PLD slight "rework" (yet another)

[Carighan]

Also, with this kind of reasoning, you end up going all the way to simplify everything.
In a vacum, almost any button is not complicated to push and no mecanics is complex, at all.

Of course, but if your only reason for having "complexity" is the 100% depth-less complexity that needs 24 hotbar buttons to achieve what other games manage with just, say, their dodge alone (even MMORPGs, look at GW2), then I would say your concept is so flawed you might as well remove it all.

That's not a sensible type of complexity. Because it adds no depth. You're still pushing a 100% static rotation, but you're doing it with 24 buttons in arcane combinations of order, but you could still write that entire order down from combat start to combat finish, knowing a particular fight. It can be fun to do individual elements of this in individual situations, of course. But that's mostly for supportive jobs, like Astros timing their Horoscope, Earthly Star or Macrocosmos so the healing goes off on its own at just the right moment. It can work for damage, but it's tricky there because you want to optimize your damage output, and hence whenever possible, make it as boring, flat and static as can be, as that ensures optimal output. It's why procs, random gains or losses of resources, or conflicting pseudo-random-chaos is so important in ~all games for damage dealing situations.

Really not a fan of such design. It's a trap many RPGs fall into, and it always makes all of its class- and RPG-mechanics so pointless. And it's not like plenty evidence from long-running MMOs don't exist about what does or does not work. And even quite diverse ones, after all WoW, FFXIV and GW2 for three simple examples don't at all share their underlying design paradigms. But in particular WoW explores so many intricacies of procs and randomness, it's easy to take input from it. While GW2 shows why unification of buffs and debuffs is cool, but very difficult to pull off right, despite how good an idea it is. Or why, more pertinent to this discussion, removing the tanking and healing aspects of MMORPG design is such an issue, although we can see that from FFXIV here too, of course.

I dunno, the point about making it a DoT for flavor reasons for example is sensible. "Goring" blade. Doesn't sound like a single hit. But trying to add gameplay complexity via having to manually track and reapply a DoT is only sensible if it replaces some other pointless complexity with this pointless complexity.

It's also why I'm fully with you on aggressively removing abilities and/or merging them. The fact we got so many buttons that add very little complexity and 0 depth is just pointless, when so many wouldn't need to exist.

Although, while I'm all for merging Holy, I'd keep Shield Bash insofar that Paladin would have a trait that "upgrades" interject to it (so it's also an interrupt against enemy that cannot be stunned), mostly for flavor reasons as like you say, it does ~nothing right now.

[Espon]

They're not going to give back damage over time abilities unless they raise the buff and debuff cap. One of the biggest issues right now is buffs and debuffs getting knocked off, especially in 24-man and field operation content, hence why so many jobs have had them removed.

[Rithy255]

I really like a lot of the changes personally, I'd want Shield bash to become a useful OGCD skill personally as paladin should use their shield more.

Divine veil changes I think I like the regen but would move away from the burst heal (same goes for shake, they don't really need the burst heal), Cover might also mess up your magic attacks and I feel like if anything you've nerfed it 10% mitigation isn't really a lot to justify the massive mp cost to it. Going blade becoming less boring is always nice, I'd much prefer it become something you manage as a separate combo action like warrior does but anything better then current going blade is a plus, Intervene having more uptime is fun.

Overall good changes just iffy on Cover, I think both veil and shake could have the regen but remove the burst heal.

I don't understand the obsession with making goring blade a DoT. That just makes it less useful. Now you can use it as a big spike damage, that is useful against any target. As a DoT you would only ever use it against high health targets. So disagreed, I am perfectly happy with Goring Blade as it is.

Divine Veil is already overly strong. It does not need any buff. A tank should not have a strong oGCD AoE heal in the first place.

1. Paladin already has 4 burst buttons that deal more damage, goring blade in its current form is Not Useful or unique.
2. Rotational skills don't need to be outright "useful" they just need to be fun, if we only had "useful" skills we'd only be bursting.

Plus on DV AOE heals on tanks is somewhat fine if limited, the reason why you don't like it is because this game doesn't have high healing output so you feel as if a tank is taking away your job if they have some protective skills, when in reality tanks should have strong utility and even ways to provide sustain to a team, but it should also strongly be the healers job.

Though I guess if i bring up the fact we can have balanced tanks that provide great support and balanced healers we'd still find reasons to complain as healers want to feel exclusive.

[Brandr]

Though OP had good ideas, unfortunately I don't think it works in FFXIV for a couple of reasons:

- Game's system hates new debuffs.
- Since they decided to change Goring Blade into a power attack, they won't go back every into being a DoT. Sorry, just forget it. I have never seen an instance where a dev, any dev, went back on their decision.
- The job is already more complex than it ever was. Adding more complexity to a popular starter job is a no-go, specially a job which is the staple of all other jobs, the famous " Human Fighter" trope.

[aiqa]

1. Paladin already has 4 burst buttons that deal more damage, goring blade in its current form is Not Useful or unique.
2. Rotational skills don't need to be outright "useful" they just need to be fun, if we only had "useful" skills we'd only be bursting.

A "press once every 30 seconds against bosses" button, is no more fun for me than a "press every 60 seconds when <4 targets" button.

Plus on DV AOE heals on tanks is somewhat fine if limited, the reason why you don't like it is because this game doesn't have high healing output so you feel as if a tank is taking away your job if they have some protective skills, when in reality tanks should have strong utility and even ways to provide sustain to a team, but it should also strongly be the healers job.

Though I guess if i bring up the fact we can have balanced tanks that provide great support and balanced healers we'd still find reasons to complain as healers want to feel exclusive.

It's not just content. Shake it off is also just a stronger heal than any single support ability from healers. Having some support for tanks is fine. But not strong oGCD, and not by making individual tank support abilities stronger than individual healer abilities.

Limited, but still strong, GCD support is completely fine. Clemency is a great model for support abilities on tanks.

[Rithy255]

A "press once every 30 seconds against bosses" button, is no more fun for me than a "press every 60 seconds when <4 targets" button.



It's not just content. Shake it off is also just a stronger heal than any single support ability from healers. Having some support for tanks is fine. But not strong oGCD, and not by making individual tank support abilities stronger than individual healer abilities.

Limited, but still strong, GCD support is completely fine. Clemency is a great model for support abilities on tanks.

Pressing it every 30s is better then every 60s, personally I want it back on the combo action, even if it's less strict them it was before.

I also disagree that shake it off is the strongest heal then any type of support ability, Kerachole is a good example of this as it's a 10% mitigation + 100 potency regen for all allies plus the fact that healer potency is outright stronger then tank potency due to healers having a boost in their passive heal and damage potencies, all it lacks is the 300 potency burst heal but is made up by its on a 30s timer, not to mention the sheer amount of other healing AOE's sage gets, other healers have their counterparts.

Tanks Utility should be less Selfish more then anything, tanks do not need like 6 billion ways to raise their defence and have passive mitigation, of course they need to be sturdy to a degree but if healers want to heal tanks, they should actually have less mitigation and take actual damage from big pulls and bosses, Healers should actively feel a difference when putting defensive skills on tanks.

Now in Current final fantasy 14 are tanks healing/defensive kits overtuned? 100% but also healer kits are massively overtuned to the point of parody, both in fact have so many tools that it becomes over excessive especially in normal or even ext content.

OGCD support skills should exist, Using your OGCDs should reward you in the fact it should save some healer gcds, I dont think we need a bunch of tank supportive gcds (though i dont mind skills like clemency for emergencies). But I don't think tanks having access to some ogcds should replace the healers job entirely.

I think my point is that both tanks and healers are massively overtuned in a very undertuned low healing output game, the way to better that is not to remove tanks tools (though im in favour of toning down skills like i mentioned shake shouldn't have burst heal) but we should actually want a game that gets us to use our tools as tanks and healers and think about them, instead of having free value with low output.

I get healers might be upset that their healing identity is took from tanks but it's also my idenitity as a "paladin" to have healing and protection skills I rather we not default to oh you can only support in a rare emergency, go play slow dps 99% of the time, I want healers and tanks to frankly feel better rather then arguing who gets the shiny cool skills.

[Carighan]

Pressing it every 30s is better then every 60s, personally I want it back on the combo action, even if it's less strict them it was before.

We already have 7 skills in our main combo, and technically current Goring Blade is a combo action. As in, it combos off of something else. What more could you possible want then?

[Rithy255]

We already have 7 skills in our main combo, and technically current Goring Blade is a combo action. As in, it combos off of something else. What more could you possible want then?

"7 combo skills" No theirs not 7 skills in our main combo, you get 5 skills one that you spam three times with unique visual effects, it's the same as atonement spam 6.3+ the only difference is it looks visually different so people will point and go "wow paladin got a lot this expansion!!"

What I'm talking about is a alternative combo pathway goring blade made it so you weren't just repeating 1, 2, 3 atonementx3 over and over as filler it meant you were alternating between 1, 2, 3 atonementx3 and 1, 2, 3 goring blade. While having two seperate bursts instead of just one massive boring one.

Nor do I care if goring blade is "technically" a combo skill, it serves no actual purpose other then to add one extra skill to your burst (which could frankly be done by letting u use one empowered holy spirit still) nor does fight or flight serve a actual purpose because req is your burst skill.

What more can I want then? them to make tank rotations engaging, add more combo paths and finishers, add proc attacks to them, make tanks engaging to play instead of boring filler and boring burst.

[Carighan]

I mean if I press Goring Blade every second combo, that's no more brain engaging than what we have right now, sorry. That's not an alternative combo pathway, that's just a longer just as static combo (1-2-3 -> Atonement x3 -> Holy -> 1-2-3 -> Goring, static, repeat ad absurdum).

That's kinda my point with many of these ideas. They don't change the actual problem, they just paint a new color over the symptoms. If you want to fix this, you need to introduce procs and randomization, at least given the current framework. In theory there are alternatives, but that'd require extremely extensive reworks.

[Rithy255]

I mean if I press Goring Blade every second combo, that's no more brain engaging than what we have right now, sorry. That's not an alternative combo pathway, that's just a longer just as static combo (1-2-3 -> Atonement x3 -> Holy -> 1-2-3 -> Goring, static, repeat ad absurdum).

That's kinda my point with many of these ideas. They don't change the actual problem, they just paint a new color over the symptoms. If you want to fix this, you need to introduce procs and randomization, at least given the current framework. In theory there are alternatives, but that'd require extremely extensive reworks.

Why i mentioned procs, but having a core fundamental fun rotation that isn't just 1, 2, 3 spam ontop of that would be the best solution.