PLD highest DPS tank single target

[Rhaja]

I've seen a lot of people suggest making flash do damage, but I don't feel like that's actually the best way to handle PLD's lack of AOE. The easiest, most basic fix they could do to jump PLD's aoe would be making Overpower Cross-class. The idea behind traited flash was to add to PLD's suite of defensive abilities; blind means potentially less auto attacks. If you pull only three mobs at a time, one flash and circle of scorn is enough to maintain threat so long as the party is focused on a single target or you rotate the RoH combo. Sparingly using flash allows more blind uptime; way more than DRK.

It would also give blood bath an actual use. If you open this up to DRK then AOE pulls get absolutely insane. After all that abbysal drain with constant MP ticking back, you pop the dodge combo while dropping multiple Scourge, then use OP for the duration of Blood bath, and back into abbysal drain with DA if anything is left alive.

[Seku]

blind means potentially less auto attacks. If you pull only three mobs at a time, one flash and circle of scorn is enough to maintain threat so long as the party is focused on a single target or you rotate the RoH combo. Sparingly using flash allows more blind uptime; way more than DRK.

DA+ Dark passenger for 15 second blind, waiting until it runs out and followed up by DA + Dark Dance for 20 seconds of increased evasion says hi and basically kills your augment for the usefulness of PLD's Blind side effect from flash. Funny story is that you can also put these two together and basically become the best evasion job in the game (which makes no sense) if you wanted to cut your healer some slack and kill off some of your dps potential at trash pulls.

[Rhaja]

DA+ Dark passenger for 15 second blind, waiting until it runs out and followed up by DA + Dark Dance for 20 seconds of increased evasion says hi and basically kills your augment for the usefulness of PLD's Blind side effect from flash. Funny story is that you can also put these two together and basically become the best evasion job in the game (which makes no sense) if you wanted to cut your healer some slack and kill off some of your dps potential at trash pulls.

How does that kill anything? Yes DRK has an evasion combo that comes at the cost of a nice chunk of mana. In return it leads to more damage with the potential for a lot of Low Blows; its more aggressive. PLD has had an on demand blind far longer, but because of large pulls and PLD's lack of aoe it goes largely unnoticed.

Also lets go with flash doing damage. We can go ahead and get rid of the blind since it'll fail to see use anymore. Flash is a spell. Fight or Flight increases Physical damage, not attack power. So our damage boosting cooldown is still useless for Flash. Also, Blood bath does not work on spells. So giving flash damage does very little.

Overpower does physical damage, can be used with blood bath, and can be used in tandem with Flash's blind effect to help with the TP drain. The point I was trying to make wasn't that PLD is OP blind dodge tank. The point is Overpower is the best quick fix they could do at any point to fix PLD's AoE issue.

And I guess I should try to get a bit more on topic about single target dps. I'm in the same opinion as most others in this thread; PLD has more support abilities that make up for its lack of damage all around. In fact I find PLD more fun and rewarding in 8man content because you can help the party out more than just doing higher dps.

[Seku]

How does that kill anything? Yes DRK has an evasion combo that comes at the cost of a nice chunk of mana. In return it leads to more damage with the potential for a lot of Low Blows; its more aggressive. PLD has had an on demand blind far longer, but because of large pulls and PLD's lack of aoe it goes largely unnoticed.

Also lets go with flash doing damage. We can go ahead and get rid of the blind since it'll fail to see use anymore. Flash is a spell. Fight or Flight increases Physical damage, not attack power. So our damage boosting cooldown is still useless for Flash. Also, Blood bath does not work on spells. So giving flash damage does very little.

Overpower does physical damage, can be used with blood bath, and can be used in tandem with Flash's blind effect to help with the TP drain. The point I was trying to make wasn't that PLD is OP blind dodge tank. The point is Overpower is the best quick fix they could do at any point to fix PLD's AoE issue.

And I guess I should try to get a bit more on topic about single target dps. I'm in the same opinion as most others in this thread; PLD has more support abilities that make up for its lack of damage all around. In fact I find PLD more fun and rewarding in 8man content because you can help the party out more than just doing higher dps.

1. Never stated Flash killed anything nor anything about flash getting a damage buff, no idea where you got that from.

2. I'm going against your defending of Paladin's flash lessening auto attacks coming in for longer than dark knight. As Dark passengers blind into Dark Dance evasion bonus gives a up time of 35 seconds total compared to PLD's flashes blind which at most has a 21 second up time. Aka Dark Knight has the better evasion and can do it for longer.

3. I agree that Drk destroys PLD's dodging auto attacks and still pushes out more damage due to both Dark Passenger and Dark Dance not taking up a GCD, thus still allowing the spam of their AoE.

4. If you add damage onto Flash, blind would still work for about 10 seconds. Seeing as blind isn't over written with the lesser duration until you drop below 6 seconds. So no, they should keep that on if for whatever reason they do add damage to the spell.

5-7 minute Recast (once a raid?), PLD tethers to a party member in range, if the member is KO'd, instant raise option (keeping buffs would be appreciated) or instead of death they get temporary Knockdown + Invulnerable(?), and their aggro transfers to the PLD. Can be slotted in CD rotation for 1 tank buster while PLD is OT.

While this sounds good on paper, I think the job should steer away from abilities that are there for other party member mess ups. I feel it's part of what landed it in the position that it's currently in.

[Alistaire]

I've seen a lot of people suggest making flash do damage, but I don't feel like that's actually the best way to handle PLD's lack of AOE. The easiest, most basic fix they could do to jump PLD's aoe would be making Overpower Cross-class. The idea behind traited flash was to add to PLD's suite of defensive abilities; blind means potentially less auto attacks. If you pull only three mobs at a time, one flash and circle of scorn is enough to maintain threat so long as the party is focused on a single target or you rotate the RoH combo. Sparingly using flash allows more blind uptime; way more than DRK.

It would also give blood bath an actual use. If you open this up to DRK then AOE pulls get absolutely insane. After all that abbysal drain with constant MP ticking back, you pop the dodge combo while dropping multiple Scourge, then use OP for the duration of Blood bath, and back into abbysal drain with DA if anything is left alive.

It's not about generating enough threat. Sure you can do your single target rotation on pulls after a couple flashes but that's slower dps overall. Seeing as there's 2 main goals in any encounter (kill stuff, not get killed) doing both of those more efficiently is very valuable. PLD dps on trash pulls is terrible, and it really doesn't do any better at not getting killed than the other 2 tanks.

Why give them a crossclass which doesn't even make sense when their own native skill should have damage the way DRK's does? And then call that the more basic solution? It's easily more convoluted in several ways, and not more basic in any. The only problem with adding damage to flash would be in other classes setting it as a secondary (particularly OP on WAR) but PLD already has a trait that changes their flash, so it's literally just tagging 1 more thing onto that trait, rather than all this other stuff to give them an awkward skill they have no business having. Might as well suggest they get Unleash as a crossclass, saying they should get Overpower.

edit: not to mention making Overpower a crossclass would give it to DRK too and DRK with Unleash+Overpower would be pretty sick.