PLD highest DPS tank single target

[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.

[Rhaja]

I'll give this another shot. (realizing that flash is actually more lazy and basic because it does nothing to enhance gameplay)

The first issue with making Flash do damage is that it's a spell. It gets no benefit from Fight or Flight at all because that only effects physical damage. So off the bat this is a weaker alternative to Overpower unless they jack the potency up to make up for it, then it becomes quite possibly too strong which clashes with the thought that PLD shouldn't be as powerful as the other tanks. The second is Bloodbath, a cross class skill PLD already has, will not work with Flash. It doesn't work with Unleash, it won't work with Flash. So the options are to either change flash to a weaponskill and physical damage (Which btw will be more beneficial to DRK that PLD), change Fight or Flight to increase Attack Power which is what Berserk does, or be okay with a AoE that has no synergy or bonus effect.

I understand the thought of a weird animation but... have you tried using your unused crossclass skills? They all have completely different animations from their native use. If you have a DRK go use the pointless attack you get from PLD or WAR, its got a cool animation that you'll never see. With PLD they will likely reuse an animation that involved swinging the blade horizontally and creating the shockwave. Fairly similar to the wind slash attacks often used in anime.

The issue with TP. Right now if a WAR and a PLD were to go out and spam Overpower WAR would have about two or three more uses per minute because of equilibrium. As a War I would use Overpower as needed, and then rotate to single target because we don't have invigorate to boost our TP like melee DPS does. Also once per minute if all we're doing is spamming Overpower the WAR could pop infuriate but in the end your not going to spam it dry. Overpower won't be used in single target fights so that TP argument is out the window too. The only one not screwed by Overpower is DRK because of Bloodweapon, and its two AoE spells that can be passively filled with mana, along with its aoe DoT.

In an initial 18 second window a PLD with overpower will be using Fight or Flight, Blood Bath, and able to weave a blind or two during it all. Flash initially has a 12sec window of blind, then the second a 6. In that rough time frame PLD will be getting some self healing that both DRK and WAR are able to do, reduce damage, and deal a decent amount of AoE damage as well. Yes that is a bit samey with WAR and DRK, and I understand not wanting the classes the same, but it will either end up like this anyway, or be inferior.

As much as I would like SE to give us our own spammable AoE it'll go right into three areas. It will be a spamable weaponskill that will do everything I just described, it will be a spamable spell that will be unaffected by PLD's own attack buff or blood bath, or it will be a counter hit which means its reliant off block chance. While the counter hit is appealing it is no longer on demand.

Lastly SE will find the easiest way to solve a problem, and if that's reusing assests you bet they will. PLD already has barely any useful cross class skills, this would be a useful one. I just see more coming out of our play with Flash being able to do its part with mitigation of auto attacks than being a inferior aoe. Not only that, but among all the complaints I've seen in my giant FC that seems to have new members every day is that PLD's lack of aoe or combo's is extremely boring. I've seen plenty of new players or new to tanking players jump straight to WAR because of overpower, or DRK because it's Flash with damage.

I'm open to where I may be wrong in my assumptions, I just wanted to try a more fleshed out way to explain myself as it felt my point wasn't getting across. And if that's simply wanting an AoE that's PLD only, well I can't deny it would be nice to have. But I really can't see any point in making Flash do damage when it could still be useful for blind and we get an AoE that, from what I can see, has more synergy.

[Xenosan]

Overpower on DRK, combined with Blood Weapon, would be godly. Fun.

We're waiting until 4.o before getting AOE, same as waiting til 3.0 for more than just Rage of Halone combo. PLD is last in line, and isn't given anything much more than helps them just tread water. It's a familiar premise for Pally.

Hopefully a Maim/Darkside equivalent is in the works. That would help.

I would like it tied to the PLD shield, since shield, despite being the prominent feature of the Job, is becoming as antiquated as Parry, outside Sheltron, now that self-healing efficiency scales with VIT. Take STR away from Shield Blocking, take DET away from Sword Oath, take 2.x Shield Swipe - which was a DPS gain or TP sustain - and turn it into a gimpy Reprisal, then add VIT scaling to self-healing/DPS (rawr Warrior). PLD should be feeling the <3

I'd enjoy the MP recovery of Sheltron to be on activation, not block, and to add a 30~ TP restore as well. That way, even when not tanking, the shield is still present as a steady resource sustain for Paladin.

As for support.. Divine Veil, Clemency, Stoneskin.. How about Reraise.

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.

I think it'd take support of some similar extreme to assuage the loss of shield blocking when not tanking. I like PLD for it being sword and board, I don't use that board though unless I'm tanking (physical). Hope that changes.

[PhalanxField]

In 2.x, when DET affected Sword Oath AAs, with Storm's Eye was maintained, PLD could win over WAR (not that it stopped PLD from being shoe-horned into MT, anyway). Because of the DET AA nerf in 3.0 and other such this isn't true anymore faik

Sword Oath deals 50 potency ability damage every time your auto attack swings - it's not an auto-attack itself, though. So the Det scaling is different between the two hits.

[Ilan]

Because all tanks have the same amount of defensive cool downs.

Sure thing. Thats why my PLD has more defensive CD's with 57 than my WAR and my DRK with 60.

[Donjo]

Sure thing. Thats why my PLD has more defensive CD's with 57 than my WAR and my DRK with 60.

Hmmm... I'll count them real quick. Cross Class Cooldowns will be bolded.

PLD: Rampart, Convalescence, Awareness, Sentinel, Foresight, Sheltron, Bulwark

WAR: Foresight, Awareness, Convalescense, Thrill of Battle, Vengeance, Raw Intuition, Inner Beast

DRK: Shadowskin, Foresight, Awareness, Convalescense, Shadow Wall, Dark Dance, Dark Mind

Looks like each job has access to seven. Eight if you wish to count Bloodbath. Figure we probably could if we're counting Convalescence.

[Malicewolf]

It depends on how you view them. I think many don't consider defensive CD's as those that recover hp. Which is silly...

[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]

Hmmm... I'll count them real quick. Cross Class Cooldowns will be bolded.

PLD: Rampart, Convalescence, Awareness, Sentinel, Foresight, Sheltron, Bulwark

WAR: Foresight, Awareness, Convalescense, Thrill of Battle, Vengeance, Raw Intuition, Inner Beast

DRK: Shadowskin, Foresight, Awareness, Convalescense, Shadow Wall, Dark Dance, Dark Mind

Looks like each job has access to seven. Eight if you wish to count Bloodbath. Figure we probably could if we're counting Convalescence.

And each has a different value based on potency, recast, and to a more vague extent, dependability of use when needed.

When you add them all up (not including any vague values) WAR > PLD. Didn't see DRK in those calculations so idk where they factor in.

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

He's referring to my suggestion that the easy fix is to add damage to flash, thinking it's not good because FoF wouldn't affect it. (Which isn't a good argument; either they'd change FoF to include it or even if they didn't the change would still be a much-needed boost to PLD)

[Donjo]

And each has a different value based on potency, recast, and to a more vague extent, dependability of use when needed.

When you add them all up (not including any vague values) WAR > PLD. Didn't see DRK in those calculations so idk where they factor in.

Woah, meow. I was just counting the number of cooldowns! But yeah, WAR wins. Too bad everybody wants them on the boss' ass :P