Give us back the old Paladin

[Mikey_R]

I agree with the bulk of your points, but I feel like you can flip point number two around as well as "Plenty of people liked to play PLD before the changes, is it fair to them that they have to change how they play the entire game just because it was locked out of 5 (soon to be 6) instances of content?"

I will agree, it is one of the more opinionated answers I gave and not necessarily the strongest one, however, just looking at it objectively, old PLD was fine in all content EXCEPT Savage/Ultimate. New PLD is fine in all pieces of content. Looking at it like that, objectively speaking, the new PLD is better as it covers more content and to be clear, you can pretty much do anything you want to a job, it will be fine in the easier content irregardless, which is why the emphasis is on the harder content out there.

As for the old rotation, how would it be changed to better suit the meta? Don't get me wrong, I am a firm believer the 2 minute meta has hurt the game, and jobs, more than it has helped, however, this is the hand we have been dealt with, so this is what er have to use.

The main issue with old PLD was the fact you did not have your highest potency attacks in the burst window. How could this be fixed? Even with early FoF opener, the raid buffs would run out before you finished your blade combo and tend to come out after Goring Blade. FOr the numbers, checking The Balance Discord, 2.5 second jobs tend to use their raid buffs at the 7.5 second mark, after their 3rd GCD, which is after Goring Blade for PLD, raid buffs last for 15 seconds, so 15 seconds later bring you to just after Blade of Faith, the first step in the Blade combo, meaning you miss out on a raid buffed Blade of Valor.

You could go straight into your magic combo, the whole phase lasts 20 seconds, so taking into account the 7.5 seconds before the raid buffs come out, you will get the blade combo in, but you also lose 20 seconds of a DoT in Goring Blade, not to mention, you are then delaying FoF to the ~40 second mark, how backwards is that going to be? Even if you want to fiddle around and have a FoF buffed Goring, but cut the 2 Holy Spirit's out so that Blade of Valor gets into the raid buffs, you then do not have enough GCDs to line everything back up properly, even taking into account the extra Atonement that is normally dropped.

The only feasible way it could happen would be to change the rotation to a 15 second one, ie. GB > RA > GB etc, with the magic phase being HS > HS > Con > B1 > B2 > B3. Even then though, people would complain that it has changed because it isn't the 20 seconds they are used to and you basically alternate between 2 combos. You could have some weird thing where you alternate between the RA combo and 3 Atonements between Goring Blade, but I would be sceptical about whether people would actually enjoy that.

Don't get me wrong, I also found the old rotation enjoyable, even if I did have my issues with it, however, I do also enjoy the new rotation and with a few tweaks, in my opinion anyway, it could be better than the old one and feel more rewarding.

[nia_saeli]

The change doesn't cause casual players to get locked out of dungeons and other casual content.

Yeah, non-raider PLD mains weren't getting locked out of content, they just had to lose a play-style they enjoyed in all content for a small subset of the content that they don't participate in. Like my later comment, I'm not talking about damage or performance, I'm referring to the playstyle that existed for 10 years and was just removed in 6.3 on a whim.

I will agree, it is one of the more opinionated answers I gave and not necessarily the strongest one, however, just looking at it objectively, old PLD was fine in all content EXCEPT Savage/Ultimate. New PLD is fine in all pieces of content. Looking at it like that, objectively speaking, the new PLD is better as it covers more content and to be clear, you can pretty much do anything you want to a job, it will be fine in the easier content irregardless, which is why the emphasis is on the harder content out there.

As for the old rotation, how would it be changed to better suit the meta? Don't get me wrong, I am a firm believer the 2 minute meta has hurt the game, and jobs, more than it has helped, however, this is the hand we have been dealt with, so this is what er have to use.

Minor Correction: The two minute meta is the hand that raiders have been dealt with the latest raid tiers. The only content where two minute raid buffs have any impact in whether the content can be cleared is 8 player content with tight DPS checks (which is 5 -- soon to be 6 -- instances of content). Most content in the game does not need to adhere to this meta in the slightest and can still be cleared.

As it stands, regardless of my feelings on it (or how I would have opted to address these problems) SE sided with the raid community and prioritized how PLD performs in Savage/Ultimate at the expense of how it plays in the rest of the game which is equally if not more unfair. That's the only point that I was raising.

I'm glad that you enjoy the new rotation, I don't care for it and will probably find a new main.

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

Yeah, non-raider PLD mains weren't getting locked out of content, they just had to lose a play-style they enjoyed in all content for a small subset of the content that they don't participate in. Like my later comment, I'm not talking about damage or performance, I'm referring to the playstyle that existed for 10 years and was just removed in 6.3 on a whim.

I mean when a lot of casuals struggle to correctly press 1-2-3 or 1-2 let alone make use of defensive cooldowns as a tank, does this change really affect their "playstyle"?