Suggestion - Increase PLD Healing Support, not Dps

[Kalamari]

A few suggestion to keep PLD a desirable tank job, without just streamlining their dps to be in line with WAR/DRK:

1. Give PLD a group heal, for example by causing Clemency cast on yourself to also heal your group for ~200 potency
2. Divine Veil with much lower cooldown (~60s). And instead of proccing from heals received, procs only from Clemency cast on yourself
3. Melee attacks in Sword Oath restore a small ammount of mana
4. Clemency cannot be interrupted by damage taken
5. Give PLD an expensive Esuna (~1.2k mana each)

By increasing PLD healing support, they could contribute meaningfully to a group synergy despite their terrible dps. I feel that just buffing PLD dps to near WAR/DRK levels would make all 3 tanks just more alike, instead of allowing for individual strengths.

A good PLD could then contribute significantly to healing, just as a WAR/DRK contribute significantly to dps. With extra healing support, Healers would be able to spend more time in Cleric Stance, that way also contributing to dps.

PLD has always had the Conjurer cross-class, so making them more of a healing oriented tank job would really fit the PLD lore/fantasy I think. ^^

Tldr.: Keep PLD dps low, instead make up for that with potent group-healing support.

[Seku]

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Only way this would work is if they made it so that PLD was a healer and did it while MTing, allowing for a healer to be replace with another DPS. In which case DRK would probably never get a group again in the history of anything as PLD would be able to more than likely keep itself and it's party alive for the most part.

PLD can actually heal pretty decently as is. Problem is that it isn't needed except in situations where someone done f up and you're down a healer and people are dying. Then snipe cures and stone skins can take pressure off the healer allowing for a better recovery. This will actually become more effective as time presses on due to Stone skin and DV putting up a shield for a % of someone's HP.

[Kalamari]

Only way this would work is if they made it so that PLD was a healer and did it while MTing, allowing for a healer to be replace with another DPS. In which case DRK would probably never get a group again in the history of anything as PLD would be able to more than likely keep itself and it's party alive for the most part.

Replacing a healer would perhaps be feasible with a -really- well geared PLD, and only doing overrgeared farm content, but for the most part the healing support should not be near the level of a real healer job. It would however give some groups the incentive as gear increases to switch one tank for a PLD, and have 1 healer switch to dps. Unlike now where as gear progresses, there is less and less reason to ever consider bringing a PLD again.

Maybe it's just me, but wouldn't this make PLD even more undesirable? Because time spent casting and healing others is time that could've been used to generate more enmity on targets and contribute more DPS to the group. And if PLD is focusing on enmity/DPS, then these extra healing perks become useless.

That's a good point, but then again with Clemency being as expensive as it is it's not like you'd be spending most of your time casting. Though it really wouldn't hurt if the cast time was a little shorter.

[RadRyder]

Maybe it's just me, but wouldn't this make PLD even more undesirable? Because time spent casting and healing others is time that could've been used to generate more enmity on targets and contribute more DPS to the group. And if PLD is focusing on enmity/DPS, then these extra healing perks become useless.

[Seku]

Maybe it's just me, but wouldn't this make PLD even more undesirable? Because time spent casting and healing others is time that could've been used to generate more enmity on targets and contribute more DPS to the group. And if PLD is focusing on enmity/DPS, then these extra healing perks become useless.

Thus why the only way for this to work would be to make PLD an actual healer. So they can replace a healer with a DPS.

[RadRyder]

Thus why the only way for this to work would be to make PLD an actual healer. So they can replace a healer with a DPS.

Which is most likely never gonna happen unless you overgear the content.

[Seku]

Which is most likely never gonna happen unless you overgear the content.

Not really. Clemency doesn't allow PLD to be on the scale of a normal healer due to it's massive MP drain. But you're right in the fact that it's never gonna happen and really shouldn't happen. For if it did...well refer to my first post. ;D

Replacing a healer would perhaps be feasible with a -really- well geared PLD, and only doing overrgeared farm content, but for the most part the healing support should not be near the level of a real healer job. It would however give some groups the incentive as gear increases to switch one tank for a PLD, and have 1 healer switch to dps. Unlike now where as gear progresses, there is less and less reason to ever consider bringing a PLD again.

If their on farm status, having PLD in the group, even with your suggestions, would be not so desirable. As they'd still be filling the small role they are filling now. The ability to aid the group recover in case an "oh shit" moment happens. They have enough curing ability to keep the group up just long enough for a healer to stabilize the raid. But if said group is on farm status that entire niche is useless. If anything PLD having cures is about the same as SMN having cures, resurrection, and a tanking pet. Good for "oh shit" and Solo situations but useless outside of that.

[Reynhart]

Thus why the only way for this to work would be to make PLD an actual healer.

Not necessary an "actual" healer. For example, if you can only heal a single target, that doesn't make you a real healer.
Or you could adjust PLD healing capacity to be specifically designed to heal the main tank. Like varying potency based on the target's enmity.

PLD could also help others, not by healing but by offering more mitigation. We could have cover on a shorter cooldown, or Sheltron that could block the next hit as long as the target is in range (The range of the animation).
Which would help you replenish some MP to keep healing.

With that, a PLD OT could delay the HP loss of the main tank, allowing the real main healer to focus the whole party when needed.

Give Sword Oath a raw DPS boost even 5% would be something

Sword Oath should increase potency of all actions by 20%. With our auto-attack speed, the effect would be slightly less than what it is now, BUT, it would benefit the enmity gain of weapon skills, for those would like to tank in Sword Oath once in a while, AND, would also boost the potencies of oGCD skill, like Circle Of Scorn and Spirits Within, AND, more importantly for this topic, would also boost the potency of Clemency, thus making it more viable to keep the main tank alive.

[ZhycranaDranix]

Give PLDs Swift Cast + Battle Raise -___- lol
Take Shield Swipe off GcD
Give Sword Oath a raw DPS boost even 5% would be something .... DS is a direct DPS boost to DRKs and WARs have no prob DPS
Shorten Clemency Cast

BAM!!

[Abomination713]

While I don't agree with everything in this thread, there are two changes I want to see.

1. Lower the CD of Divine Veil by 30-60 seconds. At 150 seconds, it's almost useless and am lucky to pop it off twice in a fight. At a lower CD it would make the tank look a little better since they could effectively cast their own SS on everyone in the middle of the fight. Take off the requirement to be healed to activate it. I've had times where I wanted to put it on and all of a sudden all the heals stop for 30 seconds. It's weird.

2. Make Clemency an instant cast. The 3 second cast time really discourages me from using it on partners since the healer will usually have a heal going out on them by the time my cast time is over and it feels like a waste of MP. We should be encouraged to use it on others since it has the 50% HP back bonus to it, but with the cast time, I only want to use it on myself since my HP is more important compared to those around me in those 3 seconds. It should be used as a way to heal someone that the healer can't get to in time or as another def item for the tank to use on themselves. It already takes 40-45% of our total MP so we should be able to use it fast to save ourselves or those around us. Put a 15-30 second timer on it so we can't spam heals twice in a row on ourselves/team mates. Why can the WAR use it their heal instantly, but we can't? They even have theirs off the GCD, but we have the CNJ as a cross class. It's so stupid.