Conflicted with new PLD 6.3

[True-to-Caesar]

I got so conflicted with PLD since 6.2 I ended up playing DRK instead.

The rework in 6.3 felt more like a massive bandaid. But it’s a dirty one applied on a giant wound.

The job needs animations and VFX updates, it just feels bland outside of the Blades combo. Cover being either ignored or they don’t understand why it’s underused. Having both Req and FoF still together instead of making the whole bloody thing smoother instead of clunkier. I could go on but I doubt they’ll do something really significant at this rate.

Now imagine the carnage with the rework of DRG and AST. Gonna be bloody.

[ForsakenRoe]

The other class that's getting a rework alongside DRG is AST, which, if you look at it's 2min window, kinda makes sense. However, considering the uhh... 'varied' reaction to PLD, shall we say, I have to wonder how the AST one will go. Considering it's low playrate compared to WHM, they probably look at it as 'we don't have much to lose, those players will just swap to WHM if they dont like it'.

Which all translates to 'AST cards now GCD, DRG jumps now GCD' and they call it a day

but ehh still having 1 Skill to only spam 3 times is monotonous.. on the otherhand you can't do Blades without Req aswell but I like that MP Management is a bit more pronounced^^

IIRC I found out that, if we changed it from 3 stacks of Sword Oath to 1, we'd get enough 'spare GCDs' from losing Atonements, that we'd fit an entire extra 123 combo, the Holy Spirit, and 1 Atonement, into the gap that was created. And if we were to make Atonement not break combo (as Holy Spirit now doesn't), and also change it's animation to be like, a spectral sword thrust so it's a ranged attack too, we'd have PLD be a quite unique tank, I think. A '5 step Combo' compared to the others having a '3 step', and those last 2 steps would be not only ranged (can shift around for uptime optimization), but also delayable (as long as you use them before your next Royal), leading to rotational versatility. I also think that while 'pressing your 123 an extra time per minute' would be ehhhhh, it's a lot more 'ehhhhh' to me, to press Atonement 3 times in a row. Especially with it's limp animation

[RyuuZero]

IIRC I found out that, if we changed it from 3 stacks of Sword Oath to 1, we'd get enough 'spare GCDs' from losing Atonements, that we'd fit an entire extra 123 combo, the Holy Spirit, and 1 Atonement, into the gap that was created. And if we were to make Atonement not break combo (as Holy Spirit now doesn't), and also change it's animation to be like, a spectral sword thrust so it's a ranged attack too, we'd have PLD be a quite unique tank, I think. A '5 step Combo' compared to the others having a '3 step', and those last 2 steps would be not only ranged (can shift around for uptime optimization), but also delayable (as long as you use them before your next Royal), leading to rotational versatility. I also think that while 'pressing your 123 an extra time per minute' would be ehhhhh, it's a lot more 'ehhhhh' to me, to press Atonement 3 times in a row. Especially with it's limp animation

My Initial Response would've been "How about we get Old Sword Oath back?", like make it double your Auto-Attacks and give it a 10% Damage Boost to Weaponskills or something.. but thinking about it further I see multiple Points they could've worked on:

• make Expiacion Single Target and make it share the Cool Down Circle of Scorn (2 AoE OGCDs with one of them having the requirement for a Target feels redundant and clunky)
• remove or revert Goring Blade (a Single Target Burst Skill is nice but so was Spirits Within)
• with the 6.3 PLD Changes Requiescat Stacks should only be consumed by the Blades Combo, no Clemency, Holy Spirit or Holy Circle
• Divine Might should be stackable, at least up to 5 Stacks and should include Clemency
• Kill the Atonement Spam, It's fine for a Warrior to Spam Fell Cleave and Samurai is already spamming Shinten like a Bitch, Paladin shouldn't that kind of same playstyle

that be my Ideas for Changes

[Rithy255]

Here's some Changes I wanna See generally, this is just my opinion right now, I want PLD to feel like a "Combo tank" with having different and seperate, combos somewhat like it used to with how you had two different finishers and atonement felt a lot less spammy as you didn't use it that much compared to now.

1. Free Up some space, Circle of scorn, FOF and some other abilities could be removed/reworked.
2. Add a Savage Blade > Goring Blade combo, this will give you the effect of "fight or flight" for 30 seconds, which can be stacked up to 60 seconds, this could either boost damage, slightly speed up skill speed & spell speed or do a bit of both, this means removing FOF button, but making PLD's goring blade have purpose.
3. Reduce atonement down to 2 Uses, Allow doing two atonements to give you one stack of "Divine might", You can hold up to 2 Stacks of Divine might now, Atonement doesn't break combo also and gives out more MP.
4. Improve Niche Abilities, Cover you could extend the range, make it cost no gauge and share any healing effect the PLD gives out, Clemency you could make a OGCD targetable heal that coosts around 3000 MP, so you could still spam it in situations at the risk of your own DPS by having no MP for spells this makes MP management more of a thing on PLD, Shield Bash could be a OGCD stun that does damage with two charges that stuns aoe (Its even OGCD in pvp I believe), Passage of arms should be reworked, Divine veil could give out a regen instead of that 400 upfront healing, last but not least Oath gauge should feel more rewarding to the Job, auto attacks? My idea is using shelltron/Sentinel should reward you with extra Gauge.
5. Make the Job FUN at early levels, I really don't get why a lot of jobs got to feel awful to play until your in stormblood/shadowbringers... Just makes synching down feel terrible.


On point 4, I might see how we could also nerf somethings as all those changes complied together would make PLD really strong, many ideas like Removing self healing from magic attacks and only giving you a bit on atonements (200?) or something, I don't know I want to see PLD as a strong support/utility tank without Making it too powerful, I think one thing is we could have the longest Invul still to counter some strengths, also PLD should be very slightly behind DRK/GNB (but not to the point where PLD becomes useless).

I know most people might not agree with every change I've listed but Ideally we all want better for current PLD.

[ataren3]

5. Make the Job FUN at early levels, I really don't get why a lot of jobs got to feel awful to play until your in stormblood/shadowbringers... Just makes synching down feel terrible.

It's actually a little baffling at how... bad PLD feels at low levels. It was an OG tank alongside WAR and it just feels really, really bad.