Possible Paladin Rework...

[SpookyGhost]

There is a 3-4% healing difference between WAR and PLD.

This isn't 2.0. WAR isn't built around self healing anymore. WAR mitigates damage, consistently, no matter what. For every big hit they will always have at least 1 CD to use. That's their thing.

Here is what PLD has that WAR doesn't:

1.) A -STR down debuff
2.) A shield
3.) A silence
4.) Stoneskin
5.) Hallowed Ground
6.) Sword Oath

Here is what WAR has that PLD doesn't:

1.) -10% Slashing Resist
2.) -10% Damage Dealt
3.) Higher damage in tank stance
4.) AOE damage that isn't just a DoT
5.) A NON RNG Shield in the form of Inner Beast
6.) An off the GCD tank stance (meaning you can start tanking or stop tanking without using a GCD)

There's other stuff, but you get the point. Both are fine where they are. They compliment eachother and make up for what the other one lacks. WAR does its job perfectly fine, PLD does its job perfectly fine. The only thing I could see that needs changing on either is Holmgang, only because Hallowed Ground is just such a powerful CD and Holmgang really doesn't compare nor does it bring something that HG doesn't.

Also, tank DPS matters. The entire point of tank DPS and maximizing it is that you don't sacrifice your tanking capabilities for your DPS. If you need more health for that particular encounter, you don't just say "screw it!" and wear full STR accessories. You trade VIT for STR as needed. If you are compromising your group's DPS or your healer's DPS, then you aren't optimizing your DPS correctly. It's not only important in world first progression, it's important for getting the turn over as quick as possible and dealing with less mechanics. That, in itself, is a form of mitigation. So don't just think because you're a tank you can slack on DPS, that same argument can be made for healers not DPSing because their primary job is to heal. If you aren't dead, and they aren't doing anything else, they should be DPSing. You have NO excuse because tanking and DPSing go hand in hand (you're going to have to hit the boss to tank it).

[Ceodore]

Also, tank DPS matters. The entire point of tank DPS and maximizing it is that you don't sacrifice your tanking capabilities for your DPS. If you need more health for that particular encounter, you don't just say "screw it!" and wear full STR accessories. You trade VIT for STR as needed. If you are compromising your group's DPS or your healer's DPS, then you aren't optimizing your DPS correctly. It's not only important in world first progression, it's important for getting the turn over as quick as possible and dealing with less mechanics. That, in itself, is a form of mitigation. So don't just think because you're a tank you can slack on DPS, that same argument can be made for healers not DPSing because their primary job is to heal. If you aren't dead, and they aren't doing anything else, they should be DPSing. You have NO excuse because tanking and DPSing go hand in hand (you're going to have to hit the boss to tank it).

Hit the boss, yes, and it may be just my view as someone who mains Paladin, since Warriors actually mitigate damage through self healing too from their DPS, but I've seen more bonus from being a better defense than offense. But as I said, Warriors benefit defensively from being better DPS than Paladins. If all the reason for me being a better DPS is to push mechanics faster, then I look to my DPS. The only time I will sacrifice my defensive aspects is when the fight is just flat out trivial(i.e. HM farms). Otherwise, the benefit of a little DPS increase that I get for sacrificing so much of my HP is just trivial.

Yes as a tank, your role is to keep your party from taking damage and to make the healer's job of keeping you alive easier, so again I point out a dead enemy cannot damage you or your team which contributes directly to your role as a tank, therefore the damage that a tank can do is very relevant to their role.
Should a tank forego the responsibilities of their role to try to just dish out big hits, of course not, but the damage that a tank can deal out while doing their job and how much that contributes to the success of their team is actually a big deal.

It is not just the responsibility of DPS to damage things and try to kill enemies as quickly as possible, it is everyone's because enemies dying faster contributes to the success of all the roles. A perfect example of this is a WHM going cleric stance and holy spamming a large group of enemies because by killing them faster it prevents more damage than they would have been able to heal if they focused solely on that. Sometimes the best way of reaching a goal is not the direct route.

I understand your point. It is quite valid, and I'm not going to say otherwise. I just feel that a loss of 1.5-2k points of my HP pool by changing trinkets is not worth it, especially when all I'll see with equivalent trinkets in DPS is about an increase of 50 in my attacks. I get that it adds up, but it's still a small amount in the scheme of things. About the only time I'm willing to do this are old fights. But, also, I feel this may be a difference in the styles of tanks. Warriors get more mitigation from more damage after all.

[TouchandFeel]

I understand your point. It is quite valid, and I'm not going to say otherwise. I just feel that a loss of 1.5-2k points of my HP pool by changing trinkets is not worth it, especially when all I'll see with equivalent trinkets in DPS is about an increase of 50 in my attacks. I get that it adds up, but it's still a small amount in the scheme of things. About the only time I'm willing to do this are old fights. But, also, I feel this may be a difference in the styles of tanks. Warriors get more mitigation from more damage after all.

The reason myself and others have brought up tank dps is the disparity between the two when in tank stance. We were not debating the pros and cons of creating a str/dps build tank, that is happening in other threads. Whether or not a slight dps increase for hp tradeoff through gear is justified will depend more on the individual tank, the content they are doing and the other players they are doing the content with.

I have a problem with the dps disparity because the two tanks, as of 2.1 have pretty much the same level of survivability, accomplished through different means but still equitable. So their defensive capabilities are on par with each other, but their offensive capabilities are not. Now since dps directly factors into the self-heal mitigation of a WAR, I don't want to see them nerfed in that respect. As I stated in a post earlier in this thread, what I would like to see is a damage buff to PLD that only affects them when they are in ShO, such as making Spirits Within ignore the ShO damage penalty just like Inner Beast does since those are the closest dps ability equivalents I could find between the two. Also something like the "porcupine" idea that was presented earlier in the thread would increase PLD tanks stance dps a bit while still staying very thematic to PLD.

[Ceodore]

I have a problem with the dps disparity because the two tanks, as of 2.1 have pretty much the same level of survivability, accomplished through different means but still equitable. So their defensive capabilities are on par with each other, but their offensive capabilities are not. Now since dps directly factors into the self-heal mitigation of a WAR, I don't want to see them nerfed in that respect. As I stated in a post earlier in this thread, what I would like to see is a damage buff to PLD that only affects them when they are in ShO, such as making Spirits Within ignore the ShO damage penalty just like Inner Beast does since those are the closest dps ability equivalents I could find between the two. Also something like the "porcupine" idea that was presented earlier in the thread would increase PLD tanks stance dps a bit while still staying very thematic to PLD.

Yeah, I saw the porcupine thing. It's a good idea, but it doesn't really feel like a "Paladin" thing. What I would rather see is something more along the lines of a stacking consumable. I don't believe a buff is necessary, because Wrath already does that, and it would just feel like a copy cat skill. Here's my submission. Take away the Cooldowns on Spirits Within and Circle of Scorn. Instead, make them consume the stacking consumable. This will require a bit more maintenance on Spirits Within, since you will have to make a choice between either more DPS, or saving the stacks for the silence for an important mechanic. Leave the skills as off global cooldown still, since the balance is now the consumables. Also, leave the HP variance on Spirits Within. This would make it have some balance and not be overpowered when compared to Inner Beast, but also still strong.

Now, those changes would be a gross imbalance between Warriors and Paladins. So I'd like to see Warriors lose the global cooldowns on Inner Beast and Steel Cyclone, allowing them to be used between skills too.

So what you now have are two tanks with slightly similar, but at the same time very different mechanics. The people who want more tactical difficulty on Paladins get it, as now you can't just throw the silence out there without some work being put in first. It also means that both tanks have an AOE taunt skill of not so much equal power, but different capabilities. Warriors get their two most critical skills off the global cooldown, meaning Inner Beast can be used more often, resulting in a stronger self healing tank. Then, in exchange for self healing, they can do more AOE agro instead.

Also, take the combo interruption off of Overpower, but take away Flash as a cross class ability. (inb4 rage at loss of Flash) TP maintenance is and always has been an aspect of Warriors. It's time though to really separate these two tanks. Warrior should be more physical themed where Paladin should be more magical themed in their styles.

Edit: Call our stacking consumable something like Halone's Tears or something. And since warriors get a fancy swirling buff around them when they reach 5 stacks, I'd like to see glowy light wings! Purely for aesthetic purposes of course.

Another edit: Now, another aspect I was considering is the whole blocking thing. Since blocking is a pretty big part of our class mechanics. Instead of the buff just generating stacks based on skills used, have it generate a stack based on blocks, so long as Shield Oath is on. And whenever you get say 3 stacks, you can become "Blessed". This would greatly balance the skills based on the situation too. With mob pulls, you block more often, meaning you can use Circle of Scorn more for agro. However, I can see this being a draw back should the silence be needed on Spirits Within. But seriously, I'd give that up to use Rage of Halone more. That skill is pretty!

[Donjo]

Also, tank DPS matters. ... It's not only important in world first progression, it's important for getting the turn over as quick as possible and dealing with less mechanics. That, in itself, is a form of mitigation. So don't just think because you're a tank you can slack on DPS, that same argument can be made for healers not DPSing because their primary job is to heal. If you aren't dead, and they aren't doing anything else, they should be DPSing. You have NO excuse because tanking and DPSing go hand in hand (you're going to have to hit the boss to tank it).

Let's make some numbers appear. You're in a high level instance, fighting a boss. You and your Co-Tank are running mitigation builds. Each of your DPS are putting out approximately 500 DPS. You and your Co-Tank are each putting out 200. Since you're beefy and survivable, both of your healers have many chances to throw DPS spells out. Let's say that they're each putting out 40 DPS, which takes into account misses.

This is a total of (500 x 4) + (200 x 2) + (40 x 2) = 2480 Party DPS.

Now, let's say that both you and your Co-Tank decide that you're surviving more than well enough in the fight, so you're going to go all in on STR. You both manage to increase your DPS by 10%. You're now both tossing out 220. However, your healers now need to work harder to keep you both alive. They can't DPS as much. They're now contributing 30 DPS to the fight each. The reality is probably lower, but let's highball them anyway.

This is a total of (500 x 4) + (220 x 2) + (30 x 2) = 2500 Party DPS.

Your efforts at stacking STR have increased your group's DPS by 0.8%. To this, I ask: How much faster will this really end the encounter? You'll end the fight 0.8% faster. You'll end trash fights that go for an average of 1 minute less than a second faster. But, bosses are what's important here. Let's take a 10 minute fight. You've ended the fight 4.8 seconds faster. However, fights these days are even longer than that. Let's go 13. It ends 6 seconds faster. So, yes. It adds up eventually. However, what you'll end up mitigating by missing those very few seconds is quite random. It could just be an autoattack. It could be the Tank Buster(tm). Or, it could be the actual Enrage mechanic of the fight. Some fights are indeed heavily scripted, but human performance is variable enough that you'll never finish a fight at an exact minute and second every time. So, that means that contributing 0.8% more damage to the group at the expense of more than 0.8% of your survivability for the purpose of mitigation has an element of uncertainty. Sort of like... Parry! You never know when a Parry is going to happen and you never know exactly what the boss would have done to you if it were alive for another 6 second. However, Parry can happen over the entire course of most fights but this only happens at the end. If your Parries in a fight would prevent an amount of damage equal to the amount of damage the boss would deal to you in 6 seconds, then it's smarter to use Parry than Strength. Regardless, defending this method of mitigation is, as I've said in a previous thread, hypocritical of the argument that Parry is not worth using.

But, no matter what, and this needs to be made absolutely clear, the benefit of the Tanks dealing 10% more damage each in the full party situations where you're deeming it most useful is so, so small in comparison to the survivability they lose that there is literally no reason to sacrifice so much survivability.

[SpookyGhost]

Now, let's say that both you and your Co-Tank decide that you're surviving more than well enough in the fight, so you're going to go all in on STR. You both manage to increase your DPS by 10%. You're now both tossing out 220. However, your healers now need to work harder to keep you both alive. They can't DPS as much.

If you are compromising your group's DPS or your healer's DPS, then you aren't optimizing your DPS correctly.

As an example:

Turn 5. Do you, as a PLD, need 8,000 HP to tank it without giving your healers heart attacks? No. You don't need that much HP. I'm going to go with a high number here because I've no idea what the actual HP threshold is for T5, but let's say you need about 7,000 HP to comfortably survive any DS + Crit Auto Attack. That is the maximum amount of HP you need for the turn, and the rest is essentially going to waste (no healer is going to be like "well, he's at 1,000 HP, I'll keep DPSing!"). So, what do we do with all that extra VIT? Throw it into STR, of course! See, the thing is, VIT actually has diminishing returns that vary from encounter to encounter. However, STR never actually hits a point where you have Too Much of it. That extra 1,000 HP is completely wasted because you're never going to sit at that HP after a big attack and not be healed up. I know a lot of people believe more HP = more healer DPSing, but that's just not how it works, especially not in this game where all the encounters are scripted and big attacks come on a timer.

So, even if the STR you gain only contributes as little as 0.8% group DPS, it's still better than a completely wasted chunk of VIT.

[Ceodore]

-Stuff-

Umm, as someone who has had a lot of bad groups for T5, all the defense you can get is an understatement for this fight. I was sitting pretty at 8.5k HP without echo buff, with, I was clearing 10k, and even when going with warriors who were topping 12k (They wanted stun locks afterall) The warrior was still getting pummeled down to death with DS, and a few hits. The issue arose from TT's debuff from DS which reduced healing. Now, after completing it, I was sure it was an issue with the groups I had, cause the group I did it with only used one tank and one healer and it was murder. But that is a superb group of players, and it was only because the other tank, (A Paladin, they asked me to dps) went all out on defense. He was clear 10k hp, and all the same ilvl as my Paladin.

Stuff

I want my Circle of Scorn spam! It's so pretty! I will agree, that it does seem a little like Warrior's Defiance. Perhaps something that is catalytic. Here's another idea. If we block a target, the Circle of Scorn debuff will refresh on that target. I'd prefer this effect over a single high damage effect on a block, because it's something that lingers, and it gives you a time frame of, hey, better hope you block another attack from this target in 15 seconds, or you'll have to refresh Circle of Scorn, but people will still refresh it anyways because agro.

[Donjo]

As an example:

Turn 5. Do you, as a PLD, need 8,000 HP to tank it without giving your healers heart attacks? No. You don't need that much HP. I'm going to go with a high number here because I've no idea what the actual HP threshold is for T5, but let's say you need about 7,000 HP to comfortably survive any DS + Crit Auto Attack. That is the maximum amount of HP you need for the turn, and the rest is essentially going to waste (no healer is going to be like "well, he's at 1,000 HP, I'll keep DPSing!"). So, what do we do with all that extra VIT? Throw it into STR, of course! See, the thing is, VIT actually has diminishing returns that vary from encounter to encounter. However, STR never actually hits a point where you have Too Much of it. That extra 1,000 HP is completely wasted because you're never going to sit at that HP after a big attack and not be healed up. I know a lot of people believe more HP = more healer DPSing, but that's just not how it works, especially not in this game where all the encounters are scripted and big attacks come on a timer.

So, even if the STR you gain only contributes as little as 0.8% group DPS, it's still better than a completely wasted chunk of VIT.

0. This isn't terribly relevant, but a full i90 PLD focusing on mitigation had 7000 HP. Twintania still gave healers heart attacks at that HP.

1. When the big attacks are on a timer and that's the only time big damage comes out, the healer DPS opportunity is between the big attacks.. Having 1000-1500 extra HP in that situation is one more auto-attack that can be weathered before a heal is necessary, which is 1 extra DPS spell per cycle of the big attack. If the healer throws out said extra attack and deals 250 damage, that makes up for 62.5 seconds of you dealing 10 additional damage per attack. Being so tanky that your healers can comfortably provide more DPS provides more damage for the raid than forcing them to pay more attention to you will.

2. There is literally no such thing as wasted HP. Stop spreading this around. What happens if you're at the minimum and someone makes a mistake? The healers aren't going to toss a heal at them because they can't leave you alone for a second. That person dies. What happens if the healer(s) makes a mistake? You die. Your ability to survive isn't just about you surviving; it's about the entire party surviving. Any reduction to your HP is a direct reduction to their chances to survive should something go wrong. Any amount of HP that you consider to be wasted is a measure of your party's ability to screw up without wiping. No party is consistently perfect enough to make literally zero mistakes in the most stressful fights in the game. A comfortable one shot is always, always better than a risky potential one shot that will end 6 seconds faster.

[SpookyGhost]

post

0. This is a case of "really horrible healers". If you happen to have really horrible healers, then your max HP required goes up. If you don't have really horrible healers, what I said sticks.

1. Okay, let's take a real world scenario here, yeah? Let's say you're still a 7,000 HP PLD and you're still fighting Twintania. DS has happened, you've been healed up to full. At no point after this should you be dropping to 1,000 HP. Your healers aren't going to be like "ehhhh one more auto attack won't kill him!". Is this just straight up theorycraft world where the rules of actual encounters don't apply? Where all your HP is specifically to allow the healers to DPS during auto attacks and never ever touch you until the big hits come? Because that's sorta not how that works. Your healer is never going to let you drop low at the expense of DPS, because all that DPS goes to waste if you die and the party wipes. I feel like you have this.. like... concept in your mind that I'm talking about going stupid low on HP and then being like "WELL DA STR DOE???!11". Remember when you were talking about how world first groups want to pump out as much DPS as possible which is why (apparently) the tanks needed to pump out DPS too? Now, consider the following: a lot of the MTs in those groups (most if not all) used i90 Ruby accessories for T10, T11, and potentially even T12. T13 is obviously another story due to a higher HP check, especially during early progression, but eventually most MTs will be swapping to i90 Ruby. Off Tank BiS for early progression was also i90 Ruby accessories for every turn. Why is that? Why don't they wear i110 VIT accessories? Why aren't they using i120 or i130 ones? Why aren't they completely maxed out on HP? Why did everyone migrate to i110 STR accessories in SCoB or Ruby? Are you saying that everyone, but you and this other guy, are wrong? Is the popular method somehow incorrect despite providing results?

2. So, there's a few things wrong with this. Firstly, this is another scenario wherein your healers are bad which will, in fact, bump up the required HP for the fight. That sucks, because it also lowers your groups overall DPS and you're essentially forced to carry someone. If someone makes a mistake, as a tank, it is your job to pop a CD to compensate for the healing, not to just Have Extra Health on the off chance someone fucks up and the stars align so that you are at low HP AND a big attack that could kill you is coming up. Personally, this really really really low percent chance occurrence doesn't factor into how much HP I think I'll need for the encounter. If my healers suck and decide they want to DPS while letting me fall to 1,000 HP and there is some reason that the event you describe can occur, then yes, more HP would be better in that scenario because I'd be at 2,000 HP instead of 1,000 and would survive the... 1,000 damage attack that's coming up. Does this not sound completely ludicrous to you? Is it only me? Are healers out there just super bad or have I been blessed with the most incredible healers in all of Eorzea?

But yeah, if you want extra fluff HP because you're super paranoid that some event may happen wherein someone makes a mistake and this causes you to Outright Die, then that's fine. More HP definitely helps bad players, the Echo buff proves that. Sometimes even Echo can't help bad players. But y'know, if you and your healers are good, then converting that extra HP into STR is a good idea, at least in my opinion. I could be wrong but I reaaaaally don't think this argument of "IF EVERYONES BAD YOU NEED AS MUCH HP AS YOU CAN GET" sways me. I do agree with it, mind you, but that wasn't the scenario I was going for when I gave the T5 example. People can make mistakes, but if both the tank and the healer are competent, neither you nor that person will die. Again, the possibility of you being super low on health (shouldn't happen) + someone making a mistake (can and will happen more often than not) + both healers completely leaving you alone to heal the DPS (extremely unlikely) + the next attack that comes up after this string of events will outright kill you (see: previous parenthesis) + both healers are stuck in their GCD and the attack happens so fast that you die (uh) is such a low percentage that I couldn't give you it if I wanted to. You're clearly convinced that VIT 100% is the way to go, though, so I'll let you keep on trucking with that. If you'd like to get the last word in, feel free to, I'm personally done derailing this topic into STR's weight for a tank.

[TouchandFeel]

I personally feel that the stacking consumable just makes it feel and function too much like wrath stacks, which makes the tanks play more like each other which is something I would like to avoid.

I personally liked the porcupine idea and felt that it was very fitting for PLD because it directly plays off of blocking and the shield is the conceptual setpiece for PLD, that and it has the PLD attacking by defending which was something I brought up earlier as something I would like to see more of in the design of PLD abilities.

Mainly what I see as creating the dps disparities are as follows.
- WAR has attacks that ignore the Defiance damage penalty while PLD does not, with Inner Beast being the main contributor since it is used very often, hence my suggestion for Spirits to get the same and have that unnecessary "%hp reduces potency" part of it just removed.
- Maim can be kept up pretty much most of the time and it provides a nice dps boost, equivalent to what I would say Sword Oath gives PLD. Problem is that when both tanks are in their tank stance, PLD loses the benefits of Sword Oath while WAR can still have maim. That is why the porcupine idea is great imo, it provides that little bit of consistent extra dps like Sword Oath did, but is defensively themed. It is also separate from everything else so its numbers could easily be tweaked for balancing.
- The % slashing damage debuff for WAR. Yeah it can help both tanks when there is one of each in the group, but in 4-man content or solo-tanking it is a big bonus for the WAR and his party. That is why I suggested to finish off a 3-part combo from Riot Blade that has an effect like that, something like a % magic damage debuff or something that would make sense.

Pretty much I am trying to pinpoint where I feel the causes for the disparity come from and then come up with correlative ideas for fixes, not a complete and drastic change up of mechanics.