PLD 6.2: Take Away and Rotation

[nia_saeli]

Yes, it does. Because that is literally the only thing in the entire game that is (loosely) in the hands of the players. Healing? It's done automatically, and damage is scripted with minimal variance. Mitigation? Once again, done automatically and *rigidly* scripted. DPS is the only thing that's left, and even there they've been taking away player interactivity with it by making rotations increasingly "automatic" and removing things that might cause variance like melee having to lose uptime for mechanics or lose positional bonus because of the boss hitbox being small, etc.

Apologies if it were unclear. My statement was more that job resources don't have to be exclusively generated for DPS. Oath Gauge being used defensively provides a much more interesting and meaningful decision than making it just another "Get 50 and Fel Cleave" option.

I agree with all your points on the combat system as they've decided to try to evolve it beyond Stormblood. There's a lot of potential options and design space that they cut out during ShB that further cemented the DPS meta in place and the Devs have been actively making decisions to enforce the DPS-centric meta. So I hope they do something in 7.0 to help alleviate this in the future, but I'm not really counting on it.

[ForsakenRoe]

Apologies if it were unclear. My statement was more that job resources don't have to be exclusively generated for DPS. Oath Gauge being used defensively provides a much more interesting and meaningful decision than making it just another "Get 50 and Fel Cleave" option.

As opposed to 'get 50 and Sheltron'? A suggestion I had made (without much thought for potency balancing) was to make Atonement the Gauge consumer, and scale its potency based on Gauge at the time of use (like Apex Arrow). Meaning you could purposely use lower gauge amounts, to reset to 0 at 'down times', and thereby line up your 'I have hit 100 Gauge it's time to smite' to be at a specific timing, such as, idk, the 2 minute raidbuff window? Is that not 'more interesting and meaningful decision' potentially than 'hit Sheltron if you need mit, or Intervention if your buddy needs mit, or often cases just do both'? Like, yeh it's another DPS related gauge. But 'Paladin's defensiveness via Sheltron is scuppered by the boss using the hidden jutsu of walking away from the arena'' is not a cool unique trait. It's a bloody annoying trait.

[nia_saeli]

As opposed to 'get 50 and Sheltron'? A suggestion I had made was to make Atonement the Gauge consumer, ...

It's the difference between only having to check "Is it raid buffs yet? No? Am I overcapping?" to "How much gauge do I need to keep for the next mechanic?" it's just something that allows us to play ever so slightly differently from the other tanks that just go "Do I need it in 25 seconds? no? Use it" on their mits. We still end up doing that when we'd overcap, but there's at least some leeway which makes it interesting to use defensively for me.

Granted, the oath gauge is basically a 25 second cooldown with two charges and the extra requirement to be in melee range or your cooldowns stop, so not great.

Overall, I just don't trust SE to leave the flexibility in if they remove the oath gauge and repurpose it for something else. I doubt they'd give it charges to compensate. I'd prefer if they just made it so that we generated our gauge from our GCDs and spells (including clemency for when the boss is untargetable).

But 'Paladin's defensiveness via Sheltron is scuppered by the boss using the hidden jutsu of walking away from the arena'' is not a cool unique trait. It's a bloody annoying trait.

This is more of a problem with SE encounter design, but it could also be resolved by generating gauge via spells including clemency or something.

I'm just overall not a fan of further homogenizing stuff that is unique to PLD that can be resolved while retaining PLD's identity.

I would love to swap to "active mitigation" where your damage is a bunch of builders and your spenders are defensive tools. WoW went that direction and while it's had a few potholes, it's been a roaring success and is *dramatically* better than what they were doing before.

But that would require an immense change in XIV's combat system and how it's laid out. I don't see it happening anytime soon.

I think that's fair.

[ForsakenRoe]

It's the difference between only having to check "Is it raid buffs yet? No? Am I overcapping?" to "How much gauge do I need to keep for the next mechanic?" it's just something that allows us to play ever so slightly differently from the other tanks that just go "Do I need it in 25 seconds? no? Use it" on their mits. We still end up doing that when we'd overcap, but there's at least some leeway which makes it interesting to use defensively for me.

Granted, the oath gauge is basically a 25 second cooldown with two charges and the extra requirement to be in melee range or your cooldowns stop, so not great.

Overall, I just don't trust SE to leave the flexibility in if they remove the oath gauge and repurpose it for something else. I doubt they'd give it charges to compensate. I'd prefer if they just made it so that we generated our gauge from our GCDs and spells (including clemency for when the boss is untargetable).

This is more of a problem with SE encounter design, but it could also be resolved by generating gauge via spells including clemency or something.

I'm just overall not a fan of further homogenizing stuff that is unique to PLD that can be resolved while retaining PLD's identity.

Yes, the interesting and 'unique' part of PLD's Sheltron/Intervention, the good unique at least, is that you can store up 100 gauge, and use Sheltron AND Intervention at the same time. So if Sheltron had 2 charges, shared with Intervention, with a 20s recharge time, it'd be pretty much functionally identical. However, it'd come with additional benefits: current charge time is about 23s, so it'd be up slightly more often. It'd allow for the Oath Gauge to actually track something useful (atm you could take it off your screen and just see if Sheltron's ready by looking if the button is greyed out). "How much gauge do I need to keep for the next mechanic?" would become "Can I use a Sheltron charge here to mit/regen through these Autoattacks? Will I need just one for myself on the upcoming TB, or does my Cotank need an Intervention too?"

If we had Shel/Interv changed to 2 shared charges, 20s recharge time, that'd still be unique to PLD, as it'd be the only tank that can apply it's short mit to both itself AND it's cotank at the same time. Unless you count Oblation on DRK, but that's 10% and this is 15%+15% if you time it well. Way different level of strength, and Oblation's got a 60s recharge time. Identity isn't being infringed. Also we can take Cover off the Oath Gauge and make it a standalone again, that way it'd potentially see more use.

I think the Oath Gauge as it stands is in a dead end. It can't have anything else added to it of interest, because it's the 'Sheltron Gauge'. If it were reworked to be a damage tracking gauge like Wrath or Blood, yeh 'homogenization' but it opens doors to actually reduce homogenization in other ways. Adding new skills that have other costs like 20 or 30 or an Apex Arrow type that consumes all of the gauge and scales in potency. The fact SE's allergic to giving classes gauge spenders that don't work on a multiple of 50 is just as limiting. Having to remember to save 20 for Upheaval didn't take much brain, but it at least took 'more than zero brain'.

I would love to swap to "active mitigation" where your damage is a bunch of builders and your spenders are defensive tools. WoW went that direction and while it's had a few potholes, it's been a roaring success and is *dramatically* better than what they were doing before.

Once upon a time I started theorycrafting a change to DRK to make it into a 'stagger tank' back in like SB (when people hated it), didn't get very far though. I fear the problem with Active Mit is that this game's playerbase is so against the idea of 'losing damage' for any reason, it'd be reviled. For example, Guardian Druid in WOW has Rage as it's resource. It can spend that rage on Maul for big ST damage (and a 15% DR effect for like 6sec via a talent), or it can spend it on Ironfur to increase it's physical DR via increased Armor stat. In FFXIV, that'd be hated because everyone would insist on spamming Maul for more damage, and eating dirt as they blow up on a TB because they didn't mitigate it with Ironfur. SOTR on Paladin wouldn't be spent to mitigate, it'd be spent to do more damage. Prot Warrior Rage would all be dumped into Revenge, leaving both Shield block and Ignore Pain unused.

(actually I realize now Shield Block increases damage dealt by Shield Slam, so it sort of refunds in that regard. Maybe if we had stuff like that, where eg Sheltron makes Shield Bash do bonus damage during it's duration, that might be cool)

On the other hand, a system like Stagger, where Purifying and Celestial Brews don't cost you your damage (and your damage actually helps restore them faster) would be a lot more acceptable to this playerbase I think. Well, the 'it doesn't cost your damage' part at least.

[nia_saeli]

Yes, the interesting and 'unique' part of PLD's Sheltron/Intervention, the good unique at least, is that you can store up 100 gauge, and use Sheltron AND Intervention at the same time. So if Sheltron had 2 charges, shared with Intervention, with a 20s recharge time, it'd be pretty much functionally identical.

I agree with all of your points, I think the only point of contention for me is that I trust SE to decide to remove oath gauge entirely and make Shell/Intervention's go inline with Bloodwhetting/Nascent glint at a 25 second shared CD with no charges". They have a tendency to look at an issue with a job (like SB-era Dark Arts) and just remove it entirely instead of tweak it and improve it.

Given the recent PLD rework, I feel like skepticism is warranted. That being said, I think your proposed changes to Shell/Intervention are good and I'd be happy if PLD got them. I just don't think that the oath gauge would get repurposed if they went that route.

I fear the problem with Active Mit is that this game's playerbase is so against the idea of 'losing damage' for any reason, it'd be reviled.

Yeah, pretty much. Even if we made active mitigation DPS positive (e.g. TBN gives the ability to hit Edge of Shadow twice for the same MP), I can't shake the feeling that we'd end up with situations with tanks or healers saying "stand in the bad, it's DPS positive for me". Maybe just applying damage downs to everything would be enough of a deterrent? IDK.

[Gserpent]

Once upon a time I started theorycrafting a change to DRK to make it into a 'stagger tank' back in like SB (when people hated it), didn't get very far though. I fear the problem with Active Mit is that this game's playerbase is so against the idea of 'losing damage' for any reason, it'd be reviled. For example, Guardian Druid in WOW has Rage as it's resource. It can spend that rage on Maul for big ST damage (and a 15% DR effect for like 6sec via a talent), or it can spend it on Ironfur to increase it's physical DR via increased Armor stat. In FFXIV, that'd be hated because everyone would insist on spamming Maul for more damage, and eating dirt as they blow up on a TB because they didn't mitigate it with Ironfur. SOTR on Paladin wouldn't be spent to mitigate, it'd be spent to do more damage. Prot Warrior Rage would all be dumped into Revenge, leaving both Shield block and Ignore Pain unused.

(actually I realize now Shield Block increases damage dealt by Shield Slam, so it sort of refunds in that regard. Maybe if we had stuff like that, where eg Sheltron makes Shield Bash do bonus damage during it's duration, that might be cool)

On the other hand, a system like Stagger, where Purifying and Celestial Brews don't cost you your damage (and your damage actually helps restore them faster) would be a lot more acceptable to this playerbase I think. Well, the 'it doesn't cost your damage' part at least.

The thing is though, it's not costing your DPS to use these defensive skills. In an active mitigation design, WAR wouldn't spend gauge on Fell Cleave, they would be spending gauge on Bloodwhetting or something. Fell Cleave would be a free button you can push that either has a cooldown, or becomes available after certain criteria are met. There's not a case where you're losing damage to use mitigation, they're separate. In WoW's case, your big fancy buttons like Fell Cleave will often be gauge builders (Shield Slam generates a flat amount of Rage, for example.)

The primary downside of active mitigation is that it by design kind of needs players to be doing something roughly equivalent to proper DPS - if you aren't using your Fell Cleave every time it's available, your mitigation uptime will suffer because you won't have as much gauge to spend. But this shouldn't be an issue for casual content, because casual content is intentionally tuned to be very, very easy. Even now, you don't even need to be a tank to soak tankbusters in dungeons. This wouldn't change.

[Gserpent]

Apologies if it were unclear. My statement was more that job resources don't have to be exclusively generated for DPS. Oath Gauge being used defensively provides a much more interesting and meaningful decision than making it just another "Get 50 and Fel Cleave" option.

I agree with all your points on the combat system as they've decided to try to evolve it beyond Stormblood. There's a lot of potential options and design space that they cut out during ShB that further cemented the DPS meta in place and the Devs have been actively making decisions to enforce the DPS-centric meta. So I hope they do something in 7.0 to help alleviate this in the future, but I'm not really counting on it.

I would love to swap to "active mitigation" where your damage is a bunch of builders and your spenders are defensive tools. WoW went that direction and while it's had a few potholes, it's been a roaring success and is *dramatically* better than what they were doing before.

But that would require an immense change in XIV's combat system and how it's laid out. I don't see it happening anytime soon.