PLD dps needs to be buffed, current dps a joke

[NFaelivrin]

I think the oddest thing about current tank balance has to be the fact that DRK manages to be both a poorly designed class and the best main tank in the current raid simply because it happens to play to its few strengths. Unless every raid from now on is solely magic damage DRK has a high chance of becoming trash, which was what many people thought it'd be in Gordias Savage before it was actually unveiled.

[Sapphidia]

I think the oddest thing about current tank balance has to be the fact that DRK manages to be both a poorly designed class and the best main tank in the current raid simply because it happens to play to its few strengths.

Yep, it's basically a paladin without the shield/sheltron/bulwark but with Dark Mind instead, and a fiddly mana management system. But instead of the paladin's healy/supporty skills they bring... damage. Not as much as warriors, but more than the paladins generally (not in optimal situations but in practical application due to the whole weird threat level thing i mentioned).

If anything it shows that Damage Output is too highly valued in current content. DRK needs probably more band aid fixing and quality of life buffs than Paladins do for sure, yet right now Alex Savage favors them immensely.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

The tank meta is, last I checked, "DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPSDPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS HOW'S MY PARSE?", or at least that's the impression I'd get if I only looked at your thread. The actual meta is to stack enough survivability as to survive the strongest hit plus an auto attack, then to put the rest into damage, adapting for the healers needs as necessitated.

Aka Holmgang + DPS!

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

.. Nektulos quoted me.

I feel unclean.

Back on topic, while I'd like to offer my thoughts on the pld plight, the extent of my raiding experience was FCoB as Warrior and later as DRG, so I'll go back to watching the thread at hand

[Jpec07]

Shield Swipe is definitely a skill that could be targeted.

The only real use is on trash pulls, especially if there's a mob that (a) can be affected by Pacification and (b) hits hard enough with special skills that Pacification would count as viable mitigation (a couple of the large trash mob encounters from Fractal Continuum come to mind). Otherwise, I would be very onboard with the changes you detailed. A viable proccing enmity generator would be very swanky. Alternatively, taking it off GCD would be a good move, so we wouldn't have to burn a cooldown to get some extra enmity.

I'll generally agree that PLD DPS isn't really the problem, but rather the lack of enmity generation. Having that extra value on the proc as a fresh 60 PLD would have been incredibly helpful, because I could have used it to combat the DPS in full blue gear.

[Brian_]

The entire reason MNKs were getting dropped for NIN is because DRKs brought the INT debuff as part of their standard rotation and were better than PLDs. If PLDs were better than DRKs in the current content, MNKs would not be getting dropped. Though, if PLD, DRK, and WAR were actually balanced, it might also result in dropping MNK for NIN and bring PLD / DRK as your 2 tanks. But, the tanks aren't balanced so that's not a choice any real progression group has. Balance aside, the lack of raid diversity is actually a bad thing.

As for MNKs complaining, SE did not just randomly think "MNKs need some help." It's because people complained about MNKs getting dropped from content just like how PLDs are.

And yea, they fixed DRKs so they aren't TP dry in 2 minutes. PLDs were not much better and bottom out in a similar amount of time. I am completely TP dry well before the first jump in AS1. And, that's including the break in up-time as 0.5 spawns. Of course, the people thinking PLD TP generation is okay don't play PLD.

PLDs don't need a lot of help. But, they definitely need some. I don't know why it seems like the PLD player-base has ADD when it's pretty consolidated where the fixes need to be. Fix enmity. Fix Shield Swipe. Fix Clemency. Fix Oath clunkiness. Done. Those are the fundamental changes that must happen. The rest is largely just QoL stuff.

[Ditto]

The tank meta is, last I checked, "DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPSDPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS DPS HOW'S MY PARSE?", or at least that's the impression I'd get if I only looked at your thread. The actual meta is to stack enough survivability as to survive the strongest hit plus an auto attack, then to put the rest into damage, adapting for the healers needs as necessitated.

But yes once we get a boss that is throwing death sentences out left and right again, Drk is going to stop being a thing. The way it is right now, Drk is easily the weakest link in the tank setup overall. Either new raids are going to have to be balanced around what their mitigation is, or I guess we're all going to have to level Warrior.

Because Warriors are like the rich guys who drive around in a Ferrari and are naturally good at just everything. They also show up at your birthday party every year dressed up as Batman just to remind you of what you are not as a Dark Knight.

And as far as Pld goes, they're really not in as bad a place as people think they are. They're well built tanks, they have been for all of 2.0 even. The only reason Drk is giving them competition right now is because a lot of the current raid seems created with only Drk in mind. It's allowing Drk to be as good as it looks right now, but it's really not. That and the mindset that Warrior can never be a MT, so since Drk does more DPS as MT than Paladin, they take Drk for bleeding edge progression where all that matters is high group wise DPS.

When really they could have taken a War as the MT and a Paladin as the OT and they'd have gotten virtually the same results, while having more group utility and mitigation, because Paladin OT damage is about on par with Drk OT damage, and War MT damage is still the highest. Fix the issues that Paladin has that the poster above me mentioned, and they'd be golden.

[Jpec07]

When really they could have taken a War as the MT and a Paladin as the OT and they'd have gotten virtually the same results, while having more group utility and mitigation, because Paladin OT damage is about on par with Drk OT damage, and War MT damage is still the highest. Fix the issues that Paladin has that the poster above me mentioned, and they'd be golden.

The difference comes in AoE. DRK actually has some viable/sustainable AoE attacks. PLD gets...Circle of Scorn. And Flash, too, but since this thread is about DPS, we can forget that.

[Brian_]

And as far as Pld goes, they're really not in as bad a place as people think they are. They're well built tanks, they have been for all of 2.0 even. The only reason Drk is giving them competition right now is because a lot of the current raid seems created with only Drk in mind. It's allowing Drk to be as good as it looks right now, but it's really not. That and the mindset that Warrior can never be a MT, so since Drk does more DPS as MT than Paladin, they take Drk for bleeding edge progression where all that matters is high group wise DPS.

When really they could have taken a War as the MT and a Paladin as the OT and they'd have gotten virtually the same results, while having more group utility and mitigation, because Paladin OT damage is about on par with Drk OT damage, and War MT damage is still the highest.

This is wrong. They didn't just drop PLD for DRK because DRKs did more damage as MT. They did it because it also let them drop MNK for NIN which resulted in an even greater raid DPS increase and utility.

So in your hypothetical situation, you would never do that. You would just bring a WAR MT and a DRK OT. Even more so now that DRK requires less TP baby-sitting than PLD does. But, in that situation, you would rather the DRK MT because the WAR has better DPS gains when OTing.

[PogueX]

It would be nice if circle of scorn had less of a CD like like unleash, as a PLD i am so jealous of unleash. I use cross abilities like Bloodbath to up some DPS and getting my relic weapon helped a lot but yea the DPS is the worse for PLD out of any tank class, when i am in a raid with a WAR that WAR will almost always be primary tank because of the amount of DPS he lays out so it's almost like who cares that the PLD is a defensive tank when WAR and DRK can argo more