PLD 4.0

[Reynhart]

No one is asking for overpowered specialized tanks, that would obviously break the game.

Just for my personal knowledge, how do you define an "overpowered tank", and why/how it could break the game ?

[Syzygian]

Just for my personal knowledge, how do you define an "overpowered tank", and why/how it could break the game ?

I dunno about overpowered, but I know all about unbalanced. That's why it tickles me when people describe WAR as the "most well-balanced tank/job".

Balance implies just that, BALANCE. You balance weaknesses with strengths, strengths with weaknesses, not strengths with more strengths. Every other job plays this way. You have specific pros and cons wherein the cons are covered by other members of a team. We understood this when we were 9 years old playing pokemon, but throw an unbalanced job in the hands of full-grown (apparently) adults and we forget what the word means. This is how you break the game.

That's why SE made a mistake when they gave one job strengths and weaknesses and then gave the strengths to cover those weaknesses to the same job. If you made every job in the game like that, then you could 8-man anything with any one job and none of the others.

[Reynhart]

I dunno about overpowered, but I know all about unbalanced.

From my point of view, people tend to use the world "unbalanced" very easily. As soon as something is strong, you can be sure that "unbalanced" is not far away.
That's why I always ask one question each time a suggestion is made : Would it make you chose that job over its contenders most of the time ?

If you made every job in the game like that, then you could 8-man anything with any one job and none of the others.

Like an 8-WAR Ravana EX fight ?

[Syzygian]

From my point of view, people tend to use the world "unbalanced" very easily. As soon as something is strong, you can be sure that "unbalanced" is not far away.
That's why I always ask one question each time a suggestion is made : Would it make you chose that job over its contenders most of the time ?

Everything about WAR makes you choose it over its contenders most of the time. It has no definable weaknesses to put in the "weakness" scale. That's unbalanced. Tell me how it isn't?

Like an 8-WAR Ravana EX fight ?

Uhh, that was my point. That's not a symptom of balance when a job can 8-man a fight. We should all be able to 8-man content on any job, right? All healers, all DPS, all tanks? Perhaps an 8-DRG level-synced Titan EX? That's not unbalanced right? That job is just really strong! And like, awesome! And stuff.

[Reynhart]

Everything about WAR makes you choose it over its contenders most of the time. It has no definable weaknesses to put in the "weakness" scale. That's unbalanced. Tell me how it isn't?

No no, WAR is obviously imbalanced.

The question is interesting every time we give suggestion about how to improve other jobs.
For example : If PLD could battle raise, would you chose it over WAR ?
Or, on this topic, if PLD could solo tank at the expense of most of its DPS, would you chose it over WAR ?

[Starbirth]

Or, on this topic, if PLD could solo tank at the expense of most of its DPS, would you chose it over WAR ?

This was actually sort of true during shiva ex days.

[Syzygian]

could solo tank at the expense of most of its DPS

All 3 tanks can already do this. This isn't an area of discrepancy.

[Reynhart]

All 3 tanks can already do this. This isn't an area of discrepancy.

No, when I say "solo tank", I mean like both Oppressors at the same time, or Living Liquid(Hand) and Liquid Limb, or Both PLD adds from Thordan EX.
And not after they overgeared the content, but as a new kind of strat for progression.

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.

I'll try to do a simulation with real numbers, later.

Here's the simulation (Numbers will be rounded to the nearest ten).
As a lvl 60 PLD, I have 5200 MP
With Sheltron, I recover 700 MP, and 440 with Riot Blade.
With a basic GCD of 2.5s, I can do one Riot Blade every 5 seconds, and a Shleltron every 30s.
We will also not count passive MP regeneration or any external source like Ballad

So, let's suppose that Divine Calling costs 2600MP (5200/2) and initially lasts for 30s (and decrease duration by 5 seconds on each subsequent cast.)

We start counting just after your 1st cast at 0 second, and you have 2600 MP (5200-2600)1 Stack

• 30 seconds later, providing you did only 6 partial Riot Blade combos and one sheltron, you're back to full MP 2600+6*440+700 > 5200

So you cast your second Divine Calling and come back to 2600 MP, but it will only last 25s.2 Stacks

• 25 seconds later, you had time to do 4 Riot Blades (Since Divine Calling cost you a GCD) and a Sheltron, to refill 2460 MP. You're at 5060 MP

Third Divine Calling, 2460 MP left, 20s duration.3 Stacks

• 20 seconds later, enough time for 3 Riot Blades and probably a Sheltron, 2020 MP refilled for 4480 MP total.

Fourth Divine Calling, 1880 MP left, 15s duration.4 Stacks

• 15 seconds later, only 2 Riot Blade, and Sheltron still on cooldown, so only 880 MP refill for a total of 2760 MP

Fifth Divine Calling, 160 MP left, 10s duration.5 Stacks

• Wears off 10 seconds later. For a maximum total duration of 100 seconds if you focus only on replenishing MP.

Since each stack would add 10% mitigation to Shield Oath, it means that you'd end up to 70% reduction for the last 10s (But also reduce your damage by 70%). And if each stacks increase the enmity multiplier by 1, you wouldn't lose aggro even if you only do Fast Blade -> Riot Blade with some Shield Swipes.