PLD 4.0

[Shurrikhan]

Picking an idea I came up in another topic.
Officialy, PLD's design is to be the tanks that mitigates. It has an obvious issue here, since, every tank is sturdy enough to survive each encounter. And it's a good thing, since you don't want PLD to become mandatory. But, if PLD was able to solo tank anything,it wouldn't be mandatory, but just an option. You'd chose either one PLD or two of any tanks.

The tricky part here is that some fight are designed to prevent solo tanking, like A1 where the two bosses buff each other, or A3 with the resistance down. It's as old as Titan EX and T6, though.
But, what if PLD had an ability especially for those kind of situation ?

I present you : "Divine Calling"

Recast : GCD
Cost : Nearly half of MP pool.
Effect : Gain a Divine Stack

• Under Shield Oath, each Divine Stack reduces damage received by 10% and damage dealt by 10%. Also increase enmity gain.
• Under Sword Oath, each Divine Stack increases the potency of auto-attacks by 5

Duration (To be determined)
Using Divine Calling again will put another Divine stack for a lesser duration

The idea here is something akin to Blood of the Dragon of Enochian. By timing you skills properly, you'd gain a stacking defense buff to compensate for all the stacking damage buff on enemies. But, since the duration is lowered more and more, you'd have no choice but to lose it at one point since it would take too much time to refill your MP.

This would give depth to PLD, a skill that varies depending on your stance. And a clear but not mandatory gap on damage reduction compared to other tanks.

PLD can't remain balanced while suddenly being guaranteed able to solo tank anything. That said, for two tanks, two healers and 4 DPS or 1 PLD, 2 healers, and 5 DPS to have equivalent raid dps, honestly, the PLD dps would have to be absolute shit, which means they'll never be taken for content that specifically (mechanically) require two tanks, or for anything that could already be solo-tanked. They'd essentially become an even gimper breed of tank.

That said, I doubt these stacks here would be able to give PLD nearly such a survivability buff, especially since unless the stacks are lasting a minute or more, you'd probably never be able to get past the second stack; it takes a bit over 50 seconds to regenerate half your mana, depending on the number of Riot Blade uses.

PLD could be "shadow" DPS if their utility allowed healers to spend more time doing damage, instead of the current situation of tank (and only tank) DPS needing to carry the last bit of the check. Divine Veil seems like it was aimed at this role, but it's such a long CD it doesn't really reduce healer load all that much.

To be honest, the cooldown is less the issue so much as the defense. In most cases, the mass PLD-stoneskin of Divine Veil doesn't actually reduce healing needs at all, because the healers must still respond to incoming AoE damage in exactly the same way as they would. If at the bare minimum ilvl, where a Sacred Soil or Succor would otherwise be needed, it might save a life. Short of that, it simply isn't built a useful enough manner to save the healers any casts. It really is little more than a strong Succor shield on a 3-minute cooldown.

For comparison:
Divine Veil - Enwraps the party in a Divine Veil, sharing a shield equal to 10% of your maximum HP per party member affected across all party members. Damage taken that would reduce a party member's health below 1 is instead siphoned from the Divine Veil's shield. Lasts 12 seconds.

^ Granted, this would need a way to prevent it from being abused in saving the MT as the OT. Right now that could be a 14k ish 'no death' shield on the other tank. For instance:
Each instance by which Divine Veil saves an affected party member from death reduces the duration of Divine Veil on that member by a percentage of base duration twice proportionate to the damage compared to your maximum HP. (6k damage taken at 1 health, with a 18k PLD, reduces duration by 2/3s, or 8 seconds. 9k damage absorbed would kill the buff instantly after the absorption. Still good for a single-hit, at least.)
--OR--
Divine Veil cannot absorb direct-targeted damage. (Can't eat tank-busters, cleaves on the main target, or AAs.)