So does every hate new PLD now?

[ForsakenRoe]

Idk, I think 'OGCD attack that targets enemy, does damage, gives buff' changing just the OGCD portion to GCD, and having it upgrade from 'GCD attack that does damage and gives buff' to 'GCD attack that does damage (now with AOE) and gives buff' is a lot less jarring than having 'selfbuff that increases damage dealt' upgrade to 'move that increases damage dealt, and can be used with or without an enemy present, doing damage if there is one'. We already have a move that works that way, it's Holmgang. And people macro it to selftarget it, because being out of range but having something targetted makes it fail to activate. I see you say 'make it not melee range' but that's a bandaid fix. Req feels 'meh' at the minute, a 300p ST GCD we hit before doing the burst window. Making it a GCD removes a weave, yes, but it allows for SE to make the potency much higher to compensate (as example, NIN GCD mudras went from Raiton being 360 to now being 650 (dont remember what it was in SHB, might have been as high as 800 at the time, i don't recall).

As for Goring, well, they really just copied Sonic Break and called it a day. I'd have done the rework different, and that'd have given Goring and Shield Bash a place in the rotation, but I'm not the devs and so we're here. In any other game I'd suggest 'what if we have a trait that reduces the CD of Goring by X seconds each time you Atonement' but then it isnt aligned with the all powerful, way-too-emphasized raidbuff window. With the way fight design is so subservient to the 2min burst now, I don't think it is even possible to 'fix' Goring. Only thing that comes to mind is to rework it to be another proc off of Rage of Halone (later Royal), and change Atonement from 3 stacks to 1. But that'd screw with the rotation loop too, so that doesn't exactly 'fix' things either. They painted themselves into a corner on it.

I'd have had 3 combos: Fast - Riot - Royal - Atonement generates MP, Fast - Shieldbash - Goring - HS spends MP. Conf - Blade - Blade - Blade also costs MP so you need to make sure you have enough going into burst window. Thus, the rotation is built from six of these '4 GCD blocks', and you can freely mix them up as you need. It has versatility, adaptability, it doesn't require you to do jank stuff like 'purposely drop Atonements', but it'd still have a bit of the old 'shift things around to optimize around downtimes' people liked about ye olde PLD. If you know there's a downtime like High Concept, you can purposely change out Atonements for Goring combos to spend more MP, and your MP economy is okay with that because you're generating MP in the downtime. And the best part is, Shield Bash becomes an actual part of the rotation, we get to hit things with our shield instead of it just sitting there looking pretty

[cjbeagle]

+1 for being unhappy with the rework - I liked the old version substantially better.

My main complaint with the rework is the amount of Atonement spam. Spamming the same attack 3 times in a row was bad enough in the old version and now it's even more prevalent.

I also really miss the DOT - the old rotation was rigid, and I appreciate the new flexibility, but I liked how with the old rotation everything fell perfectly into place if you had full uptime - your DOT was always refreshed exactly when you needed it to be - the new rotation, while flexible, also feels loose and sloppy since there's no overarching mechanic to tie it together.

We basically used to have 3 combos - Magic, Goring, and the Atonement combo, giving a rotation of Magic, Atonement, Goring, Atonement, Goring, back into Magic, if I remember right - now we just have Magic and Atonement, so the rotation has become Magic, Atonement, Atonement, Atonement, Atonement 3 combos? 4? Whatever - until your Magic combo is available again - it's just endless spam of the same combo until burst - it's mind-numbing.

[Rithy255]

+1 for being unhappy with the rework - I liked the old version substantially better.

My main complaint with the rework is the amount of Atonement spam. Spamming the same attack 3 times in a row was bad enough in the old version and now it's even more prevalent.

I also really miss the DOT - the old rotation was rigid, and I appreciate the new flexibility, but I liked how with the old rotation everything fell perfectly into place if you had full uptime - your DOT was always refreshed exactly when you needed it to be - the new rotation, while flexible, also feels loose and sloppy since there's no overarching mechanic to tie it together.

We basically used to have 3 combos - Magic, Goring, and the Atonement combo, giving a rotation of Magic, Atonement, Goring, Atonement, Goring, back into Magic, if I remember right - now we just have Magic and Atonement, so the rotation has become Magic, Atonement, Atonement, Atonement, Atonement 3 combos? 4? Whatever - until your Magic combo is available again - it's just endless spam of the same combo until burst - it's mind-numbing.

I agree in a sense, I personally don't think we should revert to 6.2 or something but, the main issue I find is instead of reworking Goring Blade into a button you actively use in your rotation, its become a button that honestly I forget about sometimes (unironically, I'll do everything but i'll randomly forget goring blade even exists, ending up drifting it)

I think goring blade even being made less Rigid, with being able to be stacked or something would actually help a lot to break up the atonement spam, I'd like to see atonement also be reduced to 2 and using both of your atonements would give you another stack of Holy spirit possibly, I'm not a rotation expert though, I just feel that the two main issues right now are Goring Blade and Atonement I don't want atonement gone completely nor do I want goring blade gone I just want them to be better, Divine might is actually quite nice in that it gives you a lot more ranged and cuts down on your magic burst spam, while keeping PLD's identity as the only proper "Magic tank" (Sorry dark knights you're just warrior that's more busy).

I see the rework as serval steps in the right direction, but also taking serval steps back, I understand reworking goring blade, but right now it's So boring and uninspired, Paladin to me felt like you were going into different combos instead of being a "builder spender" tank I really liked how diverse it's GCD's were, now it feels like you're just pressing whatever lights up and using magic burst. I don't really dislike it right now but i also think it deserves to be so much better

[cjbeagle]

I see the rework as serval steps in the right direction, but also taking serval steps back, I understand reworking goring blade, but right now it's So boring and uninspired, Paladin to me felt like you were going into different combos instead of being a "builder spender" tank I really liked how diverse it's GCD's were, now it feels like you're just pressing whatever lights up and using magic burst. I don't really dislike it right now but i also think it deserves to be so much better

100%, and I ran into the same issue about forgetting to use Goring for a while, but Fight or Flight, Goring Blade, and Requiescat are all on the same base cooldown, so now I just use Goring after FoF and Requiescat during Goring's GCD and it's no longer an issue - I completely ignore the cooldowns of both Goring and Requiescat and just use FoF on cooldown, letting the other 2 follow in kind.

I agree that Goring Blade is now boring and uninspired, and while that's a problem in and of itself, it's also a problem that it serves no purpose in the rotation besides "the thing I use after Fight or Flight", and arguably it actually hurts the rotation because it causes the Atonement combo to shift 1 GCD per minute relative to the burst window. The rotation used to fit perfectly into 60s, but now you have 1 more GCD than you can fit into 60s (or even 2, depending on skill speed). That isn't necessarily a problem, but I'm not a fan personally. I liked how we used to flow from one combo into the next, but now I have an extra Holy Spirit or Atonement left over from the combo before the magic combo to use before I go back into a normal rotation - next minute I'll have a Holy Spirit and an Atonement, or 2 Atonements left over to use, etc. until eventually after the magic combo I'm picking up melee again with Royal Authority or Riot Blade - some random spot in the middle of the melee combo itself - "SLOPPY!"

Goring Blade, Confetti, Blade 1, 2, and 3 - 5 GCDs for burst.
Fast Blade, Riot Blade, Royal Authority, Atonement x3, Holy Spirit - 7 GCDs for melee.

Following the 5 GCDs for burst we can fit 19-20 GCDs in before the burst combo is ready again - neither of those are multiples of 7, thus the carry-over we get.

If they removed Goring Blade (or made it an OGCD), that would give us 20-21 GCDs between magic combos, which would a give us a (very low) skill speed threshold that would allow us to fit 3 full 7-length melee combos between burst windows.

If they kept Goring Blade as a 60s weaponskill, but altered the base combo, we'd be looking 19-20 GCDs again, so with a (very low) skill speed threshold to allow 20, they'd need to alter the base combo to be either 4 or 5 long (change Royal Authority to only give 1 Atonement instead of 3 and it solves both 1m GCDs as well as Atonement spam).

Ultimately, though, I don't think either of the above changes would be an improvement over the pre-rework kit, because either way you're still just spamming the same combo between burst phases. PLD used to play more like MNK or DRG in terms of combo alteration, and that facet of their kit has been completely lost outside of burst.

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

The rotation used to fit perfectly into 60s, but now you have 1 more GCD than you can fit into 60s (or even 2, depending on skill speed). That isn't necessarily a problem,

HUH?!?
What are you talking about? PLDs rotation drifted so hard out of the 60second window you had to drop an Atonement every loop, and even then it still drifted out of the 60second alignment. One of the reasons the rotation got changed was Goring took too long to apply to get to the burst in the rotation, and secondly half your burst ended up outside of raid buffs lol

[cjbeagle]

HUH?!?
What are you talking about? PLDs rotation drifted so hard out of the 60second window you had to drop an Atonement every loop, and even then it still drifted out of the 60second alignment. One of the reasons the rotation got changed was Goring took too long to apply to get to the burst in the rotation, and secondly half your burst ended up outside of raid buffs lol

I'll take your word for it - I'm no PLD main, so I'm sure there are details and nuance that I'm not privy to both in the old rotation as well as the new - just here to express my displeasure with the changes - PLD used to be my favorite tank by far, and now it isn't.

[RyuDragnier]

I'll take your word for it - I'm no PLD main, so I'm sure there are details and nuance that I'm not privy to both in the old rotation as well as the new - just here to express my displeasure with the changes - PLD used to be my favorite tank by far, and now it isn't.

Blame that entirely upon Atonement, which is the main skill I've hated on PLD since its addition simply because of how much it messed with the "flow" PLD had prior to it. Even now it screws with PLD's flow and prevents it from feeling good.

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

I'll take your word for it - I'm no PLD main, so I'm sure there are details and nuance that I'm not privy to both in the old rotation as well as the new - just here to express my displeasure with the changes - PLD used to be my favorite tank by far, and now it isn't.

That's fair, but it does mean, for me personally, your points carries a lot less impact, since you lack basic understanding of how the rotation used to be, and of the new rotation.

There is also the sheer amount of extra effort that went into playing the old rotation which was more difficult to optimize than any other tank, but was significantly behind in damage.

Atonement was never an issue either, whatever about personal gripes you might have Ryu, but in ShB Atonement was significantly more damage and it was mainly the introduction of more spells into the rotation in EW which aren't affected by SkS that put the rotation on a longer length to complete and making Holy Spirit more potency, so we dropped 1 Atonement to attempt to stay within the 60second window that messed up Paladin's rotation, so sure blame Atonement for not being more potency before the change.

[RyuDragnier]

Atonement was never an issue either, whatever about personal gripes you might have Ryu, but in ShB Atonement was significantly more damage and it was mainly the introduction of more spells into the rotation in EW which aren't affected by SkS that put the rotation on a longer length to complete and making Holy Spirit more potency, so we dropped 1 Atonement to attempt to stay within the 60second window that messed up Paladin's rotation, so sure blame Atonement for not being more potency before the change.

My issue is just...3 presses of a single attack every combo is...not fun design at all. I wouldn't mind if Atonement's use was dropped to 2, while buffing potency from 380 to 570 to make up for the missing 3rd use. Or hell, if they combined Atonement with Goring Blade somehow, like a second combo off of Goring Blade that's usable every 30s (so it mixes up the rotation a bit).

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

My issue is just...3 presses of a single attack every combo is...not fun design at all. I wouldn't mind if Atonement's use was dropped to 2, while buffing potency from 380 to 570 to make up for the missing 3rd use. Or hell, if they combined Atonement with Goring Blade somehow, like a second combo off of Goring Blade that's usable every 30s (so it mixes up the rotation a bit).

Okay but the design has been in the game for years and every tank has the same thing where they spam lmao but you take issue with Atonement? Uhm okay then?