Why is everyone anxious about a PLD Rework?

[Rithy255]

Unless you already have the gear, to survive the double tankbusters, PLD must give their buddy Intervention, receive their buddy's skill (Heart of Corundum, Nascent Flash, etc), and use Sheltron. In addition to Rampart or Sentinel (possibly both, if we're talking about crafted ilvls.) This means their buddy doesn't have their own defensive skill (it has to be given to the PLD), which is why you have to use Intervention. The reason for all of this is because you can't block dots, and Abyssos brought in a heavy dot with each tankbuster.

Technically, you could just yell healers adjust and the healers could probably handle it, but this would probably involve some GCD healing, and that's a raid DPS loss. Meanwhile, you can do the above and no DPS is lost. I think PLD is okay once they already have that raid gear, but if you're progging, you either force your healers to sacrifice DPS or you have to stock 100 gauge for the dual tankbusters.

FWIW, PLD is also quite weak in DSR. The friends I watched were running GNB/WAR, so I don't have any... secondhand? experience here, but from what I've heard, PLD struggles a lot in certain phases while the other tanks are completely fine. This, on top of having very low DPS.

Ok so other tanks in the same situation who don't have the benefit of intervention seem to be perfectly fine taking tank double busters, what's exclusive about PLD that if they dont use intervention (when any other tank would at most use something like Oblation, a skill only Drk has), that the other tank wouldn't "survive" Also, if your Gunbreaker uses Heart of corumdum on you or your warrior uses flash, then you could likely sentinel and intervention them without having to store up gauge, acting as if the PLD "has" to save up to 100 in every instance of a fight makes no sense when you have so many options where you don't have to use intervention all the time.

If Paladin was the only Job that can use its short cd on themselves and their co-tank, otherwise the healers would have a "major dps loss" PLD would all of a sudden become a must pick, but no they balance the fights not around PLD's unique trait of being able to store up to 100 gauge, using it on both is likely "Optimal" but when you're at the stage of being optimal, you tend to know when a duel tank buster is coming... I really don't see what even point you're trying to make here.

PLD does struggle, the Issues aren't clemency or oath gauge, it stems from a ton of Issues, Pretty sure theirs stuns in the latest ultimate that holy shelltron just doesn't block for one, They're the only tank lacking any personal defensive or anything equal to a a "small 60 second, Such as Oblation, aurora, equilibrium", They have some Jank and personal things that could be buffed, Having two raid wides on paper is good but I find passage of arms very situational and DV can be more clunky opposed to shake it off.

[Gserpent]

Ok so other tanks in the same situation who don't have the benefit of intervention seem to be perfectly fine taking tank double busters, what's exclusive about PLD that if they dont use intervention (when any other tank would at most use something like Oblation, a skill only Drk has), that the other tank wouldn't "survive" Also, if your Gunbreaker uses Heart of corumdum on you or your warrior uses flash, then you could likely sentinel and intervention them without having to store up gauge, acting as if the PLD "has" to save up to 100 in every instance of a fight makes no sense when you have so many options where you don't have to use intervention all the time.

What? No, dude. The PLD team *had* to engage in that gimmick to avoid shuffling a ton of extra work onto the healers. Either you did as I described above or you forced one or potentially both healers to have to pump GCD heals into the PLD to keep them alive through the bleed.

The WAR uses Nascent Flash on the PLD so that the PLD gets the raw mitigation necessary to survive through the bleed without giving the healers apoplexy. This means the WAR cannot use Bloodwhetting on themselves to tank up. The PLD then gives the WAR Intervention for 20+15% mit to compensate. Doing *anything else* means the healers have to adjust, which means GCD healing, which cuts raid DPS. Given how overtuned P8S was on arrival, this loss of DPS was actually relevant at the time... especially since you were *already* behind the DPS curve due to how low PLD's DPS was before the patch adjustments at the time.

I don't know how I can be more clear about this. PLD either has to stock 100 gauge for the tankbusters, or the healers have to sack their DPS to compensate. At least with crafted ilvls. I think it's less strenuous once you're geared up and doing reclears.

If the PLD were below level 82, would be a good starting example. WAR has the selfhealing effect in Raw Intuition at level 54, and Equilibrium at 58. PLD has nothing until Holy Sheltron, as the selfhealing of the Req window is added by a trait in the late 80s.

If Clemency were made into an Oath spending OGCD and Sheltron were made into a standalone CD (lets say 20s since it takes about 22-23sec to get 50 oath atm), we'd have both at the same time, so there's no 'one VS the other' going on. Besides that, if you use Clemency on someone other than yourself, you get half of the healing too, boosting the total 'effective healing' of Clemency by 50% (good for after a double TB). So, as an example, in current tier there's a lot of bleeds on TBs and Block doesn't mitigate the bleed (only the initial hit). So rather than using Sheltron and Intervention, it'd potentially be better to use a buffed Intervention, get the 'helpy button' from your cotank in return eg Nascent/TBN/Heart of whatsit, and then Clemency the other tank after the damage hits. Further, if Sheltron was a free standalone OGCD, you could throw it in for free too.

Yeah, I'd definitely want to see something like this. Let's say that Cover is removed, because it's kind of a useless ability right now and I don't see any feasible way of making it useful in a raiding context without making it overpowered.

So now we have an open spot at lvl 45. Put Clemency there. Since Sheltron is now free to use, this is also when we get Oath Gauge. Make this Clemency a 500 potency cure effect. At 58, when we previously earned Clemency, we instead get a trait that upgrades it to its 1000 potency form. Adjust Divine Magic Mastery at 64 to add on the "heal yourself for half the effect when used on an ally" element to the spell.

Sounds like a much more flavorful *and* effective Paladin, doesn't it? Even if we changed literally nothing else, I'd still want Clemency (even its current DPS loss form) at 45, because Paladins having limited white magic ability is such a core concept for the class fantasy. I also think we should be getting baby versions of Holy Spirit and Holy Circle earlier, too, but that's another subject...

[Rithy255]

What? No, dude. The PLD team *had* to engage in that gimmick to avoid shuffling a ton of extra work onto the healers. Either you did as I described above or you forced one or potentially both healers to have to pump GCD heals into the PLD to keep them alive through the bleed.

The WAR uses Nascent Flash on the PLD so that the PLD gets the raw mitigation necessary to survive through the bleed without giving the healers apoplexy. This means the WAR cannot use Bloodwhetting on themselves to tank up. The PLD then gives the WAR Intervention for 20+15% mit to compensate. Doing *anything else* means the healers have to adjust, which means GCD healing, which cuts raid DPS. Given how overtuned P8S was on arrival, this loss of DPS was actually relevant at the time... especially since you were *already* behind the DPS curve due to how low PLD's DPS was before the patch adjustments at the time.

I don't know how I can be more clear about this. PLD either has to stock 100 gauge for the tankbusters, or the healers have to sack their DPS to compensate. At least with crafted ilvls. I think it's less strenuous once you're geared up and doing reclears.

I don't know how I can be more clear about this, any other tank cannot use two of their short cd mitigations at once, it's unique to Paladin So the idea that for every double tank buster that you have to use 100 gauge just so healers don't struggle makes no sense, as PLD would be meta if healers had to pump out heals if the PLD didn't spend Intervention and holyshelltron on both tanks, Most the time if your warrior is going to use flash on you, all you would need is a Intervention on them and a sentinel (as using sent/rampart will further buff intervention and your Defence + warriors flash on you), using holyshelltron at that point isn't really Needed, you already got your intervention both you and the warrior are getting healed by flash, your intervention is regen on him and bassically 30% mitigation + whatever personal warrior might use, Using Holy shelltron on that situation isn't really needed, might be nice?

Paladins the only tank job that could use Holy shelltron on some autos and uh oh a tank buster coming up! oh well you can intervention the other tank or Use Shelltron on self and the tank can use their short cd on you and/or self then you both can use another personal and you'll likely not burden your healers.

PLD's issues aren't that you can store 2 of your CD's at once, which by my testing eariler charge back a little bit faster then war/gnb, that's like the only benefit to playing PLD actually, It's Issues are everything else such as Cover, LONG invul, No controlled sustain, Missing CD's other tanks have in place of other stuff, "blocks" from holyshelltron not working properly.

[ForsakenRoe]

I don't know how I can be more clear about this, any other tank cannot use two of their short cd mitigations at once, it's unique to Paladin So the idea that for every double tank buster that you have to use 100 gauge just so healers don't struggle makes no sense, as PLD would be meta if healers had to pump out heals if the PLD didn't spend Intervention and holyshelltron on both tanks, Most the time if your warrior is going to use flash on you, all you would need is a Intervention on them and a sentinel (as using sent/rampart will further buff intervention and your Defence + warriors flash on you), using holyshelltron at that point isn't really Needed, you already got your intervention both you and the warrior are getting healed by flash, your intervention is regen on him and bassically 30% mitigation + whatever personal warrior might use, Using Holy shelltron on that situation isn't really needed, might be nice?

Paladins the only tank job that could use Holy shelltron on some autos and uh oh a tank buster coming up! oh well you can intervention the other tank or Use Shelltron on self and the tank can use their short cd on you and/or self then you both can use another personal and you'll likely not burden your healers.

PLD's issues aren't that you can store 2 of your CD's at once, which by my testing eariler charge back a little bit faster then war/gnb, that's like the only benefit to playing PLD actually, It's Issues are everything else such as Cover, LONG invul, No controlled sustain, Missing CD's other tanks have in place of other stuff, "blocks" from holyshelltron not working properly.

The point is, lets say you do the Intervention swap with, IDK a WAR. You want to kitchen sink the TB. So you use Sentinel, Rampart and Intervention them. They Nascent Flash you in return. Based on just this interaction, they're now at 40% (or 10%+10%+10%+10%, idk if Intervention boosting is multiplicative) and you are at 30+20%+10%. However, they still have Vengeance (+30%), Thrill (+20% max HP), their OWN Rampart (+20%), and Equilibrium for the bleed after the hit (now including a regen effect). Total for them, 40%+30%+20%+20%maxHP. Total for you, 30%+20%+10%. If you don't Sheltron as well as the Intervention, you're behind on mit, by a sizeable amount. Being healed by Flash isn't going to help if the TB oneshots you due to lack of mit. If you go into a TB without Sheltron ready, you're probably going splat, you're already behind in mit count compared to the other tanks, and you are suggesting here that 'no actually you don't need to Sheltron stuff'. So yes, I'd argue that you probably want to have 100 gauge ready for TBs.

Giving PLD back the 20% mitigation on Cover, on all damage taken while Cover is in effect (even if the tether is broken by distance) would probably help, taking the stupid Oath cost off of it would help too. SB Cover was nuts because of all the transfer-able debuffs and shenanigans it could be applied to, eg BRD taking the O11S tether and getting Cover'd for the raidwide, for more uptime. But that's fine IMO because A: players found a creative way to get more uptime (DRK/WAR couldn't do it, but DRK did more damage anyway), and B: we're now looking at a tier where we have nothing but double-TBs. Some can be solo'd, but need invuln to do so (EG Compressed Aero in P7S). If we had 20% mit Cover now, it'd be nowhere near as 'OP' as it was back then, as the fight design doesn't allow as much trickery.

Or we could remove the 100% Block effect on Passage and change it to let the PLD also get the effect of it, allowing it to be used as a pseudo-CD for 15% mit. 'It has two raid mits wow' isn't as special in this day and age it seems, and lining up POA so that everyone's in it is a pain in the ass

[Rithy255]

Reply to Roe:
Lets say you have two tanks, a Gunbreaker and a Warrior, Gunbreaker uses Nebula on self, Rampart, Camouflage on self, they then use HOC on the warrior, The Warrior does the same they use Thrill, Rampart, Vengence, they use Flash on the Gunbreaker both would survive.

But In the case for Paladin, instead of GNB (imagine they're at 50 oath) they use Sentinel, Rampart and then they use intervention on the warrior. they would also receive warriors flash, The only thing the PLD is "lacking" in terms of mitigation would be the 10% GNB gets for sinking Camouflage, I'm not a numbers expect but most cases I'd be pretty sure the PLD would survive, the situations where gunbreaker would survive right? Maybe not in DSR? if I knew the exact numbers of the duel tank busters it would likely be easier to work out.

The case is that yes it's better to use Shelltron/intervention together if you need to kitchen sink it then yes PLD will have to wait and be restricted on that front, but in general PLD's more free to use their cooldowns then any other tank because of having two charges, Not actually defending PLD defensively here but I just do not understand how PLD would feel more restrictive in using short CD's then any other tank would.

Reply To G Serpent:
Again making Shelltron 25 seconds (1 charge I assume?), Nerfs it as it fills up every 21 seconds of auto attacks from what I tested, I actually think Oath gauge should get adjusted, Shouldn't be based off autos (such as a timer or something, maybe also using mitigation at the right time would fill it faster). Holy shelltron needs to be generally just a normal mitigation (Not a block), it needs to be able to target players (with something like a 1 Second cd, so you could double target), This would remove Intervention similar to how GNB/DRK's short cds can target each other.

Keep in mind intervention works like a normal cd and has no ties to blocks so PLD could just use it on their cotank and get their cotanks cd (also not a perfect solution, again Blocks need to be rethinked or looked at).

I actually don't think they tested PLD, they would have reworked it sooner for not being like every other job... likely only noticed it when they had to keep on buffing it.

[Kemeko]

Back when all tanks had 2 tank stances, PLD could switch to Shield Oath and gain oath gauge through spells. 5 Holy Spirits gave you 100 gauge, so at a rate of 10 gauge per 1000 mp usage. If they brought this back, it would solve the lack of personal mitigation, more or less. Personally, I'd rather see Cover as a toggle for fun, because no double tank buster will ever see it used. On a tangent, swapping clemency to ogcd would mean that you can't proc Divine Veil at lower levels without reworking it. If they want to have Divine Veil tied to gcd heals, make Divine Veil a healing version of Requiescat, 50% bonus heals, instant spell cast, no mp cost for heals, maybe give divine stacks when using Clemency that doubles holy spell potencies so it's less of a dps loss and add those stacks to Atonement so Requiescat becomes a better burst. Block used to reach 32% damage reduction as well, but it's been reduced to 20%, so swapping Sheltron "block" to 20% mitigation would make it stronger because then you can get a chance to either block or parry on top of the base 20%.

[Gserpent]

I don't know how I can be more clear about this, any other tank cannot use two of their short cd mitigations at once

I know, but they don't *need* to. Because their short cooldown skill actually works as designed, whereas the developers inexplicably managed to not notice blocking not applying to dots? For all Yoshida's claims of "they got too good at P8S," it makes me wonder if anyone on the team was actually *playing* Paladin with crafted ilvl gear...

And, by the way, there's an easy way to fix "well if they made Sheltron stop sucking and also made it cost no gauge, it would be OP" - just make Intervention and Sheltron share a 25 sec cooldown. You'd still be able to dump gauge on Clemency, which is in line with Aurora, Oblation, etc.

[Marxam]

I know, but they don't *need* to. Because their short cooldown skill actually works as designed, whereas the developers inexplicably managed to not notice blocking not applying to dots? For all Yoshida's claims of "they got too good at P8S," it makes me wonder if anyone on the team was actually *playing* Paladin with crafted ilvl gear...

And, by the way, there's an easy way to fix "well if they made Sheltron stop sucking and also made it cost no gauge, it would be OP" - just make Intervention and Sheltron share a 25 sec cooldown. You'd still be able to dump gauge on Clemency, which is in line with Aurora, Oblation, etc.

If they wanted to buff sheltron they could just make oath gauge work the same way as beast gauge for combo enders. WAR gets to FC every 15 secs just by doing one SE and SP combo. If goring and RA worked the same way that's a sheltron every 15 secs, effectively putting it on the same recast as TBN. This is also assuming Atonement survives as the devs have shown that they will remove a skill if it just bloats a rotation i.e. SAM.

[Gserpent]

If they wanted to buff sheltron they could just make oath gauge work the same way as beast gauge for combo enders. WAR gets to FC every 15 secs just by doing one SE and SP combo. If goring and RA worked the same way that's a sheltron every 15 secs, effectively putting it on the same recast as TBN. This is also assuming Atonement survives as the devs have shown that they will remove a skill if it just bloats a rotation i.e. SAM.

I mean, we're all fairly certain that PLD will just be "WAR with a shield", so this doesn't seem unlikely to happen.

[Rithy255]

I mean, we're all fairly certain that PLD will just be "WAR with a shield", so this doesn't seem unlikely to happen.

I doubt it will exactly be warrior, but it will share a lot of baseline with warrior and dark knight.
Perhaps even they might go with making it similar to gunbreaker, considering finishing your basic combo gives you atonement on PLD and Ammo (that can lead into a 3 button combo with weaving)

I don't think theirs any one way PLD will go, they will just likely remove Fight or flight and goring blade (make it like wars damage buff, like I've said before), because the problems with PLD having a second burst and DOT upkeep being hard for downtime situations, No tanks "dot" other then PLD really has to upkeep their DOT so much, GNB/DRK both have two (basically, your shadow acts as a fancy DOT on drk), but both really don't need to play around it like PLD.

Realistically it's safe to say PLD will share a lot with warrior/drk likely though, we will see really.