PLD 4.0

[Link594]

snip

Wow, lots of stuff to reply to.

As for the first point, I don't like the idea of ignoring the glowing 3rd ability and just alternate between 2 abilities for cleave. I think you should finish the combo so you are pressing more buttons and not breaking combos. Breaking combos should feel punishing imo.

I think a really good idea would be to have another 3rd combo ability called Whirling Blade or Whirlwind that just does AoE all around you and has a spin attack animation that follows Savage Blade.

I will definitely check out the link tomorrow and get back to you, but I have to sleep to go to work tomorrow

For Bulwark, none of my suggestions would work unless magic attacks are blockable, because siphoning from rampart to make Bulwark better would be a huge no-no since Rampart affects magical attacks and Bulwark doesn't. You would definitely have to have different iterations of Bulwark and test them all to see which feels best though. I think a 90 sec Bulwark with an increase of 50% block rate for 15 sec would be fine but I obviously have no idea until you test it and make sure its balanced in relation to the other tanks. And then make Rampart have a longer CD to compensate a more available Bulwark of course. You can even change Shield Oath to instead increase block chance by 20% instead of flatly reducing it.

IMO, I feel like WAR should be the king of physical mitigation, DRK the king of magical mitigation, and PLD being a middle of the road mitigation and I think magical blocking and a focus on blocking would be the best way to do that. It also makes our playstyle focused on blocking more unique.

I would hope that Yoshi sees that magic blocking is not that outlandish, and it fits the fantasy of the class. Paladins in WoW can block magic attacks through a talent called Holy Shield (sounds familiar?), and I always thought it fits the lore because Paladins are supposed to be these holy warriors that can utilize magic to defend themselves against magic. FF PLDs use MP, and have these holy abilities such as Flash and CoS, Hallowed Ground and Spirits Within so it makes sense.

As for Shield Balance, I think that we shouldn't complicate shield types because we don't want to make the class more in depth then the other tanking classes. It wouldn't be fair to them lol. I think they should have a slight difference but not a noticeable difference, similar to racial stats. Another point to make is you can have a buckler equipped but glamoured to a tower, and then the graphic isn't matching the shield type bonus anymore. So, it would be nice if there is a slight difference, but I wouldn't want it to be meta-defining so PLDs are this class that has more depth to it when it comes to weapon selection then WAR or DRK. I mean we already are the only job that has off hands. Let's not abuse it lol

I'll prob repost my updated wishlist later updated with your feedback, and I'll take a look at the link before I do so I'll keep that in mind.

[Shurrikhan]

Wow, lots of stuff to reply to.

(1) As for the first point, I don't like the idea of ignoring the glowing 3rd ability and just alternate between 2 abilities for cleave. I think you should finish the combo so you are pressing more buttons and not breaking combos. Breaking combos should feel punishing imo.

I think a really good idea would be to have another 3rd combo ability called Whirling Blade or Whirlwind that just does AoE all around you and has a spin attack animation that follows Savage Blade.

(2) IMO, I feel like WAR should be the king of physical mitigation, DRK the king of magical mitigation, and PLD being a middle of the road mitigation and I think magical blocking and a focus on blocking would be the best way to do that. It also makes our playstyle focused on blocking more unique.

(3) I would hope that Yoshi sees that magic blocking is not that outlandish, and it fits the fantasy of the class. Paladins in WoW can block magic attacks through a talent called Holy Shield (sounds familiar?), and I always thought it fits the lore because Paladins are supposed to be these holy warriors that can utilize magic to defend themselves against magic. FF PLDs use MP, and have these holy abilities such as Flash and CoS, Hallowed Ground and Spirits Within so it makes sense.

(4) You can even change Shield Oath to instead increase block chance by 20% instead of flatly reducing [damage taken].

(5) As for Shield Balance, I think that we shouldn't complicate shield types because we don't want to make the class more in depth then the other tanking classes. It wouldn't be fair to them lol.

(2) It's actually the blocking, as compared to the more general nothing's-gotta-bring-me-down/pain-suppression/all-form mitigation of the Inner Beast motif that makes me think of PLD as the most physical of the tanks, and WAR as the middle of the road. I personally kind of like it that way; I just think PLDs should, holy/curative/light-magic user and all, be able to block some magic damage, reducing that gap. (That's just talking motif though; add Storm's Path vs. Rage of Halone and there's no contest, for better or worse.) Depending on how blocking is handled in regards to magic though, that would be much less the case, yeah.

(3) At any rate, you'd think it might make sense for a PLD to at least be able to block magic during Bulwark. But alas, no job traits. My favorite way to handle it is complex but, imo, realistic. Shields function against purely aetherial but projected (launched from caster to target) magic based on shield size (towers best), much like actually blocking a wave of fire against you; what's hidden won't be hit, so maximize that area. Just about anything should be able to block manifest magic (e.g. Stone). Nothing can block non-projected magic (anything that starts/appears directly in/on the target).

(4) Lately I've been looking at a lot of different ways to sort of get the same effectiveness out of Shield Oath without it being quite so basic, in combination with similar looks at Grit. Honestly, I really like the idea of stance-dancing, almost to the point where I feel like it wouldn't especially hurt if, in a fight with varying damage levels, a tank might stance-dance not just to get more dps out, but even to improve his overall defense.

[Outlandish ideas - just food for thought]

(This is kind of similar to when we thought DRK might be a life-tapping tank, spending life where healers would otherwise be overhealing in order to improve defense across times where healing needs would be uncomfortably intense / bolstering defense when it matters more so that healers can maintain DoTs, etc. Could be hell to heal, essentially, or an absolute breeze. In this case though it'd just be by generating, say, a parry- or parry-strength related resource or something similar but with less RNG-ness, while out of Grit, and then popping those into a sort of parry nuke when/by returning to Grit, almost like you were spending that mana not just on a stance, but on a variable shield of sorts.)

In PLD's case this stance-dancing bit came out as sort of an Oath resource, where Shield improved general damage mitigation, blocking, and could just outright make you a shield-based badass. (Think Shield Bash nukes.) The effects of either Oath would linger a bit after 'swapping', manually convertable through charging the spells themselves. While charging, Sword Oath channels a heavy on the target while building up attack speed and preparing bonus potency for your next oGCD. Overstacking the bonus potency unleashes it as a single strong cleave. Shield Oath channels a heavy on all nearby enemies while increasing block chance and reducing damage taken, drawing said enemies towards you at the end of the charge. Overstacking the bonus block chance automatically procs your block. Either charge can be rushed to reach the overstack bonus sooner by hitting the ability again while charging (spends extra mana, getting the short-term bonuses faster, but giving less of the long-term bonuses; these will instead generate / shift over time. Hitting any weaponskil would queue it for a typical 1-GCD or 2-GCD charge (max), hitting anything else twice ends the charge at that point and performs the attack, and moving of course ends the charge at that point). Charge speeds scale with (Skill) Speed, which should be a single stat with Spell Speed anyways...

(5) But... but, then we'd HAVE to make them all awesome!

[Link594]

(2) It's actually the blocking, as compared to the more general nothing's-gotta-bring-me-down/pain-suppression/all-form mitigation of the Inner Beast motif that makes me think of PLD as the most physical of the tanks, and WAR as the middle of the road. I personally kind of like it that way; I just think PLDs should, holy/curative/light-magic user and all, be able to block some magic damage, reducing that gap. (That's just talking motif though; add Storm's Path vs. Rage of Halone and there's no contest, for better or worse.) Depending on how blocking is handled in regards to magic though, that would be much less the case, yeah.

(3) At any rate, you'd think it might make sense for a PLD to at least be able to block magic during Bulwark. But alas, no job traits. My favorite way to handle it is complex but, imo, realistic. Shields function against purely aetherial but projected (launched from caster to target) magic based on shield size (towers best), much like actually blocking a wave of fire against you; what's hidden won't be hit, so maximize that area. Just about anything should be able to block manifest magic (e.g. Stone). Nothing can block non-projected magic (anything that starts/appears directly in/on the target).

(4) Lately I've been looking at a lot of different ways to sort of get the same effectiveness out of Shield Oath without it being quite so basic, in combination with similar looks at Grit. Honestly, I really like the idea of stance-dancing, almost to the point where I feel like it wouldn't especially hurt if, in a fight with varying damage levels, a tank might stance-dance not just to get more dps out, but even to improve his overall defense.

[Outlandish ideas - just food for thought]

(This is kind of similar to when we thought DRK might be a life-tapping tank, spending life where healers would otherwise be overhealing in order to improve defense across times where healing needs would be uncomfortably intense / bolstering defense when it matters more so that healers can maintain DoTs, etc. Could be hell to heal, essentially, or an absolute breeze. In this case though it'd just be by generating, say, a parry- or parry-strength related resource or something similar but with less RNG-ness, while out of Grit, and then popping those into a sort of parry nuke when/by returning to Grit, almost like you were spending that mana not just on a stance, but on a variable shield of sorts.)

In PLD's case this stance-dancing bit came out as sort of an Oath resource, where Shield improved general damage mitigation, blocking, and could just outright make you a shield-based badass. (Think Shield Bash nukes.) The effects of either Oath would linger a bit after 'swapping', manually convertable through charging the spells themselves. While charging, Sword Oath channels a heavy on the target while building up attack speed and preparing bonus potency for your next oGCD. Overstacking the bonus potency unleashes it as a single strong cleave. Shield Oath channels a heavy on all nearby enemies while increasing block chance and reducing damage taken, drawing said enemies towards you at the end of the charge. Overstacking the bonus block chance automatically procs your block. Either charge can be rushed to reach the overstack bonus sooner by hitting the ability again while charging (spends extra mana, getting the short-term bonuses faster, but giving less of the long-term bonuses; these will instead generate / shift over time. Hitting any weaponskil would queue it for a typical 1-GCD or 2-GCD charge (max), hitting anything else twice ends the charge at that point and performs the attack, and moving of course ends the charge at that point). Charge speeds scale with (Skill) Speed, which should be a single stat with Spell Speed anyways...

(5) But... but, then we'd HAVE to make them all awesome!

Sorry for the late reply, been a little busy but I definitely wanted to keep the conversation going.

(2) I'm not quite sure PLD is the most physical of tanks. I feel like WAR and PLD were designed to be similar because back when they came out, they were the only tanks.

I'm just saying the PLD fantasy would be better for magical mitigation due to the whole holy warrior motif and that WAR would be best for physical mitigation due to the whole tough guy theme. All this is my opinion though, and I can definitely see various arguments for their niches due to their fantasy.

(3) IMO for simplicities sake (remember I'm the guy who said not to overcomplicate the class) I would just categorize it into 2 catergories. Projected magic and non-projected magic. Blockable magics would include things like Stone, Fire, and Blizzard, and non-projected magic would be unblockable magics like Aero, Paralysis, and Banish.

(4) Stance dancing would be nice and its also why I included in my little wish list that the Oaths don't break you combos so it would be easier to shift. You can even argue that they be off the GCD.