How would they fix PLD 4.0?

[Lambdafish]

There really isn't anything wrong with tank classes....good grief

Says the "Marauder". It's pretty common knowledge that the tank meta is out of whack, with DARK and PLD fighting over a spot and WAR being king of everything, and a meta which relies on DPS, which the tanks vary in (usually shafting PLD). The tank classes are much better than they were in 3.0, but to say that there isn't anything wrong is either naive or just plain blind

[Sarcatica]

Says the "Marauder". It's pretty common knowledge that the tank meta is out of whack, with DARK and PLD fighting over a spot and WAR being king of everything, and a meta which relies on DPS, which the tanks vary in (usually shafting PLD). The tank classes are much better than they were in 3.0, but to say that there isn't anything wrong is either naive or just plain blind

You can't however deny that the current savage allows any kind of comp to clear it. It is an exaggeration at best for people who seek to finish any current content, obviously not optimal but sufficient enough to clear.

[ChloeGrace]

Says the "Marauder". It's pretty common knowledge that the tank meta is out of whack, with DARK and PLD fighting over a spot and WAR being king of everything, and a meta which relies on DPS, which the tanks vary in (usually shafting PLD). The tank classes are much better than they were in 3.0, but to say that there isn't anything wrong is either naive or just plain blind

PLD has been the ginger step child since 2.x, and WAR the do-no-wrong golden child.
The current damage meta guarantees WAR takes precedence over any other tank, regardless.
SE needs to up the defensive buff from tank stances, and reduce the enmity mods on abilities so it's impossible to hold aggro outside of the tank stance.
At the same time, buff sword oath (or abilities when used under sword oath) to make PLD OT on par with DRK and WAR dps.

[Zampp]

PLD has been the ginger step child since 2.x, and WAR the do-no-wrong golden child.
The current damage meta guarantees WAR takes precedence over any other tank, regardless.
SE needs to up the defensive buff from tank stances, and reduce the enmity mods on abilities so it's impossible to hold aggro outside of the tank stance.
At the same time, buff sword oath (or abilities when used under sword oath) to make PLD OT on par with DRK and WAR dps.

Making any tank do same damage as a war will make war useless.
PLD was godly in 2.x idk what your talking about.
And making tanking impossible with out tank stance would make tanking the most boring shit on earth.

[SpookyGhost]

Making any tank do same damage as a war will make war useless.

Nah, Eye + Path still make WAR invaluable if all you do is bring the damage up. If every tank were the same damage-wise, DRK would only bring INT down and PLD would bring DV. PLD + DRK still wouldn't be preferred in any fight due to the DPS loss from having NIN apply DE. This, however, is based off all our current skill sets in 3.0 - there's no way to know what new stuff everyone's going to get in 4.0, so it's impossible to make a guess at what they can do to balance PLD as balancing it for the 3.0 meta might not mesh well with the 4.0 meta.

[Sarcatica]

Nah, Eye + Path still make WAR invaluable if all you do is bring the damage up. If every tank were the same damage-wise, DRK would only bring INT down and PLD would bring DV. PLD + DRK still wouldn't be preferred in any fight due to the DPS loss from having NIN apply DE. This, however, is based off all our current skill sets in 3.0 - there's no way to know what new stuff everyone's going to get in 4.0, so it's impossible to make a guess at what they can do to balance PLD as balancing it for the 3.0 meta might not mesh well with the 4.0 meta.

SE has all the relevant data from 3.x moving into 4.0 onwards via their own and FFlogs.

As I have mentioned in my 1st post this thread, PLD has no problem sustaining aggro, so damage is the only issue. DRK naturally has more damage but less aggro versus PLD. WAR pretty much enjoys having best of the two, BB combo being part of personal DPS rotation and retains utility too good to miss aka Eye and Path.

Who knows if PLD getting another big hitting combo will solve PLD's damage output, even without other changes, if not enough they can afford to buff FoF. WAR is already known to be the best OT, so if SE wants to make WAR purely way better for OT, they can so choose to introduce another DPS combo instead of spamming BB combo which makes PLD/DRK life harder. DRK being the current best MT with the worst aggro generation definitely needs some fixing.

On another note, what if removing tank stance works? This will solve so many problems such as the damage output discrepancy or tanks unwilling to stance dance, reduces the gapskill etc. There are so many options SE can roll with.

Ultimately, I won't sweat too much. I will level up all tanks and play what's good and what's best for my team.

[Shurrikhan]

Who knows if PLD getting another big hitting combo will solve PLD's damage output, even without other changes, if not enough they can afford to buff FoF. WAR is already known to be the best OT, so if SE wants to make WAR purely way better for OT, they can so choose to introduce another DPS combo instead of spamming BB combo which makes PLD/DRK life harder. DRK being the current best MT with the worst aggro generation definitely needs some fixing.

On another note, what if removing tank stance works? This will solve so many problems such as the damage output discrepancy or tanks unwilling to stance dance, reduces the gapskill etc. There are so many options SE can roll with.

To the first, SE could probably stand to revise the enmity system at some point in entire. One thing I've seen in other MMOs where tank threat is inflated as much as ours or beyond is that enmity has a semi-proportionate effect that allows for its output to vary indirectly with on conditions such as whether you are the current target, your health, etc. Others also bake in enmity bonuses into their Provoke-equivalent, such as granting bonus enmity to skills to a cap based on the amount of (bonus) threat increased on skill use, with that bonus draining over time, or holding attention for an additional amount of time. Certain simple quality of life changes or revisions might be more appropriate than removing a piece of existent Warrior identity and even further bloating their bars.

To the second, what would then replace the fun of stance dancing? Or if it's not to be considered an outlying mechanic, and is representative of the skill meant to be required for tanking, what would replace its functionality? As it is, stance-dancing is basically just taking off the training wheels that allows a large group of players to do what we do, merely at lesser damage, with far less effort or attention. Removing stance-dancing would sort of merge the tank paradigm into one solid whole, rather than a pre-game and real game of "enough" and "maximization" through dps, but if the skill-cap isn't to diminish (and likely thereby bore many tanks and/or healers) then that difficulty would take place in survival itself, where the skill-gap only becomes much more clear and dividing. That's not to say I'd personally mind this, but the skill-gap being placed where it is does at least allow less skilled tanks to be carried through things in a sense, where they'd likely be chewed up and frustrated if the gap wasn't only about dps.

[Sarcatica]

snip

There are many ways for SE. As mentioned, I won't sweat about how they do the balance. It doesn't matter because people will find the absolute best comp to run with. There is no true balance to anything when you are racing to the top, mostly only relevant on a much higher level.

FFXIV introduces damage output as a 'must'. The most gap comes from the DPS discrepancy. Please don't say that it takes skills for tanks to press def CDs either. Believe it or not, even with 1 stance on tanks/healers, the DPS gap will still exist. Having 1 flat stance instead of 2, however, removes the added complexity that potentially can decrease the gap of damage output performance to just 1 factor instead of 2.

Take these with a grain of salt ofc. This game doesn't just revolve around having the right balance for tanks. It wouls be nice if SE is gonna do something about this. But ultimately when there are problems, we just have to adjust. Simple as that.

[Reynhart]

That's not to say I'd personally mind this, but the skill-gap being placed where it is does at least allow less skilled tanks to be carried through things in a sense, where they'd likely be chewed up and frustrated if the gap wasn't only about dps.

I've already been very vocal about this in the past, but for me, tanks obviously lacking proper survival skills should not be carried.

The more you allow people to clear content without a challenge, the less challenging your next content can afford to be.