What happens when.....

[Shining_Tiger_Excalibur]

I would have to say... no. This is a bad idea. Paladin's problems are not nearly bad enough to warrant a complete revamp.

Furthermore, of all of the wailing and moaning people have been doing over the idea of homogenization and people using the term incorrectly, this is a thread that truly makes a homogenizating suggestion. Too many jobs have some sort of Stack mechanic or otherwise some kind of persistent buff that results in severe repercussions should it fall off. Paladin doesn't need one too. Not now, not ever.

With regards to how Warrior was restructured over, arguably, one mechanic in BCOB T5 (Death Sentence) and one primal (Titan Hard Mode) I'd wager that in light of A4S catering to the gimmick that Dark Knight brings, I can confidently say that yes it does warrant a restructure. Warriors were in the same situation we're facing now in that they needed to be full i90 in order to stand a chance, yet somehow everyone passes Paladin over because it's the "simple" class. Funnily enough any time anyone suggests making it more difficult to play many, many people outright shout the suggestion down by saying "no Paladin needs to stay simple." At what point will a decision be made to give Paladins more than just a band-aid solution while players constantly say the class is boring......? There are few things a Paladin brings to the end game raids in order to justify its raid slot (Divine Veil for every other major AoE attack that only protects for 1800 damage, Rage of Halone for its Strength down has some use, Cover has only extremely limited uses as compared to how it was used pre-Heavensward, if timed perfectly Clemency can help but it will be interrupted by even an auto attack over 3500 damage....and that's it.)

It can also be argued that Dark Knight is in the same position Paladin is in, however, in a game where DPS from all jobs is paramount, they'll still be of value even in an encounter that doesn't explicitly favor them. All tanks survive the end game raids equally, yet somehow Paladin's "mitigation king" status is the justification people use for them NEVER being tweaked beyond enmity and potency enhancements. End game raiders and casual players alike are BEGGING for more to the Paladin job and it's not just because they're bored of it....everyone views them as the least involved tank. It doesn't bring as much ability to assist the entire raid team as the other tanks possess currently. The fact of the matter is, Paladin will always be the simple tank in comparison to others because of this circular logic. It isn't allowed to grow and flourish to use all of its abilities fully (whether in a MT or OT position) because the community as a whole will not allow it. It's "supposed" to be the simple job, right?

You argue that too many classes already rely on debuffs/buffs to manage that would cause catastrophe if allowed to expire....welcome to Ninja, Bard, Machinist, Paladin, Warrior, Dark Knight, Monk, Black Mage, Astrologian, Scholar, and every other job in the entire game, because they ALL possess such abilities (some even have the EXACT same function and timer.) Homogenization is here by that logic.....a hybrid stack is exactly that, it's a combination of two pre-existing mechanics combined to form an entirely new mechanic. It wouldn't function like anyone elses abilities in the game because I would have to build up stacks in one stance explicitly for the purpose of using it in the other; in fact, I wouldn't be able to access them any other way. Warrior doesn't function like this, their stacks are replaced accordingly and they can continue building the opposing stack. A Paladin on the other hand, uses up his and can't even start from the bottom again because he has to build those stacks in the opposite stance. This would add only one step forward in the complexity of Paladin. We would still be leaps and bounds away from the skill required to play Warrior and Dark Knight.


EDIT: Make no mistake about this, I am glad that Warrior and Dark Knight are where they're at right now. I, just like many others here, just want to see any combination of the three tanks be used in bleeding edge content clearing groups. Currently unless you are at maximum item level you and the bleeding edge content clearers will not bring one of those combinations (DRK/PLD) to end game for progression; in some cases you won't bring the one that clearly under performs at minimum item level (PLD.)

[Leonus]

If you are losing aggro in df instances in shield oath you don't know how to play paladin sorry, my paladin doesn't have his eso wep yet i don't have any aggro issues in 8 man instances even in sword oath.

I'm sorry but if you were having problems in df easy instances and are basing most your opinions off that, it just makes your whole thread moot.

And i personally had no problems using stoneskin/ds/clemency when leveling in dungeons whilst holding aggro and stance dancing, it was imo probably the easiest class in dungeons to do so because of paladins utility of blind/stun/pacification and its burst with fof.

I don't know when he's in SwO but, as a drg, if he starts off on a raid boss in SwO, he will most certainly not be tanking before I am dead lol. :P

[Shining_Tiger_Excalibur]

I don't know when he's in SwO but, as a drg, if he starts off on a raid boss in SwO, he will most certainly not be tanking before I am dead lol. :P

There are players like you that do remind me that I need to acknowledge your skill. I keep you in the back of my mind because I don't want to fail you. I like to think that those who say I don't know how to do my job just haven't met the right people that will make them rethink how good they themselves are.

[Syzygian]

You linked to this in another thread referencing it as a compilation of things that PLD lacks and I wanted to mention something along those lines that may not be completely obvious between all 3 tanks.

So in terms of mitigation, assuming fights with equal parts magic/physical damage, I feel all the tanks are very balanced in this regard. DPS is another issue entirely though, as has been discussed ad nauseam on these forums.

So DRK and WAR both have tank stances and they both have buffs that they can maintain with 100% uptime to counteract (partially) the damage penalty of their tank stance.
DRK: Darkside (-20%, +15%)
WAR: Maim (-25%, +20%)

DRK and WAR both have extra fluff damage which is usable regardless of stance. With WAR this is in the form of its powerful buffs and with DRK this is in the form of a surplus of off-GCD damaging abilities. (ppm= potency per minute)
DRK: Plunge (400ppm) Low Blow (200+ppm) Salted Earth (787.5ppm) Carve and Spit (450ppm) Dark Passenger (450ppm)
WAR: Berserk (+50%) Internal Release

DRK and WAR also have a form of supplemental damage which contributes to their MT DPS.
DRK: Reprisal/Low Blow procs
WAR: Unchained

PLD has NONE of this. Fight or Flight is a simple offensive cooldown that boosts damage yes, but it is unclear wether this was intended as a partial counteraction to the tank stance damage penalty, as free damage like Berserk or DRK's oGCDs, etc. Whichever one it was intended as, it leaves the other department empty. PLDs oGCD damage is minimal and at the same time has only 1 offensive cooldown. If Fight or Flight was a 60s recast it would counteract the Shield Oath damage penalty (+30% with 50% uptime is 15% overall thus bringing the damage penalty to -5% like the other two tanks) but its 90s, more like Berserk.

The only thing PLD and the other tanks share in terms of DPS is the bonus of their DPS stance.
PLD: Sword Oath autos
DRK: Blood Weapon (+10% attack speed, more MP and thus more 400 pot DA Souleaters)
WAR: 5% Deliverance, Fell Cleave

Even here PLD is underwhelming. Whereas WAR and DRK share many of the same elements to their DPS toolkit across their stances, and those elements follow similar patterns, PLD's feels utterly incomplete in comparison.

[Donjo]

...

I say that you're suggesting homogenization, and your counter is that it's okay to do it because it's already happening? That's the shining reason not to do it!

The reason WAR got that revamped is not because it required i90 to do the content. It was because it pretty much flat out couldn't clear it under any circumstance(the dev reason for this was that nobody actually figured out how to properly play the job). It wasn't because of DPS; it was because they died too easily - because they were expressly inferior at their most basic role: being a Tank. Any time the hardest content was successfully tanked by a Warrior it was a massive heal carry. You know what Paladin has done in 3.0? Clear all of the content in the entire game, well before entire parties were i210. Their only crime is that they did it a few weeks later than the other guys, with outgoing DPS being the only reason it took longer. This is not a "revamp the entire class problem". This is a "tweak a few abilities" problem. And it is especially not a reason to give yet another job stacks!

Stop stuffing the Paladin so far into the garbage and at least try to embrace the tools it does have instead of trying to imagine massively unneeded overhauls to solve problems that don't actually exist.

[rawker]

The only thing PLD and the other tanks share in terms of DPS is the bonus of their DPS stance.
PLD: Sword Oath autos
DRK: Blood Weapon (+10% attack speed, more MP and thus more 400 pot DA Souleaters)
WAR: 5% Deliverance, Fell Cleave

Even here PLD is underwhelming. Whereas WAR and DRK share many of the same elements to their DPS toolkit across their stances, and those elements follow similar patterns, PLD's feels utterly incomplete in comparison.

Because SE nerfed Det to the ground. Before, a PLD with high enough Det were doing very good numbers.

[Violette]

snip

Paladins still have fight or flight, which with proper use allows them a rough 10% increase over time in damage.
Paladins also have Goring Blade (one of the most powerful dots in the game), as well as Spirits Within and Circle of Scorn for their fluff damage.

I get you've got massive erection to hate on Paladins, but you're just being facetious now. Goring Blade's total potency is one of the highest in the game, Circle of scorn is over 500 ppm (since you're fond of it) and Spirit's within is at best 600 ppm with added utility.

It will never get close to the damage of a warrior, because warrior is the dps tank. Dark Knight has a lot of buffs, but dark knight potencies are lower than the paladins for gcd moves.

Paladin are not incomplete, they're simply a bit low in some numbers and need to be adjusted.

@Rawker: The det change isn't too bad, since the crit change is a massive benefit to SwO

[rawker]

Also, if I remember correctly, they just scaled everything back as if we were back in 2.0. So I guess we'll just have to wait further down the road til we attain 1.5k crit or det and see a significant difference between them.

[Shining_Tiger_Excalibur]

I say that you're suggesting homogenization, and your counter is that it's okay to do it because it's already happening? That's the shining reason not to do it!

The reason WAR got that revamped is not because it required i90 to do the content. It was because it pretty much flat out couldn't clear it under any circumstance(the dev reason for this was that nobody actually figured out how to properly play the job). It wasn't because of DPS; it was because they died too easily - because they were expressly inferior at their most basic role: being a Tank. Any time the hardest content was successfully tanked by a Warrior it was a massive heal carry. You know what Paladin has done in 3.0? Clear all of the content in the entire game, well before entire parties were i210. Their only crime is that they did it a few weeks later than the other guys, with outgoing DPS being the only reason it took longer. This is not a "revamp the entire class problem". This is a "tweak a few abilities" problem. And it is especially not a reason to give yet another job stacks!

Stop stuffing the Paladin so far into the garbage and at least try to embrace the tools it does have instead of trying to imagine massively unneeded overhauls to solve problems that don't actually exist.

"You argue that too many classes already rely on debuffs/buffs to manage that would cause catastrophe if allowed to expire....welcome to Ninja, Bard, Machinist, Paladin, Warrior, Dark Knight, Monk, Black Mage, Astrologian, Scholar, and every other job in the entire game, because they ALL possess such abilities (some even have the EXACT same function and timer.) Homogenization is here by that logic."
That's what I said. At no point in the entirety of this thread have I ever advocated for what you call homogenization. I used your logic against you as you claim too many jobs have what a Paladin would benefit from yet you ignore the fact that since the very inception of cross-class abilities means we have been introduced to the most literal sense of homogenization. It's only homogenization when each job has access to abilities that function the exact same way on every job that can have them. I am not the one advocating it, you outright admitted that homogenization exists already. You made a claim that there are already enough jobs that have stacking mechanics (which don't function like my proposal and that alone means that the concept and the implementation would be unique to Paladin specifically.)

Let me list just some jobs and the way in which they all reduce outgoing damage of an enemy:
Blackmage - Virus (STR and Dex)
Paladin - Rage of Halone (STR)
White Mage - Virus (STR and Dex)
Warrior - Storm's Path (General Damage)
Astrologian - Disable (General Damage)


'It was because it pretty much flat out couldn't clear it under any circumstance...'
You've said this. You made the claim that it would have been a healer carry yet ignore the fact that what Paladins face is a DPS carry. Zdenka Vaera himself has said that he outright abandoned Paladin because despite having the best equipment it could have at the time it could not allow for an A4S clear until not only it but other jobs were more thoroughly equipped. Here is video evidence of someone surviving as a Warrior (pre-restructuring,) funnily enough, you might actually know her : MTQCapture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5r2bm86JQY
She not long ago, in fact, brought up this very thing in her stream. I would link you the exact archived video from Twitch with a timestap if I didn't know that in one or two months that video would be gone due to Twitch deleting VoD's as they approach one to two months of age. I guess as this point, you and those viewing this will just have to trust me.


The very idea that you're trying to prevent something that is in no way, shape or form what you suggest it to be while ignoring what's already in the game is an exercise in futility. If you wish to truly remove homogenization and shout down those that have come up with more than just "buff X job plz" I kindly ask you to create a petition to remove ALL cross class abilities. After you've done that speak with me on the matter again. While we're on the matter of doing more than just buffing Paladin, I'd like to tell you, in my original post I describe that my suggestion would be more than a band-aid issue that you so fervently desire. The implementation I suggest would allow Paladins to use more spells in the future without expressly needing to be handed everything on a silver platter. I want to WORK for my ability and potential, I don't want it handed to me.


If you further doubt how much a Paladin needs concerning its lackluster kit, speak with the likes of Xenosys Vex, MTQCapture, Zdenka Vaera, The FC named Elysium, Eagledorf (on the FF 14 official forums) and countless other people. The evidence is only becoming more and more evident that a buff will only grant Paladin short term success.

[Xyphon]

Interesting ideas OP. In terms of the war 2.0 argument, that was mainly due to the player base. I knew plenty of warriors who MT T5 in my fc, and cleared it with mainly darklight (ilvl70). The problem being that it was a little to luck/latency based in the timing of inner beast to recover quickly the damage you took from death sentence. It also helped if you had good enough white mages to toss stoneskin on prior to it as well (which was done regardless if you were pld or war). Funny thing is the "reactive" tank part of war hasn't changed, even after 2.1.

One thing I always noticed about SwO was the animation of gripping your sword in two hands. That always made me wonder why they didn't make you put your shield away while being in it. Thinking along those lines, same with Shield Oath. It would be nice if the character actually held out their shield in font of them, in more of a real battle "stance". All of the tank stances sadly to me are a joke animation wise, because nothing animation wise even changes lol. (Idle animations aren't really that hard to create, just look at how many were made as mods for Skyrim..and they look far more impressive than what we got here lol)

Along these lines, I think I'd be neat to see certain abilities work one way in ShO, and a different way in SwO. Such as shield swipe becoming a different skill, with a completely different purpose/effect. I realize that probably not easy to do, and it would be easier to just make it similar to how warrior has done it. Albeit inner beast in defiance to fell cleave in deliverance. So unless the tooltip said like (while in ShO does this, while in SwO does that).

The only negative I can see with your idea regarding the stacks is that if pld was supposed to be the "simple" tank, then this would add alot more complexity to it. Since you'd then have to watch your stacks.

I personally wish Paladin was actually more "paladin like". Which as it is known, paladin is actually just knight in Japanese. Based on the story (no spoilers obviously), we are just wandering sultana sworn knights. So when I say more "paladin like", I mean quite a bit more white magic. Sure Pld can use cure, stoneskin, protect, and clemency. But outside of clemency, none of the white magic has been tailored to the actual job itself. For example plds in FFXI had more of a defensive use from white magic, along with some small offensive spells (enlight).

What's really odd, is I feel pld in PVP feels completely different. Since you got extra moves to soak damage from your party, buff your parties defense, and skills like "spirits within" become extremely nasty. I also still miss rampart being an AOE from 1.0...