Yoshi P's Stance on Pld

[Syzygian]

Here's the happy ending I see in sight:

3.2 - SE finally fixes the STR vs. VIT bullshit and makes it so that tanks have a single DPS ceiling and hitting it is a matter of skill and not gear just like on every other job in the game.

3.2.1 or something sometime down the road, hopefully sooner rather than later - WAR is sitting pretty right where it is now, DRK is doing the same, (and people have gotten their heads out of their asses and realized that a DK clone and partial-uptime SP clone that stacks with SP itself is more than enough utility for a tank to bring), and PLD has been given usable raid utility...

...What I mean by that is simple. Cover, Divine Veil, Clemency, etc... even all those things combined don't add up to the potency and usefulness of a single raidwide utility offered by another job of another type, like say BRD/MCH or SCH/AST. They're half-assed and don't give a party nearly the kind of mileage that AST cards, fairy buffs, songs, and turrets do.

PLD is not the "mitigation" tank. Its not the "protector" tank. All these claims have been refuted. What it could be said that it -potentially- is, is the support tank. Look at SCH. SCH is the healer equivalent of WAR. Its the "off-healer" with high DPS. Look at WHM. Capable of about the same DPS as SCH, but with a toolkit that lends itself more to "main-healer", thus the healer equivalent of DRK. Look at AST. Slightly lower healing/DPS output but with ridiculous utility (say what you want here, but I have one in my static and those fucking cards, holy shit. The buffs are REAL.)

I think the path to success and proper balance of the tanks is going to be to make PLD, somehow, the tank equivalent of AST. Its able to heal content just as effectively (just as PLD is able to tank content effectively) has a lower DPS ceiling than the other tanks (just like AST falls behind WHM and SCH), but brings proper raid buffs and utility in a frequently utilized and active style of play. I'm not saying give them cards or give them songs, but it should be something that directly contributes to raid DPS and raid resources.

PLD is not and never will be the "tank that allows healers to DPS" cause this is patently false, DRK and WAR can each easily find ways to grant their healers these same windows if need be. DRK MTs clearing Thordan right now are also clearly disproving the whole "physical fight=DRK dead in the water" thing as well. What PLD CAN and SHOULD be is the tank that offers sufficient utility to open opportunities elsewhere in the party.

Example 1:
Cover or Divine Veil or Clemency changed - replaced or combined with Apocatastasis or a reverse Virus clone placed on a party member, or a combat res. Party can forgo a caster, go full physical, group can bring a MCH that boosts the entire raid's DPS (sole exception of the DPSing healer) with its physical turret debuff.
Example 2:
Cover or Divine Veil or Clemency changed - replaced or combined with TP/MP regen or Balance effect added, party can forgo a BRD/MCH and bring an extra caster/melee which = more DPS.

To prevent these from being overpowered, they could lock them behind Shield Oath. SwO pally doesn't need nearly the kind of help that ShO pally does.

These are just examples and by no means well-thought-out fixes but I see something in this vein as being the only way balance will be achieved without the boogyman(homogenization)'s help, and are intended more to illustrate a point and NOT to say that they need those kinds of buffs/utilities or clones thereof, specifically. WAR like SCH is always going to be a sort of one-size-fits-all type of deal, but you can see parallels with DRK in that a DRK allows a group to forgo a MNK and bring DRG/NIN for their huge raid-dps contributions instead. PLD needs to offer these kinds of party composition opportunities but on a much larger scale, to make up for their lack of personal DPS (which DRK does not really suffer from in the aforementioned example), in order to be considered without robbing WAR or DRK of their individual niches as well.

TL;DR WAR's power is in its huge OT dps and utility, DRK's power is in its huge MT dps and utility, and PLD's power should be not in its own merits but on what it bestows to the party. Those buffs/opportunities it provides have to be as real, concrete, and undeniable as its own lack of DPS/utility currently is.

[Duelle]

3.2 - SE finally fixes the STR vs. VIT bullshit and makes it so that tanks have a single DPS ceiling and hitting it is a matter of skill and not gear just like on every other job in the game.

The goal is a good one (tanks dealing the same damage), but tanks and DPS have to worry about different things during a fight. Not to mention DPS design as is has been best put as "you playing against your own job instead of the boss", so that's not a good source of ideas.

3.2.1 or something sometime down the road, hopefully sooner rather than later - WAR is sitting pretty right where it is now, DRK is doing the same, (and people have gotten their heads out of their asses and realized that a DK clone and partial-uptime SP clone that stacks with SP itself is more than enough utility for a tank to bring), and PLD has been given usable raid utility...

...What I mean by that is simple. Cover, Divine Veil, Clemency, etc... even all those things combined don't add up to the potency and usefulness of a single raidwide utility offered by another job of another type, like say BRD/MCH or SCH/AST. They're half-assed and don't give a party nearly the kind of mileage that AST cards, fairy buffs, songs, and turrets do.

Situational utility is just that, situational. It's not something that should be used or up every time because that changes several other things. Again, this is like wanting Hand of Protection or Rallying Cry available every time, which is beyond unreasonable.

If we're looking to compare what PLD brings to a group compared to what WAR and DRK do, you should be looking at Storm's Path vs Halone/Delirium, which is pretty much all DRK and WAR bring compared to PLD. And out of the three, WAR comes out on top because Storm's Path is not dependent on damage type. It was a cute idea to have WAR reduce all damage by 10% and have PLD reduce STR by 10% back when we had only two tanks, but with new members in the roster that sort of attempted synergy is not helping. Thus the most logical thing to do would be to bring the three tanks in line to provide that same level of mitigation, either by removing the Stat/Damage Down debuffs or making them equal. I'm personally in favor of removing the debuffs entirely, changing Storm's Path to reduce damage taken by the WAR by 10% (making it part of its active mitigation) and go from there.

The rest is pretty much tuning numbers (outgoing tank damage); inevitably, buffs and nerfs would be involved but that's how it is when you want to attain balance. Perpetuating the differences in performance is not a good long term solution because we'll hit this exact same problem the next time a new tank is introduced.

PLD is not the "mitigation" tank. Its not the "protector" tank. All these claims have been refuted. What it could be said that it -potentially- is, is the support tank.

Let's not throw fighting words around, please. I'd call PLD a hybrid tank because that's the direction its been taken with the expansion (and like all modern hybrids, its utility is not composed of things that have to be used all the time, every time). And if they're taking that direction, maybe SE should look at other uses of that concept (prot paladins from WoW come to mind, as much as I wouldn't want to go there).

[Syzygian]

snip

There were no fighting words, I wasn't responding to anyone's post(s) in particular, merely putting my 2 cents in.

Its not about whether utilities are used all the time or not, if a BRD had Paeon up through an entire boss fight... you would have to stop and strongly question that BRD. Its about having abilities that you -can- find a use for irrespective of the encounter. Right now WAR has Path and a Eye, DRK has Delirium and Reprisal (which winds up having the same amount of uptime if not more than Path, as it is a DPS gain for DRK and WARs usually only put Path up when absolutely necessary).

Most utility like BRD songs that are "situational" (in this case, your party members are running low on TP or MP), are tolerated as such because its a -situation- that occurs in most encounters in the game.

PLD has Halone which is almost useless to the raid as 99% of the time the only one getting hit physically is... you. Cover is crazy situational to the point of seeing no use in some fights, Divine Veil has too long of a CD for what it does and is generally redundant/unneeded, Clemency is difficult to use while MTing and a colossal DPS loss while OTing, not to mention the fact that your healers will beat you too it assuming they're halfway skilled... These abilities need to be able to be used effectively in every encounter just like the utilities of almost every other job in the game. It doesn't mean they HAVE to be used or NEED to be used, but you should have the option and be able to see mileage from it and right now that's just not the case.

[Duelle]

Its about having abilities that you -can- find a use for irrespective of the encounter.

That would be pretty much debuffs to be kept up on the mob. Some abilities are designed with more specific uses than others.

PLD has Halone which is almost useless to the raid as 99% of the time the only one getting hit physically is... you.

Hence why I'd want to make the effect uniform in some way. As I've said, the reason PLD has -10% STR via Rage of Halone is because SE wanted to create tank synergy and likely encourage variety in party comps. We're past that now that the roster has three members, and this is only going to continue with new entries to the team if that doesn't change.

Cover is crazy situational to the point of seeing no use in some fights

Cover got a pass because it's a Final Fantasy thing. FF Paladins have Cover, the effect and concept of the ability work in a single-player RPG and not in an MMO, but not much I can do to change that short of turning it into a permanent effect like this.

Divine Veil has too long of a CD for what it does and is generally redundant/unneeded

Cushioning one of the many predictable AoE attacks a boss may have is pretty damn useful in the long run, if only because it might save your healers some MP. That's likely the intent behind Divine Veil. Expecting it to be up every time a boss uses an AoE is unreasonable, though we could do with removing the middleman (requiring a heal from someone to proc the effect). There's only so much a tank should be able to provide in that area.

Clemency is difficult to use while MTing and a colossal DPS loss while OTing, not to mention the fact that your healers will beat you too it assuming they're halfway skilled.

The main tank has other things to worry about, so the first part is fine. The second part being that off-healing has to come with some opportunity cost. As for the last part, I wasn't the one asking for PLD to get native heals; I was perfectly happy with it being a knight that focused on sword & board while having access to some heals and support spells via cross-class abilities.

Frankly speaking, if I wasn't gunning for RDM getting it, I'd suggest a proc from your auto attacks that make the next Clemency instant cast.

These abilities need to be able to be used effectively in every encounter just like the utilities of almost every other job in the game. It doesn't mean they HAVE to be used or NEED to be used, but you should have the option and be able to see mileage from it and right now that's just not the case.

The bulk of utility other jobs have are either dual purpose or part of existing rotations (infamous DRGs that spam Leg Sweep and BRDs that spam Blunt Arrow for the damage come to mind). Even then, the fact they're dual purpose can be seen as a problem (otherwise the thread in the DPS forums discussing whether abilities with utility effects should deal damage wouldn't exist). I could even say that very few jobs have actual stand-alone utility, since almost everything else is dual-purpose (even laughably weak skills like Arm of the Destroyer).

[Sevyrr]

I don't really have anything to contribute to this discussion, because I don't know the role well enough (despite it being my preferred tanking role and my second-most-played job) to give details on what I perceive as being wrong with it.

But I will say, that having read this entire thread over the last couple days, I've gained a lot of insight into my paladin's set.
... and it is truly woeful, but I'll stick by it, because I enjoy the play-style and the concept of sword and board.

One thing I want to mention: although it was a notable DPS reduction, I very much miss the TP conservation effect that Shield Swipe being on the GCD provided. Without BRD/MCH/NIN/AST support, TP goes flat way too quickly, and when I already have an enmity lead the idea of using Flash to allow TP to refresh is really painful.

[Brannigan]

I picked up a bunch of skillspeed from Diadem gear. Got my paladin GCD to like 2.3-2.35. Dark Knight in Blood Weapon was at 2.1.


That was a mistake. I ran out of TP faster than [black Friday joke here.]

woeful

Don't worry about it too much. Paladin is serviceable in most content. Like, yeah, it's still worse than warrior or dark knight, but if you put some effort into it you won't be holding your group back outside of Alexander S. Even there, with Esoterics HP on your party Living Liquid's AOEs aren't as threatening as they were so you don't really need int down/reprisal. Still really bad in 4 though. Also you should bring a ninja.

The bar for clearing content in this game is so low that crippled puppies flopping around on keyboards could beat most of it, so a decent player on a bad job is more than sufficient. Don't let the 4ums get you down.

[Februs]

Still really bad in 4 though. Also you should bring a ninja.

I keep one on speed dial for emergencies. Thinking of setting up a paid for service using in-game LS. Having posters drawn up:

"Tired of low TP getting you down?? Hire a Ninja to solve your Tp woes! Ask about our Black Friday deals! (Also available in Lalafel sizes, for pocket carrying convenience!)"

- Highly recommended to all Pld/Drk. I'll never want for Gill again.

[Sevyrr]

Also you should bring a ninja.

Ah, in my static I am the PLD and NIN, so... oh dear.
And slight hyperbole on my part, perhaps. I do still have fun tanking in Savage (even with Oppressor preferring Magic Damage) and Thordan when one of our tanks doesn't show.

[PogueX]

someone mention making PLD the AST equivalent of tanks! That would be awsome if they made us true support tanks, then give us ability that allows us to cover the WHOLE party not just one or raise defense of the WHOLE party. I hate when i play PLD and im just hoping to get in a party with a DRG or MNK for their DPS...i always give PC's to DRG's

[Ryuk59]

everyone keeps whining about WAR. WHY? not that big of a deal. each tank brings something different to the table as everyone else before me has said. but as I said before, pally needs a tp fix. and for u people that want more pally deeps give a Sword Oath buff and give an added effect to Royal Authority. that would make everyone happy. problem solved