Making Jobs Rotationally Easier in 4.0

[Brannigan]

I am way more surprised that I haven't even heard anyone I know openly complaining about PLD being practically a huge downgrade to DRK in this fight, except for the cleared MTs i know ofc.

Stage 7: Acceptance.

I pretty much knew I would be forced off paladin as soon as we saw the normal mode fight. I stayed on paladin for the whole time on brute justice and it probably cost us weeks (no mnk). It's a stupid situation but it's one I expect by now. Hopefully 4.0 pushes paladin and dark knight away from each other gameplay wise but closer to each other in capability. Without that it'll always be this way since raid damage is just harder to deal with than tank damage and physical tank damage is never so high that a dark knight can't take it with some adjustments to virus placement, etc.

With that said you can certainly make pld's cooldowns work for every buster with an early HG but everything is just easier with dark mind and reprisal anyway. I also don't really want to derail this thread.

Regardless of anything else they do in the expansion I really hope they cut Awareness.

[Februs]

Stage 7: Acceptance.

Basically this.

I think a lot of Pld's have come to the realization at this point that their job is just not keeping pace, and SE doesn't at all seem invested in trying to do anything to fix that. It's almost like they're always playing catch up. Each new patch leaces Pld behind, then they get minor patches later to make them temporarily viable until the next major patch puts them out to pasture again. It's been back and forth like that for the entire expansion, and it's exhausting to put up with. It's easier to just swap to War or Drk and not have to worry about it at all, rather than sticking it our for the sake of the underdog.

Regardless of anything else they do in the expansion I really hope they cut Awareness.

I think War's would weep at this, because it pairs magnificently well for them. Even Drks see a better pairing with it when using it with Dark Dance. Pld's, on the other hand, probably couldn't care less. It might be a different story if the CD timers lined up better, but right now it's not really something to bat an eyelash at.

[Brannigan]

I think War's would weep at this, because it pairs magnificently well for them. Even Drks see a better pairing with it when using it with Dark Dance. Pld's, on the other hand, probably couldn't care less. It might be a different story if the CD timers lined up better, but right now it's not really something to bat an eyelash at.

Yeah well if warriors want the skill so bad they can waste an ability slot and trait on it. Enjoy giving up Thrill of Battle I guess. Awareness is fucking trash but a few dudes on the forums pushed this idea of "WOAH IF YOU PAIR IT WITH BULWARK IT'S AMAZING." Then they turn around and complain about Foresight.

The only time it's a decent cooldown is when the devs force a situation with artificially inflated crit rate once per raid tier. You can pretty much count those on one hand. Cut it or give it to someone else.

edit: this came off a bit meaner than I intended but what people never seem to get is that it's about opportunity cost. If Awareness and its shitty trait weren't on gladiator then something else useful or interesting might be. Everyone loves to bitch about how paladin lacks identity or is bland but when you talk trash about one of their blandest and worst skills everyone is horrified for some reason.

[Brian_]

I think a lot of Pld's have come to the realization at this point that their job is just not keeping pace, and SE doesn't at all seem invested in trying to do anything to fix that. It's almost like they're always playing catch up. Each new patch leaces Pld behind, then they get minor patches later to make them temporarily viable until the next major patch puts them out to pasture again. It's been back and forth like that for the entire expansion, and it's exhausting to put up with. It's easier to just swap to War or Drk and not have to worry about it at all, rather than sticking it our for the sake of the underdog.

Seriously? PLD is better than DRK in 3 of the 4 savage fights this tier and still you get people posting garbage like this. They were also completely fine in Midas and were arguably better in 2-3 of the fights.

Yea, if your sense of self value revolves around pushing parses on fflogs, DRK is "better." But, for the purposes of clearing the content and not just vanity, PLD has been perfectly viable and basically equal to DRK post Gordias. They didn't get put out to pasture in Midas or the Creator. They crap on DRK for 3 of the fights and then when they get the short end of the stick for one fight, they're back on here crying.

With how emo PLD players are, you'd think they're the ones that'd flock to DRK.

[Fernosaur]

Seriously? PLD is better than DRK in 3 of the 4 savage fights this tier and still you get people posting garbage like this. They were also completely fine in Midas and were arguably better in 2-3 of the fights.

I agree.

Februs, I usually agree with most of the things you say on these forums, but I think you're exaggerating it a bit with the pessimism on this particular matter. Hell, our DRK even levelled PLD for A9S because he hated tanking that as DRK due to the comparative lack of defensive CDs, and it's been a pretty good decision for the rest of the content so far.

After being both MT and Off-healer spot for my group, I have come to value the tanks' capability to be defensive much more than their personal DPS because it helps healer DPS a lot. And when they can manage to pull good DPS while also being capable at defense, I think that's the perfect balance. PLD does that way better than DRK for this raid tier, at least until you get to A12s, and I find that the gap between DRK and PLD DPS is heavily outweighted by the increase in both healers' DPS that PLD offers for these particular fights.

I do agree with you that PLD has a lot of design issues that, if adressed, would make the job infinitely more interesting and dynamic, but it's not way behind at the current tier. Boring? Probably, I guess your mileage may vary. Situational? Heck yeah, but in a way I kinda like that. If you think about it, PLD has enough tools to compete with DRK (which is the biggest "concern" here) with the parts of the toolkit that are usable 100% of the time, so those tools that are incredibly situational can be seen as an extra something that gets to shine every now and then. I DO think Tempered Will, Cover and Awareness need a rework, but I don't think having those actually holds PLD back. If anything, I like their situational, utility concept, but their effects need to be broader to cover hopefully slightly more situations than they do right now.

The age of Gordias and 3.0 is long gone, as should be our sorrows of being outpaced by our peers.

[Februs]

Februs, I usually agree with most of the things you say on these forums, but I think you're exaggerating it a bit with the pessimism on this particular matter.

I appreciate that, but you should go back and read what I actually wrote, rather than what someone else perceived me to write. You might find there's a difference.

I'm not saying anything to be pessimistic about Pld's. I definitely didn't say it wasn't viable, and I didn't mean to imply that people should drop the job wholesale. I'm only acknowledged that, given the history of the job, it's easier to accept and move on when faced with a difficult fight rather than toughing it out for changes that will either come too late or not come at all. That might be pessimistic about how SE handles job adjustments, but I really don't think that's an unjustified pessimism, given the very real back and forth history of tanking problems. That's not exclusive to Pld, either. I may not have mentioned Drk, but they've had a pretty rough patch history as well (just not quite as long as Pld's). They could chose to tough it out in a fight that they're not suited for and hope SE will do something about it, or they could simply take the path of least resistance and swap jobs for that instance. It's not the ideal situation, but is it really all that surprising? Personally, I don't think so.

The fact is that both Pld and Drk have had to do their fair share of catch up over the life cycle of HW. The changes haven't been universally reliable. I'm just recognizing that fact.

[Februs]

Seriously? PLD is better than DRK in 3 of the 4 savage fights this tier and still you get people posting garbage like this. They were also completely fine in Midas and were arguably better in 2-3 of the fights.

You really have the shortest trigger I've ever seen ... which is fairly amusing.

Regardless, you're off base here, and you're flippantly putting words into my mouth. I never said anything about parsing dps numbers on the fflogs. I also didn't mention any specific examples about savage raid tiers, nor did I say anything about them being not viable in Midas. I also didn't say a damn word about Drks. The only thing I did say was that SE is constantly playing catch up with the job ... which they are. That's not exactly a contestable opinion. PLD had Dps problems. SE patched it after the fact. Pld had Tp problems. SE patched it after the fact. Pld had enmity Problems. SE patched it after the fact ... etc (repeating as far back as 2.1). I'm sure that even you can see a trend in the patch notes, given just how many patch jobs have been done to date.

Being "put out to pasture" also wasn't referring to any particular raid tier. I simply meant that SE has a habit of ignoring problems until after they've happened instead of taking measures to avoid those problems in the first place. That's not exclusive to Pld, either. I didn't mention Drk because I was responding to someone who was specifically talking about Pld, but that doesn't mean that Drk is somehow exempt from the issue. They've had their own problems and have had to do their fair share of catch up as well. I just didn't think that I'd need to go through a checklist of those problems just to avoid sparking someone's oversensitive sensibilities. I figured the context of the response would speak for itself ... but I guess some people only see what they want to see.

Regardless, if you want to get technical about it, then yes. Drk has had a rough go as well, and they've had to be patched on occasion to compensate for their shortcomings. I'm sure that's a shock to everyone. Perhaps, just maybe, there might also be a correlation between that issue and War's being the undisputed king of tanks in this game ... That might be a bit too controversial though. Wouldn't want to upset anyone ... Maybe I should go through a check list of War's problems too, just to be on the safe side ...

[Fernosaur]

Maybe I should go through a check list of War's problems too, just to be on the safe side ...

Someone making a list of WAR problems would trigger me, my friend. It would be as if I complained about my fairy heals not being 400 potency! Or demanding an AoE nuke a la Holy or Gravity~

One can dream, though...

I appreciate that, but you should go back and read what I actually wrote, rather than what someone else perceived me to write. You might find there's a difference.

I did notice that well after I posted. Joke's on me for not reading the original post.

Also, @Sarcatica: I do agree that DRK is infinitely better than PLD for A12S, but in the rest of the fights in Creator... not so much. I also don't think DRK is harder to keep alive, I'm just saying PLD's turtling skills can make healers DPS more in physically-oriented fights without having to keep them alive.

Even if the top end raid groups are simply focusing on farming A12S at this moment, you can't just dismiss the other fights as irrelevant for the entire extension of the meta and the game itself. Though DRK being the one-and-only MT for A12S will give it much more permanence in the long run.

Then again, what will there be left to do in the long run and until we get new raid-level content, which might not happen until the next expansion? It might not even matter enough at that point, but that's getting way ahead of ourselves.

I agree with you that a good raid MT should have both of them at disposal to more easily adapt to different group strategies, though, similar to WHM and AST.

[Sarcatica]

Even if the top end raid groups are simply focusing on farming A12S at this moment, you can't just dismiss the other fights as irrelevant for the entire extension of the meta and the game itself. Though DRK being the one-and-only MT for A12S will give it much more permanence in the long run.

I agree with you that a good raid MT should have both of them at disposal to more easily adapt to different group strategies, though, similar to WHM and AST.

Raiders simply adjust to the best jobs they can use based on nerfs and buffs. Just like how AST is widely used now. When PLD is better than DRK overall, raiders will abuse that job. The same old story.

[Brian_]

You really have the shortest trigger I've ever seen ... which is fairly amusing.

Regardless, you're off base here, and you're flippantly putting words into my mouth. I never said anything about parsing dps numbers on the fflogs. I also didn't mention any specific examples about savage raid tiers, nor did I say anything about them being not viable in Midas. I also didn't say a damn word about Drks. The only thing I did say was that SE is constantly playing catch up with the job ... which they are. That's not exactly a contestable opinion. PLD had Dps problems. SE patched it after the fact. Pld had Tp problems. SE patched it after the fact. Pld had enmity Problems. SE patched it after the fact ... etc (repeating as far back as 2.1). I'm sure that even you can see a trend in the patch notes, given just how many patch jobs have been done to date.

Being "put out to pasture" also wasn't referring to any particular raid tier. I simply meant that SE has a habit of ignoring problems until after they've happened instead of taking measures to avoid those problems in the first place. That's not exclusive to Pld, either. I didn't mention Drk because I was responding to someone who was specifically talking about Pld, but that doesn't mean that Drk is somehow exempt from the issue. They've had their own problems and have had to do their fair share of catch up as well. I just didn't think that I'd need to go through a checklist of those problems just to avoid sparking someone's oversensitive sensibilities. I figured the context of the response would speak for itself ... but I guess some people only see what they want to see.

The back pedaling is hilarious.

I think a lot of Pld's have come to the realization at this point that their job is just not keeping pace, and SE doesn't at all seem invested in trying to do anything to fix that. It's almost like they're always playing catch up. Each new patch leaces Pld behind, then they get minor patches later to make them temporarily viable until the next major patch puts them out to pasture again. It's been back and forth like that for the entire expansion, and it's exhausting to put up with. It's easier to just swap to War or Drk and not have to worry about it at all, rather than sticking it our for the sake of the underdog.

You did say something about the other tanks. You did say something about the content. What else would keeping pace mean? Keeping pace is relative to the content, competition, and context. You don't keep pace against nothing. If PLD was the only tank and defaulted to being the best tank, there would be nothing for it to keep pace with.

http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/keep+pace

You said each patch leaves them behind. Behind what? Themselves? The last tier of content? You said yourself that you think PLD is the underdog. Underdog is a relative term and you're trying to claim it's not. You even said that it'd be easier just to switch to DRK and WAR. You mean switch to DRK so you could be objectively worse in 5-6 of the last 8 fights we've gotten? Or switch to WAR so you can play off-tank instead? Or to push a pretty meaningless fflogs parse on content you're already comfortably farming?

The reality is PLD has been pretty much fine since the major buffs they got in ~3.2. It's like 3.0 left all the drama queen PLDs traumatized or something and they can't move on when all the good PLDs just picked themselves up and cleared Sephirot / Nidhogg / Sophia / A5S-A12S with little issue. And, you call WARs the king of tanks in this game but both PLD and DRK are better MTs. I guess that king has no clothes.

You also weren't responding to someone specifically talking about PLD. Brannigan was talking about the relationship between PLD and DRK in regards to current content.