New tanking abilities in the expansion thread!

[magni321]

The war doesn't need a dps stance you just turn off the threat buff. The rebuff you get from berserk can be removed by the healer. Plus the knock back for steel cyclone would be counter productive since as a tank you want them right on top of you.

[SpookyGhost]

I don't think people fully understand why PLD is so dull.

Firstly, it barely qualifies as a tank. It barely qualifies as a job. It barely qualifies as anything. There is more thought involved in playing BLM/BRD than ever playing PLD in any encounter. People joke about it all the time, people use it as a mark against PLD, but seriously: it's 123 cooldown. You can try to make PLD as complex as you want, but you will have the exact same result every time. People are literally grasping at straws, attempting to use Oath swapping as an excuse to make PLD seem like more than it is. I have to try so hard to keep my brain on when I play PLD, I always drift off and start looking at everyone else while I'm tanking. That's not a good sign.

Secondly, it has no "mechanic". Let's take a look at other jobs: WAR has Wrath, BRD has songs, BLM has Umbral/Astral, SMN/SCH have Aetherflow, and MNK has Greased Lightning. DRG has no real mechanic but it survives on being an enjoyable DPS job with a lot of buttons to press. WHM doesn't have a mechanic but survives on being a healer in a game where there's very little versatility/change from fight to fight. PLD has no mechanic, has nothing interesting to do, and is just 123 cooldown. If you love playing PLD, it's because you literally don't want any responsibility to learn even a semblance of a mechanic, you want the easy ride to Final Coil. Be honest with yourself, do you really think you're jumping through hoops to play PLD? Do you feel like you have just as much of a right to brag about downing something as everyone else? When I had to play PLD in BCoB I literally felt cheated out of my victories. I felt like I just rode by on everyone else's accomplishment. Oh, cool, I pressed the cooldown when the big hit was about to be cast... yay... back to 123.

I've seen/heard a lot of people suggest that PLD needs a Riot Blade ender. While this would be nice simply for some versatility, I don't think it's the solution. What PLD needs is a mechanic, something to set it apart from everyone else and make it feel like a fun job to play. I don't know what that mechanic would be as I'm no game designer and I don't want to talk with authority like I've any idea what the solution would be, but just give us something to consider when we're pressing 123 500 times besides "did Shield Swipe proc?".

[Domira]

I think the biggest issue PLD is many skills secondary mechanics no longer work end game. Meaning shield bash is useless, no enemies can be stunned, flash is mostly useless except on adds, blind no longer works, shield swipe is useless since pacification doesn't work. So the class ultimately gets stuck with 123 over and over since nothing else works.

[stoxastic]

Yeah, PLDs need to have fights designed around them to make them interesting. Levi Ex is actually pretty fun as PLD, you have a lot of mechanics to take care of and the design makes great use of many of PLDs skills: Shield Bash, Tempered Will, Hallowed Ground, hell even Stoneskinning yourself.

[SpookyGhost]

CC never really made PLD that fun either to me. Chain stunning an add wasn't exactly any different than what you'd normally do. Instead of pressing 123, you pressed one button until the thing died and then went back to 123. Sometimes you had to watch for a castbar while you pressed that button, like Twister, and that meant you couldn't just close your eyes completely. The only time I remember using Flash for the blind was Titan HM if I was using a small CD like Foresight + Awareness. Silencing for T1/T2 was about as active as you could get and not many PLDs even did it since everyone decided to stack 2x BRD. I dunno, I've never felt that PLD's toolkit has made a fight any more interesting, but I guess some would disagree. I like Stoneskin and Cover a lot, and I'd actually like it if PLD was more focused on aiding the party since neither tank seems to have much focus on that (mainly just hitting the boss and using cooldowns).

[Domira]

Yeah, PLDs need to have fights designed around them to make them interesting. Levi Ex is actually pretty fun as PLD, you have a lot of mechanics to take care of and the design makes great use of many of PLDs skills: Shield Bash, Tempered Will, Hallowed Ground, hell even Stoneskinning yourself.

Warrior vs Paladin is Consistency vs Situational

Paladin:

Tempered Will: Situational, rarely used. Levi Ex and Titan are the only times I recall using it
Cover: Rarely ever used except in pvp
Shield Bash: Rarely ever used except in dungeons and Levi ex
Flash (Blind): 95% of mobs outside of dungeons are immune
Shield Swipe (Pacification): 95% of mobs outside of dungeons are immune, making shield swipe absolutely useless

Warrior:

Storm's Path: Always works
Storm's Eye: Always works
Brutal Swing: Situational, 95% of mobs are immune to stun outside of dungeons
Maim: Always works

Nearly all of their skills always work.



Aside from brutal swing, all of warrior skills are useful and are not situational. There is no mob mechanic that prevents warriors from getting the 20% dmg buff from maim, nor are mobs immune to storm's path or storm's eye, ever. The result is warrior has a lot more things to do. Paladin on the other hand, their skills get literally gutted. Everything is immune to blind, pacification and stun resulting in paladin being limited to rage of halone combo and cooldowns. Furthermore, PLD cooldowns are on average a lot longer than Warriors, resulting in again less things to do.

Its terrible class design on SEs part, why give a class mechanics that nearly all mobs are immune to? It would be a better idea to turn those mechanics into something that can be useful at all times, like buffs. How many situations have required for PLD to use cover? None really. PLD just needs to be made less situational to give it more complexity. Also compared to warrior, pld has worse cross skill choices.

[Cariborne]

The way I always saw it, Paladin is the "Entry Tank". They're strong, they get it done, and they're easy. Much like Dragoon is simple to play and White Mage is overall basic. They're what I think of when I think of a tank, healer or damage dealer. Paladin has the Sword and Shield, Dragoon is Kain from FF4 and jumps around dealing damage, White Mage is... well, a White Mage. Even the Chocobo's reflect this!

As for some neat ideas I'd like to see in the expansion. Sword and Shield Oath off the GCD and sharing like a 10s CD or something. I'd also like Paladin's to gain a new damaging ability, maybe something that'll chain off Riot Blade for some AoE damage around them or something. Something that isn't Flash or Circle of Scorn for AoE lol. For the Warrior, I'd like something to bring an enemy to me, like I throw a Chain and pull them at me on like a minute CD, maybe even stun them for 2s when they get to me.

[Feylie]

Yeah it's kind of ridiculous that so many paladins are asking for passive/set and forget crap. We have more than enough defensive cooldowns and more than enough utility that doesn't work on bosses. If we get 5 new abilities (Job Quest at 52/54/56/58/60) I hope that we get like 4 WSes and 1 spell along with changes to some of our other abilities. I'm most likely going to be disappointed, but that's what Dark Knight is for I guess.

Thank you! Even with DRK coming, there's very little that PLD can get defensive wise. We have everything pretty much.

Like really, the only thing they can give the job is more offensive options.

[MiniPrinny]

I'll start with Warrior, since it's my main.

- Marauder Abilities -

"Full Break" (Storm's Fury?): Combos off of Maim, refreshes the duration of Storm's Path and Storm's Eye debuffs, 280 potency.

Throat Jab: Silences the target. 80 Potency. Recast: 40s

- Marauder Traits -

Distracting Wounds: Fracture decreases the enemy's Intellect by 10%. Distracting Wounds cannot be stacked with the Dragon Kick status.

Enhanced Holmgang: Increases the duration of Holmgang's defensive buff to 20 seconds. Holmgang restores own HP. Cure Potency: 700. Cure potency scales with current attack power.

- Warrior Abilities -

War Cry: Delivers an attack with a potency of 150 to all nearby enemies. Ignores the damage penalty inflicted by Defiance. Can only be executed while Infuriated. All Wrath is lost when used. Additional Effect: Increases the damage dealt by allies by 10% for 10s. Recast: 60s

Embrace the Beast: Increases damage dealt by 100%, converts 100% of physical damage dealt into HP, nullifies the damage penalty inflicted by Defiance. Can only be executed while Infuriated. All Wrath is lost when used. Unable to use weapon skills or abilities for 5s after effect ends. Duration: 30s; Recast: 180s

- Gladiator Abilities -

Shock: Deals magical damage with a potency of 80 to all nearby enemies. Combo Action: Riot Blade. Combo Potency: 120. Combo Bonus: Increased Enmity.

Climhazzard: Delivers an attack with a potency of 175. Additional Effect: Sword Oath increases potency to 350. Recast: 30s

- Gladiator Traits -

Spiked Bulwark: Bulwark delivers an attack with a potency of 25 every time you block an attack. Potency increases with block strength.

Enhanced Shield Swipe: Shield Swipe may be cast off the global cooldown. Potency increases with block strength.

- Paladin Abilities -

Thunder Slash: Deals lightning damage with a potency of 100. Your next spell is cast immediate and its healing potency is quadrupled. Recast: 60s.

Crusade: Rushes target, maximizing enmity in target and delivering an attack with a potency of 100. Must be more than 10 yalms away from target to execute. Additional Effect: Refreshes the duration of Cover and increases its max range by 20 yalms. Recast: 30s

[rawker]

for plds, i wouldn't mind a third branch of skills that combo off fast blade which focuses more on damage-dealing, a buff that temporarily increases cure potency by a substantial amount, and a buff that temporarily increases blocked damage so it will work in conjunction with bulwark.