Give us back the old Paladin

[Renathras]

You're not, you're comparing something completely different. If I was cherry picking data, I would only choose the fights that make PLD look good. Just because PLD had a shaky start at the beginning of EW until 6.2, does not mean PLD was in a bad state in 6.28 just before 6.3 was released.

You literally only chose ONE fight which you thought did make PLD look good. And the thing is, it doesn't even do that - looking up that very fight shows PLD was not at the top. I can't find any point in time that it was. And all other data says that wasn't true. It does, in fact, mean that PLD was in a bad state in 6.28. Again, that was entirely the reason it got a rework.

PLD absolutely was NOT the worst in 6.28,

Of the Tanks, across all players clearing any level of content (Savage bosses, Extreme bosses, 24 man bosses, and Ultimates), PLD was the worst or functionally tied (with WAR, usually) for the worst. There was no point that I've been able to find where PLD was the best, and you've not provided any. When DRK wasn't the best, it was almost always GNB, not PLD. And in the few cases neither were (Ex4), it was WAR that was the best and PLD was still the worst. I can't find any data supporting PLD being the best at any point in EW. In fact, all of EW, people had been complaining about how PLD was worse than even WAR.

PLD was not "absolutely fine" by any stretch at all. Even before the rework, it was getting routine potency boosts in the prior patches. Because it was not "fine", it was weak.

First off, that's the most atrocious analogy I have ever seen.

It's the most common example used to show a Loaded Question Fallacy has occurred: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_question

A loaded question is a form of complex question that contains a controversial assumption (e.g., a presumption of guilt).[1]

Such questions may be used as a rhetorical tool: the question attempts to limit direct replies to be those that serve the questioner's agenda.[2] The traditional example is the question "Have you stopped beating your wife?" Whether the respondent answers yes or no, they will admit to having a wife and having beaten her at some time in the past. Thus, these facts are presupposed by the question, and in this case an entrapment, because it narrows the respondent to a single answer, and the fallacy of many questions has been committed.

Your question, "So there should be no difficulty in the jobs at all then?", is a Loaded Question/Many Questions Fallacy, since it's supposing that in suggesting Old PLD was not fine is somehow also suggesting there should be no difficulty in Jobs, and/or suggesting my position has been that there should be no difficulty in Jobs, a position I've never held.

Second, everything you have been saying has been heavily implying that you don't want difficulty

Howso?

Where have I ever said - because I've never implied, much less heavily - that I don't want difficulty. I even have said that difficulty is good (my Battletoads example), but that clunk is not the same thing as difficulty/challenge. You read something into my post that didn't exist, and then attacked that rather than...the words I actually said.

While difficulty is subjective, my idea of "rotational difficulty" is a rotation which is rigid enough to where you can either do it right or you can do it wrong and actually requires you to think so that's just my interpretation.

And that's fine. But it's subjective. Many people like DRG and find it easier than any of the proc or bursty Jobs. They find BRD overwhelming and NIN too busy. But DRG is the one that has the rigid rotation. Likewise, "requires you to think" is subjective. To me, once you had Old PLD's rotation down, there was zero thought. It was identical every time. There was NEVER a point in Old PLD where you thought "Should I use Royal here or Goring here?". If your DoT was up, you used Royal. If your DoT was falling off, you used Goring. There's no thought there. The static rotation was Royal Goring Royal Goring Swords repeat. The only deviations where when the boss became untargetable and/or add phases...which just caused a "record skip" after which you went to the same rotation again. If a boss was about to be untargetable, that was the only time there was any deviation from that rotation, and that's true of literally every other Job (even Healers; if their DoT is about to fall off but the boss is going untargetable soon, skipping out on the Dia to cast a few more Glares is actually the DPS gain). That doesn't require you to think. That requires you to rote memorize and regurgitate. It's like the difference between a history exam and a physics exam.

Which isn't a BAD thing - some players enjoy that kind of gameplay, and as I said, I think there should be Jobs in the game for them.

I'm just saying it wasn't objectively better and New PLD isn't objectively worse other than it needs a balance pass on its potencies, which I suspect it will get in 6.35.

The rotation is just as rigid with the exception of DM HS.

...which is why the New PLD rotation...is objectively less rigid... <_<

I didn't say it was a LOT less rigid, though it's that, too - for example, casting a non-buffed HS in place of an Atonement is only a minor DPS loss and so is arguably less rigidity, whereas under old PLD, it was simply disallowed since it would throw off your entire rotation and push your Requiescat phase; not to mention you didn't get the one "free" HS.

PLD remains the least played tank across the tier, with 20k recorded parses for 6.3 compared with the ~30k of drk/gnb/war. In fact, it seems that the rework has had the effect of increasing Warrior's playrate rather than paladin - rising from ~45k to gnb/drk's ~60k and pld's 30k in the 6.2 patches.

Yup. Though the exact reasoning is kind of elusive.

The people that liked Old PLD surely don't like WAR more (seems they'd move to GNB or DRK instead, if anything), though I guess WAR does a bit more damage?

As I say, I think they should have left Old PLD in the game, so...

[Lamarcy2699]

I was wrong with my perception of what you said and I apologize for that. As for damage numbers, the only fight PLD was on par with WAR was in DSR. The GNB/DRK meta was never going to change even with the 6.3 changes but that's just it; old PLD didn't even need to be meta, it just needed to be fun while also not a hinderance like it was in 6.0 and that's exactly what it was in 6.28. For individual damage values, ex4 in 6.28 across all percentage values, PLD was top but for absolute maximum yes it would be beaten by DRK and GNB because of the 60/120 burst meta but that doesn't mean PLD was that far behind in absolute maximum damage. GNB had 7256.75dps and PLD was just below with 7219.8 dps. P7S DRK had 7473dps and PLD was 7524dps. It only started to fall off if you look at aDPS values but that's only because of the 60/120 meta and PLDs differing burst nature. The overall damage provided by a PLD, if you remove buffs from the equation, was on-par with DRK/GNB. As you said, the current 60/120 changes are killing the game and PLD is proof of this.

I guess my main point is if I wanted to play GNB, I'd just play GNB, but I didn't want to play GNB I wanted to play PLD and what we have right now isn't PLD. It's a simplistic, "half-baked, slightly more flexible GNB" and it's frustrating. The lost damage just feels like kicking while it's already down. The changes didn't revitalize the job like what happened to NIN when they did the NIN changes they've only succeeded in lowering the amount people play PLD because it's in a worse state now than it was in 6.28. Both damage-wise and gameplay-wise.

[nia_saeli]

Right, but that's what I mean about if you pull things into too much of a vacuum, everything feels the same.

For example:

...
FoF is just Infuriate

...indeed, some parts (Req/Confet Inner Release/Fellspam) are PLD being more like WAR than like GNB.

But that's my point: People are zooming out and saying PLD and GNB look the same, when PLD from that distance looks just as much (if not more) like WAR. It plays more like WAR ... with a similar APM.

Apologies, I'm not tyring to misrepresent your post, but it's too wordy and the forum is giving me a 3000 character limit for some reason.

So, while I can see your point, "FoF is just Infuriate (with only one charge)", really? While I'll admit that Req shares more similarities with Inner Release than Bloodfest, FoF (20s damage boost) shares no similarities with Infuriate (give you a free Inner Chaos) to the point that your response feels pretty close to trolling.

On the otherhand, I realize that I forgot to include the major important point for why the GNB and PLD flow feels so similar (even if their APM is a different order of magnitude). FoF and No Mercy are the same exact ability (sans a 5% difference in damage) with different names and have the same impact to _how_ GNB and PLD do their rotation.

FoF/No Mercy both dictate the overall flow of the rotation as the cornerstone of doing DPS as either involves hitting FoF/No Mercy and sticking the following 5 GCDs into an 8 GCD window
- Goring Blade/Sonic Break
- Confetti/Double Down
- Blade of Valor Combo/Gnashing Fang combo (3 GCDs)

The last 3 GCDs are filler based on remaining cartridges (in the case of GNB) and priority (in the case of PLD). This gives both PLD and GNB the same "personal burst" which they have to make use of in all content whether there are party buffs or not. Even if we go ahead and say that Req is just a "PLD themed Inner Release", it's usage is still dictated by fitting it into FoF/No Mercy window. Not to mention that both Blades and Gnashing Fang can both be broken if you hit one of your 123 combo. IR and Delirium have no such restriction (playing and optimizing for raid buffs is a different point entirely).

It's a bit disingenuous to declare that I'm "zooming out and saying PLD and GNB look the same" when just the effect of FoF/No Mercy on the rotation is just so similar.

(As a side note, the blades combo only "feels like Inner Release" because the combo was consolidated into one button (just like Gnashing Fang). If the blades combo came out during 5.0, it would probably have been three separate buttons similar to how Gnashing Fang was.)

You are free to disagree, as for you the job flow and actions aren't as important as APM, but when looking at the job from how you manage your resources/cooldowns and abilities, I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

edit: This whole discussion actually highlights a pretty big problem with current tank design. The differences between the tanks mostly come down to nuance instead of rotational variety. This is not a problem for DPS jobs as melee, casters and ranged all have wildly different playstyles within their respective subclass. Like, when comparing DPS jobs that have "similar" gimmicks such as NIN mudras and DNC's dancing (pressing buttons in rapid succession to prime your actual attack) or resources such as MNK and SAM's Sen/Nadi (both collecting stickers to spend on finishers -- blitz and iaijutsu respectively). Even in those cases, the rest of the job provides enough rotational variety that it doesn't really feel similar to one another.

Like SAM and MNK could have their gimmicks made _identical_ (either changing Iaijutsu to be like blitz or vice versa) and the basic combos and buff upkeep is enough to still make them "feel" like radically different jobs in the way that tanks just don't, atm.

I guess my main point is if I wanted to play GNB, I'd just play GNB, but I didn't want to play GNB I wanted to play PLD and what we have right now isn't PLD.

I couldn't have summarized it better.

[Mikey_R]

I was wrong with my perception of what you said and I apologize for that. As for damage numbers, the only fight PLD was on par with WAR was in DSR. The GNB/DRK meta was never going to change even with the 6.3 changes but that's just it; old PLD didn't even need to be meta, it just needed to be fun while also not a hinderance like it was in 6.0 and that's exactly what it was in 6.28. For individual damage values, ex4 in 6.28 across all percentage values, PLD was top but for absolute maximum yes it would be beaten by DRK and GNB because of the 60/120 burst meta but that doesn't mean PLD was that far behind in absolute maximum damage. GNB had 7256.75dps and PLD was just below with 7219.8 dps. P7S DRK had 7473dps and PLD was 7524dps. It only started to fall off if you look at aDPS values but that's only because of the 60/120 meta and PLDs differing burst nature. The overall damage provided by a PLD, if you remove buffs from the equation, was on-par with DRK/GNB. As you said, the current 60/120 changes are killing the game and PLD is proof of this.

I was wondering which DPS values you were using and it is clear you were looking at rDPS. However, to accurately measure how much a tank contributes to a fight, you have to look at their aDPS, of which you have already noted that PLD falls off.

[Lamarcy2699]

aDPS is far too subject to variances such as what jobs you bring with you into the fight and how well your team play them. Yes I understand that PLD not fitting in with the current job design was an issue but as I said, the job didn't need to be meta because the meta of GNB/DRK would never change. It just needed to be fun while not a hinderance to the party, that's exactly what it was in 6.28. It's just reinforcing that buff providers>non-buff providers and that's just even worse design than one job not fitting with that design.

[Mikey_R]

aDPS is far too subject to variances such as what jobs you bring with you into the fight and how well your team play them. Yes I understand that PLD not fitting in with the current job design was an issue but as I said, the job didn't need to be meta because the meta of GNB/DRK would never change. It just needed to be fun while not a hinderance to the party, that's exactly what it was in 6.28. It's just reinforcing that buff providers>non-buff providers and that's just even worse design than one job not fitting with that design.

Which is why the data uses the average over all the data they have to come up with the values, to eliminate the variability as much as possible.

To highlight why it is not fair to compare tanks under rDPS, let's take 2 jobs. Job 1 is pure sustain. It's rotation does the same damage through the whole thing, including the burst. The second job does an enormous amount of damage in the burst, but nothing for the rest of the minute. Overall, after a minute, they will go the same DPS though.

If you then add in raid buffs, which are multiplicative, the sustained job is going to get a bump, however, the burst job is going to get a massive bump, causing it's DPS to skyrocket. If you then take the average over a minute for both, the burst job is going to have a higher DPS than the sustained one. In this case, which tank is contributing more? It should be obvious the burst job is contributing more DPS to the fight because it lines up with the raid buffs better.

This is also why just using rDPS for everything is not accurate. A job using a raid buff gets all the benefits that the other jobs put in. This buff job didn't do anything except put a buff out, the one receiving the buff is the one that put the effort in after all. But, a selfish job gets no benefit from raid buffs, as you jus give that contribution to someone else.

There are pros and cons to both rDPS and aDPS and recognising where, when and how to use the data sets effectively is key, you cannot just look at one and use that as the king of metrics.

Tanks have no raid buffs, so they receive nothing from any other job, all that matters is how well they play into raid buffs, which is where aDPS comes into it, and is the reason why you should only measure tanks based on their aDPS. If a tank comes along that has a raid buff, then the discussion becomes more complicated.

[Lamarcy2699]

Which is why the data uses the average over all the data they have to come up with the values, to eliminate the variability as much as possible.

To highlight why it is not fair to compare tanks under rDPS, let's take 2 jobs. Job 1 is pure sustain. It's rotation does the same damage through the whole thing, including the burst. The second job does an enormous amount of damage in the burst, but nothing for the rest of the minute. Overall, after a minute, they will go the same DPS though.

If you then add in raid buffs, which are multiplicative, the sustained job is going to get a bump, however, the burst job is going to get a massive bump, causing it's DPS to skyrocket. If you then take the average over a minute for both, the burst job is going to have a higher DPS than the sustained one. In this case, which tank is contributing more? It should be obvious the burst job is contributing more DPS to the fight because it lines up with the raid buffs better.

This is also why just using rDPS for everything is not accurate. A job using a raid buff gets all the benefits that the other jobs put in. This buff job didn't do anything except put a buff out, the one receiving the buff is the one that put the effort in after all. But, a selfish job gets no benefit from raid buffs, as you jus give that contribution to someone else.

There are pros and cons to both rDPS and aDPS and recognising where, when and how to use the data sets effectively is key, you cannot just look at one and use that as the king of metrics.

Tanks have no raid buffs, so they receive nothing from any other job, all that matters is how well they play into raid buffs, which is where aDPS comes into it, and is the reason why you should only measure tanks based on their aDPS. If a tank comes along that has a raid buff, then the discussion becomes more complicated.

nDPS is a comparative measure to show how much damage a job can do with no buffs attached, rDPS is the value of damage a job individually provides to the party be it through raid buffs or pure damage, aDPS is a comparitive measure to show how well the job synergizes with the fight design/current job designs and as I said PLD did have an issue here and yes you are correct in this and it was rather disingenuous for me to use just rDPS but PLDs aDPS has remained close/slightly under to what it was in 6.28 whereas its rDPS/nDPS has taken a rather big loss. This means PLD is not in a much better state than it was before and is, in fact, in a worse one. Sure they can adjust numbers to make it higher as it synergizes better with the 60/120 design but then we still have the issue of the job not being very fun to play.

[aiqa]

I'm enjoying the new PLD more. Small rdps issues can be fixed easily with a few potency tweaks, without having to go back to the old PLD.

[LevKresnik]

I played PLD a lot before the changes. I play it a lot still. Goring Blade aside, I'm pleased with those changes. That said, I do not miss Goring Blade as it was, I just don't care much for what it is (no real change there, I guess). PLD is a sturdy house. It's not overtly extravagant, but you can live in it. Goring is annoying roommate, but you don't see them too much, so it's okay. More tragic is how messy the patio looks. Heaping piles of trash prevent you from truly enjoying the scenic landscape. Cleaning it seems a daunting task, but all the same, Cover and Shield Bash have avoided the bin for far too long.

[Renathras]

...

Fair enough. Like I said, I don't think they should have removed Old PLD. I'm just saying I don't think it was in a good place. "fun" is pretty subjective. But it's why I support the game having multiple playstyles.

I think New PLD is honestly a better GNB, just with bad number tuning. It's a lot more fun to me than GNB and it's not convoluted like Old PLD. But I think both should exist instead of one or the other. I think it's better because it allows actual meaningful choice on the part of the player - or what I consider meaningful. GNB's rotation is like DRG's other than the pacing. It's hyper-rigid. So was Old PLD (arguably, Old PLD was more like GNB than New PLD is in terms of design philosophy and gameplay execution). It's one thing nice about GNB - once you know it, you can't get lost - but also bad about it - there's no way to change it up or react to changing situations. New PLD takes the good parts of GNB's builder-spender system but adds in a layer of actual flexibility.

Then it does something else that was probably an accident but works - it adds more. As I say, hardcasting a HS in place of one Atonement is a 10 potency loss, which is pretty negligible considering it's giving you some rotational flexibility, additional sustain, and allowing you to stay engaged with the boss even if you have to be at range for an extended time. GNB, WAR, and DRK all have their ranged Shield Lob equivalent, but none have anything like Holy Spirit, even ignoring Swords. To me, that's MEANINGFUL choice - a small DPS loss for rotational flexibility and optimizing for specific encounters. And while some players prefer a more frenetic combat style, which GNB offers, some of us prefer things to be at a slower, more strategic pace, which New PLD offers instead. Not to mention it doesn't have GNB's problem of trying to weave mitigations into a Gnashing Fang combo.

So I guess I don't consider New PLD to be a worse GNB. I consider New PLD to be a better GNB.

But yes, the 2 min meta is killing things, and this is just the latest example...

...

I was more trying to show that if you zoom out too far, everything looks the same. Moreover, in some of the cases (like Requiescat/Inner Release), PLD is more similar to WAR. So rather than being "a worse GNB" it's more "a mid-point straddling WAR and GNB". It may be that's why it feels so samey to you to the other Tanks. If you think of WAR, DRK, and GNB as the points of a triangle, PLD is now the point in the center of the triangle in between them, whereas before, it was more a parallelogram/diamond with PLD being the fourth point sharing a side with GNB and the other side sharing with DRK (probably, guess it could have been WAR...). This is why PLD simultaneously looks like all three of the other Tanks, depending on which aspect you're focusing more on. I could try rebutting individual points - for example, old FoF did this same thing, though you could just have argued that old Requiescat was PLD's No Mercy; both require pooling resources before using and fitting an exacting number of abilities into their windows - but I think I made the general point and you're not going to agree with the specifics in all cases. But I think the triangle/diamond visualization will probably help.

The point was: Most of the Tanks are similar at this point, especially if you look at things from a distance.

PLD's now basically "all the other Tanks combined". But again, this is a problem that the 2 min meta's forced on us (along with players forcing it on us over time complaining about little QOL things the other Tanks have that they wanted on their own), which is a lot of homogenization.