Why is everyone anxious about a PLD Rework?

[Gserpent]

Cover has almost no applications in meaningful content, and neither does spamming Clemency. At the absolute best, it lets the PLD drag themselves a tiny bit farther to see the next mechanic, but that comes at the cost of PLD having low DPS and arguably the lowest personal sustain of any tank, so it's kind of pointless - just take a WAR and let them Holmgang and Equilibrium or whatever to see the same stuff.

Clemency and Cover remain effectively useless buttons in *meaningful* content, which means they need to be reworked or removed. No one cares about performance in casual content, because as long as you have a pulse you will clear that content guaranteed.

[Mithron]

Cover has almost no applications in meaningful content, and neither does spamming Clemency. At the absolute best, it lets the PLD drag themselves a tiny bit farther to see the next mechanic, but that comes at the cost of PLD having low DPS and arguably the lowest personal sustain of any tank, so it's kind of pointless - just take a WAR and let them Holmgang and Equilibrium or whatever to see the same stuff.

Clemency and Cover remain effectively useless buttons in *meaningful* content, which means they need to be reworked or removed. No one cares about performance in casual content, because as long as you have a pulse you will clear that content guaranteed.

To be fair, Clemancy does see very good use in Ultimates. It's just so niche and not optimal given the nature of 14's design regardless because it's a strict DPS loss outside down time, and even down time it could still be DPS loss given MP cost. I would much rather it cost 50 Oath gauge and be an OGCD.

[Espon]

Cover has almost no applications in meaningful content, and neither does spamming Clemency. At the absolute best, it lets the PLD drag themselves a tiny bit farther to see the next mechanic, but that comes at the cost of PLD having low DPS and arguably the lowest personal sustain of any tank, so it's kind of pointless - just take a WAR and let them Holmgang and Equilibrium or whatever to see the same stuff.

Clemency and Cover remain effectively useless buttons in *meaningful* content, which means they need to be reworked or removed. No one cares about performance in casual content, because as long as you have a pulse you will clear that content guaranteed.

Not everything has to be a meaningful DPS button. It's why every class is losing its identity and becoming the same as every other. Clemency is one of the main draws for me to paladin. If they're going to turn Clemency into another Equilibrium and remove Cover then I might as well just play Warrior because there's nothing special Paladin now brings.

I don't care that it costs a GCD if means I can use it to save someone or myself when a run is going bad, because (and I know this might be hard to believe for most of you out there) not every boss attempt or dungeon run goes perfectly 100% of the time. People make mistakes, and it's nice to have something to fall back on.

Paladin has its fair share of problems, but changing the class so it plays exactly like the other 3 tanks is not the solution.

[Curisu]

Not everything has to be a meaningful DPS button. It's why every class is losing its identity and becoming the same as every other. Clemency is one of the main draws for me to paladin. If they're going to turn Clemency into another Equilibrium and remove Cover then I might as well just play Warrior because there's nothing special Paladin now brings.

I don't care that it costs a GCD if means I can use it to save someone or myself when a run is going bad, because (and I know this might be hard to believe for most of you out there) not every boss attempt or dungeon run goes perfectly 100% of the time. People make mistakes, and it's nice to have something to fall back on.

Paladin has its fair share of problems, but changing the class so it plays exactly like the other 3 tanks is not the solution.

100% agree to this.
Especially with these forced downtime mechanic's in savage.
Someone got hit by something not fatal but the healer are on the other side of the arena, clemency and nothing happened.
Someone dodged a healer have more important things to do then to look on others HP, Clemency.

Not everything needs to be a useful dmg GCD, verity and situational save's is one part what makes PLD fun to play.

[Mithron]

Not everything has to be a meaningful DPS button. It's why every class is losing its identity and becoming the same as every other. Clemency is one of the main draws for me to paladin. If they're going to turn Clemency into another Equilibrium and remove Cover then I might as well just play Warrior because there's nothing special Paladin now brings.

I don't care that it costs a GCD if means I can use it to save someone or myself when a run is going bad, because (and I know this might be hard to believe for most of you out there) not every boss attempt or dungeon run goes perfectly 100% of the time. People make mistakes, and it's nice to have something to fall back on.

Paladin has its fair share of problems, but changing the class so it plays exactly like the other 3 tanks is not the solution.

Clemancy currently is not a defining feature of PLD that makes it unique to other tanks. Making it an OGCD with Oath cost would make it unique however, because no other tank can burst heal that much on command. Even GNB's is a long cool down they have to give someone else instead of themselves, comes with damage reduction, and requires Excog proc or a long delay. WAR's requires several GCDs to receive the effect. Clemancy would be the most like WAR's since it heals both PLD and the target, but it's an instant burst heal with two charges. That still feels very PLD-esque and unique, and would be infinitely more fun to use because you would actually be able to use it very often. Playing PLD would have a lot of healer-like qualities, which is exactly its job fantasy.

Changing Clemancy to this way would probably make PLD even better at saving runs, since you could actually use it and most of the time prevent the runs from getting so bad that you need GCD Clemancy for.

Making Clemancy actually usable would not make it "exactly like the other 3 tanks."

[AnotherPerson]

Clemancy currently is not a defining feature of PLD that makes it unique to other tanks. Making it an OGCD with Oath cost would make it unique however, because no other tank can burst heal that much on command. Even GNB's is a long cool down they have to give someone else instead of themselves, comes with damage reduction, and requires Excog proc or a long delay. WAR's requires several GCDs to receive the effect. Clemancy would be the most like WAR's since it heals both PLD and the target, but it's an instant burst heal with two charges. That still feels very PLD-esque and unique, and would be infinitely more fun to use because you would actually be able to use it very often. Playing PLD would have a lot of healer-like qualities, which is exactly its job fantasy.

Changing Clemancy to this way would probably make PLD even better at saving runs, since you could actually use it and most of the time prevent the runs from getting so bad that you need GCD Clemancy for.

Making Clemancy actually usable would not make it "exactly like the other 3 tanks."

What are you talking about?

Currently, Holy Sheltron, Intervention, and Cover requires Oath gauge. Making Clemency require Oath gauge makes PLD weaker when they need to heal, not stronger. They don't get more healing power because Holy Sheltron / Intervention is supposed to be used to get more healing through your gauge. You have to pay a gauge tax on cover, which makes cover even worse after since there's multiple skills sharing the same gauge resource for healing -- which reduces the overall survivability of PLD.

Oath gauge only regenerates when you are auto attacking. However, the MP gauge will always be readily available due to the number of MP affecting skills PLD currently possesses. Keeping Clemency separate from the gauge is the better tbh.

[Mithron]

What are you talking about?

Currently, Holy Sheltron, Intervention, and Cover requires Oath gauge. Making Clemency require Oath gauge makes PLD weaker when they need to heal, not stronger. They don't get more healing power because Holy Sheltron / Intervention is supposed to be used to get more healing through your gauge. You have to pay a gauge tax on cover, which makes cover even worse after since there's multiple skills sharing the same gauge resource for healing -- which reduces the overall survivability of PLD.

Oath gauge only regenerates when you are auto attacking. However, the MP gauge will always be readily available due to the number of MP affecting skills PLD currently possesses. Keeping Clemency separate from the gauge is the better tbh.

Because you can't currently use Clemancy realistically due to it being a GCD. You get a 1k regen with Intervention, and Cover is basically never used. Clemancy gives a 1k direct heal and 500 potency heal on the PLD when used on someone else, together that's 1500 potency heal, more than Intervention. Intervention does give mitigation, but you can always buff Clemancy as an OGCD if needed. Having strong burst healing with OGCD Clemancy would be far better because it would be actually usable. I never really liked Oath gauge being tied to auto attacks, it's "unique" but bad because of down time that other tanks don't suffer from, yet still have similar cooldowns. Regardless, your argument of "when they need to heal" isn't logical; the goal is to prevent the run from getting that bad in the first place, and being able to actually use Clemancy reliably without losing DPS would help with that a lot more. You're also not always MT as PLD.

I'm just ignoring Cover for now because that's a completely separate topic.

[Gserpent]

To be fair, Clemancy does see very good use in Ultimates. It's just so niche and not optimal given the nature of 14's design regardless because it's a strict DPS loss outside down time, and even down time it could still be DPS loss given MP cost. I would much rather it cost 50 Oath gauge and be an OGCD.

That would be perfectly fine with me, too - Sheltron is an independent 20 or 25 sec cooldown, Cover removed/no longer costs gauge, gauge is now used exclusively for either Clemency or Intervention, and both are instant oGCD skills. Move Clemency down the ability tree so that you get it early (seriously, like as early as 40ish) perhaps in a nerfed version, trait it to the stronger current version later, and I think you've got a stew going. Gives PLD some of that class identity at earlier levels, and when having that spot healing might actually be valuable. It also helps close the extreme tank durability gap they created by giving WAR nascent flash for Alexander raids (not that it *matters*, but I like consistency in design principles.)

Not everything has to be a meaningful DPS button. It's why every class is losing its identity and becoming the same as every other. Clemency is one of the main draws for me to paladin. If they're going to turn Clemency into another Equilibrium and remove Cover then I might as well just play Warrior because there's nothing special Paladin now brings.

I don't care that it costs a GCD if means I can use it to save someone or myself when a run is going bad, because (and I know this might be hard to believe for most of you out there) not every boss attempt or dungeon run goes perfectly 100% of the time. People make mistakes, and it's nice to have something to fall back on.

Paladin has its fair share of problems, but changing the class so it plays exactly like the other 3 tanks is not the solution.

That's what is going to happen, though, and acting like it will be otherwise is just copium.

And, yes, everything must be a meaningful DPS button - because DPS is literally the only thing in the game. Mitigation and healing are pretty much solved and are used automatically. It's very rare that healers need to actually GCD heal outside of week 1 prog/current ultimates, and tanks have absolutely zero control over the damage they take since there's no actual active mitigation taking place - it's just "I see spell cast, I hit button," basically.

You need to understand, if Clemency was so powerful that using it despite it being a DPS loss was actually a viable strategy, it would be *overpowered* and subject to being nerfed. All skills of that sort on tanks, the ability to heal or otherwise protect a buddy, are on cooldowns (either from job gauge costs or just cooldowns.) Clemency kind of is and kind of isn't due to operating off of MP, a stat that PLD otherwise basically does not use (you will always have mana for your spell cycle because PLD generates a massive amount of mana compared to how much it spends and the way the rotation works out.)

So the solution, instead, is to homogenize Clemency. Make it just like the other skills tanks have, an in exchange, it becomes a button *you can actually justify using as part of normal gameplay, in content that actually matters.* That's a huge improvement.

If you're worried about homogenization... buddy, where have you *been* for the past few years? "5.0 design" is all *about* homogenizing things, and Yoshida was very clear that they would be continuing to design the game along those lines. If you want unique classes with different gimmicks, you need to play a different game.

[VentVanitas]

If you're worried about homogenization... buddy, where have you *been* for the past few years? "5.0 design" is all *about* homogenizing things, and Yoshida was very clear that they would be continuing to design the game along those lines. If you want unique classes with different gimmicks, you need to play a different game.

What kinda backwards defeatist logic is this?

[Gserpent]

What kinda backwards defeatist logic is this?

Call it whatever you'd like. I call it pragmatism. If you actually think that we're not getting something equivalent to WAR, you're on full copium. PLD is going to look like WAR, more or less, after a major rework, with likely Req being the candidate for the changes to become our Inner Release. It's possible it will be patterned more after GNB, but I don't think it's likely. Yoshida very explicitly said that they would be moving forward with "5.0 design" during LL's leading up to EW and we've seen proof of that in the class changes so far. It's absurd to think they'll make an exception for a class that's underperforming on both DPS and durability.

100% agree to this.
Especially with these forced downtime mechanic's in savage.
Someone got hit by something not fatal but the healer are on the other side of the arena, clemency and nothing happened.
Someone dodged a healer have more important things to do then to look on others HP, Clemency.

Not everything needs to be a useful dmg GCD, verity and situational save's is one part what makes PLD fun to play.

If someone got hit by an effect but are away from a healer, they do not need healing - they will be completely fine for the half a second it takes for them to get back in range of the healer. Raid damage is rigidly scripted. There will be no "unexpected" damage they take otherwise. If you're not talking about savage or ultimate, then it doesn't matter anyway since you quite literally don't even need a full 8 player party to clear those unless they have some kind of body check gimmick that's also an instant death if failed - I can't think of any normals that qualify there.

If it's forced downtime, then the healers literally have nothing else to do. It's not like healing is in short supply.

If you are actually trying to Clemency someone so that the healer "doesn't have to check their HP"... dude. You're probably aggravating your healers. Cut it out. If you want to heal, play a healer. Paladin is not a healer.