Paladin needs some changes

[Router]

Something's really funny about a 4 page thread discussing a level 71 PLD's suggestions for the job

Like, they're asking for a Requiescat visual update, lol... who's gonna tell them?

[ThurinTurambar]

Its how shield lob works in wow. Hits first target and bounces to nearby targets. You can talent into additional bounces and aoe damage every time it hits a target for some pretty fun damage. Honestly not a bad idea for wow given how add packs and placement works but in xiv I feel like it just dumbs down tanking further. Like in xiv you start with a shield lob or a slightly longer range provoke given you're ahead of your party and then give one or two aoes to establish agro. Making shield lob an aoe would just take the last step out and dumb down the role even further.

Except that there is content where u want precise aggro like deep dungeons. Just use your ogcds or aoe to grab multiple mobs, its not hard

[Brandr]

It seems this topic was created by people who only played PLD once and started making theories based on other classes from other games.

[Mercury_Grey]

Unique utility that has 0 uses vs a ability thats actually useful and fun.

for cover to actually be useful paladin would need to be required.

I'm not against classes having unique useful utility but the idea that cover makes paladin unique or stand out is a joke, its a skill you shouldn't even have on your hot bar.

Ok im curious how would other jobs use cover? DRK and WAR make no sense. GNB coukd argue that using 2 powder to activate cover with aether could work but then thats an extra work to make it work on GNB. Cover on PLD only makes more sense due to PLD being a defensive tank. Hell i have used cover sooo many times in current to keep a healer alivr to LB3 or protect a dps about to lb3

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Ok im curious how would other jobs use cover? DRK and WAR make no sense. GNB coukd argue that using 2 powder to activate cover with aether could work but then thats an extra work to make it work on GNB. Cover on PLD only makes more sense due to PLD being a defensive tank. Hell i have used cover sooo many times in current to keep a healer alivr to LB3 or protect a dps about to lb3

How would other tanks use Cover? By removing the artificial limiter they added in 5.0, as a simple 2min cooldown - i.e. what it once was.

The Oath Gauge cost had no point existing ever considering they removed the 20% mitigation trait Paladin had for it at Lv66 in the same patch. Also even trying to justify any resource spending on other tanks, Cartridges would be a gigantic damage loss if it required that.

Cover does not need a cost, it is a 2min cooldown - that is the inherent opportunity cost.

[Shurrikhan]

If the only "opportunity cost" to having used something is that now you've used it / its recast timer... is that really worth calling an "opportunity cost"?

But fair enough, Cover doesn't need an opportunity cost.

That said, I don't at all want Cover (at least as it is now / as an active skill) on the other tanks.



P.S.
I thought they removed the bonus mitigation because they, as earlier promised, finally figured out how to get it to properly mitigate the transferred (including via the 20% Tank Mastery), which is right up there with Intervention (but with longer DR reducing total party damage taken between you two, at least on non-tank Cover targets, and no self-heal).

• Heck, if it also counted prior mitigation before the transfer, then, you effectively have even more than that original 20% now (via up to double TM and double Fending Armor) which Intervention wouldn't be able to equal without 2 added CDs.
  
  
• If that's not the case, and we can't actually benefit from at least the difference of Fending Gear and Tank Mastery vs. our target's mitigation, the cost has definitely got to go.
• Even if we do benefit from it, though, I do think that's a perk worth keeping on PLD at just a 2-minute CD and would rather feel more obliged to use it on CD... assuming we ever get any threatening single-target damage that's not just on tanks anyways.
• Would also take the cost and have a 1-minute CD, though. Either way.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

If the only "opportunity cost" to having used something is that now you've used it / its recast timer... is that really worth calling an "opportunity cost"?
[...]
P.S.
I thought they removed the bonus mitigation because they, as earlier promised, finally figured out how to get it to properly mitigate the transferred (including via the 20% Tank Mastery), which is right up there with Intervention (but with longer DR reducing total party damage taken between you two, at least on non-tank Cover targets, and no self-heal).

• Heck, if it also counted prior mitigation before the transfer, then, you effectively have even more than that original 20% now (via up to double TM and double Fending Armor) which Intervention wouldn't be able to equal without 2 added CDs.
  [...]
• If that's not the case, and we can't actually benefit from at least the difference of Fending Gear and Tank Mastery vs. our target's mitigation, the cost has definitely got to go.
• Even if we do benefit from it, though, I do think that's a perk worth keeping on PLD at just a 2-minute CD and would rather feel more obliged to use it on CD... assuming we ever get any threatening single-target damage that's not just on tanks anyways.
• Would also take the cost and have a 1-minute CD, though. Either way.

Well, sort of. Two minutes is a long amount of time, so between planned usage to handle specific mechanics in a way + usage on demand (like actually saving a teammate) you may have less room for error with a 2min Cooldown, i.e. the "opportunity" cost.

The removal of Cover's 20% mitigation trait had nothing to do with them figuring out how to make mitigation usage better and everything about just it being a nerf - granted, at no gauge cost and 12 seconds of a free 20% mitigation, Paladin was "THE" Off-Tank in Stormblood. Mitigation planning was built around keeping Paladin off enmity #1 that way, rather than making it balanced in MT/OT like now. Block also had a strength of 28-32% mitigation and Sentinel reached 40% as well, so Paladin was extremely well suited for this.

The 20% tank mastery is nothing but Shield Oath (old tank stance with mitigation) becoming a trait, which also resulted in block (30% -> 20%), parry (20% -> 15%) and general mitigation nerfs - including losing Bulwark for 1.5 expansions. Cover itself functionally never changed outside of maybe fringe mechanical interactions - it always was a damage redirector, which means any shields and mitigation applied to the target are ignored and damage calculation begins at the Paladin who used it.

That all happened in 5.0 Shadowbringers - the exact patch the Lv66 Enhanced Cover (20% mitigation) trait was removed AND an additional 50 Oath gauge cost was slapped on while retaining the 2min cooldown. Ever since, Cover is regarded ultra niche and generally not worth the gauge cost, as it is either an expensive provoke for your co-tank, or a mechanically niche tool to save a non-tank, at possibly great detriment to your own survival - especially post-Endwalker with Holy Sheltron nowadays.

Shadowbringers really was the expansion where job identities and any form of complexity went down the drain - I do not have fond memories of it, for any tank.

Right now, Cover should go one of three directions (order is my personal preference):

• 1.) Re-instate the Lv66 Trait to give it back 15-20% mitigation on redirected damage, but keep the gauge cost
  > this coincides with Paladin learning Intervention at Lv62, making both a valid supporting choice
• 2.) Keep it mechanically as is, but remove the gauge cost
• 3.) Keep it mechanically as is, keep the gauge cost, but remove the cooldown altogether

[PyurBlue]

Holy Circle - Same as holy spirit. I will however state that two buttons that do the exact same thing but ones single target and the others aoe is dumb. SE could consolidate them into one cast on target aoe and nothing would be lost gameplay wise. Only one button saved.
PLD doesn't need two more damage skills.

I see comments like this a lot, but it would actually be a considerable downgrade in that we'd lose the ability to control what we're attacking. I guess part of the reasoning is that such an event isn't so common that the ability to control your targeting is needed all the time, but I have two problems with that. First, if we take away uncommon and niche occurrences, we're left with an even more bland and predictable game and secondly I think a lot of FF14's woes have come from small cuts. We've had many small changes over a large time span that by themselves don't effect the game on a large scale, but when taken together all add up to a massive shift in the wrong direction. The game could function with all nearly all attacks being AoE, but it would be yet another symptom of unnecessary and uninteresting simplification that would likely only get worse with time.

[Shurrikhan]

Well, sort of. Two minutes is a long amount of time, so between planned usage to handle specific mechanics in a way + usage on demand (like actually saving a teammate) you may have less room for error with a 2min Cooldown, i.e. the "opportunity" cost.

Right, but that'd be like saying the opportunity cost of finding $100 on the street that I can take for free with no strings attached is that once I spend the $100 I never had before anyways... then I won't have the $100. Just seems a weird mental gymnastic to make just use a specific term on an ability that, as far as we can tell, hasn't come with any cost, seeing as PLD would be fully competitive even if Cover were removed.

The removal of Cover's 20% mitigation trait had nothing to do with them figuring out how to make mitigation usage better

I mean, they pointed out when they added the trait that it was a stopgap measure until they could get the transferred damage to be mitigatable at both ends --since if one Covered as OT an MT in Grit or Shield Oath, the tank pair in total would end up taking 25% more damage than if it had just been left on the MT (barring vuln stacks on the MT, etc.)-- until it could use the greater of the target's or one's own mitigation. That was the explicit reason given, and the feature added fits the cause stated.

Block also had a strength of 28-32% mitigation and Sentinel reached 40% as well, so Paladin was extremely well suited for this.

Blocks couldn't be done without being the one attacked, though? So how is that relevant to whether PLD was meant to be better at OTing than MTing?

Moreover, the strength of Intervention was specifically in swapping out, not in using it solely from an OT position, as you could provide a bunch more free mitigation by popping Rampart 19s and Sentinel 9s before Intervention, doubly buffing it at no cost. Without having actually used those CDs for yourself, though, you'd have wasted more than half their total mit instead of getting almost half again extra.

The "OT-esque" additions in Stormblood didn't improve pure OTing relative to proper swaps; it increased the reward for proper swaps, making them even more important.

The 20% tank mastery is nothing but Shield Oath (old tank stance with mitigation)

Never said otherwise, but going from <15% of our raid uptime to a forced 100% non-option, it also ended up balanced around in very different ways. If you can't not be in it, damage can, well, assume that you'll be in it.


As such, Block 30% -> 20% still ends up, after Tank Mastery, with 6% more mitigation than before (only 64% of damage taken) relative to Sword Oath, Parry 20 -> 15% likewise ends up with 12% more mitigation, with mostly just the RNG being de-emphasized.... which probably had a hell of a lot more to do with Shelltron going from blocking a single hit to blocking all hits over a duration and Camouflage being added to the game.

My point was merely that if you were in Shield Oath before, as you almost certainly should have been as OT, you would have taken the same amount then as you would now via Tank Mastery; there was no net nerf to your sustainability relative to how you normally played, let specifically alone as OT.


Accordingly....

The more I think about it, my own ordered preferences would just be...

1. Remove the Gauge cost and keep the full mitigation, allowing PLD to be a bit OP for purposes of flavor (and ideally determine how other tanks might be that "tiny bit OP relative to other tanks" in their own way.
2. Just reduce the cooldown slightly.
3. Remove the Gauge cost but transfer damage directly without being mitigated by Tank Mastery and reduce the cooldown slightly.
4. Keep it as is.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

[...]

"I mean, they pointed out when they added the trait that it was a stopgap measure until they could get the transferred damage to be mitigatable at both ends" - if this was truly the case and they actually had done that, I'd have been completely okay with it - but unless this has gone completely unnoticed for now 2.5 expansions since 5.0, this has not become the case. This I can perceive when I use things like HP shields (TBN) on myself and a Paladin covers me, it will fail to soak up the shield at all. It would also be incredibly weird to use given the presence of XYZ vulnerability up debuffs or debuffs granted from taking damage, depending on how the application of said debuff is coded.

Blocks were relevant for all OT-related buster things, which included but obviously wasn't limited to using Cover on your MT and absolutely dropping various single-busters down the bin with Cover + Sheltron + whatever you chose extra at the time. Technically if playing optimally (damage wise) you may have wanted to have the Paladin get enmity when possible anyhow for shield swipes every 15s and swap around to make use of Cover's mitigation as planned/desired. Short story - blocks were hella powerful.

As for "If you can't not be in it, damage can, well, assume that you'll be in it." - well this is sort of the thing, if you strictly speak for Stormblood and below, yes this is truly the case and it is a net positive. Shadowbringers onwards, the damage intake essentially is like you were in Sword Oath in Stormblood as a baseline, despite the trait - because that's how they balanced it, sorta. With Endwalker's mitigation adjustments and additions (Holy Sheltron + Re-addition of Bulwark, attack spell healing), this became less of an issue thankfully, but Shadowbringers felt dreadful at times because of this.