How to Get Players to Love PLD Again.

[AlaulaTheGreat]

If I could throw my shield, it would be time to revive my level 22 Glad.

[stanleyyoung]

If I could throw my shield, it would be time to revive my level 22 Glad.

I rather be able to punch with my shield then throw, plus the fact in history the shield was deadly just as much as the sword. so including "buckler punch" if you could call it that, add it to auto attack would be great and the extra dmg that comes from it is good for enimty+ and the looks also.

[FuriousCupcakes]

I like the idea of a defensive stance, but I'm not too keen on locking you out of your abilities. As stated by Hoshikogi, it would be an "Oh snap!" skill, which we already have in the form of Hallowed Ground.

Rather, I'd like to see them bring back the "Block" ability, where you raised your shield and could still use abilities. The trade off would be disabling auto-attack and hindering your TP generation.

In this block stance, we could have increased Phalanx damage, maybe a more potent shield bash, but a reduction in sword based WS potency.

There are plenty of options to go about something like this, but locking us out of our skills isn't a good idea I think, especially with trigger happy mages lingering around.

I never said anything about locking you out of your skills, I said you would have all of your skills and lose auto-attack.

[SwordCoheir]

I like the idea of a defensive stance, but I'm not too keen on locking you out of your abilities. As stated by Hoshikogi, it would be an "Oh snap!" skill, which we already have in the form of Hallowed Ground.

Rather, I'd like to see them bring back the "Block" ability, where you raised your shield and could still use abilities. The trade off would be disabling auto-attack and hindering your TP generation.

In this block stance, we could have increased Phalanx damage, maybe a more potent shield bash, but a reduction in sword based WS potency.

There are plenty of options to go about something like this, but locking us out of our skills isn't a good idea I think, especially with trigger happy mages lingering around.

It was more along the lines that losing our auto-attacks would hinder our TP generation so much it would greatly reduce our ability to gain Enmity without the damage contributed from constant WS moves and auto-attacks themselves, which make up roughly half of our overall Enmity generation. Which is why I made the suggestion of an Enmity bonus based on damage taken (possibly getting the bonus before damage is reduced by block in the calculation.)

Hoshi brought up a good point however, I can see with the current trends people might favor the offensive stance over the defensive one, adding a bit more dynamic into the works. Like using the Offensive stance for initial TP and hate generation, and falling back on the defensive stance later in the fight for Astral Flow or low HP or something.

[Hoshikogi]

I like the idea of a defensive stance, but I'm not too keen on locking you out of your abilities. As stated by Hoshikogi, it would be an "Oh snap!" skill, which we already have in the form of Hallowed Ground.

I believe there's some misunderstanding. I really REALLY love the defensive stance. I think using stances should be more interactive based on situation, and thus an act in which keeping one of them on at all times is a faux pas (bad/lacking structure).

If SE added two stances, we would have the offensive stance for trash mobs or bosses which are in a more passive phase, the basic stance (what we have now --> without any stance) which is used for basic defensive tanking, and finally the defensive stance which allows the paladin to enter turtle tank mode. I beleive this defensive stance described would be highly efficent if blocks greatly reduced the chance for spell interruption; Then the paladin could focus on healing himself back to full hp when "it" hits the fan or allow them to focus on healing others in the party with holy succor. Successful heals could easily compensate for a lack of hitting the mob with auto attacks (~20-100 damage/hit vs. a ~1,600 holy succor or 580 cure).

Also I'd add that the defensive stance should probably be PLD only.

[Taggerung5]

It was more along the lines that losing our auto-attacks would hinder our TP generation so much it would greatly reduce our ability to gain Enmity without the damage contributed from constant WS moves and auto-attacks themselves, which make up roughly half of our overall Enmity generation. Which is why I made the suggestion of an Enmity bonus based on damage taken (possibly getting the bonus before damage is reduced by block in the calculation.)

Hoshi brought up a good point however, I can see with the current trends people might favor the offensive stance over the defensive one, adding a bit more dynamic into the works. Like using the Offensive stance for initial TP and hate generation, and falling back on the defensive stance later in the fight for Astral Flow or low HP or something.

S.Coheir, I would totally rip on you for saying that dmg output is half the enmity generation that PLD can accrue, but I know you're smarter than that. You're not the typical person I've seen so far ranting on about how PLD tanking is so weak and SE needs to overhaul the whole idea. I've agreed with you on most of your posts, so I'll just take a slight jab to the ribs for this one in saying: (bear in mind, I know XIV is nothing like XI, nor do I want it to be, I'm just bringing it up as a point)
Remember when PLD got that spiffy new Nyzule WS, the enmity based one. Can't remember the name of it, I quit like 3 years ago. Anyhow, people generally started trying to DD tank on PLD, and failed uber hard at it. It was a massive influx of "hey let's use Joyeuse and HASTE/ACC gear and not worry about enmity at all. omg this WS owns so much I can hold hate and do DMG now!" .....no. In some cases, it worked, because you had 4 /thf's pounding 1500's on you all day long. But the general rule of thumb in XI was that a PLD did not have it's enmity generation through damage output. It was minor, if even a factor. I usually did Flat Blade for the chance to stun and pop a Cure IV if I needed it. Dropping Cure IV's always was an epic way to generate some enmity if it got pulled.

But, I don't want to get out of line here. Generally, damage output has never been a strong point of PLD in the terms of tanking. You need to buff Enmity, HP and defense too much to stack offensive stats for it to be effective. If that's the route SE wants to take.. well then they just made a weak warrior with the ability to cure. That's about it.

[Enfarious]

Love the idea of stances, if MNK, WAR, WHM, and BRD all get some form of stance that alters their abilities I don't see why the other jobs can't also have them, actually I think it was a mistake to "NOT" give the other jobs a stance.

I don't know that an offensive stance is really a very PLDey kind of thing, but for GLA it would make sense so why not. I might go more toward a lowered shield bash recast and increased dmg from it rather than a shield auto-attack. As well as increased dmg from standard attacks, maybe increased crit rate, considering that really criting 50% of the time would more than make up your normally low as hell dmg. Of course the downside needs to balance it or you'll get people Offense tanking everything turtling for 1 hit then switching right back to finish the fight we do already have WAR doing just that and it'd still be better at it then a PLD.

The defensive stance makes damn good sense for both, Gladiators used shields in very defensive ways while closing ranks with an enemy and even in close quarters combat very much the way you described not swinging constantly but only after deflecting an attack when an opening presents itself, currently our Phalanx does that splendidly except for it's super low dmg maybe it should have a crit rate+ modifier w/ the enmity bump. If the blocked hits simply generated enmity proportional to the dmg blocked it would more than make up for the lack of auto-attack too.

[Cenewulf]

1.22b they are apparently doign something with PLD so lets hope for the best =)

[SwordCoheir]

S.Coheir, I would totally rip on you for saying that dmg output is half the enmity generation that PLD can accrue, but I know you're smarter than that. You're not the typical person I've seen so far ranting on about how PLD tanking is so weak and SE needs to overhaul the whole idea. I've agreed with you on most of your posts, so I'll just take a slight jab to the ribs for this one in saying: (bear in mind, I know XIV is nothing like XI, nor do I want it to be, I'm just bringing it up as a point)

Fair enough, I suppose I should have explained myself a little bit more on this point sense I know our damage output is pathetic. Basically with the defensive stance we would only have our spike hate abilities to generate hate with, they typically have a recast of 30 seconds or more, most wielding roughly 500-600 Enmity apiece. Keeping that in mind our DoT with auto-attacks provide maybe 10%-15% (maybe 20% in some cases) overall Enmity, with our Weaponskills making up another 20-30% Enmity from spamming Flatblade Combos every 10 seconds and Gorging/Spirits combos when the opportunity arises. Considering both Spirits and Flatblade combos have Enmity spikes attributed to them they make up a decent portion of our ability to control hate.

Now keeping that in mind, without our ability to reliably gain TP through auto-attacks there won't be as much WS spamming, even with our pathetic damage losing our ability to spam Flatblade/Spirits reliably takes out a good chunk of our threat generation, unless there was a good TP generation bonus outside of Outmaneuver on blocks to let us keep throwing WS's out, or at least a heavy Enmity bonus when you block damage with your shield to help make up for it.

I hope that clarifies what I was getting at a bit more reliably.

[Taggerung5]

I hope that clarifies what I was getting at a bit more reliably.

Yeah, totally. See I knew you had it in ya!