50 PLD - fill in cross-class abilities or go for 60?

[SpookyGhost]

Despite what people say, Mercy Stroke's contribution to your DPS is so miniscule... Your stats will increase your dps more than Mercy Stroke ever will.

It's free oGCD damage. It's also strong in any fight with adds. 11 extra levels isn't that bad if you've decided PLD is your main, plus you'll probably want to get all 3 tanks up to 60 at some point.

[Lyraele]

Yeah, I usually gravitate towards tank roles, so I think eventually I'd like all tank classes to 60 with reasonable gear (I don't really know what reasonable is or how long it takes yet). And I can generally play a decent healer, WHM seems to fit the classic healer stereotype. Not making any big plans just yet, one month in and still obviously a lot to learn and do. I do appreciate just how generally positive the forums and groups seem to be, I haven't had to pay too high a price for my fumbling and flailing about yet.

[Fernosaur]

Yeah, I usually gravitate towards tank roles, so I think eventually I'd like all tank classes to 60 with reasonable gear (I don't really know what reasonable is or how long it takes yet). And I can generally play a decent healer, WHM seems to fit the classic healer stereotype. Not making any big plans just yet, one month in and still obviously a lot to learn and do. I do appreciate just how generally positive the forums and groups seem to be, I haven't had to pay too high a price for my fumbling and flailing about yet.

I'm sure you'll be fine . We seem to be quite similar in the kind of jobs we gravitate to, so I'm sure you'll have a fun time levelling the other classes. Believe me, too, when I say that levelling classes after your first one is much easier and faster, mainly because you get exp bonuses once you have a job at lvl 60, and also because you're not gated by the MSQ.

I hope you have fun with PLD!

[aleph_null]

It won't be hard to gear up all three tanks since they share everything except weapons. You just gear one tank, and get two weapons for the other tank jobs. There have been patches where the tomestone gears were job specific, so you need to gear all three tank jobs separately other than the raid drops, but that's not the case for current patch.

[Fluffernuff]

Luckily, the thing with PLD, is that they very much SUPPLY the cross-class, but get kind of screwed over when receiving them. so it makes the choice alot easier for a PLD than it is for say.... WAR

Foresight is rather lackluster until endgame when it because a tiny protect on a cooldown. probably the best pick. bonus defense at 60 now is like half of a Rampart! nice.

Bloodbath is a 25% leech effect with a semi-regular cooldown. I only really find a good use out of this in SwO mainly because it triggers off auto-attack damage as well, so SwO does give it a nice bump, but aside from that, PLD doesnt really hit as hard to make bloodbath truly AMAZING...

Mercy stroke is a measly 200 potency and a CD way too high to be reliable to be used when its even usable with an added effect a PLD doesnt have the AP to even make good use of. maybe if it had a better cooldown so PLD could actually use it more and once or twice, it would be better.

Protect..... is honestly REALLY GOOD..... ok, I lied. every time i use it, the Healer overwrites it because apparently my % based DEF boost isnt good enough for them. Protect is good but too redundant. sad face.

Stoneskin..... actually not a bad little cross class. not even lying. but its downside is a bit too major for PLD- it has a cast time. using it out of combat just takes unnecessary time. using it IN combat is lackluster because youre spending time casting- time youre not building emnity, doing damage, or getting your free auto-damage in SwO

The last real picks you could have are Raise and Fracture. Honestly if raise was just a straight battle rez, it would totally be the best, but since it's not... its relegated to sometimes useful in things NOT battle related. kiiiinda uselss most of the time.
Fracture is by far the most situational pick. its a tiny TINY dps increase and adds another button to the 50 rotation. its a good pick for levels 26-54, actually. but after you get goring blade... the jig is up. Goring blade just outright replaces fracture in every way. Only really useful if you want a longer rotation at level 50

[Sarcatica]

Better still, no need for any cross skills. They suck! /s

Seriously, they are freebies. Foresight is pretty good, i think someone did the math and it came out to be about 12% physical mitigation, good to pair with other 'shit' CDs. Despite what some people say, Mercy Stroke is solid. Throughout a dungeon or instance, you gain at least 1k potency or so from this move, that's 2 FCs you are missing! The rest of the skills aren't as good but they are freebies anyway and you don't have a lot of skills to choose from. I use Foresight/Mercy Stroke/Stoneskin/Bloodbath/Fracture, some consideration on Protect.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

Honestly, Mercy Stroke is only considered 'good' because it's the only damaging cross class currently allowed, despite the fact it's such a horrible execute! 200 potency over 90 seconds... Let's look at other executes.

Misery's End, 190 potency every 12 seconds. That's a good execution. Heart break is the second worst execute in the game, and it's still 340 potency over a single Mercy Stroke! Mercy Stroke needs to go, I just hope SE gives us actually good cross class options, because MS is so bad, I'm honestly surprised people would defend it.

People like to talk about foresight being bad, but then they defend stuff like Mercy Stroke instead of actually useful abilities...

Edit: All I'm saying is that Mercy Stroke is talked up, alot, for what depressingly little it does. I'm sure you could take it off, and no one would notice a significant increase in time spent.

[Sarcatica]

How do you not get excited from free DPS? Overtalking in this case is still better than downtalking. Might as well don't use any cross skills? Over 1k potency potentially gained just because you have Mercy Stroke is no joke if you look it as a freebie. It's practically 100% free with 0 downside and you want to downplay it?

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

1k potency? Where are you getting that number from? In raids there's only ever one chance to lay into the boss with it, unless your dps are considerably awful... That's a single 200 potency hit, 300 max. Where do you get 1k from?

Regardless, it's not free DPS. They could have given us something, anything else from WAR and it would've been more useful. They could have given us access to overpower for AoE damage, they could've given us Berserk, even Vengeance! Instead, PLD gets a laughably bad cross class optionI in Mercy Stroke, at the expense of not being able to have other more interesting options... How can you be happy with an attack you'll use maybe once an instance, at most? I'm genuinely curious, what is the value of having an ability that deals such negligible damage you won't even save one second equipping it?

[Sarcatica]

1k potency? Where are you getting that number from? In raids there's only ever one chance to lay into the boss with it, unless your dps are considerably awful... That's a single 200 potency hit, 3k max. Where do you get 1k from?

There are always adds running around. Do you even raid? Stop spewing nonsense like you know everything.

Let me list fights with adds.

DUNGEONS (suprise), most extremes, 24mans, most raids including both normal and savage. There are only a few fights without adds. So 200 potency what? And I mentioned POTENCIALLY 1k and above actually if you count dungeons.

PLD gets a laughably bad cross class option in Mercy Stroke

Not just PLD has the access to Mercy Stroke.