PLD/DRK Crossclasses

[Sapphidia]

This is more a musing than anything, but felt it might add something to the large amount of tank vs tank class discussions happening on the forum right now.

Looking at the Paladin's Crossclass options, they strike me as the weakest and least essential of all three tanks. Obviously Gladiator itself has some strong skills that can be cross classed by the other tanks (Provoke is Mandatory, Convalescence is the strongest of the crossclass tank cooldowns, Awareness has situational use and Flash is pretty good for Warriors), but Paladins are stuck with Marauder and Conjuror.

Marauder crossclasses have always been fairly meh, a "well there's nothing better" option. Foresight is only about a 6% damage reduction from physical only, Bloodbath is okay but far weaker on paladin than warrior even ignoring the trait, Mercy Stroke is free damage. All three of those are okayish but you could easily tank without them and not notice any real efficiency loss. Fracture was okay in 2.0 but completely worthless in 3.0 due to the new dps skills and is now always a dps loss to use.

Which means on top of 3 average-to-meh level crossclasses, Paladins have two slots they can use for Conjuror skills. Stoneskin had awesome use in 2.0 but with the addition of Clemency now its use in combat has diminished slightly, and Cure/Raise/Protect are all pretty rubbish (I go with Protect to speed up prepull buffs and occasionally help out healer mana when someone is ressed).

Again, it feels like Paladin is the tank where the five crossclass slots matter the least compared to their kit at 60, and you'd struggle to tell the difference in practise between a Paladin with all 5 and with none slotted.

I understand Conjuror is a requirement for plot/lore reasons, but I wonder if most of a Paladin's current perceived ingame problems could be solved by swapping Conjuror for Lancer.

Paladins have TP issues at 60 currently - being able to Crossclass Invigorate would completely fix this. Keen Flurry is another "okayish" tanking cooldown like Foresight, and would help a little as it's minor free mitigation. Feint has incredibly limited use but very few classes have anything which can apply a slow so for the mobs it works on it might be decent. Blood For Blood also would give them a small DPS boost when offtanking (at a cost, as you wouldnt want to pop it with aggro on).

Perhaps DRKs could benefit in a similar way by having Lancer as their option instead of Marauder. I'm sure BFB, Invigorate and Keen Flurry would be more use on a DRK than Foresight, Bloodbath and Mercy Stroke, as bloodbath doesnt work on their magical damage, they have their own version of mercy stroke heals via Sole Survivor, and Keen Flurry wuold provide similar mitigation to Foresight whilst enabling more Reprisal procs. BFB feels like a DRK-themed skill, and Invigorate would solve their TP problems like Paladin.

I know this is just musing and will never happen, but part of me thinks that if Paladins/Dark Knights got Lancer as their cross class skills instead of Conjuror/Marauder respectively, it would pretty much solve the bulk of the issues that tanks are complaining about in comparison to Warriors without really needing any nerf/buff to their own kits.

TLDR: Let PLD and DRK have Lancer as one of their two crossclass options and it will solve most of their TP/DPS/Utility gripes compared to WAR.

[Madepossible]

As a Dark Knight OT, I would welcome Blood For Blood, Invigorate and Keen Flurry! I think it's a great idea!

[MiniPrinny]

As a Dark Knight OT, I would welcome Blood For Blood, Invigorate and Keen Flurry! I think it's a great idea!

Seconded. I found it very... off-putting that Warrior essentially got Lancer as a sub-class in 3.0 by leveling from 52-60. Many of their new abilities are comparable to what a Lancer sub-class would have offered them.

Regarding Conjurer though, Conjurer being a sub-class of Paladin is strictly because of tradition. Paladins have, since the start of the series, combined the martial prowess of a soldier or fighter with the magical prowess of a White Mage. To be completely straight forward, Paladin's problem with Conjurer isn't the Conjurer class, but what is offered to Paladins. It strikes me as rather odd that Paladin doesn't have access to Aero, Repose, and maybe Esuna in place of Cure and Raise, since those spells would offer a Paladin a secondary DoT, crowd control, and a dispel option.

Regarding Marauder: The best fix right now for tanks in general is to buff the cross-classes. That's pretty much the sum of it. All of the tank cross-classes are garbage and all the cross-classes they take from other jobs are garbage. In general, I believe that cross-class abilities shouldn't have traits attached to them and instead just be powerful as-is. There are other places to make the Jobs powerful, having these abilities be worse than the class you're borrowing from them doesn't imply mastery, it implies "hand-me-downs." It seems rather archaic to make the Jobs as a whole suffer by not giving the players the power to make use of our entire kit, including all the cross-class options available to us.

[Khalithar]

To be completely straight forward, Paladin's problem with Conjurer isn't the Conjurer class, but what is offered to Paladins. It strikes me as rather odd that Paladin doesn't have access to Aero, Repose, and maybe Esuna in place of Cure and Raise, since those spells would offer a Paladin a secondary DoT, crowd control, and a dispel option.

Agree with Repose and Esuna, not so sure about Aero but it could be worth casting when you're running out of an AoE.

[MiniPrinny]

Agree with Repose and Esuna, not so sure about Aero but it could be worth casting when you're running out of an AoE.

It really was just a "well, it's better than what they have now" choice. Also, it has struck me as odd since 3.0 came out that Paladin has no magical damage in their kit, while it's not something the Job is known for, it is a powerful option for enemies who are immune (or greatly resistant) to physical damage.

[Khalithar]

It really was just a "well, it's better than what they have now" choice. Also, it has struck me as odd since 3.0 came out that Paladin has no magical damage in their kit, while it's not something the Job is known for, it is a powerful option for enemies who are immune (or greatly resistant) to physical damage.

I can agree with that. Granted magic damage is mostly drk's thing, but I think paladin could use something along those lines. I dunno, something along the lines of smiting/punishing the wicked/etc.

[RapBreon]

Blood for Blood on tanks. Oh baby, I can't wait to see the outcome.

Seriously, for purely selfish reasons, I leveled my Conj to 34 for Stoneskin (something I loathed) back when ARR release FATE grinding was the worst thing ever designed by a human; just so my co-tank didn't get obliterated by Death Sentence. So screw you man, you can't take my Stoneskin away.

Alternatively, adjust their TP costs...seems 20x easier.

[Sapphidia]

Well tbh I'm fine with them keeping Conjuror as crossclass so we can keep Stoneskin (I like using it occasionally for increasing EHP on tankbusters still), and replace Marauder with Lancer for Paladin.

We'd lose Bloodbath, Foresight and Mercy Stroke, and gain Invigorate, Keen Flurry, Feint and Blood for Blood. I'd definitely find these more impactful.

I dont think they can simply adjust our TP costs because there's a uniformity across all classes (openers cost 70, combos cost 60, thrown stuff and AOE tends to cost 120). Maybe Shield Swipe being lowered still and increased in potency/threat so it isnt a loss to use it is a good start, but just having Invigorate would solve them in one swoop.

[RapBreon]

Well tbh I'm fine with them keeping Conjuror as crossclass so we can keep Stoneskin (I like using it occasionally for increasing EHP on tankbusters still), and replace Marauder with Lancer for Paladin.

We'd lose Bloodbath, Foresight and Mercy Stroke, and gain Invigorate, Keen Flurry, Feint and Blood for Blood. I'd definitely find these more impactful.

I dont think they can simply adjust our TP costs because there's a uniformity across all classes (openers cost 70, combos cost 60, thrown stuff and AOE tends to cost 120). Maybe Shield Swipe being lowered still and increased in potency/threat so it isnt a loss to use it is a good start, but just having Invigorate would solve them in one swoop.

MNKs and NINs typically have 10 less TP tacked onto all (most?) of their skills to compensate for their deceased global. Additionally, some moves (usually ones that provide buffs/debuffs) cost 10 TP more despite being part of a combo. So the pattern is subject to its own exceptions anyway. It would be fairly simple for Square to adjust them this way. I imagine (I'm no programmer) it would be way less work than reassigning a different cross-class to two classes.

Not only does your solution make thematically no sense in the case of the PLD (which is important, at least to me), I can only imagine the uproar some tanks would make because they never bothered to level lancer (because there was no need). You may solve the TP issues in one fell swoop, but you'd create two more (that I can think of)...because you want to maintain some largely irrelevant pattern people barely notice (nor have any investment in - exceptions withstanding). Not feeling it. Don't get me wrong, I envy your creativity and thought put into the problem. But ultimately it's a simple problem with far easier ways to solve it.

Edit: Oh yeah, then WARs would cry about not being able to get BFB (or Invig cause overpower). Then they'll get it because we must acquiesce to our OCD patternlords. Then watch as WARs actually outdps BRDs and MCHs for realsies.

[fm_fenrir]

A lot of people seem happy to see Mercy Stroke go. It's easily my favorite cross-class tank skill and I'm sad that only WAR can use it every 40 seconds.

Also, what's with the insistence on using B4B as a tank? +10% outgoing for +25% incoming is a wipe waiting to happen--especially since most people won't use it solely in the OT role.