Paladin's TP Issue

[eagledorf]

Yes, if you cast heals or shields you probably can sustain your TP, but does it make sense to balance the job assuming you'll be assisting in healing? Not really. The potency lost in SwO is so great that it'll almost always be better for the healers to pick up the slack and they'll always tune the content for 2 healers' output, not 2+1. As MT casts will still cancel...Paladin's healing will always be an emergency thing, not part of the core rotation so TP consumption must be balanced without factoring it in.

As for a DoT, I was thinking along the lines of recycling an old animation and making it PLD's version of Scourge. 500 potency of light or wind damage that costs MP to use. Alternatively, the MP could be blown on a big AoE skill, but I personally think that if PLD ever does get an AoE it might be better for it to be TP-based to encourage Flash use.

[Astrelle_hyperion]

I think what could be interesting is if the DPS stance rotations of all the tanks were TP limited -- leading to tank swaps to maximize uptime of dmg as well as defensive needs.

[eagledorf]

I think what could be interesting is if the DPS stance rotations of all the tanks were TP limited -- leading to tank swaps to maximize uptime of dmg as well as defensive needs.

I think any forced mechanic like this would be very annoying for 4-man dungeons and solo content. Even raids.

[Ironos]

Paladin's healing will always be an emergency thing, not part of the core rotation so TP consumption must be balanced without factoring it in.

Oh, I wasn't advocating that things should stay the way they are for PLD's TP sustain because of their casts. I was just offering what I think the devs are thinking.

Which is a fool's errand, because dear lord I can never figure out what SE is thinking for the life of me.

[Torunya]

Which is a fool's errand, because dear lord I can never figure out what SE is thinking for the life of me.

It's not that they aren't thinking, obviously. FFXIV in itself is proof of their outstanding accomplishment. I just get the feeling that their job testers aren't playing Paladin the same way their entire playerbase is playing it. It's as if your dad gave you a playstation 4 for christmas and expected you to use it as a dvd player only.

[eagledorf]

It's not that they aren't thinking, obviously.

I know that they do their own internal testing, but when I look at the kinds of numbers I get for TP or the comparison of buffs I did for my other blog post, I have to wonder.

I think they're thinking too little about balance and too much about their own concept about how we should play the jobs.

I said this on the Japanese forum, but consider the healers. Yoshida said that they changed Stoneskin and Lustrate because HP% skills would scale too well with ilevel. This makes no sense since heals should scale at the same pace or there's going to be another problem (if this were true to any significant amount, healers would start having trouble keeping tanks up).

The obvious conclusion is that they really did it to prevent healing from Cleric Stance and make healer DPS harder to squeeze off. There's nothing really wrong with this since it was honestly too easy for SCH to DPS in ARR, but they were so concerned about this that we ended up with WHM having nothing unique to bring in terms of mitigation, Aetherflow stacks losing 1/5 of its efficacy on a WAR, and 3.0 dropped with a nightmare of bad healer balance (and how are they going to get AST and WHM really well balanced for all the content when Diurnal AST has 3 unique, stackable mitigation skills and WHM has none? I honestly have no idea. Oh I know! Give WHM a much better HPS output than...wait...)

I think it's the same with tanks. They're thinking about PLD and DRK and willfully ignoring the fact that there exists a outrageous imbalance with WAR in terms of utility, defense, resource management, and DPS. How else could Yoshida possibly say "PLD has superior and easier to use defensive skills" with a straight face?

[Astrelle_hyperion]

I think any forced mechanic like this would be very annoying for 4-man dungeons and solo content. Even raids.

Trying to develop the idea a bit more fully now that I'm not on my phone.

1) TP should be a resource that has to be rationed, and their should be a trade-off. MNK & DRG (don't know NIN or any of the ranged attackers well enough to know) have choices when it comes to single versus AoE with the latter consuming TP like no tomorrow. Its a resource to be spent when the time is right. Good MNK/DRG know when to spend it, and when to throttle back to make sure they don't run dry.

2) Steady state MT shouldn't need to every run dry (in order to avoid putting restrictions on boss fights in 4-player content). Hence why I suggested it for DPS stance only. For the skilled players who MT/solo-tank in DPS stance, I'm confident they'd find a way to still get more out of it.


The goal is something like
a) tanks, in tank stance have a harder time running tp dry (reduce tp cost of final move of hate combo when in tank stance?)
b) tanks, out of tank stance should have the ability to do higher burst but non-sustained, and sustained lower damage rotations.
c) the follow-on is that raid theory crafting could now have fun optimizing across multiple choices for swaps. Ideally designed in a way that the existing MT/OT limited swaps is DPS neutral, and these extra swaps are people pushing skill/timings.

I think there's a hint of this style play happening with some of the initial pull by WAR with a huge burst opening, only to be provoked onto a DRK for most of the fight. In that case its not TP resource related, but cooldown/opener related before switching into the pre-3.2 meta MT/OT split.


Part a could happen easily whenever SE wants -- as the hate rotations are lower dps and tanks know/learn how to minimize their use -- lowering the last step's cost doesn't increase dps. Tanks would just be incentivized to weave in a couple more rotations over longer fights with less down time -- slightly lowering sustained dps in exchange for sustain time.

Part b can't happen easily -- probably not until 4.0 and new skills are added, to support it it would need some higher potency, higher tp abilities. -- or more things like DRK's DA -- buff the next skill by say 30% potency and double its TP cost.

[Link594]

I think ppl should run out of tp
So it's actually a resource

Reduce equilibrium to 100 tp

The thing is, TP isn't really a resource. It's just a time limit set on you for how long you can fight. If TP was redesigned so that way it was actually a resource, like Energy or Focus in WoW, then it was be more interesting gameplay. It's just frustrating to go past your little combat timer and then having your GCD increased to 3 sec to match the TP refresh rate. Its a boring mechanic and frustrating mechanic. Its fine to punish players if a fight is going longer then intended, but not in this way lol.

10 TP per hit would put it in the same place WAR is, where they gain TP over time.

Honestly, the best would be to give PLD a DoT that uses MP. It adds an opportunity cost to spamming Clemency and fixes the TP issue for single target. The only problem is it needs an animation.

Yes, if you cast heals or shields you probably can sustain your TP, but does it make sense to balance the job assuming you'll be assisting in healing? Not really. The potency lost in SwO is so great that it'll almost always be better for the healers to pick up the slack and they'll always tune the content for 2 healers' output, not 2+1. As MT casts will still cancel...Paladin's healing will always be an emergency thing, not part of the core rotation so TP consumption must be balanced without factoring it in.

As for a DoT, I was thinking along the lines of recycling an old animation and making it PLD's version of Scourge. 500 potency of light or wind damage that costs MP to use. Alternatively, the MP could be blown on a big AoE skill, but I personally think that if PLD ever does get an AoE it might be better for it to be TP-based to encourage Flash use.

I disagree with a new spell/animation. PLD doesn't need new spells and adding more and more spells is just going to give us an ability bloat problem. We already kinda suffer from ability bloat althought its not really bad atm. Tying AoE to Flash is a great way to encourage Flash use, AoE doesn't have to be TP based.

I'm actually on board with the idea of changing the enhanced version of Flash to a DoT. Something along the lines of "Searing rays of light is causing damage over time!" Example: 30 potency tic for 15 sec, ala Circle of Scorn. This would actually force us to incorporate an MP-based skill into our rotation, which in turn would ease the strain on our otherwise constantly stressed TP.

I'm not an ideas man, but I think this would work.

EDIT: Thinking about it, I get reminded of Fracture. As Flash is on the GCD, this idea would just be a dps loss wouldn't it? Curses...

It wouldn't be a DPS loss, the reason Fracture is a DPS loss is because of how little damage it does over its short duration, not to mention it has an outrageous TP cost for its effect.

Make the Flash trait baseline, then replace the old Flash trait with a 30 sec DoT with potency of 30. (300 over 30 sec)

Fixed TP issue cuz you're forced to flash every 30 seconds so you'll last much longer

Fixed AoE DPS issues PLD has, especially before CoS at level 50

Gave PLD a little DPS buff to make them on par with other tank DPS

Made PLD rotation a little more interesting with Flash for single target

I don't take credit for this, found this suggestion on FF14 Reddit lol

Pretty good I think, solves multiple issues in 1 simple change. Doesn't effect cross class either.

Just quoting myself from the first page to get more visibility, (not sure if you saw it or came up with same idea) but I really think that Flash trait I mentioned is the best fix. We use Flash anyways on AoE packs, and forcing its use on single target would extend the duration we fight for such a long time. Basically every 30 seconds, we get 60 TP back. (Not really but kinda)
No reason to be against this change. I think the only argument by adding damage to Flash is it'll break CC, but you shouldn't be tanking by cc'd mobs anyways (other players' AoEs will break it), and I don't know if a DoT would even break CC. I think people just got attached to having an ability that does threat but no damage (not sure why). If it's too strong, it can be balanced, but the idea is there and I think its a great one to knock off multiple issues with PLD in 1 simple trait fix.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...abilities_can/

I think that was the reddit post that gave me the idea. I don't remember whether or not I originally found it there (people tend to repeat good ideas lol)

[Torunya]

Having been through Midas NM with a co-tank Paladin, I can safely say that we both ran out of TP fairly easily. That part felt incredibly limiting and wasn't really fun. Not to mention I still cry whenever I die, since it means my TP will have flatlined upon Raise. I wouldn't care if Flash got a DoT trait or if I could cross class Invigorate at this point. Just give me something SE! ;^;

It wouldn't be a DPS loss

Thanks, I feel better now. xD

[Sevyrr]

I think the only argument by adding damage to Flash is it'll break CC, but you shouldn't be tanking by cc'd mobs anyways (other players' AoEs will break it), and I don't know if a DoT would even break CC.

I've tested this with Bio and Sleep.
Applying a DoT to a CC'd target (Sleep/Bind most notably, as they're the only ones to wear off when taking damage) will break the CC.
But if the DoT is applied before the CC they still suffer damage from the ticks without breaking the CC. (So DoT + Bane + Blizz II will get you bound and dying mobs.)

Otherwise, I think that adding a DoT trait to Flash would be a brilliant solution to TP management.
It gives a reason to use Flash as OT Paladin, gives more utility to every tank using Flash (Although Blind isn't always useful, it can be in mass dungeon pulls), and hits two birds for Paladins: TP sustain and AoE DPS. (Both of which Paladin lack.)