EW 6.08 Paladin: I think the bleak solution is to just delete Goring Blade

[Eorzean_username]

Basic idea

I think that Paladin has finally reached that certain point in a story where the heroes realize that the only way to win is by deliberately losing. You know — stab yourself, break the Bifrost, resurrect Surtur, etc.

I think that Paladin is going to be hamstrung, design-wise, for as long as it still has to work around a core rotational feature of needing to precisely re-apply a DoT on-time, every ~20s, that comes at the end of a 3-step GCD combo.

This is too rigid, and too sensitive to timing, mechanics, and disconnects, and causes even minor disruptions in uptime to force Paladin to perform "Brazilian Math Lady" — even in more general content like Duty Finder — just to try to stay on-track rotationally, and especially to remain aligned properly with "Fight or Flight".

The "Valor Combo" at level 90 only inflames this issue even further by causing potential issues with either clipping DOTs, or risking lost usages of Requiescat.

And, de-aligning from the Goring Blade refresh timing also serves as yet another check/punishment upon Paladins for using "Clemency" during their GCD cycle.

Commentary

Speaking personally, I would like to be clear that Goring Blade is, and has been since HW, one of my favorite parts of Paladin. I think that it's satisfying to use, and that it's satisfying to perform correctly.

However, I'm starting to realize that Goring Blade has become an outdated design that no longer plays well with FFXIV's overall design — neither encounter structures, nor Paladin's own internal rotational structure.

That is why I have come to think that Paladin cannot realistically compete with other Tanks's simplified rotational structures unless Paladin just takes a deep breath, cuts its own arm off, and reduces itself to a similar GCD structure.

Comparisons

If Paladin was a "Red-Colored DPS" that "only" had to focus on damaging the boss, I think that the challenge of keeping Goring Blade aligned would still be interesting and satisfying.

However, as a "Blue-Colored DPS", Paladin seems to have disproportionately more basic alignment concerns than its fellow Tanks, and it makes Paladin noticeably more uncomfortable to play while also dealing with normal Tank mechanics.

This is not to say that Gunbreaker and Dark Knight don't have issues of their own rotationally (to put it mildly), but instead, just that Paladin's rotation seems disproportionately more awkward and frustrating whenever Paladin is forced into a situation that is not a 100%-uptime Striking Dummy.

Fantasy?

I think that it's reasonable to argue that there is some amount of "fantasy flavor" inherent to Paladin — which is the orderly, rigidly-principled, Knight-style tank — also having a rigid, orderly rotational structure.

But since FFXIV is first and foremost a cooperative game experience, I also think that these sort of fantasy concerns need to take a back seat to "playability" issues.

Further, I think that there are plenty of other satisfying ways to still capture the "Paladin/Knight fantasy".

Alternatives

I suppose that if the developers wanted to preserve Goring Blade in some form, then they could convert Goring Blade to "Shining Blade" or something, and make it a clone of WAR's "Storm's Eye".

Or they could make Goring Blade a clone of GNB "Sonic Break" instead: an independent GCD with a 60s CD, that just gets smashed inside every FOF window.

But I have no particular feeling either way about these ideas, since they don't personally interest me. I think that they feel derivative and bland, and to me, they would be no better than just removing Goring Blade entirely.

Conclusion

Overall, I think that by finally just "ripping off the bandage" and removing Goring Blade from the GCD cycle, it would result in Paladin having significantly more gameplay and design freedom both immediately, and moving forward in future expansions, because new actions would not always have to try to "sneak into" the rigid Goring Blade cycle that has long served as a hard stricture on Paladin.

[Eorzean_username]

Other issues

While these are not supposed to be the point of this post, I might as well take this chance to comment on some other frustrating issues that I see Paladin still dealing with:

Cover

I think that Cover is not strong enough in its current design state to justify having a huge Oath Gauge cost on top of a 2-minute CD.

As one of the FF series's most iconic and recognizable Knight/Paladin actions, I think that Cover should have the restrictions on its usage loosened. I think that Cover should be a button that most Paladins look forward to pressing heroically or creatively, not an awkward and difficult-to-use niche button that "collects dust" most of the time.

Defensive tool set

I think that Paladin should have at least one more personal "Defensive Cooldown" added to its toolbox, in order to be given full credit as a "Main Tank" — if not literally at the mechanical level, then at least in terms of community perception.

Something as simple as returning "Bulwark" would probably be sufficient to solve this, possibly with some adjustments made, such as being 100% Block for the duration, or being like Gunbreaker "Camouflage" and being 60% Block + 10% flat Damage Reduction.

Oath Gauge built by Auto-Attacks

I still find it frustrating that Paladin has to deal with melee uptime as a throttle on how often it can use its defensive tools.

I would strongly prefer to have Sheltron/Intervention converted to flat CDs like Bloodwhetting and Heart of Corundum, and the Oath Gauge repurposed to something offensively-oriented (or just deleted entirely).

However, realistically, this is probably outside the scale of a mid-expansion change.

[Shurrikhan]

No. If the problem is throughput, you just turn the tuning knob. You don't delete fun to "free up" what would then be that much more an unvaried slog anyways.

I would agree that Cover should be free (I'd be happy, though, to see the cooldown ignorable at cost to 50 gauge). I would say that perhaps PLD's Gauge, a purely defensive resource in its case, should be buildable during downtime. (Do not, however, remove Shelltron/Intervention's second charge.) But the only thing that'd require we remove Goring Blade are tuning issues, which can be far more simply solved... through tuning itself.

If need be, have PLD duplicate its SkS onto SpS. Have Sword Oath and Requiescat stacks' duration refresh with each use if that'd smooth things out. But do not rid PLD of its core pacesetter. It and Conf-DoT are not hard to keep up or rotate around. Learn the rotation and when to drop an Atonement and let PLD keep a relatively interesting rotation.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

I actually like Goring Blade combo. What I don't like is Atonement, Holy Spirit and Holy Circle breaking combos when ranged attacks [Shield Lob, Tomahawk, Unmend, Lightning Shot] as well as equivalents to Holy Spirit [Fell Cleave, Bloodspiller, Burst Strike] and Holy Circle [Decimate, Quietus, Fated Circle] already don't break combos.

And then there is Clemency also breaking combo like WHY.

[Bjorn-Kobito]

I won't comment on the rotation because I both love and hate it, but I do agree that Paladin needs another personal CD. I also think divine veil still needs to be reworked. It's fine at higher levels now that you can proc it yourself without a damage loss, but I still think it's silly to require a GCD heal to proc when healers don't heal with GCDs in this game. Also, at this point with all the other healing and shielding tanks can do it might as well just shield the PLD too. I know it's the "strongest" AoE mitigation of the tanks, but it is also the most pain in the ass to use in older content.

[Archwizard]

I would agree that Cover should be free (I'd be happy, though, to see the cooldown ignorable at cost to 50 gauge). I would say that perhaps PLD's Gauge, a purely defensive resource in its case, should be buildable during downtime. (Do not, however, remove Shelltron/Intervention's second charge.)

Tricky, but barring adding some Meditation-style ability (pass, PLD is bloated enough as-is), there's a few options for skills that could facilitate this.

I'm already of the mind that giving an Oath Gauge-building effect when using Shield Lob at range is both fitting (use your shield to build a shield skill) and a way to renew its purpose in a world of Holy Spirit taking its ranged attack position. But, that only works when there's an actual target to throw it at.

Other options include taking a page out of RDM's book with Clemency (concern being the MP cost biting into your burst combo, but you do gradually build MP over downtime and they could just tweak Clemency's cost to compensate if need be), or from SAM's with Passage of Arms (the concern being its limiting CD, and possibly wasting a potent raid CD for personal gain).

[Shurrikhan]

Tricky, but barring adding some Meditation-style ability (pass, PLD is bloated enough as-is), there's a few options for skills that could facilitate this.

I'm already of the mind that giving an Oath Gauge-building effect when using Shield Lob at range is both fitting (use your shield to build a shield skill) and a way to renew its purpose in a world of Holy Spirit taking its ranged attack position. But, that only works when there's an actual target to throw it at.

Other options include taking a page out of RDM's book with Clemency (concern being the MP cost biting into your burst combo, but you do gradually build MP over downtime and they could just tweak Clemency's cost to compensate if need be), or from SAM's with Passage of Arms (the concern being its limiting CD, and possibly wasting a potent raid CD for personal gain).

I wouldn't bother with it if it required an additional button. Rather, I'd just strip its cost but append to it that "Cover may be used during its recast period, without resetting its recast time, by consuming 50 Gauge." So long as it consumes gauge, we'll still do whatever we can to avoid using Cover, since it'd reduce our casts of Intevention/Shelltron, regardless of whatever fixes we might apply to Gauge generation.

As far as ranged downtime goes, the easiest fix would be to simply return the 10 Gauge generation per cast of Holy Shock (from Stormblood) and extend that also to Confiteor (just the actual, initial cast, not the combo -- as simply not to punish resource generation in reaching level 80), or have all GCDs attacks generate 5 gauge in addition to Spirit's Within granting 5 (or having FoF grant 10 -- which is equal gauge per minute), as to still average out to roughly the same time to generate 50 Gauge.

[CaTi]

I’ll definitely agree on Cover. It really either needs the Oath Gauge cost removing or actual defensive qualities of its own to justify using over Intervention. I only really use Cover for 1 mechanic in P4S and that’s a really fringe case.

Other than that I can’t say I really feel Goring blade/Blade of Valor dots are that stifling? Sure it sucks when you have to clip off something to try and stick to the refresh intervals but that’s not really any different from any other job trying to keep themselves aligned for their burst windows. If you miss the refresh window by 1 GCD because you had to move away from the boss briefly it’s really not that consequential unless it’s happening every time.

If anything, with the changes to a 30s stack based Requiescat and the now virtually infinite amount of MP we have I feel PLD actually has one of the more readily manipulated skillsets in the game and the ability to keep pumping damage at range gives us a significant leg up over the other tanks (depending on the fight ofc). It’s definitely a worthy discussion though!

[SeverianLyonesse]

I would be fine with this. The idea of PLD having a bleed/DoT never felt like it fit the job fantasy to me...seemed like more of a WAR or DRK concept.

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

I would be fine with this. The idea of PLD having a bleed/DoT never felt like it fit the job fantasy to me...seemed like more of a WAR or DRK concept.

I mean considering longswords were used to create cuts and slices in attempts to disable opponents among also being used in a fashion to thrust into vital organs, whereas heavier weapons like a two handed axe or two handed greatswords would be used more to bludgeon an opponent, bleed/ DoT is very on point and thematic for PLD (Knight), compared to WAR or DRK.