PLD... The curious contradiction....

[Rydin]

re: Spirits Within, isn't that 3000 TP without combo? I can't log in and check, but I'd rather do Flat Blade combos with excess TP and always combo Spirits Within rather than spending the whole 3000 on it, especially considering Phalanx is only 250 if I recall

You can pop block with aegis boon though, and do both war drum/phalanx->Spirit's Within. I think that is what he meant, it isn't an issue of you "having to wait for block" right now. It is the cooldown on the abilities themselves.

Right... I said the issue is the cooldown... not the TP involved...

[XStruckX]

PLD can still tank...

Only reason why WAR does it better is because it does a CRAP TON more damage than PLD. Add Vengeance and Antagonize and WAR just incurs more enmity. Therefore WAR can hold hate while DD's can do MUCH more damage. Its simple really. When I first started doing Cutter's Cry with a PLD tank we were fine till last phase of Chimera. PLD couldn't hold the damage output that the BLM's were doing much less the heals needed to keep the PLD alive. We switched to WAR and BOOM we got our first kill. I wonder why that is... WAR has more enmity generation due to Steel Cyclone being on a low recast, Rampage healing them and not to mention Antagonize and Vengeance. Just popping Vengeance alone at the start insures you start off strong as hell. With enough enmity to keep the mob on you through the first barrage of cures and nukes.

Now let's fast forward...assuming you know how to play PLD (because I assure you most people dont, including myself) and now you have some enmity gear (by enmity I mean more than just a +10 off your belt) you can now produce a lot more enmity through your sub par enmity generating abilities and possibly be able to hold off the blms and mnks. Since you have more damage mitigation than a WAR you are now tanking better than a WAR could ever dream of. Dump your HP gear PLD's and stack the enmity you might see a difference. This is all speculation and my own personal view of the PLD vs WAR debate. I could be wrong.

[waldo]

Speculation heh. Warrior is gonna be nerfed soon, it's all but confirmed by Yoshi-P himself, but just a helpful hint regarding the low enmity. Maddening potions are cheap, pop one at the start of any major fight, Sentinel, Flash, Wardrum, Rampart will all have +100 enmity from go. It's a nice head start.

Work with what you got.

[Sasagawa]

Definitely right on this point, the loss of Second Wind alone is so noticeable on Paladin vs Warrior. The skills you can get from CNJ are just not good enough compared to the skills Warrior has access to, although I haven't really tried keeping Stoneskin on my self as much as possible, I haven't played PLD much period, leveled White Mage instead

I noticed this the other day, while testing out things on PLD before patch.

I said to myself why use holy succor to heal ?

then I realised if I equip my blessed ring and black pearl chocker i can get normal cures for 500-600 hp on demand provided my mp lasts

Holy succor around 250mp
Cure 112

All i can say is I have now changed to rotating between stone skin and cure while tanking and added with the hopefully improved damage mitigation I reckon as a tank I can keep myself alive alot easier generate more hate and hold the attention of mobs better.....

Now how to sort that animation lock !

[Sasagawa]

PLD can still tank...

Only reason why WAR does it better is because it does a CRAP TON more damage than PLD. Add Vengeance and Antagonize and WAR just incurs more enmity. Therefore WAR can hold hate while DD's can do MUCH more damage. Its simple really. When I first started doing Cutter's Cry with a PLD tank we were fine till last phase of Chimera. PLD couldn't hold the damage output that the BLM's were doing much less the heals needed to keep the PLD alive. We switched to WAR and BOOM we got our first kill. I wonder why that is... WAR has more enmity generation due to Steel Cyclone being on a low recast, Rampage healing them and not to mention Antagonize and Vengeance. Just popping Vengeance alone at the start insures you start off strong as hell. With enough enmity to keep the mob on you through the first barrage of cures and nukes.

Now let's fast forward...assuming you know how to play PLD (because I assure you most people dont, including myself) and now you have some enmity gear (by enmity I mean more than just a +10 off your belt) you can now produce a lot more enmity through your sub par enmity generating abilities and possibly be able to hold off the blms and mnks. Since you have more damage mitigation than a WAR you are now tanking better than a WAR could ever dream of. Dump your HP gear PLD's and stack the enmity you might see a difference. This is all speculation and my own personal view of the PLD vs WAR debate. I could be wrong.

I have been a PLD/GLA in this game from day one and changed my tactics so many times, I have lost count

Hate generation isnt a problem in melee heavy parties because of Rampart and sentinel believe me when you sentinel rampart a group of monks your emnity can go from green through to flahing red (tested right after a death)

Additionally when u add in flash and provoke and then cycle in fast blade flat blade, phalanx spirits within etc you end up sky rocketing in hate gen

as pld I find the main problem is itchy trigger finger, and blms wanting to cast as soon as the mobs name turns red !

easiest solution to this is to proc divine viel outmaneuver before u engage and use the tp generated to perform a combo like this

provoke > Flash > war drum > phalanx > bloodbath> spirits within few seconds later fastblade> flat blad followed by fast blade>savageblade> and the spin move I always forget the name of

Not to mention put rampart and sentinel in there at some point

Hate generation was never a problem if you let plds have 3 seconds.

However, it can easily go wrong due to hate bleeding but as long as there is a group to rampart and also cast protect on it will be fine.

basically PLDs are great for melee parties unfortunately noone really does them at the minute.

[Sasagawa]

Speculation heh. Warrior is gonna be nerfed soon, it's all but confirmed by Yoshi-P himself, but just a helpful hint regarding the low enmity. Maddening potions are cheap, pop one at the start of any major fight, Sentinel, Flash, Wardrum, Rampart will all have +100 enmity from go. It's a nice head start.

Work with what you got.

I second that waldo its expensive but a PLDs gotta do what a PLDs gotta do :P

[Rydin]

It's a very touchy issue....
Warriors generate enmity by dealing damage

By increasing the damage of PLD, isn't SE saying "ok, the idea of PLD doesn't work, so let's make PLD more like warrior to shut people up"

Honestly? Isn't that the general impression?

While more HP and shield blocking are nice (And needed, although I would have taken 1 or the other) they don't really address the major concern

The major counterargument is PLD can generate just as much enmity as WAR
Well that, in and of itself, is wrong.

Even if they generated similar enmity (Which they very much don't), then this happens:

Tank A generates 5,000 enmity

Tank B also generates 5,000 enmity... but as an added bonus, has taken 3k HP off of the MOB by way of damage

No matter how much HP or blocking PLD has... in that system... Unless PLD can do as much damage as a WAR, or unless there is a situation where WAR can't survive and PLD can... then WAR will ALWAYS be the best choice

But the answer CANNOT be make the PLD do more damage.... If you do that, then either one is stronger and the other is gimp.... or they buff/nerf until they both do about the same damage and then they are essentially the same class

If WAR does more damage... PLD needs to be able to generate more Enmity

Some people think using a PLD means you can get rid of a WHM in favor of an extra DD.... but in truth... WAR heals just as efficiently as PLD.... SO any situation where you could use a PLD and get rid of a WHM, then you could have done the same with WAR... Advantage lost

Here is an example of what needs to happen:
WAR does 3 times the damage of PLD
so... PLD can generate 1.5 times the enmity of WAR

I know you're thinking "That's not fair" (Especially you WAR fans)
But it IS fair....
This is a way to make both viable (Without crazy changes to the game)

Say you have a WAR tank... he is doing damage... he is building Enmity.... the DD's go red and pop enmity abilities... go red and slow down some... or they have minus (-) enmity materia on....

Switch to a PLD tank... and although he can't do as much damage as the WAR, he can generate more enmity... which means the DD's don't have to hold back as much, and their extra DPS can make up for the missing WAR DPS

And Voila!!! Balance is achieved

In fights where the DD's aren't bottlenecked by enmity (Say they spend a lot of time dodging AOE's so they can't always attack OR its a MOB with really REALLY high defense)... WAR becomes the most efficient tank
In fights where enmity slows the DD's to the point where they have to stop DPSing because they are red... PLD would be the tank of choice

So to reiterate... WAR does more damage, so PLD should generate more enmity....
I hear you though... WAR does more damage and has more enmity abilities so he will do more damage AND generate more enmity....

Well this is something you'll have to take up with Yoshi....

But changes (Increases) to PLD damage mitigation, in theory, lower PLDs ability to generate enmity under this current ideology

So quote me on this... PLD will not be a more useful tank unless he can generate significantly more enmity that WAR OR in a case where PLD can survive a fight that WAR cannot

[northernsky]

If I remember well, enmity is only increasing through a fight (except the few abilities that lower it), so it's basically a race of who accumulates enmity the fastest.

If enmity was actually lost as damage is taken, that would give a fairly significant boost to PLD over WAR due to higher damage mitigation, because warrior would have to sustain higher damage output to compensate for enmity loss to damage taken.

Abilities, materia and gear that promote damage mitigation for PLD would therefore have an additional enmity+ value. That would not increase DPS, but increasing damage mitigation would be twice as useful for PLD, thus improving the two main aspects of a tank; survivability and ability to hold hate

[Rydin]

If I remember well, enmity is only increasing through a fight (except the few abilities that lower it), so it's basically a race of who accumulates enmity the fastest.

If enmity was actually lost as damage is taken, that would give a fairly significant boost to PLD over WAR due to higher damage mitigation, because warrior would have to sustain higher damage output to compensate for enmity loss to damage taken.

Abilities, materia and gear that promote damage mitigation for PLD would therefore have an additional enmity+ value. That would not increase DPS, but increasing damage mitigation would be twice as useful for PLD, thus improving the two main aspects of a tank; survivability and ability to hold hate

Correct... enmity does not decay....

[Duelle]

I second that waldo its expensive but a PLDs gotta do what a PLDs gotta do :P

That's a band-aid over a bullet hole. PLD needs fixes.