What happens when.....

[Syzygian]

As I and many other people have stated the core of PLD needs to drastically change. Personal mitigation is a moot point in a game where the developers are obviously biased against healer DPS, where fights have scripted burst damage that are planned for, and where all tanks have the ability to survive every encounter.

This leaves the tank with utility. DPS in FF (and all MMOs) is a MAJOR utility. PLD needs to be brought up to speed in this category and this category only, the question is in which way it needs to be done. Whether it be increased DPS through raid buffs (i.e Battle Litany-esque move), major debuffs placed on the boss to significantly decrease raidwide damage (Storms Path), or massive personal self heals (if Clemecy was a HoT) the core of PLD's "I can mitigate slightly better and easier than the other tanks" design is what needs to change.

At the end of the day nobody give a shit how much less damage was taken by one tank to the next as long as they both survived.

Maybe I have too much faith in the devs (and I don't think its wholly misplaced, as tanks balanced or not, FFXIV is a hell of a game), but I don't think its outside the realm of possibility for them to make PLD's defensive/support utilities enough to outweigh their lack of DPS. Looking at DRK and WAR, both of whom wield big motherclucking two handed weapons, it makes no sense from a design standpoint for PLD to be "brought up to speed" with them in DPS. Now look at BRD and MCH. In the hands of equally skilled players neither of these will outdps, say, a DRG or MNK. But their utilities still make them valuable and even mandatory. I think they could do the same with PLD (a bit less than mandatory for balance purposes, but still extremely useful). They would need to completely unravel PLD's entire toolkit to turn them into what you're suggesting, as they already have an excess of abilities designed for defense or support that are just too situational but also too integral to the job's design. Since they've already dug this hole they need to try and make these things useful before they just throw the design out with the bathwater and turn PLD into a DRK clone or a WAR clone. Now raid DPS as opposed to personal DPS I could potentially get behind, but even then you're left with a sizable chunk of their toolkit just unused because nobody cares, as you said, whether you survive with 100 HP or 10000, 10 TP or 1000, as long as you survived and cleared the fight (a problem in design in and of itself but I'm in the minority in thinking that so I won't open that can of worms).

And for the record, since I have not been above advocating some minor DPS increases for PLD, I don't necessarily support PLD being "homogenized" or whatever with DRK and WAR (assuming those two are homogenized but even that I don't really buy, since their DPS comes from very different sources and the managing of MP on DRK and stacks on WAR just doesn't feel the same. Its like comparing classical to techno), and the reason for that is easily apparent in the changes that already came to PLD from 50 to 60. They tried to expand upon its defensive/support abilities in very half-hearted ways, and then, 180 degrees in the other direction, gave them a DPS focused combo tree that draws direct parallels to 2.x WAR and now DRK as well, but is wholly inefficient in the context of a rotation, since the most potent one is a DoT (not spammable as a reward for proper play, like DA Souleater) and the next most potent one is pure damage (no assistance in utility or enmity like Storm's Eye or Butcher's Block). So essentially, they tried to homogenize a bit in one area, which has backfired completely, and then differentiate it in another, existing area, which has proven next-to-useless. They need to pick one or the other and run with it or the job is going to continue to feel watered down and "boring".

As it stands now, I am actually enjoying lvl 60 PLD less than lvl 50 PLD. The simplicity of the whole 1-2-3 1-2-3 Halone combo that people QQed about so much in 2.x freed you up to make efficient and regular use of PLD's other utilities without letting DoTs or debuffs fall off or losing enmity or any other such nonsense that you have to put up with now. It felt totally comfortable and even second nature, while playing lvl 50 PLD, to look after my party and throw a SS here and there or Cover somebody that was taking a beating. Now its simply cumbersome, counterintuitive, and conflicting. There are reasons that abilities like that weren't given to WAR in those days, and one of them is because the job had a (relatively) complex rotation and actual mechanics to manage.

Shuffles over to FoF tooltip... It says physical. Mother...!

@Connor: One day I'll catch you on the linkshell and we're going to talk about Tanks and it'll be a hell of a time. Please look forward to it :P

Bwahaha, yes indeed!