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.

[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.

[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.

[Dante_V]

I'm actually happy with the cross class skills I have as DRK. Bloodbath with dark arts soul eater is love and foresight makes a decent gap filler in a cool down rotation to ease up on damage from auto attacks. Keen flurry would seem kind of redundant with dark dance and honestly without dark dance the parry proc moves pretty much procs on cooldown most of the time if not before.

[Sapphidia]

Well the OT role is entirely the reason you'd have BFB. It would give Paladins and Dark Knights a small boost in Burst DPS when they're able to DPS safely without being mauled, just to give them that small nudge towards Warriors who are currently the defacto OT of choice in pretty much every situation. It's only a wipe waiting to happen if the tank is bad and presses it at the wrong time, and I don't think you can restrict a skill from a class based on that.

[Walluh]

I'd love me some invigorate and keen flurry for reprisal/low blow on my DRK.

[Nadirah]

It's bad enough that every melee dps needs lancer to 34... Tanks needing it too would just be suck.