Tank Balance

[Gooner_iBluAirJGR]

Some things I'd like to see for Paladin:

Clemency Cast time reduced to 2.5s
Clemency Additional effect in Shield Oath: Increases Enmity

Shield Swipe with more damage or utility. Something like, "additional effect: reduces Sheltron cooldown by 5s"

Bulwark Reduced cooldown to 120s

[Reynhart]

- Shield Swipe as a conal AoE (With a lower potency)
- Sword/Shield oath not interruping our combos (Like Flash)

[rawker]

Paladin needs sword oath changed from 50 potency to auto attacks to "increases weaponskill damage by 5%".

You do realize that among the tanks currently available, we have an on-demand oGCD buff that increases our damage dealt(FoF) which is potent on its own and without a nasty debuff that follows.

A huge chunk of our dps comes from our fast auto-attacks. If PLD really need their dps increased, i would suggest that SwO increases attack speed on top of the additional 50 pot from auto-attacks... Or better yet, just a flat increase in auto-attack speed. It will literally address some, if not all, issues PLD currently have.

[Faeon]

Shield Swipe: oGCD - When Sword Oath Stance, potency increased 260, when used tp is returned to amount of dmg dealt 60sec cooldown (also can crit)
Shield Swipe: oGCD - When in Shield Oath Stance, potency increased 260, when used a magical shield is embedded into the PLD shield reducing all magic dmg received by 10% for 10secs. cooldown 60secs increased enmity effect remains.
Sheltron: - Same but does not proc shield swipe, has a chance to reduce shield swipe cooldown by 30secs.

Just a thumb suck.

[Xenosan]

Troubleshooting: first identify the problem, then suggest an adjustment. The first part is more important than the second. So here's my problems (some have been prevalent since 2.x, some are new):
(Spoiler brackets are suggestions)

Warrior: Fracture WS limitation. Beyond small uses like a burst window snapshot I don't think Fracture is getting used as it was intended. It's Warriors only DoT and I wish this limitation was changed in 3.0, but it was left untouched.

A buff I think would be great would be if Fracture - applied after a Eye/Path/Butcher combo - granted a stack of Wrath/Abandon. It becomes an appropriate fourth hit in any WS combo, and would give some flexibility in Stack gathering for WAR burst rotations.

Dark Knight: I think I'm the only one with this complaint... Grit & Shadowskin are re-skinned Shield Oath & Rampart, meh. YoshiP's team have had FFXIV for 2 years, the game itself is 5 years old, and DRK is only the 3rd tank in the game. Yea they've got a lot of oGCDs & the Dark Arts mechanic, but it's not the core of their tanking (really only DA>DM is close). That's the carrot strung up to bypass the fault in the foundation.

I know the Development staff has many creative ideas floating around for a tanking stance and a tank job meta; but my guess is these were suppressed to meet the HW deadline. It's bad enough MCH/AST/DRK have to live with the scarlet letter dichotomy that is 'Extra Jobs,' have no base Class, & a lvl30 start. I hope at this time the Battle Team is getting to put their creativity into re-designs for those skills. DRK has other 'problems,' but this is the one I don't give a pass.

Okay so if you don't agree with me about Grit/Shadowskin being a problem: stop reading now lol.
Grit:
Incoming Damage Reduced by 20%
Dark Knight HP absorb Abilities (Souleater, Abyssal Drain, Sole Survivor, *Reprisal) also increase the DRK's maximum HP (capping at 130%)

Shadowskin:
Incoming Damage Reduced by 20%
Reduce TP cost of abilities by 30%
Duration: 20 15 seconds
Recast: 90 60 seconds
Combo'd Powerslash, Delirium, & Souleater add to Shadowskin's duration by 12 seconds.
Added Effect while in Grit: Incoming Damage Reduced by 20%

Reprisal
Recast: 30 5 seconds
Can only be used while Shadowskin buff is present, subtracts 10 seconds from Shadowskin's duration.
Added Effect while in Grit: DRK is healed for 10-20% of their base maximum HP
---
I dunno if listing the ability changes like that was necessary. Probably should just explain the concept: Tank stance 20% mitigation is removed for improved self-healing. Increasing max HP means DRK self-heals are proactive instead of reactive.

But the 20% mitigation of the tank stance isn't completely removed, Shadowskin (while in Grit) makes up for that loss because it functions like Greased Lightning / Blood of the Dragon. Keep hitting the target to keep the Shadowskin buff up (and build a surplus of duration). Reprisal adjustment makes up for the lost of Shadowskin as a tank buster CD. Since it works like Geirskogul, it amounts to 3 Reprisals every 60 seconds. An MT Dark Knight would want to time Reprisal with Souleater just before the tank busters, and an OT DRK could use Reprisal for 100% uptime on the debuff (which would be better than Path since it's not a DPS loss).

Not saying this is what should happen, this is just an example. I've only adjusted 3 skills, but DRK's meta entirely changes with just those 3. It's why I think it's not unreasonable to forsee SE making a big change to DRK meta, since big changes can come in small packages.

Paladin: All the problems of 2.x still exist, but most prominently is SE's encounter design moving away the Tank's Tank focus. T8&T9 RiP, SE is done with defacto solo-PLD tanking. FCOB was the first indication of this I suppose. For the 'new day' situation we're in, how does PLD compensate, Utility or DPS? IMO PLD has the tools (almost) to go either route, but they're incomplete.. PLD needs something.

If Paladin has to stomach having no AOE AND lowest single target burst/DPS for providing party support utility while OT, Clemency could be awfully less punishing. No combo interruption. Maybe even moved OGCD (heals are all about timing).

I'd liek PLD to have a Spell Speed buff via Clemency or Royal Authority - since that improves Stoneskin use too. I earned my Lion mount half-way with stictly DFing Ifrit EX (I might be a masochist). But there, as PLD, I found SS to be a great tool to have while OTing. DPSing Ifrit too much actually forces his Enrage>Wipe, and healers are so backed up with splash damage & mechanics that me SSing the current MT was appreciated. I think the 'healer support' utility for PLD is viable, but - as is - it's just not working effectively. A Speed buff for PLD could work like Ninja's Huton, some mechanic bridging PLD's Clemency/Stoneskin to their core WS GCDs, make Clemency feel less clunky and out of place in their kit. J

If PLD DPS is buffed, it could be limited to comboing off Shield Swipe, so the DPS gain is exclusively MT situations (justifying both DPS+ MT and Utility+ OT). If Sheltron doesn't block an attack (magical encounters or when PLD is OTing) at the end of it's duration - instead of just wearing off, it could deal damage.. Could work like Wildfire in that regard.

I'd prefer something fun for PLD increased DPS over just a straight passive damage increase like a Sword Oath buff. Personally I really miss the 'feel' of the Gladiator class quest line, which had an almost more DPS feel to that guild's crew.

---
I'll put suggestions in spoiler brackets, but really I think the thing to discuss is the problems. When it comes to suggestions; yours are as good as mine.

[pouncing]

WAR

- WAR is just fine the other tanks need to be brought up

DRK

- change Darkdance so that when dark arts'd increases parry chance to like 80% or increases parry potency from 20% to 30%
- give bloodprice a grit effect so that it looks like this:

Bloodprice
upon use returns 300TP to the user
Grit Effect: restores a portion of MP when hit no longer restores TP

PLD

-make sheltron able to block magic damage (only this 1 block)
-increase savage blade and RoH's enmity modifiers or increase shield oaths enmity modifier
-make shield swipe an AoE cone maybe 100 potency
-make goring blades dot have something akin to bards bloodletter but instead causes your next fast blade cost 0 TP or some sort of TP management utility (maybe tie to clemency?)

[Reynhart]

Dark Knight: I think I'm the only one with this complaint... Grit & Shadowskin are re-skinned Shield Oath & Rampart, meh. YoshiP's team have had FFXIV for 2 years, the game itself is 5 years old, and DRK is only the 3rd tank in the game. Yea they've got a lot of oGCDs & the Dark Arts mechanic, but it's not the core of their tanking (really only DA>DM is close). That's the carrot strung up to bypass the fault in the foundation.

It would be difficult to have totally new skill for the same role, so Shadowskin is not a really big offender.

BUT, I absolutely agree that Grit is very bland. What I suggested some time ago is for tank to have a Dread Spike stance, where you retaliate 20% of damage (Capped at 20% of the DRK Max HP) taken and leech back what you retaliate.
Of course, it would add a lot of damage so the damage penalty from the stance would be far higher than Shield Oath or Defiance.

[RapBreon]

snip

I like your Dark Knight suggestions dudddddddddde. +1!

[Reynhart]

Okay so if you don't agree with me about Grit/Shadowskin being a problem: stop reading now lol.

Your adjustements to Grit and Shadowskin are really cool. It'd work more like Blood of the Dragon than Greased Lightning, though
But it would need some simulation to see if it gives around the same eHP as PLD or WAR with their stance and mitigation skill.

[Donjo]

Lessee...

Paladin: Largest problems are TP and the fact that new combos were added but Halone's enmity potency was unchanged.
+ Increase Savage Blade enmity multiplier to 3.5x.
+ Increase Rage of Halone enmity multiplier to 5.5x.
+ When cast in Sword Oath, Clemency restores 100 TP. The 50% healback would still apply.
+ (Iffy change) Royal Authority gains a new Combo Bonus: Procs Shield Swipe.

Dark Knight: Largest problems are TP and an unusual inability to make Parry extremely likely considering they use it for a proc.
+ When in Blood Weapon, every weaponskill restores 10 TP.
+ When in Blood Price, getting hurt restores 10 TP.
+ Applying Dark Arts to Dark Dance increases Parry Rate Increase to 50% instead of increasing Evasion.
+ (Iffy Change) Applying Dark Arts to Souleater additionally absorbs 20 TP.

Warrior: Largest problems are TP, Mitigation, and invalidation of other possible Off Tanks
+ Any party which does not contain a Warrior gains a Bravery Buff which increases all stats by 5%
- Fell Cleave only deals damage if it crits
+ Defiance temporarily turns the Warrior into a Dark Knight. It can only be removed if a Paladin or Healer chastises the Warrior and punishes them with a Time Out.
+ Equilibrium no longer restores TP in Deliverance. It instead causes the Warrior to balance on one foot for a while. Attacks performed during this time deal 1% more damage. This bonus is increased to 100% when on a narrow platform.
+ Inner Beast no longer decreases damage taken. It instead causes the Warrior to begin transforming into a beast. Each use of the skill increases attack power by 5% but hastens the transformation. If the transformation is completed, the Warrior will turn on the party and begin one-shotting party members. The transformation can be reversed before completion by using Equilibrium while in Defiance.

All
+ Attack Power scales off of Vitality at a ratio of 1 VIT = 0.80 Attack Power, rounded down.
- All attacks lose enmity multipliers when used outside of a Tank Stance(this would not apply to Paladin until Level 40).

The Tank Forums
The following topics are each to be merged into their own single thread:
* Paladins are underpowered
* Warriors are overpowered
* Suggestions to change Dark Knight
* The Tank's role in the Holy Trinity
* Strength vs. Vitality

P.S. The Warrior stuff is a joke. I promise.