Give us back the old Paladin

[Rithy255]

I fully expect a 2nd rework in the future or significant changes come 7.0 to round out the job in its current state.

Same here I at least hope we get more changes throughout the patches or a Significant overhaul in 7.0, I don't think current PLD is "sustainable" in it's current design or how it plays but, it's actually got a lot of positives going for it, I think Divine might and how req were handled was Great, but the issue comes when we look at goring blade and fight or flight, early PLD generally gives this idea of PLD being a "boring tank" Not to mention the sheer amount of buttons that are just taking up space on PLD, I feel like the current PLD we got is more or less been rushed because of how quickly they needed to change it.

I also think they got to look at how they should change abilities on PLD going forth, Situational Utility like Cover, Clemency or Shield Bash while Interesting a lot of the time they fail to be useful, Which I'd say is "fine" but PLD's a Job already suffering from space, I'm afraid if they're not going to be improved upon they could just be removed for the sake of new abilities in 7.0, Which cover and clemency I don't really want to go, both fill the Job identity aspects of PLD, but I'm hoping that you might be actively using them more.

[nia_saeli]

Early PLD generally gives this idea of PLD being a "boring tank" Not to mention the sheer amount of buttons that are just taking up space on PLD, I feel like the current PLD we got is more or less been rushed because of how quickly they needed to change it.

I also think they got to look at how they should change abilities on PLD going forth, Situational Utility like Cover, Clemency or Shield Bash while Interesting a lot of the time they fail to be useful, Which I'd say is "fine" but PLD's a Job already suffering from space, I'm afraid if they're not going to be improved upon they could just be removed for the sake of new abilities in 7.0, Which cover and clemency I don't really want to go, both fill the Job identity aspects of PLD, but I'm hoping that you might be actively using them more.

I'm not sure if early PLD is a bad representation though. The current PLD is the least engaging of the tanks for me. It has 5 meaningful GCDs per minute, and it just generally feels boring compared to any other tank. At least before, each GCD mattered and you had the distinct phases of your rotation. Now it feels like a Gunbreaker before you get continuation...



Regarding the situational utility, I apologize if this sounds like I'm going on a rant, but I find it very strange that you say "Situational Utility like Cover, Clemency or Shield Bash while Interesting a lot of the time they fail to be useful" as that's essentially what being a situational utility is. Sometimes it's useful, other times it's not. Situational utility will rarely be useful in an optimized context where people are playing nearly perfectly. Those abilities are for when things go sideways and you need some extra breathing room or to cover the healer to let them LB3.

When it comes to situational utility, should we say the same thing about Shirk being redundant because you can just turn off your stance before your co-tank provokes? Or is it useless because most of the content in the game doesn't require tank swaps? I don't personally find it useless, but the same logic applies in both contexts.

If people don't find cover/clemency/shield bash useful, it's perfectly find to just not bind them and free up 1-3 slots on their hotbars. That's far more healthy than outright removing them to "free up space". Though, personally, I don't find that PLD has that many abilities. I could comfortably fit another 10 or so abilities before I get concerned with space.

[Rithy255]

Regarding the situational utility, I apologize if this sounds like I'm going on a rant, but I find it very strange that you say "Situational Utility like Cover, Clemency or Shield Bash while Interesting a lot of the time they fail to be useful" as that's essentially what being a situational utility is. Sometimes it's useful, other times it's not. Situational utility will rarely be useful in an optimized context where people are playing nearly perfectly. Those abilities are for when things go sideways and you need some extra breathing room or to cover the healer to let them LB3.

It feels like you missed the point on my "Situational utility" point, Just take it off your hotbar is also a bad solution because theirs cases where they're needed just not often enough, Cover is a good example of an ability that could be made into something better, the current version is too restrictive with its gauge cost and ranged, if it was more useable and had more situations to use it, I think that would be a net positive to the Job.

Clemency can be argued as a actual ability that's useful, but I want more for the ability, it makes sense for the Job identity of PLD to actively be using this ability more, I'm sure theirs ways of balancing out clemency, you look at warrior who can heal massive amounts for a target, or even regen the entire party, oh yeah has the shortest invul, what does PLD get? I guess passage of arms? which is kind of not always easy to find a spot to use it in, unlike most mitigations, I want PLD to have the utility of actively helping/healing allies generally, it could be apart of your MP management for the Job.

I don't know why you'd say PLD's boring, least engaging and not want better for the Job, I want the job to feel more Engaging then it's ever been, be that through both a intresting DPS rotation and Utility/support kit, right now you look at PLD its full of a lot of downsides, while having situational/unreliable upsides, The Job design with goring blade and how fof works, doesn't fit this new design well, I personally want to see a PLD that is the bringer of strong supportive options like it deserves to be.

"Free up space" is subjective but many people have shared the same feelings towards PLD having too much bloat, My PLD hotbar is full as it could be, Not freeing up space at this point means PLD can't evolve in 7.0, The new design is decent but it needs work, You may be free with space but a lot of people are struggling to fit everything on, when clearly things easily could be reworked and merged.

[nia_saeli]

I don't know why you'd say PLD's boring, least engaging and not want better for the Job, I want the job to feel more Engaging then it's ever been, be that through both a intresting DPS rotation and Utility/support kit, right now you look at PLD its full of a lot of downsides, while having situational/unreliable upsides, The Job design with goring blade and how fof works, doesn't fit this new design well, I personally want to see a PLD that is the bringer of strong supportive options like it deserves to be.

I absolutely would love them to make PLD more engaging and fun (if it could be considered good, even better), but we had a fun PLD prior to 6.3 and SE rarely ever reverts their changes once they have decided on a direction. Case and point is Cover, Stormblood-era cover had no gauge cost and reduced damage taken by the target by 20%. They actively removed that functionality at a later time (ShB?).

While it would be awesome to be able to actively use clemency in optimized environments, I highly doubt that it would come for free. I expect that they would either attach a cooldown to it (not great) or nerf the healing by half (also not great).

Your ideas are cool, and it would be nice if PLD could play like that, but I am just skeptical that SE would ever give us any playstyle like that without some kind of (probably major) drawbacks.

"Free up space" is subjective but many people have shared the same feelings towards PLD having too much bloat, My PLD hotbar is full as it could be, Not freeing up space at this point means PLD can't evolve in 7.0, The new design is decent but it needs work, You may be free with space but a lot of people are struggling to fit everything on, when clearly things easily could be reworked and merged.

I will concede that I don't know how other people configure their bars. I might be an outlier, I've just never had an issue fitting my abilities on my bars.

Job "evolution" is a bit overrated, imo. Most jobs didn't really evolve much this expac. Most got small adjustments and some flashy abilities, but a lot of it has started to feel tacked on just because "they needed something flashy for the action trailer". PLD was one of the few where the addition of the flashy attacks and updates really made sense (moreso than primal rend at least). But that's all in the past. Regardless of how much I disliked the changes, it doesn't make a difference to the future course. All I can do is voice my opinion here, but I highly doubt it will change anything.

In the end, as much as I'd like them to improve PLD, the version of PLD that I liked is already gone and most likely won't come back. As a result, I am probably overly sensitive to getting more changes that would make the job even worse.