PLD Requires more Skills

[Nadirah]

PLD is meant to be the boring straightforward tank. It's basically what you signed up for. Also tanking in WoW was more fun than tanking on PLD here. Which is why I play DRK/WAR instead.

I'd rather they consolidate my redundant buttons.

And tanking in wow was more fun before they made threat a joke.

[Ercapote]

What the majority of this threat is missing is the FACT that PLD right now is just bad designed, yes 3 new combos and you can make use of it and make it interesting for YOURSELF but that doesn't mean the class isn't plain simple and uninteresting at best. lets recap...

Cover - ability only needed at t13 that one time on that one fight. personally been sitting 4 month in my hotbar with no use. you will only truly need it if you suck at keeping agro and even if you do better by just provoking that mob back, only protect against physical hits mostly useless
Tempered will - makes no different if you use or not, almost all knockbacks are non-lethal and let's be honest, if you play like you are supposed to you really, reeeally don't need it for anything. only useful on pvp and you even have a pvp ability that does exactly the same people can put 300 difference situations of that 1 time the use it but still taking out is mostly useless. personally I rarely use it since you only need to stick the fight mechanics and you can use only 1 time at most per fight.
shield swipe/pasification DPS lost useless debuff only applicable to trash mobs super easy aoe they end up doing 2 seconds after you cancel that 1 mob with that 1 debuff - this is ability is just utter trash.
flash/blind not a bad ability but compare to DRK aoe galore and War is just poopo. give the change to make the move miss the target, if I say I notice a difference I'll be lying, rarely noticeable utility and doesn't hurt anyone they miss maybe 1 o 2 hit per mob and on the healing aspect doesn't help at all, nothing compare to damage dealt by other tanks aoe that can help speed up those dungeon grind quite a bit.
shield bash A.K.A the longest Stun lest get real aside from t5 and leviathan and pvp, when have we ever use this longest stun varely does any damage and most of the time just sits there on raid content. is not a bad ability and I personally have no problem with in fact I like it, but it doesn't get use so often.
Clemency heal is decently low on pt member, cast time is too long, cost more than half of your mp and it result on a huge dps lost. and with that recast time helaers outcast you and recover the mp by the time you let it out making you waste your ability and mp
and this is just some of the abilities now lets go to the CD

SHELTRON - guaranteed block "1" PHYSICAL attack if it's magical this ability is useless - looking at you alex.
BULKWARD - Increase Block ( block only work with physical attacks) so on a magical fight, useless - looking at you alex
SHIELD - automatic block ( physical block) tanks magic tankbusters - F U ALEX!

only useful CD
RAMPART
SENTINEL

fun fact both tanks have the same relative CD

DRK
SHADOW WALL
SHADOW SKIN

are exactly the same

WAR
INNER BEAST
VENGEANCE
almost the same and even better.

and both tanks can cross class
CONVALENCES
AWEARENESS
gg

now on top of all this let's add the fact that PLD is the weakest of all tank because is supposed to be a DEFENSIVE tank ( dark knight does the same and better since it mitigate magical attacks) + stronger DPS (war are beast on self sustain and have just as much defense as PLD ) + mother of mother@#$$ tank DPS.

so can someone please tell me a reasonable explanation to this? everything about PLD compared to other options on the game is just bad by far the only class with so many situational abilities that only work "on that dungeon that one time when the planets align" sure you can tell me about how you save the group that 1 time or you prevent a wipe on that raid.

I've done that too we all probably have that 1 use that 1 time, but doesn't take out the fact that are abilities we don't touch and it's not about 1 is about a pack of abilities concentrated in 1 class that on top of that is the least enjoyable of the 3 or even of all the classes of the game and it's been even punished on performance compared to the other 2 tanks since they are just better on everything about PLD so yeah the class need a fix and big one because right now is just a mix of a disaster.

again personal opinion and experience.

[Phoenicia]

again personal opinion and experience.

You said it yourself. "Personal". Doesn't make what you said true.

Also.... "Hallowed Ground"... (Sorry, had to say it).

Piece of advice, PLD abilities aren't your flavor? play another job. You can change jobs on the same character so you're not missing out on anything.

[Ercapote]

You said it yourself. "Personal". Doesn't make what you said true.

Also.... "Hallowed Ground"... (Sorry, had to say it).

Piece of advice, PLD abilities aren't your flavor? play another job. You can change jobs on the same character so you're not missing out on anything.

thx for the advice in case you care to know I did, currently playing DRK just about to go main WAR.

know I've seen you in the forum quiet a bit, we already know each other miss war, but will you also care to show me where my "opinion" aren't true? try to maintain inflate % out of the mix lets focus on the imbalance between PLD and other tanks.

btw I don't care about dps just balance.

and that "hallowed ground" isn't an excuse for the "defensive" tank advantage over the 2 tanks. if you where a paladin you will know how that ability is also not used so often it's a "HO SH!T" ability that only last 10 seconds and has a nasty latency that end up causing you to die before the animation ends and loosing the actual ability, she will help a lot used properly on certain situations still not that big of and advantage since WAR and DRK have an ability that serve the same purpose (not as good) but hell if you give them also something like that then just erase PLD from the game.

[Nomad-phx]

In dungeons and other df instances I find pld far more useful as more and more and still more "healers" do entire dungeons on cleric stance leaving my clemency to keep dps alive. Raids- not a single player wants to hear "but I can stoneskin and heal" all anyone cares for anymore is dps dps dps.

[carbonx]

The biggest grievance I have with PLD is that, not only are Shield and Sword oath part of your GCD, they cost mana and also interrupt your combos, whereas with WAR you can now keep all your Wrath stacks, maintain your combo, and switch oGCD. Since Defiance and Shield Oath add the same eHP to both tanks, it's odd the stances are handled so differently. Haven't played DRK, but I'm fairly sure at least Darkside is oGCD(?) on top of the nice bonus it can be stacked with Grit.

Simply making stance dancing more viable would add interest to the class.

In raid, Clemency is situational. I use it in A2S, but otherwise my casts are usually wasted because my healers are solid or the cast itself gets interrupted since, you know, I'm tanking. If it were instant cast on a longer CD, it would be more usable than it is now.

I agree that Cover and Tempered Will are situational, and it feels like Cover has virtually no use in this current raid cycle.

[Phoebus]

I agree that Cover and Tempered Will are situational, and it feels like Cover has virtually no use in this current raid cycle.

Cover can be used on prey targets. So you can push dps harder in p1 a1s since you know the pld will be taking the prey as a healer.

Also, in a1s if someone goofs and gets hit by the resin blasts while the jump is coming you can cover that person and take the 4 jump hits preventing that person from dying.

That being said. PLD needs some help in the fun department. Boredom/Simplicity shouldn't be a feature of the class since literally no other class in the game has that.

[Brian_]

PLDs don't need more skills. They just need slight skill reworks in order to unify the functionality of their skill-set.

An example of this is Clemency. If Clemency was practical to cast as a MT and triggered Divine Veil's effect, PLD would be much better off for it. If casting Clemency was a thing, you would also make the MP returns from Sheltron and Riot Blade more relevant. There might be some overlap with DRK MP management but I think you could've just as easily used it to differentiate the jobs even more -- DRK would spend their MP on self-buffs and damage, PLDs would spend their MP on group healing and support. In the end, you make Clemency, Divine Veil, Convalescence, Sheltron, and Riot Blade all better with such simple changes and help make PLD more unique.

That is the real thing PLD lacks. Design consistency and the strength born from it. Just look at Shield Swipe. You give PLDs the ability to block but then give them no synergy with it because of how bad Shield Swipe is. So, it ends up turning blocking into a very boring ability when it could be a very dynamic and interactive one. That's why I liked the change of making Shield Swipe activate the combo component of RoH, RA, and GB. You also make cover more beneficial because you can cover the MT while OTing or DPS while they're dealing with adds, pop Sheltron/Bulwark, and trigger Shield Swipe even while OTing. You make multi skills better through internal synergy while making PLD more unique just by changing 1 skill.

The only example of internal synergy on PLD is Bulwark, Sheltron, and Awareness. You want to pair Awareness with Bulwark and Sheltron ideally. The reason is because of attack ordering in this game and how blocks are prioritized. In some games, "avoidance" will push crits, crushing blows, and whatnot off the hit table. In this game, it doesn't. As a result, you cannot block a crit. So, in order to maximize the effectiveness of block, you want to push crits off the hit table using Awareness. But, it's such a small benefit that it's hardly worth much.

What people don't understand is how situational is literally defined. If you make a skill used more even without changing the skill, it's no longer situational. They can do this through internal synergy. They just don't.

[pandabearcat]

If clemency was reduced to 2.0 seconds I envision a lot more use coming from it.

If sheltron's cd was reduced by 2-5 seconds every use of shield swipe it would be more interactive play, and keep PLD as the "defensive king" rather than giving a dps buff.

I think PLD's cds are for the most part actually pretty good - one of the reasons actually that it feels like you have few interesting buttons is PLD brings the "core" cross class skills to all tanks. So in essence you are "losing" those slots in favor of like, protect, which you cast maybe never, and Foresight, which is pretty lackluster.

The core rotation I agree could use some changing - but in essence all 3 tanks have "boring" core rotations.

I also agree with increasing the threat of rage, and also possibly moving royal authority to the riot blade combo, giving us a clear DPS combo and a clear tanking combo - however this would reduce PLD threat even more - would need a rage/savage blade enmity buff.

They all have actually similar amounts of oGCD (actually war has the least oGCD of all 3, they only have their stun, and technically infuriate). Just PLD has really no thought into if and when they use their oGCDs.

I would like shield bash to have a much lower tp cost (like 60 TP), however using it causes it to increase in cost by 50% (stacking) for 15s. This way, we preserve the "stun chaining" (yea right) but at a higher cost, but if PLD do need to stun, they are not immediately down like 120 TP. Would be nice if (like shield swipe) it does not interrupt your combo.