Pld buff or War nerf in 1.22?

[Rydin]

On paper it sounds nice, but then think about it effectively. Lets think about the room with the ants and basilisks in CC. Warrior runs in, auto attacks 2-3 times as they get all the initial hate on ants. Returns, casts Collusion on BLM, then either combo to steel Cyclone or just pop it off with 2k TP. Not only that, they can use antagonize and/or sentinel. Sentinel for PLD doesn't work on heals or flash. Not only that, your steel cyclone also does a good chunk of the monsters HP.

Yea, PLD instead does Flash, then the hate gets stolen by a BLM, he can cover and hope that another BLM doesn't take hate, and killing the ants takes longer. Yea, not seeing it. Trash mob groups should be killed under 30 seconds. You could also heal, but why do you think the BLMs get the hate and not the healers that heal even more?

Agreed... Very much so....

the heart of the argument is this:

Your DD's can only deal as much damage as the tank has hate. Yes DD's have enmity reduction abilities.. but the premise still stands, the more hate the tank has, the more damage the DD's can do....

Say PLD and WAR can hold hate equally....
So 2 parties fighting the exact same NM (Separately, obviously)...
Party A uses a PLD, party B uses WAR tank...

Both tanks have 10,000 units of enmity (using Kaeko's baseline 1 hp damage = 1 enmity scale)

PLD's 10,000 enmity is made up mostly of heals and abilities....
Say off the top of your head that, of the 10,000 enmity, 2800 of it is from damage....

WAR enmity comes from damage
So say... of the 10,000 enmity on a WAR... 7000 of it is damage
At this point, the MOB has over 4000 less HP...

That will ALWAYS be preferable UNLESS you get into a situation of survivability, where a PLD can survive a fight that a WAR cannot...
As we all know... the opposite happens... WAR's have more survivability than PLDs

[Duelle]

WAR is great dealing damage and should stay as it is DD wise, but they should nerf its ability to take damage so it can no longer tank.

I'd rather have WAR's stat scaling vary by stances (add an offensive that scales with STR and defensive stance that scales with VIT for WAR) so that when DDing you're wearing DPS gear and when you're tanking you wear tank gear. Removing WAR's ability to tank would be pretty damn horrible. And catastrophic to class dynamics.

[Rydin]

I'd rather have WAR's stat scaling vary by stances (add an offensive that scales with STR and defensive stance that scales with VIT for WAR) so that when DDing you're wearing DPS gear and when you're tanking you wear tank gear. Removing WAR's ability to tank would be pretty damn horrible. And catastrophic to class dynamics.

I would say WAR doesn't need that....
The STR stance... is WAR
and the VIT stance is PLD....
Jobs should augment stats much more than they do now

[Duelle]

I would say WAR doesn't need that....
The STR stance... is WAR
and the VIT stance is PLD....
Jobs should augment stats much more than they do now

Limiting the game to one tank class is a horrible idea. Now if you want to make PLD more versatile, I'm all ears. Nerfing WAR is only going to cause trouble further down the road.

[Rydin]

Limiting the game to one tank class is a horrible idea.

But having classes that excel in multiple situations vs classes that do only one thing is the right choice?

BLM's only Nuke... PLD only tanks... DRG only DD's, WHM's only heal....

WAR tanks as good as a PLD and DD's as good as DRG.....

What if there was a class that healed as good as WHM and nuked as good as BLM...

OH right... there was... and it was broken

[Duelle]

But having classes that excel in multiple situations vs classes that do only one thing is the right choice?

As I said, then aim to make classes a little more versatile. Also, consider this. If you grab WAR and give it two stances, one that scales offensively and one that sacles defensively, this means that once the fight starts the WAR is stuck with whatever they chose to equip. If the WAR in tank gear tries to go offensive, he's not going to be anywhere near what he'd be in DPS gear. And because (thankfully) gear cannot be swapped mid-combat, it wouldn't cause a problem. A guy in tank gear trying to DPS doesn't generate good numbers. Just like a guy in DPS gear trying to tank is very unlikely to survive. It balances out and we get to keep our options, so it's a win-win.

[Rydin]

As I said, then aim to make classes a little more versatile. Also, consider this. If you grab WAR and give it two stances, one that scales offensively and one that sacles defensively, this means that once the fight starts the WAR is stuck with whatever they chose to equip. If the WAR in tank gear tries to go offensive, he's not going to be anywhere near what he'd be in DPS gear. And because (thankfully) gear cannot be swapped mid-combat, it wouldn't cause a problem. A guy in tank gear trying to DPS doesn't generate good numbers. Just like a guy in DPS gear trying to tank is very unlikely to survive.

I posed this question to my friends.. and I honestly don't know if WAR and PLD will ever co-exist.....
their tanking styles are so similar.... they both take a hit very well....
So one or the other will always be "in season"

but can they both be "in" at the same time?

[Dawiichan]

Limiting the game to one tank class is a horrible idea. Now if you want to make PLD more versatile, I'm all ears. Nerfing WAR is only going to cause trouble further down the road.

That's pretty much what the game is right now.

To stay with the traditional reason for this post, this is what I think SE should/will do.

First of all, Warrior most likely won't get nerfed in any way in patch 1.22. This is because if War is nerfed there isn't going to be a tank in the game that will be sufficient. However the Welcome Back campaign is set for mid May, so I can see them trying to make PLD viable by then, which may start off with patch 1.22a(more hamlet defense and maybe Job Weapons).

To make PLD viable, you'd need to make it so that PLD only needs 1 healer for the current 8 person party content. However there are instances where Warrior can do this, such as Miser or Moogle.

[Duelle]

I posed this question to my friends and I honestly don't know if WAR and PLD will ever co-exist.
their tanking styles are so similar. they both take a hit very well.
So one or the other will always be "in season"

but can they both be "in" at the same time?

Firstly, tank classes should be taking hits very well. That's the tank's job; at the end of the day, you're taking hits and surviving. If you're still lulled by the PLD vs NIN thing from XI, I suggest you purge the crap created by Utsusemi from your mind, because I pray every night before going to bed that I never see that ability in an MMO ever again.

Tank classes should be performing roughly the same, if only because it doesn't dilute your tank pool to niches where tank A is not good for certain content, but tank B is not good for other content and such. If a guy wants to gear their WAR as a tank, then by god they have the right to do so.

As far as both being "in", it's all a matter of balancing both jobs. I've been a tank in more than just FFXI, and I can tell you that having discrepancies between tanks is a horrible thing. Worse if you're the poor sod that picked the "wrong" tank class. We need less discrepancies and more options for the tank role, not the opposite.

[Duelle]

To make PLD viable, you'd need to make it so that PLD only needs 1 healer for the current 8 person party content. However there are instances where Warrior can do this, such as Miser or Moogle.

All that does is shift the scale in the other direction. Which then limits the choice for tank...again.

I know the approach you're going for. And it has failed. Fodder tank vs boss tank doesn't work. Again, tank classes should be performing similarly so that it's a matter of who is online when the group is getting ready, not what job you happen to be at the time invites start going out.