What happens when.....

[Syzygian]

By laying things out like I did in my earlier post, its clear PLD has gaping holes in its DPS toolkit where DRK and WAR have everything they need (and probably more).

So as I see it, there are two solutions to this problem, and both of them have some pretty big stipulations as well (or would have).

Simply give them more DPS, or boost their defensive utility.

The fact is though, that you would have to give them some pretty hefty boosts to do the former, and having DRK or WAR deal less or equal damage than PLD when they wield gigantic two-handed weapons feels weird. I know people are quick to dismiss design-based reasons for not doing this/that/the other to a job, but you have to factor these in because the devs are definitely going to. As designers they have a vested interest in changes to the game that they make "making sense". Then there is DPS homogenization, which I don’t think is going to happen since they already have a pretty delicate balance with DRK and WAR, similar to the way PLD and WAR were in 2.x. WAR currently outdamages DRK as an OT, and the reverse is true in the MT slot. PLD comes close to neither of them in either stance. I think that they could make small adjustments, like a healthy boost to Circle of Scorn’s potency (their AoE needs some serious help) or reducing Fight or Flight’s cooldown to make it a more bonafide mitigation to their tank stance penalty.

I do not think they need some sort of resource management mechanic (stacks, MP-based DPS) as WAR and DRK have because this is such a blatant homogenization to a point beyond anything that people complain of now (and I'm usually the last to complain about it as it is). If you boost PLD DPS to a level that competes with WAR or even DRK, you further marginalize their defensive abilities. If they are going to have all these defensive/support abilities, they need to be powerful enough to facilitate increased raid-wide DPS to make up for the lack of personal DPS that they are saddled with. I do believe that the enmity modifiers on their abilities should be increased, and perhaps the recast time of FoF or potency of CoS could use some love, but certainly nothing game changing.

Their defensive utility, is in a weird spot though.
Imagine Cover’s range was 20y instead of 10, lasted 24s instead of 12, and covered physical and magical. Imagine Clemency had its cast time removed but still kept its MP cost, or vice versa. Imagine Divine Veil was an 80s CD instead of 150.
Do they feel like game changers now?

Didn’t think so.

That’s because so much of PLD’s toolkit is so situational.

So many of the interesting aspects of the job see use once per raid tier for like, one mechanic, if that. Even their cross-class abilities from WHM, like Stoneskin, are interesting on paper, but rarely see use, at least not for party support.

For all the criticism the other tanks, especially DRK, have gotten for having disjointed toolkits or mechanics, PLD’s seems the worst by far when you actually take the time to examine it. Its a bland set of combos with not a whole lot of exciting damage boosting tools, and a hodgepodge of defensive utilities that don’t go together or interact, and now in 3.0, an emphasis on MP that is a trainwreck in its design, as your MP returns/expenditures are so sporadic and situational that keeping track of it/maintenancing it does not graduate to being an actual mechanic of the job.

Its corresponding combos and DPS-related abilities have huge gaps in them that the other tanks just don’t have, and those gaps are filled with defensive/support abilities no one is finding a use for. RoH is its weakest combo and also the weakest enmity combo out of all the tanks and yet this is what it depends on for hate, whilst its other combos have no debuff or self-heal and are just pure damage. And unlike, for instance, a healer, who actually shifts gears between healing and DPSing, a tank is (or should be) always DPSing, to one extent or another, so for PLD to have to stop and cast abilities that aren’t doing damage and more importantly, not generating meaningful enmity, is silly. PLD loses so much more for casting abilities that, even if they were present on a job for whom they made sense, like WHM or AST, would be cumbersome and difficult to make use of (no healer would cast a heal with such a proportionately high MP cost as Clemency, for example).

Things like Divine Veil, Clemency, and Cover are designed to be PLD’s defensive raid utilities.
For example, WAR has Storm’s Path. Great all round, -10% damage on both sides of the spectrum.
DRK has Delirium, and while it only covers magic, they have an extra -10% on both sides in Reprisal, balanced with less uptime.
PLD has only Rage of Halone, which covers physical, which is arguably even less useful than Delirium as most raid-wide damage is NOT physical. So PLD has a bunch of miscellaneous utilities like Cover, Divine Veil, etc.

In order to make these things actually useful in the sense of PLD being more of a defensive support tank rather than an all-out offense tank like WAR, or an offensive tank with increased mobility, AoE, and resource management mechanics like DRK, they need to be buffed SUBSTANTIALLY.

Here are some ideas. Just spitballing. By no means do I think all of these are necessary and they are meant to be taken as just that - ideas - and not necessarily things that they "need".

While I don't specifically mention Stoneskin here, the ability to SS yourself or party members is a cool thing to have on PLD as healers generally do not cast SS much once a fight has started, except maybe before a tank buster, so having an extra party member that can do it that is not responsible for healing is definitely a utility, and some of these boosts keep that in mind and benefit this cross-class skill as well.

Flash- Now off-GCD but with a 5s recast. Same MP cost.

Cover- Duration increased to 20s, recast reduced to 90s, range increased to 20y. Covers physical and magical, and reduces damage transferred to the PLD by 50%. This would make the ability actually useful and available when it will be relevant, such as when another party member is having to tank an add or will be taking unavoidable damage.

Divine Veil- The initial buff is applied in an AoE so the heal will generate a shield on heal to any party member in range. Radius of initial buff and the shield increased to 20y. Recast reduced to 120s, and a shield is applied to the PLD as well, of double potency, making this an actual defensive CD. Until the buff is triggered, the initial Divine Veil status also acts as an MP refresh of similar potency to Shroud of Saints.
-Additionally, if used in Sword Oath, this will not shield the PLD, but will apply a regen in addition to a shield to party members in range. Both regen and shield stack with all healer equivalents.

Clemency- MP cost cut to 1768 from 2121 at lvl60. If used in Shield Oath, applies a proportionate shield as well as a heal to the PLD, and to the party member if they are the target. If used in Sword Oath, increases the duration of the PLD’s buffs by 10s, and to the party member if they are the target, with the PLD being granted a 5s increase in the latter scenario.

Sword Oath- Any spell cast under the effect of Sword Oath has its cast time halved.

Tempered Will- Duration increased to 20s. Surecast effect added.
Bulwark and Sheltron- Surecast effect added.

If these buffs sound overpowered, realize that outside of them, PLD offers no DPS utility and no defensive raid utility outside of Rage of Halone which is barely useful for anyone but the PLD themselves, and even then only on mostly physical fights, and the PLD has to STOP DPSING to use many of these. If the PLD is to be a defensive/support tank, its utilities that fulfill this role actually have to be powerful enough to afford healers/support classes free GCDs with which to DPS or focus on other mechanics to a meaningful extent (enough to make up for the shortage of DPS).

An additional, minor DPS increase that I feel needs to happen one way or another:

Shield Swipe - now costs 20 TP, potency buffed to 310 and restores MP.

The lowered MP costs and more numerous forms of MP management encourage PLD to make more liberal use of these abilities; as it stands now, not only is it difficult to find worthwhile opportunities to use them wherein they would actually be helpful or contribute anything of note, but the steep MP costs make it punishing as well (i.e. if you cast Clemency and the healer heals you/the target at the same time, you just wasted that Clemency and likely do not have the MP to cast it again). Riot Blade is currently pathetic for MP management, as it is a huge DPS loss to use the combo several times in a row, unlike DRK, for whom using Syphon Strike is almost constant in a DPS-efficient rotation.

I feel like a flat DPS increase is not necessarily the answer, since PLD still has no DPS-relevant mechanic to manage (MP, stacks, etc.) or meaningful DPS buffs/cooldowns that would not require a disproportionately large buff. WAR and DRK need to, to one extent or another, earn their personal DPS. If PLD is the defensive tank and WAR is the offensive one, with DRK somewhere in between, PLD's defensive utilities need a very very large boost to make them actually grant your party increased mileage in a raid scenario, especially with how DPSed focused the current meta is.

Also in regards to DPS, the FFLogs are based on performance in content and not necessarily dummy parses, the latter of which give a much better picture of the jobs' potential as the numbers are easily muddled by the current content and roles into which a given job is forced in said content. I.E the fact that DRK and PLD are most often in the MT slot often influences the overall damage output average.