After 1 (arguably 2) expansions what is square trying to achieve with WAR (and PLD)?

[Asako]

Warrior has always been about Damage to HP so as it is now I think it's in a great shape.

Personally I thought PLD was good until the recent change. I actually hate new PLD. You still need to drop Atonements so the rotation makes even less sense than it used to. Boring Blade is terrible, and we know its just going to get an aoe version in DT. Req Cast being a melee move still baffles me to this day. Cover is shocking. Clemency shouldn't exist or at least change it to an OGCD with a non spammable or lower potency.

[Supersnow845]

Warrior has always been about Damage to HP so as it is now I think it's in a great shape.

Personally I thought PLD was good until the recent change. I actually hate new PLD. You still need to drop Atonements so the rotation makes even less sense than it used to. Boring Blade is terrible, and we know its just going to get an aoe version in DT. Req Cast being a melee move still baffles me to this day. Cover is shocking. Clemency shouldn't exist or at least change it to an OGCD with a non spammable or lower potency.

What “damage to HP” they just have cost less heals that basically amount to overpowered (even by healer standards) heals you just press on CD

[rawker]

Warrior has always been about Damage to HP so as it is now I think it's in a great shape.

Personally I thought PLD was good until the recent change. I actually hate new PLD. You still need to drop Atonements so the rotation makes even less sense than it used to. Boring Blade is terrible, and we know its just going to get an aoe version in DT. Req Cast being a melee move still baffles me to this day. Cover is shocking. Clemency shouldn't exist or at least change it to an OGCD with a non spammable or lower potency.

A couple of things I wish to see on PLD

- Fight or Flight is upgraded to Spirit's Within then is upgraded to Expiacion.
- Revert Goring Blade to be a DoT applying combo action from Riot Blade. Combo'ed Goring Blade also gives Divine Might and Sword Oath.
- Rework Circle of Scorn to be a combo action from Total Eclipse that does damage and applies a DoT. Combo'ed Circle of Scorn also gives Divine Might.
- bring back Shield Swipe as magic attacks are now blockable. Allow it to hold up to 3 charges via trait. Blocking an attack lowers the cooldown of Shield Swipe.
- Cover to get a trait where if the PLD receives a total of 50% of its max HP from redirected damage, the PLD gets healed for 1000 potency. Will only proc once per usage of Cover. Cover can also block redirected damage.
- remove damage from Intervene and add 25 oath gauge cost. Lower its cooldown to 5 seconds
- add a trait to Shield Bash where it will get its potency increased after using Intervene and removes the stun effect. Can combo into Riot Blade. Combo'ed Riot Blade from Shield Bash will also give 15 Oath Gauge, in addition to 1000MP.

[GoatOfWar]

Warrior has always been about Damage to HP so as it is now I think it's in a great shape.

Personally I thought PLD was good until the recent change. I actually hate new PLD. You still need to drop Atonements so the rotation makes even less sense than it used to. Boring Blade is terrible, and we know its just going to get an aoe version in DT. Req Cast being a melee move still baffles me to this day. Cover is shocking. Clemency shouldn't exist or at least change it to an OGCD with a non spammable or lower potency.

That used to be the Drk job identity, it just got transplanted into Warrior.
You know what else Warrior gobbled up from Dark knight? Reprisal and low blow.
TBN used to the the strongest short tank cd, but then Warrior took that as well. Dark knight used to have the most gap closers, now Warrior has 4.
And in EW, Warrior also needed Dark knight's damage apparently. And now there's literally nothing left to take, Warrior is just flat out better.

I wouldn't say Warrior is in a good spot when Warrior's current design just cannibalises and takes away from the others.
Yet, still manages to have the fewest buttons of all tanks and the easiest to optimise rotation of all jobs in the game period.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Warrior has always been about Damage to HP so as it is now I think it's in a great shape.

Personally I thought PLD was good until the recent change. I actually hate new PLD. You still need to drop Atonements so the rotation makes even less sense than it used to. Boring Blade is terrible, and we know its just going to get an aoe version in DT. Req Cast being a melee move still baffles me to this day. Cover is shocking. Clemency shouldn't exist or at least change it to an OGCD with a non spammable or lower potency.

The bolded part first - you do NOT drop Atonements in current PLD design, at all. When you complete a Royal Authority combo and are not inside your Fight or Flight window, you actually pre-load the next combo with Fast Blade -> Riot Blade, then spend all stacks of Sword Oath: Atonement and use your Divine Might: Holy Spirit. That way all your filler aside Goring Blade, Confiteor and Blade of Valor combo is still Holy Spirit, Atonement or Royal Authority.

Arguably this is one of the better versions of Paladin. The kicker here is that Holy Spirit and Holy Circle aren't purely relegated to Requiescat windows as before and are much more adjustable when to use them. I started playing slow PLD (~2.50s GCD) in 6.25, which played similarly and pretty much kept Goring Blade usage to about 1 per minute and I enjoyed that more.

As for things being a bit bland or having issues - I really hope they DON'T repeat the "this button but now AOE" or "this button but now Single Target and more potency". Goring Blade could simply be repurposed to a frontal cleave with say -60% falloff after the first target. Saves a button, makes Goring Blade not a lost button during AOE pulls. Requiescat could definitely be ranged, but honestly I'm not gonna lose sleep over it being melee since its' inception in Stormblood.

Cover has been nerfed into a borderline useless state by adding that gauge cost on top of dropping the mitigation back in Stormblood. It has been four years. Remove either the gauge cost OR return the Lv66 Cover Trait and keep the gauge cost. Recent buster designs also generally now favour Holy Sheltron + Intervention combos anyhow and even if there was a niche for Cover, we are unlikely to experiment with it because 50 Oath cost is simply too much for providing zero mitigation vs virtually having a Sentinel on a short cooldown.

Clemency is fine. What they could potentially do is give using Clemency an effect that benefits a cast of Holy Spirit / Holy Circle, like "next Holy Spirit/Circle gains +X potency" to mildly alleviate the public perception of this button (which likely would come at a greater MP cost - not like its an issue given how much MP we generate).