Why is everyone anxious about a PLD Rework?

[Mikey_R]

It makes sense. If I had to name one thing I think they'd attempt to remove, it's probably Fight or Flight being removed and pushed into potency for PLD's Goring Blade and Royal Authority.

This is something I probably wouldn't be completely against and, as much as I love PLD, having so much of the rotation be buffed can make the job feel off sometimes, mainly when a boss becomes untargetable, especially with FoF. You can use it beforehand, get some GCDs in, but not the full duration, so it is effectively ticking down and not being used, which feels like a waste, however, if you were to save it, you delay your requiescat phase. You could use Requiescat then FoF, but for the most optimum use, you wait until your next Goring Blade, which means you should have used it before anyway.

On another note, because PLD is buffed for most of it's rotation, I do almost consider FoF to be PLD's base damage anyway. Requiescat is more damage per GCD than FoF, so it is effectively behaving like Lance Charge or Riddle of Fire or No Mercy for a tank example. By baking in FoF damage into PLD's combos you not only make PLD do more damage (your 6 unbuffed GCDs will be increased thanks to this change) and it gets rid of the cursed opener. Whether that damage increase is enough to bring it more inline with other tanks or if it needs a bit more I do not know, however, it is the least intrusive change to PLD's current rotation.

Now, we can get to something interesting, the extra Atonement. Now, I don't know about anyone else, but not using an Atonement always felt, wrong. So, since we are changing PLD anyway, we can see if this can be adressed.

I have worked out in the past, if you combine Skill/Spell Speed, PLD needs a 8% reduction from base GCD to fit everything into a 60 second window. However, what if we keep the spells at 2.5?

Of the 60 seconds, the spells take up 20 seconds (8*2.5), which means we need to fit 18 more GCDs into that time. Doing the quick maths, this is an 11% reduction on the GCD needed. However, knowing that this tier, using info from The Balance Discord, tanks are looking to get their GCDs to around 2.47. If we were to make the GCD reduction 10%, then, from the 2.47 GCD, that would get reduced to 2.223, which is close enough to what we want.

So, the proposal is to make Fight or Flight into a trait that reduced PLDs GCD by 10% and we can even keep it at level 2. This would obviously make PLD a quicker tank than the rest, but I don't see that as a bad thing. The only thing that could cause a problem is double weaving because of the shorter GCD window. I personally do not know a good threshold for GCD speed where double weaving can potentially cause an issue for some. However, compared to DRK and GNB which have to deal with alot of oGCDs, PLD has far fewer, so I don't see it as being too big of an issue.

I am omitting changes to PLD's defensive actions as they have already been talked about many times.

TLDR Remove Fight or Flight as an action, put the 25% damage increase into all weaponskills as base potency. Fight or Flight is added as a trait that reduces weaponskill recast time by 10% obtained at level 2 to make PLD a more speedier tank and remove the concept of not using an atonement in your rotation.

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

Or, the most likely change would be they increase recast of Fight or Flight to 2minutes, and allow it to affect all damage, so we'd have a big Requiescat burst in opener and every 2 minutes, and a small Requiescat burst every other minute.

[Mithron]

I've always loved Fight or Flight because I started the game before there was Holy Spirit. PLDs had FoF, DRKs had Blood Weapon, WARs had Berserk; each of these were strict damage increases for bursting, but felt very different and unique. Blood Weapon even used to have a haste effect. I love Holy Spirit too, and I love PLD's class fantasy and job identity of being a knight who uses both their sword and shield and Holy Spirit in their rotation. Having these two kinds of burst phases means there's not too much emphasis on either side, which is important to me. If Holy Spirit is the only burst, then it feels like your sword is worthless and that makes the job far less enjoyable on a core level to me. Now that Holy Spirit has the sword combo finishers, I was hoping in the next expansion they would work on improving the physical sword skills PLD has, upgrading them much like DRG got upgrades this expansion to their base rotation skills. So a different Fast Blade and Riot Blade; it probably wouldn't change the 123 Atonement rotation, but that's fine: I like it and largely why I enjoy PLD so much. I like the consistent of the 420 potency Royal Authority + 3 Atonements then the (previously) 420 potency Holy Spirits for consistent damage throughout the fight, with minor bursts with Fight or Flight and Holy Sword combo.

[HyperiusUltima]

Or, the most likely change would be they increase recast of Fight or Flight to 2minutes, and allow it to affect all damage, so we'd have a big Requiescat burst in opener and every 2 minutes, and a small Requiescat burst every other minute.

So make it more similar to GNB where we squeeze everything into a 2m-focused 15s window? No thanks. The problem with this is that you still have the GCD issue; which is now more exacerbated as you'd have to make it apply to ALL damage for it to work. You'd then get a very scuffed PLD who has slightly less drift but the same gameplay. That doesn't fix anything. Again, 11 GCDs of FoF vs. 8 GCDs of Req.

The recommendation made by Mikey above would work well and still retain PLD's job identity as a sustained-damage tank. The "feel" of not having FoF would make it feel different, but it would open up the job to expansion later instead of being so rigid as it is currently with both rotations.

I've always loved Fight or Flight because I started the game before there was Holy Spirit. PLDs had FoF, DRKs had Blood Weapon, WARs had Berserk; each of these were strict damage increases for bursting, but felt very different and unique. Blood Weapon even used to have a haste effect. I love Holy Spirit too, and I love PLD's class fantasy and job identity of being a knight who uses both their sword and shield and Holy Spirit in their rotation. Having these two kinds of burst phases means there's not too much emphasis on either side, which is important to me. If Holy Spirit is the only burst, then it feels like your sword is worthless and that makes the job far less enjoyable on a core level to me. Now that Holy Spirit has the sword combo finishers, I was hoping in the next expansion they would work on improving the physical sword skills PLD has, upgrading them much like DRG got upgrades this expansion to their base rotation skills. So a different Fast Blade and Riot Blade; it probably wouldn't change the 123 Atonement rotation, but that's fine: I like it and largely why I enjoy PLD so much. I like the consistent of the 420 potency Royal Authority + 3 Atonements then the (previously) 420 potency Holy Spirits for consistent damage throughout the fight, with minor bursts with Fight or Flight and Holy Sword combo.

If you're worried about the strength of the spirit overtaking that of the sword, then consider the fact that just the base rotation for FoF is 5525 potency in total, you are adding potency that would far outpace Holy Spirit's own potency through filler if we're taking into account Physical vs. Magical. The entire Filler Rotation with 3 Atonements would be 2,725 potency, roughly HALF of the damage you'd be outputting under FoF if you baked in FoF's 25% Damage increase into the current physical rotation. For 2 Atonements in filler, it'd be 2,200. That burst phase in particular would be outdone by your sword's contribution if you baked FoF's potency into the kit via trait, as it wouldn't apply to Magical damage. I would almost want to believe it'd be close enough to make PLD a very viable choice in terms of damage, up there with DRK and GNB if they did it this way as a sustained damage tank.

[Gserpent]

snip

Something like that, yeah. As much as I hate continued homogenization, I think it's undeniable that's where they're going with class design for one reason or another. In that vein, copying No Mercy seems like the best fit for PLD - FoF simply becomes their version of No Mercy. Maybe with different timings, but the base concept is there. Instead of weaving in a ton of oGCDs and having that big burst of extra damage in between GCDs, you're instead putting the Req window in there somewhere and then you'll just be a boring, bland, awful "afk while pressing 1-2-3 for the next 35 seconds" class like everything else in the game is now. It's where we're going here, no doubt about it. With the changes this expansion such that using spells doesn't break weapon combos, it shouldn't be tough to fit in spells while still making sure Goring Blade is inside raid buffs (you would probably just do your 1-2-4 instead of 1-2-3, I imagine.) Oh, and I'm assuming that FoF applies to all damage, not just physical damage (hence the No Mercy comparison.) Potency of skills adjusted as needed of course.

For some of the outlying problems, I'd just copy how PvP solved them - Atonement just becomes something that outright replaces Fast Blade, like Raiden Thrust replaces... whatever the first step of DRG's combos is called, I forget. It's simply a potency booster that can't be assigned to a hotkey and is a "reward" for managing to press 1-2-3 without screwing up. Boring? I don't know, I guess? But is pressing 5-5-5 or sometimes only 5-5 any more exciting? Atonement just kinda sucks in PvE, it's not a "fun" button. I'd probably want to see a deeper redesign for it, but I don't think we'll see something more extensive like that in a mid-expansion patch. Then again, the ShB NIN patch shook things up a fair bit, so who knows?

I'm not a big fan of Circle of Scorn and the blade final dot overwriting each other. It's never been something I've liked and I would want to see that changed. Maybe it would be shifted to that the final blade spell gives you a lengthy buff that increases the damage of your next Circle of Scorn by whatever amount?

I also like the idea that others have mentioned, that FoF would be tuned to be a 120 second cooldown, so that you still have the 60 second Req window every odd minute to at least keep the gameplay from being a complete snoozefest. But it's going to be more boring than what we have now, no doubts about it - that's how they are choosing to design things.

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

Except paladin is being changed to fit 2minute burst meta, so thinking it's going to retain the sustain damage is sheer copium otherwise Paladin would be getting reworked lmao.
So like or hate it, that's the reality of where paladin is most likely going to go, is dump everything into raid buffs, with a big burst and a small burst every other minute.

But I seriously doubt Mikey's wish for Paladin rework will happen to be perfectly honest, since he's assuming the rotation loop will remain the same as it is at present, but it's SE they dumb every job down when they rework, so highly doubt it will come to fruition. And if, just if, Mikey's idea came to fruition, play around with a 2.22 GCD would be awful, which would get worse long term, due to SkS on other gear in past and future BiS, can't rely solely on GCD of one tier to base theories on.

[Rithy255]

Except paladin is being changed to fit 2minute burst meta, so thinking it's going to retain the sustain damage is sheer copium otherwise Paladin would be getting reworked lmao.
So like or hate it, that's the reality of where paladin is most likely going to go, is dump everything into raid buffs, with a big burst and a small burst every other minute.

But I seriously doubt Mikey's wish for Paladin rework will happen to be perfectly honest, since he's assuming the rotation loop will remain the same as it is at present, but it's SE they dumb every job down when they rework, so highly doubt it will come to fruition. And if, just if, Mikey's idea came to fruition, play around with a 2.22 GCD would be awful, which would get worse long term, due to SkS on other gear in past and future BiS, can't rely solely on GCD of one tier to base theories on.

I personally think they will likely do a couple of things, that will "ruin" pld at least for me.

Here's my current predications going off what I feel like will happen: (Trust me I don't want this lol)
1. Fight or flight, Likely going to be removed, it causes two bursts under 60 seconds, which makes PLD a sustained job in general
2. Super buff Req and blades combo even more.
3. They will likely remove atonement, I'm not 100% on this but it feels like a ability they will cut out, as PLD already has a magic burst and atonement is another "sustained" mini burst
4. Goring blade will be like warriors damage buff, giving you a 30 second dot, you can stack it up to 60 seconds, I believe they will really make goring blade more "loose"

I feel like they will make changes that fit PLD under 2 minutes but inside the 60 Second mark personally (Similar to how warrior is), If anything that they will do is change fight or flight and goring blade they are way too strict abilities with how current "Job design" works.

[Gserpent]

The talk about SkS/SpS and GCD is another can of worms they need to deal with - materia sucks and it should maybe just be deleted at this point. Give classes passive traits or active buffs that set their GCD to a specific point and design from there. Even from a sweaty parsebrain standpoint, the amount of actual control and influence a "custom" GCD gives you over your DPS is so minuscule that it's hard to take it seriously. Especially when just playing "good" will still net you a high purple result on most classes, which is more than enough to clear savage and ultimate. It would also allow them to be a bit more free with class design - if you have a comparatively rapid GCD like MNK, you don't really feel a need for lots of oGCDs to make the rotation feel less bland and boring. WoW spent multiple iterations fiddling with the idea of letting players adjust or customize their gear through one system or another, and they all got removed because they were unnecessarily complicated and didn't really present any kind of meaningful player choice, since it was literally just (relatively) simple math to determine which stat to focus on and which stat to dump.

And as much as I hate it, I think Rithy255 is probably close to how the rework will look. Goring Blade becomes the effective replacement for FoF, being a near-passive damage boost that's pretty much always active as long as the player has a pulse like WAR or DRK, Atonement removed or otherwise sidelined (I still favor a "it's basically Raiden Thrust" solution, myself), skills with absurd potency boosted even more to compensate for the damage deficits caused by removal of FoF, and so on. Square-Enix has been especially prone to giving classes PRESS FOR BIG NUMBERS buttons on 30 or 60 sec cooldowns ever since EW came about, and we can probably expect those buttons to turn into automatic crits down the road because that design (big damage numbers designed to fit neatly into raid buffs) results in substantial parse differences when they *don't* crit, since they become such a large amount of your total DPS for the fight. That also ties back into my "materia is bad and needs to be removed" comment above, too.

[Rithy255]

Reply to above (couldn't fit quote).

I wish I could give my "dream ideals" on what to do with Paladin instead but yeah.. :/ I have a lot of changes that I'd like to see making the oath gauge and defensives in general more interactive, my only issues with PLD has always been more on the defensive and utility side personally, I think it makes sense trying to fix up PLD's rotation a bit, but a total rotational change? that's not something I want at all... but it does make sense at least when you think about it.

My "Ideas" on what they will do really just comes from what makes the most sense and is the most easy (to me), I don't feel like the pld rework in 6.3 is going to be aimed at keeping pld players happy really, I could certainly be wrong but I feel like I'm on the mark at least with removing FOF (they could also make it 120 working with magic, but I think they would go with removing it) and with how they will change goring blade into something that stacks up to 60 (like warrior) because PLDs goring blade makes it "too strict" for current design, looking at most Dots/damage buffs they either stack or they're not a big focus in the rotation like pld's dot upkeep.... I can definitely see req also at least making Confiteor auto crit/dh something I personally don't really care about but I know people dislike auto crit/dh's (which is totally fair), possibly some other abilities like the blades combo follow up.

A lot of people think the Oath gauge might become a attack spender? which is possible I don't think we'd get something that major but it's also a possibility that does make some sense when looking at the other tanks, most are "builder & spenders" which it would be easy to copy warrior or something and design "new" Paladin that way it would also come into question what they'd do to holy shelltron, cover, intervention and how they could possibly make those abilities "work" without the gauge system (being on 25 seconds CD, would easily mean pld is miles behind any tank in defensives). It's certainly a possibility...

I'm holding out a bit of hope until we actually see the rework (can't say I'm not afraid), Problem is how much I'm attached to Paladin it's always my "go to" job and always been more comfort pick when grinding experts or something, it's a Job I feel most comfy on harder content, It's a Job I just thematically really enjoy and It's really got me down that it might not even be something I enjoy anymore.

[ForsakenRoe]

You guys are coming up with all these ideas on how to fix the 63s loop and I think it's simple: WAR now has 3 Fell Cleave and BIG HIT (Primal Rend). DRK has 3 Bloodspiller. PLD has 4 Holy Spirit, and BIG HIT (Confiteor). See the difference? This is SE we're talking about, I fully expect their 'solution' to make the rotation line up properly is not to change Atonement in any way, instead just dropping two stacks from Req, buffing the potency of Holy Spirit again to make up for the one that is lost. Since it's 600p under Req, 1/4 of that damage would be cut, so 150. So they can just slap +50 on each of the Blade combo steps again and call it a day. Also I expect they'll be making Req grant 'Confiteor Ready' status and changing Confiteor from 'Requires Req' to 'Requires Confiteor Ready', to mirror Primal Rend's functionality, because they'll have internal data showing how many people over-use Holy Spirit and flub their chance to use Confiteor to finish the Req window.

As for Rithy's latest comment about changing the Oath gauge to be a more offensive thing, it'd at least be 'interesting' cos holy heck it's bad now. They can change Sheltron/Intervention to '20s CD, Has 2 Charge shared between Sheltron and Intervention.' This makes it so you can back to back 2 Sheltrons still, or a Sheltron and an Intervention, or whatever. They should remove the gauge cost from Cover though, the reason it was busted good in SB wasn't the lack of gauge cost, it was the 20% damage mit trait it no longer enjoys

If they did add the charge stuff to Sheltron though I think it'd be potentially interesting to throw Clemency on the same charge counter so you can actually use it without feeling super bad about it (and so PLD has some self-heal option below HolySheltron levels). And you'd be able to choose what tool to use based on situation. If you're taking the hit, Sheltron, co-healer taking the hit, Intervention, but you can also Clemency after. Or in Double TB situations, maybe you Sheltron yourself, they do their CD stuff, then you Clemency THEM and get half of the heal too. Oh wait this sounds almost interesting so there's no chance