Thread: 3.1 PLD Changes

Originally Posted by Yonanja

The only real way of balancing the classes would be for them to have the same damage output and survivability, but having different playstyles. Making one class do more damage will make that class prefered in basicly all content, unless it can't survive it, which would lead to the class suddenly being useless.

While true, it is still not immune to bias. If everyone has equal footing, in terms of dps and/or survivability, then the ones that will be the easiest to achieve max dps and/or survivability with will still trump the others. It will not still eradicate competitive people who will want to an optimal run.

And this trend will continue with succeeding expansions, when every new tank jobs are added. Oh well....

There are a few things they could do to make PLD be much better.

1)Up the DPS of Royal Authority slightly and add an additional effect that ups slashing damage
2)Up the DPS of Rage of Halone slightly
3)Add some weak DPS to Flash when under shield oath (maybe sword oath too)
4)Lower Shield Oath's damage dealt down to 10 or 15%
5)While in Shield Oath, all Shield abilities (Shield Swipe, Bash, and Lob) are not affected by Shield Oath's damage down
6)Add an additional buff to Sword Oath (Skill speed buff, Det buff, Crit Hit Buff, and/or a flat damage dealt up %)
7)Reduce Clemency's casting time by a half & possibly reduce the mp cost slightly
8)Reduce the recast on Divine Veil so it can be used more often
9)Add a spike style counter-attack for Sheltron (think Reprisal in XI) when under the effect of Shield Oath
10)Lowering the TP on our main combos (especially Fast Blade) would aid in long fights

I just wish SE would show some more signs in balancing PLD

@rawker: While that is true, it would still be a better situation than if players could straight out prove that one class is considerably better then the rest. Bias will always be there no matter what you do... unless you just have one tankingclass.

@Brian_: As long as all tankingclasses can still survive the encounter without being a liability for the group, the one with the highest DPS will be prefered by the majority. What you're talking about is pretty much just turning the problem upsidedown instead. Making the "tankier" class be the prefered choice because the more "dpsy" one will have problems surviving or just being a liability to the group. It's not really something that would make the classes balanced if you think about it. Real balance is when you can't point at a given situation and right out say that class A is better for this, as class B can't handle it as well.

Also "theoretically possible" doesn't mean that it's realistic. This is an MMO, and the vast majority of players will always pick the "best" classes when given the option, which in most cases means the classes that can get them through the encounter as quickly as possible. I have yet to see a single MMO that managed to have a class setup like this where all tankingclasses were on equal footing in the eyes of the playerbase.

Originally Posted by Yonanja

@rawker: While that is true, it would still be a better situation than if players could straight out prove that one class is considerably better then the rest. Bias will always be there no matter what you do... unless you just have one tankingclass.

Well... if you think about it, player skill trumps everything. So this approach really will just weed out the bad ones. I mean, there are terrible paladins out there but due to they safety net of the PLD skill set, they seem fine... I ran my level 54 DRK yesterday and asked for critique and what I got was positive remarks.. I guess it's just because PLD and DRK play styles aren't that different. Though I really have this fear of playing WAR. It's just too risky for my type. haha

First of all I agree with you on raiddesign, but in this case it wouldn't matter too much.

Thing is, with 3 tankclasses, that the devs want to have one being more dpsy but squishier, one being the middle ground, and one being more tanky but having lower damage, they can't realisticly balance encounters in such a way that the higher dps wouldn't make the first class the prefered. Even if they increased the need for more "tankiness" they still have to tune the encounter so that the squishier tank can manage it, because if they make it so that this class would have problems handling it, it would just turn the balance issue upside down. They can never realisticly have higher survavibility matter, without outright making the other classes unable to complete the encounter.

Also, making the "tankier" class having such a huge survivability that you could outright have a healer (or even replace a healer) dps fulltime to make up for the tanks lower damage, would make the class unbalanced and suddenly the prefered choice instead. Balancing a class around having higher "eHP" than the other classes, is realisticly impossible, since it'd be next to impossible for the devs to manage to reach and maintain that kind of balance.

They'd be better off just rebalancing all the tanks in one sweep, trying to make sure that they have at least near the same damage output and survivability. Uniqness can be achieved through different playstyles, looks and feels of the classes.

Originally Posted by Yonanja

They'd be better off just rebalancing all the tanks in one sweep, trying to make sure that they have at least near the same damage output and survivability. Uniqness can be achieved through different playstyles, looks and feels of the classes.

Quoted for emphasis. And this applies to class design as a whole, not just tanking.

Again, black and white examples and theories when actual raids are not so simple and encounter margins have a wider range of tuning and balance. How much experience do you even have with the content? Or are you just mindlessly parroting points made within a different context?

Because PLDs have objectively better physical mitigation under the right circumstances, you can structure damage mechanics to reward that. If you had a physical tank buster on a 30 second timer and other mechanics designed to lock up dCDs like Shadowskin, Vengeance, Thrill, Rampart, etc., then the PLD could stay in Sword Oath and mitigate with Sheltron + RoH while WAR would be forced to spend their stacks on IB rather than FC and DRKs would be forced to sit in Grit. You just need to properly tune the damage to wedge into that mitigation gap between PLD and WAR / DRK.

Raid design currently is designed to reward DRK's mitigation. I don't know why it's impossible for you to see how the same couldn't happen to PLD. Because DRKs have DA + DM for the magical-damage based tank busters, they can save their other CDs like Shadowskin to negate the mitigation loss from dropping Grit. In the early weeks of A1S, PLDs had to stack Rampart and Sentinel to mitigate the tank buster. DRKs could Shadow Wall + DA + DM and achieve higher mitigation while saving Shadowskin for other uses. The raid design rewarded DRKs with specific tuning and balance.

Because of how unique Hallowed Ground is, you could easily design mechanics to react with it. Like I mentioned earlier, if HG acted as a true immunity, you could use it to absorb all the royal pentacles in A4S with one PLD and HG and save your party from the need to sacrifice three people. Just look at HG in T13. It allowed you just to eat an Ahk Morn without sharing. And, on the point of Ahk Morn, its design also gave value to cover in a more meaningful way.

Viewing the issue almost exclusively from the viewpoint of healer DPS shows you don't understand the scope of the issue or the nuance of it. Being tankier can have other influences outside of healer DPS uptime.

There are plenty of ways to design content to reward varying eHP values while still retaining the viability and value of tanks with less eHP but more damage. Just because you don't have the experience, intellect, or vision to see it doesn't mean it's impossible. So, when SE says that they're going to try to balance the classes through the content, while I don't have much faith in their competency, the idea is perfectly viable.

Originally Posted by Brian_

Because PLDs have objectively better physical mitigation under the right circumstances, you can structure damage mechanics to reward that. If you had a physical tank buster on a 30 second timer and other mechanics designed to lock up dCDs like Shadowskin, Vengeance, Thrill, Rampart, etc., then the PLD could stay in Sword Oath and mitigate with Sheltron + RoH while WAR would be forced to spend their stacks on IB rather than FC and DRKs would be forced to sit in Grit. You just need to properly tune the damage to wedge into that mitigation gap between PLD and WAR / DRK.

So the problem we have now, except replace DRK with PLD.

Because of how unique Hallowed Ground is, you could easily design mechanics to react with it. Like I mentioned earlier, if HG acted as a true immunity, you could use it to absorb all the royal pentacles in A4S with one PLD and HG and save your party from the need to sacrifice three people. Just look at HG in T13. It allowed you just to eat an Ahk Morn without sharing. And, on the point of Ahk Morn, its design also gave value to cover in a more meaningful way.

So making an ability that is already massively strong overpowered by making it literally remove mechanics intended to involve 4 people juggling a debuff back and forth. Also this implies HG needs a buff, which is blowing my mind.

Viewing the issue almost exclusively from the viewpoint of healer DPS shows you don't understand the scope of the issue or the nuance of it. Being tankier can have other influences outside of healer DPS uptime.

All it does is make you require less healing and thus results in higher healer DPS due to freeing up GCDs. That's all being tankier than is needed does. Say there's a tankbuster you could survive with Rampart, but if you used Sentinel you would cost your healer 1 less GCD and that GCD is then converted into damage. That is effectively how any increase in eHP works outside of the minimum needed for said encounter. Admittedly it also frees up the healer to possibly use that heal they would've used on you on someone else, but spot healing would need to be massively more necessary than it is now for that to be a thing or tank busters need to occur at the same time as raid damage... which could get quite messy. Basically all you can possibly gain from being tankier is freeing up a healer's GCDs to either DPS more or to heal elsewhere, both of which are good things but they also result in the tankiest tank being the best tank if raid DPS remains the same vs a DPS oriented tank that is less tanky. If we were to shift the meta focus onto making tankier tanks, then all 3 need to be reworked with that in mind, and not have PLD be the king of the mountain again.

There are plenty of ways to design content to reward varying eHP values while still retaining the viability and value of tanks with less eHP but more damage. Just because you don't have the experience, intellect, or vision to see it doesn't mean it's impossible.