Pally Is Almost Perfect

[Februs]

Perfect? I think not...

Clemency was a decent change. I guess it makes it a little easier to use, though it doesn't make much of a difference, considering it was only ever used in fixed places during scripted fights anyway. It still can't be surecasted, so that really hasn't changed.

Divine Veil was also a good fix, in that it now works the way it should have worked from the start.

Pld Dps ... is still bullsh*t and chips. We got a potency buff, only to have our overall Dps nerfed by the Tank-wide Nerf. Gee, SE. Thanks a bunch for making our Dps go absolutely nowhere (actually might be a tad lower). All in all, though, I can live with this. Pld dps was always low (for some, garbage, arbitrary reason), so it's nothing new, and the Dps checks aren't as stupid this time around.

Tp ... Still sucks. I mean, wow. It takes me 4 minutes to flat-line my Tp bar instead of 3. What an awesome fix! Thanks SE! You have no idea how much that extra minute means to me! /sarcasm.

I'm not saying that Pld's should never run out of Tp (like one particular Tank we all know well), but it is stupid that Pld's have no way to manage their Tp expenditure. Before anyone points this out (because I've seen this argument before), No. Clemency does not count as Tp management. It is only ever used in fixed times during fights. You can not spam cast it to make up your Tp, and each cast of Clemency is a huge Dps loss (which is the complete opposite of the goal of managing your Tp). Further, given that we can already murder our Tp bars (albeit slower) now, their Tp reductions are only a temporary fix. when skill speeds start to increase, we could very well be back down to the same spot where we were before the patch. Then we'll have to start this whole mess all over again.

Cover was completely ignored.

Tempered Will was completely ignored. The main problem with these two being that Pld is the ONLY tank job that has moves that they don't, and often can't, use. That's just plain stupid.

Oath swapping basically did not change. It doesn't cancel our combo anymore. Great. It still takes a turn of the GCD, meaning that the best time to use it is at the start of a combo (typically when FoF comes back around off of CD). Meaning the optimal way of using SwO is: Sword Oath > Fight or Flight > Fast blade ... notice that this usage does not interrupt our combo anyway? That's cuz' it doesn't. The optimal way of using Sword Oath never did. So this change is just window dressing.

Shield Oath was a decent change. It helps secure an aggro lead, and makes tank swapping easier. Though, this is hardly unique to Pld, because every tank had their enmity increased. So ... nothing special here. Moving on.

Sword Oath was ignored ... again. I'm not sure there's a number in existence for how many times a change has been requested to SwO. Everything from potency buffs to effect changes have been submitted to SE. What did we get? Nothing. It's exactly the same, and the best advantage of having it active is not having your dps reduced by the dmg reduction of shield oath... which you can also get just by dropping shield oath (which did not cancel combos, ever, and could be used more freely from the start). Is this absolutely horrible? No. It functions just fine, but it was certainly a missed opportunity for SE to do something meaningful to the Pld job.

All in all, Pld's changes were fine, I guess, but they are tremendously lack luster. The job plays exactly the same as it did before. Most of the serious, long standing, issues that have plagued it are still around in one form or another. The only one that I can say is a solid, undoubtedly good, change was the increase of Pld aggro on savage blade, as it rewards players for maximizing their Dps instead of just spamming RoH/Flash. All in all, though, the change is mostly just there. There were so many different things that they could have done to give Pld a serious overhaul, address all of it's issues, and give it a solid identity, but, as usual, they took the shortest and simplest path to "fixing" it. It functions now, sure, but the changes are nothing special and definitely not perfect.