt. The tank is should mitigate damage before the hit so that its less work for healers making it easier to do their job and/or DPS.

I guess I have gotten you bothered in some way by this??? Certainly not the intent, and I am definitely not the only Paladin to employ this method. Though I may have been the first (at least on these forums) to state something about this usage. Technically, this method is less work for the healers as you have more HP by the time their heal hits you. I want to quantify some things though. Utilizing this method means that the mitigation you have chosen for that tank buster will leave you alive. If you are needing that extra 1500 hp that a stoneskin will provide you, this application of clemency needs to be left at the door.

Let’s face it, your healer is most concerned with where your health is after a TB, and getting you back to the top. It determines what they do, and the order they do it. They could care less if you stone skin or I clemency. They care that you were at 16k health and are now at 12k, giving them a GCD to help someone in greater need.

[Kaizer]

Add a trait to Oaths that half recast times of spells.

[Kosmos992k]

Meant only as useful feedback. Sorry for any nitpicking.

NP, nitpick away, I was jotting down ideas quickly so some of them are a little rough at the edges. So any feedback and discussion is great.

From 50 to 60, not for a total of 110 bonus potency per AA, yes?

Yes, correct from 50 to 60 as a balance against taking more damage due to the reduction in defense. Definitely not 110 since that would not simply be OP, would be game shatteringly OP.

Fair enough, though it would probably have to be turned into an Ability, much like a combination of Meditation (GCD-shared short recast) and Dark Passenger (MP cost)

My thought here is that Sword oath as it stands is a zero cost stance that in essence ought to be the default stance for Paladin - in other words, you shouldn't need t turn it on. But, by traiting Sword Oath with an additional 10 potency boost and a 5% drop in defense, it becomes possible that players would want to use no oath, Sword Oath or Shield Oath, and so I thought that reducing the delay for using an Oath would facilitate smoother stance dancing.

2.5s timer = GCD? ...So, back to exactly how it was?

Yes, back to the way it was, I don't find the new Shield Swipe to be as effective, and it certainly doesn't help TP management.

Can definitely be a bit overpowered during trash. No other job can spam a 210 potency cleave. Perhaps cleave for 50%-60% of the damage?

I was envisioning a short range swipe that only hit's targets in immediate range, and wasn't really thinking in terms of 210 per target, more 210 total split to the targets. So either drop the potency to 100 when in Sword Oath, or leave it as 210, but spread the damage across all targets hit, so total potency is still 210, regardless of the number of targets hit.

Recast timer not supported except by a new ability, which you said you wouldn't give. Why it should be necessary, even, honestly, if you're already going out of your way to give PLD battle raise at all.

I was thinking about doing this by using the trait that Conjurers use. They get it at level 28. I was thinking in terms of allowing this trait to carry over between CNJ and PLD. So if you have leveled CNJ to at least 28, then when you hit 30 on Gladiator and gain the soulstone to become a Paladin, that trait that you already earned on WHM carries over to your PLD.

Actually, this is a different discussion, but I honestly think that stat boosting class traits (not job related traits) should be cross class automatically. You gain those traits on the same character, and they are not intrinsically linked to your weapon or armor, they are character traits. I know that for a player that leveled everything this would be completely overpowered, so as a compromise I'd suggest that any class traits of the classes you required to gain your job should remain active since you have combined both classes into the job. But, that's a completely different discussion - note though that the traits to enhance Mind would fix the problems that PLD has with their CNJ cross skills.

Wouldn't this just force tanks to stack Determination over Crit as their secondary stat of choice now?

I'm not sure. I see determination as the secondary stat that provides a gentle base improvement in many areas, and Crit as a stat that - depending on RNG - makes for a very flashy, and highly damaging - hit. To me, those are two different ways of playing, one is low risk, but steady and low reward, the other is higher risk because of the RNG, but potentially a high reward due to critical damage. I haven't done the math, these are all just ideas I was throwing around.

DEX as strength? Not as parry rate, as before? I doubt we'll be seeing a return of this if only because SE seems to want to avoid additional mitigation scaling, but I'd certainly like to see it back, sure.

You're correct, restoring DEX to modify the chance of a parry, STR to modify the strength of the parry. Parry as a innate skill depends on your dexterity and strength, Dexterity to actually execute a parry, and Strength governs how successful it is. I agree about SE's attititude - though I do not understand it because it removes any chance of differentiating yourself from other tanks based on how you allocate various stats. I'd sure like to see it back as well.

There's very little "PLD" gear, though. And if the added block chance/strength were significant, it would just destroy your horizontal gear choice between raid and AF/job-specific currency gear.

I see your point, though I would still like a way for PLDs that choose to, to boost their Blocking, even if it cam at the expense of something else. Perhaps using Job Specific accessories, or Materia with Blocking that can be melded onto Fending gear that can take Materia? This is one of those nice to have things, to provide more flexibility and freedom in how we play, if it causes gearing or itemization issues, then it's not important enough to worry over.

The cooldown is plenty long as is even to support complete interruption immunity. Holmgang similarly provides immunity to knockbacks, and to DEATH, all for the same cooldown - albeit at shorter duration and with a chance of locking you into AoEs.

I was just sort of throwing the additional delay in to balance against the lower chance of being interrupted while casting. Additional delay isn't necessary, and Honestly I don't see adding the interrup proteciton to Temered Will as something that really needs balancing, but inevitably someone will say it's OP...so...

(regardiong Devine Veil) May as well just remove the "by a party member" component of the description, allowing any (spell-based) healing you do to proc it.

That would work for me, I still find it amazing that anyone thought it would be a good idea to give a spell ability to PLD and then make it dependent on another player's action. If there was a visible (and persistent until triggered) aura once the ability was used so that healers would be able to notice and cast a quick heal, it would work better. I still don't like depending on another player to cast something to trigger the effect, but we've been asking for player combos in other settings - most notably attack combinations. So I kind of like that we can combine with another player to produce a good effect, but it needs to be easier to use.

There'd be a lot of near-redundancy here. Not necessarily a bad thing, but there's a reason Shadowskin and Shadow Wall get called DarkRampart and DarkSentinel, and Dark Dance sometimes DarkBulwark

I haven't dabbled in Dark Knight much, so I wasn't aware of how closely similar those skills are. Your point is well made. The reason for the suggestion about adding a cross skill slot and widening the selection to include another class was really to facilitate a little more freedom in how your character is played

This would be incredibly OP, and yet the funny thing is, it would proc most where we hardly use any TP whatsoever: AoEing. Where we actually need it (single-target), it might not return anything. I guess we'd be the sprinting speedrun kings again though?[/HB]

LOL, this probably gets the vote for the least thought through element of all. I had got to the end of my thoughts, and wanted some form of TP reclamation or regeneration. Bulwark may not be the best choice. How about a small boost to TP regen when Convalescence is up? Or alternately a one time TP regen when Divine Veil is triggered? The drawback with Devine Veil for that being that you have to be a high enough level to use it, where Convalescence is available to all PLD regardless of level.

Thanks for the feedback, it makes for a good discussion.