(Paladin) Changes

[Phoenicia]

Well, there is a lot of threads already about changes, buffs, nerfs, and other things players desire. And others threads with definitive lists addressed to devs (like this one).

I sincerely don't think devs and SE follow community pleas. Never. They just do what they think must be done. Take last year for example:
Infinite threads complaining about summoners and summons. And what summoners receive? A promise to an (maybe) incoming vanity system to pets.
In other hand... Monks receive 2 more seconds in GL. Surprise surprise. No one asked for this, I believe. Not saying monks don't need it, but no one was expecting, right?

Lets just trust SE and developer team! Lets discuss about changes, buffs, nerfs, etc.. Its healthy!
But I don't believe +100 threads about same stuff will change anything.

Btw, I main pld. I keep my oath (?) since day 1. And I believe paladins need a buff, yes. But I can't tell myself what devs should or should not do. Just what I wish for...

I think you're missing that. The FFXIV team LISTENS VERY WELL to the community. They just don't go and over buff/nerf on the community's whims. They want to make adjustments so ALL classes are in a good place. Greased Lightning timer increase has been asked for from since 2.0. But monks were already doing insane levels of DPS.

Let's look at history:

2.0 Game was still very new. State of classes? Such a huge mess. BRD was broken (Read: Overpowered) and WAR was broken (Read: Poop level). Melee were unwanted except for their LB. Setups were PLDx2, BRDx2, DRG (because of Disembowel), caster, both healers.

SE changes in 2.1?

• Buffed WAR to insane good levels. You ALWAYS want a WAR in your group.
• Buffed DRG and MNK so that melee are "top DPS" even if they have to have some down time dodging BPAoE.
• Nerfed BRD (mainly by nerfing cross class abilities).
• Removed Thunder from SMN.

Preferred setups? PLD+WAR, both healers, any combination of melee+brd+casters. Most groups preferred to bring both melees, 1 bard and either caster (SMN was considered better at this time). Game was in a good state.

In 2.3, SE buffed BLM to higher single target DPS, slightly better than SMN as long as they don't move.

Then came 2.4! Ninja was released. NIN (mistakenly) was overtuned to do monk levels DPS, no TP issues and bringing great raid utility, instantly knocking DRG out of viable options. DRG had low (Read: Poop) magic defense "justified" by their huge HP pool. DRG did lower DPS than MNK and NIN with no raid utility. DRG started disappearing from setups because of the rampant AoE magical damage in FCoB that usually killed the DRG outright. The ilvl 130 gear was stacked with Spell Speed which hurts SMN more than helps them due to increased MP consumption (which was a massive issue back then) and not affecting pets' damage. People complained!

SE fixes the situation between 2.45 and 2.5:

• Nerfed NIN slightly (2%) by restricting venom damage bonus to physical only. Increased TP costs so NIN eventually needs a TP song.
• Buffed DRG, DRG did new NIN levels DPS, had same magic defense and a much higher HP pool. DRG became "Tankiest DPS" and is no longer a detriment on raid health (Read: Healers MP pool).
• Buffed SMN MP consumption. SMN's MP is no longer an issue. Spell Speed was still bad for SMN. But at least, BRD is not singing to fix SMN's MP but instead to help healers.

Some classes still had issues. But not to a level where they were unviable/not wanted.
=================

In 3.0, classes changed, and stats changed. (ALL of SMN's past issues were fixed!) Some classes had their old issues fixed, while new issues arose. New classes were also released. Learning from NIN (And maybe SMN/SCH), SE decided to take the safe route of under-tuning classes and buffing them later instead of over-tuning them and nerfing them.

After all, you upset less people with avoiding nerfs. Specially at a time where the state of the game dictates choosing 1 class to gear instead of all classes in the same role. (Stupid esoterics.... but those AFs are cute <3)

SE is aware of those issues. But they are not going to over-buff a class during a minor patch only to realize they made a mistake and then (over)nerf it again the next minor patch. Making you think that they do not know what they're doing or where they wanna go. Remember Blizzard anyone?

I would think you'd rather wait through a major patch and get the right buffs over getting buffs only to get nerfs the patch right after, right?

All in all, keep these threads coming. Not all the suggestions will stick, heck, they don't have to! As long as SE notices that there is an issue and domes something to fix it, we're good!